Washington

Well, we're back from our 5 day trip to Washington, and what a trip it was!



We set off... is the clock in a.m. or p.m.? You decide.

We've realised that 5 days, including travel, is just about the perfect amount of time to see a new place, and it was a real treat to have the time to look around the city.

We embark excitedly upon a bus tour

We packed a lot in - on arrival, we made our way to an amazing three-storey Mexican restaurant where the food arrived still on fire, and the food kept up this standard the whole time, with never less than portions big enough for three and lots of fabulous trans-fats.

Culturally-speaking, there was lots of that to be had as well. Like the cars, food, buildings, and general scale, nothing in Washington is ever done by half-measures, and we sampled a myriad - we went to Chinatown, the Spy Museum, portrait gallery, Natural History Museum (where there were some massive diamonds and massive dinosaurs) - our mums would've been proud! Washington, of course, also has more than its fair share of impressive, sombre monuments and we duly got on an open top bus tour (like good tourists) and saw the Lincoln memorial (that big white statue of Lincoln sitting on a chair), war memorials, the massive obelisk in the centre of the city, and tons of other things, until it started raining and we ran for cover. We walked past the theatre where Lincoln was shot on that fateful night in 1865. Oh, yeah, and some house that the President lives in, we saw that too.

A Robelisk

Alex and Mikey are overjoyed

Me and the White House


The gig itself went pretty well, all things considered, but it wasn't exactly our usual audience. Everyone was wearing suits, and shied away from dancing. We're a band who thrives on seeing people let themselves go, so we did our best with a slightly more sober, but still smiling, lot. The Ronald Reagan building, where we played, was magnificent, and the whole experience was surreal, but great.

There was even an ice sculpture. Yes, an ice sculpture proclaiming Scotland - the whole affair was designed to put this country at the forefront of the mind, and it certainly did that, with whisky cocktails, flags and the odd kilt to be seen too. I can't say I've ever played a gig featuring an ice sculpture, but there's a first time for everything.

Although it's not a million miles away from life in the UK, we still got some surprises in the US. Such as shops that claim to be a pharmacy, but sell everything you could ever need; the hardline approach to crossing the road (no absent minded wandering allowed round there), and the giant cars zooming around everywhere.

this chap was rather popular

at the airport... what are the chances?!
It was a great time, and it's given me a total hunger to travel more and more. There are so many places to see and things to do in this world - hopefully we'll get to try more of it in the future!

Charity at Home, and Homecoming Abroad

Over the past month, life in the band has focussed mainly on gigs we've played for charity. We were asked by the lovely and selfless people who run Oxjam (which raises money for Oxfam... clever that) to contribute to an afternoon-long gigathon across a handful of Edinburgh venues. Of course we obliged, and we were stationed at City Cafe; while across the road, down the street, and round the corner in other bars and clubs, other Burgh bands also made their music. I hear it raised a good sackful of bounty too.

And a couple of weeks later, the first instance being dubbed a great success, we repeated it all, this time at the Bowery, which is a great venue. Sadly its days are numbered, and I think by the time 2010 rolls around it will have changed its character completely, no longer a happy little hideaway for Edinburgh's musical mainstays. But for now, there we were, lit by second-hand lamps, playing our songs out to a great crowd while the marvellous acoustics gave the whole thing an extra dreamy feel.

Post Gig- this was at the Electric Circus, where we played with the Stormy Seas..


Mikey and Alex



Rob, surprise surprise, with a gadget



Me


Aside from gigs, we've got some great new stickers and t shirts ordered, and also (drum roll) that item which gives a band a little jolt of pride - our own special stencils, so that all our equipment now bears the COME ON GANG! name for all to see. Here is Rob modelling the stencil work in action:




The big news I've saved til last.

We're off to Washington DC in a week's time, to celebrate the Scottish Homecoming. It's pretty exciting stuff.. just a four day trip, playing in the Ronald Reagan Building on December 2nd. We couldn't be more pleased to have been asked, and we've bought extra woolly socks cos I hear that December in Washington can be pretty tough on the toes. Of course we'll keep you updated on what goes on there, but til then wish us luck!



Sarah x

Travel and Trauma

It's a new dawn, it's a new blog, it's a new life for me..... OK, it's not really a new life, just a continuation of the ordinary one. Albeit with a dash of disbelief that life HAS actually carried on after the last couple of days. I'm pretty sure I've never experienced as many avoidable disasters in a single 24 hour period as the last day has delivered.

It all started so well...

Our last sojourn south saw us playing on Brighton beach, so near the pier that any closer to the shore and the waves would've been getting our toes wet. This time, we headed to London to play two gigs, one in Hoxton, one in Ladbroke Grove.

London was grand. We caught up with old friends and family whilst we were down, and partook of some very filling meals served in cool cafes, the boys ate what was generally agreed to be perfect fish and chips, we witnessed some of the finest haircuts Shoreditch has to offer, made some new friends, and tried to ignore the junkies who turned up to one of the gigs to offer their loud, incomprehensible support. The gigs themselves were really fun, we played to plenty of enthusiastic folk, which is always good. Watched a wicked band on the same bill as us, Faun. The taxi drives afterwards, as we (by now expertly) packed the cab with people and instruments, tetris-style, allowed us to sail through the streets of London, with a friendly cabbie at the helm - a better tour of the city can't be found for love nor money.




us + mates + London = good times



As I said, it started well. We stayed each night at my family's house in Brighton (ok ok, it's in Hove actually) and that too was fine - long neon train rides and the wrought iron of English train stations, and a cosy home and bacon sarnies at the end of it.



Alex and Mikey and the joys of Hove



Things began to go wrong on the last day.

Rob and Alex headed off along the south coast to visit some of their family in another seaside town, and Mikey and I had an afternoon to kill in Brighton. I thought it would be great if we went for a nice sunlit drive and I could show him where I grew up - after all, I've seen a lot of Scotland, but we never stay long when we go down to my home town.

So we climbed into my little, old, blue car. I've had it for 2 years and pretty much every time I take it out, something goes wrong with it - but this time, I didn't stop to think such dismal thoughts, so after 5 attempts to get her started, she growled into life and off we went.

Zoomed down leafy lanes and along the chalk downs, under autumn clouds which began to look increasingly ominous. We stopped in Lewes for a cup of tea (how quaint) and tried to storm the castle (but we got caught and were told to pay for tickets, so we surrended and retreated). But oh dear - the clouds gave in and it began to rain. We'd soaked up the gnarly ancient streets of Lewes for long enough, so we went back to the car and drove away, with a couple of hours to go before Mikey had to leave for the airport. We had plenty of time - so we took the scenic route home.



nice town, shite weather

The rain, by now, had increased in fervour to the point where I could hardly see in front of me (and we later found out the area had been given a severe weather warning by the met office). It was like driving under water. We pulled over to give it time to subside, but it just kept coming. That was when one of the windscreen wipers stopped working. We had no choice but to continue. I crawled along trying to ignore the cars building up behind us. And I realised time was ticking on and headed for the motorway to get us back to Brighton. We were listening to the Beatles Help! album - which just adds a touch of poignancy to the whole scenario.

Driving along a motorway can be quite scary. Driving along the motorway in torrential rain in an unreliable antique car with one functioning windscreen wiper is definitely not to be trifled with. But I wasn't prepared for what happened next - after a short while we found ourselves sat at the back of a traffic jam which stretched out far ahead of us. Great - and with a plane to catch. We edged forward when I noticed that the car ahead of us was giving out quite a lot of smoke - tut tut, carbon footprints and all that - hold on, it's not the car in front, the smoke is coming from under the bonnet of THIS CAR. A lot of smoke. In fact, smoke is POURING OUT FROM MY CAR. oh god.

In 2 seconds we'd pulled over to the hard shoulder and put on the hazard lights. One small piece of fortune was that it was directly underneath one of those 60s motorway bridges, so Mikey found us shelter by leading the way up to a dry nest right under the concrete arch. Cars crawled past, all having a good look at my poor, defeated little car, warning lights flashing bravely. The smoke continued to billow out. And the rain continued to pour. It was not what i'd had in mind when we set out for a drive. We called the RAC and sat and waited.

The hour for Mikey to leave for the airport came and went; The RAC man came, had a look, fiddled with this, poured water in that. After he'd given the all clear, we nervously drove home (though the RAC man stayed behind us like a guardian angel in an orange jumpsuit). My traumatised dad bombed it to the airport with Mikey, but he still missed his flight (by two minutes). Back he came to our house, and got up at dawn to get another flight, never uttering so much as a sharp word.

This had all been bad, and moreover, avoidable. But now it was the day i flew back to Scotland, and we left in plenty of time for me to catch my flight.

But when we got there, to my disbelief, the gate had closed, I had got there too late. I never thought i'd hear the phrased 'missed your flight' so soon after what had happened to Mikey. My reaction at the airport was somewhat less than ladylike and I apologise to the passersby whose first impression of the english when landing in Gatwick might have been corrupted by me and my loud use of a certain four letter word.

It turned out to be a simple misunderstanding over the internet by me, my mother and then my father, and nobody checking the facts. It was such a simple chain of obvious mistakes, but we plodded right through them right into a brand new disaster.

I won't go into details of how I got back to Scotland but it was all down the help of a quick thinking auntie and some good luck, and after a fortifying cup of coffee and a night time flight, I was back in Leith just after midnight.

I suppose all's well that ends well... I'm just scared about my own ability to monumentally wreck the most well laid plan. And I also left half of my belongings in Brighton. But the important thing is, Come On Gang! are all safe and sound and ready to play the next gig!

Life, love and leith

it's been a long time since our last post. That's because we have been working on various disparate pieces of writing and felt that this wee blog was a touch unnecessary - since we already have our myspace blog, our mailout with the band's immediate news, and other bits and bobs. But i couldn't resist writing, as there's nothing quite like a minute to sit down and clear your head, no?

A lot has been going on... it's not exactly the most original line to start with but no other beginning will do! From my perspective, i've had my tonsils out, been home in Brighton for the summer, returned to scotland just in time to catch the last week of the Edinburgh Festival, played unexpected festivals, made unexpected friends, traversed the country in britain's shittest van, and moved to Leith.



LEITH

Leith is an old port, a mile or so out of Edinburgh city centre, and so mired in maritime history that at times it feels like nothing's changed since 1782. Apart from the odd high-rise. I love it!



Come on Gang! continues to go from strength to strength. The story of the summer is really dominated by Reading and Leeds - and what a story!! Our van was the star of the show, and frankly it's a miracle we managed to make it back to Edinburgh, what with the off-kilter suspension, dodgy brakes, battered metalwork and the back door that partly fell off somewhere between Newton Pagnell services and Reading campsite. But help came in the form of Craig and Matt, mates of the band who did all the driving, fixing and general manpower... to wit, the last act to play Reading on Sunday night was the Arctic monkeys, and during their set Craig picked me up and carried me upside down over his shoulder, strolling about as though i weighed no more than a carrier bag. i will never forget how it felt to sing 'DANCING TO ELECTROPOP LIKE A ROBOT FROM 1984!' along with 20,000 other festivals goers, except i was travelling upside down, backwards and 6 feet in the air.

Other highlights of the trip involved stopping to camp outside the city of Reading. We'd journeyed from Leeds, full throttle down south (wheezing and puffing along at 60, that is), and saw a lane which appeared to offer parking. so down we went - but soon discovered that the alleged car park was nowhere to be seen, just a lane that got narrower and narrower... and then even narrower! Matt was driving, and it was with a cheery disposition that he eventually faced up the fact that we had to turn the van around. All credit to the bloke for remaining cheery - the van was very long, and the lane was very thin, and there was a period when the van sat across the lane, unable to go forward or back - wedged like a large foot in a small shoe. But he managed - don't ask me how, and no thanks to the hyperventilating team sat in the back of the van!



TROUBLE AT T'VAN

Not only that, but all the commotion had drawn attention, and when we got out of the van, we were joined by a silent, creepy unseen 'person' who loomed behind the trees, and wouldn't reply to our calls of HELLO. it didn't bother me at first - I had a torch, and I still felt invincible after our earlier performance onstage at Leeds. I set up my little tent... but when, right next to the tent, i heard more footsteps, i got a little freaked out, along with everyone else, (apart from Matt and Craig - they could've taken on Arnie and won) and we decided to hotfoot it out of there. The place was called Christmas Common - smacked a little of some sort of sordid horror story, right?

Don't worry though. We found the perfect spot to pitch up and went on to play a really special gig at Reading - one of the best ever. Watch it below...



COME ON GANG! PLAYING AT READING FESTIVAL



WE ESCAPE UNSCATHED FROM CHRISTMAS COMMON

Once the set was over, we could go and have some fun (up to that point, I'd steered clear even of a drop of beer, the better to do what I do without screwing up! Singing and drumming - you need to be on the ball.) But that afternoon we let our hair down, hence the upside down singlong, and I also saw Glasvegas, the Prodigy (from afar), and the Maccabees - whose stunning performance at Reading was surely one of the most momentous of their career, and I was glad to be a witness!


Yep, so we had Reading and Leeds under our belt - and this added to our summer festival roster of The Great Escape, Rockness, Hinterland, goNorth in Inverness, a quick stop in Dublin earlier in June, where we played an acoustic set for Balcony TV, below...



WE PLAY ACOUSTICALLY FOR BALCONY TV

and a London gig before Leeds, as well as other gigs in our home town. Busy days, but that wasn't all. we thought we were all done with festivals, and had to sadly say goodbye to the lovely festival season, but what's this? We then found out we'd won a competition to play the White Air festival in Brighton, taking place the very next day!!

And that really brings me up to the present day, cos our trip to Brighton only happened at the end of last week. Although we were only there for 24 hours, it was lovely to see my family, a couple of friends, and the cat (who just keeps getting fatter). We played on the promenade, right next to the beach, in a lovely warm hazy Indian summer day, and I looked across the cityscape and felt pretty chuffed to be onstage at such a location - just a few years ago I used to stand looking across the town hoping to gain a bit of recognition as a musician - and now, here we were! The next time we visit Brighton, I hope we can stay for longer, cos it's where I was born and bred and it's great to see the place. This time we could only fit in an hour on the pier looking at the lilting sea and then it was time to leave again!

There's things I've left out in this post - the tedium of having my tonsils out and the seemingly endless recovery; the day-to-day goings on of the band and our adventures, our new songs, which we've been debuting at gigs recently, and so on. Too much to fit into a blog posting without you the reader going cross-eyed! So i'll sign off for now, with the final note that on 11th October we'll be supporting the Noisettes at Glasgow ABC. They're a band i've loved, and i mean loved, for ages, so I literally can't wait for this.

over and out!

new photos

Here's a quick snapshot of a photo session we did down at Edinburgh Canal.

Note the lovely Rob.




More photos will soon be winging their way on to our myspace and i'll most likely post more up here.

we've been practising and writing new stuff these past couple of weeks. I'm pretty much wound back down from the nightmare of degree show trauma (oh, and I got a 2:1, score) and next on the list is the Revel.

The Revel is the art school end of year super crazy mental bash, and this year the theme is The Circus. We will of course be playing a set on the night. I'm not telling you what my costume's going to be. You'll have to wait for the photos!

Ne'er cast a clout

There's an awful lot of news to write about today. First and foremost is the fact that we now have a new bassist!! Rob Howell has been with us for a couple of weeks now, and he officially joined the band last Thursday.
We're really sad to have lost Trev, our cheeky bass wielding Dubliner. He had to move back to Ireland and although it was a tough decision, we know it's for the best, as Trev can now get on with life being a top notch animator. Life goes on and the seasons change - no doubt about that. But we'll sure as hell miss you Trev!
Rob, meanwhile, has been a great friend of the band for a long time and he's a very cool chap, so the changeover was a breeze. He's been working hard to learn our set - when he first joined us he learnt 7 songs in a week (that's one song a day - impressive or what!) and then we went and played the Hinterland festival over in Glasgow.
Hinterland was loads of fun. We rocked the art school and then caught a load of other great bands, like We Have Band (just as good as they were at SXSW) and Jesus H. Foxx, who just keep getting better. Running up and down the steep streets of Glasgow carrying most of our equipment and a little too much beer to fuel us along.
After Hinterland was over, we played Sick Kids Sunday at the GRV in the burg. What a great day - the creme de la creme of the Edinburgh music scene all having a laugh and playing some tunes - it really was a good day to be part of. there's some new faces in town - the Stormy Seas are great lads - and every act I saw reminded me of the variety and quality of the music that people are making in this city.
No rest for the wicked, though - after that I had to focus on my degree show - the hand in day was 15th May. I won't go into the details of the energy-sapping, panic-inducing, creativity squeezing black hole where my life went for the best part of a week, but the joyous result is a degree show I am pretty chuffed with! The Edinburgh College of Art degree show is open from the 13th June, and it's well worth a visit if you're in the city. There's so much great work on show, seeing it all going up is really exciting. My work is in the Illustration studio along with my talented fellow fourth years, and (not being biased or anything) our illustration show is a must see. Here's a sneak peak of one of my screenprint linocuts, illustrating a poem by Rudyard Kipling:


The very night of the hand-in I was supposed to catch a flight to Brighton to play the Great Escape.. but I missed it cos I was so exhausted that I passed out on the airport bus! But one much needed sleep later I joined Rob and Mikey down in my home town.


hooray! They'd been staying with my folks for a couple of days already and they were well rested, good friends with the family cat, and had seen plenty of gigs. I was pretty jealous, in fact I didn't end up seeing any other bands cos by the time we'd played our gig, the whole caboodle was over. A shame, but still, we managed to get some rest hanging out on the beach, overzealously ruffled by the sea breeze, and coated with a little salty drizzle, filled with fish and chips, and all the other things that make Brighton so great. Mikey and Rob actually saw the Clash's Mick Jones - playing with a new band. What a treat. And then we returned to auld reekie.

Once we'd settled back up north after our short break in brighton, we had to carry on practising and rehearsing and then we got an offer to support White Lies at the Picturehouse. This was great news, Mikey and I had watched the band in Texas and we'd never played the Picturehouse (a venue of stunning proportions and a fabulous, vintage cinema vibe.) It's always so rewarding to play to an energetic and up-for-it crowd and this lot certainly were - they clapped along, smiled a lot, and generally looked like they were having a good time, which is what it's all about really isn't it? And once we'd played, along with the Trailer Trash Tracys (who'd come all the way from London) the main event really put on an amazing show - all dramatic bursts of light and high-drama crashes into choruses - no doubt about it, they're very good at what they do. Well worth checking out if you can.

That more or less brings us up to the present. It's been a busy few weeks, and all of it's been great fun - knackering, but fun. Now the view is rosy for the coming summer months of gigs and ice lollies. And Rockness, which we'll be playing.. but more about that later.

south by southwest: the tale of a week in the lone star state

OK. Time to spill the beans all about South by Southwest.

Well there are no two ways about it: it was an amazing week, but it was so jam packed full of stuff that by the end we were most certainly three exhausted band mates, a week older but much wiser as to the ins and outs of life in the chaotic milieu of the music industry. So much to take in: the temperature, which of course is always the first innate sign that you are somewhere new. The food, the accents, the scale of things.

The first time we walked onto Sixth Streeet (the main street of the SxSW festival, with practically every premises hurriedly turned into a music venue) we were met with a tidal wave of noise unlike anything i've known before: a hundred bass drums beating different rhythms, endless guitars mixing up into a cacophony; singers and keyboards and notes flying about with such velocity that they almost knocked you over.

And from that moment on it was a non-stop riot of running from one gig to the next, trying to make sense of the layout of the city and the timescale of each day. I saw a brilliant array of bands, from the gentle folky aplomb of Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons and Slow Club, to the weird and wonderful shreiks and swerves of Wild Beasts, and We Have Band's robot anarchy. I sneaked into the last 2o minutes of a Masterkraft set, which was crazy, and the British Music Embassy (where we played our showcase set) always had a good array of bands, and here I caught marvellous Yorkshire young'uns Sky Larkin and also witnessed Gallows and Frank Turner, both of whom I'd been keen to see live.

This list of bands is made up noticeably of Brit acts. I don't think I was being xenophobic in my enthusiasm for seeing home-grown talent: we caught many American bands too but it struck me that the British contingent really was an incredibly strong force to be reckoned with, both in the variety of the music that was produced, and the skill and infectious enthusiasm with which it was played to the crowd. They certainly lapped it up. I heard many impressed noises coming from almost every audience I was part of.

Our own gigs went extremely well, the first being in a bar called Friends, and the second in the BME. This second fell on Mikey's birthday, and high spirits were in the air (and strong spirits were soon in our systems once we'd left the stage) and we played one of the best gigs ever. There's nothing like a great sound system, a good team behind you, and genuine euphoria buoying you up when you're playing your hardest. It was reflected in the reaction we got which, of course, only served to power us along the better.

There's a short clip of our smaller Friends gig here:

Our two gigs done and dusted, we were free to soak up the atmosphere, and any other imbibements that came our way. This included hot chilli sauce. BBC Scotland decided to torture Come on Gang! by interviewing us while feeding us the stuff, in a shop on 6th street called 'Tears of Joy'. They were all set out on a long table, from 'Mild' all the way to 'Inferno'. The labels on the bottles got scarier further down the table, until the imagery was all skulls on fire and screaming people in agony. If that was just the illustrations, what the hell would the taste be like?! I for one was particularly fearful considering my wimpish stance on hot food. Usually ginger tea is about the limit of my range. But we worked our way along, and by the end, teeth smouldering, eyes watering but soldiering on, we felt unconquerable. Until we tried 'Holy Shit', one drop of which made us go haywire and grab bottles of water off anxious kids. And with that, the BBC chuckled (they decided to shun all sauce tasting opportunity) and went on their way.

Trev, Mikey and I spent the evenings doing our seperate things, meeting up as and when our plans came together. I heard stories of Proclaimers rolling eyes at their enthusiastic sing-alongs, and close shaves with wayward taxis driving the wrong way (luckily Trev survived to tell the tale). While I adventured on my own I found lovely old vintage clothes shops, an amazing van which sold giant pots of delicious smoothies, a downcast boy on a bench who was accosted by a girl giving 'free hugs' (they ended up walking off hand in hand together), not to mention many friendly people, in bands or just wandering about, who always had a friendly word. Once I was rooting around in my bag for my passport, starting to get a little concerned, when an old homeless bloke walked up holding it open. In the middle of a crowded street, whilst drunk. It was a minor miracle and I still can't really believe how he found me before I even knew it was missing.

We also found time to get a proper Texan barbecue in. To sum it up in one word: Huge. Like everything else in the lone star state.

And with that, the week was over, and it was time to go back to the antique closes of Edinburgh. We packed a taxi to bursting point and headed off down the freeway.