In all my cities...LIVE HOUSESHOW TOMORROW NIGHT

Tomorrow night, Matthew of A Number of Young Lovers and I are playing this...



As part of this...

HERE tomorrow night (Tuesday 19th July). In a collaboration reminiscent of THIS.

Under the name 'Young Kids' we'll be drawing on Matthew's earlier combination of songwriting and storytelling (below). Using songs by both bands along with snatches of Italo Calvino and other writing we'll be performing a half hour set about cities. A detective story of sorts.



If you would like to attend, you need to e-mail harriet@groveendroad.com to let them know you are coming as its in their house. Its £3 entry and guests need to arrive before 7:30. For details check with the organisers.

"This here is the sound of a garrison town..."

At the end of a recent evening demoing new The Devil May Cares songs with Nick Olorenshaw (bass player with The Devils and guitarist with Being There) we did a take of this very old song:

Tyler's Rebellion acoustic demo by The Devil May Cares

The influences on it can be labelled like those models in fashion pages.

Tyler's Rebellion was the first song written for what became The Devil May Cares and probably the first proper "song" I wrote (after yelping over effects-drenched riffs for a year or two). I still would hope it captures something true about the anti-war movement of 2002/3 and the oppressive atmosphere in a small garrison town like Colchester (where I was living) at that time:

the air hung heavy with muck spread
on the monday you came home
which would make it late september yet
then again I might be wrong

your tread had grown so soft upon
the floor by then
that the automatic doors didn’t open
when you walked write up to them

each night you make a few more sales
then you’re clocking off round nine,
yeah I hate myself as well
but it’s just temporary, right?

it’s been five years since I met you in
another late september
of war protesters
and dog eared on the roads

and you wore a ban the bomb pin then
and another badge that’s lettering read
the only bush I trust in is my own

and the rivers out here are filling up
with the shells of burnt out cars
and mattresses and there’s a restlessness
in your softly beating heart

this here is the sound of a garrison town
it feels a million miles from home
you know sometimes it’s like there’s
twice as many birds as there are stones

The Waxing Captors in town on Friday

And, a few days earlier than our show (see below), The Waxing Captors are playing for the same people just around the corner at Roadtrip. Joining them on the bill are the also excellent Athens Polytechnic.

Here's a stupid video:



The Waxing Captors are also playing the night before.

Folk and Dagger presents... Tuesday July 12th, Hoxton Underbelly

Here is the poster for the show I'm playing next week for the lovely Folk and Dagger (Tshepo of The Devils: "We'll be all dagger!"). Details are here. If you get there before 8pm its only £2. Otherwise its £4. Incidentally, I reposted something from The Frequency Trap below about Rowan Coupland and now realise that Beth Porter - who is playing at the Underbelly too - sang a duet with Rowan on his "Thorns, brambles, white water, and black oak" (Wilkommen Records). As did I!

Here's Beth singing with Rowan...