The Boy Least Likely To

hooray! we won! we won! our new single, 'the first snowflake' is mark radcliffe and stuart maconie's record of the week on radio two. a big thank you to everyone that voted for us. it's so exciting. mark radcliffe and stuart maconie seemed quite surprised that we'd won, because i think they thought franz ferdinand or headless heroes would. i hope they don't mind that we did. you can hear them play it every night this week between eight o clock and ten o clock on bbc radio two. thank you.

there are some other results that need announcing. i am quite excited to be able to reveal to anyone that doesn't know already that the revel eviction that i wrote about in august has finally taken place. it might actually have taken place a while ago, but the limited edition packets only appeared in the shops in wendover this week. in the end it was the coffee one that got evicted. no surprise there. it's been replaced temporarily by a strawberry one. i had to eat nearly all of the packet to find out because there was only one in there, and i thought at first that it had been replaced by a turkish delight flavour, but that turned out to be a raisin. i really like the strawberry one, it kind of reminds me of a strawberry fruit poppet, and it meant that i didn't have to worry about eating a flavour i didn't like. but at the same time i did find it all a lot less thrilling than it used to be when the coffee one was in there, just because the danger had gone out of it a little bit.

i did my first interview in a while last week. it was odd, a bit like going back to school and trying to use a pen after the summer holidays. i settled in eventually though. it's nice to be back. you can read it over at stereogum, where they're also streaming 'the first snowflake'. i should point out that we are not the same 'the boy least likely to' that posted the comment "this should be amazing" underneath the interview. although i do think it'll be amazing too.

i can't remember if i've mentioned it before, but as well as releasing our new single on december 15th, we're also playing a special christmas show in london, at the hoxton bar and kitchen. tickets are available from ticketweb and cost £7.50 each. the school and mia vigar are playing before us, so i think it's going to be a lovely night.

x

we're releasing a new single on december 15th, just in time for christmas. it's called 'the first snowflake'. we weren't going to mention it until december, because we didn't want it to be like when you put your christmas tree up too early and then by the time it gets to christmas all the pine needles have fallen off, but then mark radcliffe played the single last night on radio two and we couldn't keep it a secret anymore. it was ever so nice of him to play it, and now that it's been played we want it to be played again, so we need everyone to vote for it to be record of the week so that it gets played next week too. we won't be putting the song up anywhere else until the beginning of december, so if you want to hear it you'll have to vote for it and then they'll play it every night on the radio. which would be so exciting.


you can actually hear a tiny bit of the song by clicking here and you can listen to all the other songs too. i really like all the other songs that we're competing against, especially 'the north wind blew south' by headless heroes, which is one of my favourite songs off one of my favourite albums of the year, but hopefully you might like our song the most and if you do then you can vote for it by emailing the show and telling them you like ours best.


radcliffe.maconie@bbc.co.uk

i really hope you like it. happy christmas.

x

we played in cardiff on saturday night, as part of the swn festival. we ended up being offstage quite early even though we were last on, because we'd been on the loose all dayer bill in tommy's bar. i think the show went okay. i still find it quite difficult playing the new songs when i know that no one's heard them yet, but i think we've only got a couple more shows booked in before the album comes out, and one of those is the christmas one, so hopefully i'll find it easier after that. it was nice to be finished by eight o clock because i had a chance to go into the city centre and see some other bands. i went to dempsey's and saw the loves do an acoustic set and the voluntary butler scheme blow up the pa, and then i sneaked off to see golden silvers at kaz bar a few doors down. i thought they were brilliant. i overheated slightly in my duffel coat though. and then i was going to meet up with my friend rob, and we were going to go back to the future inn, where i was staying, and have some drinks in the bar there, but rob decided not to come after all. big mistake.

when i got back to the hotel it was unbelievable. the bar had been transformed into an indie pop nightclub, and all you had to do was show your swn festival pass at the bar and you got all your drinks completely free all night. when i walked in the dj was playing 'carol mountain' by modesty blaise, which was weird, because it's a song that i know my friend rob really likes. i remember thinking at the time that it was really annoying that he didn't come back for that drink, he'd have loved all this i thought. when i went up to the bar to get my first complimentary drink i was served by this really attractive barmaid, who would have been just my friend rob's type, and if that wasn't weird enough, she was wearing one of the new voluntary butler scheme t shirts, and that's the band that my friend rob is in, so she obviously must be a fan of his music. i tried to ring him to tell him to come over, but the music was so loud i couldn't hear anything, so i just sent him a text. the bar was really busy, but not so busy that i was uncomfortable and it wasn't too hot either. it was full of indie pop celebrities. damon gough was there with andy votel, and i saw jarvis cocker talking to the singer from css. i had a quick go on a quiz machine with tjinder singh, while the rest of cornershop were setting up their equipment on a stage in the corner of the bar. he asked me if i'd heard any good new bands lately, but i told him that i couldn't think of any off the top of my head. then afterwards i thought i should have mentioned my friend rob's band, because i know rob's a really big fan of cornershop so it would have meant a lot to him, but i didn't get a chance to speak to tjinder again. if rob asks i'll probably just tell him i told tjinder about his band and that he seemed really interested in hearing some of his stuff. i would have played the quiz machine for longer but we got a question about the rubettes wrong, and neither of us had any more change on us.

i hadn't eaten so i ordered a few pizzas and some chips and went and sat down with the long blondes. i don't know them that well, but one of them used to work in sainsburys with my friend rob, so i kind of know them through him. we were sat on a table near the window, and next to us richard hawley was playing pool with stephen merritt from the magnetic fields. it was winner stays on, so i put a pound down. i should have played richard hawley because he beat stephen merritt, but he said he had to go and meet some friends in a bar in town, so i played stephen instead. i didn't really mind because it gave me a chance to talk to him about the sixty nine love songs album. annoyingly i got a text from hawley later on telling me that the bar he'd met his friends in had been really lame, and that he'd had to pretend to everyone that he was having a really amazing time even though he wasn't at all.

the night at the future inn just got better and better after that. the super furry animals made quite an entrance around one o clock, driving up to the doors in their tank, and then cornershop performed 'when i was born for the seventh time' in it's entirety. i don't really remember going up to my room, but it must have been late because the repeat of match of the day was on. my friend rob sent me a text telling me he'd seen richard hawley in the bar that he'd been in and that he seemed to be really enjoying himself. i didn't dare tell him about the text hawley had sent me. it would have broken his little heart. what a night.

x

we saw daniel from x factor yesterday. he was coming out of a newsagents round the corner from shoreditch high street. pete wasn't at all excited about seeing him, but i was. embarrassingly so. he was only a few feet away, and i just stared straight at him and shook nervously. i think he saw me, i wasn't at all collected or subtle about it.

just to explain, in case anyone doesn't live in the uk or does but has better things to do on a saturday night than eat takeaway pizza and watch tv talent shows, daniel evans is a contestant on the x factor, which is a tv show that is quite similar to pop idol and american idol, except groups and old people can compete in it too. daniel is a pool cleaner from essex, and his wife sadly died while she was giving birth to their daughter. daniel now looks after their daughter on his own. his story is a sad one.

anyway, i always get slightly starstruck when i see people off reality tv shows, and i'm not sure why. it's the same with tv presenters. it doesn't even have to be someone i like. it usually isn't, although i do quite like daniel. i remember one of the only other times i was this excited about seeing someone famous was when i saw george janopolus from the tv dating show 'would like to meet'. he was working as a bouncer somewhere and i was so in awe i had my photo taken with him. it's weird, but i'm never as impressed when i see genuine celebrities like pop stars or film stars. it must be something about the ordinariness of people like daniel and george. it's because they're not particularly famous or always on the tv or making public appearances that it makes it all the more exciting when i do see them. the chances of seeing them seem so much less. they're like folk heroes to me. i suppose it's the same with writers and painters. they're just that little bit more elusive.

anyway, i won't be able to watch x factor this week because we'll be onstage in cardiff while it's on, and then i'm going to miss the results show because i'm going to watch the voluntary butler scheme at another venue. oh well, it's nice to get out and perhaps i'll be able to get back to my hotel room in time to watch it repeated later on. this week the contestants have to sing british songs. i think i'd like daniel to sing the song 'bright eyes', because i think it's the saddest and most beautiful song ever written about death, and after seeing him perform 'to where you are' by josh groban i think it would be a very touching performance. either that or he could do 'daniel' by elton john, just because it would be a bit weird.

here is a list of things i never thought i would mention in a blog:

daniel from x factor
george janopolus
josh groban

i'm sorry. the next blog i write will be all about slint.

x

we're playing in cardiff at the weekend as part of the swn festival and there's a lovely poster that someone has made for it.

we're onstage at seven o clock and are very excited indeed. now we must practice.



x

"i have learnt a great deal from using junk. i have seen life measured out in eyedroppers of morphine solution. i have seen a cell full of sick junkies silent and immobile in separate misery. they knew the pointlessness of complaining or moving. they knew that basically no one can help anyone else. there is no key, no secret someone else has that he can give you. i experienced the agonizing deprivation of junk sickness, and the pleasure of relief when junk thirsty cells drank from the needle. perhaps all pleasure is relief."

– william s burroughs

i feel relieved. i'm sitting on a train on the way in to london, and i know it's a bit early to be thinking about christmas but i'm really excited about it this year. we're doing lots of exciting things for christmas. exciting for us anyway. we're throwing a christmas party and the whole world is invited. but only a couple of hundred people will be able to get in. it's being held at the hoxton bar and grill on monday the fifteenth of december. and then we're doing some other, perhaps even more exciting things, but i'll write about them towards the end of the week.

before that, we're playing in cardiff on saturday the fifteenth of november, as part of the swn festival. we're on at about seven o clock in tommys bar. but if i were you i'd just go down there from lunchtime and stay for the whole day. you might be too drunk to see by the time we come on, but sometimes that's the best way to enjoy us.

so there it is. it hasn't been the most enjoyable year for us, but i think it's going to be fun again now. happy christmas everyone.

x