The Coolness Diaries

Rock n' Roll will take you to the Mountain (And East Europe)

2011-11-15T17:58:00.000-08:00

“Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.”

- Jack Kerouac, “On The Road”

It’s with this basic belief that many of us picked up our instruments all those years ago. And of only for a few nights at a time, it happens exactly the way we dreamt it. Starting slowly like all the best dreams, ending on top of the world...

WEDNESDAY

We came back from band practice just after midnight to Chaz’s (Coolness singer) infamous Bethnal Green flat. Despite it being a Tuesday night, a crowd had rolled in for an impromptu house party. A ragtag bunch of Russians, Ukranians, ex-teen models, and boys in bands meant we wouldn’t be getting our “three hours sleep” before getting a redeye flight out to Estonia. (Someone even played "firestarter" at one point.) Unbelievably, we weren’t 100% sure which airport we were flying out from, leading to one of those tense/exciting situations where the whole band is running through the “20 minutes to gate 6” terminal to get on the flight “last call.” I woke up in Estonia as an Irish lady shouted to my friends: “YOUR FRIEND SNORES REALLY LOUD.”

As seen above, We were hungover before the tour had even begun. (What's with all the Muse love also?)

We D’J’ed to a mix of Russian girls, silent men, and old Estonian friends in hats.Our drummer Ed was the best DJ, but due to his innovative "Don't label any C.D's" system, Chaz had the best tunes.

After we’d finished, we watched Spinal Tap on a laptop, and slept on a sea of beanbags from around the bar. I think some bedbugs bit me, I woke up with some strange marks on me…

THURSDAY

Every town is a new experience. None of us have any money for holidays-this is our only visits out of England. To visit places like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, etc, is a cool priviledge-we’d probably never see these places in a lifetime otherwise.

Tartu is a student town so our DJ set consisted of the likes of Queen, Aerosmith, The Strokes, Nirvana, MGMT, the “big hitters.” Students aren’t that different the world over, though we were having more fun controlling the light show and smoke machine (haha). I met an Estonian girl, a blonde. I told her she looked like Marilyn Monroe. She told me she tudied Philosophy. I reeled in that old Voltaire quote "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" She told me firmly there was no god, then kissed me. The students could keep their theories, I thought, I’ve found something better..

FRIDAY

We took a soviet bullet back to Tallinn to prepare for our first gig. The train was full of men in combat gear making us feel vaguely uneasy. When we got to the venue they fed us a beautiful three-course meal.We soundchecked and took a cab a mysteriously long way from the venue. “Looks like Paulsgrove” Chaz commented-penned in on all sides by tower blocks. As often is the way with simple twists of fate, Lizette offered us the third or the fourth floor. We took the fourth. Chaz, being a manchild who’s spent his entire adult life playing in bands, has occasional problems remembering when to pee, so the whole way in the cab he was grabbing his groin and near-yelping by the time we got to the hotel. I let the lift doors close so he had to take the stairs. He was hopping, HOPPING, when we got to our floor-I was laughing so much I couldn’t get the key in- he was patrolling, looking about for a toilet, anywhere to toilet, shouting. We opened our door and as we went to shut it a female hand stopped the door.

We both looked at each other with questioning eyebrows.

We opened the door and there were two kinda young Russian girls, a group of them had passed us on the way in, we had imagined it was a school trip. They smiled at us.

We said hello, asked them where they were from, got three guesses wrong and some rolled eyes, the taller girl saw Chaz and started singing that LMFAO song “I’m Sexy and I know eet” we belly laughed, then in an instant the door next to ours opened and the most thunderous voice I’ve ever heard bellowed “Будете ли Вы держать чертов шум внизу, там я стараюсь спать!» The taller girl replied "Отвали! Вернитесь в вашу комнату."

I literally jumped three feet back into my room. He slamed the door and I edged out again “What... did he say?" I asked. They didn't reply. She just said “Russian." The smaller girl asked me if I wanted to go for a cigarette. I didn't want to walk past that room. I asked them if they wanted to come into our hotel room (I would later realize the irony in saying this) We must've made more noise, somehow, as the door opened again, more screaming "Вот и все! Я звоню прием! Ты дерьмо лучше быть спокойным или еще!" I jumped back in and closed the door. The girls could tell it to the marines for all I cared. “We have to move rooms" I told Chaz. He had pissed by now, but was speechless. Just then, the phone rang. Lady at reception: “Man at room 25 complain. He say you shouting-he can't sleep." I know the playground rule of not grassing up, but I guess we were in different circumstances here. I sang like a canary: “It wasn't US! It was the GIRLS!" The receptionist hung up. I was surprised, but more frightened of the crazy man-if, as we expected, the band rolled back with guests and had an afterparty, he could literally kill us.

We made a decision to tell reception. We went left out the door to avoid walking past his door. The room next to us had their door slightly ajar, checking what was going on. A woman was there, 40-odd, strong face, like a cold war Miss Marple, as we walked by she slammed the door. When we got to the end of the corridor, the door opened out only to a 40ft drop to gravel-we'd have to walk past the Russians door.

When we got to reception, I told the receptionist there was a madman up there and we wanted to be moved. “There are no rooms free" she shrugged. What next? We saw the girls outside. We gave the shorter one a flyer for our show that night and told her we could put her on the guestlist (from East London to East Europe, some things don't change) her taller friend looked completely indifferent, rolled her eyes about, swore at us, and said “Mafia."

We went back inside the hotel. A stocky Estonian sat watching the football, huge beer in one hand, huge chocoalate bar in the other. He took two sips of the beer and started talking to us in Estonian. We told him three times we couldn't really talk Estonian. He laughed a hearty chuckle “I am from Talinn! Very clean!" we nodded and watched the screen. His eyes saw the girls outside. He popped his beer down and walked out. We were still worried about the girls causing noise. Chaz mused “wait for them to go up first-they'll hassle us otherwise. Also that girl with the rolling eyes is on drugs I think" The receptionist got up, opened the door and said to our three characters: “"Можете ли вы отойти от двери, пожалуйста? Вы делаете место выглядеть suspicious." I made out that one word...the laughing Estonian buddha took the small girl by the hand and yanked her off into the night. Like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the pieces all seemed to come together. Have you worked it out yet?

We snaked back to our room. I watched through the keyhole as groups of girls strode past our room, occasionally looking in the keyhole or shouting something, then gathering to have cigarettes outside and gazing up at us (maybe I made that last bit up-we were a bit paranoid now.) Inevitably, there came a knock on the door. Conscious of the noise waking up our Russian neighbour, I swung the door open and there was that same girl, as pretty as a picture. She had her line ready “Go for a cigarette?Go for a cigerette." I didn't really want to say “no," so I told her her and her friends could come to our gig, free. She looked baffled. (She spoke no real english) Chaz drew her this flyer to help her understand what time we were leaving, our method of transport, and the plan:

By this time, the Russian madman was in the back of our minds, and thoughts of the Madam from next door knocking and demanding money/we stop wasting their time was the current concern. Our british brains were working overtime.

Me: “Are we staying in, what could be described as a brothel?The receptionist is in on it-you saw!"

Chaz: “Maybe it's part of our payment for the gig?"

Me:"I think we may have just invited a group of young prostitutes to spend a few hours with us…"

I had thoughts of us coming to Lizette with an accidental 500 euro bill and a brothel madam in tow, to be paid immediately and in cash. We turned out all the lights, got ready as quickly as we could and slunk over to Lizette's floor ready to leave. When we arrived in the cab, the driver told us “there used to be factories around here. They close down, and this area 'was' a red light district. When we got back to the hotel, hours later, a steaming drunk Chaz stopped me in the hallway and prodded me in the chest with a waving finger: “I dare you to go up to the prostitutes room-come on, lets do it. I.DARE.you." I told Chaz to behave and to leave the hotel. Even at 7a.m, there were just girls everywhere, roaming the floors, looking at us like the English buffoons we were, stumbling about in our tights…

And we also played a gig between those two events happening. That was fun too.

Playing in Europe if you're a small band is like taking a time machine back to the imaginary glory days of being in a band. As such, the drinks are always free and the girls are always friendly. We were handed pint after pint of Vodka and Cranberry, me and Dave (center) were doing shots, him bizarrely commenting:

“This reminds me of bring a student in Leicester!"

We were handed some sort of Lavender/Malibu concoction, (thanks Mafta if you're reading this!) in what can only be described as a Vase-shaped glass. The only things I remember next were looking at my phone every 5 minutes as we had to leave the venue at 6a.m. and drive (oh yes-11 Hours!) to Lithunia. I met another blonde Estonian, she told me not to lose my Mystique. I wrote “Don't Forget Me" on her arm.

She wrote “Kiss Me Goodbye" on mine. It was nice-and following that I realized the Chazmanian Devil had been unleashed. Words are sometimes not enough-we basically had a few hours of this:

(That one aboves my favourite)

SATURDAY

In July, as we entered Latvia in the summer, a border security guard awoke me as I lay, topless, on a coachseat, and asked for my passport. This time was even less pleasant, and slightly more bizarre. I was grabbed and pulled out of a vehicle onto wet grass, and stood on my feet like an action man. Dozy and still wandering what was in that lavender cocktail, lead singer Chaz John Ross released his hands from his mouth and spewed a white spray on the ground between us. Some splashed on my feet, I guess. I breathed out and waited for him to finish. He climbed back in, wiped his hands on the blanket and I sat next to him for another 9 hours.

We woke up in Estonia. We ate Sushi. We checked into our hotel. We were briefly glued to the Wi-fi like the 21st century narcissists we are. We got dressed. We put makeup on. Lizette, our trusty manager ensuring we behave & making things happen, insisted we get a cab the 400 meters or so to the venue-a nice touch "You're wearing makeup now-it mustn't run!" We got to watch our friends Mimicry, such a great band live. They had warmed up the Lithuanians and we were up next:

Dave tests out the backstage area's mirror and light.

SO then. The fashion model afterparty thing in Lithuania at the Loftas art space Coolness gig.

Like every movie has a high point, here we are. It's hard to write objectively about your own show, or to not talk on cliches, or to not describe it by comparing it to something else. So, breaking all those rules: It was fucking amazing.

Rows and rows and rows of people (mainly beautiful girls, just as it would be in the movie.)

You feel like Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Motley Crue… The equipment was Bon-Jovi level professional (thank you Natalie Sade & the Loftas Tech Crew on that one) sound was perfect, and crowd completely moving with you.

I saw some band headline Leeds this summer (their name totally, totally, escapes me) who said “We feel like we're in the best band in the world. If you don't feel that way, you shouldn't be in a band.» If I can add one final cliché, no high in the world beats that feeling coming off stage.

Though I felt vaguely like one of those guys from Lost Prophets or Kings Of Leon asking the girls who were talking to us if they wanted to afterparty at our hotel (I know, I know) I had in my mind a perfect setup for the video interview. It was to be a setup so complex Stanley Kubrick himself would marvel at the composition-we would film the interview on a double bed surrounded by the lithuanian and Belarussian (that's probably not a word, but its 2.39 a.m. and I want to sleep now) girls, passing a bottle of wine like the high-calibre rock stars we are.

And the worst part of all this is it wasn't even my idea: (fast forward to 0:16)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9KCS8d82EM

I added very little to the interview. I took long hits from the wine bottle… I aimed to make just one poignant point “The Coolness is a safety blanket from the outside world,»"which was met with racous laughter from the rest of the band. I think I was pouring wine on one of the girls at one point (sorry if you're reading this-not sure what I was doing) and then it was all after. The girls left and we got a cab to the airport. We took “Whizz Air" and Chaz's hand luggage was too big, incurring a surcharge. He asked how much the charge was. “65 Euros." The uniformed man replied. It was the final belly laugh of the trip. Chaz's stuff was thrown into a plastic bag and we were on the plane.

I realized we were actually at the top of the world- It's easily forgotten.

Somewhere over Europe, 7a.m. Sunday morning.

The Coolness in Estonia/Latvia

2011-07-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: The views in this blog are NOT necessarily of the band. I’m the bass player, for gods sake-I need the attention!

Hello, Vinny here. I stopped doing this blog as I inflamed a reviewer when they misinterpreted something I’d said about a night we played, and they started quoting my own blog in a review where they literally labelled us the “un-coolness” (I actually found that quite funny…) you can check our youtube channel (tenderlovingcoolness) for what we've been up to since then, I just had a feeling I should blog the last few days..

I once red the below in a Hunter S Thompson book, and felt it perfectly described

what we, you, any creatives do:
"I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going." and, somewhat inevitably, there is a sense of that even now with us playing music, and in the clothes we wear as a rock band, On the flipside, I would say it helps us become who we are and feel more comfortable, for me at least, wearing black skinnies, Black Cramps T-shirt, Black Biker Jacket, converse, and sunglasses, channelling the Ramones circa 1982 -I got off the plane with the swagger of a British boy playing music abroad, and within 10 minutes of getting off the plane, my fancy dress rock star outfit was clinging, sticking glueing itself to me-we had arrived in Estonia on the HOTTEST DAY IN ITS HISTORY. After being told by one of the girls who met us at the airport I looked like “the ultimate hipster” I thought of that descendents line “I’m thru with being cool”…

We met the SNAPS dance troupe who’d be performing with us in Estonia (and who let us stay at their houses, thanks if you’re reading) and played a kinda warm-up/ house party show for them and their friends. Chaz’s twenty-year old keyboard took centre stage, missing keys and all:

As great ideas go, swimming in the Baltic sea was a life-affirming experience. Disregarding that the scene of young, hot kids stripping to swimsuits and bikinis and running into the sea was so perfect it felt like I was in “American Pie” type movies, all I was thinking about is how far we’d come from the kids who played our instruments in our bedrooms while our parents asked us to turn it down, and here we were, somehow, in Estonia, a million miles from everything but the bubble we were existing in, swimming at midnight. Pretty soon we were in central Talinn, drinking shots and asking virtually everyone “are you going to the festival in the abandoned prison tomorrow?”

The music was strange, fantastic, positive, upbeat. We didn’t feel that strange reluctance you get to talk to strangers that you find in London. It was an amazing night to be alive, so beautiful. Also, on the way home Chaz got a tear in the front of his tights and his knob fell out.

FRIDAY

Being from London means that most of your gigs will invariably be indoors, even the bigger gigs are in dark, feckless, domes with the normally-inevitable £4 a pint drink price thrown in,

In Talinn we arrived at a beautiful, beach-front ex-prison where Objectors and Dissidents were once held. It is still boiling hot. There is a Harry Krishna tent and a free-dance-art tent. What are we doing here? Estonian national TV interview us, Chaz mumbles a lot, while I make a bold claim: (click link, Coolness on at @ 18.40)

http://uudised.err.ee/index.php?0534940&id=42164&play

We are on the 9.00 news!

The festival send us out to an upmarket hotel for dinner. The waitress informs us the restaurant has ran out of gas. All you can really think is “Has the meter key ran out? Do we need to run down Bethnal Green road and top it up?” Gas is miraculously found before we end up eating the “Steel Panther burgers” (pictured above) (aka the completely O.T.T microwave burgers from newsagent stand we ate at last night which were dripping, breathing, cuming burger sauce-I fucking loved them)

Back to the prison, our gig begins and with the arrival of the Snaps dance troupe the party really begins for us in Talinn. We play new live favourite “Utopia,” ode to ex-girlfriends “So Long 2 U”, and “Kids on K” which predictably receives the best audience reaction. The girls are great-writhing, scissor kicking, duelling princesses, acting as a sexual forcefield between us and the audience. Estonians are wandering in barefoot and dancing stage front (n.b. stage front was small rocks and stones) we’d used the shameful stereotype that Europeans love 90’s trash techno and closed our set with an impromptu jam of 2 Unlimited’s “No Limit.” Something we’d never get away with in Britain but went down a storm out here.

I’d wanted to hug the band as we came offstage but they were dripping, soaking, hunks of meat. High-fiving would have to do for now. What do you do when you’ve finished playing, though? The moment must continue on, and on, and on. An Estonian music blog interviewed us on the beach next to our stage. They asked us about our lives in London, where we think music is going, what our songs mean, what our plans are, and all the time I’m staring straight at one of the interviewers and thinking “I REALLY FANCY YOU.” She smiled at me sometimes and I really felt my heart kick.

What can you do, though? Our tour manager Lizette’s words circled my thoughts” “When you’re doing interviews, BEHAVE.” She had cause for concern. A german girl once interviewed us after a barfly show. From what little I remembered, I asked Chaz if I had come across well, his reply was priceless: “VINNY, you BIT the interviewer. We had to ask you leave…” and the interview never got printed. So I’m well behaved now. And as this Estonian journalist walked away, I inevitably thought of that Smiths line from There is a light that never goes out: "a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask.." But who has time to think when second later we were grabbed by another Estonian interviewer (from National TV, again), who asked us to shoot a piece with her on the beach, me and Dave sniggering as her name sounded like “Borat” out loud. The piece was simple, dance down the beach with her, pick up some sand, and throw it u in the air when she mentions the TV shows name. Easy. Chaz, of course, got carried away, throwing the sand up so high it went all over the camera and cameraman, at which point he yelled what was probably the estonian equivalent of “Cut!” (though it may have been something else.) “The wind caught it,” explained Chaz, unhelpfully. Even after the piece was shot correctly, the cameraman was still brushing his hair clean. (haha)

You could probably have fallen in love looking in any direction at this festival. All you can really do is take a deep breath and try and take it all in. I remember thinking “moments like this never last” to meet someone special in this great place on this strange adventure, could never be permanent. But you can imagine these are the moments you’ll see when your life flashes before your eyes, of the waves coming in, a smile, a touch…people painting the walls of the prison, naked people painting a huge murial through a window into the prison, discussing the age of consent with Russian girls (joking) and so on… We did one final interview on the stage we’d played on.

I was “refreshed” by this stage, and remember completing the interview lying horizontally, perking up to add an irreverent comment every now and then. We took the party back to our ho(s)tel with some of the dancers, getting a mere 55 minutes (or so) sleep before the coach arrived to take us to Latvia, waking up late and having Chaz inflame our management with opening line “Has anyone got a towel I can borrow for a shower?” Our tour manager screamed :WE DON’T HAVE TIME!THE COACH LEAVES NOW!” Playing back all the memories from the night before virtually required memory space equivalent to 4-hour epic war movie “Das Boot.” (but more enjoyable) then I shuddered, remembering admitting to liking The Vaccines & The Drums in the final interview. There go my cool points, again..

Saturday/Sunday: Sandstorms at the Latvian Glastonbury

I woke up topless on a coach saturday morning, with Chaz John Ross asleep and leaning on my sholdour, with an immigration officer peering over me, demanding my passport as we were at the Latvian border. How did your Saturday morning begin?

There’s little more galling as a small band then to try and sign in at the Hotel (3-star, very honest) and have the receptionist ponder “Ah Coolness? I haff Toploader, Toploader, Toploader…no Coolness!” There were A LOT of wasps in Latvia, keeping my toes form the very moment we got off the coach. As far as I’m concerned, the phrase “Don’t move, you’ve got a wasp on you” is right up there with the ever-morbid “Can I have a word with you” and “We need to talk” in the somethings-up stakes. When they finaly made our reservation, we were excitable:

Chaz asks me to bring him in a Berocca.

Chaz, taking one of his many “long baths” on the trip.

The festival we played could only be described as the Latvian Glastonbury, 6 or 7 stages running l’til 5, 6 in the morning. The dance tent was raging from about 3pm onwards, the DJ played a mixture of hard rock:

Comedy Pop-Rock:

And electro trash pop:

Which made me realize the Coolness could actually be quite successful in this part of the world.

We were playing on the “rock” stage which was mainly As-I-Lay-Dying meets Paramore Eurorock, with some Anvil-style riffing going on directly before us. It’s disconcerting enough to be playing on a beach watching the portaloos slosh about in the sea (yep, they were in a convenient position until the tide came in-at the very least you were wet up to your ankles if you wanted to answer the call of nature) but doing it in a sandstorm brings it to a whole new level.

Chaz slips about in a sandy paradise

Playing “Strum Mental” Thanks to Ange for photos.

Some crowd surfers came spidering-over the barrier during the last song and got power-slammed by our (ex-Red Army?) stage guard, in full army fatigues. Gloriously O.T.T. outfit and behaviour-I felt partly to blame having invited the stage invasion onstage. (As Larry David would say, I took a risk..)

After the show I met someone who I’d flyered for the show hour earlier. A teenager-I’ve always preferred playing to teenagers, they haven’t had the life sucked out of ‘em yet, they’ve still got that open mind to something new. In a decades time there’ll be rent payments, a job most likely eating up their time, and the slow-drip of routine, but at that age, all there is music, school, friends and music. I had one final dance with our photographer in a tent that was literally playing the Vengaboys and we were in the cab to the hotel. Strange dreams, terror when a Bee had got inside the plane on our Ryanair (Ryanair!) flight home, Stanstead airport, sitting bored in London fields by 6pm.

Ed (drums) ferries the last lot of our instruments home. The grey world always carries on while you're away, but you somehow feel brighter when you return...

31st October: Club Cool presents: Dead Heroes Rave w/ Dead Kids & over 1000 people!

2009-11-04T17:09:00.000-08:00

DEAD HEROES HALLOWEEN PARTY 31/10/09
We held a huge party in conjunction with Potty Mouth Disco. It was ridiculous. The ques started at 10.30 and were still there at 4a.m. We took over a snooker (snooker!) hall in Dalston, built a stage and invited all our friends. Then they invited all their friends. On the day the Facebook group had something like 950 confirmed, 1100 maybe, and we'd sold 250 pre-sale tickets. Holy Moly! Oh yeah, we dressed up as Kiss for our performance:

The Spaceman
The Demon
The Cat: "No-one wants to be the cat in Kiss. Not even the cat!"
Geki arrived a little late so I couldn't find any photos of him. You get the idea anyway.
Kendall is from Ohio & was all over our American theme for the night...
"Tonight I'm gonna rock you tonight..."
Gene Simmons: "I'd rather fuck Janis Joplin
then have to listen to hear music" political uncorrectness Win!
We've never had so many people invade the stage throughout the gig.
We were having to ask people to only dance for one song (felt kinda crappy doing that)

Holy Shit! There were a lot of you out there...
"Sure Thing" was so loud it blew part of the amp clean up. I saw Smoke and thought "Cool..."
We had the girls join us for "Kids On K" and the place just exploded...

Sometimes playing in The Coolness really feels like being in a boy band.
This is not necassarily a bad thing.

Ashley is an angel amongst demons...
The above isn't what you think...
We played "Take It Off" last. The stage was like something out of Skins. Even the Vice website (we're on their new photoblog somewhere, I'm too lazy to find the link) admitted we had one of the biggest Halloween parties in central. EVERYONE was in outfits, it was more like a sick house party than anything else. A girl came as Anne Boleyn, a girl came as Anna-Nicole Smith, a girl came as Desmond Tutu:
And of course, DEAD KIDS absolutely killed it after us. They were face-meltingly good:
This picture, and most of the pics on this page, (c) Gabriel Love or Benjamin Scales.
I found the ABOVE image and was all set to write a pithy comment about how hot she is...
...then saw the next image. Shit!haha

Some of my favourite outfits from the night:
This guy danced with us onstage to "Kids On K."
Then he K-holed. Poetry in Motion, huh?
This guy came as Daft Punk. Very Cool.

It's a Grave Dave (caption of the year, anyone?)

Just another Club Cool...

People who haven't been to our nights always say our shows are full of 15-year old girls, which is definetly NOT TRUE. Our parties are a boiling pot of more different blends of people than a 90's car park rave. Maybe I've been a bit light on words in this blog, and there are 100's more photos of the night you can search, but it's hard to describe something like the event we put on. It was bigger than us, the organisors, the bands, it became it's own festival. At 4am, the Bangerz N mash Girls did a live P.A. from a snooker table at 4a.m. Loopy:
I don't know what else I can say. The night was like some sort of hedonistic dream.
The next Club Cool is 14th November, Guestlist entry..will have more of the above...
Just realised I've never linked to our Myspace before: Here it is.
Reminds me, while I was walking around after we played, people were asking: "What are your band called? I really liked you guys" and I remembered the only introduction I'd given was "Hey we are KISS from NEW YORK CITY. How are y'all Dead Heroes doing tonight?" I was in character, but playing to maybe our biggest crowd this year, it might go down as an epic fail not mentioning who we were. See you at the next Club Cool!

Best Song: "Kids On K"

16th October, 22nd October-A private party somewhere in London/Playing a greatest hits set at Catch

2009-11-04T16:51:00.000-08:00

This was taken in an off-licence at 3a.m.
Shortly after this picture was taken, a Brazilian girl
came in to buy beer, Chaz compared Breasts with
her, and they made out, without saying a word.
Then she left, giggling. But seriously, look at those teeth!

Blogging is strange-it's meant to be a fully transparent, open-diary style affair where anyone can read your thoughts and gain a unique insight into the world you live in.
Nevertheless, some things can not be siad ina public domain, even though, they are REALLY FUCKING FUNNY STORIES.nggggggggggh! So yes-we played a private party, it was fun,
we had tables to jump from the stage to and back, the stage was suitably soaked and I think we all got trashed with a free bar. I somehow got trashed, hell knows how. ANYWAY something really funny (and kinda shocking, even for me) happened (it's not the above story) but I definetly can't print it here-find me at a show and I'll tell you. I can also see who's regularly reading my blog AND attending the shows...
(sorry about the lameness of the blog, the next one will be great)

Best Song: "Purple Dress"

22nd October: Club Cool @ Catch

Umm, I heard this night was great, the awesome Vivian Volta and Glitches and some others played, killed it I assume, but I hate waiting about to play. So arrived 5 minutes before we were due to play, and had to part a red-sea of hipsters to get to the stage. It was overwhelming.
We played a greatest hits set here. It was a mad, viagra-style adrenaline rush of hitting stage at 11.45pm and rushing through our 6 biggest hits. I've never seen it so cramped upstairs. We were penned in, Animal-style, from all sides, mainly by girls. (If you live East you should know by now they all flock there on a thursday-why else do you think it has so many photographers?)
The stage invasions got more and more frenzied and during the last song I saw a surge coming towards me which, I swear to god, reminded me of a tidal wave nearly drowning me on Bondi Beach years and years ago-People were leaping over the monitors, around the speakers, over the DJ booth, and rushing in; I ran backwards and sat on top of the amp stacks to get some leverage to play with. Then, sitting down to play, I felt a bit lame-there were easily 80 people on that stage, and I'm sitting like Donovan or the Fleet Foxes, riffing away. What can I do to look cool? nod my head? If you're sitting down to play, you're probably playing a boring gig to adults in most cases. I really had no choice as of my wires. I tried to still play the part but felt a bit like a supply teacher watching a field trip and trying to look savvy. I was as still as a rock yet I had those purple leopardskin tights on. Unless you're using the stage like a dancefloor-those strides just don't work.
p.s. The whole thing was an amazing experience I'll never, ever forget

Best Song: "Heard It On My Radio"

3rd October-Returning to the Macbeth after a 2-year ban

2009-11-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

We've been banned from the Macbeth for 2 years. For various misdemeanours (mainly based around Chaz's actions,) some venues in the past have asked us to discontinue ever playing there again (see below with the lightbulb incident at the Victoria) This is what I've ascertained:
Me: "Why were we banned from the Macbeth?"
Chaz: "2 years ago we had that joke song 'Mystery Jets-you're so gay' and we played it there"
Me: "Ok, so...?"
Chaz: "Oh..we didn't know the barman on the night actually was gay."
Me: "Ah. Why aren't we playing the Wedgewood rooms in your hometown?
Chaz: "We've been banned from their twice. The first time I threw an Inflatable Crocodile and it went too far over the crowd and smashed all the bar lighting."
Me: "Ah. And the second?"
Chaz: "I kicked a can of fluoroscent spray paint, it hit a ceiling fan and exploded paint all over the crowd. It looked amazing. I think the bouncers physically wrestled me off the stage and out the door..."
So, Macbeth Return for us. This gig was fucking electric. We had some "industry" people watching us (yes, I hate that term too, what can you do?) so we were like Electric Eels playing dressup up there-we found a bag of clothes in the cellar, which is why we look so bizarre. Or bizarrer than normal.
We had Geki Lemon from Ebony Bones guest guitar'ing for us. Cool.

Kendall was representing the dance troupe as only she can.
A girl said to me after the show: "when I was watching your band,
I was thinking, 'this is life." I wish all of my life really was like the above photos...

Here's some Video highlights of the gig:

Just-off camera, as the jam drew to a close, Chaz leaped on to the bar, kicked aside everyone's drinks and started pouring Candle Wax and beer ON TO his guitar, and all over the bar.
Here comes another two year ban!

Best Song: "Sure Thing"

12th September: CLUB COOL "BLING" PARTY

2009-09-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

Ha ha. She just made out with The Coolness Bassist.

CLUB COOL BLING PARTY

(For those who don't know: Club Cool is a monthly club night/party we put on in a secret warehouse once a month where we put on bands and D.J's who don't suck and then we all shamble about in a kind of Shoreditch Albion-it's kinda like a bangin' warehouse party without the chavs, dogs, and pregnant fairies selling Ketamine)
The Clowns came over from Switzerland to play our party.
When I was walking round the corner in to Club Cool there were a group of teens passing round 2-lire bottles of "7up," there was a dead-looking guy slumped in a doorway, trying to be revived by his friends, and a que thirty-people deep trying to get in to the party. I knew it was going to be a good Club Cool at this point.
I got there in time to see DEAD KIDS, the most intense band I know right now. The singer is wildly unhinged and there's a fantastic punk rock aggression in their music. Easily one of the best bands I've seen this year. I was twitchy when watching them 'cos I drunk a pint of coffee just before they started as I thought we'd be on soon. When they ended there was the usual mad rush to tune up, get dressed and setup (we always worry the council will shut us down at any point in the night). The coffee meant I really, really, needed to pee. There's only really one toilet:
You know it's a big night if you have to throw your underwear away.

And the que was nine-people deep. I went to find somewhere out the front of the warehouse but it couldn't be opened as there was a a Dawn-Of-The-Dead style Zombie crowd banging on the door to get in. (Awesome)

The rest of the band were onstage, and I was already thinking how much it's gonna suck if I wet myself while wearing tights and hotpants. Luckily we have a kinda Roadie guy who helps everything run smooth. I had to call on him in my hour of pee-need:
"Nathan, I'm gonna need you to make sure no-one comes in to the backstage area while I pee in to this bottle. I'm...sorry"
It was like that scene in Dumb and Dumber. I filled two bottles, it was like being in your tent at a festival. I didn't feel so glamorous anymore, but I sure felt like a million bucks waltzing on stage. No-one would ever know what I'd just been through!

Here's what the gig looked like:
As always, I don't really know how to describe them. Kind of an orgy at times, always a rock show? I don't know. I should probably spend more time talking about them in my blogs as they're quite important, but the only thing that strikes me about this gig was how many guys there were in the audience-
it was like a raging football crowd. They all seemed to know our last AA-side single, and sang "Take It Off" and "Set Me Free" which was amazing when they sung louder than the P.A, but for me I couldn't help but think how tuneless they were at times. (haha) I think we needed more girls in there to balance out the harmonies.
This picture makes it look a bit more female, actually.

After the gig, the most amazing thing happened. I was sitting on the top of the stairs getting re-dressed when I realised that virtually the entire venue had emptied after we'd finished our set. I'm never sure if they're here for the party or us, but there was a big fat hole on the dancefloor and everyone leaving which made me feel awesome. Then this girl came up to me and opened with: "I can't believe what those girls do in your band. Stripping, I mean. It's so demeaning" I was kinda stunned, I gave a kinda lame answer: "They're all over 16. They all know who they are, I think. They all..enjoy it?" and we went back and forth, she seemed to think it was all my idea and I was to blame for having them there. Two minutes later we were making out so I guess she wasn't too mad.

As everyone was leaving there was a girl K-ed out of her mind in the doorway. No-one knew what to do, everyone else was gone. Eventually someone rang her parents (!), opening with the classic "Your daughter's still alive, but not breathing very much" there was a huge ripple of laughterfrom us at this accidental lack of tact. I'm not sure how this situation was resolved, as I left to start another game of getting the night bus(es) home. I have to change buses in Tottenham Court Road, and a woman stumbled out of a purple nightclub and vomited literally at my feet. Totally, totally, not cool.

(all pictures (c) Alan Davies & Wade Fletcher)

Thursday 10th & Saturday 12th: Two gigs that weren't as good as the one before.

2009-09-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

This was the last gig we played:
A nice spacious raised stage with a barrier.
Lots of room for doing jumps off amp stacks. I get mad air!

And this was the one we played on Wednesday at Punk:
My head could touch the ceiling when I stod on Chaz's tiny amp.

In keeping with my last blog where I said I'd report truthfully on every aspect of this band's life (i.e. not just the high points) here are two gigs which couldn't be more different from Saturday. Sure, we ate coal and shat diamonds at SEOne as we swanned around like the stars we've always thought we were in our heads, but gigs like these keep us grounded:

Thursday 17th: Why we should never leave Shoreditch

About once a month we creep out of Shoreditch and play a gig in West or Central London. Not surprisingly, these gigs aren't the best we do. I actually winced when I got there at midnight to be told our stagetime was actually 1a.m. I know we're meant to be a party band but on a wednesday night, that's madness. All we're really banking on as we started our set with "Trouser Arouser" is curiosity from the Shirtboys and Skirtgirls drinking their special offer £3 Kronenbourg beers. All I'm playing for is the two hot foreign chicks in the front row who seem kinda superimposed into the situation, accidentally breathing life in to my playing. Chaz announces "I'm gonna play my guitar now, who wants to hear my guitar?" and one of the girls storms the stage and shrieks "I want to hear bass!" and I look her dead in the eye and play some James Brown licks between songs. Slea-zee. While Ed, Jason, and Chaz play the intro to "Polly's Theme," one of the girls appears on my stage right and seems to say "can me and my friend go to your dressing room with you?" unsure of what she just said, I ask "can we..talk about this after the show?" and she wanders off. I play the song and then they are gone. Weird.
Ashley was complaining all her clothes were dirty.
I told her she shouldn't get undressed in the crowd.
She replied: "I know, but Chaz told me too." haha!

Against all odds Chaz has somehow made the gig a party by the end, and though it's 2a.m. and I'm waiting for the arduos N14 Nightbus home (as I sat down, my bass hit a crazy guy in the head and he had to bite in to this own hand to stop himself shouting at me) it felt like a good gig all the same, especially considering the holocaust that was about to follow on:

Saturday 12th: It's more fun to write about nights like this then it is to experience them

When you're first playing in a band, there's a tendency to say YES to every gig you're offered, but we're now (just about) at the level where virtually every gig is pretty good. Of course, sometimes we make errors. We played a gig at The Grove Tavern, I think it was called, in Bethnal Green. When I got there a bouncer was refusing a feisty woman re-entry after she threw a bottle of water in his face. She was not pleased with this decision and was making her case as I tried to squeeze past in to the "venue."
It's funny how everyone says they love East London and how much atmosphere it has when all they really mean is how good the parties & people are at the Old Blue Last/Catch/last Days Of Decadence/Brick Lane/Central Shoreditch. This venue was "real" East London. No-one in the crowd was under 30, there were way more adults than I was used to, the toilets had more graffiti then a skatepark, there were divorcees necking in the corner, and the stage was a patch on the floor smaller than my bedroom. Anyone who says they like "Partying in East" has never, ever, been here. This was the sort of gig I used to play with my old hardcore band. I feel a bit old for this stuff now. It was one of those gigs where very early, me and Ashley split the vodka I had snuk in in my bass bag. We got to watch Nova though, they're awesome.
The time was getting later and later and we were aware live bands couldn't play past 1a.m. At one point Chaz told me it's not worth playing-there was no way I was coming all this way to not play; While we changed over, there was a nerdy bearded old guy (he looked like the Fleet Foxes singer) reading a story from a book (Real arty and east london, of course) so to add tension I turned on my amp and played an ascending scale on my E-string while he talked. He stopped for a split-second, screamed "FUCK this!" and threw the wireless mic at me, smashing into a million little pieces at my feet. In retrospect I can see why he was angry, but I was just trying to add tension, no?
We started playing at 12.35, and had disastrously decided to open with the song we normally close with, so we wasted even more time jamming when we should've really been playing songs. Chaz asked, twice, if they could turn off the lights around the bar while we played. They stayed on. When "Kids on K" kicked in, Chaz leaped up and smashed a bulb clean out with the microphone. It made a really cool smashing sound. We sang a verse then Chaz went to get the next light along when he was bear-hugged by some random guy with a beard. They wrestled for a while, Chaz eventually breaking free, unscrewing the bulb and throwing it for the guy to catch. The guy started playing "hot potatoes" with it as it was burning his hands. Comical, tragic. I think he tried to wrestle Chaz again but he pushed or punched (I couldn't see) him away and yelled "get that guy out of here." Is that the spirit of rock n' roll? I have no idea. Chaz goes to get another light and they magically all turn off...however they cut Chaz's mic as "Semen" started so I had to sing the first verse. I was unprepared so kinda sounded like a schoolboy Frank Sinatra. Awful. Then they cut my bass. Then the guitars, and a lonely-sounding Ed eventually stopped drumming. We had literally been cut off mid-set. Unsure of what to do, I head to the bar. The barmaid smiles nervously and tells me: "I'm afraid we can't serve anyone in your band until your singer leaves the venue." Great.

NEXT: CLUB COOL "BLING" PARTY

(1st 2 photos (C) Alan Davies)

September 5th: They gave us an adult gig, and we were more immature than ever.

2009-09-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Vinny. I play bass and sometimes sing in "The Coolness." This blog is about some of the things I have seen and experienced while playing in this band. I'll usually update at least once a week, or more. This blog isn't going to be a traditional "great show last night, thanks to everyone who turned up! Single coming soon!" and sometimes won't even be about the band at all, but my viewing it through my fairly fresh (I've only been in the band six months) eyes, you’ll see I'm still as bewildered as you will be reading this about some of the things that happen on here. And hopefully get a better idea of what it’s like to be part of this thing.

Last night we played out biggest ever show at SEOne in London Bridge. These people at Butterfly Knights who seem to have a lot of money make these amazing backdrops and create strange new worlds. The "Fashion Show" room had one of those teacup fairground rides instead of a fashion runway-brilliant, decadent nonsense! The Backstage area was HUGE, with models and makeup artists shouting and crouched around lightbulb-boredered mirrors, 2 bars, and girls dressed as Butterflies carrying drinks around, flirting just enough to make everyone feel important.

I turned up, as I always do, 15 minutes before we were due to play, so I can hit the ground running. This backfired today as I had no time to eat anything from our backstage buffet (awesome!) before it was time for costume and showtime. And I already hadn't eaten all day (I know only secretaries and schoolgirls use that line, but in this case it was true) so sure enough each drink would multiply by 3 after the show, more on that later.

It's hard to describe the show as it's kind of a unique experience for everyone involved. After a professional soundcheck, our Tesco-electro Aerosmith riffs sound as if God himself was puffing away on a fag and mixing us down at the sound-desk. Of course, when the gig started, God may have gone next door to watch the modelling show on the teacups as it had reverted to the typical Coolness Wall-Of-Sound. Wedged up in the huge room were hundreds of thirtysomethings, "professionals?" media types, sure, I saw more than one mouth "oh my god" in reaction to something or other we were doing. I ask the crowd if they're having fun "out there," they scream, and I reply: "...cause backstage it's naked models doing coke and having sex. It's great back here" People laugh (I think?) and one guy shouts something, annoyed, but I just grin and start playing "Work and Pleasure." They tell us to be extremely careful not to run over time. Ten minutes in to our jam outro (which started five minutes after our set was due to finish) Chaz is on his keyboard playing a guitar solo, Ashley is hop scotching and singing like Beyonce at an 80's disco, and Kendall is laying on her back while I kneel between her legs and play bass riffs in to her vagina, while she moans masturbatory grunts in to the microphone, like Jenna Jameson at Christmas. When we leave the stage three techs are having to sponge up all the sweat and water and mess we left on the stage, I thought "no band could follow that! fuck!"

"Our" backstage room was directly behind stage, and roadies are delivering crates of Kronenbourg for us and our entourage (awesome). Roisin Murphy wanders in and is met by the band equivalent of animal house at a Frat Party:
Chaz, Me, Jason, Ed (musicians) Kendall, Ashley, Andrea (dancers/backing singers), Bert (overworked, underappreciated manager) Nikolai (Sound Engineer, black top-hatted bringer of naughty things), Alan (photographer)-all of us screaming and swearing with the arrogance of youth like the proverbial Kids On K that we are. As Roisin enters, she sees the dancers in various states of undress...

including Kendall still basically only in her knickers and tit-tape with me sitting on her lap grinning back at the headline act.
Chaz is only in his y-fronts, repeating: "guys, I haven't brought a tshirt, what am i gonna wear?"

There's a milisecond of bemusement all around before someone shouts "get her a beer!" and Bert chips in: "Roisin, have a beer and join the orgy!" I reach down between me and Kendall's legs to get one and Roisin kinda half laughs and moves out of the strange room. Someone says: "Bert, what were you doing, man? She's 6 months pregnant!" It was bad enough when Chaz asked I the crowd were looking forward to “Razor” Murphy, while she was stood not ten feet in front of us in the crowd.

Our crate was soon finished and I was alternating between moaning that I’d lost two parts of my amp and being wayy too fucked to try and stand up, or to find them. Then they brought in another crate for us and now I’m having to revert to those flashes of memory that peak in and out of a timeless night. I bumped in to one of my friends who was dressing the models while I was carrying four (!) beers across the room. The fridge was full, but old habits die hard, eh? I remember her calling my name, replying: “What are you doing here!” then having to take another five steps towards her before my eyes could focus and I could work out who she was. She unwisely introduced me to her friends and I unwisely told them a story I’d heard about Kate Moss. Turns out there’s some sort of unspoken code amongst models about idle gossip, and they gave me that look I’ve seen so many times-from ex-girlfriends, teachers, parents, etc. Awful. Even as I made my excuses to get back to our own backstage area, I could tell one of them would already be asking my friend: “who the fuck was that guy?!”

The beers suddenly ran out, as the backstage area became full of butterfly girls, Burlesque Dancers, and those older guys in Leather Jackets everyone hates at gigs. Dangerously, they were replaced by three or four bottles of Absolut Vodka. My problem with Vodka is that I still mix it the way I did when I was 16, normally about half vodka, half mixer. I stumbled out in to the main arena for the first time that night and Kindle was onstage! I’d completely forgotten he was playing. People were sitting in the teacups watching. It was the first gig I’d ever had a backstage area so after his set I went back to drink the colours of it some more. It felt kind of “real,” like we were playing a grown-up gig. Of course, we acted like ADHD teenagers the whole night.

NEXT WEEK: Gigs at Punk, An Art Show, and CLUB COOL “Bling Party.”