Iwan's Stuff

Hello there!! There’s a week left of the tour, good lord I know we’ve been out and about for quite a while now and there’s still a week left to go! Things have been going pretty awesomely though!

Big shout outs to everyone who’s gone out bought the album or stayed in and paid to download the album! If you didn’t pay to download the album I’m not angry just really really disappointed!

So tonight we’re playing in York which has somehow spawned a Tardis-like dressing room! Tomorrow it’s lovely old Birmingham and yesterday was Nottingham! Then day off times in Brighton!

So thus concludes a fairly pointless blog! But, you know it’s good to waffle, to paraphrase Mr Hoskins!

Click here to view the embedded video.

March 16, 09:37 AM

Glasgow…

The blogs have been few and far between on this tour, mainly due to the fact that internet is a far rarer commodity than you might imagine.

We’re halfway through the tour now and Straight Lines have left, they’re on their way to SXSW! It was sad times many manly tears were shed in the streets surrounding Liverpool Academy.

Today we’re saying hello to White Belt Yellow Tag which should be awesome beans! Another first for us on this tour, we’re playing King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow tonight somehow things have always come up that have prevented us actually playing here it’s pretty exciting stuff despite the many many many many steps we’re going to have to negotiate with all our gear!!

March 09, 11:34 AM

Colchester!!! COLCHESTAAAAAH!

Today we be in Colchester for tonight’s show! It looks like it’s going to be a good one!!

We’ve got an epic stained glass window going on as a backdrop today, all very gothic and awesome!!

Anyhoo the album came out yesterday and it’s amazing to actually see it on shelves in shops and on itunes and everywhere you can buy music from generally. The fact that it’s on our own label makes it even sweeter, it’s proof that you don’t have to have a big major label behind you to make things happen.

Thanks to everyone who’s come out to the shows so far, it’s been well good!!

Pick up the album, have a listen, then come have a sing and a boogie with us!!

Love it!

March 06, 01:34 PM

Yeovil…

… we couldn’t bring you the sunshine but we’ve definitely brought a shitload of loudness!!

So far we’ve been on what seems like a fairly extensive tour of the West Country but fear not we’re playing the rest of the UK pretty damn thoroughly also, so have a look at the front of the site for tour dates and get some tickets!!

So just to get you all in that Yeovil mood here are some Stormtroopers walking around Yeovil

Click here to view the embedded video.

March 05, 04:05 PM

Flavors!!

Here’s the fine flavorsome taste of me….

just click on the link

which is HERE

March 05, 12:24 PM

Today we be in Falmouth!!

Woke up in Falmouth today to the Escher-esque nightmare that is a tour bus parked on a slope, blood flowing wholly and completely to the top of my head. It’s one of the many delights unique to living on a tour bus (unless you go caravanning a lot, you’d be silly to do it though.)

Anyway Falmouth is turning out to be a pretty darned awesome place if you like the seaside and nice little towns, which on a tour of lots of inner-city pre-fabricated venues makes an aweome change.

So, inspired by the fact that there are a lot of old gig posters stuck up all round the venue here are some of the bands that have played in falmouth’s Princess Pavillion.

Asia – Heat Of The Moment

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ben Taylor – Digest

Click here to view the embedded video.

Toots and The Maytals – Sweet & Dandy

Click here to view the embedded video.

March 02, 09:04 AM

Tour Time: It be here!

Well it’s been absolutely ages since we’ve been on a good long proper tour. Now it’s only 10 minutes till we leave for the first gig in Swindon 12 Bar tonight. It’s all very very exciting!

Plus our new album ‘Tear The Signs Down” was delivered yesterday. It’s very shiny, new and thing of absolute beauty I can’t really comprehend why you won’t all be hammering the doors of your local record store to get your hands on your very own copy.

And there’s more!!! Run and Hide was released on Sunday on that old iTunes service and various other MP3 related download-type site things so you can grab a piece of the action a week ahead of the release so that’s spectacularly brilliant ain’t it!?!

So here are a bunch of links where you can buy Run and Hide or Pre-order Tear The Signs Down.

Clickity click click click!!!

Run And Hide

iTunes

Amazon

Tear The Signs Down (pre-order)

iTunes

Amazon

Play

Record Store (this one’s all signed and stuff too!)

Anyway got to scoot off to Swindon now hopefully see a bunch of y’all in the next few weeks!!

Lahverly!!

February 15, 04:00 PM

Listening Post!!

Aha!! Ahoy there peeps! it’s been a long long long time since I’ve written any kind of blog-type stuff on this website. So I thought, what with Tear The Signs Down and a big tour imminent, it was about time I use to my spare time to do something productive . Rather than spend my evening watch Batman cartoons and tirelessly clicking refresh on Twitter I thought I’d post up a few tunes I like.

Paul Simon – Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes

Click here to view the embedded video.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Country Girl

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations (Live)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not my favourite Beach Boys song. Well worth watching this video though for a be-mulleted Paul Mccartney, and to see Brian Wilson being basically the Marlon Brando of classic pop.

Anyway there’s some stuff what I’ve been listening to, there’ll be a lot more relevant blogging soon I promise!

See y’all soon!

January 26, 07:09 AM

Happy Tuesday Y’all

Hello peeps! just thought I’d write a short little something to say thanks to everyone who came down to our Hoxton gig last Thursday. It was awesome to see so many people a wicked start to a new decade. The album’s all ready to go and being sent off for production this week, it’s all very exciting, soon there’ll be brand new shiny copies for everyone!!

Our next gig is a week Thursday in London’s very own Borderline, it’s sold out (Good God!) but there are still tickets available for our Camden barfly show on the 18th of Feb. As you all know it promises to be excessively sweaty so get your bums down!

Hopefully soon the new Vid for Run & Hide will be up on here very very soon! It’s all finished so we’re just waiting, don’t know what for, but it’s a music industry standard to wait.

Anyhoo see y’all soon.

January 15, 06:50 AM

Tear the signs down!

Well the new year is here and brilliantly snowy it has been too, so far. Next week we start out on the road to promote our next long-player ‘Tear The Signs Down’. We’ve spent the last week rehearsing and dusting off those christmas cobwebs so we’re on top form for all you lovely people at our gigs.

We’ve also been busy making a video for the next single, ‘Run and Hide’. We’re still mulling over what kind of release it’s going to be, we’re thinking downloads again. There’ll also be a 7″vinyl version available on the tour, this website and hopefully some of the few indie record stores that are left!

For those of you who just can’t wait and want to order your copy of ‘Tear The Signs Down’ you can head over here to recordstore.co.uk and get your pre-order in now! The first 200 copies are going to be signed by us, that’ll be a pretty schmancy thing to have plopping onto your doormat!!

So we’ll be seeing you all very soon!!

Promise there’ll be much more posting on this fine website over the next of forever!

iwan.theautomatic

Posts

May 28, 08:26 AM

Once Again...

Almost another month since my last post.

Here's a treat for your ears...

OMNI by Minus the Bear

April 29, 05:21 AM

Ooh exactly a month...

...since I last posted anything on this blog. Probably goes to show that there's not much interesting happening to me at the moment. Though there is, I'm just not sure what it is yet. I'm in a slight limbo of "wah the wuh?" when it comes to what am I actually up to/doing?

Well I'm definitely off to see Iron Man 2 any minute nnnn... ready... set.. GO!

see you later!

March 29, 12:35 PM

Exciting (summer) Times

The clocks have moved forwards, summer is officially here, though not without a certain air of reluctance.

Anyway summer means loads of things:

Outdoor pints in hidden pubs.

Good Music.

Long evenings.

Good fresh food.

Loads of vitamin D

They re-open the boats on Roath Park lake.

99s with Flakes

Generally being outdoors loads!

The best thing of all is the majority of the best things about summer can be done all at the same time culminating in a mass of awesomeness!

Anyway today I made my first summer booking to go and see Tony Da Gatorra Vs. Gruff Rhys performing The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness.

Summer 2010 is going to be concentrated good!

March 17, 11:58 AM

Waltz With Bashir

This morning I woke up in Newcastle, i didn't want to head into town because it's just a death sentence for my bank account. Instead I watched the film Waltz With Bashir that I picked up in Stoke on my girlfriend's dad's recommendation.

It's about the Israeli Palestinian conflict in Lebanon and the film maker Ari trying to remember his role in the war. Visually it's animation style is amazing and really juxtaposes the dark subject matter. It's all really harrowing, though it clearly only tells one side of an extremely complex problem.

Anywho here's the trailer.

March 16, 01:57 PM

The pre-cognitive ability of runners according to Charlie Brooker.

I run quite a bit when I'm at home, being on tour at the moment I have extremely twitchy legs. Anyway over on The Guardian website Charlie Brooker has written a pretty interesting piece about the future state of earth via the power of the jogger. In a way.. um... it's an interesting piece.

"Anyway, while most people don't perceive life with the worrisome scope of a Tralfamadorian, they're capable of projecting at least a little. Take joggers. They weren't born with a pre-programmed desire to jog. No. One day they decided they'd like to get fit, and chose to sacrifice their immediate comfort in favour of delayed gratification: they got off the sofa and jogged themselves slim. Every jogger is essentially a clairvoyant. They've transcended the shackles of contemporary subsistence and risen above the likes of you and me, to witness a vision of the future so captivating it blocks out the pain of the present, so enticing, they're literally compelled to run towards it. Not only that, they've been organised enough to buy proper trainers and shorts and everything, the smug bastards. No wonder everyone else wants to hit them. Here's a tip: visualise a future in which you've toned yourself to athletic perfection by fighting random joggers in the park. Here's another tip: wear some sort of mask. And maybe a cape. We'll come up with a logo for your chest plate later.

Joggers are a minority, but then exercisers generally are a minority. Even though we're repeatedly told that regular exercise combats heart disease and cancer and blah blah nag nag nag, more than 60% of the population couldn't be arsed trying, because it makes their legs ache. They're not necessarily lazy, but suffering from an inability to perceive the future as a solid and tangible thing, unlike those far-sighted seers in running shoes and sweat pants. Perhaps joggers have a few additional Tralfamadorian synapses; only by experimenting on their brains can we be sure. Meanwhile, the rest of us remain stubbornly wedged into narrow individual pockets of time, moaning that we need to lose a few pounds while sobbing into our chips."

You can read all about it here

March 16, 10:33 AM

Tour Bus library

On this tour i seem to be accumulating books faster than I can read them, my bunk is turning into a miniature library and I have two weeks roughly to finish them in, for no other reason than that's how long I've set myself. It's good to have goals I suppose.

Anyway at the moment I'm reading Gulliver's Travels.

Awaiting me I have:

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

The Songlines - Bruce Chatwin

Journals - Capt. Robert Falcon Scott

Lonely Planet Gude to Chile and Easter Island

A nice varied selection I'm sure you'll agree, plus I've already read Scott Pilgrim 5: Vs. The Universe!

March 09, 10:18 AM

Spacewolf is gone!

This completely passed me by, I don't know how. But last December on the 14th Chris Feinstein AKA Spacewolf passed away. He was bassist on Ryan Adams & The Cardinals' Easy Tiger, Follow The Lights and Cardinology. Sad times indeed. So far this reading like a bit of a death blog, still it is a lame tragedy that he died only aged 42.

So here's a little video of him performing with Ryan Adams!

February 15, 02:50 PM

13 months ago...

...was the last time I posted on this fair blog. It's kind of ben superseded by my other blogs.

One at tumblr because it's quick easy and looks good.

And another at my bands website because that's the one that I guess in a roundabout way i get payed to do, not that I've done anything there for a while though I should be getting onto that very soon. What with a tour coming up very soon.

Anyway the point is I'll try and post on here far more often as of... NOW!!

Off to try the demo of Battlefield: Bad Company II now, I'll tell y'all how it is!!

January 03, 07:48 AM

RIP Vincent Ford

He wrote No Woman No Cry!
Enough said methinks!
Here's my favourite version.

November 27, 03:36 PM

The Future Is Unwritten

Last night, after a long day in the studio, I got back to our hotel absolutely pooped. I put on the TV and the Julien Temple Film about Joe Strummer, The Future Is Unwritten, was on.

I used to be massively into The Clash when I was about 17/18 mainly because of my massive love for the Manics. Sandinista was pretty much always on, either in my room, on my ipod or in the car driving to band rehearsals.

I've read Passion Is A Fashion (an awesome book!) but it just doesn't convey the power The Clash had in the 70s like this film did last night.

Joe Strummer was scary and inspiring in his intensity. The film left me exhilirated and excited about what I do for my living. I was ready to go and play a gig there and then. It toook me a while to fall asleep afterwards.

It was proper inspiring.

November 21, 09:43 AM

Respeckt!

There are a few people that I've always looked up to and respected.

There's the obvious people like my mum & dad, and some teachers.

There are others though who I'd drop a clog if I met them. They're people I grew up listening to; watching and reading about.

A while back on youtube I found a video of two of those people together, Eddie Vedder (from Pearl Jam) and Laird Hamilton (big wave surfer). They're both massive people. Anyway it was a video from the Iconoclasts programme they have in America (unfortunately I don't think they have it in the UK that I can see.) Anyway there used to be the whole show up on Youtube, but I think some legal stuff happened so it's only a clip now. I just wanted to share it, two cool peeps chatting stuff at each other.

October 11, 01:07 PM

Howies

I bought a Howies jumper once, it was fairly expensive. It was big and chunky wool, then i washed it. It's now about big enough for a three year old!

I really liked that jumper.

I really like their website too, considering they're a clothing company their blogs are pretty cool.

August 31, 08:20 PM

Insomnia Based Shizzle!!!

It's 3:45 A-eMMM and I can't sleep!! Gah!! I've only had one coffee today so it can't be that, can it?
I'm just here worrying about things, waiting for some answers. Things that are big to me niggling away!!

This went up here recently...

...I'm supremely chuffed!! :D

Attempt at sleep, take two!

x

ShaZzam!!

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