icewolf

hello ute lovers. 'bass giant' mike here. i believe that now that guitar hero matt marlow is no longer playing with ute i am the shortest member of the band, so the 'giant' tag is somewhat misleading. 

my life in ute has been short-lived but super fun. last thursday at the jericho tavern was our first gig as a full band, and was a warm up for our big set at the secret garden party festival. it was loads of fun and we pretty much rocked it (ie we didn't forget anything major in the tunes). afterwards we checked out the other bands echo boomer and dead spies who were both cool then took some frosty beers over to clare's house to drink and admire the belly on her cat (seriously massive). thanks very much to clare and sorry to clare's neighbours

the secret garden party was a big heap of fun. i arrived on saturday morning to find the rest of the band in a bad way after hitting friday night super-hard. joe was surprisingly sprightly given that he had passed out in bed before 9pm. our set was on the saturday night in a small tent with a very little pa right next door to a massive tent with a pumping pa and a dub-heavy lineup. we had our work cut out to be heard, but we sang, strummed and banged with all our hearts, and the david-like ute took on the goliath of the stage next door and emerged victorious. no thanks to our wonderful friends who came and danced as loudly and inappropriately as they could. it was a fun gig, it felt really guerilla and was definitely full of energy. 

after the gig we ruined ourselves with cheap dark rum and dancing. highlights included running away froma welshman who wanted to talk politics; ollie getting naked in front of, well, probably a hundred people after having been asleep while dancing; joe losing patience with the loaf-wolf; ollie leading a high-volume and low-quality arcade fire sing-along ; and the hours/days worth of laughs we got out of adding 'lounge', 'zone', 'town' and other random words to the end of our initials. from now on we want to be known by our new names - o-town, j-dog and m-lounge. seriously, it's amazing the mileage we got out of that joke.

the sunday was spent mostly feeling sorry for ourselves and feeling our bodies gradually turn against us. so much so that we actually left on the sunday evening so that we could spend the night in our own beds. the festival was full of some of the strangest people i have ever encountered, and all in all it was a really fun weekend. massive thanks must go to spinner and rhys for not only carrying things and driving us there but also for providing killer entertainment and unrivalled company. also big thanks to the icewolf for (not necessarily intentionally) giving us more entertainment than any of the music on offer. 

and now i'm back at home and there's nobody here but me. i've been doing nothing today but recovering and playing wildbirds and peacedrums super-loud (check out their tune 'my heart' which is on their my space www.myspace.com/wildbirdsandpeacedrums i think. absolutely awesome song). i am hungry (there's not much food in the house), i am surrounded by animals and i am sweating way too much. maybe a festival is actually like real life after all. love michael

ricehead

its the first sunny day in summer that im not working and im inside writing a blog...im working in a greek deli in oxford which is driving me a bit crazy. loads of really poncy mums come in and correct me when i pronounce 'tabouleh' and ask why im not greek.
someone came in the other day and bought some rice.
"£2 for some rice? don't you think that's a bit much?"
"well. I don't really know, I don't have much to do with the prices"

what the fuck does she expect me to say!
"mmm, that is a bit much isnt it. why dont you just donate what you think its worth, you know, like the radiohead album. "

so she goes out of the shop and comes back in a few minutes later and comes right up to me.
"can i just ask you a question?"
"ok"
"would YOU pay £2 for some rice?"
i was beginning to feel like this was more than my jobsworth..
"well obviously not because if i could go round Oxford buying my dinner from delicatessens then i wouldn't be working here!"

im also rocking some very spindly folk fingernails at the moment to play acoustic. they're amazing for the small percentage of the day i play guitar and a nightmare the rest of it. ive been serving up some very percussive dinners lately!

so we're practicing for the secret garden party festival at the moment and are really excited about it. we have a warm up gig tonight at the jericho tavern and then off tomorrow for weekend to cambridgeshire.

matt marlow from band Strangers in Polaroids is playing guitar with us for these two dates and then he's back off to Newcastle unfortunately. we will miss him and his sweet guitar parts! and then back on the look for a new guitarist..any ideas?

bass giant mike chilcott is now playing with us which has transformed our sound and can't wait to start playing more with him.

so this was my first blog. but dont worry! im going to pretend that you all want to hear about our lives on a regular basis and write all about it.

yum yum x