Summer Tour Dates Announced

It feels like it has been a long time since I have seen the band. Almost 2 weeks in fact.

We have had a little bit of time off from one another, and it feels strange!

I have been sitting at home writing random words, random dreams, and random thoughts down in my book. Hoping and waiting for them to merge and to create a coherent body of new songs and melodies. Right now it looks as though some 1940’s scientist has smashed some atoms into billions of little pieces and is now scratching his head trying to figure out how the hell he is going to put them back together.

And there is nothing else in the world he’d rather be doing!

This week we will get back in the studio rehearsing and trying to fit some new pieces together, and start the process of getting ready for our next big leap into touring.

We have just now confirmed all the dates for our first tour of 2010. Which will be focussed on a good part of the Australian East Coast/ South Coast and will launch off on the 22^nd of Jan. It’ll be something new for us as we’ll FINALLY be getting to Queensland and also be sharing the tour with two more great Aussie acts, Grand Atlantic and Sierra Fin.

Its going to be good fun, cramming into the van, playing music, meeting new folk, looking up at the stars and learning how not to drown in the ocean!

Bring it on I say!

X

N.M

On the road back to Melbourne

We have just played our last 3 shows of 2009 in Sydney.
We are back in the car again early in the morning and are now about 2 hours from the concrete hi rises and terrace houses of Sydney’s city.
Driving through the bone-dry, bone-coloured hills, underneath a factory of heavy dark grey clouds, lined up and moving slowly along through the otherwise blue sky on their invisible conveyor belt.
It’s the first time I’ve looked at this landscape for a while and I feel quite intrigued and inspired by it. I have the idea that sometime soon I’ll come sit on these hills for a few weeks, write some songs, watch the stars and probably read a Bill Bryson book… That is until Damian, making some strange falsetto noise in my ear, distracts me from the outside world. Pretty soon we find ourselves trying to laugh without using any facial expression whatsoever. It goes on for about 5 minutes before the outside world distracts me from him again.
The clouds have now joined forces to become one big black blanket and are now releasing all their raindrops. It’s coming down pretty damn hard on the windscreen and on to the bone earth.
I start thinking about how contrasting this world is compared with what we have been looking at in France and England. The rolling hills have turned from green to brown and the old stone villages and churches have gone, replaced with volcanic boulders and skeletons of trees.
Even though I know that the land here is in drought it still looks incredibly beautiful.

Right at this point in our journey back to Melbourne we go through cycles of speaking deeply of philosophy, the world, music, and life then falling silently into our own thoughts, listening attentively and singing along with whatever music is playing on the car stereo, then out of nowhere we spark into some incoherent, slightly sleep depraved idiotic humour. Most people would probably respond by looking blankly and slightly bewildered. But in the state of mind that we are in we just double up with laughter and continue to spiral further and further from anything comprehensible. Occasionally it is broken briefly by me fucking up my laugh with an unwanted snort.
Then as suddenly as it starts it stops. It goes back to deep conversation again.
This cycle should probably last another 3 or 4 hours before our arses fall asleep, our joints become fused and we become slightly irritable and plain old over it.

I can see that these long trips in Australia travelling from city to city packed with all our gear like sardines into Nick Cheeks’ car are going to be quite common for us in this coming year.
I look forward to playing more shows, seeing more of this country and becoming the band we really want to be…..

X

N.M.

Coming Home

The excitement of air travel seemed to wear off after about 8 hours squished into a tiny seat not knowing which way to put my head, cause any which way is uncomfortable and didn’t allow me any sleep. I thought maybe I should try drinking some scotch to send me to dream world but instead I just ended up with a splitting headache and a serious case of pink eye. But somehow along the way I was apparently so engrossed watching the flight path on my screen (Or maybe it was Transformers) I didn’t notice that a flock of seagulls or some other sort of aggressive bird tried fighting for the best nesting spot in my hair. They departed, Obviously, but left me with this amazingly weird mess of tangled and boofed hair on the side of my head….????

Anyway that is all over now and I have a 14 hour stop over in Singapore before I continue on to Melbourne.

I do look forward to getting back into the studio and start Jamming with the boys again. And to tell you the truth get a good coffee and some sun. I’m beginning to become ghoulishly grey coloured…. That with my “Pink eye”, Birds nest, and sleep deprivation I’m sure the Australian customs will quarantine me and want to put me down cause they think I have some sort of new exotic French Farm Animal disease. “grippe de chèvre sale moche”….

But….. If I do make it out of customs then I will see you soon. For our next few shows in Melbourne and Sydney….

I should go and I’ll write again soon. When I am more awake and make sense!

Much Love

Monsieur Goat Flu!

X

N.M

The Roads We Take and the People We Meet

I’m back in Paris after the wrap up of our tour over the weekend. Back to reality I guess?
It’s all happened so quickly. These months of preparation and past 2 months of touring France and England are now a fond memory.
On the way back to Paris I began writing this blog, but after a minute or 2 I found myself watching the rows of seats down the isle of the Eurostar, looking at the people that were inhabiting them. I found it mind blowing at how many different thoughts that would be floating through everybody’s heads right that second, and that how everybody was on his or her own journey somewhere. Wherever they wanted to go. Pretty soon I was off on a tangent. I decided I needed to spend my last few pounds at the bar, and finish writing there.
It’s been an incredible journey for Blackchords. Always scattered with hurdles but always rewarded with the knowledge that we are heading in the right direction. It has been great to wander the streets of Paris and London, finding inspiration in its ancient walls. To live and breathe music everyday.
It is what we have been after for quite sometime.
Every gig we played was unique and we found a different energy with the crowed and in the room. So when Mark asked me which I thought was the best show? I couldn’t really answer. We’ve played with some great bands and we’ve met some amazing people, who I know we’ll get to see again. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Each of us has loved every minute of being over here in Europe and so in someway it’s a little bit hard to say goodbye and head back to OZ. But we know that we still have a long way to go as we are just at the beginning. We have many more great experiences to live at home and elsewhere in this world.
On that note many many thank you’se to the people we have met along the way,
To Emms, to Claire and Sue, Dust Devil, The Blackchords team, Sasufi, and Arnaud Betrom (our French Bassist) who is a King! Can’t wait to do it again.

XX N.M

À La Prochaine

We’re pretty much finished up in France for now.
The boys have gone ahead to
London and I’ll be catching up with them in a few more days.
Our last show here was excellent. Playing to a full room and responsive crowd on the other side of the world was very much welcomed by us.
They were very kind not to try and throw empty bottles at my head when I attempted to sing a cover of Alain Bashung’s “Je T’ai Manqué”.
After the show, it was nice not to have to pack up and leave straight away so we could hang out and meet some very lovely locals and even some Australian and UK visitors too!

All in all our time here in France has been an awesome experience, and if not for the excitement of bunkering down in London during October I’d be pretty sad to moving on.
We got a good taste of what Paris and France is all about, the food, the wine, the beautiful streets and buildings. The inspiring art, history and of-course the passionate French people.
We have decided we like it and hope that we can have some more soon!


Oh and BTW this coming Sunday @ 4pm Damian and Nick C. will be heading down to the Islington acadamy for the Australian Times home grown BBQ. They will be guest DJ's and signing some CD's. We have a limited number of guest pass's to give away so email mark@blackchords.com for more info and to get your name on the door.

Also a huge thank you to Sasufi for all her hard work and on organizing our France gigs.
She has just put up a new blackchords.com photo page... Check it out!

XX Nick M.

On The Road

We are on the road somewhere in the French countryside travelling back to Paris, with Sasufi and the Dharma Bums, after our show last night in Nantes.
Its only 8:30 am and we have been driving for 2 hours. The car is well and truly packed and it’s my turn to squish into the non-seat in between the equipment. My back is nicely cramped, my left leg has got pins and needles in it and I have no way of shaking it out.

Inside the car has gone quiet, looking at the angle at which everybody’s heads are crooked I’d say all but Nick C.(who is driving) has passed out. I’m watching Damian fight hard to keep his head on top of his shoulders. It keeps falling sharply to one side then quickly bobs straight back up again. Holds straight for about 6 seconds then falls right off again. He’s been in this battle for about half an hour now!
Outside the sun is finally beginning to burn through the grey mist and shine on the old stone farm houses that are spotted across the hills and every now and then we pass by a small dense village with a huge church spire at their centre.Each building and city I see holds so much history. It’s something so foreign to back home. I love it.
I’m still pretty hazy after only having had 2 and half hours sleep. So I haven’t had a chance to think about the show last night.

From my fuzzy memory tho I feel like it was one of our best gigs so far.There was such a great energy in the room that couldn’t be quashed even by my terrible attempt at speaking French.
I was very moved to hear the audience singing along in their French accents to Broken Bones and again to At Worlds End after they called for us to play it for the 2nd time. I did feel a little strange at playing a song twice in one set but it was definitely worth it to watch them shout along to the chorus.
I really hope that it won’t be too long till we are back in Nantes. Hopefully for a little longer next time…

XX
N.M

**Check out some more photos from Nantes.

Through the storm

I’m feeling somewhat fuzzy this morning…. But hell I’m over the moon that we got through our first concert, even tho every unseen hand tried to stop us from performing last night!!! In the end it was brilliant!!

The boys arrived in Paris sometime last week for rehearsals. It was great to see them stumble through the gates at Gare Du Nord. Exhausted but running on the reserve energy of a new country and the knowledge that we were now beginning our first European tour. For the past week we have been rehearsing, wondering the streets, eating copious amounts croissants and baguettes and taking in the sites.

The rehearsals have been solid and a lot of fun. We are finding new places to explore on songs from the Album and also beginning to experiment with some new ideas.

We finished up our last rehearsal on Wednesday and went back home to pack up our various belongings and get ready to head out in the morning for our first London Concert.

We met up at Gare Du Nord at 11:30 Thursday morning raring to go. I was runn

ing a little late (or as I like to say right on time) and so as I arrived we headed straight to the departure gate (completely unaware of the storm that was brewing overhead). As we approached the gate I said to Damian “I can’t believe we’re going to London!”….

Cut to – Damian and Nick C being ushered away by customs and Arnaud (our French Bassist) and I standing at the check in counter a little stunned and missing half of Blackchords.

We got through the gate and found the boys, sans passports and Tickets. Not entirely sure what was going on except for the fact that there was a problem and our train was about to leave any second Arnaud and I decided we should probably go on without Damian and Nick C.

We spent the next 4 odd hours once we arrived in London waiting on the phone listening to hold music, trying to get through to various embassy’s.

By 7:30pm and having been unable to find a single soul that was able to help us out we decided that they should give it another crack and try and get on another train….

Cut to… Damian and Nick C. being given a little card by customs politely letting them know that they were being detained searched and finger printed…. Awesome!!

Anyways to make a long story a little less long… By the morning of our first London concert we had half a band stuck in another country and were freaking out that they weren’t going to make it. Luckily we had Mark (our London manager) to save the day. He was able to get some help to sort out the Visas by 4pm(1 hour before sound check) So now the boys were sprinting back to Gare Du Nord to get the train across…. It was about this time we were able to have half a second of celebrating before receiving some news that there had been another problem and we didn’t have a guitar amp or drum kit for the show…. I couldn’t believe it I felt like someone really wanted to make us work hard for this show.

The problem of the lack of equipment was sorted out by the generosity of the ban

ds that were to be supporting us at the show. Now we were back on track again and making our way to The Good Ship…. We received a call from Nick C. to let us know that they were sitting on a train and would arrive at 8pm. Unfortunately he had just had his wallet stolen so it still wasn’t completely stress free!

8pm came and the boys made it to the Good Ship. None of us could believe that we were actually there we had made it through to the show. We were ready to play.

Just as we got on stage to play there was the final (little) twist of the knife. The input on my guitar had decided to fall out so instead of getting up and playing straight away we had to quickly try and get it put back together!! 5 minutes later we were good to go!!

It was a great feat for us to make it to that stage last night and it was a great first gig. We knew that this tour would be an experience and 1 gig in… It has been just that…

There was much celebratory drinking after the show and I am now in dire need of a coffee if I’m to make it through the day…..

So I’ll stop now.

Thanks for all who turned out last night to the show. We’ll see you soon

X

N.M.