Instores part 3…

09/03/07

so you join us in Abbey Road (the world famous Abbey Road in fact, though we neglected to take a picture of the band crossing the road outside, beatle-style, though a number of tourists were doing so when we arrived)

hello all,

The boys are doing a set of filmed interviews today, that you’ll see in a couple of months for something quite cool…

As they do that, I’m sitting in the abbey road studio control room, looking down from a balcony at the interviews, typing a diary and trying to clear the 180 emails pending in my inbox.
I’m accompanied by the adorable baby twins Madison and Amelie, whose dad Giles is producer of the filmed interviews. They are currently fast asleep in their double-twin pram… apart from every few minutes or so when one of them loses their dummy, and gets a bit grumbly, sometimes having a little cry, which inevitably wakes the other little marvel up. They’re wonderful company though, and I’m quite enjoying getting up every now and then, and doing the "shhhh, come on amelie, shhh, you’re alright, awwwwww" when the inevitable big smile comes. Amazing.

So… we did nottingham and birmingham yesterday, on the "Great Signing Tour Of March 2007" both of which were lovely.
Today is London Oxford Circus HMV. Which could be bedlam.

Lets hope so.

As you may have figured, it’s proving tricky to get photos on the diary page, unfortunately, but there’s quite a few cool ones coming, on a new photo gallery, which should grace the site quite soon..

It’s been nice reading the press this week, some lovely and very kind words being said about the band, and about the single. Some quite surprising ones as well, which has been nice.

A few voices of dissent among the amassed ranks, but that’s kinda always been the case… Although one such dissenting review reads
"Apologies for spoiling the love-in, but I’ve never really understood the heaps of critical – and more recently commercial – acclaim that seems to have come the way of Biffy Clyro"

and then goes on to say
"’Mon The Biffy" say their disciples and, I’ve got to say, I’m with them on that one. As in, "Come on Biffy, wake up and write an original, interesting tune!"

Now….

🙂

I’m not going to waste my time or yours dissecting and arguing the review, as the fact you’re reading this diary probably suggest you, like me, realise the oddness of those points in the review.
I can only conclude that he’s confused our biffy with another biffy who write bland uninteresting rock music. We’ll need to get the lawyers on that one, and track down these critically acclaimed uninteresting, unoriginal paupers trading under the Biffy Clyro moniker.

Hang on… dummy/pram/out.

ok, cool, back, two babies, both asleep. result.

So reviews aside, both great and odd alike, things are fairly sunny in the biffy camp just now.

I’ve been mentioning we’ll have tour dates for you soon…
well, I’ve just finished the tour poster, that you’ll see in the press next week, and if I were you, I’d keep your eyes peeled next week, for the announcement… and as always, you signed-up website types will get an exclusive look-in for tickets (as there aren’t going to be that many available across the tour…!)

A lot of people have been asking about festivals.
Officially, we have not announced or confirmed any festivals.
You may read otherwise in the press, as journalists tend to read into comments made by the boys a bit too much, but yeah, we have no festivals confirmed as of now.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a bunch of them on the calendar, but seeing as I dont plan to let any of you near my laptop, you’ll have to hold off for the time being… By the end of the summer, we hope to amass wrists full of cheap plastic wristbands of varying descriptions.

There’s also the matter of the new single. This is currently being chatted about, as we’re in a fairly good position, given that the label have so many prospective singles to choose from.
On previous albums, it’s usually been fairly obvious what would be released, but this time round, it’s a veritable platter to choose from. A singles platter.

We saw the first draft of the final album artwork yesterday as well. It looks fucking rubbish.
It actually looks incredible, and I’m sure my humour was fairly lost in the translation there, but yeah… incredible. Dark, moving, startling, emotional, quite frightening, rich, and completely fitting. And very Biffy. It also continues a loose theme from the first 3 album artworks, which may make sense when you see it.

Someone emailed recently asking about the messageboard… to let you know, the band don’t post on the messageboard. James has done a couple of times, a couple of years ago, but we’ve pretty much left the boards to you guys now, and use the diary and news page as the official ‘team biff’ channel of communication… I’ll post something from time to time, and a few of the record label bods will pop on there to let you know bits and pieces, but not the band… you get to follow their lives vicariously through the medium of the diary I guess.

hang on, it’s amelie this time…
ok, back. babies asleep again.

I might open a creche on the next tour. could be a bit of a money spinner.

Oh! Here’s one I forgot to mention…

So we’re underneath a large shopping centre in Birmingham, in a large underground loading bay / car park. The guys are kicking a football around. I’m watching them kick a football around, and fiddling with the video camera, at which point we see in the distance, two large suited security men walking towards us with serious purpose…

"Turn that camera off" says our suited foe.

"It’s off…" I reply, despite the fact it’s absolutely not off, and the red recording light is shining like satan’s left eye.

"The red light is on…" comes the counter…
"That just means the battery is on"

At which point, the security boys discard the shred of patience they keep in their pocket to help old ladies up shopping mall staircases, and launch directly into their "I’m frustrated I’m not allowed to chase shoplifters and am instead confined to a control room looking at video screens, and am thus going to be an overbearing cock to anyone I feel I can intimidate" mode, with today’s target being, you guessed it, 4 chaps harmlessly knocking a football around a huge underground carpark.

"Two things" comes the voice from across the loading bay…

"Stop playing football, get back in your bus, or get out"

An hour later, after we’d stuffed the last part of his bruised and beaten body into the industrial waste compactor, we strolled up and the band started their signing.

It’s always a drama with us.

anyway, we’re off now to HMV, so I must dash… I’m actually now typing this in a cab, going down Baker Street just where it intersects Marylebone road… so this will be posted later on when the internet returns…

see some of you in HMV….

word.x