Sad sad sad

Hello hello,
Sadly this page is now defunct. Will it wander into the woods and die gracefully and alone, or linger ignored and lonely? Let's not think about it. For all things Essay Like Nephew do head over to:

www.essaylikenephew.co.uk.

See you there.

Over the hills and far away.....

The new website is complete, and it is even sexier than expected. Not only can it make an omlette in under thirty seconds while swapping anecdotes with Chris De Burgh, it also has a news page:

www.essaylikenephew.co.uk/news

An Efficient Performance

Just in case some of you weren't glued to your digital radio at 1am on a Saturday night, you can hear Tom just about managing to keep a lid on his obvious passion for our band here. It's about 50 minutes in. Sweetly, no under 16s are allowed, but I'm sure that you can get round that Carlos.

ELN on bbc 6 tonight

'sup. 'oh no mr lewis' from our window pleasure ep will be played by tom robinson tonight on his introducing show. apparently we're on about half way through, just before the session tracks. also check this week's introducing podcast as we could be on that too. sweeeeet. demos for a new ep recorded yesterday. this time next year, we'll be trillionaires..

Proto-dynamism

Tommy has made a POWERFUL new website, another of his clever and frightening children. It will stand on its own two legs, and has developed a sense of right and wrong...almost. It has been kept hidden long enough...almost! A couple more screws to be tightened, a couple more wires to be tucked in.

PHEW!!!

We were like four tiny soldiers forced over the parapet into the bloody theatre of fame. Actually, it was not too bad. It's just that people shouldn't ask about our name. Put your cringe faces on, and proceed here.

STOP PRESS:

tonight at about 7.30 all four of us lot will be grilled for opinion live on bbc herts beds & bucks radio as part of the introducing show. will it be really really embarrassing? will we charm the pants right off three entire english counties at once? who knows. probably the first one. tune in or listen online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/local_radio/

SUFFOLKING GREAT

Tonight at the Swan in Ipswich. New pastures, new flights of excellence, same old ugly ducklings.

You can come willingly...

Or you can let us believe we reeled you in. Either way, come to
CATCH BAR, 22 Kingsland Rd, Shoreditch, E2 London
entry: £4
doors open: 7.45pm
stage time: 8.15pm
www.myspace.com/sohotsocold

MEGAFAME

We have now been reported on by a real journalist. This is excellent progress. We are like an eagle, soaring to fame.

Don't be tricked by the downheartedness of it. It is good to give journalists a good angle.

You can look at it if you like here.

RADIO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woo Woo!

Radio again, this time on Radio 1. So world domination is nearly here.

http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00h8q2g

Quite near the beginning, for skippers.

Thanks a lot to Richard from BBC Suffolk for bigging us up.

ROCK ON

As ever, we are back in concert. A slightly new arrangement, a slightly new sound, but the same great banter. It's at The Bullet Bar, 147 Kentish Town Road, on Tuesday (3rd Feb). We should be on about 9.50.

Love, The Nephews.

The RADIO

China Pop was played on the BBC yesterday.

It happened on Stephen Foster's Introducing on Radio Suffolk, and a brief discussion took place. It was a great moment.

Unlike most great moments IT'S AVAILABLE FOR 6 MORE DAYS:

Listen again
(it happens some 48 minutes in, for those only interested in one thing).

Ringaling!

Some things to keep the Christmas spirit alive for a few days more:
An Essay Like Nephew Christmas EP
A doomed Advent Video Project by Matt and James
A more successful Photo Advent by Gayle (the above pic is pinched from there)
And coming soon: a new Me & The Neck CD in the New Year.

Missed the webcast?

Watch again:
Parts 1 & 2, part 3

This is Halloween

Ahh. A nice sit down after a hard day. Pot of tea? Yes, why not.

What was that? Did you hear something? Must have been the wind. It was chilly out today. Nice to be wrapped up warm on the sofa.

I wonder what happens if I press this button. What's that? It looks strange. Oh no.

3:1

Essay Like Nephew? They’re that uncool band that only do things about once every three weeks aren’t they? Well no, actually. And to prove it here are THREE things coming up in ONE week. And all three are really cool. So there.

You don't believe it? You won't believe it? Well, perhaps a heavily formatted list will help convince.

1) On Wednesday we are releasing a 5 song EP called ‘Window Pleasure’. It was recorded many moons ago, but Tommy and James have fiddled with it at a ratio of about one note every three weeks. It will be available to download, and CD copies will follow sometime. Tradition suggests we supply a tracklisting to whet the appetite:

Window Pleasure [EP]
1. Oh No Mr Lewis
2. Rising Sun
3. Monsters
4. Advice to Io
5. Disclaimer

2) Appetites are at risk of upset on Friday from 2.00pm. The Essay Like Nephew Halloween Webcast will whet some blades...with blood. For vampire thirst. And more!

3) Alternatively your appetite might be more drawn to FREE TEA AND CAKE at The Sunday Roast, at The Cellar in Oxford. On Sunday. With musical accompaniment from Essay Like Nephew. It is £4, and doors open at 8.30. Full details here.

Cor! Pass me a diary, and a tissue.

ELN: tonight in the city

Escape the humdrum to see history made once again, this time at The Old Queen's Head in Islington. Swoon and sway to old favourites, sample the famous Nephew banter, and maybe meet the love of your life in the crowd. And more!

Free entry before 8 o'clock
Then £4
But discounts with NUS
The Old Queen's Head,
Directions: www.theoldqueenshead.com
Nearest Tube : Angel

Terrific!

Rooftop

SHARKS!

buROCKeaucracy

Over the past few nights, my friend Matt and I have been trying to work out a way to do certain special effects for a video we are planning for 'Sharks'. A raid of our garage, which I suppose is not really our garage, but our landlord’s storage space, proved prosperous; we found several bits of material, all presumably belonging to the landlord, that could come in handy. Most nifty of these is an enormous piece of blue dust sheeting, which will make a great sea. After sketching out the structures required and listing marine life we will have to make, we felt we were ready to push things forward, and set a date for shooting the thing.

3rd and 4th April were the decided days, a sort of breather before the exam gauntlet begins (if anyone is in the Yorkshire area around then, do drop in; we need some extra hands). Matt had been keeping a sly eye out during his saunters around the university campus, and had spotted a room aptly suited to our enterprise, which we decided we would try and book for said date.

Naturally this is easier said than done: without recounting the tedious details too thoroughly, it turned out the room’s chunky size meant that something that takes place in it is apparently not just something taking place in it but a ‘minor event’, necessitating the filling in of a minor events form, and bringing up unwanted issues of ‘liability’. On handing this in we were met with furrowed brows and told to go and see Ginelle (who it turned out was actually called Ginenne) at the Student Union office. Ginenne was ill, so we bounded across campus to another office to meet Steve Wilkinson, Campus Faculties Manager. It’s probably fair to say at this point that Steve doesn’t have a sense of humour. A Risk Assessment form needed to be filled in. We told him we didn’t think there were any real risks involved. He replied “There are risks in everything”. So with this philosophical spring in our step we returned to the S.U. office, where a man whose name we never discovered stared at our form for a long time. “What’s it for?”, he asked. “Um, sort of a music video for a song”. He seemed very upset by the whole thing, and to be fair given how many risks there are in everything it probably means many more forms for him. He said he would help us with the Health and Safety check, but he needed to see a diagram of what we were doing.

So this morning I made the above drawing, and carefully coloured it in to demonstrate to him of our commitment to detail, and thereby safety. We haven’t yet got a response. I was annoyed to have to give away the secrets behind the special effects (and so I thought I’d post them publicly here to save him the hassle of leaking them onto the internet), but we kept back from him the design of “Watervision”™, which is the where the real money is: a contraption that makes the things behind it look like they are underwater. The only risk in that is the risk of utter brilliance.

it's not your money that they're after boy it's you

We're not on the tracklisting on the website, but we are there, about 1 hour 55 minutes in. That is excellent. He mentioned our money debate, as below, justifying the decision to put it up (my mother was against it; she thinks it's vulgar). So thanks again to Tom. I can see why Gayle has the hots for him.

There is now an Essay Like Nephew page on facebook, which has all of Burrows on it to stream (although not in order, for some reason) and some photos and videos to check out. If you're on facebook, just search for it and it'll come up. On the whole, it's a lot prettier and better than myspace (which has always struck me as a remarkably ugly and ungainly site for one so large and profitable). So go along and become a fan.

Regards etc

Fame, Fame, Fatal Fame

Woo Woo! Last night we were played on the RADIO. In fact, somewhat farcically, we were played twice. It was on the Tom Robinson 'Introducing' show on BBC6, and can be listened to here.

Not only was Tom good enough to accidentally double our airwave exposure, or radiation, if you will, but he also had something to say about the money issue, as in the post below. Thus:

Tommy's got a point, and so have you. Actually there's no reason why you can't sell the albums AND give away the tracks as free downloads. Have em on iTunes etc (use Tunecore - brilliant royalty rates, no long term contract) and on your website offer fans the option of buying physical CDs with premium packaging as well. Get the print done for the packaging, and then burn off CDRs as the orders come in. Result: £10 profit on each CD (as opposed to 90p via a record company). Most importantly - carefully read David Byrne's excellent article setting out the available range of business models here http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne
hope this is some help - and sorry about the cockup with Sunflower on my 6 Music show last night...

Tom Robinson

So this is all very good. Perhaps he is being nice to us because Ben told him that Gayle fancies him. On the topic of Gayle, that is her picture at the top. More here.

If you have a spare minute, you can vote for us to reappear on next week's show at the website above.

So bye bye for now.

The best things in life are free...

I don't know if anyone outside the band ever reads this. Perhaps my mother (hello Mummy). Just in case someone does, I thought it would be interesting to post an email that Tommy sent us recently. It's about money. He rightly has certain grievances about our attitude to money, and the making of it via rock and roll. I think it's an interesting part of the debate about how a small band ought to approach the idea that they might be able to live off playing guitar and singing. So here it is:

I feel I need to explain myself about my ranting about CD selling etc. and general money chat. I haven't made my thoughts very clear on the subject, because it's not fun, and I get a sense that you will all disagree with me. I accept that much of the things I have suggested regarding money are "token", and not particularly profitable. I feel that this is as a result of me compromising between what I think is the best thing to do, and what you guys think is the best thing to do. I'm afraid this isn't just about whether we should charge for the Burrows CD or not, but about longer term issues.

Ultimately, and basically, I want to play, record, and make music, and be paid for it. If I'm paid, I can keep doing music, otherwise, I need to divert my time away to other work. I'm assuming that this is a position we all share.

I have some doubts about our assumption that getting signed by a record company is the best, even the most realistic course of action. I definitely think that it is a good idea to pursue it at this stage, but I don't think we have considered the alternative, which is to do it ourselves. Even if we don't end up doing it entirely ourselves, we can learn a great deal just by trying.

I think this is important because the music industry is changing fast. The traditional deal between labels and artists was that the artists got royalties for each song sold. This could be as little as 5% of the street price of an album. In return for their cut, they would do a lot of the hard work, and put in the capital to launch artists into the limelight. The royalty structure tends to make the record label the boss, and the artist subservient to its wishes. This kind of thing, as I'm sure you are aware has gotten some record labels a bad reputation, though they might get the job done.

A new kind of business model is emerging. Some record labels are taking the approach of splitting profits, as opposed to royalties with the artists. EMI have launched a label in this way, as have ninjatune, with its famous 50-50 profit sharing policy. This is a more collaborative approach. It does mean that the artist has to be a little business savvy, since they will be involved in the money making/losing decisions. One of the reasons why we might be suited to this kind of deal is because we can do so many things in-house. We can record, mix, make artwork, websites and even film quite effectively between just the 4 of us. More importantly, we know what is good and what is bad when it comes to music, graphics and film. That's a lot
of expenses that the potential record label can save, (producer, graphic artist, photographer, director?) making us an attractive
investment from a business point of view, leaving music aside for a moment.

I can't accept that we should leave music to us, the band, and business to the labels. They are not separate issues. We need to
make money from our music, so we can keep doing it. I can't imagine a record label just making money for us, without it being costly in artistic and financial terms. I think we should start learning how to make money now, because it's what we want to do ultimately.

The time I spend recording with you guys, and the time I spend mixing is not cheap to me, not to mention the gear I have been accumulating over the years. I'm sure this is the case with all of you too. This reality is starting to bite into my wallet. Don't assume that getting signed is going to solve all these problems. I know a band who have been signed and dropped (by Rough Trade) with hardly any recompense.

My "CD selling obsession" is really only symptomatic of these thoughts. I accept that my money making schemes are fairly token and ineffective, but I feel like I'm on my own here. It's as if you think it's distasteful to deal with money. That's why my suggestions are so watered down. I didn't think that charging money for a CD that you can download free anyway was going to be all that contentious.

Sorry that it's turned into an essay, but it had to be said. Money is the looming elephant in the room, and someone had to bring it up.

Tommy

If anyone's bothered to get to the bottom of this, you are rewarded with a free cd. Just don't ask Tommy for it.

p.s. The picture at the top is by Duncan grant.

You can find a perfect friend.

In your hands

There are a few proper printed copies of the cd for people to have. If you want one, email essaylikenephew@gmail.com with your address.

Also, above is the cover image, which you can download and drag into your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc.

FORGET EVERYTHING FROM BEFORE.

There is a new cd. Someone has called it "Burrows". It can be downloaded HERE.

Merry Christmas

Eel be back soon.

Sorry that the record is late. Tommy's been up to some fishy business.

Baubles

All the way

We are playing in York, at the Royal Oak on Goodramgate, on Sunday evening at around 9. There is mulled wine and everything.

Mixing, mixing, mixing

I apologise for the delay of the up and coming, exciting new album, but I have been busy. I wish I was a full time music making person, but alas, I must pay my rent.

I shall put down a target date of completion for the 25th of November. If you don't hear from us by then, bug me.

Tommy

Update

Some singing done. No appearance thus yet of the elusive clusterfuck.

Pause

12 songs finished except the singing. One of them may contain the word 'clusterfuck'.

De de de de de de de, de de de

We are making a new compact disc. It is action packed.

Paths not taken; The truth about where we've been going wrong

Freckles

Neverland Blues 1

The numbers here have reached pinching point (every other Bill wants to join), so we’ve had to introduce a few measures to test the devotion of potential Lost Boys.

Yesterday we had a boy who had the nerve to turn up with pubic hair, so we instructed him to push them back inside. This is harder than it sounds (for the hairs seem simply to bend when forced) but he made it with about two of them, which was commendable, and watching him sweat over it was a laugh.

The blonde one is crying again. No doubt some day he is going to throw himself off a cliff, and we will all feel very guilty.

Breakfast was melon.

St Mary's prayers; Houdini's hands;

CONCERT!!!

Monday 9th July. Pop'n'roll megastars at the Bull and Gate. You know the drill.

yippee-ki-yay

soon there will be lovely new recordings. if all goes to plan.

is a foreign country, is ago, is dead

The word "nostalgia" ends in an a. Inherently feminine, it reminds us of arms over chests, a confusion of limbs, and waking up to knowing who you were, and where you were going, and that the person beside you had these things locked up inside her. She was, undoubtedly, beautiful. So beautiful. Which is perhaps why you don't remember why you hated her so much. Why those arms over chests were sometimes more like death by creepers, suffocation. Why you slashed and slashed to get the freedom to be nostalgic, safe from her. I'm not going back to her, and neither are you.

Anti-smoking is bad for you

My first blog is going to be a big whinge completely unrelated to music. I like whinging, and the internet is the perfect place for it.

I read an article yesterday about a council in Southern England who decided to exclude smokers from any adoption scheme. The council person said something like: "Well, its quite obvious that a parent that smokes 60 a day is going to harm children's health. Of course we must protect the children etc....".

I confess to be a smoker, but not 60 a day, but more like 2. In fact, I think you'd be hard pushed to find someone who actually smokes that number without turning yellow within a week. Nonetheless, I am a smoker, and as a result I will be a bad parent. This goes alongside a host of ills that I allegedly have, like depression, stress, a floppy penis, a weak will, being anti-social, inability to taste food, bad breath (ok, fair enough), and worst of all, the inability to make decisions as a result of addiction. That's right, the righteous anti-smokers (let them be praised) of our country are helping us by making it easier for us to quit, since we are clearly beyond objective reasoning. They say smoking is more addictive than Cocaine, making smokers slightly more insane than Crack whores. Do not lend them your ear, or they might chew it off, mistaking it for a tabacco leaf.

I live in Scotland, where the smoking ban in places of work has been in force for some time. It has been welcomed, and largely it is a good idea, not for health reasons as is the argument in law, but because most people don't like the smell of smoke. People are honest about that, the lawmongers are not. The law cannot not distinguish between a donkey and a whale. Smoking shelters must be remodelled as it is encloses more than 75% of the 'building envelope'. Indeed, most bus shelters are not designed to dissipate smoke fumes, despite them being very open structures, so a non-smoking sign must be displayed at its entrance. Further, places where people have never smoked anyway, such as churches, must bear signs to clarify its non-smoking status (remember that God hates smokers?). St Paul's Cathedral will soon welcome tourists with the slogan "Christ teaches us love - Smoking not permitted, minimum fine £100".

So what I'm saying is that things can get taken too far. OK, smoking isn't good for your health, but neither is having your thumb stuck up your arse. Make no mistake, these laws are pushed and passed by people who are far too wound up, while smokers of a milder temperament let it slide. What I fear is that anti-smoking becomes anti-smoker, as anti-war becomes anti-american. As people push their thumbs further into their rectum, the more intolerant and insecure they will become, making big issues out of nothing. I warn the fair-minded - don't listen to them, otherwise it will be your thumb next. Instead, relax, have a cigarette, and enjoy life and death.

REGRESS!!

We used to be pretentious. Then the girls left. We may have overreacted. Judge for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=iusedtobeafire

ps - We know that James looks like Nels Cline and that George's hair is shit. But, like these videos, that was the past. Now we look like Debbie Harrie.

It's like it just snowed in here.

Clomp, clomp, clomp. Star.