The British Band blog

Day 27: Gone Crazy

2009-07-24T16:51:00.000-04:00

so the monkey apparition was merely the beginning of going crazy. i nearly drove off a cliff on purpose on the pacific coastal highway...strange feeling. and then went crazy upon reaching santa cruz, a beach town south of san fran.

we seem to be spending even more money now, thinking of setting up a new online business, www.moneyspendingexpert.com - we have lots of material for this, for instance, "instead of self parking in an expensive hotel, why not go for the full valet service, increasing your spend level for the day by $30"

this may not be funny for anyone else, but we're giigling like little school boys here. fyi, still crazy.

New Mexican Monkeys

2009-07-20T21:08:00.000-04:00

The drive from Austin to Albuquerque was quite long. Set off at 4pm - arrived at 6am. At about 5am, with Dex driving and me looking out for Deer grazing by the side of the road (as you do) I happened to encounter a rare breed of New Mexican monkey. The legitimacy of that statement has been challenged several times over the past four days. Look at the link and decide for yourself whether or not I hallucinated:

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/albuquerque2.htm

Las Vegas was ridiculous. Preparing for gig in Hollywood tonight with a few beers. Fun.

Day something: Austin has no towels

2009-07-16T12:39:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the brief lapse in updates. Lots and lots and lots of driving has restricted internet access. We have to do Miami to Las Vegas in 5 days... about 2000 miles... and we have run out of things to talk to each-other about.

It is a well known fact that the women are ridiculously hot in Miami - but it still doesn't prepare you for how ridiculously hot they are. Gig was great - Roxanne at The Transit Lounge is a legend.

New Orleans - brilliant Jazz, massive thunderstorm.

What kind of town doesn't sell towels? Apart from that Austin has been amazing. Texan crowd were suprisingly up for hearing British acoustic indie music... but then they do say Austin is completely different from the rest of Texas...

Las Vegas for 4th July baby!!

Day 12: Hot, so Hot

2009-07-10T14:47:00.000-04:00

We're all sunburned now. Miami is exactly what you'd expect, but without Eddie Murphy ruining the view.

The Transit Lounge gig was downtown in a bar for city workers and was the best crowd yet... approaching 20!

Someone came up to us when we got back to the hostel saying they recognized us from the website. They had seen the posters and came to see us but turned up too late. I believe that's fan #2.

Day 8: monday

2009-07-06T13:52:00.000-04:00

Mondays are better in America. We're in Savannah, Georgia following a mammoth overnight postgig drive from dc. Savannah is a beach haven... hows work?

The Washington gig was in a scary neighbourhood in the northwest quadrant. We survived though. next gig - Miami!

Day 5: long beach is rubbish

2009-07-03T18:05:00.000-04:00

New York gig was amazing, great sound, appreciative crowd and a brilliant cardigan.

We filmed a short video of She's Got Game:

Dexter was good on the postshow interview again, as were the two large breasted, over enthusiastic groupies.

Long beach is rubbish.

Day 4: New York Gig @ Kenny's Castaways

2009-07-01T17:53:00.000-04:00

Boston gig went well, what a buzz! yesterday we made our way down to New York and got acquainted with the city - another late night jamming on the roof top amongst the high sky-rise buildings of greenwich village

Gig no.2 is just 2 hours away and it feels very surreal to be close to playing on bleecker street in New York - can't wait!

Day 2: Inaugural 'The British' gig

2009-06-29T21:18:00.000-04:00

A few sore heads today as yesterday involved a lot of drinking, karaoke (to warm up the vocal chords!) and a late night - but we've got through the day and are 3 hours away from the inaugural gig for The British.

Again, it hasn't gone without a hitch (Simon again the culprit), as the keyboard nearly failed us today - damned Americans have a different power supply to us.

Last practice a few hours ago, it's time for the real thing... wish us luck!

Day 0: Immigration

2009-06-28T13:34:00.000-04:00

So we've arrived in Boston, but not without incident. Louis and Dexter arrived fine, Simon was held at immigration for over an hour and a half after severe interrogation from homeland security. After insisting that he wasn't getting paid by the music venues even though he was spending a lot of time and money on the tour, the response he got was "who would do that, especially during the recession?"

FAME!

2009-06-25T04:23:00.000-04:00

well not quite...

But wow! We never thought we would actually get our track played on the biggest radio station in the world! - by the way, now that they're on to us, we've been told we're not allowed to use their name on this site in the US, but you all know who they are.

Thanks so much for your comments, Mr O'Connell and everyone else on this site. They mean a lot to us.

More to come soon i'm sure...

New Tracks for the tour!

2009-06-23T14:19:00.000-04:00

We have added our most recent tracks to this site. Take a listen!

A big thanks to Darren Chin-Yue for your outstanding work on the recordings and also to Bonafide Studios.

We'll be playing all three of these in acoustic form on the tour. Just got to make sure we can play them well.. hmmm.

Bye for now!

2 weeks and counting!

2009-06-16T14:40:00.000-04:00

So.. if you are viewing this, you have somehow heard about this tour! excellent. Not long to go now.

It's pretty scary what we are doing, but loads of people have done it before, so why not do it ourselves, right?

We are The British.

We aim to keep this blog up-to-date with all our experiences on this US tour, including pictures and videos of our exploits (whether they are good or embarrassing).

All comments are welcome here, as we have allowed anyone to do so, although obviously we will only accept comments with the highest level of praise. Obviously.

Take care,

Si.