Barney's Blog

Sonic Boom Six - For The Kids Of The Multiculture (HD Promo)

2011-10-04T03:42:00.000-07:00

I still don't know when it's gonna be out... but it's good!

2011-09-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Hello!

It's taken someone to remind me that it's been months since I've done a blog to even realise it wasn't a week ago. The last few months have gone by so fast, I think it's really a symptom of having the main thing you do in your life preparing for the release of something that's going to happen in the future. Every day you're looking forward to what's going to happen tomorrow that sometimes you forget to think about today. And it's important to think about today!

Anyway, the vast majority of questions we've been having recently have been about the new album, what direction it's going in, when it's coming out etc.

I'll let everyone know where we are now. First of all, the album is 99% finished and it's going to be out next year at some point. At the moment, we're actually speaking to different labels and people and have just signed to a new management deal (which you can read about HERE) and we're deciding what to do with ourselves. Because we had the line-up change back at the start of 2010, we really wanted to take the time to make an album that was going to re-establish what Sonic Boom Six was rather than hurry out a continuation of what we'd done before. I think we went the right route, because the album, coupled with a spell of festivals over the summer where we debuted the new material, have certainly been met with a lot of enthusiasm by those that have heard it. There's lots of question marks going forward in terms of performing the new material live and how much old material we'll be doing too but it's good to have a challenge. Hopefully we'll see a lot of you on the October tour and we'll be playing a nice selection of new stuff with a nice amount of the ones you know and love in there too.

A lot of people have been asking are 'Sunny Side Of The Street' and 'New Style Rocka' going to be on the album. Never say never, but the plans are that the new album is a full, fresh set of songs, the first of which will be the single 'For The Kids Of The Multiculture' which will be available on October 10th and you can hear a few little previews from HERE.

One thing that's REALLY been drilled home to me over the last few singles is that you can't please all the people all the time. 'New Style Rocka' was met with enthusiasm from the majority of fans and was all good. 'Sunny Side' we expected more of a backlash (there was a bit of 'going mainstream' grumbling but not a huge amount) but we actually had kids and fans that hadn't been in touch for years telling us how much they dug it, as well as quite a bit of other stuff that was attracted by it. We love the song and the video but, to be honest, with what's being going on politically since the coalition got in power, our heads simply wasn't in the place to write songs that don't address what's going on around us more directly with more energy across a full album. There is a tune on the album called 'Flatline' which has a very interesting back-story and I can't wait for you guys to hear it. Remind me to tell you about it when it comes out.

There are a few questions in the mailbag, but it's all looking a little scant. Get on it people, barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk you know the drill. I'm not doing this Formspring thing, I'm staying on here like a Luddite.

Kev asks Coheed & Cambria, yay or nay?

I really don't know. I know that song that sounds like a girl singing when it comes on in clubs and it's nice enough. I saw them at Reading on the Lock-Up stage one year but I was so off my head on goofballs if you'd have struck a match I'd have burst into flames. I remember a man with an afro that was well good at guitar. You could be talking about Mungo Jerry. I have an album by them that is red and has a Roman Numeral four on the front and is still in it's cellophane wrap. That's as far as it goes. So yay nor nay really.

Anonymous asks When are you coming back to the States, mainly Florida?

We hope to get back over to the States next year. Our priority now is basically re-launching the band here in terms of having the new material and having the line-up and live show 100% representing our new stuff and sound before we come back over. But that should definitely be done in the early part of next year. We're always talking to people over there so we have plenty to do there... and plenty of burritos to eat. We will definitely be back to LA, New York, Boston and hopefully Florida, we promise!

Have you thought about putting your music in the video game Rock Band?

We've spoken to a content provider company about this over the last year and decided to wait for the new songs. I'm pleased to say we're currently sorting three songs from the new album to be downloadable content on Rock Band. That's definitely happening, 'For The Kids Of The Multiculture' will be up there first, as soon as we can make it happen.

Last question, are you going to release any more of your albums on vinyl?

Definitely, when there is the demand there. The great thing is we own the rights to the vast majority of our old material on a label level so once we get our feet on the ground with everything we'll be looking into re-issuing older albums in different formats and vinyl is one we're most fond of...

Lastly is this peach of a question from James Rodger Brown. And I promise, this is the full question your man James emailed me...

i can't remember if i have ordered sunnyside of the street and t shirt bundle?

Firstly James, grammatically that isn't a question, it's a statement. But I get what you mean. I'm afraid that I don't deal with the mail order side of things. You'll have to check your paypal or email the Boom shop. Thanks for the mail though mate, it's surely made a few people smile! :)

OK, that'll be that. I might have to start reviewing films on here or something because I need something other to talk about than where we are with the record. Mainly I'm still banging about on Twitter and Facebook to answer questions but if anyone needs some longer answers send some questions in yo!

Also, I did do a video blog when Mouthwash split up that you can see HERE if you haven't already checked it out.

Safe

Barney

I don't know what to leave you with so here's a picture of me and a dog.

Alright, I'm back! Hip-Hop, Record Labels and STOODUNTS!

2011-01-24T08:27:00.000-08:00

Hello fellow earthlings!

First of all, massive apologies for being away from the blog for so long! Basically, this period of inactivity started with me wanting more time to answer a couple of questions and then having to wait to do so and basically weeks slipped into months. But no longer! As of today I'm back on the blog and back on the questions…

So, what have we been up to then?! First of all, rest assured we've been mad busy. Unfortunately, the end of last year ended up being a bit of a damp squib what with Laila's chest infection and a few cancelled dates but I hope you guys enjoyed our new songs and the 'Addicted To Bass' cover. A few people have asked if that song a good indication of where The Boom is going with the new stuff we're writing and I'd have to say yes and no. Yes in the sense that there is a lot more going on in terms of loops and synths than we've done before but we won't be playing it quite as safe with it in terms of the song-writing as we got away with that particular cover version. We're really stretching things out at the moment and some of it feels pretty far out there... I'm doing more vocals than I ever have before. There is a lot of stuff with me rapping and Laila doing the chorus's which are really exciting for us all and certainly represent enough of a departure and progression from the way we've done things in the past that at times it does feel like a different project. It's challenging and exciting to find ways to actually sprinkle in some SB6 in terms of a bit of ska or rock or the kind of lyrical content that will be a bridge from our new stuff to our history. It's still a bit of a mystery to us how the kids that have got into us via a frantic moshpit song like say 'Blood For Oil' will take our steps towards a more dancefloor-orientated sound but we're going to be brave and bold with it. We've just finished about 10 demos and we feel we've nailed the new 'Boom' and are heading into the studio at the end of this month to record a new single. We'll keep you up to date with it from in there. Exciting times ahead!

Right then, I better get stuck into some of these questions... first, a question from James Pitt..

"Just wondered if you guys had ever considered any other side projects that take you on a different style to SB6, something like a dedicated hip-hop/dubstep/d'nb style thing?"

Personally, I've contemplated doing a proper hip-hop thing and was really dead set on it a few years ago but my interest in current hip-hop has, unfortunately, really waned. Maybe it's being immersed in it for so long but I find it a challenge to get worked up about current music. I recognise it's good but I don't always get excited about it like I did back in the day. Much as I loved early grime stuff I'd say that in particular I'm not especially feeling the electro-crossover-pop UK hip-hop thing at the moment because, for me, it strays too far from what I like most about hip-hop; the lyrical content, which, apart from the odd punchline or two, just isn't really that featured. I really like Proffessor Green at the moment and I've had a few listens to Devlin and Giggs and enjoyed Maverick Sabre's mixtape but apart from that there's not much UK stuff I've listened closely too since Braintax and Jehst etc yet I expect there's loads of great stuff out there. For us, it's finding the time and the energy. There is a lot of emcee-ing inside me that's dying to get out and to say that I'm doing more vocals on the new SB6 stuff than I've done before is an understatement. As I said above, in some respects it feels like whole new thing in which stuff I’ve only been able to express a smattering of before is well more featured so that's really satisfying my creative appetite. One thing I would say is that I'm always up for guesting or emceeing on other people's stuff so if anyone has anything please let me know...

Laila has been working on some tracks in a 80s electro style with a mutual friend of ours (the guy that did the 'While New Were Sleeping' remix on Play On) that sound great. I'm not sure exactly what the plans are there but it's good stuff. James is always tinkering about with remixes and tracks and is currently working with Mark that used to be the vocalist of Myth Of Unity and also a band from Wales called Miacca whose stuff would be well worth checking out for anyone into The King Blues or Dirty Revolution.
This one has come from quite a few of you but it's Dave Sharpe's I'll answer now.

"So my question is, what with seeing how tight knit the whole Rebel Alliance bands were (are?), I'm wondering why bands such as Random Hand and The Skints have left the label. I refuse to believe there's any bad blood, because why would anybody lie about that? Also, tying in with this, will there be any more Rebel Alliance signings in the future?"

Hey man, thanks for the question. This was a difficult one to answer because we're actually still dealing with things to be honest but as I did say I'd answer all questions in the blog, I'll give it a quick stab. There absolutely isn't any bad blood between us as a band and The Skints or Random Hand at all and, as intriguing as it may seem from the outside, it really is a case of this is boiling down to private business. Suffice to say, we found 2010 very difficult in terms of running the label and running the band, both financially and work-wise and as Rebel Alliance became bigger it got to be more work and require more finances. In terms of Rebel Alliance and it's output of bands other than SB6 in the future, we're going to take it one step at a time again and we're not going to feel too pressured to go this way or that or make any promises or statements that we can't keep. We certainly feel that what we were attempting to do with the label remains very important. A focal point like a label for bands and music in any scene is invaluable but with so many other challenges in terms of the music industry at the moment, just running SB6 is a task in itself right now. We thank everyone for their interest and support and wish those bands the best.

Stacey Jones in Devon asks "waht did you feel about the Student Tuition Fees debate? Do you think the protest action is right and works?'

Wow, that's a big gun. Well, me and Laila were actually discussing this in the van the other day before the full extent of the cuts and what was going on were revealed to the public (Laila's best mate is a Uni teacher and had told her some horror stories about what was happening in her department). Laila was very much of the opinion that not enough is done to encourage lesser privileged children to attend uni, or at least push them towards it. While I understand this viewpoint, I feel I need to be honest about my view on this and before hearing about the cuts I made the point that, in truth, I see the dilemma faced by the higher education institutes in terms funding and entry. And discussing tuition fees while completely ignoring this is simply not getting to grips with the issue. So many kids joined my uni course and dropped out which is a waste of time and money so pushing everyone towards university isn’t going to make anyone’s standard of living better. I think that the biggest challenge that is faced by the people running higher education is to engage and attract students that actually want to work hard and be there, which sounds obvious but, amongst the hoopla about fees and class (that a hell of a lot of people don't actually fully understand) it seems to rarely come up. Whether it's a working-class kid with a low level of education 'eased into' uni only to potter about for a bit and drop out or a middle-class 'gap yah' type having a 3-year party at daddy's expense they're both costing the education system if they aren't in it above the age of 18 for any reason other than to apply themselves to their course. That might sound a little stuffy but how else can you view further education in times where cuts are being made everywhere across the board? That's the problem with the myopic focus on fees and class and I feel that a lot of the coverage on the news doesn't always explore all the facets of the matter.

In principle, I'm totally and completely against raising the fees but I'd like to add the addendum that I acknowledge that more can be done in the area of money wastage in higher education. The obvious trouble with the raising of the finances it takes to get into uni is that it simply raises the stakes of debt and financial impact that the education will have in the life of a less-wealthy student to levels that may well prohibit them from attending. While for the wealthy it might be more of an impact on the wallet but it isn't life-changing. I believe it is a responsibility of the government and an adherence to the idea of a ‘United Kingdom’ to strive for the playing field of university-entry to be levelled. In my experience, there has certainly been no evidence that I've seen that someone from a wealthy background is any more likely to apply themselves in uni, many simply expect it, are expected to go and get that privilege without any consideration for what it entails. Financial inequality and class-based distinctions cause a huge amount of unfairness within the university system as a whole. So yeah, I think that university education should be accessible to all but I accept someone has to pay for it and I feel that does sometimes get ignored in hubbub.Ultimately, raising the fees is not the answer and that's the bottom line, especially when it exposes promises before the election as the blatant lies they were. What's that? What should we do about it?! I don’t know, but I know that while the government is spending the amounts that they do on military action overseas they should certainly be able to figure out how to tighten up higher education expenditure without turning universities into luxury consumer products for the highest bidder.

Anyway, as far as the protesting goes, I thought it was exciting and inspiring and heartening. I'm behind it 100% (maybe in that case 99%, the 1% for the guy that threw the fire extinguisher which compromised the credibility of the action somewhat in my opinion). I think that it's got the public standing up and looking at the problem at home in the way that a peaceful protest wouldn't. People argue that the violence compromises the message and a lot of the time I’m with that (smashing Burger King windows at a G8 summit in a ham-fisted jab at capitalism only harms the kid on minimum wage that has to clean that shit up) but in terms of something as palpable as education, people tend to be a little more magnanimous in their reaction to what’s going down. While it’s simple enough for the silent majority to sit there and caricature anti-capitalists as violent, loony, lefty wackos, it's another thing to say the same about such a culturally diverse and socially-accepted group as students. I think they shouted loud enough and expressed their anger in a constructive way and put across the disappointment a lot of people are feeling with the government's decisions at the moment.

Anyhoo, that's that for now, please keep the questions coming in a barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk. Best of wishes to Oli from the awesome Anti-Vigilante who is currently battling a serious illness and could do with all our support. Look out for our new single next month. Check out the bands Tree House Fire, Tyrannosaurus Alan and Clay Pigeon. I think that’s it!

Safe

Barney x

I'm well aware that I'm never going to be on the 'Cool List'.

2010-09-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well!

Sorry it's been so long. Life rolls along whether you're rolling with it or not... Salut to those that came over to the UK shows recently, we’ve really enjoyed pulling a lot of the old tunes out of the box and giving them a play with. We've been recording our version of 'Totally Addicted To Bass' with our old pal Christophe this weekend which has been great fun and the first time that we've actually recorded with James. I can't wait to hear it mixed actually. There are tons of dates coming up including France, India(!) and a European tour with Less Than Jake so we're certainly keeping ourselves busy. Anyway, enough of my yackin, let's get into those questions...

Tim Johnson asks…

Aite man! so, what was the story with Grimace?

The story of Grimace! OK, Grimace was a ska-punk band that lived from 1997 – 2001 and involved Laila, Neil and I and had our good friend Dave Kelly on guitar and a parade of different brass sections (Ben C ended up on sax in the final line-up) We started out when we were in our teens and friends at school and were playing funk-rock, ska, pop-punk stuff influenced by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, No Doubt etc. We were playing general band nights rather than punk nights but we started to get a few gigs at ska nights and with bands like Vodoo Glow Skulls and Spunge which introduced us to the ska and punk scene and really turned our heads. As we got into more

ska-punk like Dance Hall Crashers, Less Than Jake and Save Ferris we went more into a

sounding ska-punk thing. We had a couple of songs on some compilations like Know Your Skalphabet and Compunktion, from which the tune ‘Push You Back’ is probably our best tune. Laila actually sung a duet with Alex from [Spunge] on their second album after playing with those guys. Cos we’d just been rock kids who kind of fell into the ska and punk thing by mistake, we didn’t really come from a punk place so we had difficulty fitting in with the scene at the start and by the time we’d figured it out, we had become a bit burnt by it and felt very disillusioned (which is what ‘Play Inna Day’ was about). Musically, we’d discovered hardcore punk, reggae and drum n bass and I got really into hip-hop so Grimace quietly died a death. We were adding these elements into Grimace once Ben had joined and some of the stuff on the final Grimace demo ‘Demonstrate’ is re-recorded on the first SB6 EP. I think we needed to go out and figure out what we were then come back to the punk scene and do something different.

The rest of the story can be followed just by going and checking out the discography on the Sonic Boom Six site HERE! If enough people ask for it I'd be happy to upload the Grimace discography at some point.

Aaron Lohan asks (well, challenges!)

I've loved a lot of the support bands you've toured with but I
challenge you to take a hardcore band on tour, and if you do, which
hardcore band would you like to take on tour?

Hmmm, sorry to be ‘genre-dude’ but it depends on whether you mean hardcore-punk or hardcore hardcore. We did a tour with Chief in support in 2008 who are my favourite hardcore-punk band around. I think that hardcore-punk bands work really well alongside us and it’s great to play festivals with bands like Strike Anywhere and Paint It Black. We asked The Steal to come on tour a long time back and they couldn’t but one band I’ve really got my eye on at the moment is Our Time Down Here. Those guys supported us in Southampton and we leant our gang vocals to their album and we’d love to take them out one day if we could. You can hear them HERE.

If you mean more in the realms of ‘proper’ tough hardcore like Madball and Judge and stuff, I don’t know if that kind of band would be right for our crowd, much as I love it personally!

And finally, a couple off Kev H

Managing your own label between you guys, being all self-reliant, and constantly touring and merching, doing all that full time, if it's not in bad taste mentioning money, you guys must crunch alot of numbers?

Hell yeah. At the moment Neil actually does the accounting but the whole thing is very much run by us. The operation is divided into a division of labour. In theory, we divide like Voltron and we all do different things within the unit that divides the work into manageable chunks and makes sure that we’re all playing to our strengths towards a common goal. And all that. For instance, I'm shit at business and can't drive so I don't go near the money or the steering wheel but I write all the lyrics and lots of the music and Neil does the opposite so, in theory, we all meet in the middle somewhere... in theory. :)

Double Header! It seems this band you're in, more than any other I've ever seen, are totally open to talking to fans & wasting time listening to drunk people tell you they loved the first album. You've got all this vault stuff on your website and are the 2nd most prolific poster on your own forum, and are merch standing it at every gig... Why and how do you put up with it?

Well, I can only speak personally here but I think it’s basically to do with the whole idea of Sonic Boom Six, which was to be a punk band that embodies a lot of different ideas without trying to draw too much attention to that fact. I personally just think the ‘rock star’ mythos is out-dated, corny and narcissistic. I don't dig on that whole Motley Cru thing in terms of that kind of hokey rock-star image, even when people do it ironically. I remember being totally bummed out meeting Red Hot Chili Peppers outside their gig back in 1995 and I’d made a birthday card for Flea and he basically just pushed past and knocked it on the ground. And this is someone who always likes to go on about how punk he is. I tried to give it to his security but they all just shoved past. Who knows whether he got it. Whereas, not long before that year, at the same venue Pantera had come out and hung with the kids and Dimebag was a proper nice bloke and that meant a lot to us.
I don’t see that remaining aloof brings any mystique or air of mystery to a band in this day and age. I like to interact with our fans because being pragmatic and down-to-earth was definitely always an aspect of what SB6 was about. Pricking the bubble of ‘the cool’, which is generally just something that reminds me of 6^th Form common rooms. Like the ‘cool list’. Something journalists write about for kids to read that need to re-affirm their coolness by liking something that a magazine that they sell in Asda tells them is cool. I’m not losing any sleep over it but it’s total bobbins isn’t it? Fuck it. Act like a nice bloke that you’d like to hang out with, not ‘cool’.

As Babar Luck so consistently points out, it's nice to be nice.

Rightio, I'm aware there are another few questions on another specific subject but they'll have to wait until we've got all our ducks in a row to be able to speak about the thing they're asking about! As ever, keep those questions coming in to barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk
I'm off to see Inception in a bit. I like Leo DiCaprio but Christopher Nolan's Batman films - apart from the odd flash of brilliance - haven't been for me. It remains to be seen what I think about a film that he isn't making about a character that I'm irrationally demanding about. I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised!

Barney x

Questions that demand answers!

2010-07-09T04:33:00.000-07:00

Alright then.

All is as busy as ever in the land of the Boom. We're currently getting ready and rehearsing the set for the new tour, dusting off some old classics and spring-cleaning the tried and tested. We're gonna have sax on as many of the dates as we can manage and we're raring to go. Come and check out the dates HERE and grab a ticket if you haven't already. These could well be the last UK dates of 2010.
So, I've had a nice little mailbag over the last few weeks, time to get through some of these here questions!

First, I've got a few from Joshua Parker...

"I saw on your MySpace page, on the animated banner advertising City Of Thieves that it "includes the singles The Concrete We're Trapped Within (It's Yours), Back 2 Skool and Strange Transformations". Does that mean at some point you guys will be releasing Strange Transformations as a single?"

Hey Joshua. There was a plan to do that and make an elaborate video but unfortunately the timing/plans/budget simply didn't allow it at the end of last year. It would have been really cool to follow up 'Concrete' and 'Back 2 Skool' with it but, alas, it was not to be. We may well make a video for another tune from 'City Of Thieves' but it would be unlikely to be 'Strange Transformations' as I think only a really ambitious video could do that tune justice. We're going to be releasing the 'Rude Awakening' compilation on CD in France and Germany so we're thinking about doing a video for one of the tunes on there.

Also, in regards to your new sound, with the introduction of Jimmy T Boom and synths, will it be going the same sort of way that "Charge!!" was for The Aquabats, dropping the brass section or will it integrate both? I have a small idea after seeing you last at the Camden Barfly, playing "Bandito" and "Shockwave"?

This is a funny one because it was the plan to move in that direction with absolutely no brass but after playing with Robin from Random Hand at Slam Dunk and our sax player Alex in France we decided that we really loved having brass in there. We're actually rehearsing with a sax player this coming week (Dave from Kid's Can't Fly) who will be playing with us on a lot of the dates on our forthcoming UK tour and on the gigs that The Hostiles are playing with us, Lynsey will be helping us out. Our ideas change everyday but me and James have been speaking a lot about the new stuff incorporating a cross between heavy rock and ska with drum n bass and dubstep while using a lot of very minor hornparts inspired by the Latin American ska-core bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls that we played with over in the US. So on the one hand there is going to be more samplers and synths but still as much brass as we normally use. Anyway, our ideas change from day to day but one thing is sure, we're definitely very pro-brass section at the moment, whether it's deemed cool or not!

What will Ben C's involvement be with the band now? Will he help with songwriting or recording, or just general support of the band?

In terms of what we're doing at the moment, nothing really, but the door is always open. He isn't involved in terms of songwriting or recordings... Ben's living in the US and doing his own solo thing so there isn't much time and we're all happy and getting on with things. I'm sure we'll work together in the future again. Maybe sooner than people think actually! But that's all I'm saying for now...

Hey man, just a short one, but i was wondering if anything new was happening with Babyboom or if you guys were done with that as a side project.

Hmmm, that's a very well-timed question, nudge, nudge, wink wink. ;) We're playing a Baby Boom set at Rebelllion and that's it for now. We really didn't think of Baby Boom as a side-project anymore, it was really just Sonic Boom Six acoustic. But who knows what's going to happen there, we certainly aren't done with it but time and financial constraints make it a very difficult project to put the time into at the moment. In fact, it's nigh on impossible.

Farran Key asks...

With regards to militant anti-fascism, which i am in support off, do you think anti-fascism should widen its scope to include the unfair immigration policy toting Conservative Party?

Wow. Personally, no. I'm loathe to get too into politics because I always wanted our lyrics to speak for themselves and be taken how they're taken. But in a nutshell, no, I don't think it should include the immigration policy of the the Conservative's because, although it's not my idea of the appropriate take on immigration, I simply don't think it's anywhere near extreme enough (especially within the context of other country's immigration policies in Europe) to be deemed 'fascist'. I'd go as far as to say I think that deriding any attempt to regulate the entry of people with different citizenship into any country as 'fascist' is probably a bit idealistic and hysterical. But, much more than this, blaming immigrants for taking jobs, rising crime and anything else that the dim and feckless use them as a scapegoat for is ignorant beyond belief.

A big one from Николай Волков (!)

I fetl curious, and wanted to ask just this: what do you think of anarchy? (An' overall anarchy, not just the anarcho-communism "anarchy", which itself is something I dont like.)

I think it's an interesting concept to speculate about and use as a notion to build discussion around but, ultimately, I think it's pretty clear the boat's already sailed on that one and there are more relevant things to improve within our current way of life. A solid, academically-sound concept of humanity without church, capitalism and the law as we know it is useful as an ideal to strive for and maybe the thin end of the wedge in terms of the presence of civil liberties in the minds and hearts of the decision-makers of the world. However, in my head, it's our ambition that is at the heart of the way we live, not necessarily greed or bloodlust or power-hunger, just ambition to do something more than the next man. And that ambition is ultimately what has allowed us to sit behind computers and pontificate about anarchy... But yeah, I like the thought of it and will put my fist up in the air and weakly shout it but I don't really think of it as a legitimate possibility. In a nutshell, I think if the world had a little more anarchy, it would be a better place but I'm not holding my breath on seeing it as a full-on human reality any time in the next aeon and nor would I really want to.

Here's a few of Henry Raby!

It's been puzzling me for many years now, and I keep meaning to ask you whenever I bump into you or any of the other guys/gal. In the song 'Tell Me Something That I Don't Know' from Arcade Perfect, what does the line "I'm not a fucking hippie 'cos there's races I don't hate" mean?

Maybe it's just a rubbish lyric! The song is about my observation that in the UK music press, any bands that have a slightest message that deviates from songs about love or dancing at a disco are pigeonholed as 'political' bands, almost always in a negative way. I meant, "the fact that I don't hate other races doesn't make me a hippie" ergo, "just because I don't write songs about love doesn't make me political".

Also, what's your favourite comic book/comic book author. Mine's Neil Gaiman and 'The Sandman' (specifically 'Season of Mists')

Wow. Neil Gaiman and the Sandman 'Season of Mists', literally! It's as great as any great novel. I like Neil Gaiman's prose books too but nothing comes close to Sandman. I also love all the usual Vertigo suspects; Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, Garth Ennis's Preacher (the best ending to any comic series ever), Jamie Delano's early Hellblazer and Fables. I love stuff by Peter Milligan, Brian K Vaughan, Frank Miller, Alan Grant, and generally love Batman stuff. More recently, I enjoyed Y The Last Man and Grant Morrison's All Star Superman. If you want something that hasn't been overly-lauded, I think Grant Morrison's work on the first 50 or so issues of Animal Man in the late 80s is amazing, ahead-of-it's-time stuff. And I loved Watchmen obviously, first time around, but that's been somewhat played out now.

And 3rdly....what band that are still gigging that you have never played with would you love to play with?

I'd love to do some shows with Gogol Bordello because to see their live show every night couldn't help but inspire a band to work on that side of their show.
Alright then. That's it for now, please keep those questions coming in at barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk

If you haven't checked them out yet, I've just posted up the full series of 4 tour vids from our recent US tour below. They took me ages to do and I don't know if I'll bother again unless I get a bit more feedback you buggers. Please watch them with your head-balls and laugh at the abject ridiculousness of our little troupe...

Till next time!

Barney x

Izzy, Wizzy, bloody well busy

2010-06-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Droogies.

We're mad busy over here in the land of Boom. Although things may appear calm and correct on the outside, there are lots of changes happening behind the scenes and over at Rebel Alliance so these have been some of the most busy and testing times we've ever had. But what is life for if not for living?!

Anyhoo, nice little video diary here. I'll be blogging again very soon. We've got a weekend of rehearsals in front of us so I'll let you know what's going down in Boomland as and when I get the chance.

Barney x

Wigga than Punk Rock.

2010-05-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well now!

It's good to be here in the US. The weather is treating us great and the gigs and the people have been awesome. Knock-Out have been an amazing help to us and a great bunch of friends to boot. Wish you were here! Rather than writing a big War and Peace style tour diary, I've decided to make some video diaries which present our little troop in all it's technicolour (or should that be technicolor) glory. I've put up a video diary of our first few days on Youtube. I'll be compiling another video very soon. Check it out and leave us a comment!

On the first show we played we dropped in on the Ultra Violet Social Club in Los Angeles, a venue that also incorporates a clothing store as well as various art projects. The whole co-op vibe of the set-up was amazing and Raul and Daniella, who run the boutique, were kind enough to show us round. You can check out the stuff they do from the shows to the shop over at their SITE. The threads all have a strongly DIY vibe as well as some really cool designs from Raul and clothing by independent labels like Bishop Park. There were also skatedecks designed by the Mexican artist Benjamin Estrada who has worked with a whole host of punk and ska and hardcore bands which you can see HERE. All this stuff is great independent stuff and well worth checking out. We also need to thank Clemente from Evokore promotions for helping organise the whole shebang and giving us such a warm welcome to the States.

Also worthy of comment is that Neil has finally got his first tattoo over in the Everett, WA parlour Sunken Ship Tattoos who also did some designs on Knock-Out and have inked such celebrated punk rock royalty as Micheal Graves. Check them out HERE.

Awesome. I've had a few questions coming in which is amazing so please keep them coming. A few of the more political ones I'll have to get my head around soon but it's been a bit sunny here for pontificating upon the finer points of political reform.

You must get called a "wigga" a lot Barney, as do I. Please, in your own special way, tell me a bit about what you think about all this colour in music shenanigans, like have any silly mings ever found you offensive and maybe about your habit of (almost oxymoronicaly) speaking/rapping patois?

My immediate reaction to that question is that it always seems to me that it's the people who make this into an issue that have the problem. Without putting too fine a point on it, I've never had anybody black or asian come up to me after a gig and complaining that I'm not authentic or whatever yet I've had kids write stuff on the internet about it and in the end, when you eventually meet them, they always seem to be white and from the home counties and the whole thing kind of answers itself. It's really their hang-ups about race, it's the belief that different races should act in a particular way. It's not really something I spend much time getting bent out of shape about. To put it another way, if someone was to utterly dismiss say, Eminem, simply because he's white most people would look at that person and say 'well, that's their loss and their problem'. Whilst I'm not going to compare myself to Eminem, I still think that it's pointless to dwell too much on the mindsets of people that you're never going to reach.

I think that ultimately pop music is powerful when it's an expression of one's self and the only way that's ever going to be potent enough for other people to be swept along in it is for it to be a true expression of something unique. In the sense that I am who I am and if I can express that through music, it's going to have to be in a way that relates to how I speak and behave. I personally don't think there is anything at all 'wigga-ish' about anything I do, but I do see that it incorporates stuff that has melted into my approach to music that came from living in a city and feeling comfortable in being involved in the hip-hop scene and emceeing at parties and things like that. If that's in any way remarkable, it's still part of me, so it's something worth expressing. I'm always going to be myself. If some people don't like that, it probably means that others will.

British music has a strong history of bands that mix different styles, sounds and patious, none more apparent than my favourite bands the Specials and the Clash. If people were scared of ridicule, then you'd never have the self-expression that places like Bristol, Coventry, Manchester and all these other cities that have had times that they have been breeding grounds for extreme periods of creativity have done so because of the mix of different musical cultures coming together and creating something new. The reason that Massive Attack, the Specials, the Happy Mondays, the Streets, the Prodigy and even Gorillaz work is not because they express simply a crossover of black and white, they work because they express something that is uniquely British in the social and cultural things that are going on there. So if I'm a 'wigga' to some of the punk scene, I'm glad of the fact that the part of that that is offensive is paradoxically the part of self-expression that I associate with simply being British. Not white and not black and something unique and interesting. It's great that within music is one of the places where those kind of barriers can drop down so when people go out of their way to put them back up, it's a little sad.

To be honest, it isn't only us. I've seen the same things thrown at other bands in the past. Sometimes it does bother you, just the other day I saw someone talking about the Skints and saying they are awesome except for the drummers ridiculous Jamaican accent. It's criticising the form not the function which, in art in general, is missing the point. Jamie may have a ridiculous Jamaican singing voice(!) but it happens to be absolutely amazing - one of the best voices I've ever heard - so to dismiss it because you're uncomfortable with it because of the hang-ups you have about your own sensibilities about race, it is really your loss. And it's not just ignorant, it's really sad.

Also, how many caps do you own, and why the transition from trucker to New Era?

Ooooh, a fun one! I've got, or at least had, about 14 different Boston Red Sox hats and various others but I do like my B on my head the best. I guess the transition from Truckers to New Era was just following fashion. It's like saying why did I used to wear baggy jeans and now I wear tight ones? I don't know, but everyone else is.

Yeah, keep them questions a coming at barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk

Love ya!

Barney x

Rebel Without a Stamp.

2010-05-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

Alrighty then

I hope everyone is well out there! It’s been good to be back on the road and after an interesting month or two for the band things are definitely coming together. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel of the writing and performance of our new stuff and we’re confident it is all going to take us to infinity and beyond. It feels great to be sure of ourselves again. So thanks to everyone who has come to the recent shows and given us feedback about the new stuff. Good or bad!

As I've travelled up and down this country over the past few weeks I’ve had quite a few questions, online and in interviews, about the subject of the election and I’ve found it difficult to explain my perspective on the whole thing. I’ve found it unusually hard because this time I’ve become that thing that I said I never would…

A non-voter.

Rest assured, through a combination mulled-over campaign manifestos and officious registry practicalities, I have my own valid reasons. I shouldn’t be ashamed. But I can’t deny it still feels wrong. I don’t really know what to say about it all. And while I agree with the intention behind the surge of voices intending to empower and stimulate the ‘non-voters’ who have literally given up on the politicians and system as it stands, I’m still racked by a vague guilt about my self-imposed role as the martyrd malcontent. It’s just not me. Hasn’t my ‘thing’ always been to stick up for the everyman? How can I agree with letting that hatemonger go and hang himself by his bongo-eyed neck on Question Time when I won’t be part of the democratic process that can ensure he gains as little power as possible? I really don’t know. But there we have it. And, truth be told, there really is nothing out there that’s making me regret that decision apart from my own nagging doubts.

It's very difficult for me not to reflect upon the contrast between the media's treatment of our election with that of the circus over in the US that we witnessed on a US tour during Obama’s rise to power. On the one hand, the US’s media-conglomerate festival of political infotainment was hard to stomach, what with its Wrestlemania-style campaign promos and sound-bites reduced to the cerebral content of the prose on your average lolly-stick. But, golly gee, at least there was passion. People stopped you in the services and were ready to tell you who and why they were voting. The dayglo election campaigns were booming from every TV and radio and the neighbourhoods bore the images of their political Hope on t-shirts and in shop windows. There was something happening. There was the feeling that whatever happens on the day would be vital and palpable in everyone’s life. Whether such engagement with the pageantry was misguided or not, it’s hard not to be sheepishly swept up into the sport of it all. It’s hard not to wholeheartedly condone the concept of giving a shit.

Here in the UK, is anything happening? We wear our cynicism on our sleeves and sit comfy in our know-it-all chair with an air of deflated pessimism and prod at it lazily with our famous British sarcasm. But is it really that funny? Footlights in-joke traditions of a ‘groan being as good as a laugh’ loom large in our collective psyche. How easily we’re swept into pointing and braying at our beloved public gaffes and seeing the papers the next day in a game of who-blinks-first in declaring the most outlandish omens of doom for our current leader. Who cares what their policies are? He called a woman bigoted with his mic still on! We chortle at the Americans propensity for earnest cheesiness whilst wallowing in our peculiar obsession with public manners. We fold our ballot papers over in case anyone sees. The most impassioned display of campaigning I’ve seen has been a yellowing ‘I’m Voting Liberal Democrats’ poster in a bungalow in Kent. I’ve read columns by politically contrasting popular pundits from Jeremy Clarkson to David Mitchell that are unified in that they centre more on the fact that we don’t care about voting than anything about the campaign at all, eyes-rolling with a tone more akin to Charlie Brooker reviewing X-Factor than an examination of the political parties ready to seize or lose power in our sceptered isle. And I'm not knocking it, I recognise that is the way a lot of us feel, essentially sneering and curling top lips at the whole thing because we’re so at a loss to our total, burning indifference to the options being presented.

Is apathy the right word? It’s a judgmental epithet to be saddled with to be sure; an image of a slovenly Kevin the Teenager with a ‘can’t be bothered’ mantra, sat in front of the PlayStation wanting to engage in nothing more than the boss of level 3. Maybe this widespread denial of the ‘civic duty’ of voting is empowering in itself. Maybe we have simply had enough?! But where to from here? Many of the more left-wing groups are actively promoting the notion that not voting is the first step into galvanising the individual into pro-active political action beyond the remit of our flawed system. You’re free to not vote if you do something constructive instead to curb the system that stands. I hope that this works, I hope they can channel the collective guilt of the creaky old ‘someone died for that vote’ into something powerful. Unfortunately, I’m not particularly sure that there are enough people who are aware of any symbolism or statement that not-voting makes as there are Kevins who can’t be bothered. However, I wholly agree that there is a difference between pushing your plate away and sitting there grumpily and actually leaving the table and going to find something else to eat.

I heard it enough growing up that ‘someone died for that vote’ is tantamount to the Catholic Guilt I never had. It’s hard to argue with a catchphrase you heard bandied about through your entire childhood and teenage years and had the unflappable belief that those families that didn’t were either roguish philistines or aloof bohemians. But at some point you come to realise that there is a difference between respecting these conventions and being dictated by them. We’ve been stuck in the rut of this 2-party race for so long now that it’s almost comical to trace back from David Cameron’s airbrushed face to Emily Pankhurst’s days of suffrage. But nonetheless, there it was and here we are.

If what you’ve just read sounds like I’ve used a lot of words to essentially say nothing that’s probably because I’m as much at a loss as anyone. Perhaps I am a political rebel, rejecting the shackles of his enforced governors by his symbolic denial of their need for valediction. Perhaps I’m a lazy Kevin who can’t be arsed dealing with the bureaucratic nightmare that registering for mail voting would have entailed for me. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between.

If any of you guys are thinking about who to vote for, and more power to you if you are doing, there is a great page HERE detailing the fundamental differences between the main party policies. Ironically enough, I’m going to be in America anyway when it all goes down so we’ll see how much they give a damn about what’s going on over here.

Frankly my dear, I doubt it will be much less than we do.

Barney x

p.s. If you've got any questions about anything, band-wise or anything else, bang them over to barney@sonicboomsix.co.uk and I'll answer them on here. Throw us a bone you buggers, otherwise I'll have to do more of these ponderous artifacts.

Bye bye Bomb Ibiza!

2010-04-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

All good things must come to an end as they say, and it’s with a heavy heart we wave goodbye to Manchester ska-punk institution Bomb Ibiza. With the club-nights and the gigs, over the last six years Em Johnson and the gang have provided countless great memories and times and showcased and helped out a ton of bands, from the jolly madness of Sunday’s Ska Bars to the bigger gigs held at Satan’s Hollow. It’s hard to overstate just how important Bomb Ibiza was to SB6 in the early days so I feel like writing something about Bomb Ibiza for those of you that are interested. The most I can hope for is that someone might read this and think about promoting gigs and all that it entails. I know firsthand what a difficult, thankless task it is and I know that promoters don’t get nearly enough credit when things go right but always (often rightly so!) get the kibosh when things go wrong. So anyway, here’s my memories of Bomb Ibiza and my own little tribute to something that me and Manchester are gonna miss, more than we probably realise right now…

Back in the days of yore of early SB6, 2002 or so, the Manchester punk scene was a different beast. Whilst there were punk gigs (there was the more cider-punky gigs at the Star and Garter and the hardcore scene catered for by Marios at Say it To My Face and some others) the ska-punk scene never really got a home. A lot of the bands and people from the DIY punk scene, where the likes of Capdown had played their early Manc shows, had gravitated to Leeds. Whilst we were going down south and playing our first Sonic Boom Six shows for amazing, up-for-it punk crowds with bands like Howards Alias, No Comply, Adequate 7 etc in Manchester the promoter to make those kind of shows work hadn’t appeared. Apart from the odd decent gig of that kind here and there, and the odd band, there was no focused place or promotion for it. Hell, we even promoted gigs ourselves and got bands like Lightyear, Shootin Goon and Captain Everything over because it was the only way we could think of to try and get things going. It just turned, spluttered and wouldn’t kick into life.

You could see that there were enough people into that kind of stuff, and enough local bands to make it work (I remember us, Rhythmic Coughing, Harijan, Minions of Jeffrey, Echo Freddy and others all jockeying for gigs) it just needed a focus. That came largely in part through a website that Mackie from a ska band from Yorkshire called Milk 2 Sugars and his friend Si started when they came to Manchester. It was called MancPunkScene and, although it was met with a lot of understandable skepticism by parts of the punk scene, it did slowly but surely build up a dedicated user base.

There are a lot of different takes on how much difference MPS made. I understand that people that had previously felt at home in parts of Manchester’s punk scene would feel affronted that MPS ‘created’ anything. But to me, and others like me, and to Sonic Boom Six, which means a huge deal to me, it was simply very important. It was the epitome of what is good about the internet; a tool to communicate. Personally, I know I never really felt properly at home dipping into Thursday nights at Rock World, dipping into the hardcore gigs, dipping into the DIY bands scene. It was good, but I still liked silly bands that skanked and played trumpets and everyone at those places had hated that for a good few years now. From my perspective MancPunkScene meant that a lot of the kids that liked different punk bands started being friends but most importantly to me it meant that the kids that liked the bands like Lightyear, Five Knuckle, No Comply etc finally started speaking together. And when I say ‘being friends’ I don’t mean e-buddys that you speak with online but then can’t say boo to a goose when you see them in real life (I’ve met a few of them…) but genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, speak on the phone, this is what life’s about friends that I still have. A lot of people who I’d seen about and said nothing more to than ‘hello’ previously you’re suddenly planning to meet up before a gig with for a drink. And then you’re waking up in their spare room with a coat over you not remembering much of the night before but knowing you had a good time.*

So, with the vim and vigour of a place to speak about strange things like Antimaniax and Aquabats, suddenly gigs like the HouseHoldName tour 2004 at the Star and Garter that Rhythmic Coughing put on were totally rammed. The one we put on the year before literally had about 30 people paying in. An all-dayer at the Star and Garter which had No Comply, Howards Alias, Sonic Boom Six and a bunch of other bands on was rammed and really exciting. People were talking, people were meeting new people, something was happening. I remember speaking to Em at that gig and she was definitely inspired to capitalise on this crowd (in a good way!). With this new-found little community developing, Em with help from Gail and Mina decided to do a skapunk clubnight at the Squirrels Bar in Owens Park Student Halls of Residence in Fallowfield and they decided, after a Lightyear song, to call it Bomb Ibiza! I remember pompously telling them it was a bad name because there was nothing wrong with Ibiza (I was big into going out to dance music nights at the time so was wounded by any perceived sleight from my punky cohorts) but over time I grew to like the name because it was silly and fun and unpretentious which is something I always liked about the ska-punk scene. Whilst every other scene, from hip-hop to hardcore to dance I’ve been a follower of has a capacity for pretentiousness and cool cliques in every club, Ska-punk is so geeky in the first place that you never get any of that. People don’t look you up and down when you come in and check your trainers. It’s the outside world that has the hang-ups about ska-punk and all that. When you see a load of kids jogging on the spot to ‘Ska Wars’ it’s easy to see that none of them give a flying fuck about that and none of them are looking at each other to see how each other is dancing either. It’s just silly, trivial fun, which is, to me, a huge part of what rock music is about.

That first night was a good little laugh. I can probably name everyone there, but it was something new. There was another one that followed at the Brickhouse (maybe there were a few at that venue…) and more people started turning up. I remember Alex from Reading ran the PunkerMentality website turning up with some competition prizes. Em had also started promoting some gigs under the Bomb Ibiza banner. Forgive my memory but I can’t remember many but I do remember the Toasters at the Roadhouse with us and Zen Baseballbat and the ensuing chaos that followed because Fandangle’s drummer had a problem with the kitshare organisation. It turned into a shitstorm and I remember the woman at the Roadhouse screaming at Em and calling her an amateur which was well unfair. That venue has a great atmosphere and some of the best gear and dimensions for live music, it’s just a shame that the staff there didn’t give a shit about live music. But that’s another story.

However, it was when the night moved to Satan’s Hollow that it really got moving because you had the mutually beneficial relationship of a venue and club that needs both gigs and a night to bring students in the week with a promoter who can provide it. Marios from Say it To My Face was a great help in those days and helped the Bomb Ibiza guys through their steps into putting on bigger touring bands and the organisation and professionalism that takes. The first few club-nights were - in the echoing truth that a large dance-floor declares - relatively empty but the dedicated few always trundled their way over, happy to drink beer and engage in drunken conversation with the omnipresent Miller. However, with heavy heavy flyering over the freshers period, I guess it must have been in 2005, the first club-night of the student year was absolutely rammed in Satan’s and had an amazing atmosphere. The music was more varied too, with a more student-pleasing indie bit (with Ordinary Boys, Dead 60s etc) to a punk set courtesy of Jess (who dropped NOFX, Against Me! and all that) which worked well and kept a lot of the people who weren’t just there to hear ska coming back for the social element. From then on, Bomb Ibiza was up and running and, although attendance does go up and down, never returned to the empty-room-with-the-dedicated feeling of the first few club-nights.

The first gig I remember being really rammed was Suicide Machines, Howards Alias and us in January 2005 (actually Dave Kelly’s last gig!).We went down really well and I speak to a lot of people who say that was the first time they saw us. It was a great night and I got to sing a bit of ‘Nervous Breakdown’ with Jason from Suicide Machines and he did a little ‘Sound of The Police’ shout-out which I was stoked about. The gigs started to get bigger and better over time and soon it became the place for the punk and ska gigs in Manchester, even with its stupid fucking round stage. Tons and tons of memorable gigs from Bomb Ibiza followed as it got established over the years with Streetlight Manifesto, the Slackers, Voodoo Glow Skulls, RX Bandits and the Aquabats being some that spring to mind. In the summer of 2006 we did a launch gig for Ruff Guide and played ‘Saw Red’ by Sublime for Em which is on YouTube somewhere… There were just a ton of good gigs for a good few years. And I guess the thing that I need to impress upon the reader is, in general, before Bomb Ibiza these gigs were missing Manchester.

Once the club-night and gigs had been established Em didn’t rest and, as I remember, borrowing an idea from a Bradford gig that she co-promoted with another lad she brought the Ska Bar to the Retro Bar in Manchester. There simply weren’t enough big supports to go around all the smaller bands and with Satan’s being over-sized for the littler touring bands the Ska Bar at the Retro Bar was the answer. Essentially a developmental territory for the bigger Bomb Ibiza gigs and a chance to keep prices low and music-business politics out of the equation as much as possible, the Ska Bar quickly became a whole little life of its own, with bands like Stand Out Riot, the Fractions, Harijan (RIP!) and coming into their own as part of this in a way we had been lucky enough to do in the early days of Bomb Ibiza. The small community that was built here is awesome with the fun of nights like the charity Karaoke (which is always blessed with a star turn from another of Manchester’s omnipresent gig barflies, Mikey Wong) to the rapport that has been built with the staff. Francis from Stand Out Riot will be continuing the good work Em and co started in the Ska Bar after Bomb Ibiza is lain to rest.

Over the last few years, with Em leaving uni and getting a job that takes up a lot of time and with the inevitable ebb and flow of lives and people, Bomb Ibiza has slowed down a bit and the Ska Bars have really taken on a life of their own and become a little institution. They’re always proper good fun so if you’ve never been down to the Retro Bar on a Ska Bar Sunday, keep your eyes on the forum and go and take a look, it comes recommended. It’s great that

So, all that’s left to say really is to Em and everyone that helped her (shouts to Gail, Francis, Jess, James, Marios and anyone else that lent a hand) THANK YOU! and goodbye to Bomb Ibiza. I’ve met a ton of great friends through Bomb Ibiza! and had some amazing times there and it really meant the world in the first few years of the Boom to know that a local promoter that was helping out the music scene that we were a part of had our back. It was a massive help. All the effort and time that Em and co put into Bomb Ibiza was massively, truly appreciated. I need to give a shout-out now to TNS, Slit, Say it To My Face and everyone else that will continue to provide Manchester with quality punk nights and does the tough job of being a promoter and bringing us these shows time after time. And maybe if you’re reading this and you have some time and passion on your hands, maybe it might inspire you to go out there and create a little Bomb Ibiza of your own?! The world needs you!!!

Bomb Ibiza are having one more event. Come and check their forum HERE and come and support the cause. I hope that we can be part of it one way or another!

Your dearest pal

Barney x x x

* Not in a sex way.

Applecore

2010-03-29T03:36:00.000-07:00

I had to laugh.

BB x

Waiting for God. D'oh!

2010-03-20T04:02:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, Barney here.

So, I'm currently waiting at home for the rest of the band to get here for rehearsals and I've just been informed they are gonna be late so I think I may as well do something useful. I've been toying with the idea of using this blog as a semi-personal actual blog that goes more into what I think and do on a day to day. That way, it might blur the lines between the tour diary type thing it normally is and the mailing list and news thing I do but I can also ramble on about other things in here that might be a bit too broad or weird or personal or daft or controversial or political or all those things at once than any of those more 'official SB6' type things entail. I think maybe that's a little self-indulgent and stuff and maybe I should separate it from the site but then I was reading a few blogs of people like Tom Gabel and see the amount of fans that are following him on there and how interesting it was to get that perspective that I thought I might try something similar here. Let us know what you think anyway. Give me questions and thoughts and all that. But don't ask me to do a Formspring like someone did a few weeks back. That's just another password to forget... :)

Anyhoo, as far as SB6 goes, things are exciting and nerve-racking at the moment in equal measure. Since Ben left, we've been filling in for him and, live-wise at least, we've managed to pull it off one way or another but now we're lumped together in my house stood around a PA and wondering how to proceed, the fact that we have to get used to working in a different way is all too apparent. In terms of writing songs it used to be unusual but we built a formula that worked across the albums. Basically, Ben would write a couple of songs in their entirety or thereabouts, I would write a couple of songs in their entirety or thereabouts and, for the majority of the rest, Ben would bring in an idea and I would add to it and turn it into a song and Laila would add bits and bobs. So, now, that way we wrote pretty much most of the songs (just for example seven - over half - of the songs on City of Thieves follow that formula) has gone out of the window so we're all in a new place. On the one hand, of course, it's hard to know exactly how to go about everything. But on the other hand, no one is going to deny that we milked the formula for what it was worth across three albums and several EPs so a change is as good as a rest. And a change in the Boom is going to keep everyone excited.

Laila has discovered a new sense of vim and vigour about stepping up into her role as a songwriter and, for the first time in Boom history, she's stepped up to the plate with a finished full song idea that just needs bits and bobs on top of it. The good news is that it's great. The hard part of the whole thing is that it's possibly more poppy than anything we've ever attempted to do and to keep the fans of the 'old Boom' happy while bringing in something more in a dance/pop type vein is a challenge. But we're getting there and we're definitely going to be playing this song on the forthcoming tour. I hope that people get what we're doing and that it stands up as something new but also something ‘Boom’.

And in with the new, James 'Jimmy T Boom' Routh has joined the band with a whole host and collection of synth noises, bleeps and grooves to slot in alongside our previous dalliances with the electronica side of things. I don't think I'm going out on too much of a limb to speculate the more dance-crossover side of things are going to be coming out within the newer material and we've got a tune that we've been working on that we're really excited about - a kind of cross between punk and jungle in a way that leans harder towards the synths and stuff. Just to do it in a way that's coherently mashed up in a way that sounds futuristic and makes you want to dance is what we're after but I definitely want to avoid it sounding like those god awful metal/electronica crossover acts that kind of ape the worst of both genres. Props to Skindred though, they do it brilliantly. I think a listen to 'Road to Hell' is probably the best clue of the sound we're going for but we really want to blow that out of the water in terms of where we're pushing it.

So! Between all of us, we have the blueprint for a new Boom (where the mash-up side of things come from the sound of the band rather than jumping from genre to genre every single song) it just finding the right approach to get the song ideas flowing and bouncing rather than being forced through. It's hard, but we shall prevail! At the moment, we all felt that the old set was beginning to stale (James joined mid-tour and has never actually rehearsed them!) so we've gotta get a full one set ready for April. There's gonna be as much new stuff and as much clues to where the Boom 2.1 is going in there so I wish they’d all hurry up and get here and we can get to it.

Speaking of live gigs, I got the chance to go and see my pals Crazy Arm supporting Frank Turner this week at the Academy in Manchester and what a gig it was. It's funny because the Crazy Arm album got recorded so long ago and we used to listen to it in the van and everyone absolutely loved it. But the guys were finding it hard to get appropriate gigs (they came on tour with the Boom for a bit...) and it felt like they were falling at the first hurdle of getting 'out there' into the music scene. I felt really bummed out because such a brilliant record might not get the crack of the whip it deserved. There was even talk of doing the album on Rebel Alliance but we felt it was too early for us to be bouncing around different genres and that the record was simply too fucking good to be on a label that doesn't have an expertise in the field that they play in. Lo and behold, our buddies at Xtra Mile eventually picked them up and, slowly but surely the quality of the record meant that it was a release that made the majority of 'best of 2009' lists and has garnered a ton of acclaim from word of mouth and Crazy Arm are up and running hard with the ball. To see Darren and Simon up there on the Academy stage with Chuck Ragen, massive grins plain for all to see was a bit of a lump-in-the-throat sight to behold. It kind of goes to show that good music will get you noticed in the end, despite all the other bullshit that goes on.

Speaking of good music getting you noticed, I was gratified to see that Frank Turner more than justified his current wave of popularity. I remember hearing his early EPs and enjoying them greatly and then having the misfortune to catch him at Rebellion 2006 (I think) sarcastically grumbling about 'punx' onstage, looking miserable and singing a song about 'the Day that Dance Music Died' which wheeled out a string of strangely peevish 6th-form-rocker stereotypes about the followers of various types of dance music that was so insulting I was offended to the extent that I left the gig. Over the years since, I stayed in the loop with Frank's albums and have listened to all the stuff and it's just gone from good to excellent. I’ve always missed him live though, even at festivals where we’ve both played. I've also noticed a lot of the underground scene turning against him (ridiculous comments such as 'there are so many more talented artists playing in squats and front rooms everywhere' are a common example of such errant buffoonery) which is generally a good indicator that someone is talented enough to make it in the 'real world' thereby decrying the flimsy myth that everyone playing in squats and living rooms is better than those on daytime Radio 1 but just don't want to because they've got too much integrity. Anyhoo, I was ready for him to be good live and was wondering how it was gonna work with the acoustic but I was treated to a masterclass in audience/artist interaction, good, pop songwriting and extremely talented musicianship. Anyone that has ever picked up a guitar and strove to write a song that a lot of people like is gonna see the talent in a bloke that has one and a half thousand people shouting every word at him with no gimmicks, image or trend holding it all up. And, as with Crazy Arm, it's heart-warming stuff. I never want to be one of those old guys who looks at what I do and go 'we couldn't get any further because we didn't have a big deal or we didn't kiss the right arses or we didn't look right' or whatever. Walking round thinking that every band that is famous is shit and lucky. Bitterness gets you nowhere. I'm totally happy with what we've achieved but I also know that I'd love to headline the Academy 1 and if we do, we need to look at the artists that do and see what it is that they do that has got them there. Not snipe at them, look at the negatives and say 'there but for the grace of God go I'. That being said, I'm glad he didn't treat us to 'The Day that Dance Music Died'

Anyway, wee Jimmy Boom jumped in for a photo with Big Franky T which I'll leave you with cos Laila and Nick have just got here.

Maybe we just need to be taller?

RSVP!

Your oldest pal.

Barnold x

Here we are now, Entertain us...

2009-12-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well.

We're on our way to Portland, Oregan in a big American car. The last few days have been cool, with shows with Big D and a few headline dates. Last night's gig in Seattle has the dubious honour of being the coldest gig that we've ever played in our life. Literally, if you imagine how cold a venue could be, double that in coldness, and you'd get somewhere near the sub-zero atmosphere of this club. In the bar area the draught pipes had frozen completely solid, leaving us to sip bottles of Heineken so cold that the flavour was all but a distant memory while shivering in a group huddle. I went on stage wearing a thick overcoat, a denim jacket, a shirt and a t-shirt and it wasn't until the 5th song I took the coat off. It was damn cold. But it was a wicked show.

Here you can see us, in the snow. Brrrr. Told you it was cold.

We're travelling around in a big Dodge car that has six seats and is nice and comfortable and fast and big and has all manner of adjustable fixtures and central locking and power supplies. However, they’ve dropped a bollock on one very important aspect of its design; it is absolutely impossible to consistently heat all the way through. There is no possible combination of dials, no technical arrangement of fan settings, no strategic deployment of levers that can make people in the front, middle and back comfortable at the same time. If Peter is perfectly cosy in the back, Paul's feet have icicles between the toes in the middle. If Jack is snugly room temperature at the front Jill is gasping like a dying Alsatian locked in a Fiesta on a summer’s day in the back. So journeys are a constant, dialogue of back and forth requests to tweak this and slide that and ‘the heats just kicked in over here’ and ‘I can’t feel my legs.’ It probably sounds like I’m moaning about nothing but the eight-thousand and seventeenth time you hear ‘can you just reach over and…’ you feel inclined to unlock the doors on the highway and dive into an anaesthetic embrace from the impact of an oncoming lorry. So, car manufacturers of the world take note, it’s time to get this heat distribution thing tackled yeah. I can’t live in these conditions.

We’ve been staying in motels. Every room in every motel looks exactly the same, to the extent that it feels like you are coming home every day but some kindly soul has tidied your room, changed the towels, cleaned the shower and replenished your complementary coffee. I wish my house was a motel.

Because we’ve been eating such scandalous amounts of delicious American grub, we have, hilariously enough, decided to try and be pro-actively healthy. So if the motel has a swimming pool or fitness room, as most do, you’ll be liable to find a motley crew of creaking, pasty Englishmen with what appears to be a Bengali orphan with a carrier bag on it’s head wheezing, splashing and bellyflopping about. It may look pathetic, but please take pity on them. They mean no harm and are only attempting to exonerate themselves from the spicy pleasures they will succumb to an hour or two later.

Speaking of spicy pleasures, Taco Bell had held us down for a few days but, on the last bite of my 8th 7 layer burrito, I felt something stir inside us all. Taco Bell is great for a few days but there's so much more out there... what of Taco Johns, Pollo Loco, Baja Fresh, Taco Time, Del Taco, even Taco Taco? It was finally time for us to spread our wings. So, we decided that a new dawn in the consumption of Mexican fast-food was upon us and we ventured into the welcome arms of a Taco John. On first impressions, the menu was less diverse but the smells emanating from the kitchen were spell-binding. Ordering was straight-forward and the food came in no time at all. The bean burrito was almost identical to Bell's offering but looking across the table, it was clear that food-quality here in John's was superior to Bell's, undoubtedly the most cheap-and-cheerful 'fast foody' Mexican option. Taco John's also offer the salsa bar - where a brother can take a little pot and fill it up with different salsas, guacamoles, jalapenos and spicy sauces – which was a revelation to tomato-parched mouths accustomed to the salsa-drought that is Taco Bell. To give the devil it’s due, Taco Bell's more extensive menu means that a vegetarian's options in front of the counter are far wider than they are at John's and the prices are lower overall. And so, weighing it up with food-quality, value for money and salsa ratios, it's really horses for courses but personally I'd have to say that John's clearly superior ingredients and the relative novelty of finding one amongst Bell's near-monopoly gives John a win by the nose. We've been told that Baja Fresh is the best, and I'm looking forward to finding out if this is a fact, but we need to work up to it. I don't want to eat the best burrito of my life only to have to return to the affable slop of Bell's. It's best to take these things one step at a time. I'll keep you posted.

Yesterday we visited the house of Kurt Cobain in the attempt to do something suitably touristy while keeping our rock n roll image intact. It was pure shenanigans trying to find it and we had to ask a Mexican man who gave us directions. He was very softly spoken and in concluding his directions he stared off into the middle-distance with a wistful expression and said 'the house there on the end, man' which was a suitably enigmatic way to begin our pilgrimage. When we got to the house, we realised that we couldn't actually go in so we took some rubbish photos and concentrated on the benches by the side of the residency which had become something of a memorial, covered in graffiti and tributes and what-not. Unfortunately, we hadn't really found anywhere suitable to park and invoked the wrath of the local constabulary who shooed us away and said things like 'I don't know if you do that in your country, but not in America' as American police are inclined to do to us as often as they can.

If proof is needed of this presumably fantastical-sounding adventure, one only needs to press play on the YouTube video below to see the shocking reality of the matter with one’s own two eyes.

Right then, I think that’s enough nonsense for now. I hope wherever you are you are at a reasonable temperature and full of whatever fast-food you enjoy.

Love you.

Barney x

I like to be in America

2009-12-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

So...

One thing I've found out this week is that using my camera as a video camera is basically pointless because by recording one 2 minute video and then using the camera once to view it literally sucks all the life from the batteries. Far be it from me to cast aspersions over Samsung's inclusion of a video facility on their worthy cameras but you do have to ask the question - if 2 minutes of video is all you can ever hope for before having to buy new batteries - what is the point?

Anyhoo, we're here in the US and all is well. We've done a good few shows with Big D and the Kid's Table now and I'm currently listening to them soundcheck their 'Doped Up Dollies' tune, complete with female backing vocalists, podiums, video projection screens and a wicked stage set. It's like Top of the Pops without Jimmy Saville.

We've also had the pleasure of doing a few headline shows of our own and props to Heff and Dozer who over the last two nights have given this orphan warmth, shelter and a working PA. Dozer even had a dog who, despite his advanced years, diabetes and bad breath, had such a way of padding about and looking at us that everyone fell in love with him. Especially his Rod Stewart hairdo. Here's the little bugger now...

Who could fail to be moved to tears and arr's and oooh's at his little face? No one, that's who.

Anyway, I'll get some new batteries now and I'll take some proper snaps instead of trying to do videos because that's clearly pointless.

Right, I think we might get a quick soundcheck so I'll be off. Innabit yo!

Barney x

In the airport...

2009-12-01T13:04:00.001-08:00

Hey guys

We're off to the US today. I've promised I'm gonna do more blogs so how is this for being on it? A blog in the airport.

Get down on it.

Barney x

And finally...

2009-10-31T06:16:00.001-07:00

Some bands to check out

2009-10-31T05:56:00.000-07:00

Yo

It seems to me there is a lot of good bands around at the mo. As well as all the Rebel Alliance bands obviously. We wish we could put them all out on Rebel Alliance, but unfortunately, we can't yet.

Here's some bands I love, soz if I forgot anyone.

Clayton Blizzard http://www.myspace.com/claytonblizzard
Babar Luck http://www.myspace.com/babarluck
Dirty Revolution, http://www.myspace.com/dirtyrevolution
Stand Out Riot, http://www.standoutriot.co.uk/
Blag, http://www.myspace.com/blag
The Hijacks, http://www.myspace.com/hijackska
Clay Pigeon, http://www.myspace.com/claypigeonband
War Against Sound, http://www.myspace.com/awaragainstsound
Gecko, http://www.myspace.com/gecko
Jimmy the Squirrel, http://www.myspace.com/jimmythesquirrel
The Junk, http://www.myspace.com/thejunkpunk
Inner Terrestrials, http://www.myspace.com/innerterrestrials
JB Conspiracy http://www.myspace.com/thejbconspiracy
Chief http://www.myspace.com/chiefuk

Check em all out or I'll tackle you rugby style.

Barney x

Don't breakaway my Takeaway.

2009-10-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Guess what happened? Last night we went in the takeaway PIRI PIRI in Oxford after a wonderful gig and enjoyed the delights they had to offer. It comes highly recommended. If you're in the area.

We had fizzy drinks too, but in the fizzy drink world prejudice stills runs rife.

For shame.

BB x

Wimpy on tour

2009-10-07T05:18:00.001-07:00

Hey people

So we stopped at a nationwide for nick to do some money stuff and next to it was a wimpy.

We were all hungry so we said 'let's go and eat a wimpy'. Wimpy is old school like happy shopper.

It's got all the standard burgers but then it's got like breakfasts and paninis and baked spuds and the waitress comes and gets your order and you eat with a knife and fork. So basically it's awesome.

The best thing is, unlike the pressed potato and pea abominations of mcdonalds and the carb-fest bean bag of burger king, the wimpy offers a lemon pepper quorn burger for us vegetarians and pescetarians (which I'm assured is a real word). It's quite the burger.

Here i am eating one...

So, you can keep your kebabs and mcthis and that. On tour there is no better junk food than a good English wimpy.

Mmmm.

Barney x

-- Post From My iPhone

Back on tour!

2009-10-05T05:08:00.000-07:00

Well well well!

We are back out on tour once again. Tonight is a warm up gig in Leicester and we will be out with the skints tomorrow for a full uk tour. It's bens last tour so it might be the last time you get to see a brother so get your arse down!

Also, if you aren't doing out, go and check out http://www.rebelalliancerecordings.com/freedownload

p.s We are currently in Leicester at Demon FM and I'm on air so I will upload this picture.

http://www.demonfm.co.uk

Safe

Bb x

-- Post From My iPhone

Ukraine's Got Talent Winner.

2009-10-01T16:21:00.000-07:00

Kicks the shit out of SuBo.

Wooooo!

BB x

Mad BBQ skillz

2009-09-28T06:05:00.001-07:00

Hey hey

We are here in Dunkerque at the house of skacore band Mr Jingle (you can check them out HERE) Us and random hand are being treated to a BBQ and it's all very nice.

Robin had 'the chicken' and it was apparently very nice.

There are certainly worse things you could be doing of a Monday morning!

Miss you!

BB x

-- Post From My iPhone

Switzerland!

2009-09-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello Hello

We're here in Switzerland at the flat of our old friend Daniel Holtz, catching up and having some very good food.

Here's a couple of snaps to make you wish you were here. Only Fools and Horses bar was in Serbia, to be fair to Swiss people.

Wish you were here.

BB x

Vegan Goulash in Linz, Austria

2009-09-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes.

That's what's on the menu. In Austria and Germany, they know how to eat. The services offer up a smorgasbord of delights that put the best restaurants in the rest of the world to shame. And they know how to treat a band, what with all the wonderful drink and food. So we've been stuffing our faces and having a rate old lark with Random Hand. This is the first time we've ever toured Europe with a UK support and it's really cool to have such a nice group of mates with us. Cheesey as that sounds it's fucking true. Here's a shit picture I took with my shaky hands.

Cheers!

Barney x

Today we go to Europe!

2009-09-17T04:12:00.000-07:00

Woop woop

We're heading off to Europe for a couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted about the shenanigans.

For now, here's a nice picture of what to do, as a rock star, when you see someone running amuck in the crowd.

Speak soon my lovelies.

BB x

2009-09-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

Come along and show your beautiful face.

Hevy weather

2009-08-02T03:19:00.001-07:00

Mmmmm

So we played the hevy music festival in Folkestone yesterday. It was a good fest on the seafront unfortunately marred by the great British 'summer' - it pissed it down. Watching ash struggle their summer anthems through a downpour was both disheartening and insirational cos they still managed to put on a decent show..

Here we are in the lobby of the wonderful burstin hotel. We managed to get a circle pit going yesterdAy which was definitely quite the feat. Kingston today, callooh callay!

Barnyard x x x

-- Post From My iPhone

Beach bum

2009-07-25T04:34:00.001-07:00

In France it is so sunny that it is highly difficult to take a photo with us in the centre whilst facing the sun.

Like the late 2pac, we get around.

Barney x

-- Post From My iPhone

At the Beeb.

2009-07-04T04:58:00.001-07:00

He're we are right now at the BBC studios, doing a session at Maida Vale for the punk show. The engineer, Nick was a delightful fellow and, unlike every other session we have ever done, he didn't seem like his priority was kicking us out of the door. He was a suave, debonair don and he made our songs sound great.

We recorded 3 songs off City of Thieves as well as a super duper exclusive new, mad-as-a-hatter, cover version. With a string section. Yikes! The canteen was great too. Lunchtime beer. Laila's favourite.

Speak soon, loony tunes x x x

-- Post From My iPhone

Revamped 'Concrete' viral video! Spread like wildfire...

2009-06-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

We are well in Dublin right now.

2009-06-13T04:11:00.000-07:00

Proof be if need be...

Barney x

Our time down there

2009-05-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Yo!

Last night we stayed at peter miles's house. It was fun because hardcore punk troopers Our Time Down Here were there recording their album and we joined them to provide crew shouts across the whole shebang. It's sounding excellent! If you like Set Your Goals, Kid Dynamite and New Found Glory (and who doesn't?!) check them out yeah.

We also got to catch up with Crazy Arm, whose amazing album has been picked up by righteous uk label Xtra Mile Recordings! Which is awesome news.

Down at Pete's we also got to see the fully coloured in chart from our album. Here it is for the world to see...

Beautiful! Speaking of the album, they have arrived and we are on our way to pick them up now. Hallellujah!!!

Barney x

-- Post From My iPhone

There really isn't much I can say about this

2009-05-13T03:07:00.000-07:00

In da studio

2009-05-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

Hey guys

Even tho it's our Manchester gig today, we're in oxygene studios with christophe doing some b-sides. They are sounding really cool. Dancehall dub and dancefloor skacore.

Keep on truckin x

-- Post From My iPhone

We're on tour.

2009-05-08T05:12:00.000-07:00

Ooooh

I'm here in the Homestead and I've noticed I've neglected the blog a bit. We've been having such insane trials and tribulations with the CD situation that things have been on top of us a bit. But, it does seem like there are other labels and companies having problems with the same company so, once we get our new CDs in our hands, I think we'll be able to get everything sorted.

Anyway, yesterday we rehearsed 2 new songs we're gonna be doing for b-sides and comps that we're gonna record tomorrow. One Ben wrote called 'Game Over' and one I wrote called 'This is Real'. They are dancehall reggae and ska-core respectively and there isn't an original note in either, but they're fun like that, B-Sides. We're recording with Christophe who did the Turbo EP and Sounds to Consume. We are gonna record tunes of Laila's and Nick's for the next B-Sides session we do. Neil is unavailable for comment write now but who knows if he will try his hand too.

The gigs have been going well, all very excited about the way the new stuff is going over.

The other day, Laila and Ben and I did some vocals for our friend Ian Britt on his wonderful new record which is going to feature all sorts of Manchester music luminaries. Ian is one of my bestest friends in the world and you can check out his music HERE.

I hope you're all very well!

Barney x

Sonic Boom Six's Day Out (without Barney and Neil!)

2009-04-16T04:17:00.000-07:00

Being in Sonic Boom Six does mean that we get to go to and see some amazing places. Yesterday was one of them rare days off that we actually do something that we never do! The plan was for Ben and Nick to get together down south and play about on their guitars and for me to chill in the sun in Ben's garden... Instead we get a phone call from Ben the night before and he asks if we want to go sailing with his dad! This was something I'd never done before, I was pretty apprehensive as I get mega seasick whenever we travel anywhere on water but I thought I'd give it a go!

So, we meet up with Ben, his dad, his dad's mate Tony and the 2 dogs - Trumpet and Molly, in the morning at a Marina in a place called Lymington.

The yacht is amazing! We get a little tour of it and crack open the beers! Ben's dad lets us know that we will be going to the Isle of Wight for lunch and then we'll head back.

The sun is shining and we set off. I eat a ginger biscuit (as this stops you from feeling sick), drink a beer and relax on the deck. The journey is pretty smooth and I'm quite proud of myself. Not only is this my first time on a boat, I'm actually looking after the dogs! Normally I'm really scared of dogs! Check out Nick Horne at the helm!

Once we get to the Isle of Wight, Rob (Ben's dad) treats us all to fish and chips in a lovely pub and then we head back to the boat!

The journey back was nothing like the journey there! I didn't realise that sailing was actually different than driving a boat with a motor and it was all hands on deck when we got back! We were running around all over the place pulling various ropes and unfurling sails! I felt like a pirate or something! Once the excitement of getting the various sails up was over, we sat back and enjoyed the quiet sea air, it was lovely.

Once we were back on land, we went back to Ben's house and his mum treated us to an amazing Indian takeaway. It was the perfect ending to a great day!

Thanks Rob, Ben, Tony, Mary, Trumpet and Molly! x

Caustic, Catchy, Danceable,

2009-04-15T10:24:00.000-07:00

Yes yes yes.

Yay

2009-04-14T03:28:00.000-07:00

You can get and exclusive remix of 'The Concrete We're Trapped Within' as well as the proper tune over at NME.com right now on the 'Notes From the Underground' blog.

LOOK!

Go and have a rave on it x

I just finished the biggest e-interview I've ever done

2009-04-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

It's gonna be on Punktastic.com tomorrow i guess. Lots of outlandish talk about mp3s, dodgy bands and America. I hope it isn't boring, cos it took a long time to write.

Easter was nice by the way, I went and saw Donn Letts play records and it was hip-hop, ska, punk and drum and bass all together which warmed the cockles. It was put together mainly by Mind on Fire collective who do loads of good things in Manchester as well as Anarchistic Undertones and some free party crews.

I ate no chocolate eggs though.

Cowabunga x

Boom tour kicks off

2009-04-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

Yes indeed

The first date of the tour was last night in Brighton and it was a right old knees up and no mistake. It was wonderful to see our super friends the Skints and they played a blinder. And we did a photoshoot for the Kerrang in which we looked like we were playing computer games. It was cool and the photo dude was really good. I imagine we look like one of those godawful hair-straightener bands with stupid names... but they like that, little girls (say that in a brummy accent to get the withnail and I quote).

So, here is a couple of photos that I feel effectively sum up the Brighton experience..

I shall keep in touch.

Barney x

-- Post From My iPhone

Rehearsing for May

2009-04-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Yes yes

We're getting rate stuck into rehearsals today. No rest for the wicked. We have the whole of the new album to relearn, but it's a laugh...

Neil has gone to the music shop to get a cahon which is like a weird sit down drum thing that we are gonna use for the acoustic set.

I'm a bit giddy about this whole blog thing, forgive my enthusiasm. I hope you are in rude health x x x

-- Post From My iPhone

The World's Greatest Advert

2009-04-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

Meaty burgers or not, 82-year old Yorkshiremen trapped in the body of children for the win.

My first blog!

2009-04-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

Hello all y'all out there.

This is the new, proper Boom blog which is gonna be the new place to keep up with us. We're just gonna be posting all sorts of thoughts, goings-on and anything that takes our fancy up in here. We're gonna link it to the other sites and so on but, until Myspace allows external blog feeds, we're gonna have to treat those seperately. So think of this blog as the shenanigans and opinions and following us about and the site news and myspace blog as the boring stuff like ticket buying, cd releases and official announcements. Booooo.

OK then, today we're supposed to be in the States but we couldn't go. Bah. Instead we're up at Ben's recording some vocals which are for another band's record on a duet between Laila and the certain singer of a certain Bostonian ska band. I'm not gonna say exactly who it is in case the song doesn't work out but from where I'm sat it sounds really cool. So that's something to look forward to innit?!

Ogley Dogley.

Barney x