Collider: MSP

CW says - The riff that comes in halfway through the track is one that I wrote in my university room sometime in 2002/2003. 6 or 7 years later I played it in Regan’s living room and he told me it sounded like Manic Street Preachers. I was abhorred; as a former teenage metaller I had catalogued the Manics (based on ‘Design For Life’ and ‘If You Tolerate This...’) under “wuss music”. After being thrust a copy of their Holy Bible album, I was forced to recant any previous opinions: Holy Bible is now one of my all time top albums. MSP is also the airport code for Minneapolis-St Paul.

R-Man - THAT riff is a super pop hook, and sure fire million seller.  We’re just a bland vocal and a dodgy haircut away from never having to work again.

There is a moment after the intro where we had a choice of which guitar track to use...if you listen carefully you can hear some string buzz on the one we chose.  A little organic garnish on a bed of machine mash!

CW - Oh yeah, since I’ve not mentioned the dweebery yet, the guitars on the whole album are my Gibson SG Special and Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster (the ‘Black Lodge’ Tele with my custom paint job, but before we rewired it I think), basically just into a Rat into a Vox AC30. For pretty much the whole album there’s just one track of each guitar, playing the same thing, however Benn decided to mix it!

Collider

After much anticipation, Great Men are delighted to announce that earlier this week we released our debut album Collider!

You can download it for free on our brand new website, what R-man crafted himself from rocks and earth: www.great-men.co.uk

We recorded the album in London with Mr MCG of Ulterior, who kindly contributed chrome production, huge snares, cyborg pterodactyls and man screams. We then shipped it off to Amsterdam for Mr Zlaya (producer of Sonic Youth amongst many others) to master. Big thanks also to Mr GWM, bourbon drinker and nonsense-tolerator, for designing the graphics.

We're tremendously proud of Collider and would love to hear what you think. If you do find something you like, please tell your friends!

Enjoy Collider with our compliments,

Chris and Reegs

Rocktober 2011

Wow is it already a year since our triumphant triumvirate of our Camden show with Ginkinta and Monsters in the Attic, our Shazam session, and our blood, beer and flames glory in Nottingham with Ulterior?

This October might not be quite so adrenalised, but we are playing in central London on Wednesday October 5th at The Comedy courtesy of Dead or Alive Promotions. We're aiming to record the gig so if it comes out okay and we don't have any massive disasters I'll put some stuff up for download soon. There's a Facebook event here.

It's been quiet here recently as I've been over in Sydney and R-man has been realising his dream of adventure on the high seas by borrowing a narrowboat. I tend to check in on Twitter when possible so do come and say hello to us there.

See you on the 5th!

Return of the Son of the Space Octopus

Well it's been a busy week in Great Men's registered office here in Holloway.

We had our first high volume practice in months, then followed it up with a gig at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes. Thanks to the folk that came along (including you Frank Skinner)! No photos have surfaced yet but I'll let y'all know when they do.

On Friday we sadly waved off The Fabulous H-Town Savage as she has gone to conquer the Australian music scene. We dealt with it in our own ways: Regan overcame his fear of heights and climbed to the top of some trees at Kew Gardens (rumours of faeces flung at passersby have yet to be confirmed or denied). Then we went and hung out on a wall in Hackney with that Scottish one from Ulterior and ate sausages.

The natural way to follow a night spent sitting on a wall was to hang out in a cemetery. Here's the proof:




The weekend rounded off with some CD shopping at the mighty Music Video Exchange in Notting Hill with Hugh Grant and that naked guy. Then we went to see Obzerter, Regan's very first metal gig. I'm not saying it was a revelation, but here's what he looks like just one day later:



By the way, did you know we have a YouTube channel now? We'll probably get shut down soon so have a look while you can.

Guest Men

The many legions of Great Men fans who have been pining for us to appear onstage in 2011 got a taster last week.

First off on Wednesday it was our good buddies Ulterior's album launch party at the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen in That London. (I'm allowed to say that for 2 more weeks). The show opened with a cracking arrangement of the album closer Shallow Brown, featuring the inimitable harmonica and fashion stylings of Mr Regan Aloysius Naughton. It was a cracking gig and although I unfortunately couldn't make any of the other tour dates I gather there were also some sweet blues sounds from our man R-Man in Leeds and Nottingham.



Thursday was a pretty solid day: big breakfasts at Delicio's in Kentish Town (the finest cafe this side of anywhere), then we hopped on the bus to check out my new locale in Holloway. We got through 3 afternoon pints in the pub across the road from my flat so I'd say that's a result.

Then it was off to the Bowery for me, delivering another guest bass spot with Ginkinta. I do hereby proclaim it to have been a sweet gig. There was a great headlining set from Leeds rockabilliers (yes that's right) X-Ray Cat Trio, support band Fighting Fiction were spotted outside burning bibles (not really) and I'm not sure what the middle aged punks who came on first were called but they did their best to 'tood out as many people as possible before playing. I managed to play a whole set of bass without developing blisters! Look out Claypool!



Watch this space Great Men fans for not only are we discussing the possibility of actually playing a gig together, but I've just recorded guitar and machine on a demo of Magnum Myers which I'll share with y'all soon. So far it sounds like getting your face punched off in the 1970s.

This and That

Happy March everyone!

Here are some things that are happening at Great Men HQ:

We finished our track Magnum Myers and have pretty much got another new one sorted; we're thinking of a superfluids related name, suggestions so far include Nathaniel and Superfluid or λ.

Hopefully we're going to record another live EP sometime in the foreseeable future featuring these tracks plus the hitherto unrecorded Staymaker (there's a demo of this on the myspace).

Excitingly I am moving to That London at the end of March! At which point it will of course be referred to simply as This London. Fear not though, you haven't heard the last of Great Men.

Speaking of London, might I recommend a rocktastic coming week: on Wednesday March 9th our good friends Ulterior are having their album launch at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen. Then on Thursday night I am once more guesting on bass with Ginkinta at the Bowery on New Oxford Street (formerly The Fly).

By the way the aforementioned Ulterior album, Wild in Wildlife, is tremendous and you should get it. Look out for a guest appearance from R-Man on guitar and harmonica.

Epicurean Dreams

Here at Chrome Towers we’ve grown used to Paul Anthony Ulterior’s (or Honey to his friends) delusion of grandeur. We smiled sweetly at his claim to have circumvented the 2^nd Law of thermo dynamics with a magnet powered car and shuffled nervously away from his all too organised plan for non-masked vigilantism…Lately his Father Dougal like in-ability to discern dreams from reality have taken a truly supernatural twist.

Having been watching watchmen a little often Honey has been regularly dreaming that he is in fact 100 feet tall and made of blue. So regularly he rarely speaks of anything else and is now actually planning what he would do when it really happens. Really… His first act? To eliminate the two largest evils of the world: Religion and Mankind’s ability to end it self through thermo-nuclear destruction.

(although if I got Ally Sheedy as my girlfriend I think its worth the risk).

As a fine anti-theist he was able to support his decision with a Hitchenite booze fuelled moral certainty and cheeky flick of blonde hair. But, countered the assembled hordes of strike team, if you did indeed have the power to banish religion would you not run the danger of merely swapping one god for another albeit bluer one?

Knowing full well that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Honey was confident that if he explained the scientific mechanics by which he was able to achieve these fantastic events, he could prevent people worshiping him. He wouldn't be God or Godlike just himself...but 100 feet tall (where would he get a 100ft leather jacket?) . I admire his resolve but can't help but think a combination of humanity's proneness to genuflect and the allure of power would make a leader-follower relationship almost impossible to avoid. He might have to come up with some rules, some impediment to false idols.

This began to remind me of something…something a little Chuck Heston... something a little Exodus 20:1-17.

You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord Honey, am a jealous Honey, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

If possible, an omnipotent, omnipresent Honey explaining his actions through regular testable scientific means would seem to be the last nail in the coffin for God.

Or does it.

Since the enlightenment, God has been increasingly living in the gaps in scientific knowledge and become entirely super natural. If we grant that a big blue god-like being with big blue god-like powers can explain those powers through natural testable laws, then we have to concede that other god-like beings regardless of their colour can also do this. God then stops being entirely super-natural and therefore (ever-so slightly possibly) exists.

We can now believe in the existence of God. As long as my friend is a 100 foot tall, naked, blue man who can do magic. Looking for some decent leather. Which he isn’t. Yet.

Makes as much sense as any other revelation I suppose…

Chocolate Trousers

We started writing a new song last week. It's so massive it may not fit in conventional venues. The good news is that U2 can retire now.

Then this weekend was jam-packed full of awesome. We cruised down on Friday night to check out Ulterior's single launch at Electrowerkz in Islington. There was lots of leather, beer and a hilariously decrepit pool table (true to form, R-man hustled and I was terrible).

After another satisfying fry-up at Delichio's, R-Man headed off for the train with Benn's Brother while H-Town and I went to check out the Zappa happenings (or Zappanings, if you won't) at the Roundhouse. Although we didn't actually have tickets for any of the events, it was awesome just hanging out in the venue - non-stop Frank on the speakers, blown-up album covers everywhere, and some fun interactive stuff to do. Here's me with one of my favourites (the Läther album would have been rock's first quadruple album if the record company had had the udders to release it back in the 70s).

Then we caught Stewart Lee doing some new material for his next TV show. If you know Stewart Lee then you know I can't do justice to repeating any lines here. If you don't know him then you should check him out, an accomplished technical comedian - rivalling classic Harry Hill but with anger instead of silliness.

What's next for Great Men? Other than writing this new material, getting the album mixed and maybe sneaking out a cheeky live EP, we're off for a pint. See you at the Crown in 15.

PS - I apologise to all the regular readers who were looking forward to another photo of us eating in a London cafe.

PPS - Regan shared his Snickers with me in the car but I dropped a bit and it melted on my trousers.

PPPS - That wasn't a euphemism.

The Lords of Rocktober: Return of the Rock

Another early morning back at The Swamp for me, programming the drum machine in my pyjamas. How it got in my pyjamas I'll never know. An hour and a half and a glass of OJ later, our complete repertoire was in there and chromed to the hilt.

I think it's fair to say that Another Evening With Great Men was a success. The venue was once again full to capacity, and we enjoyed a documentary / night-vision chav horror mash-up from the Turrells, and a smoke-vision leather chrome-up from Ulterior.

I enjoyed our set a lot. I bled all over my Telecaster and sweated all over everything else. My beer poured itself all over the new drum machine and a monitor (fortunately nowhere near any of my wayward fluids) set on fire.

Thanks in no particular order to: Ulterior; Nick 'the long-suffering tour manager' Gough; John and Tom Turrell; H-Town and T-Fran for collecting money, selling t-shirts, and keeping the peace with wayward Portugese visitors; Nick and Simon at the Chameleon; DJ Howie Mac for rescuing the spillage; and Shawshank Poxon, future documentarian extraodinaire!

My apologies to the surprised attendees who had been told that Great Men were a folk duo...

Rock Week!

This is the week we've all been waiting for! Here's the lowdown:

Monday 18th October

We kicked off the week with a loud rehearsal deep under the streets of Nottingham. Big In Japan came along for the ride and captured this moment as proof of the rock in the room:

Tuesday 19th October

Craig David taking us for a drink.

Wednesday 20th October

More practising!

Thursday 21st October - Tommy Flynn's, Camden

We're on early - 7:30 - so get down early for our first ever London gig. Although strictly speaking to most of the London crowd all our songs are new, we will be giving Messerschmitt its live premiere, the first time anywhere in the universe! Later in the night I will be guesting on bass in all-girl punk band Ginkinta. Bring one of these flyers for cheap entry, and tell them Great Men sent you!

Friday 22nd October

We're off to the Shazam Live Lounge to do a session, probably some new material that's not on the album! Check out the awesome Foxy Shazam video, in whose footsteps we will be following. Later on we'll be Oystering round London like a couple of tourists.

Saturday 23rd October - Chameleon, Nottingham

We're hosting our second Evening With Great Men, again featuring the films of The Turrell Brothers to open the show, and this time we're the support band, with our pals Ulterior headlining. Chameleon is just off Market Square, near The Bell - it's above Clinton Cards (physically and socially). Get down for 8pm and let the good times roll!

Sunday 24th October

We're dividing to conquer: R-Man will be checking out our hombres The Cupid Stunt at Nottingham's Hockley Hustle, and I recommend you do too. I would if not for the fact that I'm off to see one of my all-time favourite guitarists, Adrian Belew. Thela hun ginjeet!

Hopefully see y'all at one or more of the gigs!

Waiting For Rocktober

It's all action at GMHQ as preparations for possibly the rockingest month ever continue! After a couple of months of writing new material at semi-respectable suburban Beeston volume levels, we decided it was time to crank it up to a near-Tufnel 2 (I have an extremely loud amp - Fender Dual Showman 100w head for the geeks out there). Our good friends and accomplished hat-wearers the Saboteurs have kindly let us take up a temporary residence in their practice room deep beneath Nottingham's darkest backstreets.

The haziness of this photo might be due to the high density of rock in the air. Or it may be because my phone camera lens was very dirty. We won't know for sure until the results come back from the lab.

We've also begun to think about the setlists we'll be putting together for our coming engagements. Committed fans can rest assured that every show will be different. Here's a sneak preview of what we expect our setlist on October 23rd (Chameleon, Nottingham) to look like:

Also coming soon in Great Men land: new t-shirts! Watch this space. In the meantime if you haven't been paying attention, here is the lowdown on our major UK tour:

Thursday October 21st - Tommy Flynn's, Camden. With Ginkinta and Monsters in the Attic.

Saturday October 23rd - Chameleon, Nottingham. With Ulterior and films from The Turrel Brothers.

Mountain Goats and the perfect Scotch Egg

Hello there!

Here's a few things that happened to me this week. This is what blogs are for right?

I saw The Mountain Goats for the first time ever, which is awesome because they're one of my favourite bands. They played at Koko in Camden and glancing at Youtube it looks like a few people have done some cheeky videos so here's one that in no way proves I was there but does indeed prove the gig happened. Why would I lie? The high point of the set for me was my all-time favourite Mountain Goats track, Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod? I totally recommend the album The Sunset Tree, it's one of my top albums.

The next cool thing to happen was that the Turrell Brothers agreed to open An Evening With Great Men vs Ulterior with another film set. Everyone who packed out the last Evening With Great Men will agree that their last 30 minutes of film was a masterclass that made us laugh, cry, think and shut up. That's on 23rd October 2010 at Chameleon in Nottingham - if you're on the Facebook here's the event.

There's not enough space on the internet to list everything I did, but Cooking With Great Men fans will be delighted to hear that this week I made Scotch Eggs for the very first time. I've always thought Scotch Eggs were a delicious but perplexing foodstuff: how did the egg get in there, and how exactly did someone come up with the idea anyway?! Anyway turns out it's pretty straightforward to make them:

As you know, Great Men Smash Laws! Hence my next question to myself, to you dear reader, and to the universe is: What would be the ultimate scotch egg?

Some things to consider would be:

• Type of meat (or meat alternative)
• Type of egg
• Type of bread from which to get the breadcrumbs
• Replacing the egg with something else
• Getting cheese involved in some way (guaranteed way to improve anything)

Let me know. If I get a good enough suggestion I will make some for both me and the inventor to enjoy. If you live a long way away I will post it or get a strong person to throw it. If the universe comes up with the best idea, I guess the only way to share it would be to divide it by zero.

Rocktober and the Twitdome

Guten Tag!

I am totally psyched about next month so wanted to make sure all twelve of our fans are clued up on the following rocking events:

Great Men's First Ever London Gig!

That's right, you heard right! The Fabulous H-Town Savage strikes again as we'll be playing not only with her band Ginkinta, but with our mutual friend and my rock brother Robin's band Monsters in the Attic.

Hear some of our new tunes for the very first time at Tommy Flynn's in Camden on Thursday October 21st!

Another Evening With Great Men: vs Ulterior!

After the jam-packed success of our last Evening With Great Men, we return to Chameleon in Nottingham on Saturday October 23rd with our good friends Ulterior on the eve of their Sex War Sex Cars Sex single launch. Expect chrome.

Hopefully we'll also have some cool new t-shirts available for these gigs, anyone fancy a Springsteen Stallone design to accompany our American Dream essay?

One last thing - we've just lurched forward on our quest to embrace nearly-archaic technology and signed up for Twitter. I haven't got much of a clue what it does or how to work it so if you're down with that then tweet us up and welcome us into the Twitdome. http://twitter.com/great_men

Hot Meat, Live Chrome and the all new Bass Machine

Greetings Chrome fans, much to tell from the land of Great Men. C-Bomb promised that we would place electricity back in its rightful place at the centre of the noise universe and we haven’t disappointed. Reminding us of the rumble of a WW2 fighter-bomber we’ve tentatively called the new tune Messerschmitt.

Few kinks and curls to iron out but we reckon it will be ready for our next outing on 23rd October where we will be joined by dear friends and favourites Ulterior. This will be a VERY special night so dust down your leathers, perfect that snare punch and get ready for a joyous noise.

R-Man may well be able to raise the curtain on his new Bass Machine (if the US company he bought the bits from can workout the difference between right and left and send the correct bits). Here’s a rare photo of him doing something like manual labour and substance abuse.

Here's a sneak preview of the creature in question.

Mental Benn has now mixed another gem for the album and Great Men cannot stop grinning everytime we hear it. Ridley Scott will have to make a new Director’s Cut of Bladerunner just so this can be on the soundtrack, honestly.

Quick shout to The Cupid Stunt who played last night and were immense fun – the boys have added a touch of bizarre performance to proceedings. Imagine Marty Feldman and Cousin It mixing it up with Matchbox 80. Luvverly.

Cyborg Pterodactyl

A number of cool things have happened in Great Men town this week. Firstly we got the first mixed track from our album back from Mental Benn. It is so awesome that I couldn't express it purely in words, so I've drawn a picture:

Then at the weekend we stepped way out of our comfort zones to play an acoustic set. R-man and I take slightly different levels of enjoyment and comfort from acoustic sets - see if you can tell the difference from the following photographs:

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one week, our good friends Ulterior were asked to support Sisters of Mercy again! So off we went for a rocking double bill in Leamington Spa, undisputed rock capital of the Coventry area.

Fear not Great Men fans, the acoustics have been stashed away in their cases and the electrics came out last night - another new tune is well on its way and we can't wait to premier Staymaker and Spectators at an Execution on the concert stage!

Tonight we're off to see our old compadres The Cupid Stunt, let the rock continue!

Cooking with Great Men : Risotto Pizza

As regular readers will know, Great Men have a close relationship with Ulterior, particularly brothers Benn and Paul. While Benn is busy working on our album down in That London, Benn's Brother is part of the Beeston Strike Team - we're kind of like the Algonquin Round Table. One of our staples is the Awesome Night, which generally involves awesome food, awesome beers, awesome company, awesome music and awesome videos.

For some time now, Benn's Brother has been threatening to combine some of his favourite foods: pizza and risotto. This week, I challenged him to make it happen at an Awesome Night.

Ingredients

2 onions

3 cloves of garlic

1 chilli

3 sprigs of rosemary

2 handfuls of arborio rice

1 generous glug of white wine

Olive oil

1 litre of vegetable stock

2 deep pan margherita pizzas

Parmesan

Rocket

Salt

Black pepper

Van Halen - Van Halen

Frank Zappa - Zappa in New York

A young Tom Hanks

Beers

At this point you're probably thinking "Are these the most rock and roll guys, like, ever?".

Method

1. Put Van Halen on the stereo.
2. Chop your onion, garlic, chilli and rosemary up and get it sweating in the olive oil in a frying pan.
3. Get the pizzas cooking in the oven.
4. Add salt, pepper and rice to the pan.
5. Once the rice is starting to go translucent at the edges, add a generous glug of wine.
6. By now Van Halen has probably finished, so put on Zappa in New York. Pay particular attention to The Black Page drum solo.
7. Once the wine is being taken in by the rice, start adding the stock. Continue to add the stock gradually as it is absorbed.
8. When the pizzas are a couple of minutes away from completion, take them out and depress the cheese covered centre by about a centimetre, leaving the deep pan ridge around the outside. This is what we call Gastronomic Architecture.
9. When the stock is all absorbed and your risotto is nice and gloopy, ladel it gratuitously into the pizza reservoir you've created.
10. Grate a generous layer of parmesan on top and season with black pepper.
11. Return to the oven until the parmesan is crisped.
12. Plate it up and put a good handful of rocket on top of each.
13. Serve with a can of beer and a DVD of Joe Versus The Volcano.

Warning: This may kill you.

If you try out our Awesome Recipe, please let us know how you got on. Have you got any other cool ideas for recipes? Variations on a theme include Risotto Calzone and Jambalaya Pizza.

Postcards From The Feedback Den

We've just got back from an awesome few days down in That London, recording our album and doing all manner of other cool things. Here's a blow by blow account, the names have not been changed to protect the innocent:

We travelled down on the train on Friday afternoon with a couple of reebs. We were supposed to have been playing a gig that evening but it had been cancelled when it transpired that the venue was only licensed for a "moderate" amount of awesomeness, and we couldn't guarantee that we wouldn't exceed that. So instead we holed up in a lovely little pub and talked politics with my good friend Claire and her entourage.

On Saturday we headed over to Shoreditch to meet Benn, machine meistro in Ulterior and our close personal friend who'd invited us down so he could produce our album. The fun times flowed thick and fast and we managed to get my guitars down for 8 tracks. Some of my favourite moments of the session were Ben laughing uncontrollably all the way through one of my takes, and our inspired construction of a "feedback den" to get the sound we needed for the first solo on Hot Meat. That evening we had the pleasure of meeting The Fabulous H-Town Savage whose energy both onstage with her band and offstage was formidable.



On Sunday R-Man nailed the bass for all the tracks and McG started work on chroming our drum sound. The highlight of the day for me was when he dropped the biggest snare you've ever seen onto No Fear Of Humans and we all punched the air involuntarily for what seemed like a blissful eternity. We followed it up with the Ulterior staples of London living: street drinking and a Vietnamese buffet. No that's not a euphemism.



On Monday we had lunch with my old pals Robin and Louise, then collected our friend Shaw from St Pancras. Shaw insists that he's our manager, but unfortunately his knack of leaving his satchel behind everywhere he goes leaves me feeling uneasy: that could be my drum machine in there! We then visited the London Film Museum which was disappointing and a bit light on material: Great Men unrecommends! After a pint of Cotswolds lager we were back in the game and met the wonderful Ros for a tour round Parliament. Once Shaw's collection of concealed weapons had been confiscated at the door, we got to see all manner of awe-inspiring rooms, including being left unsupervised in the House of Lords. We then had some reebs in the Parliament 'Sport and Social' Bar before dining like kings in the Parliament cafeteria. Then after a brief meet with Mandelson (I'm pretty sure we were papped - let me know if you see any photos), we had to move on to the evening's main event, a Pavement gig at Brixton Academy. The culmination of most of Regan's life's work, I'll let him tell that story. I enjoyed it tremendously though, and celebrated in true London style with some fried chicken.



On Tuesday we collected our equipment from the studio and bid Benn a fond farewell, before meeting our Strike Team comrade Macca (aka Benn's Brother) for some lunchtime drinks to handover responsibility for London's rock status as we hopped on the train back to Nottingham.

Now I just can't wait for the mixes: they'll blow all of your minds!

For a full photographic record of the trip, check out our Facebook page.

Staymaker

We just finished writing a new song called Staymaker. The title is inspired by Thomas Paine as we've both just read a book about him by Christopher Hitchens which I'd thoroughly recommend. We've demoed a working version of the song, but we've yet to put the eyebrows on it. That's us up there 'laying some track'.

The real magic is happening next weekend though when we're recording for real down in That London with our good friend Mental Benn, perhaps for a real life record to come out. We're also going to hang out in Parliament and see Pavement. Which is possibly even cooler than hanging out on a sidewalk and seeing Funkadelic. There's a high five going for everyone who stayed on my wavelength through that sentence.

Oh yeah, we're playing a gig in Nottingham on May 20th at the Golden Fleece on Mansfield Road, which promises to be a hoot because they serve nice beer and everything. I might play my sweet looking Black Lodge Telecaster. I'm an idiot who spray paints guitars to look like things from Twin Peaks.