Early, Early, Early Doors

I've decided to turn my blog into more of blog, and in doing this I'm going to write about what has really became a key theme in my life, being the drummer in the band The Excuses. I'll still write some short stories and abstract stuff from time to time, but for now this just makes more sense.

I'll start off with a very brief history of the band. We formed early in 2010, practiced and wrote a fair bit, began gigging in April and haven't really stopped since, playing venues like The Button Factory, Crawdaddy, Andrews Lane Theatre in Dublin and last but not least, the dearest Harbour Bar in Bray!

The earliest thing I remember about the band is our first practice in our first practice place, a born-again Christian warehouse turned youth club in Little Bray on a very cold, very dark Wednesday in November 2009. Paul and I had talked about jamming for a few months and had put off actually starting for 4 or 5 weeks, so long in fact that the guy who opened the warehouse for us and let us practice probably wouldn't have ever let us start if we postponed it even a week longer, my 5th consecutive cancelling of our Wednesday night slot had clearly irked him. In any case, with our future lead guitarist and husky vocalist David in his sick bed in a terrible state, whinier singer/rhythm guitarist Paul and his bass slapping brother Alan and I went to practice. We instantly weren't a hit with the crowd who frequented the place, with their first impression of Paul ending with him cursing his "shitty old guitar," I should have told him they don't like swearing. As we walked onto the stage in the back room of the warehouse which was occasionally used to throw gigs, Paul asked if we should run through Evil by Interpol just to see where we all stood. I had learned this in the few weeks previous since it was the flagship song of the guys older band, Las Armas.

So the first song we ever played was just the three of us, we produced a very bare and very rough cover of this brilliant song. I'd known Alan from around for years but never had anything close to a relationship with him (oh how that would change!) unlike with Paul as we had always been in the same close group of friends but just never been very close ourselves (change, change, change!). I'll forever remember what Alan said directly after the song though "I didn't know you were actually a good drummer!" How wrong he was! I'm not great now by any stretch of the imagination, but back then I spent weeks struggling to learn Hang Me Up To Dry and Evil because I simply didn't have the ability to play them. I'd been drumming for years but never had any extended practice and was really, really awful!

The rest of the practice went surprisingly well, for a lot of failed tries I'd never actually jammed with what could have been a real band before. This practice is also when we first played Don't Drop Me. The Doran's had written this song acoustically and been playing it for probably a year or so but this was the first time it would have drums to it. The drums were originally a very simplified version of the beat from Where I End And You Begin by Radiohead. I never usually take beats directly from a song but this track is special, I've listened to it thousands and thousands of times, no exaggeration at all. Its easily my favourite song of all time, its alternate title is what this blog is named in honour of and this drumbeat is the one that inspired me to learn the instrument which I love so much now, it was only fitting that the first song I ever crafted drums to was in the mould of the brilliant Phil Selway. All this being said, since the song has evolved over the months the drums have actually become much changed to what they originally were.

We finished the practice and went for a pint down in the old Harbour Bar. If anyone had have herd the music we were playing they would have acknowledged that it was complete shambles, but much like the first practice in The Commitments, it was definitely a start. Plus it was the first time we'd played two of our current mainstays, Hang Me Up To Dry and Don't Drop Me (Here is a live performance of Don't Drop Me and Hang Me Up To Dry @ The Button Factory last month)

The same time the following week we were to have our first practice with David O'Rourke, oh how I didn't realise how much this would change my life as the man who I barely knew at that time is now one of my dearest friends and one of the few people who make me hold on to what little faith I have in humanity! But thats something that I'll write about another day.

Great God!
Shelbs

Untitled

There's a gap between the trains
There's a way to the woods
Where they're sorry for a lot
Because the end is beautiful

Son you make me so proud
When I'm high as the clouds
You make me so proud
But I wish I could come down

And I'm sorry for your birth
The aliens rule the earth
The sky is dark and green
And beautiful

To escape my mind
To escape my mind
To escape mankind
To escape my mind

Please pardon all this day
As we feel our souls decay
Pardon all this day
It hurts forever to try

There should have been a place
The father taught his ways
And he loved always
Not in his sleep

To escape my mind
To escape my mind
To escape mankind
To escape my mind

I'll escape my mind
I'll escape my mind
You'll escape mankind
I'll escape my mind

Shameless Plugging of Band on Blog

Not that this is something I want to get in to a habit of, but I'm so proud of my band The Excuses and the live set we played at The Button Factory for the launch of my uncles book Gurriers that I felt I had to share it on this.

Live at The Button Factory by The Excuses

As The Bullet Flies

Oh, as I sit in this lobby in the House of Commons, the heart and mind of my beloved England, I wonder what will be the consequence of this seemingly normal day, the eleventh in this month of May, in this year of 1812. I stroke the gun which sits in the specially tailored pocket on the inside left of my overcoat as I watch these filthy dogs go about their daily bidding. I pay special attention to the great doors opposite the bench I sit on, my weeks spent lingering in here in the spare hours of my day have thought me that it is these doors that the man I want will walk through, for today England shall lose its head of state. Alas, his fate has been sealed since I spent those four years of hell in that Russian prison to have him simply turn his back on me, to have his servants tell me I should take whatever liberty I felt proper for they would not compensate the ruining of my myself and my family! Well, well! That liberty shall be the termination of Mr Spencer Percevals life by me, the perfectly reasonable and sensible John Bellingham.
The reason I wonder, or worry even, is that I fear my individual act of vengeance may inspire a chain of similar deeds from countrymen who feel they were wronged or hold some shallow motive taking the final option of the life of the head of state. As sure I am these politicians will preach that was my motive, I am that I do not want this to become of our green and pleasant land! That is the status quo of those revolutionary fools in France or America and should never be here. I hope on all that is good that this will not happen, I fear that my family simply could not live with the horror of that along with unbearable shame I shall undeniably bestow upon them. My wife has already conveyed her idea that I am losing touch with my mind and the reality we live in and has frequently pleaded with me to simply live life and try and simply let lie my heavy history. Unthinkable.
The clock strikes ten minutes past five. The doors open, but none of the figures who walk through are Mr Perceval. They are either too tall or their noses too small to be that doomed man. With this thought comes rising doubt, I have a sudden urge not to complete my task. Although he is just 49, Spencer bears the face of a man who has lived much more years. As Prime Ministers go, he has not been a bad one to say the least, although he is not the most intelligent of men it cannot be denied he is a hard worker who loves his country. But it is not even this which is defeating my urge to kill him, it is his pathetic appearance that I have noted these last weeks. Surely the world, the country, the jury will look so harshly on me for killing such a man of such pitiful physical appearance, such a meek man, for despite my years of malnutrition I stand so tall and so powerful over the majority of those who walk these corridors and the majority of those who walk the common streets.
The clock now stands at a quarter past five and now there is no time to dwell on these thoughts as the door opens and Mr Perceval walks through. I stand up, hand firmly on my gun. I walk in his direction. He takes no notice of me as he is conversing with a fellow M.P. While drawing my gun I speak with a venom which is surprising even to myself.
"Your position can't save you now!" I take aim at his heart and pull the trigger. Every single politician turn their filthy necks as the booming sound of the gunshot rings out throughout these corridors, like the sound that would have ran through the Palace of Westminster had Guy Fawkes succeeded with his gunpowder plot. But he didn't, and I did.
"Murder!" shouts that sorry soul as he falls backwards into the arms of one of his ministers. As I calmly walk back to take my seat I am overcome with two very different things. One is the politicians restraining me (I can even hear Isaac Gascoyne shout "Bellingham, that bastard is Bellingham!") but what seems infinitely more real is the fact that I am the first man to take the life of an English head of state, and with that there is a very bizarre sense of pride in myself, my actions but most of all my country.



One week later, John Bellingham was hanged in public for the assassination of Spencer Perceval. This murder was the only successful attempt on the life of a British Prime Minister.

Further Reading/Listening!

A brilliant summary of John Bellingham's life on Wikipedia.

An ever more brilliant song and music video inspired by the murder, also this is what inspired me to write the story. Spencer Perceval by iLiKETRAiNS.