I am a very bad webmaster/bandleader/General Grand Poobah, & still have yet to write up anything about our last gig from back in june - my only excuses are a) work, & b) new album, for which everything is recorded except backing vocals (& then, of course, will come the long dark mixing session of the soul)...

We were booked to play at Lancaster's Golden Lion pub on thursday june the 19th, until the landlord spotted that England had a world cup match on that night, & decided that he'd get a bigger crowd showing that on the telly. Gig cancelled. As MK would rather lick piss off a nettle than watch football, he was less than impressed.

But now the esteemed Dominic Leighton has offered us a night at The Three Mariners (also in Lancaster) - a semi-subterranean public house/set of tunnels at the foot of the castle, rumoured to be the least safe pub in England owing to its paucity of fire exits. Same time, same bat-channel, same set list, I would imagine... more details as they become apparent.

[Edit 14-6-14CE] - mea culpa, I was getting confused, I've just described the Merchants' in Lancaster, which is the horrendously unsafe one. We really are playing at the Three Mariners', but it's at the end of St George's Quay, oldest pub in Lancaster. What makes this worse is that I included this edit last week, then at some point borked the server, had to restore from backup & lost the edit. Then had to be told to put the edit back. *Hangs head in shame*.

So, here we are. While Fastmail's service has been excellent, the static HTML website we've been running has been starting to show its age & inflexibility. So, now we've got our own box, & here is our new, Drupal-based site. I'll do a more detailed post about what's been going on behind the scenes soon, but for now, take it for a spin. Kick the tyres. See what you think & let us know.

"I have decided that one doesn't realise how seriously weird one's children are until one has looked at their web site."
(Email from my father, Jan 1997CE)

As 2012CE rolled around, the world may not have ended, but my trusty 10-year-old HP Laptop finally gave up the ghost, literally days after I'd finished the last album. Great as the laptop was, & as much work as I'd done on it, recording & otherwise, I'd started to find its soundcard's terrifyingly high noise floor increasingly problematic, & to wonder about finding a better way to record things. I'd become aware of these portable Digital Audio Recorders, & heard some stunning results from them. So when my Dad asked me what I'd like for Christmas, this was what I went for.

& then in 2013CE, on the Ides of March, my Dad, Jim Eggleston, passed away, aged 65. Hardest month of my life (so far).

The Occupy gig went well enough, although only doing three songs (Toxic Shockwave, Cyclops & Wastemuchwantmore) made it difficult to get really into anything. However, although you'd think that a gobby, politically minded band such as us would fit right in, our talent for stepping on toes seems to have been to the fore, & to look at the event's Facebook page, you'd think we were never there.

Suddenly we can't move for gigs. The threatened Occupy Event is go, friday October 5th at the Gregson in Lancaster, details here. We've been asked to play three songs, so are currently in intense in-band negotiations as to which three of our songs stick it to the man the *most*. We're due on 9ish (apparently), but the evening confidently promises "entertainment, Process and Mischief. Music, poetry, stories, magic, theatre, film". No, I'm not sure what "Process" means in that context, either.

Lax as we have been at playing gigs of late, I've been laxer still in terms of publicising anything. The picture here shows us playing at The Low Countries' HUSH#4 event, a very pleasant Songwriters' Circle type evening. It was good to dust off our instruments & play out for a change.