Goodbye from your hosts, CTA

Ey up. It's the last CTA takeover thingimy, in which we have returned from tour back to Edinburgh and rubbish normal stuff like work and washing machines and having to feel guilty about eating four brambly apple pies in a day.

We wont keep you long -- Mr Kowalskiy is waiting in the wings (likely preparing to wield a large comedy walking stick at this point, to be honest) eager to come back and restore a bit of quality and sanity and real interviewees and whatnot to his blog -- but we thought it was important to take this last moment and have a proper moan about the weather in Edinburgh: it's stupidly cold! Also overcast! It's so bad I've quite literally had to put the heating on. What's that about? This is nothing at all like in London, where we were, on tour -- did we mention? -- where it was so warm folks were all drinking in the streets, getting all tanned and suchforth, at, like, midnight. And we thought it was our jobs, as mostly Scotsmen, do to all the drinking in the streets in London.

Also, we'll should say massive thank yous to loads of folks, not least Mr Kowalskiy for patiently letting us fill up his blog with our nonsense, but also to the fantastic, handsome bands who played our launch shows -- Over The Wall, Poor Things, My Tiny Robots, The Bad Books -- the promoters who agreed to put us on, the generous folks who gave us the use of their beds and sofas and floors and boozes, and everyone who came to our shows and made them such fun. Thanks yous!

Finally massive big thanks to mosaiclawns who recorded most of our set at The Wilminton Arms and uploaded it to the internets. Thanks! Here's it:

Thanks for watching and reading! We're off to finish our album now.

Lots of Love,

Cancel The Astronauts

CT&A with The Bad Books

Morning. We'll be gone soon. Just time though to tell you a bit about one of our favourite new bands, Edinburgh's The Bad Books, a band so new they've only played four gigs and they've only got a Facebook page. They were nice enough to play our single launch the other week. Matthew asked Bad Books' lead singer, Graeme Anderson, some 'hilarious' questions and some real ones.

Your band name is The Bad Books, but what's the worst film you've ever seen?

I am a bad film specialist! I have a knack of choosing dreadful films - Chopper
Chicks in Zombie Town and Spawn are two that spring to mind. The Cameo late
night double bills have a lot to answer for.

Who are The Bad Books and how did you form?

The Bad Books are Scott, Michael, Andrew and myself. I've known Scott for quite
a bit through him playing with The Kays and cutting my hair (plug - Muse
Hairdresser on Ferry Road!). Got to know Michael really well over the last year
and a bit though, our paths have crossed in that Edinburgh goldfish bowl a few
times though. Michael has known Andrew for some time and he got him involved.
They are all stars!

Who was better- Come On Gang! or The Kays Lavelle?

You git! That's a mean question. Come on Gang! rocks the socks off most bands and
The Kays did have a few lovely moments. I'd say Come On Gang! by a rock pose!

What sort of music do you make?

We have a fair amount of influences but I think we all come from a melodic
approach whether that be by a vocal line, guitar riff or synth hook. On top of
that we like to add our own touch of madness but I think most of all we want to
create music that we enjoy playing and people enjoy listening too! Get the fun
element back. I think some bands miss out on that just now.

The last song you play, Victory Lap, features the lyrical refrain "Don't You
Ever Change" repeated over and over again. Isn't that a bit similar to the line
"Don't Ever Change" in the song 'Change' by The Lightning Seeds? Do you worry
about plagiarism?

Ha ha! I mentioned on Sunday about our joint Lightning Seeds
fondness. Ian Broudie was a bit of a legend to me when I was younger but apart
from the use of three words I think we will escape his law suit.

Any plans to release a single or album or anything?

We would love to. We are hoping to get our heads down fairly soon and do some
rough Demos. I am going to try the home recording approach though am hoping to
pick your Chris's brain about a few approaches. We are thinking early December
and would love to see something surfacing early next year.

What's your favourite Cancel the Astronauts song and why?

Honestly I have loads, I am the President. . . . . . and Funny for a Girl are
always ones that I love to hear but I'd say Intervention is my favourite. Why? -
great melody, catchy chorus and you can dance your socks off to it. Fab stuff!!!

Any more gigs coming up?

Nothing booked but keen to get a couple more before the year is out. Trying to
fit gigs and recording together might be difficult though.

Anything else you'd like to tell us?

Not really, i think you've covered all the main things. Worst film? Which one of
our previous bands was better? and Which one of your songs is my favourite?
Surely that hits all the marks. ;)

Not Quite Done

We've not been near a computer recently, which is probably a blessing to be honest.

We were in London, where they don't really have computers, and we played some gigs, which surely can't come as any surprise to you now.

Big thanks to the venerable fellows and chapesses at Death2Disco and Oddbox Records for giving us the opportunity to go down and play in front of such polite, clean and sizeable audiences.

In London we drank outside of pubs on the street A LOT and IN THE SUNSHINE which felt very continental. We also had a curry in Soho. Yum.

In Liverpool we met these folks:

They were pretty much the only people that bothered to come and see us.

CTA: big in Florence and Malmo, but not in Liverpool.

Tonight, in what the press have been quick to label the last night of our tour, is the last night of our tour. It's in Newcastle at the Tyne Bar. COME!

Tomorrow the tour is finished and I'll make Kieran do a final farewell post on Monday, so Kowalskiy knows we're done.

You know he sent us an email the other day which said something like, "Thanks for blogging on my blog! Are you finsihed yet?". We said, "NO."

So a big thanks to Kowalskiy for letting us borrow his internet for thr week: we are neeaarly finished with it.

Love,

CTA xxx

CT&A with Neil from CTA

In the first of what will become a regular feature here on our blog Kowalskiy, I ask Neil (the bassist from Cancel the Astronauts) some questions about being in Cancel the Astronauts.

CTA: Hello Neil.

Neil: Hello CTA.

CTA: Neil, what's it like being in Cancel the Astronauts.

Neil: It's like a dream that you never wake up from. A good dream though, like the ones when you get to be the boyfriend of the girl that you like but that in real life doesn't like you.

CTA: Uh-huh, and what's it like to work with Matt Riley, lead singer of Cancel the Astronauts.

Neil: No one really works with Matt Riley, lead singer of Cancel the Astronauts. Firstly, because it doesn't ever feel like work. It's a pleasure just to be associated with such a talented, and, frankly very handsome, man. Secondly, you don't work with him because work suggests some sort of effort on the part of the person that isn't Matt Riley, when in fact Matt Riley does all the work, such is the drive and ambition of the (frankly very handsome) man.

CTA: If you could describe him in three words then what would it be?

Neil: Three words isn't enough. It would take a Proustian number of words, as well as handy diagrams by Da Vinci and a nice cake by Delia Smith, to even get close to describing him. Still that would be but a shadow of the man himself.

CTA: Someone once said he was quite short. Is that true?

Neil: No. Not at all. No. He's average sized at the very least, and was once described by the police as '6ft'. Think of him as bigger than Jesus, if Jesus had been in The Beatles.

CTA: Has he ever performed any miracles?

Neil: I haven't seen him perform any miracles no, but I know people who have.

CTA: Thanks Neil, this has been very illuminating. Any last words?

Neil: Before I die?

CTA: No, before we finish the interview.

Neil: If I did die then Matt Riley could quite possibly bring me back to life.

CTA: Okay Neil, that's quite enough now thank you very much.

Hello

Hello. We are still Cancel The Astronauts, we've still taken over Kowalskiy in mostly non-violent revolution, and -- in between shouting silly things through megaphones from the Kowalskiy palace balcony -- we've still mostly been on tour. This is what being on tour looks like:

It's thursday. That means we're in London. This is what London looks like:

It's been ace, especially now Michael has stopped vomiting in the tour bus.

Last night we played our first ever show outside of Scotland, expected just about no one to turn up, and were surprised and delighted to find that the exact opposite of no one turned up: everyone! It was loud and sweaty and some of everyone danced and one of Cancel The Astronauts was wearing a sweet t-shirt to do with astronauts.

We've also been trying out some of the cool things bands are supposed to do on tour, like having and manning a merch stand. That's cool. It is hard though. Here is Matty's first attempt at writing a pound sign:

He is a rubbish brain. Here's our eventual merch stall:

Thrilling! Although T-shirts! We've now got t-shirts. Hurrah! Some people have asked for them. We'll probably sell them through some online means when we get back off tour.

Okay, that's enough of the hard sell. Back to the photos.

We played with The Saw Doctors on Troon on Saturday.

It was tremendous. I think we might have mentioned it before on theses pages, but there were 74,000 people there. Afterwards, our bass player Neil managed to forget to put his bass back in the van, and blithely drove off to Edinburgh without it. The next night was a bit like that bit in Superman 2 where Superman lost his powers, only Neil didn't know he'd lost his powers, and spent ages looking in the back of his van for his powers. By the end of the night he was just a man. Just a man. A powerless, bassless man.

Luckily one of the volunteers for Live@Troon, Katie, in an act of extraordinary kindness for which we are forever grateful, went several miles above and beyond the call of duty and brought through to our Glasgow gig. Thanks Katie!

Neil and his bass. Balance restored to the universe. Hurrah!

Okay, apparently it is breakfast time, and the rhythm section have scouted out a suitable breakfasting experience out in That London, so More Later! and that.

Here is one more picture, of Matthew, who insisted I posted it because he thinks he looks handsome in it:

The Cat With Its Head In The Clouds

It was a wet Wednesday morning in January, 19-, when Officer Harry Kowalskiy came across the cat with its head in the clouds. How it got there he didn't know, and if you ask him today, thirty years on, how that ragged ball of fluff had managed to climb 176 stories (that's well over 2000ft folks) through pounding rain and winds that reach up to 100mph, to the very peak of Hughes' Heights, he'll give you this answer: "Beat's me!"

"It was just another day. I was on foot patrol. I turned a corner, and there she was," recalls Harry. "Just standing there, as close to me as you are now, but still I could barely see her because of the mist up there. She didn't seem scared or frightened but the little girl was covered in mud and dirt, and soaking wet. She was so thin! I picked her up and she was freezing cold. There was always a strong wind blowing that high up and in winter, with the wind chill factor and all, it never got above freezing."

Harry remembers putting the cat inside his thick woollen jacket (he had to wear two when he was outside of an insulated building or vehicle, as well as gore-tex gloves, a specially designed balaclava and goggles), turning up his collar against the fierce January gales, and hurrying back to the small block of crumbling buildings which acted as 'District' headquarters half a mile up in the New York sky.

"I got back inside," says Harry, "and rushed to show my partner Marge just what I'd found." Officer Margery Scott had been Harry's partner up there for five years - there was not a hint of romance between them Marge assured me with a shy smile (I had to ask!) - and never in their time working together had they seen an animal. Pets were forbidden and birds still keep away; some say because of toxic materials, but the state governor will never admit to it.

In fact, it was because of state law that Harry and Marge were up there in the first place. Every tourist spot of "exceptional value to the nation" must be properly policed, and due to its sheer size (you could fit a football pitch on the roof and its designers did- along with a theme park, a hotel and a mall complex!) it was necessary to station a permanent police presence. Accommodation was built for the live-in policemen and women of 'District 13', and most rarely left their sky-top homes. They soon became tourist attractions themselves.

Hughes' Heights was the frenzied dream of Texan billionaire Howard Hughes; aviator, film director, playboy and famed eccentric. Constructed in 19- from 150,000 tons of steel, there were as many as 5000 men working on it at any one time. 25 workers died in the ten years it took to complete. Financial troubles, bad press, and some say the eccentricity of Hughes (he refused to install elevators, insisting people walk the 3,465 steps from street level to roof) doomed his tower to failure, and it remained largely empty.

Bought by NASA in 19- it was to be used as launchpad for a new generation of future shuttles, but cutbacks derailed the project, and somehow the men and women who served before Harry and Marge were forgotten about. Rumours abound that the roof of Hughes Heights' is now a garbage site for nuclear waste, but this is vehemently denied by the state government, and Harry will not be drawn on the matter. "We're not supposed to talk about that," says Harry, "But tell me this: if there was toxic waste up there, then why would Rube have climbed all that way?"

Rube, of course, is none other than our intrepid explorer and indefatigable cat. After she turned up on that cold January morning, Harry quit the force and moved back down to earth where he got a job as a nightwatchman. He took Rube (newly christened) with him. Every evening he would walk to work at New York Harbour near the mouth of the Hudson River with Rube by his side. "She followed me everywhere, from the day I found her. No matter where I went she was always there. I never married; I suppose I just never found the right person. Rube kept me company I suppose." It almost sounds like she climbed all that way just to find you I say to him. "Beat's me." says Harry, with a shake of his head. "Beat's me."

A Story

"My yoga instructor put me in a difficult position last night," said the man to his friend.

"Crouching Rhino?" replied his friend.

"No. She invited me out for a coffee," said the man.

"Really?!? A coffee?" said his friend, somewhat surprised.

"I know, I was somewhat surprised," said the man, "I didn't think yoga instructors drank coffee."

"Well it's a stimulant isn't it."

"And a depressant."

"Does she seem depressed?" asked the friend of his man.

"Are you saying that's the only reason she'd ask me out for a coffee? Because she's depressed? Frankly, I'm offended."

"Sorry Frank," said his friend, "I didn't mean that at all." He coughed, though he wasn't ill, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I actually think you're a very attractive man."

There was a long pause.

"You do?" said the man. "What is it about me that you find attractive?"

"Well," said his friend, "You've got good bone structure for a start. And nice eyes. But it's more than that. You're a good listener. You're kind. You make me feel, er, special."

There was a long pause.

The man coughed, though he wasn''t ill, and said, "Do you want to go for a walk."

"Yes. That'd be lovely."

It's Something About Cancel the Astronauts Again...

... And it probably will be for quite a long time.

Sorry.

This might end up getting enormously boring for you.

We'll do something different soon we promise.

A story based around a weak pun perhaps.

Or a picture diary with hilarious captions.

BUT TODAY.

Today you get to read about what we did yesterday.

We played Live at Troon with The Saw Doctors. It was tremendous!

The volunteer staff treated us like royalty, or at the very least like a much more successful band. We had a dressing room with sandwiches and juice and water and crisps and beer and chocolate and red wine and white wine and a lovely flower! AND we had to sign lots of t-shirts and lots of flyers and lots of posters and lots of CDs! It's possible that we actually were mistaken for a more successful band. Maybe they all thought we were The Saw Doctors. Ah well... Huge thanks to Alan Frew for asking us to play and to all the helpers who made us feel like a proper band.

We played to more than 600 people, all of whom clapped and cheered, and none of whom booed or heckled. Thanks Troon!

If you can't imagine what it was like, here's a photo:




That's us on the stage there! If you look very closely you can see Michael looking queasy.

Speaking of feeling sick, we're playing our single launch in Edinburgh tonight at Electric Circus, in what is fast being referred to as the third gig of our tour.

Support comes from My Tiny Robots and Bad Books and looking forward to it we are indeed.

Speak to you tomorrow; happy Sunday.

lots of love,

CTA

Our Glasgow Single Launch

Hello!

Ooh! It seems a bit rude to be writing stuffs on someone else's internet blog.

It's sort of like reading your girlfriend's diary (I have read your girlfriend's diary, and she isn't happy at all- put the toilet seat up when you're peeing please) or staring into a stranger's bathroom window when they're having a shower (I have stared through your bathroom window when you were having a shower- please clean the toilet).

Regardless, here I am to tell you about the first night of our tour.

We played at Captain's Rest with Over the Wall and Poor Things. It was fun! We sold some singles and made some money! This money will go straight into a petrol fund for our tour van, Apollo 7 (Vices), a picture of which I've included below:




What a lovely shade of yellow!

Actually, it's a bit pokey to be honest, and three of us have to sit on the roof, but at least we get a lot of fresh air. This fresh air was most welcome when Michael was sick on the way back from Glasgow. Eugh. Luckily we double bagged just in time, closed our eyes, thought of England, and before we knew it we were in Hurlford at Kieran's parents' house, where Michael had the pleasure of being sick in a real bathroom.

Hopefully he'll be able to play tonight because we've got a gig supporting The Saw Doctors in Troon in what can only be described as the second gig of our tour.

We'll let you know how it goes...

An interesting fact about Hurlford? Alright then.

Brangelina stayed in a big mansion there when Brad Pitt was over filming World War Z in Glasgow.

Here's an artists impression of what it might have looked like:



Sweet van guys!

Cancel The Astronauts Take Over

Hello there. It's all of the band Cancel The Astronauts here, and by Sheer Force of Emails and also Passwords and Prior Arrangement we've done gone taken over Kowalskiy for a bit. Hurray! It's all amicable, don't worry. Mr Kowalskiy is just having an entirely voluntary bit of a sit down this week. He deserves it.

I think there's plans afoot for other bands take over and 'be Kowalskiy' in the future; this is just the first example of it. Supposing it doesn't go horribly wrong on a technical level, internet-aflame stylee, here is what you can expect from us - the trailblazing Cancel The Astronauts! - while we are 'being Kowalskiy':

- expert semi-colon use
- some manner of tour diary
- other stuff

Who are you to resist? Okay, okay, maybe we've not quite nailed down every detail yet, but it'll still be ace. I imagine it'll be a bit like when those popstars you read about hug a 3am girl or a Bizarre man in the paper, and then 'take over' and fill two page spreads with amusing fluff about other popstars' hair or boyfriends or meatdresses or clinical depression or whatever, peppered with the occasial catty comment 'cos That's How Gossip Columns Work After All and at the end of the day they've got a single to shill.

In other news, we've got a single to shill. Hurrah! It's our first ever one, it's called Seven Vices, and you can listen and maybe even buy it through this portal here. Go on!



We promise not to mention it every seven minutes, but we'd just like to point out that it has been described as 'musical gold' by no less a judge than the currently reclining author of this very blog.

'Musical Gold'.

Ahem. Also Jim from Ayetunes said it was 'probably the best I've heard Cancel the Astronauts on record '. That's nice.

Okay. We've officially stopped talking about our single now. Sorry.

We're going on tour! I've mentioned that. We leave tommorow. It's very exciting. Today, a nice man delivered to us a tour van, which we should probably call Apollo 7 (Vices) or something. He drove all the way from Glasgow on his birthday to drop it off - which proves his niceness - and one of the non-driving 2/5ths of the band made a careful count of its wheels, admired the unexpected microwave, made a mental note of which gear it will agree to go up hills in, promptly forgot which gear it will agree go up hills in, and signed the contract making Apollo 7 (Vices) ours for the next ten days. Later, he even read that contract.

Killer anecdote, I know. I should have put 'killer anecdotes' in the stuff to expect from us section. Hang on.

- Killer anecdotes

Right. More on our tour, from a series of increasing exciting locations, in a series of no doubt increasingly frazzled dispatches, as the week goes on. Tomorrow, we're playing The Captain's Rest in Glasgow, with Over The Wall and Poor Things. Come along!

If you're interested, you can find a full list of our tour dates over on our own blog, which is pink and here.

More Tomorrow!