Bang go the drums!

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As the dust settles on our recent stint of world domination (our two-venue Easter tour); a 600 mile scramble across southern England, we reflect upon another exhausting weekend, failing to raise much enthusiasm for the handful of new fans we've gathered and instead focusing on another large financial loss. The piano player has returned to his sub-tropical valley having somehow persuaded us to store his unimaginably heavy keyboard at The Odd Folk HQ! This is most unwelcome. So to is my mother's demand that we return her drumkit immediately which adds another inconvenience to our next stint of world domination, due this weekend.

Sometimes it all seems so impossibly far away, but then...

We are on the verge of 'signing' - this is unofficial news as we haven't actually received a contract as such, so we haven't been crowing it from the rooftops just yet, indeed part of me wonders whether we ever will - sign that is, not crow from rooftops! Already we're on said person's website and having eagerly sent them all of our online existence, contact has... stopped.
I figure they are just very busy sorting out our summer of world domination! Large stadiums and transatlantic tours! Air-conditioned super-coaches from The Big Apple to The City of Angels! Or maybe they've just forgotten about us!?

We have had to part company with our drummer! It is with sadness as he is a lovely player and an old friend, but with very limited money and car-space (not to mention lack of a drumkit!), we have conceded defeat. The search has begun for a player who a) can drive b) owns their own kit and c) doesn't live 100 miles away! Or at least someone who can tick one of those boxes! The bass player suggested we broaden the search; for a beautiful female drummer who can sing and drive, lives around the corner in a large recording studio and owns an air-conditioned mini bus! We met our first applicant the other day. Myself and the guitar player drove over to his studio, "I like that he's got a studio!" said the guitar player as we parked the car. "I know, and he's a drum teacher so he's bound to be amazing!" I added. Wrong. He was very disappointing. Lacking any natural rhythm which is important if you are a drummer. Obviously! God knows what he's doing teaching if he can't play! "Perhaps that's why there's so many bad drummers out there if all the teachers are like that!" said the guitar player as we made a quick getaway back to The Odd Folk HQ. The search continues... but in the meantime we are back to being a quartet, with my feet tapping the rhythm on a kick-drum.

Our next stint of world domination is this Friday at St. Paul's Church in Bristol, as part of the Big Issue's 'Big Sleep Out' - a charity evening to raise awareness for people who sleep on the streets. The church is beautiful and we're looking forward to getting some decent photos with our photographer, plus we'll get a nice article in the magazine too! The bass player, who's the most punctual member of the band, will be late for the sound-check, he's already told us. But I'm more worried about the piano player after our brief conversation today. 

             "What time is the gig on Saturday?"
             "Friday!"
             "Oh...?"
             "You can make it right?"
             "Err, I think so."     
             "Right. See you Friday then, yeah?"
             "Err, yeah... I think I've lost my piano!"
             "It's here!"

He's coming on the train, not with his piano, but with a chainsaw. Yes, you heard correct. In order to chop the large amount of logs that are stacked on our lawn, I am borrowing mother's chainsaw and the piano player is the one entrusted with transporting this dangerous machine. I'm not so much worried about him getting here on time, more that he gets here in one piece. "Err, hello!" he'll say as he hops off the train with the saw in one hand and his leg in the other. As long as his fingers are in tact!

Travelling on trains with chainsaws! That's a good tongue twister. Try saying that really fast again and again and again...

Yes, we are The Odd Folk and this is world domination with a broken mandolin, no drummer, a photographer who can't make it cause he's gone on holiday, no time to sound-check, no money and not enough beds in the house. But we do have a chainsaw!
But no doubt it'll all be worth it; for those stolen moments after Whisky Drunk, when the crowd of homeless drunks at The Big Issue convention congratulate us and then ask us for some Scotch! It'll all be worth it. We've signed now. Or verbally signed. Surely it's only a matter of time before we break America!?

www.theoddfolk.com