Let's Get The Band Back Together

Some bands you watch, and they make you want to dance. Some bands you watch, and they make you want to go to the merch stall and buy their CD and listen to it every day for a year.

Other bands you watch and they simply make you want to BE IN A BAND.

You know the ones. They're more like a gang than a band, and they make playing on stage look like the most fun you can have with your pants on that doesn't involve cake. You want to be in their club, and when you realise you can't be, you start to think about forming your own. Never mind that you can't play the sitar, or whatever they're playing. Never let reality get in the way of a good daydream.

I always feel a bit like this about bands, to be honest. Every time I go and see a metal band, I go away thinking "I'm going to be in a metal band! And write lyrics about monsters and the apocalypse and ghost horses riding through a purple stormy sky!" but then I'll see a synth-pop band and I go away thinking "I'm going to form a synth-pop band! I definitely own a keyboard, now all I need to do is make up dance routines for all the songs and we'll all wear matching hats!" and then I'll go to a warehouse party and come away thinking "fuck guitars, fuck bands, I'm going to be a deeejaaaaay!" 

It's nice to have daydreams, but I do think I actually need to be in a proper band again now. I am writing songs and they have nowhere to go. I went to see Sharon Van Etten this weekend (she was so, so amazing) and I stood there thinking "I used to do all that bleak folk music too, where did that vanish off to then?". For the last two years I have been on music production and DJing courses in the hope of getting to a point where I could satisfy myself (so to speak) without bothering anyone else, but it hasn't worked, probably because I have the patience of a Yorkshire terrier on amphetamines.

I miss being in a gang.