Safe Water

Had a great charity gig last night. Thanks to all who came to fill up La Raza in Cambridge, where we were too loud for the first time in history! Also thanks to the great music being played by The Epstein - check their take on country music out at http://www.theepstein.com/. Will post the funds raised from the gig up sometime soon!

Goat Herders

For people taking care of goats in the audience Karmadillo.com may have something you need!

Halloween Fun!

We had a splendid Halloween party - The Cricketers was packed to the rafters and it has to have been one of the nicest gigs we've played. Thanks to Martin, Audrey and all the staff there for having us on, and all the lovely folk who came along! You can see the full photo on our front page for now, will have an album up shortly!

Special Halloween download

Hey guys - here is a link to a new Halloween special for a zombie song....

Another radio appearance tomorrow

Hey folks I will be doing a 209radio appearance on 105FM around Cambridge tomorrow at around 11pm. Tune in for random fun!

There will also be collection boxes for the station at the Halloween gig!

Daniel, play

Looks like the excellent Daniel Flay is doing a set at our Halloween gig at the Cricketers. It'll be an even better night than it was before!

209radio appearance

Our appearance on the local show show is now up at
http://209radio.co.uk/shows/profile.php?show=livezone

We were the first band being interviewed about 20 minutes in...we had fun doing it, and hope you have fun listening! Thanks to Jordan C for having us on.

Concern for my well-being!

Very kindly someone (a complete stranger) has written a comment about the Miranda July video I did a couple of months back, asking that I hang in there. Very touched by that!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NmrCaEtie70

Scary things afoot

Things are looking, if not good, but rotting flesh like at the moment. After Rishi's 5 seconds of fame on the big screen showing of Feature at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse as part of the film festival shenannigans, it looks like there may be a Karmadillo contribution to another zombie film being filmed in the Cambridge area. This may be the start of a whole career speciality!

Grassroots 08

Came back from a wicked Grassroots last weekend, which in spite of being incredibly wet was great fun thanks to the good music and John Litchfields policy of forcing anyone he had a conversation with to down a shot of tequila.

We met lots of great people at the Festival and our thanks first and foremost go to Benny for doing sound for us. The Folkwit Record crowd were also great to meet. Musically, my fave find were The Surgons, but there was so much good stuff on. On the Troubadour Stage there was everything from the esoterically happy Rebecca Clamp to Irene Rae's beautiful tunes.

On the Freedom stage, Opaque ruled as ever, and the (last ever?) performance of Point of Origin was great to catch as well. At least we can stop being put opposite them on schedules at Peterborough based events now! The Winter Kings also had a great set played to a largely empty lunchtime audience, but that didn't stop them rocking out!

Photos here, but none of us playing, alas.

The Sound of Drums at Twinstock

So Thursday saw the new look Karmadillo headline Twinstock.

The supports were a mixture of local musicians, regulars and even bar staff entertaining for a few songs. Emmanuel had the audience peeling with his expletive laden opener and the aborted attempts at Totos Africa. Georgie won over the 80s metallers in the audience with her stab at Heart (pun intended). Rob W Jackson as ever performed a fun little solo set, even getting some avant garde dancing to the Spiderman/Batman amalgamation in SpiderBat.

The set we played was four songs long, opening with When The Sun Comes Up, closing with Pornstars, and these being bread to the sandwich fillings of Noone Else and Heart of Glass. Probably some things for us to think about in terms of the onstage sound, but the audience feedback was that the drums really worked...helped by Jules playing great in her first time on stage with us.

Good things are sure to follow, not just for us but also for Ciaron, Ellie and the new additions - Cillian and Louie. Good luck guys.

TWINFEST

We are playing a fundraising gig at Twinfest for the local barman who has just had twins! Thats August 28th - next week!

End of month gig CANCELLED

The date we did have down as the first gig date with the new drummer has been cancelled due to the venue shutting down! We will now be doing it at The Bath Ale House in the centre of Cambridge, on September 11th.

Miranda July Video

A new song and video have just been posted. The whole thing has been a quickly written and recorded affair - both song and video were done in a month. I was looking for a completed song to go with a verse that I'd come up with, but once I'd had the website for a book written by the director of a film I liked pointed out to me the rest just fell into place.

It probably won't make the setlist in the short term, but here it is for your delectation.

3 Signs

So today I have been clearing out my room. Amongst the many artifacts found was a sprial bound notepad that I used to use in the days of presenting shows on the short-lived Cambridge Cafe Radio.

What really intrigues me about this is the fact that on the right hand side of one of these pages is a list headed '3 signs'.

Item one is: I'm not stressed + 1.5

Fair enough I could have been doing a list of mantras for some self-affirmation technique or something. Though only saying half of it the second time round leads to it reading 'I'm not' which has not connotations in the world of being positive.

Item two: Spagetti.

Which could be on a shopping list, but doesn't go with anything else in this collection. Still food can have feel good about the self qualities. The third item on the list cannot have this vibe though.

Item Three: running into walls.

Now there is no way this fits in the world of self-affirmation and positive belief techniques, unless you study Karate. And I don't, and even then would not have anything to do this as a passtime.

Alan Carrn't

So we have played at the Bishop Stortfords excellent Acoustic Club a couple of times. One of the guys there killed himself a few weeks ago, and I kind of have this poem floating round in my system thats just jumped onto the screen. Its not a polished piece of work, and it may never be finished, but as it stands its Alans funeral tomorrow (well today for those who do this thing by hour as opposed to sleep patterns), so here are the words:
--
He couldn't play the drums no more
The hands couldn't do it right
But it was more than his body
That was left paralysed.

The rhythm taken away
More than cells that died
Couldn't stick it out
Hello suicide

He didn't drink.
He didn't smoke.
But thats no protection.
Against a stroke.

Bad things
Bad things
Bad things
can happen to
Good folk.

Thomas Truax magical man!

Just come back from an evening supporting Thomas Truax and Um. I've been really, really blown away by the headline act tonight - Thomas Truax is a fantastic stage show. With an array of homespun archaic instruments but creating beautiful moving works of sonic art at the same time, the man earns my respect.

I haven't felt so inspired to explore new ways of creating music by an act I've seen for a long, long time.

Unfortunately one of these ideas involves a vibrator!

iTunes Link

Link to the iTunes store!

Cafe Notes

So I sit here listening to some Cuban samba vibes in a cafe in Cambridge. The large window offers a life size view of the bus stop and the troupe of people waiting to be taken through the centre of town and then whatever destination lies beyond.

And what lies beyond for Karmadillo? We get a test with our drummer the week after Strawberry Fair - this will lead to playing bigger venues and and even better vibe with playing live. We wait. We wait.

Gigs ahoy

OK - so right after announcing we were going to have a quiet summer we end up playing Strawberry Fair, Bishop Stortford and the Portland Arms in Cambridge. It looks like there will be a load of other festivals happening over the summer as well.

The Portland Arms one is supporting the wonderfully eccentric Thomas Truax - he plays the fantastic home grown constructions that are the Sister Spinster and the Hornicator.

Back Message Video is a David Icke Tribute?!

So I've just put up the video for a song made right on the outskirts of Las Vegas. The song is Back Message which was one recorded as part of the RPM challenge earlier on this year.

As you can tell from the clear blue sky it was done during the Vegas rainy season (4 inches of rain in the month!). Click here to view it.

The interesting thing for me is the supposedly contextually sensitive google ads. The ads look at what is written on the page and serve up ads according to what Google thinks is relevant. Don't know what Google were up to here though, as apparently the song inspires the spirit of David Icke (see the bottom ad).

If you don't know who David Icke is, he was once a goalkeeper. He moved on to better things as a leading spokesperson for the Green Party back in the days when governments didn't even pretend to care about global warming and so they weren't taken seriously, and helped them be listened to. He then went off on one and proclaimed himself the Son of God and a modern day Jesus Christ, helping ensure the Green Party were not taken seriously. He now is an author whose journalistic aim is to expose the reptilian bloodline that rules the world. Yes folks, we are apparently all ruled by giant lizards. Maybe thats why Bush and Blair invaded Iraq - they needed somewhere warm to get their circulation going. Those two are quite definitely cold-blooded creatures after all.

Death of a Cavalier

The not-so-trusty-and-a-little-bit-rusty Vauxhall Cavalier that has carted us off to many a gig around the country finally packed it in and called it a day whilst we were out touring the US. I don't use the car much and was contemplating scrapping it as opposed to forking out for repairs that may may keep it going until its MOT is due in November. However this MOT has been promised to be a lots-of-welding costs one so financially I've been umming and aaahhing about it.

The deciding factor though was the Northern tour - the cost of the car we hired was recouped by the amount of petrol saved by having a car that had a smaller engine, was more fuel efficient and a better CD player over just a weekend.

So its goodbye to the Cavalier attitude from me.

Heart of Glass Video page up

Here is the first dedicated video page - up and running.

Oop North

Well its been a busy week since the return from the US - four gigs in the ten days after touchdown. And now come two Northern appearances - one in York, one in Manchester. Check the gigs page for more details.

RPM Chicago Listening Party

Thanks to Josh for playing us at the RPM Challenge listening party organised in Chicago at the Perfect Cup coffee house last week. Sorry I couldn't be there to meet the rest of the crowd as well!

Goodbye US of A

Time for just one more snowstorm to look at out the window as we head back to the the UK. So, representing Karmadillo I've played in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Chicago, and although we didn't manage to organise any full on gigs in Las Vegas there was a decent nights karaoke and video footage shot for a couple of songs. I guess on the video front there is the Heart of Glass video that was shot too.

Many thanks to the people who helped - firstly Brian in Chicago. For the music in San Francisco there the Hotel Utah and Black Voodoo Lounge Club to thank, Dave from the Furious Sleep, Kelly from the Besties and Chris from Fontana's get kudos for Manhatten fun and frolics. Also in Chicago the folks at Kaffeine and the Hearltand Cafe and in Boston the thanks must go out to Beth, Sridhar and the Acoustic Club on Harvard Square for making my stay there so hospitable.

First RPM works up!

Here is the link to our RPM page - the first demo is up there. Also uploaded a video to there - a kind of doucmentary thing.

The songs have been written and mostly recorded (bar one of them anyway). Plans to send them back and get basslines put on them by James have been stifled by the fact I've been a bit rubbish and didn't tell James about it! 11 more days to go!

RPM Music Challenge

I also signed up to the RPM music challenge which gets bands to write, record and submit an album within the month of February. I never know if I spell that month write. Anyway - I've decided decided to call it 'An American Ode E C' and write songs about people and situations I find whilst over here. Fingers crossed it all works out!

State of the Nation

So the US trip has been going well so far.

The open mic in San Francisco was great apart from the fact that just as I was about to start someone told me to hold on for a second as the news had a breaking story about a man wielding a gun running round the streets. 'Thats only half a block from here!' someone else exclaimed. Great - its bad enough having stage fright. Luckily it turned out he was only carrying a knife.

After the open mic set the guys at the Black Voodoo Lounge Club then very kindly asked me to do a fuller set as I was only go to be there the once and the other performers were accomadating as well - thanks a lot guys! I especially loved the esoteric Chicken Cat.

The night after at the Hotel Utah was great as between 50 and 100 people showed up - this night is quite popular. The mad women behind the B-cups were the stand out from the other acts.

The New York gig was a bit of a downer as the gig got booked on the same day as the NFL final which the non sports loving promoter hadn't realised was on. Given the NY Giants were playing the other bands all pulled out so there was just me and one other guy on stage playing that night. Afterwards I got to see then end of what was a pretty good game that I got caught up in. Its the first time I've started to appreciate the sport!

OK so everything

Heart of Glass on video

A new charango!

So first stop in the US was to pick the charango that I'll be playing this side of the pond. Andys Music Store in Chicago was a pretty special kind of world music store. I'll put up a full gallery of all the stuff I saw out there, but before that here is a piccy of the old fashioned armadillo one I found.

Although I'd been after an eletric one, the ones I tried weren't as nice sounding as the double necked one I had got off them two years ago, so went with another acoustic jobby. Now to take away its concert virginity!