With the release of the new album approaching, it’s that time when I put my thinking hat on and start making some home-made music videos for our latest tunes. We live in a fortunate time where cheap homemade videos can notch up as many Youtube hits as the top end of music video productions.  It’s all about making it interesting and viral. No one seems to care about the physical quality of a video anymore – maybe because Youtube lowers the quality of both video and sound so that it’s a fair playing field for all. So you just have to come up with an idea that is simple but makes people want to watch it and share it with their friends.

For our album “Sugar and Spite” I made a music video with our old keyboard player Geoff. It was for the song “Put A Record On” and we used two 7” vinyls that were black and pink. We actually did this for fun because we were flying to Portugal to make a “proper production” of the video.  However, our homemade video has ended up having nearly twice as many plays! If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

Anyway I recently found the original video files of when we made it and so I made a little video of some of the clips and outtakes. I was great fun filming, trying to avoid getting the string and feet in shot. However I think the imperfections in this film give it it’s charm:

However, often I don’t need to try too hard because people keep making their own videos to our tunes, be it montages to their favourite films, choreographed dances or full on music videos and short films.  And I am very grateful for the people who take time to make these and spread our music to the rest of the world.  Some people view this as using music without permission (and will remove their music from your video!) but I can only see this a positive way of keeping music alive. I am glad that it inspires people to be creative and express their own ideas.  This is a recent one i found and has to be the strangest i’ve seen:

So now it’s time for me to come up with my own new ideas and make some more little videos. But I know our friends and fans are going to come up with some great videos too…

Ron

Hello everyone! Chloe here….Rick asked me to do a blog about the tour so here goes nothing!!

Day one; the long 10 hr van drive to Edinburgh travelodge. Nerves are mounting as we set off in our (t)rusty van for the James tour. As we drive to the venue the following day, my excitement is now at boiling point as this is the first big tour I’ve ever been on-much to the amusement of everyone. The venue is very impressive! A soup obsession is at hand with the whole of the crew & band but its easy to see why-the catering is INCREDIBLE! Gig goes wonderfully, I wear a tartan mini dress (courtesy of friend Roxy) which is well received. The next couple of gigs go well too other than a few technical errors in Sheffield. One of the Road crew affectionately nick names our van ‘Treasure’, and asks us where on earth did we dig it up?! I soon realize that a few people have taken a notice of me on the forum, noticing my various outfit themes I do for each town. Very surreal! Before you can say ‘blimey that was quick’ we drive home for a few days off while the James boys do South-end on Sea and Bournemouth.

Back on the road. Bristol was fun although the house lights were left on for our set which was slightly unnerving. ‘Oh my effing god’ are the words uttered by us all as we walk into the Royal Albert Hall for the first time. Feeling Physically sick with nerves/excitement or hunger looking around the place. The idea that I’m to stand up straight and remember how to play the bass later on is a silly one! Sound check goes well, a friend of ours Andy takes some brilliant photo’s and its time to eat some gorgeous food and calm the nerves. Luckily the gig goes down a storm, We start with ‘proud’ and build up to finisher ‘so sorry’ which is always a crowd pleaser. Watch James’ set again tonight-absolutely mind blowing! Brilliant after show party too. Liverpool is the end to a wonderful eight dates, none of us want to leave! Saul joins us for the last two songs ‘let it go’ and ‘so sorry’ which totally brings down the house. After party is again great although very emotional as goodbyes are said and photo’s are taken. Will never forget it, the James crew and band are all completely lovely and lets hope we get to repeat this soon!!!

x

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY  just found out we are touring with James this April!

Hi there – Hope the January blues didn’t get you – we’ve been too busy to think too much about the lack of daylight and rain.cold.rain.snow etc… the second album sessions are nearly finished and we’re at the mixing stage now.  I spent much of christmas locked away in my cupboard singing my heart out – (and when i say cupboard i do mean cupboard) and we have about 13 tracks recorded that will comprise our second album in some form.  We are hoping to put the album out digitally first so it shouldn’t be too long till you can hear it… I’m now pleased to be back in the virtual mix after a six month break from broadband and on a downloading spree so please comment some ideas of what i should be listening to to improve and enrich my mind and body…  bye then RICk

ps: a working title for the album has breifly been “desire” but i just realised that having both “Bob” in our name AND calling an album the same thing as Dylan once did is probably too much so back to the drawing board on that one .

On 20th September, we will be setting off on tour round the UK, playing at 12 venues from Brighton to Inverness. It’s been a LONG time since we got in our little white van and slept in Travelodges every night so we’re all looking forward to it.

We shall be playing at the following venues:

20 Sept London, Bush Hall
22 Sept Manchester, Dry Bar
29 Sept Brighton, Sactuary Cellar
30 Sept Bristol, The Prom
2 Oct Head of Steam, Newcastle
3 Oct Glasgow, Oran Mor
4 Oct Leeds, Fathersham
7 Oct Edinburgh, Voodoo Rooms
8 Oct Inverness, Mad Hatters
9 Oct Forres, The Loft
11 Oct Aberdeen, The Tunnels
18 Oct Oxford, Jericho Tavern

We will be joined on the English dates of the tour by the Vagabond Trills, four delightful young ladies who have been touring the country quietly for the last year. More information can be found here:

www.myspace.com/thetrillsmusic

In preparation for the tour, Rick has moved into a warehouse where we are able to set the band gear up in and rehearse. We are going over old tunes (e.g. the hit parade, put a record on), practicing the latest ones (satellite, bad dream) and writing new songs – which you will be able to hear when you come to a show! Here is what the space looks like:

We’re very happy to be inviting along Chloe Treacher, who will be playing double-bass and singing backing vocals for the whole tour. We mainly chose her because she is small and won’t take up too much room in the van:

We’ll have information about tickets soon. But for now, tell us which shows you can come to and what songs you’d like to hear us play…..?

Hi there,

I write you now from my garden sitting listening to radio 2 and the birds. Apparently Dermot O’Leary is gonna play our song Satellite today whoop (just listening to bat for lashes doing a cover!) We did a session for Dermot back in 2006 when we first released our debut album Sugar and Spite and i guess he remembered us… the record has also been played loads on Radio Scotland by Tom Morton, Iain Anderson, and Jim Gellatly- which is also great news for us- a big thankyou to all of those guys. As for the band, we’re busy writing new songs and recording demos / finshed masters (we can never tell which( i’ve uploaded a bunch of demos today – some new, some from the vault. Any feedback you wanna throw us might just be the difference between a track making the album or not! so please do.. We’re looking at getting the Unkle Bob circus back on the road this Sept for a Uk so look out for live dates soon.

Here is a YouTube video of the band (and saul) in the studio gettin a song together (we never did finish it) -

Unkle Bob join JAMES onstage in Los Angeles for their encore (Unkle Bob appear at 2:51). Thanks to dkbunny for posting this!

I got a call yesterday from the extras agency I work for, to see if I wanted to do a sketch on Harry Hill’s TV burp. I don’t mind doing films and background stuff but I had horrible visions of being humiliated on national tv. I need the money so I said yes.

I arrive at the studios at around 2pm. It quickly becomes clear (as it has many times before) that I’m on the lowest rung of the ladder they call “talent”. Met by a work experience girl who gets lost at every turn I’m ushered into the green room to await my impending doom.

Maybe I’ve reached an all-time low, this is really scraping the barrel. I’m basically a prostitute. Selling my own likeness – not even myself – I’m a human prop. I climb into a royal footman’s uniform, still unsure of what I will have to do- then through wardrobe, then make-up. I wonder if its possible to “sell out” when you don’t receive much money.

What if Iggy Pop only gets $200 for those insurance adds? Or Ringo Starr only got £16.50 to help rebrand Aviva. If Duffy is cycling her way to the bank with a diet coke stuck to her mouth, why am I even considering the notion? Selling Out has always been a strange idea to me. When we played gigs and they “sold out” we were over the moon. Likewise, when we pressed 1000 singles we wanted rid of the lot- and we weren’t giving them away. Maybe, you can only sell out if you make money that is unreasonably large or that you don’t need. Or maybe it’s about compromise.

I prefer to subscribe to Bukowski’s idea that- the moment you take your eye off the page and onto your audience, that’s when you’re fucked. Anyway, I am but a spec of algae in the metaphorical sea of famous fishes. I have no fame to trade- just self-respect.

Through my wig and hat you’d hardly know it was me anyway. I’m sat in the studio now with a fake Jeremy Paxman and a pretend Lion tamer- the relief is tangible when I’m told all I have to do is blow a fanfare after Harry Hill makes some joke about Freaky Eaters. Its all over in about 30seconds and it’s a blink and you’d miss it moment. Thankyou god.

Rick

I looked a bit like this:

I saw a TV programme last night about super skinny people exchanging diets with super fat people- tv gone mad.

Getting a thin girl to eat a fat mans food for a week is just bizarre. She felt really sick and he felt really hungry- what a revelation. I then saw a dinner party of anorexics asked to prepare there own brie sandwich and eat lunch together.

It sounds like a cruel comedy sketch – and it was. – “no, put a bit more brie on their girl” as she spread the thinnest line of cheese ever. It made me think that everyone is fucked up by there own desires- they’re out of control- the thin person wants to eat but can’t – the fat person wants to by thin but can’t stop eating – the poor person wants to be rich but the rich person isn’t happy anyway. People want to be famous – but the famous are messed up by it and either suck it up like a drug or want to curl up in a ball of anonymity.

The average Joe wants to be more eccentric. The eccentric feels misunderstood…. Blah blah blah – ok I’m generalizing and of course its not always the case– the point is, you can make money out of desire- so it’s encouraged all the time – its an endless dangling carrot, a mirage. It sells products, shifts units, builds brands. But we’re the ones that are shortchanged because you can’t buy happiness and desire is a mysterious moving set of goal posts that rarely brings you any satisfaction.

Rick

I found these quotes on desire:

“There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.”
George Bernard Shaw

“when will you accept yourself”
Morrissey

Socrates: Desire Quotes
“Be as you wish to seem.”

“We pursue that which retreats from us.”
Martin Hiedegger

“The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley

“We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.”
Marcel Proust

Well I’ve never attempted one of these written blogs before. My previous offerings have been in video format. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So my videos, at 30 frames per second, must be worth 30,000 words every second. I am quite concerned about the length of this blog if I wish to live up to the worthiness of my tour videos.

Anyway, I decided to take a picture of my room in London and describe what is going on. And it will give you a little insight to some of the cogs driving Unkle Bob in the background that most people don’t see. Here is my room on Warwick Road:

Sunflower seeds
Kindly left by my friend Owain from the great band Spokes. He usually sits eating them and leaving the shells all over the floor like a squirrel but he was good this last time. However, he shared a bed with me and kept me awake all night snoring like…

Homer
My advent calendar sent to me by my mother. She lives at Hill Top Cottage where we have often stayed over while touring the UK. On one occasion staying there, in the middle of the night, the house set on…

Fire
I have a fireplace that doesn’t work so it is filled with musical instruments from all over the world that sound really crap but they are thoughtful gifts. However it’s much more beneficial to use my…

Practice Pad
For practicing the drums at night when the neighbours are home. I don’t do enough. And in the day when the neighbours are out, I practice on my…

Drums
Also for practicing at night when the neighbours are home Rick actually got this drum kit 15 years ago and we’re still using it now! But it does the job so I’m not rushing to spend thousands on a brand new shiny kit. We’ve had it since we first introduced the drum kit to the band when we all lived in…

Glasgow
A wee reminder of our birth town, a towel with the Art of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Mackintosh is what us English people call a raincoat. It can also be shortened to…

Mac
Lifeline to the internet. Many hours are spent adding our myspace friend requests. We send a personal message to every new friend who joins us so it takes a bit of time. We also message as many fans from the towns we are going to play in too. And when we’re there, we sometimes interview them with my…

Camera
My essential bit of equipment. It’s just a digital still camera but we’ve made our most successful music videos on it including “Put a Record On” with the puppets, “Swans – from Warwick Road” where Rick is sitting crossed legged and our lastest offering “Bad Dream” which you will be able to see very soon. I use it for all our tour diaries too. Once we have all the footage, I’ll edit it on my…

Laptop
This is used for video editing. Many hours, days, weeks and months are spent trying to match live footage of mouths, plectrums and drum sticks to the live audio recording. And erasing a lot of poor footage…or footage that is not fit for public consumption. I also have music software installed for recording. The laptop is also used for triggering the original live recordings of the string quartet on “Swans” when we play live. I play these on stage using my….

Keyboard
Which sits next to my drum kit and literally encloses me in an inescapable corner at the back of the stage. Why can’t I be at the front of the stage and all the others can sit down in my little corner at the back? I finally get released at the end of the show when we take it in turns going into the crowd with the….

Mailing lists
More hours are spent typing up the names we have collected at gigs all over the world. The task becomes very difficult when you consider that the names are collected in dark venues, written by people who have often had one too many. Most of the time is spent putting the list as close to my face as possible and thinking, “What on earth does that say?” So I’ll just have another drink of…

Bitter
I am from North England and bitter is what we drink up there. I’ll drink a few and then go to…

Bed
Where all the magic happens.