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The Young Knives' Hot Summer Blog!
What's life like for a bunch of artful indie upstarts? You might well ask. Luckily for us, we've recruited The Young Knives to tell us what life's like in their 'world'. Read on for revelations from wackily-named bassist 'The House of Lords' and the rather more sensibly monickered 'Oliver'...
Imagine!
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Part IV: 'Transmission', The Rovers Return and falling off drum stools!
11/08/2006
 Hiya Slashmusic!
It's been a busy couple of days and nights for us, which was kicked off by the filming of 'Transmission' for Channel 4 (on tonight, kids!) at the world famous Granada studios. Beforehand, after doing 'hilarious' impressions of Jeremy Kyle in the canteeen and then discovering he was on the next table, we looked in on an uninhabited 'Heaven & Earth Show' set to gain some mystic inspiration. The 'Transmisson' set consisted of scaffolding and hundreds of cardboard boxes stacked up and basically looked like they were still moving in. We rocked the studio with a pumping rendition of 'Weekends and Bleakdays (Hot Summer)' which we had to do twice, apparently to make the magic of TV work or something. Other peeps on the show were The Longcut, Badly Drawn Boy, Orson and The View who we watched from the comfort of the green room with Bez of all people.
Hungover from the aftershow at the set of the Rovers Return, we arrived at the D-percussion Festival . It nearly didn't happen this year as a couple of sponsors dropped out at the last minute and there was a small entrance fee as a result, but it looked well worth the money. After watching some little kid spitting some lyrics (about his homework or something) on one of the smaller stages (his name escapes me), we played to a big crowd of lovely people who all sang along as it started to rain.
The Electric Gardens Festival in Kent completed our weekend and it was fan-bloody-tastic! During 'Here Comes The Rumour Mill' I could see a kid copying Henry's facial expressions from the video. I laughed so much I nearly fell off my drum stool. The crowd's response was amazing, leaving us on a huge high that could only be remedied by copious amounts of rum. After catching up with The Long Blondes dudes and dudettes, we climbed back in our trusty van (which is making some squeaking noises - on it's way out I reckon) and limped back to sleepy Oxford.
Till next week, Slashmusic!
Ta-ta, Oliver xx
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Part III: Rawk moves, spades and birthday breakfasts!
05/08/2006
Hello viewers! Or are you 'readers'? Hmm… I'll have to have a long think about that 'issue'. But not today.
You may have been wondering where we've been. Well, there's a shortish answer and a longish answer to that. Let's opt for the shortish one! This week it has been mainly gigs and 'things'. Last Saturday was the Leeds 'Across The Tracks' festival. The stage was massive, the crowd were excitable and we did a whole load of rawk moves. Leeds seems to like that sort of thing. Since then we've been doing warm-up gigs for the V Festival in Newcastle and Bristol. To be honest folks, I wasn’t expecting much because they were only booked about two weeks ago, but they were rammed with people who seemed pleased to see us. Fancy that! Of course as some of you may know, we won the Road To V competition last year and we got to open said festival. Now several other plucky youngsters are attempting the same thing, and good luck to them all, we say! It's marvellous opening the festival, mainly because you get your bit over with early and it's straight on the beer while enjoying the rest of the day's entertainments! Top hole.
We got home on Wednesday and now it is my birthday. Hooray! All the crew and the band stayed at my place last night and we had a slap-up breakfast. I got a load of cacti and some DVDs, including 'Sin City'. I also got a spade.
Now we are off to Manchester to do a camera rehearsal for Transmission. Am I ready for my close up? Hmm, I'm not sure, I may have to have a quick look in the mirror…
Happy birthday to me!
See yers!
The House Of Lords x
Check in later for the fourth instalment of The Young Knives' ‘Hot Summer Blog’…
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Part II: Camper vans, mackerel and bearded dwarves!
28/07/2006
 How do. Welcome to another instalment of all the exciting stuff that's been happening at Knife Towers, not that we've been around that is.
Norway was tip top mega ace… we played a couple of little festivals out there. 'Ranglerock' was the first, in a little place called Bryne, held in what looked like the village hall we used to practice in. The kids jived, drank and cheered in true Scandinavian style. We then escaped to our hotel to drink an heroic amount of Barcardi.
Our morning call came in the form of a VW campervan horn; said van had been organised to take us to the next festival (Freckles… Fleckels... Flekklesfjord… well something like that.) [Ackcheloi, we think you'll find it's Fjellparkfestivalen, Flekkefjord – Ed.] The proud driver pointed out the fresh paint job which listed all the bands playing. We soon discovered this to be the best feature of the vehicle, as the differential made some enchanting grinding noises and almost fell out an hour into our journey. Much bone shaking later we arrived and we're promptly taken out on a fjord for a beer and fishing by one of the hairy promoters.
Our sound guy Martin caught a mackerel, but was so struck by its beauty that he felt moved to return it to the water. What a Softy Walter.  With fresh salty air in our lungs we returned to the site to play a triumphant gig (drunk again obviously). The language barrier was truly broken by the power of rock that night. We followed Ravi & DJ Lov, an act fronted by a ginger bearded dwarf with Steps as a backing band… very sinister. The biggest band in Norway apparently. Each to their own.
On Sunday, we were back in Blighty for the Truck Festival in Oxford. We love Truck. Every year we've been has been a joy and this was no exception. After an acoustic set for 6 Music, we played the main stage to a fantastic crowd and the setting sun. a perfect end to a perfect weekend. we stayed to watch the Mystery Jets rock out and then left as there we're rumours of the festival running out of beer…
Talking of which, I'm off to Somerfield to stock up. Ta-ra!
The House Of Lords xx
Tune in next Friday for the third and final instalment of The Young Knives ‘Hot Summer Blog’. All right?
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Part I: Meat storage, lager and stuffed suits!
25/07/2006
 Hello, readers of Slashmusic! This is the first installment of The Young Knives' Hot Summer Blog and aptly, this week has indeed been a scorcher!
At the beginning of the week we were in our practice studio, um, practicing. This generally involves trying to write new songs and working on various bits that have been knocking around for a few months. The studio we use is in an old meat storage unit on the outskirts of Oxford so we were reasonably confident it would be fairly cool in the hot weather. It isn't. It's very hot. Because it's so hot, it is very difficult to concentrate and leaves everyone a bit agitated. The only way round this is to drink about at least two cans of cheap lager in the middle of the day. This numbs the senses and results in an overwhelming sense of well-being. Let the folk-rock commence!
On Wednesday, we played a gig in a hotel in London. Cool eh? Well, no. It was deeply uncool. Not just because Wednesday was the hottest day on record in the last hundred years, but also because it was in front of a load of suits. The gig was an industry event where various companies were buying advertising space to associate themselves with some sort of music event or magazine or band, and thus make their company look super cool. What a load of ****. So why did we end up doing it? The truth is that we owed someone a favour in return for something they did that may or may not help with our career as a band. If you get me.
To my surprise, we were not the only band there. Richard Hawley and the Automatic were both there too, and we wondered if they felt like we did. In fact Richard Hawley likened it to being buggered for cash: you have to decide how much you are willing to take to get it. Nice metaphor there.
When we had finished playing, the compere took to the stage and said to the few people left: "Please feel free to stick around, drink some more wine and continue networking." We thought
long and hard about it... and then left.
And talking of leaving, I'm off. Til next time!
The House Of Lords xx
Tune in later for the second instalment of The Young Knives 'Hot Summer Blog'.
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