Stephen Feud

“TO MOVE ONE’S BODY OR FEET, OR BOTH, RHYTHMICALLY IN THE PATTERN OF STEPS, ESPECIALLY TO THE ACCOMPANIMENT OF MUSIC”

Yes, this is how the dictionary defines “dancing”.

I was in a bar the other week - as people do, go to bars - and people were dancing. Even I had a bit of a rhythmical outburst, but in my drunken state, I thought to myself :

“DANCING IS WEIRD”

But in a good way. I stood at the side for a bit just watching a few people dance. 

Some were dancing like this - 

djmvtjkljm8r f’;blgup. df’.[o,vpr ev[-t.

Some like this -

one step, two step, three step, FALL

One person was like this - 

Well he was trying to anyway.

It occurred to me the dancing is yet another expressive form of emotion. I’ve thought this for ages, but it only just occurred to me.. AND THE MUSIC! I LOVED how each song determined the dance.

My favourite part was the interaction between the people themselves. Most men didn’t interact with each other, possibly because of a fear of “ohh I’m not allowed to look like I’m having fun, I’m here for the laaaydeeez”, or possibly because that’s just the way they moved. I don’t know. But it was funny watching them.

One guy was dancing very angrily. This was hilarious to see. He looked a bit like a Neo-Nazi, but with a bottle of Smirnoff in one hand, and an unlit fag in the other. Wonder if he got lucky.

Then a group of girls - they were loving it. Smiles all round, arms flailing (love that word) in the air inadvertently hitting other people’s drinks all over them, falling over, dropping their coats on the floor, stabbing their heels into people’s feet (THAT FUCKING HURTS), but they were loving it. 

SO anyway. Dancing. Its funny. Its a laugh.

GUESS FUCKING WHAT.

We’re filming a music video this weekend for It Ain’t Right . 

This is our location:

totally blank canvas. It won’t be tomorrow.

It’ll be out on Monday. KABOOM! Which is also the release date for the single, AND we’re on BBC R1 all week.

So remember:

1. SINGLE RELEASE

2. VIDEO RELEASE

3. BBC RADIO 1

THREE EASY STEPS TO LIFE.

We supported the Big Pink the other day in Preston. Was a really good gig.. here are a few photos from the event.

Set timez innit.

Big brother is watching you.

Some delicious cookies two German fans made us. If you’re reading this, come live with me. Now.

The large Pink themselves.

Some newly made fans. The guy with the stripey top didn’t have enough money for a CD. So we asked him to do The Worm dancemove for a free one.

He did.

He also chinned himself.

We felt bad.

He was called Luke.

Sorry.

Have a good weekend folks.

OH. If you’d like, follow me on twitter. Twitter.com/stephenfeud

ALSO.

MONDAY = SINGLE RELEASE.

Bonza.

EVERYONE CUTS THEIR NAILS/MLUVÍTE ANGLICKY?

I’m using this title in the same way that people use the phrase “everybody shits”..

Its true! Everyone does shit! And cut their nails.. unless they’re weird and get others to cut their nails for them. I hear that’s quite a turn on for some folk.

            [cut the crap Stephen]

                    [okay]

                         [….]

                            [doi doi doi doi doi doi doi]

Our Czech adventure continued last weekend with our trip to Céske Budejovice, to play a wonderful festival called Budejovicky Majáles. 

Without further ado, lets just take a minute to look at this photograph.

Photo courtesy of the festival.

This was during our set. Hard to believe, really. The sun was setting throughout our set which fit perfectly for songs like ‘Cosmos’ and ‘Searching’, and by the end it was pitch black.. perfect for a crowd surf and a jump around.

Firstly, notice how stern the guy with long hair looks, looking at the crowd by the subwoofers (haha, funny word). I can assure you, he was not stern at all. In fact, if my memory serves me well, I remember us both dancing to a couple of bands the next day. He was brilliant.

Everyone at the festival was brilliant. The organisers, stage crew, stage hands, cooks, beer-providers, the fans, the non-fans, security, other artists and all other humans in the area surpassed my expectations. Even the non-humans I met (a couple of dogs, the odd alien here & there) were lovely.

Makes you smile doesn’t it.

Nice people.

And carrots..

MRKEV!!

I taught myself that word. I love it. For you english folk, its said like this:

a mixture between “melukev” and “merkev”

but REALLY quickly.

Go on try it..

Secondly, THERE ARE LOTS OF PEOPLE THERE. I think its the biggest crowd we’ve ever played to. Men-tal. 

Here are a few photos I’ve collated from the weekend..

(shots of the crowd/our live gig were taken by Sully Sundkvist - thanks again Sully, you legend) -

This is me climbing out of the crowd after attempting to crowd surf. My balls were groped about three times. Needless to say, I liked it.

This employee was the self-proclaimed ‘Employee of the Month’. It made me laugh.

The morning after the night before the morning after.. yeh. 

A sanitary towel.

Not much else to say on that.

Possibly my favourite photo from the weekend, strangely enough. Moshing IN ACTION!

Luke groovin’ his little tits off. Best face ever.

The boss at work, Petr. They couldn’t have asked for a nicer/funnier/cooler/brighter person to run the festival.

There are lots more photos. I’ve put them into an album on photobucket, which you can see when you click right HERE.

On another note, we received a raven message the other day (I’ve been watching too much Game of Thrones) telling us that we’re being played on BBC R1 on a few daytime shows in the week commencing 21st May. THIS IS BIG NEWS FOR US!

How awesome!

Its all been done through the BBC Introducing Uploader, so anyone reading this who’s an artist in the UK, I thoroughly recommend it. 

We’ll post details on exactly what shows we’ll be played on this week. All I ask of you is to:

a) listen to the shows, if you can

b) email/tweet/write/shout/call BBC Radio 1 and tell them how much you love us.. that’s if you do love us. If you don’t then that’s fair enough. Opinion and all that.

“Opinion” looks a bit like “onion”

WOW YEAH, I just remembered. To polish off this bloggity blog, here’s a photo. Those of you who follows these pointless musings will remember I posted a photo of a man sleeping on the train. Here’s one of a man reading at a train station.

I can’t really say why I took this photo, because I don’t know why. I just liked him. I was tempted to sit next to him and strike up a conversation about politics or the history of canal boats hoping to find that he wasn’t actually reading the newspaper, it was a cover for reading a comic book.

I didn’t sit next to him, so I guess I’ll never know.

I reckon he was.

A Marvel comic.

THE NEW AVENGER’S MOVIE? Its quite good. Won’t be buying it though. I love it how Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance in every Marvel comic film too. 

I want to write a book. 

Where do I start?

<——- here.

WHAT IS CZECH FOR “CARROT”?

Staropramen, bed bugs, someone who doesn’t like the USA, lots of confused Czechs, £1 Tesco hot food, brilliant shows, lots of nice people, fun, illness, late nights, early mornings (so we could get a free breakfast)..

All of these things were included in our weekend away for Prague, amongst a billion others.

Started off by arriving on Thursday evening into Prague, when we lumped all our gear onto a bus and the metro to our hotel. I spent most of the bus journey repeating the automated woman on the bus tannoy telling us our next stop -

“Terminal 3” was “Terminall Say”

“U Hugaru” was “Oo Hungaroo”

“Zlicin” was “Zlitchin”

I had fun, though I think I may have been annoying fellow Czech travellers.

As promised, I took a whole lot of photos (“WHOLE LOTTA ROSIE”) this weekend, so lets begin with this photo of a very happy man who is really liking his coffee.

I will call him Simon - he looks like a Simon doesn’t he? I reckon he’s a publisher for a local magazine, specialising in sofa repairs and carpet distributers. That would make a fabulous magazine.

On Friday night, we had our show with staple Czech band Vypsana Fixa.. They sing in Czech so unfortunately I have no idea what they’re singing, but two nice gig goers attempted to translate in realtime while they were playing. That failed nicely.

(Is that an oxymoron? “That failed nicely”?)

I was assured by a few Czech friends that I’d like their lyrics though. Here they are, right in the middle of their set.

Big thanks to those Fixa folks for letting us play with them. 

After a fun show playing to a wonderfully welcoming crowd, we headed straight back to our hotel to unload all our gear (drums included) which I don’t think the receptionist was too happy about.. (I think the fact we asked for extra pillows and loo roll about 27 times probably made her a little impatient).

This was our hotel lobby - two thrones for two Kings (and some flowers for good measure): 

I told them to look serious, so don’t worry. Thought it might be a direct photo, turns out they just look miserable. MY FAULT. They had free sweets on the reception desk which we ate a lot of. Again - receptionist = unhappy.

Breakfast consisted of toast, yogurt, apples, cheese, jam, ham, honey, green tea, orange juice and a different unhappy receptionist. This time, its because Luke and I were still in the breakfast room 15 minutes after they closed. CATASTROPHE.

Lunch was this: 

 ’Nuff said.

Saturday was wonderful. For those who jumped about and joined with us, I am very grateful. I had a lot of fun at this one. Staropramen have a photo album from the day, which you can see here.

This photo is of me sat on my arse during a song. I wanted to start a staring competition with the person in front of me but they were smiling which made me smile so I got up and carried on running around like a puppy on speed.

(Photo was taken from the Staropramen photo album - all rights to those guys).

Met a lot of wonderful people that day. Party-goers, other bands, production staff, bar staff, and bin staff. Yes, bin staff. I spoke to a guy for a while who was taking out the trash, working from Staropramen. He was very nice. I cannot for the life of me remember his name, but lets call him Roger. Roger had cool hair and a bandana on, and looked a little bit like Zach de la Rocha. When I say a little, I mean a very little.

Roger was telling me about this band called Charlie Straight -

I’m SURE I’ve heard of them.

Anyway, he told me to listen to them. They’re a Czech band (singing in English). I quite like it - bit of 80s pop in there. Nice voice, relaxed. Have a listen.

I’ve just listened again, and I really like this. ITS A GROWER.

So anyway, back to my original point - aren’t people wonderful. Meeting them is the best thing to do. MEET EVERYONE.

This was hilarious. If you look closely (its like one of those visual illusions), you may see a small child stood by the double bassist. This little fellow - lets call him Jeremy - was wondering about trying to play all the instruments during one of their songs. A natural born performer, I tell ya. 

From one extreme to the other, it appears that someone either really doesn’t like the USA, or needed to make fire quickly and found a spare dollar in their pocket.

oh deearr.. sorry Mr America. 

I met up with a friend on Sunday on our day off, and I kept asking her what various words were in Czech which I’d repeat a lot of times until I said it right, much like the way I did on the bus from the airport. The Czech word for carrot was brilliant, and so was the Czech word for arse. But, I can’t remember either of them. I am so bad. I really want to learn some other languages so I’m not just the ignorant Brit asking “Excuse me, do you speak English?” to everyone. Do it Stephen, do it.

I’ve said a lot already. I should probably stop. But for those of you wanting to see some photos from the weekend, click HERE to head to our photobucket album. There’s a random selection on there, from fruit stalls to a creepy-looking Luke.

Share around and enjoy.

x

STEVE’S PIZZA - NO GRABSIES

I remember when petrol was 70p a litre, when creme eggs were bigger, when kids were happy just playing outside, when mobile phones weren’t widely used, when cassette tapes were all the rage and Savage Garden were brilliant.

Savage Garden are still brilliant.. yes yes, this is my guilty pleasure #294857394950.

How can you NOT like this song?! It kicks pop ass!! And the classical guitar solo.. OOOHHHHH YESSSSSS..

Getting a little too excited..

Speaking of “asses”, don’t you think bums are weird? What ARE they for? Maybe its for comfort? Or just for a laugh? They do wobble a bit.

So we’re off to Prague this weekend coming, which I’m very excited about. Its one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to, and they sell green alcohol at midday.. can’t remember what its called, but a friend of mine took me for a shot they day I was leaving Prague last time we were there. It was snowy, cold, and fucking awesome.

That is probably  DEFINITELY the best part of being in a band - you, if you’re lucky enough like us, can get paid to travel and share your music to people. That is the only thing I could wish for. 

(shit, just remembered I need to get myself a travel toothbrush. You know, one of those ones with a little sterile lid? somewhere must sell them. I’m heading to ASDA)

I’ll be sure to take lots of photos on our time away. This summer is going to be a good one - Prague, Prague again, Budevicky Majales, Jamrock, Aachen, Litchaart, ermm, lots other places too. Can’t remember them all at this moment in time.

Hey look at this photo of a pizza -

The flag says :

“Steve’s pizza. No grabsies”

You heard. No touchy touch.

———

Time is weird isn’t it.

I have this notion that time isn’t real.

I’m not even going to elaborate, just think about it for a minute.

(haha - if time isn’t real, then you don’t have “a minute”… OH GOD-THIS IS MIND BOGGLING)

Annnnnd now I’m listening to Savage Garden’s album. 

BILLIE PIPER WAS MY FIRST MUSICAL PURCHASE.

Its out there now. Judge away.

On a judging note, I started watching The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.. or Tomb of the Emperor of the Dragon… or Tomb of the Emperor’s Dragon’s Tomb.. something like that. Anyway, it was shite. Honestly one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. I wanted to watch something easy, crap, no thinking needed. Well, I got that. It was LITERALLY THE WORST THING SINCE WORST THINGS BEGAN.

Urgh. Don’t watch it.

I’m hungry. Pizza? Maybe. Cereal? Always a good snack. 

Adios amigos. x

BALLSDAY

Today is Sunday. Why is it called Sunday?

The day of Sun? - not outside my window, that’s for sure.

A misspelling of “Son-day”, aka the day a son was born? - nope.

One sec, I’m just going to google this query.

Well I can’t find the answer. How good could it be if the name of the days were changed?

I’m going for 

Monday         Sausageday

Tuesday        Adjustable spannerday

Wednesday   Ballsday

Thursday      A really fat manday

Friday           Hahaday

Saturday       Just “day”

Sunday         Write a pointless blogday

Lets add a new day for good measure. I’m going to call it, MAGNIFICENTDAY. It will be between Wednesday and Thursday between January and March, then from April until September it’ll change to being sandwiched by Sunday and Monday. Between September and January, MAGNIFICENTDAY will be everyday, apart from the 3rd day of the month where that day will be called BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL .

I know that’s a load of balls, but essentially that’s what a group of people once did. SOMEONE must’ve sat around with a pen and paper, worked out the gregorian calendar and all that jazz (I’m not up to speed on my history, so apologies if I’m a little bit wooah/wheey) and decided to name all the days/months. Maybe its time to change? (leeave it all behiiiiind… only very few of you will get that.)

As a kid, I used to like Sundays. They included roast dinners, the smell of those free magazines you get from newspapers, the smell of black coffee, the sound of F1 on TV, the smell/sound of cut grass, playing with toys/games, chillin’ wit ma homeboiz etc etc. As I got older, they then got worse and turned into the day of ironing, homework, Heartbeat on TV, cleaning, tidying, all that shit.

Now, Sundays are no different than any other day to me, except everything is closed. I hate that. I also hate bank holidays. I know I’m the only one who does.

This will be me.

Moving on to more interesting topics, we’re doing a new EP due to be out by the end of April. We were going to wait until we had a full on album but that was taking too long so we’re going for an EP for now YEAH! Brilliant. Here’a video of Luke being a prat (in a good way) -

Isn’t he wonderful? Ladies, if you want him, you better go get him quick.

I’ll be doing my bits next week. Could’ve done some this weekend but I’ve been in bed LITERALLY DIEING OF THE WORST ILLNESS IN THE WORLD EVER. 

Not true at all, but I have been shagged up the arse by an illness. Haven’t been able to sleep and that. On Easter weekend too! Oh deary me.

So that petrol panic thing that happened. Erm. Yep.

And that new legislation that the government will be able to keep all our emails and texts, in fact, ANY electronic communication in a really big database so they can look at it whenever they want? Haha, yeah.

When computers were first invented, they were really really big. I’m talking, BIG. The size of a room BIG. Imagine if they were still that big. How many of those computers would be needed to keep all the info stored from people like you and me?

I’m guestimating approximately.. A SHIT LOAD.

Bye.

I MET THE QUEEN!

and also - 

This song was produced by a man called Tim Anderson. We met him in Los Angeles and co-wrote a couple of songs with him, which he also co-produced. As you might agree from this song, it sounds so fucking cool. The vibe is perfect.

This is what Timmy has to say about production in an interview (you can view the whole interview HERE):

Do you have a signature sound that you try to add to the songs you produce?

I want the songs to sound like the artist, not me, though my wacky unorthodox method probably makes it sound like me. I call it the kitchen sink method, meaning that we crush our boundaries and expectations and throw every idea that comes freely from the stream of consciousness at the track. Try to let our subconscious bleed into the song so the unexpected is possible. That comes from jamming and feeling free to let intuition guide you.

What is your goal in production? What do you want to do for the artists?

I want people to get that sound that’s inside of them out. The goal is to use each other to create something that feels exciting, fresh, inspiring.

What a freaaakin’ legend. I highly recommend reading the whole interview too - very interesting.. well, to musical geeks like us. 

Also listen to this -

You might know that the singer in this band is Ryan Gosling, that acting guy. Girls seem to like him for some weird reason. Apparently he’s all handsome and that..

Time for a piss. 

x

SIGUR ROS OR KATY PERRY?