Christmas Catch Up

Take a trip with the ghosts of christmas past with a quick catch up of some of the bands we have featured in Tenfoot City in the last year (and a bit), remember a band is for life not just....ah screw that, just get out their and support some local sound guys!

The Holy Orders
Rumour has it that Matt Edible and his disciples (Holy being in their name, disciples being his band, I shock myself sometimes I really do!) are heading into the studio to record their long awaited album. If early versions of the songs posted to myspace are anything to go by then this is a very exciting prospect indeed. Hopefully with a little more out of town attention they have it in them to be the next band to break to a wider audience and rightly so too!

myspace.com/theholyorders


City Of Glass
Already signed to Invisible Girl records and the release of their last album "Tales of The City", the band are currently working on a brand new album that will feature all new material (fans of the band will have already been familiar with the songs on "TOTC") tentatively entitled "Birth and Other Mistakes" that will push forward their dark electro leanings and hopefully see the release of a single from the album. Dee and the band are also aiming to play more out of town gigs.

myspace.com/cityofglassuk

The Talks
Probably the most hard working band in Hull, nay, the UK reggae ska-punkers the Talks have notched up an impressive amount of gigs in the last year. Touring with The Specials, the group has focused on grabbing nationwide attention with a slew of all important out of town gigs, which only makes the precious few gigs in their home town that little bit more special. Having skanked their way onto the airwaves with the downright despicably catchy "Picture This" The Talks are already on their way to topping this as they put the finishing touches to their debut album.

myspace.com/thetalks

The Notebook
In their own words "Currently trying to get out of Hull", The Notebook are another band who have built up a strong fanbase in Hull and are now aiming to impress the rest of the UK with their indie pop stylings. The band are also currently keeping up the amazing work effort recording new songs and even picking up a new member in the form of Danny Curtis.

myspace.com/thenotebook2006

Endoflevelbaddie and Home Sweet Home
Going from strength to strength this year Endoflevelbaddie played his biggest crowd ever this year at the Freedom Festival as well as featuring on the superb Warren album "State of The City". As well as working on new material for his "next level" in the new year. EOLB has been working with the Home Sweet Home gang to build up their eclectic electro evening, bring in out of town talent with the likes of Leeds Alphadrive which could see the regular night becoming even bigger and better in 2010 with the inclusion of live soul hihop and breakbeat into the electronica mix.

myspace.com/eolb

Awash With Antler
Since we covered these twee-godesses in these hallowed pages the band have been busy gigging and recording their debut EP "Channel 16" (available from the bands myspace page, £3.50 to you sunshine) as well gaining praise from Manchester Music online and Hull's favorite son, Paul Heaton!

awashwithantler.co.uk


Man Made Noise
Taking the mantra of getting "owt of 'ull" to the extreme, he finished his fantastic debut album and buggered of on an around the world trip making us all jealous with his pictures of far flung locations (I would kill swathes of people for the chance to chill out in my dressing gown in a funky paper walled Japanese 'ouse!) and even packing in a few gigs in Tokyo. Now that he's back in Hull we'll hopefully be able to nick his passport and hold it to ransom on the proviso that he plays some hometown gigs for those of us just begging to hear his eclectic talents live again! Oh, and album number two please Mr Noise!

trummerlive.net/manmadenoise

The Rocky Nest-En El Autobus D.I.Y Hi5

If you haven't seen the Rocky Nest lately then you've been missing out on one of the cities most idiosyncratic bands, slowly but surely through intimate low key gigs, perfecting their craft. Now with their latest LP the band have hit the perfect middle ground between their DIY, grassroots leanings and a recording that befits their understated yet gorgeous wonky pop songs.

Unlike the Rocky Nests brilliant but flawed EP every instrument on "autobus" strums, parps and chimes with perfect clarity while the album still manages to fuzz and crackle with the warmth of a favorite well worn vinyl record as in the track "Blomflugan", which tickles the ears with it's delicate bird song and sparsely strummed guitar, fret-board squeaks and all. It's still all terribly ramshackle, which is why we fell in love with Mr Sarel and his merry folksters. Only now all the parts have been polished to a shiny stripped back, frazzled folk-phycadelia sheen without being swamped in overly slick and clinical production.

In-between the Spanish stirrings of opening track "En El Autobus DIY Hi5" the nest prove they've still got the nack of weaving together near perfect pop songs in "Lenny and Jenny" slinking out of the speakers with a drunken sounding horn opening. Elsewhere the album delights with the cutesy nursery pop of "Needle and Thread", a track that Rod, Jane and Freddy wish they'd written and the skewered fab four aping "My perfumed garden". At any given time this record is twee, minimal, orchestral, childish and unashamedly fun!

myspace.com/therockynest

Considering that the last few months were filled to the brim with pure fail, the last two or three days have been jam packed with all the left over "win" that's been withheld from me, lets see why...

1) Last week I started two jobs, one with a very famous frozen food company and another with a Bar. I quit the bar after one really long shift due to the boss speaking to me like I was dirt. This left me with the slightly embarassing freezer stocking job with part time hours. After an extended interview at their staff party I have gained employment with CEX working with one of my best freinds at what is already approaching full time hours which should help me get back on my feet and enjoy life a lot more! Go team CEX!

2) I worked quite a few hours on a trial shift for the bar I quit, and didn't expect to see any of the sizeable pay packet as the boss is a massive scumbag. I went in on Saturday and without any fight was promptly given the wages I was owed. Sorted!

3)I got my Tenfoot City money and am genuinely hopefull about the future of the magazines and intend to prove the haters wrong!

4)A gentleman who I spoke to at the Humber Street meeting got in touch about the music venue elements of my propossed coffee shop, indicating we could fill a gap as a mid sized venue for touring bands as he belives nowhere in Hull is up to it. As well as offering advice, a free trip to a Big Pink gig he also quickly helped me with my journalism aspirations by telling the Editor of "The Fly" that I would be better suited then himself to write a "regional roundup" on Hull instead of the York one she wanted from him. Me? In The Fly? get in!

5) Last but definately the most awsome. I got an email totally out of the blue from my favourate Hull Band, City of Glass (left). I've been mates with them since the start and written about them and supported them all along the way for a good few years now. Deeaay want's to meet up very soon after he offered me the chance to be the bands manager!

Shit. I was going to make a wish list/predition post on the next Wii Fit game and I wish I had as two at least have been addressed in Wii Fit Plus

• Users can input the amount of time they want to spend on their workouts or select an area for personal improvement, and Wii Fit Plus will suggest a number of diverse activities for them.
• For the first time, users can mix and match which strength and yoga activities they prefer on a given day. The seamless exercise flows make it easier than ever for users to maintain their daily workout routines.

I managed to sort out the magazines in Manchester

Does anyone on my list live near Warwickshire?

I've just won a set of 150 SFX magazines and realised that they are in Warwickshire and how far it is :(

A while back after getting back from Anthrocon I responded to a post about DJ-ing at the con next year.

I loved the con, but for my liking the dance program was, well a bit too much dance, in that I mean it their was far too much emphasis on dance and electronic music rather then any personal objection to peoples rhytmic movement to music. So I e-mailed the chap asking for DJ's expressing my interest in hosting some form of alternative rock/indie set.

Straight away I got an email in return that while not negativer per-se, did have a slight "not what were after" motif to it, stating that the majoirt of people on the fandom like the music already on offer. Now I didn't want to rustle any feathers or anything but I expressed my beleif that there should be space for both, in case there is a number of people who would prefer indie and rock. I recived another one today after hearing nothing for months and while not openly angry or hostile, the language makes me think that I'e already pissed someone off. Which was not my intention.

I don't know damned if you do, damned if you don't. I still beleive in the idea but get the sense that now because I've tried to question the status quo that it will be shot down no matter what course of action I take.

Any suggestions? it just seems that already I've been met with both a brick wall and an uphill struggle when all I want to do is spin a few hip tunes and get some tails wiggling on the dancefloor!

I do personally think electonic and dance music are vastly over subscribed genre in the fandom, considering the sheer number of furs there should be at least a few more bands and other musical artists coming out of the woodwork?

I was just looking for one of these plastic containers, the sturdy type that are open topped and stack one way around, and when turned around fit into each other for easy storage and got no results back. I'm starting to think that "stack in jacks" might just be something we called them in our family? What the hell are they really called?

Do any of your familes have any words of phrases that have gotten you odd looks?

A few weeks ago I posted about my intention to buy a new home for the rats and after a week or so of searching I was in possesion of this bad boy over to the left.

The previous cage I had been looking at, as well as being over 60 miles away was also being sold by a seller who seemed to have forgetten he was selling it, or at the very least lost the ability to write e-mails. His loss I guess as a day or so later I found this cage on ebay a stones throw away in Howden with a nice gentleman who for an extra £10 I had already mentally spent on the cage I had my eye on, delivered it to my door.

Well I say to my door, he had written it down wrong and ended up at another house halfway down the street that bizarely happened to be owned by Ted, one of the regulars at the Pub I worked at, by the way I did mention I quite right?

The other cage just seemed to cramped after my moment of stupidity in rescuing Elder (who still manages to piss Iffriel off until I hand him the fat furry bugger, he loves him really) and was getting really smelly far faster then they ever have. So as well as smelling cleaner and having a tray that pulls out for quick cleaning the rats have a ton more space to bomb about in. I'm even thinking of getting some sort of plant in the corner as they seem to love climbing up mine in the frontroom!

Oh, the wooden board is an extra made by the guywho had it last as it actually supposed to come with a slopped metal roof that is supposed to make it look cute but actually makes it look like tacky crap. It has since been relegated to the downstairs hallway as punishment.

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So fucking pissed off at the moment. Fuck.

Slowly but surely all the entusiasm I was bubbling with when I arrived back from Anthrocon has slowly drained away, as I knew it was. My mood has darkened and dropped at an impresive rate these last few months. At the moment I'm litterally having problems getting out of bed. The all time low being yesterday, where I didn't crawl out of my pit until at least 3pm. Just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to even swing my legs out of bed and felt really heavy and weighed down. It's been like this for months and it's an achivement in itself if I manage to wake before 11am, which I havn't managed for at least two months now. I've no idea how to break the habit because at times I genuinely don't to get up and face not having any money, career prospects, and spending my few waking hours trawling through a few pittiful and pathetic job listings for lowly positions. All of which I'll never hear anything back from, which is a great confidence booster when you can't even get shitty bar work. I'm sick of everything at the moment. I can see years and years of time in Hull doing crappy temporary positions, scrimping and scraping and limp weekends drinking myself into oblivion like every other sad fucker in this city stretching out in front of me and it makes me want to wretch.

The Spring Bank Tavern wasn't much, just a bar job but at least it enabled me to finally be in a decent finincial position and have a little bit of money to enjoy myself and buy things with for once. Now I feel like I've spent years trying to make it even this far and little over a year of being flush, I've been duely dumped back at square one with nothing to show for it. To add insult to injury, the old landlord was in last Sunday still flaunting around and buying endless drinks. So it's obviously not affected him in the least and as usuall the only person who has truely got fucked is me. Go figure. So at the moment I'm just plodding along doing the same job for one third of the wage, watching everyone I know working to acomplish something with the sense that I've really fucked up somewhere along the line. I wish I'd stuck at more things in the past and if I had a chance I'd kill the teenage me.

I've tried sending articles to newspapers, magazines and websites and once again, even with the tailored ones I am greeted back with a stoney wall of silence. Is there some secret handshake or procedure that I'm missing out on or what? I'm really clueless as to what to do next?

I just know I can't plod on like this.

“In Bruce Springsteen songs, you can either stay and rot, or you can escape and burn. That’s OK; he’s a songwriter, after all, and he needs simple choices like that in his songs. But nobody ever writes about how it is possible to escape and rot—how escapes can go off at half-cock, how you can leave the suburbs for the city but end up living a limp suburban life anyway. That’s what happened to me; that’s what happens to most people”  Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

I'd like to take a moment now to treat you to some hilariously unfunny anonmous txt messages that were sent to Iffriels phone today, I dare say you'll have to get the Dr afterwards as you'l have bust a gut..

• 01:37pm: STOP SHAGGING MY BOYFRIEND. KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF HIM

At which point Iffriel asks who it is, informs them that they probably have the wrong number and that he already has his own boyfriend to shag thank you very much

• 01:39pm; I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR LIES. JUST KEEP AWAY AFROM HIM

• 01:45pm: NAPPYFOX IS MY BOYFRIEND AND IF YOU TOUCH HIM AGAIN I'LL EAT YOUR RATS

at this point, a genuine sense ot WTF-ery begins mixed with a touch of fear

• 01:48pm: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I DON'T THINK YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH WHO YOU THINK YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH

• 02:01: IT'S NO PRANK, DICK BOY

So anyway, we eventually figured out that it was Springy who was sending these slightly worrying txt messages. When confronted in IRC she first denied it, then moments later claimed they "were a joke" and then laughed about it as if we were some how the weird ones for being scared by them and somehow missing her comedy genius! Hmmm, I think I may have missed the funny element of messages about eating my pets and shagging someone else's boyfriend sent from someone who we barely know and will have had to have gone out of her way to get Iffriel's number, and on the few occasions we have seen her at meets and such, has been completely of her face on a combination of booze and drugs!

So if anyone fancies sending anyone some nasty messages why not direct them too 07776375808 as I'm sure she will love them!

that number again 07776375808

Was going to write a livejournal about recent weeks but can't even bring myself to do that