Fest Fest Fest!!!!!!

A couple of days ago I was talking about Fest, I was probably trying to convince a friend to come along or something, the conversation went along these lines...

'Well it's like pretty much the best weekend ever- did you ever go to Out of Spite? Yeah? Well remember how fucking awesome Out of Spite used to be, multiply that one hundred times and that's what Fest is like'
'Really? Are you guys playing it this year?'
'I'm not sure, we've not been asked yet, I know they're cutting down on bands a little this year and there's a ton of UK bands doing it so perhaps we won't get asked- but I'm going regardless so it doesn't matter too much....'
'Sweet, maybe I'll look into coming'
'Trust me, it will be worth it- it's impossible to have a bad time'

Roll on a couple of hours and I'm checking my e-mails and lo and behold I have one from Mr. Tony Weinbender- asking us to come and play. Funny how things work out sometimes.....

So we will be there, it's too early to know which day or venue we'll be at but I know it will be awesome, Tony, Cam and the dudes at No Idea work so fucking hard sorting it out every year, make sure you buy them a drink if you see them around!

Hopefully we will manage to play a few extra shows either pre- or post-, it's something I'll start looking into soon but if anyone reading happens to be able to help us out drop me a line.

Check out www.thefestfl.com for info and tickets and stuff.

Meh...

As the Liar's Academy once sang- 'no news is good news'- particularly on the Chillerton front, we are trying to finalise a date to record 3 or 4 new jams in the next couple of weeks for Kiss of Death Records. We should probably practise and we should definitely play some more shows. As always drop me a line please, we would love to come to your town and get drunk with you. I think the next show is in Swansea on July 26th. This may well be a complete lie, but I'll be sure to post a flyer or something when I know what the deal is.

We have some t-shirts left from tour that I would like to sell. I will post a picture of them in the next couple of days, but they are £6 posted in the UK and pretty fucking sexy. As always we have CDs to shift- check out www.myspace.com/baileygregandjack and you can order them direct through that, I promise I will send them much quicker than the last few we sold, which took a good couple of months. In my defence, this occured during a massive personal upheaval on my part, moving house and dealing with a lot of shit.

I went to Berlin last weekend- it was awesome, literally the most incredible city I have ever visited. I ate alot of pizza, didn't really sleep for 4 days and drank enough booze to kill a lesser man. I was hoping to hang out with Roland and Jan (Yo-Yo Records) but we didn't manage to cross paths- I did however get the see Off With Their Heads in Hamburg, and they played a slamming set to pretty much no-one, there was no support bands and we went to the wrong venue at first so only just got there in time, but they totally killed it.

Sometimes I kind of hate living in Cambridge- recently I have missed the whole Lemuria tour, and also the Mike Hale/Josh Small/Austin Lucas tour cos the nearest they got was London and I just couldn't afford to take the train down... Oh well, I'm sure I'll see them at FEST! Other times it is fucking ace, such as when my friends Christian and DS do shows at the Portland. The next thing coming up is Independent's Day on July 4th (get it?!)

Shows that just happened, records that are happening soon

Not alot to report at the moment- we played 4 shows last week, but I completely forgot to advertise the details up here. I drove about 900 miles, slept in motorway lay-bys and went to work a long way away every day. It was alot of fun, particularly the Isle of Wight show- it seems that they have a good thing going at the Black Sheep Bar and I hope to see fun shows continue there. New Bruises have been touring the UK and Europe so it was cool to play a couple of shows and hang with them for a few days and show them around Cambridge, Americans love old stuff and there's plenty of that here.

We have been speaking for years to Bryon from New Bruises who also runs Kiss of Death Records about doing something for the label, and now we finally have the ball rolling- we're doing a 7 inch that it all recorded and will be going to press in the next couple of months when artwork and all that is sorted, and we are also recording in the next couple of weeks for a top secret split record that's to come out at Fest 8. I won't elaborate too much, partially cos I can't remember all the details but it's going to be pretty special. Records are like buses, we do nothing for ages, then 2 sweet things come along at once.

Be sure to check out www.kissofdeathrecords.com -There's so many good releases on the label and we're pretty damn pleased to now be a part of it. Bryon is also going to be doing a super limited US version of our Bleak Unison LP, he has about 50 copies that are going to be printed with alternative artwork- I'll post up here when it becomes available as I think it might be one of the few things we've done that will shift pretty quickly!

As of today we have NO SHOWS booked until August, we would like to rectify this please so drop us a line if you would like us to play. Word.

Debt collectors and bicycle thieves

Taken from 'If you make it'........

'So lately life has been pretty harsh on my wallet. It finally hit the bottom as I walked around Williamsburg tonight with my bike lock and singular wheel in hand. There's something about having a perfectly intact lock that makes you feel like a complete idiot, how you made it so simple for someone to steal your bike.

Currently I am in deep debt, and it may mean a long break from maintaining this site, while I work on raising some money. Work has been really slow lately, and I have a handful of bills, credit card payments, friend debts (ie; recording, bounced rent check help), IRS notices and June rent looming over my head.

I really wish that this site could be my whole existence, but as it is right now, I need to take a leave of absence and concentrate on replenishing my bank accounts.If anyone was thinking of donating, now would be the time.

Thanks to everyone who has donated so far. If is wasn't for you, I would be much worse off.'


Anyone who is familiar with this site should appreciate how much hard work goes into it, and anyone who has downloaded any of the free albums or wasted a day by watching EVERY pink couch session when they are hungover (or is that just me?) help these guys out- head over to http://www.ifyoumakeit.com/ and donate a few dollars


On another note, our brothers in Cheap Girls released their album for FREE through another awesome donations based website www.quoteunquotererecords.com you can pick up albums by some slamming other bands too- personally I highly recommend 'Neon Creeps', the new O Pioneers! record. Again wire a few dollars across to these guys if you download anything, I'm sure they will love you forever.

Finally...... When Cheap Girls flew back to the US they didn't want to carry any of their merch back with them so left the remainder with us to sell. We have approximately 10 copies of Find Me A Drink Home LP, and a few copies of their new split 7 inch with Failures Union. Both of these records are awesome, and so if you came out to any of the shows and forgot to pick one up get in contact and we will sort you out.

Find Me A Drink Home LP- £8 (inc. postage/paypal) or £7 if I can get it to you in person

Cheap Girls/Failures Union split 7 inch- £4 (inc. postage/paypal) or £3 in person

As far as I know we are the only people in the UK to have these available at the moment, so it's cheaper than ordering one from the US. Thanks.

Tour is over.....

And we all made it in just about one piece. I'll write a hefty account complete with incriminating pictures when I have a little more time on my hands, but this is just a quick thankyou to eveyone who played a part in making the last 11 days or so some of the best of my whole life. It's so weird to not wake up in a room with 7 dudes, it's weird to not crack open a beer at 11am and it's weird to not spend the majority of my day impersonating Vinnie Stigma.

Road warrior general Tom Hussey and Tim Atom Bomb worked incredibly hard to ensure that everything ran relatively smoothly, and I'm proud to call those guys friends. A huge thanks to everyone who sorted out a show, let us stay at their house, cooked for us, bought a t-shirt/record/booze.

It's on!!

I am tour-bound in about an hour. It is 5.15am, I have been up since about 8am yesterday morning, and have yet to sleep a wink. A horrific evening shift at work was massively improved by listening to Dillinger Four and drinking a Corona in the kitchen while washing a mountain of dishes. I am now firmly of the opinion that beer and punk rock can pretty much cure anything.

Right now I think my eyeballs are drying up.

My car is loaded up with my drums and a sleeping bag, I need to be 150 miles away by 9am. We are having a practise from 9am until midday then driving straight to London for Punk N Bowl, EVERYONE SHOULD DEFINITELY COME because there are some awesome bands playing, and if you are broke you have no excuse because it's free entry suckers!

Over the next week and a bit we are probably playing really close to wherever you live so come along, stamp your feet to Cheap Girls and throw beer all over Bailey. He loves it when people do that.

New shirts and other fun stuff!!!

These were delivered to Jack today, and they're looking pretty sexy. They come in blue or white with orange print and are available in emo/punk/hip hop sizes (that's small/medium/large to you) Unfortunately if you are grindcore (youth large) grime (XL)or any other music genre-sized you are shit out of luck and have terrible taste. They are going to cost you £6, which is a bargain if I may say so myself.

Here are the running times for Punk N Bowl- so you can strategically schedule your bowling games

2:00 - 2:25pm L Morgan
2:35 - 3:00pm More Than a Joke
3:15 - 3:40pm Break the Habit
3:55 - 4:25pm The Dead City Stereo
4:40 - 5:10pm The 255's
5:25 - 5:50pm Crocus
6:05 - 6.35pm Cutting Class
6:50 - 7:20pm The Computers
7:35 - 8:05pm The Cut Ups
8:20 - 8:50pm Chillerton
9:05 - 9.35 The Don Ramos Players
9.50 - 10:20 Milloy
10:35 - 11:05 Virgins

Unfortunately all bowling lanes are closed between 8.20 and 8.50pm, which by some strange coincidence is the time we are playing. Mad props to Greg for putting all the bands whose name begins with a C back to back, the obsessive compulsive in me loves that shit.


TOUR DILEMMA!

So we are not very famous, we don't play big venues or anything like that, but part of me thinks we should definitely have some entrance music for when we are on tour. Not enough bands do it these days- I think the concept has been stolen by WWF wrestlers and Darts players. Let's bring it back and get the party started?

Either of my two favourite songs right now would be perfect.

Asher Roth- I Love College



Or Quiet Riot- Metal Health (Bang Your Head)



Answers on a postcard please. Thanks.

Oh another one I just found.

ALSO when we get back from tour if we haven't died/checked into rehab/split up we are playing on the Isle of Wight on June 5th, and in Brighton with the mighty Milloy on June 7th. We would like a gig on the 6th please, ideally somewhere south. Get in contact yeah?

One other thing, our Floridian brothers in New Bruises are coming over to the UK for a couple of weeks at the beginning of June, we played together a bunch when they were last over here, they totally looked after us at Fest and leant us all their instruments, they printed our t-shirts, and I stayed with Bryon for a week when I went to the Hot Water Music reunion last year. We are pretty 'tight' let's say. HOWEVER it seems that we are not playing a single show together this tour. This needs to be addressed, so if you have them booked to play and you can squeeze us on the bill drop us a line. We will be happy, they will be happy, you will be happy. Everyone wins.

Tour is nearly here

So it's a matter of days til we head out on the road for the first time in forever and everything is almost falling into place. We have some new t-shirts, with a picture of a dog on, designed by Alex Curtis http://www.thr33designs.co.uk/ and printed up by the awesome Kay at Cut Out Shop http://www.cutoutshop.com/ Check these guys out if you want anything screen printed with love and care, they are very reasonably priced, unbelievably helpful and totally DIY.




A couple more tour posters for you perusal

Punk N Bowl 2!

This is going to be off the chart! Can't wait!!

Shook Ones is tomorrow!

Just a gentle reminder that we're playing the Shook Ones show at Unit 22, Southampton tomorrow- this is going to be our first gig in quite some time, so we are going to ACTUALLY PRACTISE and try and remember how to play some songs. You should all come along, it will be fun. There's some other bands playing too, I can't remember who but I'm sure they are awesome.

Last time I saw Shook Ones it was at Ryan's (Dirty Money) flat in Gainesville during Fest 6- it was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, the floor was caving in so everyone had to sit on the floor, the police came, total chaos.




Word.

If you make it

I am on my friends laptop doing some more updating, cos I am hungover to shit. My second phase of giving up drinking can be measured in hours and days rather than months and years.

I only intended on going out for a little while last night, but when you have a couple of beers you get an almighty thirst and before you know it you have drank six pints and it's closing time. We should probably have admitted defeat by this time but you don't want to stop there, you want more. My friend Matt and I rode our bikes to another pub, we were already wasted and he fell off pretty bad, I somehow managed to keep it together, don't ask me how because I could barely walk. We drink some more, we meet up with our friend Christian and just talk shit about music and life and stuff. I'm not entirely certain but I'm sure we agreed that we will 'definately start a band' for about the thousandth time. It is pretty late, we are definately fucked.....

Roll forward a few hours, it is the morning, I should be moving house but instead I am watching some videos on http://www.ifyoumakeit.com/ I challenge anyone to watch some of the pink couch sessions, or some of the live shows and then tell me that you don't feel inspired. The above account of last nights drinking is probably the basis that alot of the bands on the site formed, I think it is how Chillerton came together all those years ago. Watching the videos you can see that the bands are all friends, that they are doing what they love and that they couldn't care less for the ridiculous things alot of bands aspire to.

Aside from the actual bands, the fact that this whole thing exists totally blows my mind. I believe that it is the guy from Halo Fauna (and a bunch of other bands) and some of his friends who have given up their time and money to create such an incredible website where people can not only watch some amazing videos, but download a whole bunch of music for free. It is an awesome representation and documentation of what punk rock means in 2009. Please check it out. Thanks.

And also.....

Sorry, I'm terrible at this blogging lark- right now I don't have my own computer or a house or any of my possessions or anything so I've had other things to worry about. Then I get a chance to do some guerilla updating on my friends laptop and forget what it is I wanted to write, so there's always a couple of posts than occur straight after each other, I could edit the original one, but it seems too much like hard work



Our next gig is in Southampton with Shook Ones on April 26th at Unit 22.




Following that we are playing the 2nd Punk N Bowl at Bloomsbury Lanes bowling alley, London. I don't think there's a flyer kicking around yet as there are some more bands due to be added but the line-up so far is fucking incredible! Virgins (USA ex-NMDS)/Milloy/Don Ramos Players/The Cut-Ups/Break The Habit/loads more.

Tour Poster!

Here it is- for some reason it wouldn't upload it last time, so it was just showing as a link. I don't know who designed it but I like it, it makes me think of SpiceWorld the movie. I wish we could drive around in a big red double decker bus with Richard E Grant.

And this is the poster for the Manchester show- going to be slamming!

This one is for Leeds- we haven't played in Leeds for ages. We are described as 'legendary' on the poster. Nice.

I'll stick up some more posters for the shows when I stumble across them on the internet. Yeah.

Tour poster and stuff......

So I haven't updated this thing for a while, but here's the latest.....

We are definately playing the Brighton Cheap Girls date on May 11th. It was a little up in the air about whether we could do it or not, I can't quite remember why but whatever.... we are definately doing it so come along! I was pretty drunk when I found out, so drunk in fact that I tried to call up the promoter and tell him the good news, only to later discover that it was in fact the WRONG promoter I called and he had nothing to do with the show.

That is precisely why I didn't drink for 4 and a half years, cos I'm a fucking liability. After this booze induced slip up, and a total blowout weekend where I was definately drunk or seriously hungover at all times for 36 or so hours, I am through with the booze again. Hangovers are bullshit. I honestly thought that I was dying from some terrible disease.

Here is the tour poster.


http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/75/l_fe009e753d3d4afa8d0c7de3356cfd05.jpg


My experiences of Vicodin are minimal to say the least, but I did some reading up in Wikipedia and it sounds like a right laugh yeah?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicodin

Chillerton/Cheap Girls TOUR!

So as promised here are the dates for our May tour-


Monday 11th – Brighton the hobgoblin
Tuesday 12th – Portsmouth – the Fawcett inn
Wednesday 13th – Swansea – the coyote bar
Thursday 14th –Exeter – the cavern
Friday 15th – Sheffield - the stockroom - w/above them S
aturday 16th – Manchester – the kro bar - w/above them
Sunday 17th – leeds – the packhorse- w/above them
Monday 18th - Cambridge– venue TBC
Tuesday 19th - London, Brixton - The Windmill
Wednesday 20th - TBC

I'll post up any changes or anything, but as far as I know this is pretty damn final, so write the dates in your diary, come along, stamp your feet and throw booze all over yourself


Also, I have been listening to the new Propagandhi album- it's pretty METAL, and the long awaited new O Pioneers!!! record. The better of the two is available for free/donations from www.quoteunquoterecords.com

Back on Track

I have been really busy of late and have neglected writing stuff up here. I have been helping out at the first Cambridge Poster Roast for the last week or so, I should probably advertised it up here before it actually happened. Here is a poster for it, so take a look and see what you missed!

There were so many great artists featured, I think there is a list of who exhibited over at http://www.thr33designs.co.uk/ so check their work out and if you like their stuff drop them a line, and then ask them to design a poster or t-shirt for your band, because they are probably all broke.

There was a show on the Sunday night with some slamming bands, it was awesome and I had a blast. The preparations and the lead up were pretty stressful- I hired the cheapest PA I could find, which looked like it could just break at any moment, but it did OK and thanks to Andy TTG being damn knowledgeable on all aspects of PA and stuff he managed to make all the bands sound pretty damn good. Massive thanks to Pennines and Tellison for being awesome and bringing a whole bunch of extra equipment and monitors at the last minute. My biggest worry was that the place is glass fronted and has absolutely no sound proofing, I had this irrational fear that the police were going to come and shut it all down within minutes of the bands starting, but as far as I know we received zero complaints, so keep your eyes peeled for alot more gigs and stuff happening there.





Chillerton were featured in the exhibition, after a whole load of hunting about I tracked down a picture that just about makes this post relevent to the band. If you like the poster (which also features Crazy Arm, Above Them and Sam Russo) Alex Curtis has a few left, they are A2 sized and cost £10 posted in a nice sturdy tube.

Band you should know

I found this while googling Chillerton. It's from Sound as Language...

'Got a hold of the fantastic Bleak Unison LP (via Document Recordings) from UK’s Chillerton recently and this band definitely deserves to be heard. Fans of gruff pop punk, Leatherface and No Idea Records should eat this up. Chillerton are able to distinguish themselves by adding a bit more melody to their rough and tumble sound. Chillerton are on the higher scale when it comes to this genre and this is only the band’s debut. Bleak Unison is only the sound of Chillerton getting their feet wet. What lies ahead for the band is certainly exciting.'

Oh yeah and before you think I am a dick for googling my own band name, I was trying to work out whether this blog shows up if you search for Chillerton. It doesn't. Well not in the first couple of pages anyway. I genuinely have absolutely no idea if anyone reads/has read a single thing I have posted on here. I'm too thick to work out if I somehow can see the number of visits this has had.....

Certainly not musical....

Or of any particular interest to anyone other than approximately 5 of my friends, but my bike is now finished. It looks awesome, I will post some pictures of it up here when the rain stops. I have been bike-less since last November when some dickhead stole my old one. I hope that he fell off and broke every bone in his body when he realised that he couldn't freewheel. My new one looks much less 'flash' and much more rusty so hopefully I'll keep hold of it for a little longer. If someone does steal it they will certainly break every bone in their body cos my new one doesn't even have a brake.

Cheap Girls

So we are going on tour in May with a band called Cheap Girls who are from Michigan. I fully suggest that you check them out at www.myspace.com/cheapgirls. To be honest I completely made that URL up so don't blame me if it's some weird sex trade site, ask google or something- I know the internet makes people pretty lazy but tracking down a slamming band should be pretty straightforward....

This is what they look like, they look like they know to have a good time so I'm not too worried about spending 12 or so days in a van together. I'm really gutted that I missed them play The Fest a few months ago, I tried but the queue was too long so I went and drank coffee by myself at a place called Volta. Jack and Bailey both saw them play, Bailey loved it so much he was sick afterwards.......

Our friend Tim from You Me and the Atom Bomb has booked this thing so he will be coming along and keeping us in line, he might play guitar for us on a couple of songs.

You can download their album from www.quoteunquoterecords.com (again I totally made this url up, but google is your friend), or I'm sure some cool distros have it in stock. I have it and I really like it, it's really nice mid-paced driving indie-rock that people liken to Buffalo Tom and the Replacements. I have never knowingly heard Buffalo Tom, and The Replacements comparision is, although not wildly inaccurate, kinda lazy. Everyone gets compared to the Replacements these days. I think they sound like Piebald covering REM. Whoever they do or do not sound like doesn't matter- let's just judge them on their own merits without comparing them to anyone!

I think the tour runs from 11th May to the 22nd. I will post the full dates up here when I know them. We are hitting lots of towns that Chillerton haven't been to for ages, so come along and say hi. We would all like that very much.

Hello

These first few posts are more an experiment than anything else. So far this is what I have acheived....

1. Actually starting this blog. Chillerton used to (in fact we may still) have a website, we rarely updated it, and very rarely visited it.... I'd like to draw a comparison between our website and the paper part of your driving licence, you know that it exists SOMEWHERE but you never really have any need or desire to look at it.

We have a myspace, but who the hell uses myspace these days? I sometimes use it to listen to bands, but once I have listened to 4 or so songs I have no desire to fire off a friend request, or read incessant bulletins asking people to 'vote for us to play Warped Tour'. I don't care how many friends we do or don't have. I personally just don't have the time to waste on it I'm afraid. (If anyone has tried to get in contact with us via myspace and we have not got back to you, sorry. We are not ignoring you, we're just busy.)

We tried to get down with the kids and have a facebook 'band page' where people could become fans, this turned out to be the most useless thing ever. You can't even listen to music! I think Bailey set our profile image as a picture of a penis. This may or may not be true.

SO YEAH we have a blog. Whether this is better or worse than any other media outlet only time will tell. Maybe I'll start a twitter berating the world of blogs in a few months when I get sick of typing stuff up here. For me personally I spend alot of time reading blogs. I'll post some links of ones I like when I can work out how to do so.

I think that I might write about other cool stuff, not just Chillerton related, but bands that we are friends with, cool people that we know. I don't know what Jack and Bailey will think of this. It may well be just a fucking ridiculous vanity project for myself.

2. I learnt how to change the colours and text at the top. I'm not sure whether or not I like the colour scheme. I am going to get my girlfriend to show me how to do this shit properly.

3. I am so happy that I have nearly finished building my new bike. The last pieces in the jigsaw should come together tomorrow. Then I can ride through all the snow and slush until my socks get wet and I get trenchfoot.

An update of sorts

As you have probably not noticed, things have been ever so quiet from us over the last couple of months, so here's the deal...

Firstly, apologies for cancelling a few shows at the tail end of 2008- pulling the shows (particularly punk n bowl) was not an easy decision to make but sometimes real life and all the associated responsibilities that come with being grown ups get in the way of us pretending that we're just foot-loose and fancy-free boozehounds without a care in the world.

Secondly, we had a practice last night- I think it was possibly the first one since October- and it was awesome. Practise is hard for us because-

1. I live 150 miles away.
2. Bailey has to catch a FUCKING BOAT to come along
3. We tend to just sit around and smoke tabs.

I had forgotten to play drums, and now my arms ache. However, we have a bunch of new songs sorted, we are going to record them soon. We recorded 3 'new' songs about a year ago that were originally going to be pressed on a 7 inch for Fest 7, this definately didn't happen but they will see the light of day in the not too distant future, and what's even more exciting is that it will be on Kiss of Death Records! It might be a split, it might just be us, the one thing you can guarantee is that it will come on a thousand different colour pieces of wax and Chris White will want them all.

Thirdly, we really like playing shows. Anywhere is good, we particularly like the North so drop us a line. We have a myspace but we rarely check it cos none of us have cushy jobs where we get to sit behind computers, pretending to work, while actually bidding hard on a Japan only Leatherface 7 inch, anymore. Credit crunched.

Some nice photos