LC!

A new series where I publish quotes uttered on tour, taken completely out of context and don’t attribute them to anyone, taking the huge private joke that is this blog, perhaps TOO far:

“I had a wank in the back of a taxi once”

So as I put out a request for dinner suggestions, I thought it best to review the dinners that I had.

So in Philadelphia I went to a fine place called Chickpea. I’ll apologise to Rachel and Brendon who recommended places.  Gareth saw Horizon and said it was pretty expensive and us being a poor band…  The other suggestion was a place called Maoz which did indeed look very tasty but Gareth found Chickpea, and it was on his recommendation that I went and, I happened to find him in there enjoying a Falafel pita.

I decided to have a Falafel platter, which comprised Falafel, salad, hummus, pita (white or wholewheat) and either rice or fries.  Unfortunately they didn’t have any rice so I had to have fries which, I didn’t particular want, but they were still very nice nonetheless.  The Falafels were nice and fresh, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  The hummus was very smooth with a little bit of oil to make it easier to spread as well.  The salad was in my opinion the best bit, amongst the standard veg of cucumber and tomato I found beetroot and radish; two of my favourite salad vegetables.  They are both highly under rated and should be used a lot more.

It was a very tasty meal and there was stacks of it.  And the price $9.89 including a can of Fanta!  In these hard times you can’t argue with that.

Log on for tomorrows review of dinner in Burlington, Vermont.

Day One off tour…jesus christ, i wrote “off” instead of “of”…things have got this bad already?
Anyway, we woke in New Jersey. I don’t understand why we stayed in NJ, the day before and of the Philly show. It meant two pretty long journeys, desperate to pee, but WHO AM I to question the judgement of a tour manager. Especially one so fine as Joe Puleo. Actually, come to think of it, I think he insinuated we’d get robbed if we stayed nearer to the gig, or something like that.

Some Notes:

• Previous Philadelphia experiences of ours had been quite lame. One show at an awful club where we got our spare tyre stolen (fair enough Joe), and another at Johnny Brendas, which was an okay, if uneventful, show, but sadly in an area where there was not a lot to do. Fishtown?
• South Street was really cool.
• Great falafel from some place called ‘Chickpeas’. Turned on the old English charm and got some free fries given to us. Never seems to fail (even if it’s never intended).
• HAIL STORM!
• Repo records was really cool. First time I went in they were playing Swans, and then the Fever Ray album. I got the Mi Ami record, which I have yet to listen to, but the stuff I’ve heard on their myspace is rad. They’re touring the UK soon, and OBVIOUSLY we’re away on tour ourselves so have to miss it. Sob.
• Best of all in this store…I found an illegal Los Campesinos! bootleg DVD. I think this means we’ve made it. It was a (n actually very good recording) of our show in the little room at Amsterdam Paradiso last year, ingeniously entitled “Knee Deep In Amsterdam”. I need to get a camera so I can capture these incredible moments.
• We finally got to play with Ponytail. We’ve been trying to do a show with them for a long time, and it often seems the best way to see a band you want to see is to work out playing a show with them. They were really lovely, friendly guys and their show was awesome. So tight, and intricate and fun.
• Also, we met up with Sky Larkin for what Katie informs me is our 4th tour together. Two UK, one mainland Europe, and now the US of A. We played, like, our 8th ever show with Sky Larkin. In Bradford. It’s so great that we’ve journeyed through this so-called Music Biz together, BFFs.
• Speaking of which, Patrick and Ian G of Titus Andronicus made the trip to see us. They say they’re touring the UK again soon, and I THINK we’re even gonna be home to see it, so they’re totally coming to stay with me at my Mum’s house. Party times.
• Two beautiful people brought us food. Young Griffin brought us oatmeal cookies and a blueberry cake that I’ve not allowed anybody to eat yet, because it’s too pretty to spoil (and I want it to myself) and a really cute girl who brought us animal-free Pumpkin cookies. I think we have the nicest fans in the world.
• FINALLY…I think I’m gonna try to not get drunk for a week. I feel pretttttty rough today and if I was less wasted I might have more interesting things to talk about. We’ll see…

Today is our last day at Stamford, and subsequently the last day of the first session of recording, before we head out on tour.
Downstairs, John’s doing rough mixes of a couple of tracks that are entirely finished. Or nearly entirely finished. This is going to be the first Los Campesinos! release with non-Campesinos! folk playing on it. So, when we resume recording in Seattle we’re hooking up with some other musicians, to add extra little flourishes. This is equal parts exciting and scary, I think, as we’re always wary of exposing our deficiencies and limits to ‘outsiders’. PLUS they’re exciting people that I’m keen to meet, let alone play with.</deliberately vague>

In preparation for our leaving I endeavoured to eat all my left-over soy ice cream yesterday evening. And failed.

Neil’s been saying sad farewells to Hopscotch, and making sure she knows how much we love her.

Right now, I’m sat streaming the England v Slovakia match on the internet, and debating whether I’m gonna be motivated enough to walk to LAYLA’S FALAFEL for lunch. It’s delicious. I should.

ALSO…
on Wednesday we play at Toronto’s ‘Opera House’. Does anybody know of a bar nearby which is likely to be showing the England World Cup Qualifying ‘Soccer’ Match? THANKS GUYS.

So we start our tour on sunday.  An important factor in having an enjoyable tour is food!  We like having nice dinners before shows, it makes us happy.

So we have a request.  Can people send us suggestions of where to eat.  It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as its good!  And if it serves vegan food as well, even better!  The close to the venue the better, we’re pretty lazy.

Theatre of Living Arts – Philadelphia

Higher Ground – Burlington

La Sala Rosa – Montreal

Opera House – Toronto

Magic Stick – Detroit

Turner Hall – Milwaukee

Fine Line Cafe – Minneapolis

Waiting Room – Omaha

Bluebird Theatre – Denver

Neumo’s – Seattle

Richard’s on Richards – Vancouver

Wonder Ballroom – Portland

Harlow’s – Sacremento

Slim’s – San Francisco

Detroit Bar – Costa Mesa

Thank you very much.  We’ll review the suggestions. x

P.S. If we had our own cooking show it would nearly be as good as this…

We just found out, Mike Myers recorded his lines for Shrek 2 here. JC!

THANKS PITCHFORK!!

Right back atcha:
Check out this cool webzine.

Two years ago, it seemed I bumbled around interviews talking about how much I hated specific bands.
It’s not that I like those bands now, I just realise how stupid a topic of conversation it is. It wasn’t entirely my fault. A lot of music journalists (primarily in the UK) very much saw LC! as fitting a gap they had, and so a lot of interviews we did were primarily intended to get us to talk about how British music was in a rut, ‘lad rock’ sucked and how nobody else ‘got it’ like we did. I guess we found it edgy and exciting at the time, to be seen (even by just a few) as being renegades, but now it’s mostly a little embarrassing.

Last night I went to see Morrissey play at Webster Hall. The Courteeners opened up. The Courteeners rose to prominence (?) in the summer of 2007 I think. We were in the US for that time, and when we got back from the UK and I saw some magazine with them on the cover (NME, maybe?), I had no idea who they were. I felt like my Grampy.

I stood on the balcony, watching their set, right next to their parents. After every song, a gent who I think was probably the singer’s father, wooped “come on Liam! Give it to ‘em”. Exactly like my dad does when he watches us play (sometimes my Dad calls me Liam). And the mothers danced and clapped along out of time. And smiles didn’t leave their faces the whole half an hour (The crowd’s reaction to the band was indifferent. It was always going to be though, because Morrissey fans don’t want to see anybody but Morrissey, do they?).
The parents looked so proud. And that feeling of being thousands of miles from home, watching your sons play their songs in front of a couple of thousand people in New York City, cannot and will not be beaten, I’d imagine. And the feeling of seeing your parents that proud is pretty rad too.
So yeh, I’m making even more of an effort not to slag bands any more. Because we are all our parents’ children, or something, and it’s fucking boring, and it’s much more productive to talk about the positives, anyway. RIGHT BLOGGERS!?

ANYWAYS, MOZ.

Was good. Here are some notes:

• $9 for a bottle of beer is fucking disgusting Webster Hall. As if a $75 ticket wasn’t insult enough.
• Opening with ‘This Charming Man’. Can’t remember being overcome by such uncontrollable smiles in a long time.
• Morrissey’s band is amazing. The five of them were never completely overshadowed by Moz. Surges to the front of the stage, rockstar poses, balancing guitars on their heads. It was a SHOW!!
• I watched an episode of Home Movies on my iPod whilst waiting for the music to start. It was the Pizza Club one. Really good episode.
• Idiot man at the bar: “what is this spoken word stuff playing? Who put this on?”. MORRISSEY PUT IT ON, YOU R-TARD!
• Morrissey: I think you should wear a belt. Middle aged men in light denim without a belt just makes me think of Clarkson.
• Might get quiff.
• One of the worst practices in the music biz: making support bands price match the headlining band’s merch. Come on guys.
• Morrissey has a PETA stall traveling on tour with him. This is the coolest thing I have ever seen Moz, well done. But when are you gonna go vegan? [citation needed]
• Watching people try to get onstage to touch Morrissey is the closest thing to religion I have ever experienced. I’m gonna try to touch Morrissey when we play at Coachella.
• At the back of the balcony, too far away to see, girls ballroom style danced, together. Amazing.
• Here’s a clip of Moz playing ‘How Soon Is Now’. It’s only about 60 seconds long, because it suddenly dawned on me:

“I am at a Morrissey concert, and I’m taking a really shit quality video, watching the song through an inch square screen, so I can put it on my blog, what the fuck am I doing, LOOK WHAT I’VE BECOME!! I am here alone, this song is SO TOTALLY ABOUT ME!! Work with it.“.

• Fell asleep on the train back to Stamford. Missed my stop. Not so good.

Morrissey @ Webster Hall – March 25, 2009 (setlist)

This Charming Man
Billy Budd
Black Cloud
How Soon Is Now?
Irish Blood, English Heart
Let Me Kiss You
I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
Seasick, Yet Still Docked
The Loop
I Keep Mine Hidden
One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell
The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores
Mama Lay Softly On The Riverbed
Ask
Best Friend On The Payroll
Death Of A Disco Dancer
Sorry Doesn’t Help
Something Is Squeezing My Skull
I’m OK By Myself

encore:
First Of The Gang To Die

Whilst Gareth went to watch the great Moz, myself and Alek did something which we think is perhaps “really cool”.

We wrote into Mayo and Kemodes 5 live show and asked (very nicely) if we could be said hello too.

Anyway here is the fruit of our labors and I think you will agree it is pretty persuasive…roll on Friday.

Dear Mel Gibson and Jesus,

A while ago it was pointed out to yourselves that your Hello! List was a tad too masculine and there was a distinct lack of the female presence.

Since then you have added in the very talented Charlotte Subway HOWEVER it seems the list is still overly testosterone friendly and to balance this out I feel you should add in at least a couple more ladies to show your commitment to equality.

Therefore I nominate the three lady musicians of the band Los Campesinos! Alek, Ellen and Harriet who are all keen listeners of the show, proclaiming that it inspires them in their stage performances and citing you as some kind of marvelous deity, plus they play bass, violin and keyboards between them and therefore are pretty cool.

They also all really like films and they have definitely not constructed this message whilst they are recording in Connecticut and listening to the podcast and giggling to themselves with glasses of wine.

From

A friend

p.s

“The Fall” for Best Film at the Kemodes!

OMG.