diary
chris
tim
matthias
rick
mouldy
WEDNESDAY 16TH JANUARY - hi diary, hmmm seems like we've been neglecting you somewhat. soz. anyhow whats been up in the okhotel CAMP and whats planned for the new year i hear you scream??? well as regulars all know we had a recording session in london with a top producer, and on one track we managed to spend 16-17 hours and £540+ cash. we have yet to receive a copy of the track (frontcrawl) due to lazy-arsed postal workers. to next step will be to get a few hundred copies done to send to people (radio 1, companies, etc...) should kick!
looking forward we have many things in the pipe-line. we (tim) has been busy booking us gigs and so far we have the 'bull and gate' booked for friday the 8th march. In february we may be gracing the corn exchange on ipswich's youth day. you know the really well publicised (my arse) one betwix the hours of 11-4pm, humm notorious hours for the youth to be seeing bands play. once again the council proving that they know how to plan a youth event without being in contact with any 'young people' apparently they're scared of us! humm what else, oh yeah zac (our manager) informed us he's sending some reps to the south of france for a meet with a few companies. ahh there's always hope eh? thats about it. big kiss.
WEDNESDAY 19TH DECEMBER - HIHIHI, just writing to inform of the news lately. exactly a week ago today we gigged at the "bull and gate", bit disapointed by the venue itself (somehow i expected something more) nice stage though, fall off that and you break u're neck! went okay, despite certain member's nerves and matthias's keyboard finally kicking the bucket! didn't really get a great feeling from it but must have done some good then invited us back to play on either a friday or a saturday. thats something to get nervous about! big thanks to all who came on the OKHOTEL SHUTTLE. hhmmmm next day woke up virtually paralised with back-pain possible due to that selfish bastard tim persuading me that he needed my seat more than i did so i had to share the 2 and bit hour journey with a mixture of cymbol and keyboard stands. that night we played at the railway pub and thoroughly kicked arse despite the errr seemingly best efforts of the soundmen to screw up the sound as much as possible. i don't think anyone left without an aftertaste of our set, indeed my dear old bro has been humming our songs constantly! thanks to all for their kind words and a huge thanks to the felixstowe posse for comming to see us, i love you guys.
other exciting nooz on friday we travel down to london to begin a weekend of recording with a top producer who has worked with 'james' and somewhat shamefully 'kula shaker' amoung others. we're probably gonna record "rebel dining", the song formally known as "the steamboat song" due to where we first played it (soz about the pun) looking forward to recording in a proper studio. should be a laugh...a very expensive laugh!
SUNDAY 25TH NOV - hello boys and uhuh girls! this is a joint entry by tim and i (being chris just incase our colour scheme baffles you) we're busy updating the site, to keep you the most learned reader informed. oh news blissful news...okhotel have been called upon to polute the airwaves by the poor unsuspecting "icr" (fm 105.1) on tuesday betwix the hours of 4-6 but more like 5-6. listen to us try and fit as much hairdressing terminology into the small amount of time we get before they wrench us off....over to me...errrrr strange coincidence time...well you know this ongoing plane crash/ok hotel gig clash thing that's been happening...(tuesday 11th september OK Hotel played Bury St Ed's Pestellos, monday 12th november, the day a passanger plane crashed in surburban New York OK Hotel played Norwich Boswells)...well I was reading The Times from Wednesday 12th September, the day after the terrorist attack. There was an article about a film whose plot is scarily similar to the day's events. Even more scarily, the name of said film is 'The Siege'. For anyone who doesn't know, 'The Siege' is the title and last track of our first EP (check 'Releases'). When we wrote the song we had no knowledge whatsoever of this film, and actually performed it the night of the terrorist attack. If anyone has actually seen this film, can I borrow the video? Scary, huh?
huh?
Tuesday 20th NOV - greetings. i don't think anyone's written since the Norwich gig; to summarise - jazz cafe, 5 people attended, played a 2.5 hour set (with interdudes by the fabulously brilliant Simon Cooper), mouldi jumped into the non-existant audience and broke stuff, we had actually quite a good time.
the main news on the OKH front goes as follows - we've organised a coach to the Bull and Gate gig on December 12th - it costs £14, which includes gig entry, and leaves from Northgate carpark at 4:00. OK Hotel have also been approached to appear in not one but TWO shows on ICR (105FM) - firstly next tuesday between 4 and 6 (dunno the name of the show) and secondly in a few wednesday's time on Steve Mann's breakfast show, between 8 and 11. we'll be doing accoustic stuff on both shows, and probably playing a few of our favourite records to boot. more details nearer the time.
Today i went to a politics conference in london, whose guest speakers included Tony Benn, Ann Widdecome, Charles Kennedy, and a few lesser political lights. Tony Benn spoke first. He appeared looking very frail and slow, but as he began to speak he suddenly became animated and young. He is a very good public speaker, and kept the audience kind of captivated throughout his intelligent, funny and relevant speech. It's kind of strange that such an 'old socialist' enjoys such popularity - he was virually mobbed by admirers as he left the stage. Ann Widdecome was also an entertaining speaker - despite her hostile reception and public unpopularity she spoke strongly. Conservatism is still fucking criminal though, and she said nothing to make me change my mind. Nearing the end of her speech a young rogue ran up to the podium and presented her with a spliff. i wonder if she'll smoke it? Anyway, if anything this conference just confused me. All the parties present seemed at points to make sense - especially Tony Benn, who exuded a kind of wiseness, wit and humility that is almost humbling. One example of my conflicting ideas is Europe - I've always been fairly in favour of joing the single European currency - y'know, progress and all that, plus the pound seems to represent all that is archaic and outdated about the conservative attitude - it seems to represent a Britain that I feel no connection with. However, Tony Benn pointed out that if we join Europe, since the economy is basically what turns the wheels of government, we will be handing much of our governing power over to European beaurocrats whom we cannot hire nor fire. Sort of has implications on democracy.
Actually, on the theme of politics, I was sort of obliged to ask a question to the Ipswich by-election candiates on the 'battle bus', live on radio suffolk. I questioned the environmental implications of the party's excessive and wayward leaflet distribution, and got suitably short schrift. Simon Cooper described the election banners and billboards outside peoples houses as "sort of vulgar". I think I agree with him. That's about it. see you soon, on the air xxxxx
Thursday 8th NOV -
hello diary...haven't seen you for a while cause frankly you can be a pain in the arse...we (tas, tim and i) went to London today whilst the others studied hard, to meet 'sharpe music's head huncho zac. had a lovely lunch b4 at 'the ruby in the (something)' cafe...nice place...nice food...gay waiter...singing waitress. (not that any of that is relevant in the least, just a nice place.) arrived on the dot and he kept us waiting for 20 mins, drummed on the table to pass the time...then in came zac...seemed nice enough but then again who knows what he gets up to behind closed doors???and said 'i thought the songs were really good, i like the songs i like the vocals...but the production is crap' still he's gonna carry it around giving it to various companies, including 'emi' who he seemed fairly confident about but was most likely talking complete wank...then menchioned "hundred grand" and he had my eternal attention!!! (no were not being given hundred grand but that could be what we'd get as an advance, so don't ask us for money we have none) tis cool though cause we don't have to sign any contracts unless some big record lable takes us on...hmmm...i can dream can't i? made my pilgrimage to Jeff Buckley by going to rough trade and reading his scrawling on the ceiling! "love is rebellion, i miss you rough trade love, Jeff Buckley, 94" we then got lost looking for denmark street. i really recommend a young persons railcard as it cost me £20.90 for the ticket...thanx ma for bailing me outta that one!
other bit of okhotel news our 2nd e.p is well underway with the corndog boys, already scrummy (so mike soon a copy of frontcrawl can be all yours, and will be as entertaining as the odd jodderall on cold lonely nights!). the sessions, 2 so far, have been quite productive despite us not really doing much work and arsing around the whole time and making mistakes and blahblahblah. turns out that the much loved and enjoyable 'Alarm Bells' is 7mins30 long!!!okhotel do prog-rock YEAH!!!
(sorry k i'm not sure its very glam, you'll have to wait for the live shows for that.) very intense and quite agressive though...unsure of how many tracks will be on it in the end, most likely 3 but we may suffer a bout of creativity and write some more songs. twill be called (THE) ALARM BELLS E.P methinks as we don't have titles as yet for the other songs and (THE) FRONTCRAWL E.P sounds crap...big kiss...
Wednesday 24th OCT - hellooooo there...it's been a while since i've written properly in the diary. in fact, since i've last written we've become involved with corndog records, for whom we're recording a single in the next couple of weeks, possibly a double 'a' side of frontcrawl and alarm bells. i'm actually really looking forward to committing frontcrawl to tape - if we can capture the energy of the live version then it should be one hell of a single. with any luck it'll be a success locally, and then go forward to be a full uk release.
last night i had a really strange and quite disturbing dream. i dreamt that ok hotel split up - primarily instigated by matthias, who was going to form a "papa roach type band" with one of my sister's friends (unlikely). i was quite shocked, and went to discuss it with chris, who didn't seem bothered. he said "never mind, at least i got a decent guitar out of it". not quite sure what this meant - maybe he was in the pay of matthias. this really pissed me off, so i went and took the matter up with matthias. i told him i was really upset, and that because a large part of our friendship was based on the band we probably wouldn't see much of each other any more. he was like, "yeah, so?". then i dreamt i was running along upstairs corridors of a building, but instead of a proper floor it just had occassional widely spaced strips of fabric, and so with every step i risked plummeting to my death. finally, it went all stupid and i dreamt that shaggy was the bassist in elbow.
i think i've bored you enough. much love xxxxxxxx
Sunday 14th OCT - dear diary, i'm sorry that i've been neglecting you...however, i promise that i will write a proper entry soon. it's just that i've been too busy being on TV and stuff. see you soon. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MONDAY 8th OCT - hihihi. been a while since last entry... gigged @ steamboat for ema launch party...went okay...didn't really get into the performance and the set was a bit shakey...had my trousers going right up my arse for the whole set, couldn't hear any vocals in the monitors so was probably completely out of tune, broke some stuff, aired new song for the first time its was too underpracticed. blahblahblah...had an interesting convo with andrew junkculture/corndog records...seems they have a scally-wag slandering the name of poor 'andrew'...i'm sure he doesn't really have a thing for goats...met manager guy (cradle of filth/christian death) who may take us on. all good. just got our first london gig @ 'the bull and gate' its in december but i think i speak for everyone when i say we're already shitting ourselves
big kiss -X-
THURSDAY 20TH SEPT - After a reasonable practice with the rest of the OK Hotel boys, I went home to prepare for Ipswich Town's adventure in European Football. Humming the latest tune to come out of the OK Hotel factory of funk(yeah good one!) I make my way to the Theatre of Dreams at Portman Road. There me and thousands of ... ok, cut the crap: At about 9:55 the BBC camera's catch me applauding the players off the pitch after another reasonable performance. Stardom at last, without lifting a stick. I thank you!!!
THURSDAY 20TH SEPT - yipyipyip
nowt really to say other than band practice today, working on new song...apparently i wrote too many parts for the guys to play! its fluffier than the other stuff...less dynamics, make no mistake its still no straight up indie song, the day we write one of them is the day i take a knife to...AHHHH SHIT, OVER THE EDGE, ohwell the next straight up indie song we write!...bye-bye
(okhotel do not approve, nor ever will, self-mutilation)p.s Write some lyrics Tim. (i would appreciate anyone who sees tim would mutter this under their breath and give him evil looks, not only are we trying to get him to write some lyrics but it would be grand if we could make him paranoid.)
SUNDAY 16th SEPTEMBER - quick message to report that from the 13th onwards hits on the website have definately gone up as a result of the newspaper article. unfortunately, the stats thing on this web-hosting package is way to elaborate to actually tell you exactly how many people have been on the site since it was put on line, which would be interesting. can't have it all i guess. hopefully we'll get a message board up in the next couple of days - thanks for the suggestion matt - oh, and thanks to everyone who attended the bury gig - unfortunately a date that people will remember for other reasons. finally, i'm aware that the 'back to home page' button after you've signed the guestbook doesn't actually work - i've been trying to rectify it, honest, but computers are bastards. apologies for the dullness of this diary entry! laters.
hi love spuds, gig at bury went quite well methinks, despite being lost in a din of goth metal! steve(missblackamerica) was there and informed me my distortion was too quiet. mucho sorry, i blame the sound guy! i think the mild destruction at the end w