The Conway Story: Diary

2006-01-10T01:20:00.000-08:00

So the excitement of Christmas has passed, as has the heady excess of New Years Eve. We've got bored of our presents, we've eaten all our sweets, we're no longer hungover, and we have some down time now before we start recording and touring again in February, so we thought we'd say another electronic hello on the wild, wild web. We spent New Years pretty much like everyone else - some of us went round to Nicholas' house for a bit of domestic drinking and planning our domination of 2006. Jimi went back to his spiritual and original home of Somerset where he drank all kinds of different alcohols and then had a bit of a kip in a car park. No-one knows what Lenin did. He is our international man of mystery. But we all got back into the rehearsal studio right as rain the other day and started working on some cool new stuff which we're hoping to play out in February.

We got recording to do, too - we liked Chris Sheldon and his way with expensive equipment so we're gonna put down three more tracks with him in a couple of weeks - probably Remember Me, Landing Light and some other as yet undecided number. And then we're off on our first UK headlining tour. Back up North mostly, though we're kicking off in London with a couple of dates. We're all missing Travelodges and the odd travellin' comfort they afford, and need to get back in one soon before we go mad. Plus the live shows will be good. Dates are up on the website and tickets are already available through Ticketweb, through the Barfly site and various other online hawkers. Come see us, keep friendly.

Done

2005-11-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

All done. The Conway Story now have decompression blues in a big way. We’re thinking of filling our rehearsal studio with smoke, turning all the lights down, throwing beer on the floor and recruiting random passers-by to shout at us as a kind of touring methadone. Only the possibility of another tour in February keeps us sane.

Last leg was fantastic. We spent three days in Glasgow (Colchester being cancelled due to Bluetonic illnesses) with some friendly people who took us bedraggled under their wing, playing the first two nights and then watching The Constantines on the third. Amazing band, them. Which we drunkenly all filed over to tell them, one after the other. Also caught People In Planes, who we played with at the Marquee in London earlier this year. We’ll definitely be going back up there again as soon as we can. Nice venue, as well, the Barfly – small, sweaty and loud. Though we think we may have blown their PA on the first night.

Liverpool and Nottingham odd. For some reason there were lots of hecklers among the Scousers. We thought it was just us and our shirts, but the Tones got it as well. Apart from that though it was ace – everyone else seemed really to get into it. Nottingham also good, and we had a bit of a chat after the show with a lovely bloke called Andy who’s seen us a couple of times before and who has been gamely defending us on the Bluetones message boards against hostile folk there. One in particular we think might be the guy who Nik tangled with at Nottingham. The usual trick of asking hecklers to repeat themselves before stamping on all three distortion pedals at once and hitting a low E major just as they reframe their witticism wasn’t working, so Nik’s parting shot as he left the stage was to insult him with thousands of watts’ worth of PA. We were expecting him to have a pop after the gig – kind of hoping he would really, so we could unleash our tour manager/medic/attack dog James on him. But instead what we now have is someone harbouring a massive, hopefully irrational online hatred for us that will probably never go away. We are the worst support act he’s ever seen in twenty years of going to gigs, apparently.

Ouch.

Another cancellation in Salisbury and then Bristol. Big ass venue with smooth air con and all that kind of shit. Nicholas’ cousin lives there too so we tried to hook up after the show. But the two locals we kidnapped in our van had absolutely no fucking idea where they were going so we kind of called that one off. Brum was a good one too, though we played in a small balcony overlooking a huge empty venue. Odd. And then it was hightailing it back down to the smoke for the last one at Shepherd’s Bush. Which was fucking awesome – brilliant crowd, brilliant venue, brilliant sound on stage and out front (or so we’re told). We spent the aftershow drunkenly thanking the Bluetones and making idiots of ourselves in front of journalists. We suspect that we won’t be getting reviewed in the Independent any time soon. And then we pretty much crashed into the ground. The tones and Sky Parade apparently stayed up til about 7am drinking at Mark’s flat. We managed a little after 5. What a bunch of pussies.

So that’s us done. Cheers to everyone who joined mailing lists, said hello, cheered us on and bought us drinks on our merry way round this fair isle. Has once again been a blast. Hope to see you all again next year.

The Conway Story

These tour diaries are like buses. You wait for ages…

2005-11-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

We’ve had a day off so we spent it back in London repairing ourselves and, more importantly, our amplifiers, which have proved not to be as rock and roll as us and have broken. So now seems like a good time to huddle round and open the wardrobe into the noisy, smoky Narnia that is our tour so far.

Think we left you in Leicester. An odd gig – we all came off feeling frankly like we’d fucked it, only to find out days later that loads of you went to the website afterwards and became our friends. So thanks for that. Next time you see us, though, tell us we’re ace at the time. Saves us crying ourselves to sleep in a darkened hotel room. Ju-jitsu Matt left us tonight as well, so we tried to take him out for a Conway Story good time. Ended up accidentally at a Roni Size gig we didn’t know we were even at until he namechecked himself. Think we may have grown out of sweaty drum’n’bass, though Ju-jitsu had a whale of a time stripped to the waist on the dancefloor, glistening like some kind of urban gladiator in leather trousers and white pimp shoes.

Leeds next, where we had a ball. Got taken out for dinner after the show so stocked up on much-needed vitamins and made people stare at us by being scruffy, sweaty and generally keyed-up. Nice restaurant, too. Went back to the venue afterwards and went straight to the dressing rooms where there was a quiet and well-behaved little aftershow going on. Somewhere between rock and roll and pleasant dinner party – commendable spliff etiquette all round and parma ham and things. Then crashed back down into the club night where Jimi and Russ tangled with womenfolk. Russ arrived back at the Travelodge early, but Jimi, out of phone credit, was left to wander the streets of Leeds for a couple of hours until we could pick him up in the morning. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the loneliness of the young blade.

After Oxford, we zipped back home for some proper food, and then zipped back up to Northampton on Sunday to play at probably one of the best venues we’ve played so far, the Roadmender. Incidentally, they’re trying to close the place down, but you can go online and demand that they reconsider here. Really enjoyed the gig here, too. Nik’s hair was complimented, which is always nice. And the set is feeling brilliant – we haven’t changed it so far, whereas we usually start getting bored with it and messing around a few dates in. Might be trying a new one or two this week, though…

We’ll leave you there. Speak soon…

On the road again

2005-11-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

What’s this? A Conway Story tour diary that we actually post? We kept one for the last tour, but never got around to publishing it. Reading back, that might be for the best. This one you’re definitely gonna read, though. In fact, you are already. Hopefully. Tour three, and we’ve progressed to postmodernist diaries. Next one will be a Sound and Furyesque stream of consciousness. Get us…

Gigs so far have been wicked. We’ve played to packed-to-sold-out crowds every night, and reactions have been really good. Lots of new songs to play with this time – Landing Light, which we demoed up at Townhouse studios a couple of days before we left, is going down really well and could be a future release. We’ve changed Remember Me a bit as well, and that’s also feeling good. Bluetones have won our hearts by being nice about us during their set, and Sky Parade are very cool fellas who we hope to sponge off if we’re ever in LA.

First gig was Preston and was good. We have the novelty of a proper van this time, rather than piling all our gear into a couple of cars. We’re already getting into the van mentality, steaming up and down the M1 and terrorising people in Corsas and Fiestas. Though what state it’s going to be in when we give it back is anyone’s guess…Down to Essex for the second one where, again, it all went well (apart from the discovery that we’d left a bagful of flowery shirts in Preston, which panicked us, flowery shirts being like our Billy’s Boots or Sparky’s Magic Piano or Samson’s hair). And then Newcastle, where we managed to fit Lenin into a fridge in our dressing room. Don’t believe us? We filmed it. We decided to hit the town after the show, shepherded on our way by our new friends at PennyBlack who pointed us towards what turned out to be probably the best example of true genius this century has so far seen. All the bar staff were wearing bikinis (though not the men, obviously). The DJ announced that there was a ‘real live rock and roll band’ in da house – us – and then inexplicably played a Girls Aloud song as if it were the most natural segue in the world. There was much dancing and gyrating. And Russ got a lapdance in a kebab shop afterwards. Like Seventies rock and roll excess against a familiar Kaiser Chiefs backdrop.

So we’re sitting in the by now familiar Travelodge room which has kind of become our second home over this year. Yesterday was a day off which we spent driving from Newcastle to Leicester via Blackburn (to pick up the shirts), and a brilliant little pub with log fire and dog and pies aplenty. Few of us are nursing hangovers from our foray into Leicester last night – we followed a flyer we found in a bar and ended up at a club round the corner from the hotel. We seem to have developed some kind of resistance to or tolerance of beer so decided to hit the sambuca. After some of the most incredible dancing Leicester will ever have seen (particularly from ju-jitsu Matt, who’s come along on the tour with us to help out with CDs and mailing lists), we spectacularly failed to find a party to go to. So obviously today is a day of healing and rest before we play the Charlotte tonight.

It's Good To Talk

2005-10-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

Hi All

We finally got our arse into gear and now have a blog page so we can keep you up to date with our tours.

We are currently round Nik's flat sorting ourselves out for our 3 week UK tour to promote the release of our new single "Photogenic" which is out on 14th November. We will be touring with The Bluetones and an American band called Sky Parade. We will hopefully be able to update this tour dairy as we go and fill you in on how we are getting on.

We will try and write again soon...

Cheers

The Conway Story