Bright lights 2.....

Ok so without getting all " get how well deep I am", I thought I'd just explain quickly what Bright lights is about for the kind few of you that have downloaded it or listened to it on the ol' wireless.

They say that talking about music is like dancing about architecture... how arsey is that! And who the fuck first said that...hang on....googly now.....Christ it was Steve Martin. Steve Bloody Cheaper by the dozen 1 & 2 Martin. 

Thats almost a big enough bombshell to make me stop writing and go and put my head in the oven.... much more fun and much, much more accurate would be "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music," by the ever sentient Aldous Huxley ( these are rather nicely sourced from an excellent website called Quotedb.com ) . Music for me is ( efficiently I think) the only religion for me, the only higher power that will always make me get down on bended knee, even if purely to play air guitar in a more back friendly position (seriously, after our video shoot I thought it was new hip time ) 

Bang, there you go that's about a close to anything eloquent you'll get from this blog, hold onto your hats kids becuase here's my explanation for bright lights...deep breaths.

As a 26 year lad, much of what I've defined being young has been nights out, mainly in the Uk , sometimes elsewhere, usually involving getting drunk or close to it, sometimes too close you could say. In no small way could you define not only my youth but also my friends since youth because of all of this, you go out in a gang, you slowly get picked off either by beer or girls or a kebab until you're alone again ( or occasionally not ) in bed and have to do that horrendous dry eyed awakening the next day and make an assessment on the previous nights events.

Just to be clear, I in no way regret any of this, apart from a couple of occasions which I'll leave out for the searing autobiography I'll no doubt call " Lacey, we bearly knew him, "  but recently whilst out and about i've begun to feel a slight creeping unnease at it all. Not in a judgemental way, more of a gradual detachment from in, almost an envy sometimes to see people out and about living  ( or at least for one evening ) a care free existence, something which for me has long since gone. Call it what you will, ' just getting older' fits the bill for some.

In one sense, Bright lights is actually caries a very whistful sentiment, although its of course buried like so much of my lyrics under a layer of ultra aggressive cynicism N.B. DON'T WASTE THESE TIMES, THEY'RE SO SO IMPORTANT AND YOU'LL LOOK BACK ON THEM WITH SUCH FONDNESS ( ahem ) even if like me its with a raised eyebrow and a roll of the eye.

 In the other, its true it can come across as bitter, almost the most bitter sentiment on the record ( although not the saddest ), the grumpy old bugger in me hates seeing 18 year olds in the prime of their lives, simply because I know those times are over for me. Youngsters will always be youngsters and the gap between me and them will always get great, never smaller. My hangovers get worse and worse with age, my tolerance for liquor depleting so that now 2 beers will make me wake up feeling rough around the edges, oh the shame of it all! 

Maybe that it actually a good thing, anyone in posession of any photos of me two years ago ( and my mum confirmed this, ) can see that actually far from living in my prime, I was actually an overweight and pretty unhealthy looking young man....so fuck it!

If this makes sense to anyone else let me know.

Bright Lights 1.

So... I'll get to the video shoot for this when I get the pictures back from Simon our manager because they're so true gems in there, and also a more extensive thanks to all you guys and gals that came along to the set to dance to Simian Mobile Disco all evening and didn't actually get to listen to the new song at all... ( which in a way is good, it hasn't been ruined for you yet...yet? I mean ever! etc etc.) ..but I guess it is my duty to let you know a bit about the tune.

 It was the second tune that was written for NHND, although in terms of finishing it was probably one of the last ones. We tend to work that way, with TIWFB Black art wasn't actually done until about 2 weeks before we went into the studio, even though we'd be playing it live for nearly 18 months. We'd be playing it with a very out of place and out of character proper chugga-chugga breakdown where Andy's bitching solo is now, hard to believe really but I guess it lead from either inexperience or just showed the last thread of timidness we felt from not being a metal band at the time. (Just to put it in context at that point Gallows, The Plight, Outcry collective, blackhole, hexes... all those guys were , like us, still unsigned and in some cases still working out what they were playing too...) If you bought any of our little one or two quid demos that we were hawking around at the time you'll know what I mean, it's a strange little bit in the tune....

Bright lights started from Jag having a riff ( THE riff, ) but it was originally intended to be delivered in a different way. We're all huge Soulwax fans and I think the idea at the outset was to re-create that really fucked up disco feel that they inject into a lot of their tunes ....

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH-wuTV8TnY )  

... E talking, see link above, being a good example, but it wasn't quite working for us. The original verse was sung in a clean vocal, with an almost Futureheads kind of delivery, which was cool but didn't really have the impact that we wanted, and also lead in a dubby, bass driven drop very early on. The whole tune felt more like a slow, gentle part to any record which wasn't the idea at all. 

We demo at home a lot, Jag in his room with his pro-tools rig and me, no joke, across the corridor in the room with the washing machine and usually a ladder covered in drying jeans and pants, maybe a cushion and some scrappy paper with all my lyrics on...oh the art you can create in a space such as this dear reader. Anyway, I think in one dark moment Jag just told me to drop the cutesy and just get evil with it. The first line I sang was the one that stuck, " Bright lights, drifting in-front of me ", and the rest was just a load of incomprehensible swearing and spitting ( all together now ...AS IT REMAINS TO THIS DAY, BOOM FUCKING BOOM ) yes yes, well it started from there. 

The middle eight, in typical fashion always seems to be the last bit we get right, for a long while the whole song stayed at a kind of plateau, thrashing away for 3 minutes , I think once we'd nailed the drop into the bass and drum part we'd set it up right, and only in the studio did Andy start singing the final echoeing refrain in the outro, which might have been Pelle's idea, but I can't remember ( don't sue! )

Hammering it out live helped. We played it for the first time at the Great Escape show we did with Cancer Bats in the spring of 2008, at this point we'd already been playing Caynons of Static ( you've probably not heard this much yet ) into the set just to try it out, maybe shaving 20 seconds of it or so after that, I fucking wish we had footage of all of this stuff, maybe I should get better at recording our live bits and bobs....Our B-sides album if we ever make one will have one tune you've never heard and 430,000 versions of songs you know really well, we're like bloody pitbulls with tunes, it ain't dead and buried until every scrap of meat has been swallowed, fur and all. Some people call it anal, I think we'd call it care and attention, either way I think its working for us at the moment. I also have no idea how interested any of you are in reading all this , maybe I need to write it just incase when I'm a feeble old piss-riddled fart in a pair of stained cords sitting infront of the golden girls I'll like to look back on all this and go... " what a pretentious little shit you were Tom ", but what the hell eh? 

We'll do a dissection of the final lyrics once you're all a bit more comfortable with it, until then here they are in the un-rated 18 plus version. As always kids....

Bright lights, drifting in-front of me, heave up all the tar in your bones, good luck with that apology, never choose how you go. Got raped, dangled in-front of me, got raped now they’re phoning your home, good luck, with that apology, never choose how you go. 

Gold from tin, you can’t tell the difference. 

Can’t you see all you need are different rules? Can’t you see that all you need, different bones? 

All you do is fucking complain ‘bout being thrown to the wolves, keep in mind the vermin you fear have all been wearing kid gloves. Fuck dreaming. 

Dead eyes drifting in-front of me, red eye is a sign that you’re done, passed out in the back of an ambulance, maybe they’ll take you home.

All you do is fucking complain ‘bout being thrown the wolves, keep in mind the hopes that you have will all be better of lost. Get ready.  

Float me in a barrel down the river.

Turn your bright lights on. Bright lights, drifting in front of me, heave up all the tar in your bones, good luck with that apology, you never choose how you go, the way we go.

A flurry of activity.

...In which we stop being lazy sons-of-bitches and actually start doing some work towards getting our new record noticed. I'll apologise now for not updating this for a week or two, work and family and heavens above vinyl artwork! have been taking up so much time and it gets to the point where staring at the computer screen when you don't absolutely have to is just completely sapping, what with CSI on tv and a record player on stand by.

Still, the camp is in a good place, we've just come home from completing our 3rd stint in the Maida vale studios for the BBC, and after a good couple of weeks of bricking it quietly we actually pulled a fast one on them and played really well. 

The reason for the fear is complex and leads back to our debut outing at the beeb. At the time of our first session I guess in 2006-ish, we were dropped in it during the middle of our third tour. Like ever.

 The Mirimar Disaster and our good-selves have a long a fruitful friendship which began as many of these things do with a show at the Hull Adelphi. Now, I have no idea if this venue still exists, I haven't seen it on any gig schedules or tours of late; if it has gone under ( and by under I mean torn to pieces by the savage locals, or buried under a tidal wave of litter and bin bags ) then it is a crying shame, more for history's sake rather than because it holds any fond memory for us, although not for the reason than you may initially think. 

It was if memory serves the first show on the tour and nipple pingingly cold, November can be cruel in Hull ( infact so can Spring, Summer and Autumn come to think of it ) and it was jet black as we arrived, both in mood and pitch. Andrew and myself we're at the stage of touring where being in a band was an excuse to reason away drinking as much as humanly from dawn til dusk without calling it outright alchoholism, we all do it ( except you edgers out there, you cheeky so and so's. ) in the early years and gradually grow either out of it or develope from the denial stage altogether and turn into Tommy Lee ( or The Plight ). 

As it happened, the venue had kindly provided us with two bottles of red wine along with the usual C 'of 'C ( Band to normal folk translation = Crate of Carling ), and being the sport I was I got the whole bottle down before the show and a couple of cans just to prove to Andy that I cared. This resulted in the 15 strong crowd being treated to an extremely...lets say 'loose' perfomance from me, at one point involving the venue Xmas tree and a round of tinsle being wrapped around my sweaty throat. There is a good picture on wikipedia, which I'll copy now and posted up top. 

Anyway, after throwing up red into the toilet ,we all decided ( well the rest of the band ) that a two drink maximum before any show should be inforced. 

Now, i'm telling you this because if you were one of the unfortunates that heard our very first Radio 1 session, just to put it in context, it was two shows and about 6 kegs of ale later that a very hung-over and ragged throated Thomas Lacey stood in the beautiful studio vocal booth that so many greats have sung gloriously and heart warmingly in, and proceeded to bark  and wheeze away into the £1500 microphone like a tramp scrabbling for a 20 pence piece. I suck in these situations and fuck-a-duck I sucked then. Ever since then, whilst most bands I sure look forward to these sessions ( as they should its a wicked day ) I've been quietly dreading them, so it was a pleasure and a huge relieve to find that we played a fucking blinder, so maybe I've put that ghost to rest...think it airs on Monday if i right, along with the first play of bright lights, so let me know what you think in the usual manner. As for the subject of drinking on tour, we'll no doubt return to that soon.

also I believe tonight is when our rather lovely website comes online, I'll spill the address after its up so as not spoil the suprise but it'll be well worth a visit, if only for the fantastic coding from our good friend Ben Crossman.

now, back to CSI. 

The lovely folks at Criminal Damage.

Well, far be it for me to take the moral highroad and whinge about corporate sponsorship and punk rock how the two cannot go hand in hand... it's the stuff of forums called stuff like xtildeathordishonourx.com, and frankly I have better things to do than worry about if I'm going to hardcore heaven ( it's run by Earth Crisis as it happens ).

Anywhoo, so last Tuesday we were all in London with the aim to meet with our accountant ( that's another story which I'll elaborate on at some point ) and then we had a rare treat in the way of a rendevous with the nice folks at Criminal Damage clothing.  At this point I'd like to address the small issue that this is not about to turn into that Simpsons episode where Krusty becomes a stand up comedian and then as quick as a flash sells himself out the Canyonaro Jeep company and bestows their virtues as part of his act (  Season 9, The Last Temptation of Krusty if you haven't seen it...it's glorious ). They make nice clothes which they let us have and gave us cans of redbull and we took a couple of photos for them and thats about it, job done.

Except...well us being us we couldn't help but notice the range of , ahem, alternative clobber that they also make a very fine living out of and well...us being us we ( sigh, ok, MEM & I ) decided to try the stuff on.

Children, look away, its about to get a bit blue.

Single Artwork.

This is a new one on me, for those of you who haven't clocked this, I'm ( as in Tom, the singer, you know, the ginger one ) responsible for the artwork for the upcoming record. Thats all been taken care of now, much to my relief as its a huge fucking burden/responsibility/untaking, made doubly so by the fact that we actually had some artwork ready to go done by another artist and for whatever reason we ended up not using it, so I was in the position of having to provide artwork for something that someone else had already had a take on.... not fun. 

I should really have been ready for all of this, we as a band are ( pretend this bit is in huge text ) BLOODY FUSSY AT THE BEST OF TIMES ( and back to normal now), so we happily will just change stuff at the last minute. I think it worked out for the best, I wish I could at this point show you what we've done for the art but alas my slave-masters will get medieval on me to the point of barbarism and its Sunday night and I can't be bothered to clean up the mess. 

My point being that after all of this, I've now been informed that Single artwork is also required,and wuite frankly I hadn't thought of that at all. Singles? Ghost of a thousand in the hit parade? Somehow I think not, but since Top of the Pops ( for our overseas readers who may have missed this as kids, a mainstay of British Tv for years was the Thurs/Friday night music show TOTP, in which artistes appeared to flog their latest hit, usually by miming incredibly badly to it whilst performing ' live' onstage ) is no longer with us to be honest a Top 40 hit is a number on a CV rather than a huge achievement ( i.e. getting to meet Andy Peters! ).  A mighty shame. 

But still, yes single artwork, how to approach? Remix of album artwork in simpler style? Plain old Capitol record style text? Big logo? Thoughts on a postcard?

 I guess what I'm asking for is if anyone can think of an album they like which its subsiquent single artwork worked really well with it, I'm thinking Ok Computer and its string of hits...let me know I sinking fast.

You and him were...buddies weren't you?

I guess one of the unseen things that we do is sitting around for hours and hours waiting to play shows, Sam Christmas ( no I'm no making that up although he only comes once a year, boom boom ) came to our show we played at the Scale in Febuary this year and took some pictures, noth onstage and off, which I rather liked. 

Recently I noticed that in actual fact the only pictures I have of everyone are either press shots, or live ones and that seems a little imbalanced . As anyone in a band knows, the majority of your time is just being with each other in small spaces, be it van, backstage room, sound check etc etc... We are, rather helpfully, a fully functioning family unit these days, and I say these days because we used to bounce off the walls in each others company. Maybe a disfunctional family, but at least we're all still speaking to each other.

 You can see the 'live' shots that Sam took on our myspace of course, but I think these document us in a way that maybe isn't that often, so for that reason alone ( well, they also make me smile in a sentimental way ) here they are. 

I'm looking forward to reviewing our digital legacy when we eventually and inevitably stop being in Ghost, but I worry that alot of it will end up in the big digital urn that is the recycle bin on some eternal desktop somewhere.

So, humble beginings.

Ok, so there is something strangely scary about a long empty white page, its exciting but daunting, expecially for someone with little typing skills. N.B. I'll apologise in advance for all the unitentional, albeit hilarious, spelling and grammatical errors that will no doubt dot this blog as it advances, I ask for your patience and your corrections ( if you feel they'll make a difference, undoubtably sometimes it will .

This blog has come about mainly as a new way for this band to express itself, obviously you can still find us on the myspace; there is now a Facebook and a Twitter, and I aware that someone is maintaing our last.fm site for us, although as it stands its NOT one of the band or our team. At this point I'm pretty happy with this, user ( dare I say 'fan'? ) generated material on us is 9 times out of 10 much more useful and illuminating that the stuff we write, generally because I hate self eulogising about our music/art/output, so I'd rather read it coming from someone else rather than one of us. 

One of the odd things about being written about in this way is realising how little your own opinion matters on such things, it seems the general perception is always the excepted one, so I'll happily conceed to it. It never ceases to amaze me how often I get things wrong , a good example being any number of scannings of album of the year lists, bands to watch etc etc... I worry that its an age thing perhaps, myself being 26, the ages of the band ranging from 22 to 29 at present. Maybe we're the old farts before our time, maybe thats a medical condition to look into.

I'm rambling already, but I believe thats the point. What I'll do with this is keep you updated on what exactly we're doing, alongside the cheeky little Twitter site we have set up, my thoughts on that site are as yet undecided...what exactly is it for? And for that matter, what the hell is Bebo? Its seems to exist in that odd grey area between Facebook and Myspace and I wasn't aware that such a thing was needed..again the age thing, I still attempt to keep the real world and the online as two seperate things, maybe some of you think I sound like one of your parents ( or worse Grand parents..eep).

Anyway, as the title suggests, to humble beginnings then.