eBlob

Any requests, good people of melbourne and sydney?

TomBlog - my life in the bush of ghosts

This is interesting. My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts has been reissued and you can download the multitracks of two tracks as part of the licensing. Its a record David Byrne and Brian Eno made 25 years ago. I've 'heard' about the multitracks from other classic sessions floating about illegally, but I think this is the first legitimate attempt to pull it off. Hopefully it'll make for a fascinating insight into a cool record.

TomBlog - A note on record

We've just made a different kind of gomez album: each gomez album is a different kind of gomez album. That is sort of the point of gomez. If we had a manifesto it would read something like: gomez will try really quite a bit more than somewhat to avoid doing the same thing twice. However, there have been many pitfalls in our approach. We've always felt that change is needed to avoid a kind of creative stagnation, but, as a policy, it definitely lends itself to all kinds of critical, artistic or commercial failure. We throw things out and see what sticks. C'est la vie for me.
We've just made a stylish, lyrical record. It's unlike every other gomez record and I'm incredibly proud of that. We left the bells and whistles of sound experimentation at home, and we tried hard to create a more universal kind of sound without losing our uniqueness. I really hope you all love it, indeed I'm very optimistic about that, but if you don't.... well, we'll be around making music forever and you can jump back on board somewhere else in the creative arc. There's a threadbare adage about all the people, all the time. And don't forget, don't just gomez, stay mez. (irony intended)
your friend, tom x

TomBlog - Burbank

The diagonal pattern carpet is making my eyes water. The girl next to me is reading, "How to start and build a law practice". Burbank airport is rocking my world as I wait for flight 356 to JFK. The slightly funkier girl opposite me is reading an article entitled, "there's reality, and then there's illusion" although she doesn't look much like she believes it. My guitar feels like it weighs 10 lbs more than it ever has before. Last night was the sounds eclectic evening at the Gibson Amphitheater. Feist was amazing. It was so fraught backstage I didn't unwind until about 2 hours after we'd finished our show. It was all cables, walkie-talkies and egos. We got there in the end. Ben harper got up and did the hawaiian version of whipping piccadilly with us. He's a sweet guy. Anyway, it appears we are boarding the plane so toodle-pip.

Blackie Blog-Wednesday

Dear Diary,
It's been three full moons(or is it moonsfull?) that I've been stranded on this mid pacific island now, the buzzards are hovering waiting for scraps of fish that I may have...
As you can probably tell, I'm very busy at this particular moment in time!
I think the trio tour is all going well & we're currently sorting out our album artwork, all looking very cool indeed. The artist who's designing the cover is an Aussie guy called James Bellesini. He's designed a fair few album covers(Including Out West) for several bands & is responsible for many of the T-shirt designs we've had over time. He works for a company called lovepolice who are an Australian company involved in all kinds of things to do with music, from touring to releasing records & merchandising, etc. If you check out their site they even have information regarding a few select gigs being played over there by some English guy called Ian Ball, sound familiar? Legend has it he strolls into town slightly hungover & with only a guitar, plays some gigs & then leaves with his guitar & one mean ass hangover!
Extra good news, for all of you who have been craving a shot of all our incredibly rugged, handsome, manly faces, is that it looks like there will be a band photo inside the new album. I'm the particularly rugged, handsome , manly one. Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about, just tellin' it how it is!
Cheers all,
Blackie

Olly - Bad Blackie, Bad!

Okay, so yeah, maybe I was on that corridor floor, but don't single me out as the bad guy, I wasn't alone....E, Ben and Dajon we're also rolling around with me. And for your info, that was the most comfortable corridor I have ever attempted to sleep on....I like the guy who had to climb over us, "your nearly there boys".

Olly.

BlackieBlog-Well,well,well!

So it was you lying on the hotel corridor floor in the early hours, drenched in ice cold water then Ol?

Olly - Wha' Happened?

I-YI-YI!!!

My good God things got real ugly in Texas! I've just got back to Angleterre and I'm actually feeling remotely human, which is bewildering after the shenanigans. It felt like we were there for two minutes...Three gigs, one radio session, more par-tays than you can shake a stick at, all shaken and not stirred into the most lethal, mind bending cocktail....I managed to catch Mogwai, Jason Collett, Hot Chip and a great comedy duo with couzy's called Flight of the Conchords. The best band by a country mile was Tunng. It's rare to see bands which make you feel like giving the whole thing up, ie. feel like you need to go back to the drawing board! Hot diggidy they were like...how do you say...like, totally awwwwesome.

So all in all, twas a fan-dabby-dozy SXSW....Gomez they came, they played, they conquered....or perhaps, they came and..erm got drunk.

Take care y'all,

Olly,

TomBlog - Boulder

And so here we are in Boulder. Going in to KBCO to do a session at 12.30pm. My throat now feels like it's played host to a troupe of ice-skaters having a disco or one of these has been doing laps in there. Such a stereotypical bloody thing to complain about my poor health, but when the shoe fits and there's blogging to be done......

TomBlog - this morning

Bleary-eyed, throat like scratched glass and feeling about as glamorous as a bag of rubble. Must have been a good SXSW. Each show, another wobbly step deeper into the abyss of rock and roll. The first show a straight out preview of the record, the second a happening, the third a final what-the-hell, chuck of the dice good time. Several cruel hangovers. Many new friends found.
Sitting in the delightful environs of the radisson town lake. The television reminds me we're in the US - there's a moose trapped inside a car on CNN. It appears he crashed the car himself.....where else. E, Ben and I are about to embark on our mini-acousto tour de force. First stop Colorado - an in-store in Denver, sushi awaits after. Sake in the snow.

Blackie Blog-Austin Texas

Hello all,
Hope this mail finds you all good & well & in fine form.
Just letting you know how it's going over here.I arrived late on Tuesday night had a few phone calls from Ben,Ol & Dajon which made absolutely no sense whatsoever,on arriving at the bar I realised why,completely & utterly smashed & still not making much sense,Chip,a good friend of ours,had taken them out on the town & some guys were plying them with Guiness Baileys Bombs.
We were up for a radio session this morning at 10am,some of the guys were looking rather worse for wear once again.Turns out Ben(who says hello to you all from the phone,just been with Tom doing an MTV interview),Ian,Ol & Dajon had been out late watching Mogwai,back at the hotel Ol rugby tackled Dajon to bring him to the floor followed by the rest of them falling ontop as they tried to get out of the lift.They awoke about half an hour later in the corridor when Dajon,who'd managed to wake up a little earlier,flung a bucket of ice&water all over them.Bloodshot eyes & hysterical laughter arrived at the radio show where we had a good turn out,from some of you fine people as well I'm sure.
Just off to sound check now but I'm sure there's more to come from this festival yet!
Cheers,
Blackie.

TomBlog - video

Just to let you know. When we were in the rehearsal studio I made a tatty DIY video for How we Operate. We hope to have it up online really soon. It cost approximately £114: the cost of hiring a decent little camera for a day. It would have only cost £80, but I don't drive so I had to have it delivered. It's not gonna win any prizes but we all really enjoyed doing it. Take care, tom x

BlackieBlog-Olah!

Hello Gomezzas,Gomezicans,Gomezuguese,Gomezalians,Gomezlish....
Hope I haven't missed anyone out.Someone made the fair point that maybe I'd excluded,unknowingly of course,some of you fine people when I called you Gomites.
So as South by Southwest draws nearer it's a day of last minute arrangements,preparing for a flight at an ungodly hour & making sure that I've packed my passport,I have been known to forget it,hm!
I hope you've all been enjoying the new single which isn't out at the minute but is up on the site for a listen!And,as I'm sure you've seen,we now have a release date for our native land which I'm sure we'll be following shortly after with a tour.For all of you willing to brave Tom's demands for you to dance & entertain us as he wildly roams the stage on a Quadruple double espresso high that is.I'm sure any of you who've been to a Gomez gig before know exactly what I'm talking about.
For anyone in the UK who hasn't seen it yet the new Planet Earth series on a Sunday is a very fine programme indeed ,I'd definately check that out if you haven't already.You can have a look at the PlanetEarth websiteif you like.Just thought I'd share that with you as I was very impressed with it last night & also so I can show off that I've managed to figure out how to make links,not very impressive really I know,should have figured it a long time ago.
Anyway,I will be back see you soon,
Cheers,
Blackie

Olly - Kevin Westenburg Photo Shoot

Blackie Blog-Zee bop,bee bop,skeeooowiee

Hey there Gomites,
Just listening to some smooooooth jazz, yeah! How's it hangin ya'll? Hope it's all goin well. Skee boo, schwaa, doooweee, yeah! The smooth cool blend of vibes & sultry sax takin' us away yeah man.... skee bop!
Well just had to pop away for a minute there as Tom's informed you we're currently being snapped so just had to go & have some shots taken of my mug.
It's been good to see so many of you getting on the site & giving your views & opinions & showing so much interest in what's going on.Keep on popping along & letting us know what you think.We want to keep ontop of the site this time & now that we can put our own input into it as well we should be able to let you know what's going on in our days.I'm afraid I haven't got as tech as some of the others offering all these hyper links but I'll get it figured at some point.
Well must go again to the sounds of Aerosmith this time.
Speak soon,
Cheers,
Blackie

TomBlog - today in the studio

And so, here I sit, in a big white room. A gentleman by the name of Kevin Westenberg is taking our pictures today. Check out his site - Kevin Westenberg He's the guy who took the english gent pics and the mojo cover years ago. We've got over 14,000 songs on the itunes playlist, fly like an eagle by steve miller on at the moment. I swear Ian Brown must have heard this tune. Kevin's making us all look pretty, well acceptable, and it looks like its gonna be a nice day. Unless someone starts being annoying

Benblog 'The Royal Act'

Good morning gomez world. Thank god after eight years we finally have a proper site and also this great if potentially dangerous outlet for our inane ramblings. This morning finds me a little worse for wear as a big bully named Dajon locked Balls, Peacock, Blacky and I in his house, plied us with booze and forced to listen to a band he refered to as 'the royal act' (this turned out to be Queen). I left Dajon and Bally at four in the morning as they started to discuss in great detail the finer points of Mercurys stage attire - most unpleasant. Thank god for Olly who is currently saving my life with tea. The last week or so has been a very busy one in Gomez world and, despite Ian's incesscent whining about the British weather, pretty productive. We've been getting the new tunes into a good state for Austin (the new record is fantastic), recording B-sides and generally gearing up for the latest onslaught. If anyones stuck for new tunes check out a record called 'this is...' by a band called Tuung, this may be a little hard to get hold of but definitely worth while. The singer is an old friend of mine called Sam Genders who taught me how to play slide guitar. Very nice of him...anyway onwards. Ben.

TomBlog - skinning the bucket

Endless amusement.

http://walkingdead.net/perl/euphemism

Olly - Musical Recommendations

Word Up Gomezians!

Here's some toons I've been getting down with recently:

Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene *

dEUS - Pocket Revolutiion

Hot Chip - Over and Over (Single), album coming soon.

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the Broken Seas

Jason Collett - Idols of Exile *

Stars - Heart *


*You can listen and buy these guys here


Over and Out,

Olly.

sake boy (from tomaten peacock's sofa)

hello world.....

at last....a gomez website that we know how to use.....honestly, we have been meaning to do this before, it's just taken us 8 years to get there. and blogg should quite definately have 2 gg's. over the coming year of chaos that awaits us, i'm sure there will be a great deal of nonsense posted here... i personally plan to create a fascinating photo album of what we see out of the bus window upon arrival at whichever venue we are deposited at... get ready to analyse many different brick walls, meadows, trash cans and muddy fields from around the planet... so here's to wireless venues and a fabulous year for one and all....kampai!! e

(found this down at the moca... a little accompianment for the song when it comes out..)

Olly James Peacock - There's good...and then there's GOMEZ!

Alright People!

So here we are back on the internets in technicolour! I'd like to firstly thank God for this opportunity, the management and all our adoring, dare I say it...mmmm beautiful fans.

Since the other fellas have warmly welcomed you, I don't feel the need to say there's a freakin' great new album coming or that the new shows will be phe-phe-phenominal or indeed how cool this website is....


Jam Cruise

So the year started with a brace of interesting shows...on a boat! Somebody thought it a good idea to place us amongst a heap of "jam bands" on a cruiseship, which carried around 2000 people and sailed around the Carribbean. After embracing the hippy in us all, we had a good time/got mangled for five days. It was fortunate for us that the waves decided to treble in size for our first performance! I particularly enjoyed having half a drum kit on the floor and a cymbal an inch from my forehead. Despite the wind, rain and waves we still managed to rock the boat. (Check out the pics to see the mess we got ourelves into).

Looking forward to seeing y'all at SXSW,

Take it easy,

Olly.

BlackieBlog - blogs away

Check one two,more 75k please Brainsy (our monitor guy/the sonic destroyer). Hello? Is there anybody there? Not quite sure if I'm doing this right,first Blog session!

Well it's been a busy old year for the likes of Gomez since we last crept the boards and stood downstage in the presence of some of you lovely people. Label changes,new record,voted best looking band by GQ & Esquire with a 374% increase in looks since then & new clinical trial results proving that Gomez still works better on tough stains than most other leading bands.Maybe the GQ bit wasn't entirely true but I'm sure some of the rest is.

I hope you've all had a good year and are ready to join us once again when we're in your neighbourhood. We're looking forward to getting back out there to see you all again & hopefully have you bobbing away to some new tunes.

Phone rings.....Time for rehearsal! Must go people sorry to cut it short.Hope my first Blog has been successful & I shall be back soon.


Take care,
Blackie

TomBlog - take me for a ride

Please someone buy us one of these?

TomBlog - a secret shared is a something or other

One of my favourite sites. http://postsecret.blogspot.com

TomBlog - the amen breakbeat

There is an excellent man by the name of Jordan Taylor who sends me great stuff every few days. Today he sent me this link.
It's a short film about the Amen breakbeat. Enjoy.

TomBlog - a welcome note

Hola my friends! Here we are at the dawn of a new era for the mez. New labels, new record, new shoes. I won't lie and tell you the past 2 years have been easy - far from it, but I also don't want to dwell on it. We've come through it and made our best record to date. I'm not saying its better, although I'm sure some of us will lose hours discussing the matter, I'm saying its the best one. That's right. The one that rings the bell at the top of the meter and other poor analogies.

At the moment we're rehearsing for SXSW and a little mini-tour that ben, e and me are doing as a menage å trois. It has all the makings of a grade one Gomez débacle of fun, and I hope to see a few of you there. It'll be mainly brand spanking new tunes done to the very best of our not too great ability. There may even be time for a secret show along the way. We'll see.

I just had my 29th birthday and it's approaching ten years on the road - they've been the best ten years anyone could hope for. We really do owe a debt of gratitude to all of you for supporting and following the band down the years. And to those of you who've just joined up, welcome to the highs and lows, the million-and-one shows that is being in this fair family.

Thanks very much, Tommy