Blackie Blog-Back In The Good Ole U of K!

Here we are then, back in England after a splendid flight. Had a great time at Sasquatch festival except for the rain but that was so ferocious it was really quite cool as well. I guess it's easy enough for me to say that though, I was sat on the bus while all this was happening, unlike those unfortunate folks who were out on the hill & ended up drenched. Really enjoyed Iron & Wine that day but I wish we'd been able to stay around until The Flaming Lips, sounds like they had a great show & brought the party to town.
After we got back we had the night off & then we were shooting for the Album Chart Show yesterday, few teething problems with sound on stage but we'll see how it turns out. Managed to sleep until 2pm this afternoon JETLAG AHOY & since then I've been struggling with my computer that seems to be dying on me after a slight accident on a plane, guess we'll see how it goes. Onwards & upwards everybody!

TomBlog - gotta

love this.

TomBlog - earth calling orson

And so semi-crippled, with an insane head-cold, so drugged up my short-term memory is shot, we approach the end of the first leg of our tour. Steroids, antibiotics, ambian, emergen-C, anti-histamine, decongestant, valium, airborne, tylenol, albutamol: these are my recently assembled allies. The axis of remedial. Now don't lecture me please. I'm not some scrip-junkie. I just got very sick and this concoction is allowing the show to go on. It's working..okay? I had to bow out of a little sojourn ben, e and blake took to san diego yesterday, but I hear things went swimmingly out on their boat. We had a miraculous show in Los Angeles...truly. A great show, as always, in San Francisco, and here we are. Portland, Oregon. A town where our fortunes seem to rise and fall like the tides. Sometimes it's a sell-out, sometimes there's a man, his dog and a mug-tree for company. Can't tell you why. Hopefully tonight will be typically unpredictable. Tomorrow, Sasquatch. I'm told its beautiful, though from under these drugged-out lids, most everything seems quite warm and pretty: even the pissing rain outside the window of our bus. And so, once again, to sound-check. Is sound there? Yes. Great. Let's go the pub.

BlackieBlog-Feelin Hot,Hot,Hot

So after a busy day it's time to sit down on the bus and relax before heading to bed. Started the day with the KCRW show in Santa Monica where we played the first six songs from the new record. You should be able to listen to it still at the KCRW website if you didn't manage to catch it earlier. Immediately after the show we were off to the airport to fly to Pheonix, Arizona. I was chatting to a guy, on the plane, who lives here & he was telling me how it would regularly be 115F in the summer months & sometimes be in the 120's, holy c^*p. I'm English, I'm gonna suffer big time in that kind of heat, begin to remember the time I burnt to a crisp at the Coachella Festival, Palm springs & spent the rest of the day listening to random strangers telling me to put sunscreen on, then the pilot announces 104F for today just before the plane begins bouncing around like a ball on a piece of elastic string, this is turning out to be quite the journey!So after landing we made our way outside, there it was, the hit of the whole heat.
We played at the Marquee Theater tonight. Once again we had a really good crowd of people singing along to tunes new & old which was great to see. There was a new introduction to the ending of Devil Will Ride, thanks to Ol & Ben, which involves a rhythm from a certain British metal band who started in the late seventies & became big in the eighties, strangely enough it worked & sounded pretty rocking, but let's see if anyone at future shows can figure out which band it's from. And so this brings me to the present moment where it's time for bed. Night all!

eBlob

ola fellow los angelinos.... KCRW mornings becomes hectic is on @ 11:15 this morning..... tune in to see if we can fit our full-on 7 man band in their studio.....

BlackieBlog-New Challenge Raised In Utah

Hello!
We're in Santa Monica after driving over from Park City, Utah. I have to say I didn't know what to expect from a show midweek in Park City, an out of season ski resort ,how many people would show? But I have to say much to our delight, there was a great turnout & the people were dancing away all night. I think these guys have definately thrown down the gauntlet for shimmying their booties on the dancefloor!
We're on KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic tomorrow. We'll be playing live at 11:15 pacific time.
Well time for bed, night all!

BlackieBlog-Mountains & Fresh Air!

Ah! Very nice to awake to the sight of snow capped mountains & a sunny day. We're here in Park City jus 45mins away from Salt Lake City & it has to be said, it's a pretty beautiful place.
We had a good time last night in Boulder & met up with some friends we'd met on the Jam Cruise. They supplied us with lots of herbal supplements to keep us healthy & fresh for the coming shows. We'll be the healthiest band on tour, well healthier than we were before anyway.
Thanks to everyone who came last night, very rocking crowd as always Boulder!

Earthygigbloggle

ahhh beautiful boulder!!! you can even see the bus outside.

Radio!

Hello. If you're near a radio at about 1pm mountain time, you may hear us playing through a couple of tunes on KBCO!

Blackie Blogg-Good Morning

Good morning all. Hope you all slept well last night. I've just woken up in my curtained bunk on the bus. It's a little like sleeping in a box except for the curtain on the one side. It is a box with a tv mind you, but unfortunately mine doesn't work.
What day is it today?
We're en route to Boulder after playing in Kansas last night. Gig seemed to go pretty well, had a couple of interesting moments myself, I think Ian must have thought I was playing a different song in the middle of How We Operate & to be honest I may as well have been, but my favourite moment was turning to Ben in the middle of Arrested & telling him I had no idea if I'd switched the guitar on as I had no way of hearing it, he kindly pointed out that I'd played the first half of the song without plugging the guitar in.
I guess I'll be getting up soon as we have things to do. I'm hoping we have time to get breakfast as there's a great little cafe in Boulder, I think it's called the Blue Moon Cafe which is rather appropriate & it does a fantastic breakfast. MMmm! I'm off, see you later!

TomBlog - once more to the fold

So I'm sitting at the back of the bus with Ben, Ol and Blacks and we're watching, "The Dirty Dozen". Soundcheck awaits us inside. I can see the back of the dvd case popping out from between Ol's fingers, it reads "often imitated, never bettered". Quite the male-bonding session, sitting on a bus watching a war movie. Lee Marvin is excellent. He's in two of my all-time favourite movies: Point Blank and The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance. Just great. The singing in Paint your Wagon can even be forgiven. I quite like Cat Ballou too, but Jane Fonda dressed as a cowgirl probably has more to do with it than Marvin's comic turn.
I'd like to draw some kind of analogy between the twelve of us on this bus and the dirty dozen, but lacking death-sentences and uniformly english caucasians, we don't really fit the bill. Also the personal hygiene on here is a little too high, in my opinion. Here comes Dajon...he looks a little more like he'd do well in a battle situation than the rest of us - I'd certainly hide behind him. I wonder if there's any such thing as the entertainment corps left in the army, otherwise we'd be fucked.
toodle-pip.
tom x

Earthygigbloggle

here we are! mighty pretty kansas city!!

Chicago Photographs - By Jerry Hawkins

Chicago Photographs - By Jerry Hawkins

Earthygigbloggle

We are playing somewhere in this vicinity tonight.
Oh my Omaha!

got this in chicago - one kid with great grammar

Dear Gomez!
I am ten years old, and my name is Sam. You are my absolute favourite band (I am skipping my school violin concert to be here - that's a definite "F" for me in violin). I love your band so much!! I am a guitar player, and I happen to have an epiphone casino, the remake of the Gibson 330 that David Forde was playing. The first Gomez song I learned was " get myself arrested" When I get older I hope to have a band half as good as yours.
sincerely, sam g
sgrayboys@yahoo.com

Mystery Blogger!

So it appears I have been forgetting to write my name before my bloggs so I'll give you a clue as to who I am. I crawl on all fours every morning (with a splitting headache), in the afternoon I walk on two legs once more & in the evening I'm absolutely legless. Can you guess who I am?
Guess that could be any of us & I'm sure it's more appropriate to someone else. So on we roll & so the bus rocks at night, sending my weary little head to sleep. Dreams of packed 15,000 capacity stadiums rocking to the sights & sounds of Bon Jovi in their hey day & who's that supporting them? It can't be, we'd have been too young. Wait here comes Brian Adams, yeah I bought a real six string too Brian, I know exactly what you mean. How's Jody getting on with his wife these days? Jimmy always did give up easily though didn't he, lets face it! Jimmy the quitter people used to call him. I remember hearing them, "Here comes Jimmy the quitter."they'd say, "Did you hear he left Brian high & dry at the gig the other night?"
Anyway, I'm spouting complete nonsense so I'll leave you all alone now & speak to you soon!See ya!

Olly - Gomez Near Death Experience!!!

Alllwight!

So before last night's show we went to a friends for a Bar-B- Q....burger-burger-sausage-burger-burger-beer...you get the drift and on route back to the venue a storm came in from nowhere....it was absolutely slashing it down. We were merrily razzing along listening to some toons, when from nowhere BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!! Lightning struck about 30 ft from the car! All we saw were some flames and heard what sounded like a humongous explosion....wish I could've witnessed all our expressions....absolute terror, fear and amusement in one go. Hell, shit, dam, shit, hell yeah! None of us had ever seen lightning strike before....probably never will. So there you have it.

P.S. What's with the rain over in the States....it's worse than England! It's been raining for 24 freakin' hours cheesus!

Rock on Chicago!

Olly.

Grrr!

Oh hello again,
Hope you're all doing well and feeling good out there. Speaking of feeling good I think we can all feel the effects of the first few nights of touring starting to take effect. We're in New Orleans today. New Orleans on Cinco De Mayo, we're playing at 2:30 in the morning & it's just taken me five minutes to figure out how to spell Cinco De Mayo. It's going to be an interesting day!

Greeting from Asheville

Hello!
Here we are in sunny Asheville. I like this town IT'S GOOD. We ate at a cafe called the Tupelo Honey Cafe both last night & this morning, IT ROCKS. And so here we are in the dressing room of the Orange Peel writing a set list & readying ourselves for soundcheck. See some of you guys very soon indeed & maybe some others somewhere along the way. CHARGE!!!!