+ Sky Larkin +

Louise Roberts

www.louiseroberts.co.uk

Right before the band played their triumphant shows at the SXSW music festival in Austin they spent a day in Los Angeles filming the video to their new single Antibodies – here are some still shots of the actual video! Check back in a few days to see the full video! The single is out on May 2nd.

Word, so, thanks to the magic of National Express East Coast Mainline trains I can now blog about anything and everything from the comfort of my £85 train seat (‘SAVER’??) including…

Europe

Europe was awesome, amazing and great.  Alexei JoFo wasn’t as smelly as Nestor and besides, we had a MASSIVE van so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  Thanks to the hire company and their VTBD (Vans that break down) we got upgraded from the cheapest van to the most expensive, for FREE.

Serious, we’re talking Playstation 2 (Burnout Revenge), Movie Hard Drive, Light Switches, Airline Seats, cleanliness… basically, far more than we deserved.  Who knows how the tour would’ve turned out if we’d stayed in the original van, or, god forbid, our own van, luckily the only problem was trying to find room for the crates and crates and crates and crates of amazing German/Belgian/Swiss beer that we stole from the rider each night.

So we did a few shows round and about, Hamburg was amazing, and as the red light district is all we’ve seen of the city I think it is known for Dildos and skull and crossbones flags.  Although I’ve been informed that “der’s more to hamburg dan dis”.  Party town though anyway.

Koln was awesome as well, we got there the day after Karnival so I think the whole city was hungover, we stayed at the same hostel as last time – now missing a polystyrene sheep that Drake kicked the head off last time (we did not mention this to the staff).

Where else…

Schorndorff, surprisingly good, I got shouted at by a teenager because he felt I was being mean by not giving him MY beer off the stage because “you have loads of fucking beer, and we have to buy it”.  He caught up with me later on and offered his and his friends services as a headline band as we’d finished early, but then they got asked to leave so it was alright. Could’ve been awesome though.

Berlin was incredible as always, we had a day off so we went to checkpoint charlie and then the obligatory trip to white trash wherewe had the best waiter ever (seriously, I was in awe of his customer service skills) and I drank a lot of Vodka Tonic.  Then Scandinavia.

Scandinavia, jesus christ… a long drive from Berlin to the ferry, then the ferry VERY early in the morning up to Malmo(ish) then to Copenhagen.  Where we entered a gangland war, apparently.  It was completely safe according to the hotel, but we played a street away from where a man had been shot by Hell’s Angels the night before.  Needless to say there was lots of running around pretending to be in Full Metal Jacket and lots of “stop fucking about, we could get shot” from the more ’sensible’ members of the touring party.

Then to Norway, where I missed a man shitting in the street.  Everyone else saw him. boo. This carries a substantial fine in Oslo apparently, as the people are usually quite reserved so this man must’ve been a super-tramp.

Stockholm, ahhh, stockholm, how I missed you.. I only got to see about 100 sqm of it, but it’s a nice little bit. Got to watch/hang out with wintersleep again, quality guys, quality band.  I got a copy of the Jeniferever album from Jeniferever (I don’t think this counts as a name drop because we have the same tour manager), I’m yet to listen to it though and I definitely did NOT give it to anyone else to rip.

And then we flew home, well… nearly home. FIRST “Being late for our Visa Interview”

In a bizarre twist of fate involving the most organised member of the band somehow sleeping through his alarm, and me having so much faith in him to be this organised and thus, not book a wake up call myself or anything (in hindsight, probably a bit short sighted considering the importance of being on time) we managed to wake up at 8am.  We were supposed to be at the US embassy at 7:30. Shit.
Katie had opted to stay with a friend and so was not a part of the whole debacle.

An official apology is required here to our amazing, wonderful managers who we nearly gave a heart attack this morning. Anna, Gareth, I’m very sorry.

But we got there, and it was fine, and a bit scary, but we got done and now we’re heading back to Leeds, for 3 days of going to the Brudenell and eating Pasta.

Oh, why do we need said Visas? Not just because of SXSW but because of the MASSIVE US TOUR WE’RE GOING ON IN APRIL OMG LMFAO FML ETC

The routing’s below, the venues and shit’ll be up at somepoint, I’m getting too hot to type here, sat by the window. Stupid britain and it’s Hot weather.  In Norway the SEA was frozen.
View Larger Map

That is all for now, I’m sure there’ll be a better written blog to come from Nestor or Katie, but for now I’ll leave you with this thought.

These are my hands.

Love you, BYEE.

Douglas

http://www.flickr.com/photos/captain_of_what/

Thanks to Anika, this is wonderful.

Hello. Here are some things that my camera saw.

the-metropolitans.tk /marfeuh.free.fr / ConverseOrNot / www.myspace.com/plasticheroes / www.myspace.com/heart_box – Vanessa Deroo

….. have you seen this? It’s beautiful..

Rough Trade /PureGoove /Wichita shop /iTunes

If you pre-order the 7″ vinyl and bring it with you to a show, come find us at the merch stand and we’ll happily sign it for you. Or if you’re not into the whole pre-ordering thing, it’ll be in stores on Monday, and we’re selling some copies on the road as well.

Full photo collection up on flickr or click here!