Photo Shoot
Current mood: exhausted
Category: Music

Well it is done. The photos have been taken, breakfast café's have been pillaged and Leon has been send to bed without his supper.

All told, I believe the venture was a great success. Rob had wandered over to my abode late last Saturday evening and bedded down for the night with a few words of thanks and a lot of snoring. Well, I say bedded for the night but in truth we were only speaking of a few hours kip before I dragged the poor bugger from his slumber at 2.45am on the Sunday morning. Sorry about that squire.

After a shower, shave and er…a cup of tea, Paul pulled up at the house (around 3.30am) looking similarly shell-shocked. We clambered into his car and puttered off to meet Jim, Leon and our intrepid photographer Wickedwitch near St Paul's Cathedral.



4.30am saw our motley crew assemble and exchanged slurred greetings, took a deep, cleansing breath and got down to work. Standing in the middle of a London street in just your pants is an unusual feeling to say the least but I daresay that I could get used to it. We warmed up with some walking shots in the morning twilight. Wickedwitch snapped away with her camera as Jim acted as artistic director, herding us this way and that in an attempt to shake some blood into our trembling limbs.

Next, we were up at St Paul's Cathedral itself which is a rather lovely part of the world to watch the sun come up. Sadly it was simply cloudy so we all had to content ourselves with striking increasingly bizarre and tantric like poses while the weak light filtered through the grey murk above us.



Both the Tate Modern and the Millenium Bridge were but a short walk away and happily at this time of the day both locations were utterly deserted. In stead of wandering close to the Tate, we simply used it as a backdrop while standing at the apex of the Millenium Bridge and tried to look as cool and nonchalant as five sleep deprived forty-somethings could possibly be. In truth, there were signs that we were finally starting to find our stride and with the 'bridge' shots out of the way, we headed on over to The Bank Of England (BOE) to snap the penultimate set of photos on the north side of the Thames.



It seems strange to say this but for me, the star of the shoot was a pigeon. Whilst standing around near the BOE, a number of birds hopped into shot and we were temporarily demoted from cool prog musicians to simple scarecrows as we flapped and stamped to scare them away. Wickedwitch knows a good shot when she sees it and as one particular bird flew overhead, her camera snapped up and caught the creature perfectly in flight. We tried to ask if it could play keyboards but the pesky thing had disappeared.



The last working venue of the day was Borough Market which is located just near London Bridge station. If you've never been to this legendary food market when it is in full swing, you really have missed a sight. Just about anything which is edible is on sale at the market (sometimes at a ridiculous price but more often, at a reasonable cost considering that you never see any of its very select produce gracing the shelves of a common supermarket). Sadly our early arrive meant that we would happily snap away without fear of interference but also meant that none of the great food (or indeed public toilets) were available. Ah well, you can't have everything.

The morning drew itself to a close at Smithfield's meat market where we all piled into a café and downed copious amounts of tea, coffee, hot chocolate, bacon sandwiches and almond pastries in an attempt to stave off the creeping fatigue which we all felt after giving our body clocks such a vicious rogering.

All told, we had a great time and our thanks goes out to Wickedwitch to taking the time help make a lot of visual silk out of our collective sow's ear. The shots you see here are just rough cuts to give you an idea of what went on but as soon as the pics have been photoshopped into some kind of reasonable quality i.e. all of our pot bellies and bald patches and been airbrushed out, we'll post a few more examples here for your collective delectation.

Lots of love.

Tinyfish.

8:41 PM - 14 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Recording Update (Plus a Red Head In Lingerie)
Current mood: focused
Category: Music

Well at the end of May, we finally played our last full electric show in promotion of the debut album (see Rob's last missive here: http://www.tinyfish.org/forums/index.php?topic=91.0). Now attention has turned to the serious work of recording once again. As I may have mentioned before, I'm not a huge fan of the studio but the work needs to be done but without hard work it, no new stuff gets released and we want to release new stuff very, very much.

So, what exactly do we mean by work? Right now that means sitting for long periods of time up in the Crow's Nest if front of a computer and swearing a lot.

Back in the 70's your average band would have occupied themselves with recording in exotic but horrendously expensive studios around the world, tending to ones fuzzy perm or satin flares and ingesting heroic amounts of pharmaceutical products. Today the music business is a very different beast and we now have to content ourselves with long mouse clicking sessions accompanied with the occasional break for tea and toast.



Let me give you the kind of typical day that I usually have to endure to produce about 30 seconds of Tinyfish music.

7.30am:
Asleep (a blissful state of being which is only disturbed by the wife poking her knees into my back)
7.45am:
Wife eventually annexes what is left of my side of the bed with an expertly timed surge of knee activity which deposits me roughly upon the floor of my bedroom.
7.46-48am
Freestyle swearing followed by coffee and tea making.
8.00am:
I return to the bedroom with said hot beverages and commence wife resuscitation with a deft finger poking and savage pillow rearrangement.
8.03am:
Wife is served coffee and I take a shower while she looks out of the window and thinks about how lucky she is to be married to me.
8.15am:
I call out to her because there are no clean towels within reach of the shower.
8.17am:
After passing me a towel and getting a glimpse of my pale white body, wife returns to bed and reconsiders her thoughts of 8.03am.
9.00am:
After arsing about with more tea and some toast, I power up the computer and browse the Tinyfish forum to see if we have released any new music since I went to bed (without success).
9.02am:
Google porn
1.30pm:
Finally open up music software and begin editing the music.
1.45pm:
Google more porn
3.15pm:
Late lunch with darling devoted wife whom I love.
3.17pm:
Argument with darling devoted wife whom I love.
4.00pm:
Visit the Accident & Emergency ward at Tooting hospital to treat superficial knife wounds and slight concussion.
6.00pm:
Return home and continue editing the music.
7.30pm:
Paul arrives at the studio and I show him what I have achieved during the day.
7.55pm:
Paul stops laughing
8.00pm:
Tea break
8.30pm:
I shout at the computer because it's not working properly
8.31pm:
Paul turns the computer on for me
8.32pm:
I claim that the whole Streatham area is having power problems. Paul looks at me like quietly for a moment and then hits me with my own guitar.
8.44pm:
Back at the Tooting Hospital A&E
9.30pm:
Return home and continue to edit the music.
10.00pm:
Paul leaves for the evening and lets me know in no uncertain terms that if I don't work harder, he's going to shove my guitar so far up my…
10.01pm
I get the message promising that I'll work harder and admitting that my childish antics are hindering the completion of a collaborative effort which everybody is putting a lot of time, money and effort into.
10.03pm
Google porn
11.22pm:
One final listen through of the music which I have worked upon.
11.45pm:
I stop crying
11.46pm:
Turn off the computer vowing that I shall work much more diligently tomorrow.
12.00am:
To bed with wife, who has spent the best part of her day perfecting a new double knee stab manoeuvre for tomorrow morning's wake up call.

So as you can see, there is an awful lot that goes into my day but I'm not bitter. This is what it means to be a dedicated musician and not many people can commit to the kind of work I have described above.

In truth, this is the part of the recording process that really cannot be described as anything but mildly persistent toil. Your day becomes a slow (but satisfying) grind as you pull the performances apart in the digital domain and apply all of the studio processes to make it sound as though you are recording in a cathedral rather than a loft in South London. It's the stuff that you never really get to hear about in the media or from some of the bigger bands but they all have to endure it. The problem is that it's just not sexy; it never has been, it never will be and it was even worse in the good old days of the 70's and early 80's before PC World/Wall Mart took over.

Back then, it was endless hours of tape, spliced apart with razor blades and stuck back together (quite literally) with sticky tape. Each time you ran the tape through the machine, the recording quality got worse and throughout all this, you racked up huge bills for your time in the studio while getting off your trolley on an assortment of recreational substances.

How on earth do you make such toss palatable to a celebrity hungry public? I'm amazed ANY music got made at all.

As you might suspect, today's technology has changed things drastically. Bands rarely play live together in the studio anymore and instead, choose to layer their parts like very a complicated selection of lingerie worn by a stunning red head, who is very keen to show you just how resilient her water bed is. You love the layers but you need to fiddle your way past them in order to get to the good stuff.

..

I'm sorry I need to be alone for a few minutes…

…okay and we're back.

Take us for example; yours truly recorded my drums at John Mitchell's studio in Reading with no-one in the band but Rob present. I played to the demo and took the results home on four DVDs. Compare this with my brother Jem and I taking master tapes of a recording we made in the 80's back home on a bus because we were scared that travelling on the tube might damage the recording.

Today, I can listen back to my recording of the drums and if I don't like how I played a certain beat, or want to swap two verses around, I can fix it in an instant by clicking a mouse. It's scary stuff but you know what? The music sounds so much better for it and we don't have to pay a be-squillion pounds to achieve it. Thanks god.

So this my friends; is the world of modern recording and while the music that we are making always brings a huge smile to my face as we are putting it together. If you are on the outside, waiting for us to get our arses in gear and it really does look as though we are hardly moving. Don't worry, we're just making sure that the all the details are being taken care of because if we don't, we'll never forgive ourselves. More importantly, neither will you. 

The devil truly is in the detail and the detail wants us to wear the sailors outfit and take off its bra with our teeth.

We love a challenge.

Cheers.

Tinyfish.

5:47 AM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

All my friends went to Heaven or Hell...
Current mood: accomplished

Good day. This is Robert. As you may know, last night we supported that inestimable band, Jump, at the Riga Music Bar in Southend. And for those of you that didn't know, a short joke:

Q: How many Vietnam veterans does it take to change a light bulb?
A: You don't KNOW, man. You don't KNOW, 'cause you weren't THERE.

Anyroadup, we arrived in Southend by way of Z'ha'dum (which is right next to Croydon) and discovered that the Southendians are obsessed with two things (which are obviously interconnected) 1) Bicycles (we counted eight bicycle shops on the main road leading to the Riga) and 2) Finding somewhere to park.

Simon: "They certainly love bicycles in Southend."
Me: "Maybe it's a subconscious urge to get the **** out of here."
Simon: "Hmmm."

Since we had several largeish vehicles, we fitted right in with their happy community, and when a parking space became available (we sacrificed a rubber chicken), Simon and myself leapt into it and pretended to have epilepsy to dissuade people from trying to park there before Paul and Jim could get the cars round.

We entered the Riga, and the first thing we found was that Simon had left his capo, Paul had left all his picks, and Leon had left his bass drum pedal. Luckily, all these were solvable, and they were the only troublesome things that happened all night.

We were then introduced to Steve, the sound man, who proceeded to give us and Jump a fabulous sound – he confided in us that he owned everything in the room except the tables, chairs and bar fittings, so he knew the equipment terribly well.

"Cool!" I said, which seemed inadequate, but was alas, the best I could come up with, since I didn't have my notes with me.

Since at these moments, I have the least to do, I sauntered off to chat to the brave souls who had also sacrificed vulcanised farm animals in order to attend the gig. It was lovely to see so many of you, and I hope that the medication wears off before the next gig.

Then we were on! I will say that the Riga is a luxury sized venue for musicians, and thus I even had a nice curtain to hide behind when I wasn't frightening the audience.

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

I did my various bits of audience frightening and had, by this time, sampled all the different real ales they had in the pub, so as a result I was getting really into it. Without falling over. I was watching Leon nervously for unusual symptoms such as clutching at himself in agony, as he had informed us with relish beforehand that his last kidney stone had yet to make its appearance.

But all was well, despite Simon and Jim being tragically parted from one another (and the bar) by Leon's drum kit, right in the centre of the stage. They managed to start All Hands Lost at the same time, and (I think) everybody finished together as well. As usual, Simon fretted about a few technical details, but frankly, a band that's survived me destroying the entire sound by pressing the right button at the wrong time so that we had to start the whole song again, well, we can survive anything. And I correctly didn't press it this time.

Just as I was about to come on, Jump all appeared beside me in the offstage area and started taking their shirts off. I was fascinated to find that one of the two Steves has a marvellous selection of Yakusa-esque tattoos all over him like that bloke out of Memento. I would like to emphasise, however, that Steve is not seeking revenge on anyone, and his guitar playing shows that his short-term memory is in tiptop working order.

Leon was happy; not only had he played an excellent gig, someone had compared his drumming style to Bill Bruford…

"Fantastic!" he enthused. "I've been ripping him off for so long, someone's finally noticed!"

All done, and I got to watch Jump do their thing. And I bought more of their albums. Really, I should just buy everything I haven't got in one session, but somehow, stringing it out allows me to absorb it better.

They were awesome – and the power stayed on for the whole gig!

7:11 AM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Jump Into The Darkness.
Current mood: impressed
Category: Music

For those who have yet to read it. Rob and I attended a show by the band Jump at The Peel last night but who would have guess what would have transpired. 



Read about it here (look down at the bottom of the post for my bit )

http://www.tinyfish.org/forums/index.php?topic=6.msg1231msg1231

8:32 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Simon Records Drums for New Album
Current mood: impervious
Category: Music

Okay, there is no turning back now. The drums have been recorded, money has been exchanged and tea has been drunk in copious quantities by all those involved. It has been a very busy week for Tinyfish and signals the beginning of the 'serious work' portion of the recording process for the new album.

Our first obstacle however was actually getting to the studio to record. With Paul and Jim away on holiday and neither myself or Rob able to drive a car, we had to organise a series of minicabs to shuttle the equipment from my house, to Rob's house (in Reading) to the studio (also in Reading) and back again. Thankfully before Jim left for the Nordic mainland, he was kind enough to get some of my gear over to Rob's which alleviated some of the problems.

Thankfully Rob and I are too stupid to call it quits, so with much lifting, puffing and eventually, wheezing we found ourselves outside John Mitchell's studio with all the equipment that we required.



Now I will be the first person to admit that being able to play drums means that in the studio, we don't have to hire in a session musician to play the parts that our Leon would otherwise perform live. I had been spending almost every night for the previous six weeks behind my drum kit getting ready for this day but even so, the nerves never quite go away. Thankfully the moment we arrived, those nerves dissolved into excitement at playing so I busied myself setting up while Ben our engineer and John our host, prepared the studio.

Which then went dark.

A fuse had blown somewhere in the building and everything was shrouded in shadow. The studio was freezing and I could hear my teeth audibly chattering in the cold (or was it nerves?). An hour went by and the power didn't return. I was just about to say 'Let's call it a day' when John reappeared with a bad full of fuses and suddenly the power was back on.



Day one:
With the return of the power and the kit mic'ed up, I started things off slowly and built the pace as the day went on with the tracks: Ride (easy), I'm Not Crashing (simple but effective), Bad Weather Road (a bastard song to play but fun when you get it right) and Rob's spoken word number More Power Than Bombs (which is in a 15/8 time signature for those who are interested). After that, Rob, Rob's wife (Jo) and I wandered out to have a curry to round off the day (belch, fart...Zzzzzzzzzz).



Day two:
This was the biggie as I had to nail the two ten minute tracks on the album today. Thankfully, we started off with an easy one again the title track from the album The Big Red Spark. However, after that, it was the two epic tracks on the album Rainland and Wide Wake At Midnight. Both of which clock in at over 10 minutes each. This really took it out of me but I still had enough left in me to round the session off with the fastest tracks on the album, The Sarcasm Never Stops. Okay, I admit that it was rubbish planning on my part leaving this for last. We did six takes of this one before I got it right and I truly believe I could see through time by the end of it I was so exhausted. Thankfully with that over, everybody was all smiles and as we packed down, we made our farewells to Jon and Ben, then legged it off into the sunset to enjoy the delights of pizza and Pasta to celebrate.

Rob gave me a hand back with some of the equipment this afternoon and now all we have to do is returning to the Crow's Nest and facing the task of editing the recorded material together so that the other band members can begin recording their parts.



I'll tell you this for nothing, playing drums for 16 hours over two days is loads of fun (I can see why Leon likes it so much) but my body feels as though it's run the marathon (more puff, pant, wheeze). That said, the results we have achieved thus far are truly wonderful and I can't wait to hear what the rest of the band will add.

Probably farmyard noises if they are true to form.

Love and kisses

Tinyfish.

2:22 PM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

The Tinyfish Forum Is Live
Current mood: triumphant
Category: Music

So we’ve finally gone and done it. After a lot of talk and a little fiddling about, I’m happy to announce that the Tinyfish forum is now up and running.  Personally I would have liked to have seen a section devoted entirely to video snippets of tap dancing Bishops but I guess we can’t have everything in this world can we?



As it’s early days, those of you who get in first will probably have the added advantage of locating all the ways the page can be broken and naturally being some-one who doesn’t like being a member of a club that would have me as a member, I urge you all to try and find the loopholes it at your earliest opportunity so that Rob can sort them out.

One thing I will say (and indeed has already been said by our Jimbo on the forum itself) is that once you sign up, we urge you to play nicely with both us and one another. Knowing as many of you as I do, I’m sure that won’t be a problem, god knows it’s more likely you’ll be keeping ME in line rather than the other way around.

Speak first and think later, that’s my motto.



As for the blog, well as stated before, I’ll post both to here and the forum for a little while so that no-one misses out but later on, the chances are that I’ll just post to the forum and leave a link here for anyone to follow. This will be the third time I’ll have moved the blog (our original blog was on blogspot before we discovered myspace), but don’t think we are abandoning Myspace, no, no, no! The forum will simply give everyone out there a chance to contribute a little more to the Tinyfish pond than was previously possible e.g. asking the band questions, posting pics, showing us your favourite Mexican pasttime, etc.



Okay the link is below but you can also access the forums by going to our home page and clicking the link at the left hand side.

Tinyfish Forums

Just so you know, to make sure we don’t get swamped by bogus ’bot’ accounts, you’ll need to type in one of those picture code thingys and have an actve email address to start you off. After that, we have no protection against you all...

See you in there.

Love and kisses

Tinyfish

5:05 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Jimbo Techs For Steve Rothery
Current mood: enthralled
Category: Music

Amidst the hazy wreathes of smoke that laced the air in the small European café, their eyes met. The man in black quietly stood and with a steely resolve, glided over to the table at the other side of the room to where the newcomer sat. A brief silence hung between the two men like a fly caught in amber until eventually the question they both knew has to be asked forced itself upon them.

"Hi Jim, could you change the strings on this guitar please?" Said Steve Rothery
"No problems Steve." Replied Jim Sanders.




Yes folks, our very own guitar genius Jim Sanders, is happily helping out the one and only Steve Rothery of Marillion as guitar backline technician for some UK shows over the next few months. Steve’s regular guitar tech, Colin Price, is currently touring with Iron Maiden so when Rothers asked who could fill in, Colin put forward Jim’s name.

As many of you may already know, Jim has had ties with Marillion for some time now. He designed a recent DVD cover for the band and has also helped out on merchandise for their most recent European Tour. Steve & Colin were impressed with Jim’s professionalism and also his talent for making toast and mayonnaise go with anything. It’s a gift few other techs in the business can boast.

In other news, the album is progressing well. I’m rehearsing the drum parts like mad as we are due up at John Mitchells ’Outhouse’ studios in mid April to record the main drum tracks and depending on how well I play, a long list of expletives. In my previous life as drummer, I had a habit of letting the sticks fly out of my hand while playing which meant any musician close by had to be ready to duck at a moment’s notice or risk being speared. That said, I got rather adept at stick chucking by the end of my tenure, so not all of them were (how shall I put this?) unintentional.

But I digress; once the drums are down, I hope to give you a few audio snippets of our work and maybe, even some video evidence of our efforts (please forgive me in advance for any swearing you might hear or even lapses into unconsciousness due to drink and/or exhaustion).

Personally, I find recording to be nowhere near as much fun as writing songs or performing the music in front of a crowd but thankfully the whole ’making a record’ bit is made enormously more fun by having Jim Paul and Rob around. I’ve known these tossers for years and they are always there to add their own brand of brilliance to the process and to stop me throwing immature temper tantrums just because my computer won’t play ball with me.

I know it’s good to keep your ’inner child’ alive to help foster the muse but they did point out that banging your hands and feet on the floor while simultaneously wetting yourself, is probably not the best way to get the rhythms guitars recorded. This is a lesson every front man has to learn at some point in their lives.

As mentioned before, we hope to deliver the new album to Dave Robinson of F2 music around the end of July/start of August with the intention of making it available for the gigs we have planned for later in the year.

Our last gig for the early part of this year will therefore take place at the Riga club in Southend on Friday May the 9th with the magnificent Jump. Now, if you haven’t seen these guys yet, they are really worth a look see. For the past decade, Jump have produced some of the best words and music we can think of. They also have the advantage of having singer/wordsmith John Dexter Jones in their number, who is (in our opinion), one of the best front men this island has produced since Fish picked up a microphone.



I’ll post again about the gig, closer to the time but as ever, we’re really looking forward to the night and hope very much to see you all down there.

Oh and one final word, Rob is just putting the finishing touches to the new Tinyfish forum and I hope that it will be up and running sometime in April. When it is up and running, please try to refrain from posting pics of your pants as that’s my job.

Lots of love

Tinyfish

5:50 PM - 21 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

Leon, Forum & Album
Current mood: creative
Category: Music

A little bit of happy news for you all. After receiving such a warm welcome from all the Tinyfishes that attended the gig at The Peel a while back and in part to a creeping stealth campaign via the net by some of you folks out there which, admittedly we in the band were willing members of; Leon Camfield has agreed to stay on with Tinyfish for the live shows. Naturally this makes us all feel immensely smug as not only do we get to keep (in our opinion) one of the best drummers in prog right now, you'll all be able to continue to yell abuse at him via our website and on stage.



Happy days.

In other news, we hear you loud and clear about the forum (thanks for all your responses) and as such, Rob Ramsay is hard at work developing it specifically for the Tinyfish homepage. If all goes well, we should have it up and running before the release of the new album. I'll continue to post blogs both here and also on the new forum for a while but eventually, I will just post to the forum as it will afford me more time to watch re-runs of The West Wing while sitting in my favourite self cleaning bean bag, clad in nothing but my socks and underpants, whilst drinking glass after glass of Dr Pepper. I worry sometimes that my Adonis like physique might slip slightly but I'm sure I'll be fine. That's the benefit of being both a hedonist and a solipsist. Live purely pleasure because I don't care and you don't exist.



I  really should go into politics.

In other news, it looks as if John Mitchell (of Frost*/It Bites/Kino/Area fame) might be sitting in the engineers chair for the duration of our time in the studio. How did we convince him to bring his immense talents as both a musician and Reading's top stunt unicyclist you may ask? Well, it was a simple matter of the whole band tailing him home after the Peel show and then sitting in his garden for three days and nights crying until he finally agreed to do it.



So to start the ball rolling, In April, I'm plonking my drummer's hat back on once more and diving head first into the rhythm tracks, then the rest of the band will be hard at work throughout May and June tracking the other instruments, the intended aim is to have the album available at Summers End 2008. Even though Tinyfish will not be playing the festival, it's a great opportunity to promote the album and say hello to many old & new faces.



We're also talking about the possibility of a launch party somewhere in the UK to coincide with the release of the album. As is customary at such events, there will be party hats, balloons, ice cream and maybe even a quiz because naturally, to do anything else would simply just not be rock and roll. I'm sure you all agree.

Returning to the now, this Saturday (1st of March), Rob, Paul and myself will be up at (surprise, surprise) The Peel to see Credo and Jebo strut their stuff and the following day we'll all trek up to some benighted part of the world north of London, were our guitarist and professional graphic designer Jim Sanders has chosen to make his home. The idea is to drink all his tea and discuss what kind of album cover should adorn the new CD.  If you have any suggestion, please let us know and we will be glad to smile politely as you talk, before bundling you into a large sack and leaving you to die of exposure on some waste ground.

It's only fair after all.

Lots of love

Tinyfish.

2:39 PM - 38 Comments - 24 Kudos - Add Comment

Tinyfish Forum and Pants.
Current mood: curious
Category: Music

Does Tinyfish need a forum?

I figure that if we get enough responses saying yes, I might let Robert out of his cage and chain him to a desk so that he may develop one for you all.

The advantages of a forum are many; anyone who is a member can post their own questions and we as a band can use it as a central information point for all things Tinyfish related (including shots of the band in their pants should you so desire). Now I've seen some of these men in their pants, it's a natural consequence of touring sadly but why should it just be me who endures this sight? Share the pain, that's what I say.



Your thoughts...give them to me

Lots of love

Tinyfish

6:34 AM - 31 Comments - 23 Kudos - Add Comment

The Peel 2nd Feb 2008
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Music

It's been one week to the day since the gig The Peel on Saturday with Touchstone and our collective feet haven't really touched the ground since.

I have spent almost every evening this week answering emails, forum posts, Myspace comments, text messages, phone calls and possibly psychic telegrams the Dolphin People in response to the show. I really have tried to say thanks to everybody who turned up and I'm sorry if I have missed anybody in the mail melee.

Well what do I remember of the night?

It was bloody cold outside. As is usual of any show that we play up at the Peel, yours truly takes the bus to the gig. I know it's not very rock and roll but the advantage for taking public transport is that I can happily read my book and fart anonymously on the top deck.

I climbed off the bus a few stops early and dropped in on an old mate of mine (hi Iain) who has a house less than half a mile away from the venue. The poor bugger looked a little shocked when I turned up on his doorstep to say hello. That said, he was even more shocked when I turned on his TV, stripped down to my underpants and slumped onto his sofa, demanding a drink.

Well he did say 'make myself at home.'

After a drink and watching three episodes of 'Lost' from his DVD collection, I get dressed and wander over to the venue, carrying my trusty red telecaster on my back and trying to forget the distinctly un-rock 'n roll mode of transport I had used to make my way here.

Outside the venue, a motley crowd of musicians has already gathered in the car park looking furtive and farting anonymously (they must have travelled here by bus too). The first person I recognised was Moo, the bass player of Touchstone, who gave me a beaming smile and shook my hand like it was the door knob to the Institute of Chocolate Covered Nymphomaniacs. Along side Moo I spotted Rob Cott and the rest of Touchstone and behind them, lurking in a darkened corner near the rubbish bins, I spotted the rest of Tinyfish. They nodded almost imperfectly at me, and went back to routing through the bins for scraps of food and second hand clothing.

The sound check was oodles of fun. There was a lot of musical equipment to move about on the stage as neither Tinyfish or Touchstone are known for their A cappella barber shop quartet sets or spoon solos. We spent a lot of time laughing and joking with one another as apart from copious self abuse, there is not a lot else to do before a show starts.

Mick and Twang (the two promoters for the night and all 'round Prog aficionados) took a look last look at their nice and tidy venue before them before taking a deep breath and opened the doors to the public. Within half an hour the place was packed to the gills with a sea of eager punters and the members of Tinyfish settling back with a drink in hand, to watch Touchstone take to the stage.

Now I might be biased when I say this but I think Touchstone are one of the best new prog acts in the UK at the moment. They have recently garnered an award for just that from the Classic Rock Society and based upon their performance tonight, their reputation is well deserved. The crowd lapped it up as they thundered through their set with confidence and aplomb. 'Black Tide' was particularly powerful tonight.

Let me be the first to say it then; You bastards! :-)

During the evening, I had the chance to bump into the vast majority of the people from the web who have been so supportive of Tinyfish over the past 18 months. Our Sarah (Too Orangey for Crows) deserves particular thanks for kindly helping out on the merchandise stand for NO money and NO drinkies either (to my eternal shame). This, we shall make up to you sweetie!

Mike and Renee wandering over to the gig from the USA and Poland respectively puts things neatly into perspective. The idea that anyone would travel that far (well out of zone six on the travel card I believe), make you want to put something really special into the performance. It was nice to see not only Jem (my brother) in attendance but also, Nick Barrett from Pendragon (along with his partner, Rachel who has always been really enthusiastic about us from the moment we crawled out from under our 'icklefish' rock - bless you m'dear) and not forgetting John Beck from It Bites.



Then there was John Mitchell (who leapt up on stage to play with Touchstone for one song) and also Lee Abrahams, bass player from Galahad and a great songwriter in his own right.

No pressure then.

The change over between bands was a bit er, how should I say it; complicated. The venue was packed so the only spare space we had to put the unused equipment was either the small cupboard like space that doubled as a backstage area or the stage itself. Each band weaved and threaded about the cramped space, smiling politely and trying not to make intimate contact with one another. I can tell you, there were a couple of times during that change over, I almost had to buy Rob Cott chocolates and flowers due to the number of occasions we had to squeeze by one another.

Finally, we are ready to play and I look out over the heads of the audience to Tim, the venue soundman, to see if he's ready. He grins and motions me to get on with it and I look around the band for the 'go' signal. Everybody nods and we launch into 'Motorville.'

…only we don't.

About a minute into the song, I am the victim of the first technical glitch of my Tinyfish career. The guitar synth I use on stage to ward off keyboard players and to make the ungodly sounds beyond the reach of my six strings, promptly locks up on one chord and turns what could have been a tremendous noise into well…a tremendous noise.

Grabbing the song by the throat, I drag the band to a standstill and kick the offending item of equipment with my boot but the synth ignores my remonstration stoically and carries on bleating. Eventually I have to do the 'IT' thing (as suggested by a member of the crowd) and turn it off and on again. That does the trick. Onwards back into the song and the audience erupts into a huge cheer at the end which was nice considering the complete dogs breakfast I'd made of it.

We debut three new songs during the show, the first of which is the title track of the album 'The Big Red Spark' and works out so well, I believe Rob has put up a video of us playing it on our home page.

The Big Red Spark

It's a shame that poor old Paul our bass player doesn't get much of a look in but at least you get to see Jim's solo and Leon thrashing about in the background.

I remember spending the vast majority of the show trying to wander over to either Paul or Jim to say hello but in doing so I discovered an interesting thing about our songs; I do an awful lot of singing. I'd get about three feet away from the mic and have to dash back to deliver yet another line of Rob's lyrics. It's my fault I guess for writing the songs like that and it meant that I only got to kiss Paul once during the set (it was worth it for the look on his face). No-one is safe from 'snogger' Godfrey.


When you are up on stage, time takes on a very elastic quality. Moments seem to last for hours while the minutes move by quicker than a King Crimson line up. It's a delightfully disorientating feeling. 'Build Your Own Enemy' was fun to play and was only the second time we've ever played it live (the first was at this very venue at our first ever gig, six months ago).

The second new song of the night 'Bad Weather Road' flies by followed by 'God Eat God'. I rib Mike gently from the stage about this one as I know it's not one of his favourites from the album but it's all in fun and I've checked him for concealed weaponry so everything's cool. Jim flicks a grin in my direction and is lost once again in guitar land so I wander over to where Leon is thrashing seven bells out of his kit and leer at him over his cymbals. Leon rolls his eyes and smacks the cymbal nearest my head which has the desired effect and sends me tottering back off to the mic once more.

We thunder through the last of the three new songs (The Sarcasm Never Stops) which is currently the band's favourite track to play and it's a corker. I lean into the microphone and explain to the crowd as I introduce 'Fly Like A Bird' that encores in a venue with a backstage area the size of a rabbit hutch might look a little silly so we're not going anywhere after this song. Rob Ramsay stalks onto stage to delivers his spoken word section in his inimitable style and before I know it, he's gone again and the song is over. The crowd are goaded by Leon in the face of no official encore to shout 'Fucking great, yeah!' in Manchurian accents which is a surreal but funny moment and just leaves both us with 'All Hands Lost' to play.

Jim usually counts this song off so I scurry over to him to get my cues. It's my favourite part from the night as I know we've nearly done the deed and the wind is now at our metaphorical backs. The opening section slips out over the heads of the audience and we gently change gear, readying ourselves for the 7/8 section and the first of Jim's two solos in the song. Leon and I exchange knowing looks as he always gives it something a little special during this bit. I try to look as though I know what I'm doing but instead stub my toe on one of his cymbal stands.

Really cool Simon.

Rob's back to deliver his final spoken word section of the night but my efforts to put him off are met with a witty rebuff on Rob's part. Serves me right I guess. We have the mic swapping thing down pat now (he swivels away just as I lean in to sing the next line) and the end section just rocks like a bastard. We all lock in for the last few bars and ending power chords and look out over a sea of clapping hands and smiling faces.

If there is a better sight or feeling in the world, I've yet to experience it. Another gig is down but not one that any of us will forget in a hurry.

Roll on Southend in May.

Lots of love

Tinyfish
(Photos courtesy of Ashleaze, Phil & Mike- Cheers!)

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