So here we are, back in England after a weeklong trip round mainland Europe. I can honestly say that it was a lot of fun.

Everyone we met was so nice, that the list of shout outs is probably too long. I’m gonna mention a few though, because some people just make such an impression that you have to mention it.

First off, thanks to Leo for getting us round Berlin (Where’s our camera?), thanks to Teun for being a host with the most in Zwolle (Chris hasn’t stopped eating Hagelslag), thanks to Linda for giving us all a place to rest and recharge in Amsterdam (we’ll be back!), thanks to Tomasz the Brush for keeping clean (Never lose the brush!), thanks to everyone who bought every last piece of merch we had in Cologne (I would have said Köln, but I don’t know how to umlaut), and finally thanks to the Rock Twins for knowing more about our band than we do in Tannheim.

We will be back, and I hope it is soon. In the words of Aled “I like Europe”.

So see you there?
- Mike

So all the plans are made, it’s time to head to Europe. We’ve written new songs, played our warm up gig, and started practising our German. THESE ARE THE DATES:

Saturday 18th of February – Wild at Heart – Berlin
Sunday 19th of February – Popfront – Zwolle
Wednesday 22nd of February – The Cross Club – Prague
Thursday 23rd of February – Sonic Ballroom – Cologne
Friday 24th of February – Schwarzer Adler – Tannheim

There it is, short and sweet. Venturing into Europe to give her a little tickle then leave with our jumpers intact.

See you then!
- Mike

OK, so I dabbled with writing this list a while ago whilst we waited to record our session at Maida Vale. It’s basically as if being in your band is a game and as you play the game at various milestones you get achievements that mark your progress. Some of them are essential for the story line, others are perhaps a bit more frivolous and there are one or two darker ones. I’m hoping to cover all bases and make it as realistic as possible to the Xbox achievement system. Here we go:

Xbox band achievement list (1000/1000)

Storyline achievements (330):
30 – Whole band assembled
30 – First song written
30 – First gig finished
30 – First demo cut
30 – First tour finished
30 – First full album completed
30 – Signed record deal
30 – First international gig (Wales doesn’t count)
30 – First world tour (more than two continents) finished
50 – Huge reunion gig freeze frame
10 – Complete story mode with two different bands

Sickening (60):
5 – Sick on stage
10 – Achieve 50 sick on stages
15 – Achieve 500 sick on stages
5 – Item of clothing completely wet
10 – Drop of sweat falls from ceiling onto band member
15 – Fall to floor having blacked out

Sexy (60):
5 – Member has sex due to being in band
10- Sex with a groupie
15 – Fathers/Mothers an illegitimate child with a groupie
5 – Full nudity on stage
10 – Whole band full nudity on stage
15 – Sexual act on stage

Wild (150):
5 – Crowd surf
10 – Achieve 50 crowd surfs
15 – Achieve 500 crowd surfs
5 – TV out the window
10 – Swearing at someone on television
15 – Being banned from a particular television or radio programme
5 – Member leaving due to musical differences
10 – Member leaving due to personal differences
5 – One member punches another member
10 – One member punches another member on stage
15 – A physical fight involving every member of the band
20 – A physical fight involving ever member of the band on stage
10 – 50 punches thrown
15 – 500 punches thrown

Media (190):
15 – Gig at Wembley stadium
5 – Songs on Spotify
10 – Songs on BBC radio
15 – Session at Maida Vale
20 – Member of band on Desert Island Discs
5 – 4th full album
10 – 10th full album
5 – One member in feature length film
10 – Whole band performance on national television or feature length film
15 – Jools Holland has a chat at a piano
5 – First zine review
10 – First national newspaper review
15 – Time person of the year
5 – First footage on youtube
10 – A video reaches 1000 views
15 – A video reaches 50,000 views
20 – A video reaches 1,000,000 views

Resourceful (140):
5 – Car/Van/bus breaks down
10 – Bought own van
5 – Used spare spare guitar
10 – Used spare spare spare guitar
10 – Ending a tour with a profit
10 – Split/collaboration with another band/artist
5 – First t-shirts
10 – Unorthodox merch (anything other than music, t-shirts, posters, stickers or badges)
15 – Someone bootlegs your merch (music doesn’t count)
5 – Sponsorship/endorsement
10 – All members live off the band
15 – A member leaves the country for tax reasons
5 – First beer rider
10 – Individual food orders on the rider
15 – A bowl of single colour M&Ms

Morbid (40):
20 – Death of a fan at a show
20 – Death of a band member

Too big (30):
5 – Someone outside the band torrents your music
10 – Someone covers your song
15 – Tribute act of the band

Smokey Bastard score – 370

At the moment it is simply a boring list where you have to add up your number by yourself with a computer, or perhaps a CALCULATOR if you are old skool. The idea was eventually to have it as some type of check box system that you can submit and it’ll tell you your band’s score straight away. If you know how to do this quickly and effectively, let us know, we would be very grateful.

Take heed:
The score is not supposed to be any representation of the popularity of the band, more a rating of how the band is conforming to a lot of peoples ideals of how a band should be. That being said if you want to submit your band’s score we’ll happily include it at the end of this list.

Enjoy!
- Mike

LEADERBOARD:
Sonic Boom Six – 535
Random Hand – 530
Lightyear – 530
Mr. Shiraz – 500
New Town Kings – 435
The Lock Up – 275
Eat Defeat – 265

Crap, I totally left it too late. It’s now two months after the fact and I’ve forgotten most of what happened. WHOOPS.

What I remember:

Birmingham – The Wagon and Horses was a nice pleasant place, but we were literally playing outside in the middle of November. Still, met some very nice people and I imagine an all dayer in Summer would be quite the nice.

Brighton – The hydrant was tip top. A night hosted by Jake from our friends The Junk (http://www.facebook.com/thejunkskacore) was well attended and sweaty, as should be expected from the hydrant. Hopefully everyone appreciated the speech from Independence Day being written in full on the walls of the green room. Hopefully.

Cambridge – The Man on the Moon was smoky and rockin’

Bath – The Royal Oak always has an amazing selection of ales, and it is sad to hear that it may soon be closing. BOOOO. I swear it wasn’t our fault.

High Wycombe – Scorpios bar was so packed that I was always touching someone. Nice. Everyone got really into it and boozy. Nice. Saw Captain Dale’s most recent tattoo. Ummm.

Then we did two in one day, an all dayer in Alton followed by playing with our good friends Surfin’ Turnips (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000603688474) in Bristol. I was so tempted to drink cider, but when a pub has decent local ale I can’t help myself. I promise not to talk about ale any more.

Leicester – The Soundhouse was a real nice venue, with some real nice bands, we’ll definitely be back!

Then we toured again with Crazy Arm (http://www.facebook.com/thecrazyarm) and Great Cynics (http://www.facebook.com/greatcynics) and that was super wickid cool, but I probably won’t go in to any details because those memories are PRIVATE!

See ya,
- Mike

Hello. So it’s been a while. We’ve been touring! Mostly we’ve been keeping you abreast of updates via our facebook page, or the twitter, both of which you can click on this here page. It’s the kind of instant, up-to-the-second news of which even we, Bastard, are afraid.

So here’s a more in depth, less fleeting look at the past couple of weeks:

First up we headed Norfolkway, to play North East London, King’s Lynn and Norwich. Being the first few dates on the tour, we faced many adversitiesImproving the flow of the set, nursing crackly cold and flu voices and avoiding all the smashed broken bottles on the floor. Whilst the London gig definitely felt more like a standing still showcase, the Norfolk folk really showed that they can tear it up and start again, especially when it comes to bottles of beer. They spilt a lot. As it may become a recurring theme, I’ll start by saying it here: “We’ll definitely be coming back.”

A couple of days later, we headed up north to Hull, Leeds, Huddersfield, Birmingham and Crewe. Yes I know Birmingham isn’t really up north, but let’s face it, it IS. Shut up ok, I’m trying to write here and you’re killing my flow. Hull was scary, but on purpose (it was hallowe’en), Leeds was smooth and funky with a claymation top floor. Huddersfield was top top top with a perfect pub/venue (The Parish) and I’ll stop you there because we’re playing Birmingham tonight so have yet to form an opinion.

Other than the gigs we’ve been arsing around with various time consuming activities such as re-reading Preacher, learning to solve Rubik’s Cubes and making up game shows based entirely on puns in the title. We also did this:

I’ll update with more soon, but until then, breath in then out,
- Mike

So here we are, one day to go ’til tour, and two days away from our incredibly enjoyable album launch. Sunday was a lot of fun for all of us. We shoved quite a few of our albums your way, and also a few pints of the infamous “Smokey Bastard” porter brewed by our friends at Art Brew (http://artbrew.co.uk/). Thanks also to Drones (http://soundcloud.com/drones) and Claypigeon (http://claypigeonband.co.uk/) who both tore it up good and proper, leaving everyone feeling like a plate of jelly, just in time for us to add the icecream. Hopefully the pudding hangover wasn’t too severe and I hope everyone enjoyed their physical copies of the album without a throbbing sugar comedown. </puddingmetaphor>

Tomorrow, we’ll be flinging all the shit at all the fans and head to the first show on the road, KARMA KAFE in NORWICH. I’ll be letting you know how that comes along, but you shouldn’t really take my word for it, come and see the gig yourself. Don’t you value first hand experience? I could just make stuff up and you’d be none the wiser. NONE THE WISER. Go to the gig and determine your own conclusions. Or not.

See you there,
- Mike

How very exciting!