Neon - 1999-2000
The first incarnation of the first band I was ever in. It was me, Dan, Matt and Nath against the world. Except Matt (bassist) decided that world domination wasn't on his plans, and that pursuing an accountancy career was the path to enlightenment.
This early phase of (Le) Neon was decidedly immature as one would expect when your musical diet consisted of a bowl of Blur for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Needless to say we were your typical teenage copycat band.
Le Neon - 2000-2004
Matt left and Alex joined. I guess that is when we started to understand how we wanted to sound. Alex and I both went to art college together in Stroud, Nath worked in an office and Dan worked at Tesco. We all started to listen to things like At The Drive In, Idlewild and Sonic Youth and thought it would be rather good to start making a racket. And thus our 'sound' was born. It was around 2001 that we started playing in London, and after about 7 or 8 gigs record companies started to come and see us. It was all quite exciting. Ironically, the night we effectively got signed we didn't have anywhere to stay so we slept in a park just up the road from 'The Dublin Castle'. It was fucking freezing. A few weeks later we were on tour with my new (and still) favourite band 'The 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster' and this was the start of it all I guess. I think we did 5 or 6 gigs with them and they were some of the best gigs we ever did. I think Alex took a film camera with him and filmed a lot of it. Actually Al, I wouldn't mind having a gander if you still have it? I remember us staying at my grandma's in Doncaster after a gig in Hull and her staying up till the early hours with us getting wrecked on Vodka and trying to chat up Dan, and us sleeping in beds together like gay sardines. In fact loads of funny and odd things happened on that tour but you know what they say about 'what happens on tour...'.
I think at this time we were living all over the country. Dan was in London, I was in Bristol and Alex in Brighton. We were all at uni, except Nath who was still in Stroud working at 'Rapid Racking'. I think we spent most of our time in London around this time though, as we had signed to Fierce Panda records (we were all really happy about this cos they were, and still are, really cool and indie) and did a lot of gigs in and around London. We supported a fair amount of pretty well known bands around this time (Biffy Clyro, The Raveonettes, The Cribs, Seafood, Winnebago Deal etc) and 'The Subways' supported us at 'Harlow Square'. I remember going on their forum after and them saying that we were a bunch of arrogant dick wipes, and if i'm honest, looking back I think they may have had a point.
We recorded our album 'Luss' around this time and released it to a rather unsuspecting public. However, in spite of relatively poor record sales we stilll made it onto 'The John Peel Show' as well as appearing in the NME and Kerrang. I suppose the thing i'm most proud of is that John Peel played us on his show. It's not like that'll happen again is it?
Fierce Panda also released a limited edition vinyl single which looked really nice I thought. It was supposed to be a double A-side but everyone thinks that S.P.A.C.E is side A because it's catchy, but we all preferred the car crash that was 'Brittania' .
Around this time we all moved back to Stroud and started to fall out a bit, which I suppose is inevitable when you're constantly dicking around the country in a scumbus transit. Nath has been known to reinact the story when he got woken by "condensed man sweat dripping from the ceiling of the tourvan".
I also remember trying to punch Nath because he wouldn't lend me a sleeping bag. Needless to say I didn't really win the fight. I did however do a really good sick the next morning. It was brilliant. We were driving back to Stroud and just coming through the pretty Cotswold village of Painswick when I needed to do a sick. It was around 8.30am and all these posh wives were walking their kids to school when a rusty van stopped at the pelican crossing, it was than that I suddenly jumped out of the side door like a tramp version of one of the A-Team and proceeded to do a lush sick onto the perfectly manicured green green grass of this lovely little chocolate box village. It was my finest moment, my creme du menthe, and the epitomy of sartorial elegance.
It was all downhill from there. Fierce Panda didn't want to release another album because our new stuff was 'too prog' and possibly because by that time Alex was in and out of the band like a pervert in a brothel. Also Dan had started to distance himself from the band and decided to move back to London.
This culminated in the birth of 'The Forest Nightmare'
The Forest Nightmare 2004-2005
I know i'm obviously biased but I really liked what we did as The Forest Nightmare. I think we all did actually. Dan wasn't in the band anymore and I suppose that gave us free reign to be as mad and experimental as we wanted. Dan always sort of added that 'pop' element you see and when he was gone we could go as far up our own as own arses as was humanly possible. I know Alex always complained that 'Le Neon' weren't as experimental as he would have liked (he was listening to stuff like Captain Beefheart and Fugazi at the time) and Nath just always like to get lost in his own little soundworld. If i'm honest I always wanted to be the frontman. We only did a couple of gigs. The first was at an open mic night at Stroud Arts Hub. I think people were blown away by the sheer volume and atmosphere of it all and so we were asked to do a gig at the Trinity rooms, just up the road. The gig was indeed empty, but we were loud and loose and we had 'Dr Caligari' playing on a screen above us.
Around this time I thought I would make a little website that incorporated a record label and a made up religion called 'Mindhorn'. I released a couple of Forest Nightmare EP's and a compilation EP which included tracks by Lapsus Linguae and Perhaps Contraption, amongst others. The site was called 'Pow Pow Pow' and my best mate Dunc and I toured it's wares in a minimal fashion around the country. The pinnacle was having a stall next to Mastodon at the Mars Volta curated All Tomorrows Parties in 2005. We sold some homemade Forest Nightmare videos and bits of art referencing Mindhorn that we had made earlier from bits of slate and cellotape. It was a great success.
Mindhorn still stands strong in light of this but The Forest Nightmare is no more, but it's spirit lives on in the ether of myself and my future creativities. It's sound can be heard in the ramblings of the more recent 'Band Of Burt'.
The Forest Nightmare on Myspace
Veer Luth 2006-2008
In the wake of the disintegration of Le Neon/The Forest Nightmare I decided to move back home to Purton. The forthcoming year comprising of heavy drinking and Mindhorn related activities was an enjoyable break, but I felt a bit lost not being in a band. This was all to change when I bumped into my old footballing friend Lee at a cashpoint in Swindon. He said he wanted me to play guitar in this band he was jamming with. He explained that they seemed to be headed in a potentially "guffy" direction and that he required me to make noise over everything. I have to say this seemed like a rather intriguing proposition and so I joined. If you ever saw Veer Luth I think that the above analogy may make a bit of sense in that the songs we came up with were well structured, typically catchy rock songs with me joining in by noodling around and being a bit 'arty'. Still, a lot of people round our stomping ground really liked us and we ended up supporting a past their best 'Amen' at Riffs bar as well as playing at Sugarhill Festival and about a million other local gigs. Yeah, the 'Mighty Luth' were alwight. Listen to 'Little Sister' on Myspace, it's actually a bit of a cracker...
The Meatles 2006-
Not strictly a distinct band, more an ongoing comedy side project with me old mucker Nicky from school. I don't know why but we formed over a love of meat and thus The Meatles were born. Cue ridiculous pun laden song titles and cleverly overcooked lyrically matter, The Meatles played to bemused audiences now and again around the Swindon area. Members include myself 'Joint Lennon' and Nicky as 'Pork McCartney'. Never before had meat based songs been so relevant.
Band Of Burt 2009-2011
I decided to form 'Burt' as a kneejerk reaction to my thoughts on the current music scene. I was sick of listening to the boring indie pap that had seemed to have appeared over the last few years. I must blame X-Factor for this although it is probably completely unrelated. Anyway, I roped in photographer friend Darren to play bass and coaxed Nath out of retirement to bang some pots together. The uncomfortable yet somewhat pleasing musical soup was dished out to the largely bemused Swindonian massive a few times (I say largely, there were a few people that found us quite refreshing) and also gigs in London and Stroud. What was interesting was that the London gig got all of the Le Neon boys back on the same stage together (albeit in different bands) and that these London folk seemed to understand and lap up the magical sound of 'Burt'. Band Of Burt could also be considered to be a second incarnation of The Forest Nightmare in that it included Nath on drums and me talking bullshit over the top again. We also added an old Forest Nightmare track (Mousy Mousy Mousy, Dead Dead Dead) into our live set. Alas, I got bored of having to write songs and decided to disband of Burt (arf arf) in early 2011.