Wednesday 20 May 2009

Popcorn, shoots, jumpers and other random things

Hello!

The Hello Thor gig at the Broadway on Saturday was mental. Here are my over-riding memories from the evening:

1 - Dan T's visuals looking AMAZING properly projected on a big screen
2 - Looks of dread from all 3 Hello Thor boys as BattleCat rampaged round the room almost causing destruction
3 - The wonderful aroma as Yunioshi distributed popcorn in cute individual little bags during their set
4 - VERY LOUD Wu Tang Clan as Nick stormed his way through a DJ set
5 - A weird fight and a man being wrestled out... the perils of a late licence
6 - Tez calmly standing by in the big window with a guy who was dancing & almost stripping for the crowd
7 - Saying a man's feet looked like bananas because he had yellow shoes on

In other news, it's Jumpers for Goalposts tomorrow and Hello Thor will be celebrating their birthday with a calamitous Tom Tomas Club performance.

We've planted some vegetables in our garden, after a couple of strenuous weekends building wonky home-made raised beds, and our first shoots are already coming through!! We've got radishes, rocket & lettuce growing away in the garden!

Fists are playing in Sheffield this weekend and at Dot To Dot on Sunday! Can't wait to see them playing live again so I can hear the new song Ace is the Way. It's brilliant!

Tonight is Apprentice night round our way. I love it. What a bunch of idiots. I've got my fingers crossed that James doesn't get booted off because he's ace. A big smiley slightly goofy wordsmith who comes up with beautiful phrases like "codshit". No Sir Alan, fire Braces Ben instead!

Bye for now!

Bex
x

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Jean Gene-y and Electro Pop-corn

Hello

There's (at least) 2 brilliant things happening this weekend...

1. There's a big charity fundraising party thing (or Arts and Fashion exhibition as I believe the organisers are referring to it!) happening at Lizard Lounge this Friday. For more info check out Leftlion and/or Facebook

2. Me and Tom and Nick are putting on a free gig at Broadway on Saturday.
It's going to be full of 303-busting beats and electronic mayhem. Line, Battlecat! and Yunioshi are playing and there's going to tons of free popcorn for everyone.



Both should be ace.
Hope you can make it
x Anders

Star Trekkin'

We saw the new Star Trek film at the weekend. Has anyone seen it?

Me and Anders had spent a lovely quiet weekend pottering around the garden, cooking risotto, having a coffee in town and generally living the slow quiet life. We decided to go and see Star Trek on Sunday evening and snuck into the cinema just as the film began. Somehow we had both forgotten it was going to be a big action film and were just picturing nice peaceful scenes on the white bridge, so the shooting, crashing & banging were something of a shock to the senses.

Aside from not being able to hack the pace I really enjoyed the film overall. The cast are really great, it looks brilliant and it a good strong story with a baddie and action and a bit of heart too.

The only disappointment was that the Star trek music didn't kick in til the end credits! What a waste!

Hope everyone else liked it?

Bex
x

Friday 8 May 2009

Music, magic & politics

Wow, busy busy weeks!

Things have been HECTIC since the Hello Thor Fists record launch party at The Art Organisation a couple of weeks ago. What a great evening, Rory McCarthy charmed everybody, Mexican Kids At Home were as much fun to listen to as they were to watch, Harry Merry split the room as only a fully-grown man in a sailor suit can and Fists rocked, of course. They also debuted a new song, Ace Is The Way, which I hope will become another single because it was both hypnotic and addictive. Some photos:










After the gig it transpired that Drunk Tom had tickets to see Derren Brown on the Sunday at the Concert Hall. Ace. Derren was amazing, he somnambulised people (aka hypnotised) and performed tricks with them in the "spirit cabinet" like mediums in the olden days. He somehow knew episodes from people's childhoods after only 2 questions, and had someone's grandma's name engraved on a coin in a box in a box. AND he had an amazing finale which we are sworn to secrecy about.

Our busy week continued with me and Anders going to see Eddie Izzard in conversation with Alistair Campbell. It was nearly as odd as it sounds. Alistair C was charming and likeable, despite me expecting the exact opposite. Eddie was the same, if a little vague-er on the political front. About half way through we realised his politics mainly consisted of putting two words together like: I'm a social democrat... i'm a radical centralist... and so on. Alistair Campbell told a story after the world's dumbest question ("What's the funniest thing that's ever happened to you in politics?") which went something like this:

"Tony Blair
In his underpants
Lying on his bed in a hotel
In Tokyo
Reading instructions for what to do in an earthquake
Wearing a crash helmet"
He said he just thought "If the British public could see this now..."

Then, last weekend we built a raised bed in our garden to grow vegetables in! It's very wonky, very homemade and very exciting. Manure arrives tomorrow, let's get growing!

On that bombshell, I should go and do something productive...

Becky
x

p.s. since all this the records arrived, we all got together and had a listening party and drank wine. They sound GREAT, even better than expected and look brilliant with Angi's sleeve design and Rob Garner's label design inside. Plus they're selling like hot cakes! Well, very warm cakes at the least! Yeah!

Friday 1 May 2009

Video for Fists - Cockatoo - Out now on Hello Thor!

Hola,

I just heard from Nick that the Fists records have arrived today at Hello Thor HQ, free at last from the French fishermen's blockades and box fresh in Nottingham.

It's going to be really great to finally see & hear them. The test pressings sound AMAZING, so with the brilliant cover and proper label they will be even better.

It's been so exciting seeing them start to get picked up by magazines and the radio... artrocker, BBC6 on Steve Lamacq's show, XFM... can't wait to see what's next! There's something really strange about hearing a song you are so familiar with in that official radio setting, it sounds really new and different.

Anyway, here is the video for Cockatoo by Fists, available now on vinyl or to download from www.hellothor.com. The video has been created by the very talented Dan Toporowski, a wonderful animator and visual artist:

FISTS - Cockatoo from Fists on Vimeo.