La Resaca

In lieu of being capable of saying anything even vaguely coherent or sensible, due to a severe lack of sleep over the previous few days, I advise you to follow this link and immerse yrself in the wild and wooly sounds of this years Tinderbox Festival, which can be found here.

El Yesquero

Two outings for the Morgen & Nite roadshow this month kids. On the 11th we'll be playing at the Tinderbox Festival, a celebration of noise, improv and experimental musics, which is in the lovely village of Cropredy in Oxfordshire, although I don't think we're going to be ripping out any Fairport covers, and on the 18th we'll be at Apiary Studios at 458 Hackney Road where we will be making an absolutely ungodly racket in the comapny of other people who enjoy that sort of thing. More when I'm in a better mood, i.e. tomorrow.

Soplar Mi Propia Trompeta, Y Salchichas

At some point this week I will, assuming it's any good hehe, be posting an or some excerpts from M&N's universe-new-arse-tearing-of set from Oto last week, in the meanwhile, here's a rather nice review of it and some other Oto-ness from The Liminal, although I must warn you, it does feature another prehensile toe wrongness* action shot.

I would also like to recommend this excellent and informative blog**, catering as it does for all yr top quality tubular meat product needs:

Rate My Sausage!

*"It's disturbing... like watching Christy Brown". Actual quote from an audience member.

**Good call Joe. I became instantly hungry after clicking that link.

Ella Tiene El Cabello Rubio

I'm not in the best of moods today. Work shit mainly, the usual getting paid late crap that completely scuppered what should have been a fucking good weekend, plus other bollocks which I can't even be arsed to go into, 'cos I'd just end up in a worse fucking mood, and you'd be really fucking bored. Apart from that tho, things are pretty good. Friday night was fucking great, I think our set was pretty damn fine, especially given that M&N have been hiding out in the drone cave for an extended period of time, it wasn't a bad way to get back into the live swing of things at all. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but then again, when is it ever? Lots of people said good things afterwards, the sound was great, the PA didn't die* and Mick and Neil were fucking brilliant, dropping the sort of white-light one chord ramalama fuzzbombs that put a massive fucking smile on my face. A good time was had by all, and goddamm it, I've got to fucking play live more this year, be it M&N, solo, whatever, because there really isn't much else that gets me quite that high, even if I'm stone cold sober**, so yeah, another killer night at Oto, and it was a bit good to share the bill with two of the musicians who inspired M&N in the first place.

So, a slightly bad mood, tempered by the above goodness, the knowledge that I'll be solvent again tomorrow, and some really nice Laotian weed***. And in the next couple of days I really will do all the emails I was supposed to do last week because I didn't do them the week before. I know, very slack, but I've had shit on my mind, had to have the twice-yearly battery of tests unpleasant to check my nerves still work and all that crap, plus my head's been a bit up in the air for the usual reasons... Anyway, this is an apology to anyone I said I'd email and didn't. Sorry about that. I do get there in the end tho.

And by way of a musical offering to appease those I haven't got back to yet, please enjoy this exquisite piece of Spanish psychy frug by the wonderfully named Albert Band...

*A couple of hacking coughs, but nothing terminal...

**No, seriously, I was driving. Still came off stage feeling like my brain had done a moebius twist tho. This is a good thing.

***As Gilbert Shelton once said, "dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope". Sometimes hippies get something right. Not very fucking often tho.

Remolinos Del Sonido Eléctrico

OK people. get ready for this. Two (count 'em) of the UK's finest blugmongering duos will be psychedeliciously slicing their way through yr heads and hearts at Cafe Oto next friday. Headlining will be those whirling dervishes of ever-ascending radiant modal clatter, Mick Flower and Neil Campbell, ably supported by Morgen & Nite in laser-guided brain-burn synth'n'guitar gut-rot mode. Oh yeah.

Six quid in advance, eight on the door, details and directions at the Oto website.

And yes, it is now officially "&" instead of "und". Because we like ampersands. That's why.

Viaje, Viaje, Viaje En La Otobahn

Oh yeah, it's back. We didn't know if it would be, but it is. Told you it was a good thing. And this time you've got Morgen und Nite on the decks, and no fuckers do tag team frogprog/krautrock/uk underground/psychedelic muck DJ sets quite like us. If that, plus Cafe Oto's delicious range of world ales and ciders aren't enough to tempt you, not to mention all the other good music and stuff that be there, then you are very boring and probably shouldn't come.

If on the other hand you are tempted, and you should be, it's only £2, then the hipster express to Dalston Junction will deliver you almost straight to Oto's door where you can relax in the company of like minded people of taste, class and distinction. Like me.

Jadeante

To quote DJO's version of Jean-Luc Picard, my head feels like it's been shat through a wormhole and fucked by a balrog. In the best possible way. My brain is still in a very comfy bed and is resolutely refusing to co-operate until it's been fed with copious amounts of good fucking coffee, so this is probably going to get a bit random. Maybe James Cotton (acid house bloke as opposed to the bluesman) isn't necessarily the most sensible music to be listening to under these circumstances, but hell, it feels right so fuck it.

And things are feeling right at the moment, in a way that they haven't for a fair whack of time, because I've finally stopped thinking and started fucking doing, and in the process discovered that all my friends were right and I was wrong, that I'm not the social retard with a permanent black cloud hovering over his head I've sometimes thought I was, and I've finally broken that fucking feedback loop of shitty thinking and negative self-analysis that has defeated me in the past. In short, I am no longer a twat.

I'm also smoking less, and not just because the quality of hash in London has increased by a remarkable degree in the last few months or so, but because getting stoned is fucking great, but you can go too far, and when the only points in your day when y're not a shambling smokebeast are work and sleep, you've gone too far, and I was chainsmoking constantly the second I got through the door during the week and as soon as I was awake at the weekends, almost to the exclusion of any other, more stimulating activities, like actually getting off the fucking sofa. So now I smoke because I enjoy it, as opposed to using it as a crutch and basically self-medicating myself out of the conscious world, a place I've discovered I like a whole lot more than I thought now I'm not invariably experiencing it through fogged and distorted lenses.

And it's fucking fantastic. I've laughed more in the last month than in the 12 which preceded it, rediscovered the joy of just being with good people, rekindled friendships that were dormant from neglect and petty stuff that really didn't mean shit. I no longer have the constant, idiotic background paranoia that I'm behaving like an arsehole and people are just putting up with me, which I always knew was fucking stupid, because my friends are generally not the sort of people who would refrain from telling me I'm being a cunt when I am, which is just one of the many reasons I love 'em all to death.

I'm so grateful to the support of the people around me, their unswerving fucking brilliance in knowing what to say, and what not to say, for listening to all of my crap, for putting up with my unreliability* and my erratic behaviour and moods and having faith in me when, frankly, my well had run dry. In that respect I'm one lucky fucker, and there's no way on fucking earth I'd be writing this if it wasn't for them.

So I have a life again, and it's one I love, and it's so fucking inspiring. Music and words and ideas are just leaking out of my pores, I'm pulling new riffs, sounds and songs from the air like a demented butterfly collector. Thor's Helmet is sounding fucking immense, a much meaner, nastier proposition than ever before, a roaring fucking spacerock fuelled doom machine with a glint in it's eye and a really dirty mind, lyrics so shameless they'd make Dave Wyndorf blush and no sense of dignity whatsoever. Think Angels In Pigtails-era Terminal Cheesecake fistfucking Black Sabbath with a massive side order of (early) Hawkwind and Chrome.

There'll be new Morgen und Nite stuff coming soon too, two of the flat out weirdest pieces of music we've ever recorded, which I'm saying nothing about until they're both completely done, except that if you listen on headphones to one of the tracks it actually makes you feel dizzy and vaguely nauseous, and which, now I'm actually off my arse and doing shit, will be released by some as yet unsuspecting record label on heavy fucking vinyl because I won't sleep until it happens. And I'm almost done with two, yes two, solo recordings. One all guitar, one techno with a big slab of gooey acid house stirred in, but more on those soon. Oh, I almost forgot to mention The Electric Bacons. So now I have**.

The biggest thing for me though, is being able to go out, to actually want to go out, the fact that I'm genuinely socially confident for probably the first time in my life, that the fear, the anxiety around people has dissipated, the shocking revelation that I can actually talk to someone I've never clapped eyes on before without having to be off my face on something or other and without wanting to run and hide, let alone contemplate the idea that that person might find me interesting or even (shock, horror) attractive. I may sound like a bit of a dick here, but I couldn't give a toss, because if it wasn't for these changes in me, then I wouldn't be sitting here with a head full of amazing possibilities, and an idiot grin on my face you'd need an angle grinder to remove, and the reason for said grin would never have entered my life.

*Some of which (but not all) can be put down to a vicious autoimmune condition called Guillain–Barré Syndrome which almost killed me three years ago. And yes, I know, I haven't mentioned that before. Just too fucking raw. I never wrote about it because it was fucking terrifying, and every time I tried found that words were just inadequate to express what it was like. Still do, I'm just infinitely better at dealing with it, and the consequences of it now.

**Soon the world will bear witness to the porcine garage glory. And it won't be best pleased.

You Need To Come To This, As It's Going To Be Very, Very Good Indeed

Once More Unto The Grosvenor Dear Friends

South London Psychedelic Slugfest

Extended hour plus sets from both bands.
Ramleh 10" EP for full price ticketholders.
Morgen Und Nite cdr for all comers.

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/45833 for the £10 tickets

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/46247 for the £7 - no 10" tickets.