Bebo

For photos of the last party we played at the Toilet Factory in south London go to our myspace page: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...

We're sorry to say that our bassist & keyboardist, Jan Lee has left the band. He felt he needed to concentrate on his career as an illustrator & has applied to the Royal College of Arts to do his MA. We'll miss him, and his clitoral massage bass playing technique, but we're glad to say we remain friends. We wish him the best of luck.

In his place, we've roped in Tom Straughn, from Haunted House Party on keyboards and vibes. He's got the legs of a pirate & his first gig with us will be the final Toilet factory party, sometime around the first week of February.

We're glad to say however, we're going back on the road. Our first gig proper will be Kiev in the Ukraine on the 29th February. Check our gig listings for details on the venue.

Then we're hitting Austria, Germany & Switzerland with a two week tour in April with MSTRKRFT & Punks Jump Up.

03.04.08 - Wien (Vienna), Fluc
04.04.08 - Frankfurt, Hafen 2
05.04.08 - Köln (Cologne), Gebäude 9
09.04.08 - Zürich, Mascotte
10.04.08 - Berlin, Lido
11.04.08 - München (Munich), Registratur
12.04.08 - Hamburg, Mandarin Kasino

We'll see you fucking there!

XXX

(FOR FULL BLOG WITH PHOTOS GO TO www.shitdisco.co.uk or www.myspace.com/shitdisco/ )
There’s been a large amount of radio silence on the blog of late. There are several reasons for this, not least the fact we’ve been touring so much the last year we’ve barely had time to wipe our arses let alone write down what’s been going on. Although I’d like to take this opportunity to assure you, we have been wiping our arses.

So what haven’t we told you. Well condensed, here it is: My caravan got trashed by Nazis, at least I think they were Nazis. They spray painted a swastika, (badly) inside the caravan and smashed all the windows. It was a right mess. Insane with rage I tried to blow it up with some fireworks but failed miserably, which only added to my distress.

Anyway, since we had this weekly tour diary on Channel 4’s Transmission they broadcast me discovering the smashed caravan on TV and guess who saw it? My old friend and ex-landlord Mr Khan. Up until this point he didn’t know I was living there rent free, (see previous blogs) and understandably this new information made him livid. So while I was away on tour, his son came round with some petrol and torched it. My lovely caravan, my home on wheels: up in flames. The fire burnt so hard it melted some nearby wheelie bins. When we came back to Glasgow on our UK tour to play a house party in the nearby 51 West Princes St, I went outside in the morning and discovered the scorched remains, a rusting frame and two melted tyres. I thought I might shed a tear but I didn’t.

Out in Texas for SxSW, we spent our days drinking free booze with Errors and as I remember Joe licked our soundman Glover’s eyeball on a balcony. Good times indeed. We also got one of our shows pulled after 3 songs because of a curfew, which made us quite mad. Joel pushed over the PA and I threw my sticks in an, admittantly innocent, engineers face and apparently broke the other bands drum kit with a microphone, although I don’t see how this was possible.

Then we did that UK tour with To My Boy. It was a lot of fun & the first time we’d toured the UK in a big sleeper coach. I can’t overstate how good those things are, you can just keep on drinking all the way to the next town. It truly is a technological marvel. Joe stole a massive fake tiger from a service station and we danced around with it while listening to Paul Simon. Then for reasons still unknown, Joel started vomiting in Aberdeen and didn’t stop for three days. It was grim. He was in a lot of fucking pain, & as you know it’s a repeat of this which meant we had to cancel our North American tour recently.

Then we went on a European tour, which included one of the biggest audiences we’d ever played to in Gronigen at their annual free festival. Then in Rotterdam I met the artist Stanley Donwood’s assistant and she told me, to my utter disbelief, that he had wanted to come to the gig but had to prepare for a show that weekend at the VIP gallery there in Rotterdam. She took my address & a few weeks later I got a signed print through the post. I couldn’t quite believe it. He’s a fucking legend. Thanks for that Stanley!

After the tour me and Joe flew out to Porto for a DJ gig at the Casa da Música. Klaxons were meant to be playing but due to Jamie getting “ill,” Simon & James Klaxon had flown out to DJ instead. After some vodka in the dressing room we formed a horrible plan. Borrowing instruments from the only band that was actually playing, we formed The Shitsons. Joe on guitar, me on drums, James Klaxon on bass and Simon walking around with the microphone in his mouth screaming the words. We did semi-literate covers of Gravitys Rainbow and I Know Kung Fu followed by some directionless dance-jazz then exited the stage to confused applause from a crowd that had turned up to see the Klaxons play a headline set. Not this.

After that we did Glastonbury, which was nice. Acres and acres of mud and sludge and p