Bebo

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG
 HHHHHHHHHHHHH!

CAN'T STAND IT! I KNOW YOU PLANNED IT!

etc etc

Good evening. I hope this blog finds you well. Come in, take off your shoes. I'll make you a cup of tea. Would you like a biscuit? A ginger snap? Pringles, maybe? I'll dim the lighting, make it a little more sociable. I will turn down the radio, a noisy din.

I find myself writing on a warm Friday evening. The sun hangs high in the sky, it is warm and bright and I feel as though I should be outside, drinking a cold boilermaker and watching girls frolic with hula-hoops and Chubba Chubbs. Absolute paradise. The Blue Nile lulls softly on the stereo and, muted, Napolean Dynamite os on the DVD player.I have made enquiries into learning Rex Kwon Do. Break the wrist and walk away. I have learned so much about self-respect since I decided to dress less like Peter Pan and started wearing star-spangled action slacks. Everything is chugging along nicely just now. The stickers still go on the boxes. The IBM units still get booked in on a regular basis. I still get my £6.10 an hour. I still believe I am on the wrong tax code but am too fucking lazy to find out. Falkirk is still a crappy town...


The only decent thing happening right now, not just in my life, or in your life, but maybe the entire world is MARLOW. There is a cure to swine flu, dishonest MPs, the global recession, tulip mania (Wikipedia it!), pirates in Somalia, the BNP, a broken heart, Jonathon Ross, the price of oil, Hurricane Katrina and maybe, just maybe, Cowdenbeath FC. It is MARLOW.

I think I can speak on behalf of my bandmates when I say that we played two of the best gigs of our careers (YES! Careers!) in the space of a week. There's been some belters in the past, Stereo, The Caves, The Martell... But these two shat all over them like some crude internet movie posted on a football forum that promises Jennifer Aniston's slick clacker, but instead have two Easter European girls crapping on one another. You've all seen these videos, you've all watched through the cracks in your fingers.

I'll begin with Aberdeen. A dismal Saturday afternoon's drive with Quinny up to the 'deen (abbreviation can be fun, if used sparingly). His stereo's fucked so he had connected a makeshift, yet still brilliantly functional, system using some speakers from the 99p shop and his MP3 player. We had some of U2's new album on the go - hard to believe it has sold so poorly. Have you heard the song Breathe? What is he singing about? Is is one of U2's best ever songs? Could they be Bono's greatest lyrics? YES. Excellent drumming, excellent guitar sound. What is a Juu-Juu Man? Maybe I am a Juu-Juu man, I just haven't realised it yet. Hotel room, Cafe Drummonds. It was whilst we were getting set up and ready to soundcheck, this old boy, fucked aff his tree wi the drink comes swanning into the bar. An Adidas jacket that is far too young for him, a t-shirt from Matalan (perhaps) and a cracking pair of New Balance trainers. He came in, swaying down the stairs, shouting AM HERE TAE SEE YEZ! at the four of us. We stared at him agog, what else could we do? He could have turned nasty and offered us violence. He shimmmied down to the front of the stage, repeating the point that he had made the effort to come and see us. Entranced at the strange man, we stared at him. He demanded a drink from the bar and was refused. he pleaded his case, telling the barmaid that he was there to see us and wanted a beer. Once again, his request was not granted, and he was asked to leave. So, as what one normally does when asked to leave a pub, he took two steps back from the bar, performed a Seig Heil, then left. utterly, utterly the strangest thing I've ever seen. Quinny missed this, he was out having a smoke, but he saw the guy leave Drummonds, go to a pub across the street, come back out minutes later, then vomit on the pavement. All of this in the space of one cigarette. Oddly enough, we saw him come bac

Hello everyone! This is the ultimate cut'n'paste job, lifted from the Hercules Mandarin MySpace page, with only the pronouns changed. This may read like that bit in Friends when the burd cooks the trifle and adds mince by mistake...

We are delighted to announce that we have been selected to play at The Mill at Oran Mor in Glasgow.

This will be our first appearance in Glasgow since the show at King Tuts with the, ahem, technical difficulties...

The Mill is an initiative showcasing fresh unsigned talent with the assistance of major financial backing from Miller Genuine Draft. Bi-weekly showcase gigs take place in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Oran Mor is unquestionably one of the best venues in Glasgow and we are very excited about playing there. Also on the bill are Hercules Mandarin, one of the most interesting bands we've played with - an amalgamtion of punk, country, new wave, Americana, pop into one fantastis band. We played with them back in January 2008 and although they declined our advances for tea and Father Ted, they're the soundest bunch of guys you can meet, and one of the best bands we've had the priviledge to take to the stage with.

In such barren times as these, one of the best things about The Mill is that it is FREE.

To receive your FREE TICKET for our gig by sms direct to your mobile, simply text "MILL28R" to 82500, or go to www.themill-live.com and register your name, email address and mobile number.

Availability is extremely limited, and tickets are expected to go fast, so book early to avoid disappointment.


www.themill-live.com

www.myspace.com/herculesmandarin

www.myspace.com/marlow_music

Blog written by Hercules Mandarin (70%) and Marlow (30%)

Hello, Wilkommen, Bon Matin, etc etc

It is a fine Saturday morning (it actually is - the skies are pretty blue outside, which is a welcome change to dismal piss that's fallen from the skies through the week - I would have been, had the weather been decent last night, in the middle of a campsite in Callander just now and not in my bed at 8am with only my underpants on and my laptop across me) and what better way to bring in the day than by writing another thrilling blog? I've often said I'm unsure of who actually reads these (judging by the number of comments left after my epic novel from last weekend - very few...) but having spoken to a few friends, they say the actually enjoy these inane ramblings. Why? I do not know. The self-deprecating wit? The insight into being the bass player in noise-pop outfit Marlow? The fine use of similie and metaphor? (I did English Literature at University for four years, I need to channel my literary skills and techniques somewhere because I'm not utilising them at work putting stickers on boxes for eight-and-half hours a day...) I even have a friend currently living in Australia and she reads them - the word of Marlow spreads across oceans... So long may it continue!

I wasn't too sure what to write about this morning - I suppose I can only really offer an update on what's happened in the last week or so coupled with some thoughts and feelings on love, life and literature. And that's yer lot. The week started well with a good practice in Edinburgh on the Monday night where we finished Low Winter Sun, a song that's fast becoming one of my favourites. The genesis of this song is actually a very strange one - I had a riff on the piano (!) that sounded like something that parodied Springsteen - not Springsteen himself, but one of these bands that have popped up in the last few years that make absolutely no effort to disguise the fact that they're ripping of The Boss and the E-Street Band (The Hold Steady, I'm looking in your direction) - that Kippy described as "too heroic". If you were to hear it, you'd be like, "Cool, which album is that off, The River or Born In The USA? Or is that something by one of "those" bands?". He was round at my house and we were trying to get something to take into practice for the next night and we were mucking around with bits and bobs, trying to see if we could use that piano riff (which was named "A River Runs Through America" for that special touch), my brother sitting in and trying to offer some advice, listening to Boy and October for inspiration and not really getting anywhere... Until one of us, I can't remember who, came up with the Em-D-Bm chord sequence for the verse (I'm giving all our secrets away here!). The rest of the song pretty much came from there. In practice, we had the idea that it should be a bit Friendly Fires-ish, with a spikey verse and uplifting chorus... and it all seemed to sort itself out after that. K-Man started using his Slicer unit to create this fragmented dancey signal, Quinny dusted the song in an icey reverb (fast becoming a speciality - it sounds pure and unique - the Marlow sound, nobody elses), I thumbed away at the roots notes (but do I care? Do I fuck, I could play augmented riffs, pentatonic scales, a million notes a minute all day long, but it sounds fucking crap compared to doing the simple thing - who the fuck wants to hear frantic bass work in Marlow anyway? Listen to us for the singing and the soundscapes, you want slapbass and all that, go and listen to the early RHCP stuff and never darken my door again) and Marky clattered away, getting this incredible drum sound... and we have a great song. In my mind, it sounds a bit like a cross between Friendly Fires and U2, but I think there's elements of My Bloody Valentine (a band I think we might begin to sound a bit like), Idlewild (the chorus sounds a bit like American English - remember that song? They could have "done a Snow Patrol" after that alnum but seemed doom