Six Million Ways To Die (choose one)

Hola A Todo El Mundo, this weird band from Madrid are getting more media coverage than Penelope Cruz’ cleavage this month. They’re doing interviews with everyone from El Mundo to Mondo Sonoro. Myspace have chosen them as their highlighted band of the week and they’ve been building up their tally of gigs played in a pleasantly workaholic manner. From three to 6 in 2 weeks isn’t bad for a band who made some demos, hand made the sleeves and then didn’t get round to recording the CD’s.

Beneath all the hype there’s a few people unsettled by this sudden rush of publicity for a new band. For a start their live shows are still a bit shabby. The songs are undeniably brilliant, and each of the 6 members brings something else to the sound – shouty boy/girl choruses, melodica solos, or the type of euphoric violin breakdowns more common on GYBE! than on pop songs.

Hitting Spanish crowds with this kind of thing though, is risky. A typical gig audience is made up of fashionably dressed cultural retards, fucked up on coke and whiskey, and raised on europop. It’s like rather than slowly building a scene by taking risks on booking great foreign bands (like delorian just did with Radioclit - who cares that there were only 50 people there? It was a fucking blast.), making Madrid an essential stop on the indie touring circuit and then sitting back with a smile as a whole army of inspired kids take to the streets and build the revolution one fanzine at a time, throwing a band as delicate and visionary as HATEM right into the established scene is a bit irresponsible. Yes they deserve wider exposure, but this should come from the inside out, right?

Regardless of all this, they still make me smile like I’ve just seen a kitten in a wig tied to a pink balloon sailing over a rainbow, and clara and me did a big ‘Hola A Todo El Mundo’ graffiti on the wall of a bassment last night, complete with clouds and expert shading.

Incedently I’ve spent the entire week spraypainting shop shutters, which means my hands look like I’ve got leprosy and my lungs and nose are both totally full of little particles of montanna hardcore spraypaint. Not cool. Not by a long way

Nightlife Nightlife

Ah shit, Glass Candy rocks. I haven't been out at night for a little while. Well not the 20 hr, gram of coke, next day bars and having stupid fun with new friends kind of night anyway. I kind of miss it. Justice have just released ANOTHER single off the recordwithoutakeyonthekeyboardforthetitle, everything is hotting up here in madrid, and last summers friends are coming out of the woodwork again. Last summer with the ed-banger thing, new MIA stuff and not having anything get in the way of tuesday nights, it was like riding this wave of new faces and stupid conversations for three months. I was splitting up with my ex, who lived in london anyway, and was just enjoying my new flat and flatmates. THen the Vice thing happened which was kind of half unexpected and half totally fucking worked for, and the winter has passed equally as quickly just with other focuses. My girlfriend Flo for instance, who i really cant find anything bad to say about acosted me in the first party we through here, helped me through leaving my flat, put me up and we started working together on the kind of projects i always wanted to be doing but seemed totally out of reach. I've broken computers, lost all my music, been dancing around to new bands that sound like old bands and old bands like the Make Up, Black Lips and Telepathe that keep drawing a line through reality like the raised bump on the other side of a piece of card when you score it with scissors. I've been to London, Portugal, Valencia, and Barcelona so many times it's starting to feel like a torrid second home.
Talking of homes. I had a chat with my new flatmate clara last night, the normal thing about getting fucked up. Isn't it wierd how you always get to that chat before talking about yr parents or whatever. It's like the obligatory new house icebreaker.

www.myspace.com/glasscandy