The first cassette I ever got was a Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 tape that my Dad bought me when I was 5 and I was hooked, cue dressing up in the suit from my Beetlejuice Hallloween costume wearing a cowboy hat from Disneyland and trying to Moonwalk and Anti Gravity lean for the next 5 years or so.

Sad behaviour – yes! Sad times – also yes.

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It’s May! May means a number of things: It’s summery some days. Summery enough in fact that you can find yourself in the park in a T shirt for about 20 mins before you realise that it’s actually far too cold for such winsome attire.

It’s also the beginning of the summer blockbuster season. Not something which I usually find myself too captivated by but by the end of May you can usually have a good sense of the hits and the misses, so far: Star Trek BIG HIT!!! (go see it) and Wolverine: Major Miss! (bitterly disappointed)

But perhaps most importantly May means it’s exam time. So if you’re studying and happen to have us on your list of “‘I listen to these myspaces while I’m ‘working’ ” then thanks very much and good luck!! 

In other news, we had a great time last week with Zoey van Goey at their album launch, they were fantastic, as is their album so go pick it up!  Thanks very much again to them for having us and thanks to those of you who came down early to see us, we were quite shocked at the amount of people who came considering how early the show was. 

Although Zoey was our last full band electric gig for quite some time, we are playing an acoustic show on the 30th May at the 13th Note. This is quite a special wee evening for us not only because we get to play alongside our dear friends The State Broadcasters (YAY!!) but also because it’s our first show with our new group of friends as part of the Wendy House Collective. The first Wendy House album came out a year or two ago and featured loads of great bands like the Broadcasters, Finniston and Attic Lights and last year we were asked if we would like to join, an offer we could not refuse! So the 30th is gonna be kinda like our first day of school, with new faces, new stuff to learn (minus Mark who flies to Miami that day!) and loads of nerves so please come down and hold our hands if need be and tell us it’s going to be ok! Team Turnip are also playing featuring a certain long haired egg scramble-er on the old drums so come check that out!

Anyway, we’ve been working on bits and bobs this week in endor world and preparing for Mark to go so hopefully we can be pretty productive whilst he’s away, more acoustic-ish gigs to follow so keep you eyes peeled. Acoustic-ish shows mean the fun to hassle  ratio tips in the fvourable direction thanks to the lack of equipment needed to be lugged around! So it’s gonna be  fun summer!!

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Hey folks, it be April here in endorland and that means some things of varying degrees of importance, that are nonetheless worthy of a blog post. We’ve been pretty busy recently trying out new songs at almost every show we’ve played in the past few months. Some have been hit, some have been not so hit but I wouldn’t go so far as to say any have been miss. The ones that have been not so hit are the funnest to work on, ’cause when we’re working on them ourselves we get all excited and can’t wait to play them, then when we do it’s not the same and we have to go back and say: ‘What were we doing that was actually good and what was the point of that 5 minute yodeling section?’ 

Excitingly we have actually moved into a new practice space which is probably why we’ve been working on so many new songs. We’ve never had our own space before but we invested in some speakers, packed and pooled our equipment into one room and suddenly we have a home! We’ve gone through stages before of thinking we should rent somewhere in town or near our mums and dads’ houses but weighing up the rent, lecky and heat (if there were to be heat) never seemed feasible. Then just when all hope was lost we were offered to move into Richard’s mum and dad’s house, into his childhood bedroom which is awesome!!! We never had our ‘parent’s house garage’ phase so we’re getting it done now! Thank you credit crunch! It’s great, rather than forking out 50p for a bottle of water at a practice studio and paying for the time we use, our practices are now punctuated by someone saying ‘That was an hour of good stuff lets go down stairs and get some squash!’ Oh yeah! 

Anyway, whilst not hanging about Richard’s parents house we’ve been spending our time writing essays, doing exams, throwing exhibitions, building frames, coming up with insane and top secret revolutionary dentistry and golf inventions, making the new endor tote bags, accidentally spray painting my bedsheets pink, (though I can’t really see that due to my colourblind-ness, but so I’m told) watching Annie on bank holidays, watching more manly things like Top Gear on Dave (most days), hanging out with awesome Canadians and doing Edinburgh indie art gallery tours, trying to put together a new look in Armstrong & Sons… plus recording demos and other band nonsense.

Finally, we’re playing what will be our last full band gig for a while, with Zoey van Goey at their album launch on Saturday 9th May at Stereo in Glasgow. This gig will be awesome and if you haven’t yet, go listen to the new Zoey stuff at their myspace it is mind blowingly great!! Mark goes away to Miami and Costa Rica on the 31st May for around 6-7 weeks, in that time we’ll be playing one or two fun acoustic shows but we won’t be back i full band mode ’til late July. So if you want to come to the Zoey show get tickets! The details are on the poster to the left, to the left, (everything you own in a box to the left.) See y’all soon, hope you like the new web layout!

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Firstly Happy New Year, (It’s never too late to wish a Scotsman Happy New Year), Secondly, the first things  people say to each other in the early hours, days and weeks of a new year, (or a new Facebook friend) ‘Hey how’s it goin?, It’s been ages, What you been up to?’ ‘Answers: Yeah we’re fine, it has sorry and loads of stuff.  We’ve been holed up in hibernation to a certain extent over Christmas and New Year, though we have ventured out for one or two wee acoustic gigs in Edinburgh and of course the annual Endor Christmas Party! The Party gig was awesome this year at the Captains Rest, thanks to everyone who came down it was a night to remember, even if very few of us actually can!

Edinburgh is like most cities and towns around the country just now… Dangerous! And I don’t mean the marauding gangs of Tom Brokaw or the insolent kids of Gregory Peck. I men the late night gangs of runners still attempting to fulfill their resolutions, we at Endor recommend that you avoid being flattened by the the rubber of their soles by staying in tomorrow night to watch our appearance on BBC ALBA’s Rapal.

Here’s the details: Rapal will be on BBC ALBA (SKY 168 FREESAT 110) at 10.00pm. It will be repeated on the same channel on Friday 30/01 at 11.00pm and again on Sat 31/01 at 7.30pm. There will also be perfomances and an interview available after the programme tomorrow night on our website: bbc. co. uk/rapal. 

So check that out, if you do miss it then it will be available on the iPlayer for the following week. You Runners!!

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Folks we’re playing the Your Sound Bandstand on Sunday at 4.30 pm. Its gonna be awesome, hopefully see some of you there!!

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Sorry folks for the incredibly long break in the blog writing here at helptheendorly.co.uk.

Things that have happened since last update: I’ve been upgrading my home recording setup some more, we’ve been recording demos of some songs, we’ve been booking shows, we’ve been playing shows, I’ve been preparing to move and generally I’ve taken for granted this lovely blog and the lovely people who check it. Sorry again about that.

As far as Endor news goes if you’ve been on or myspace then you’re probably still up to date. We’re going to be playing at the Connect Festival in Inverary this weekend at 4.30pm on the Sunday on the Your Sound Bandstand. Other bands on this stage include our buddies We Were promised Jetpacks, The Moth and The Mirror, Zoey Van Goey amongst others and loads more awesome Scottish bands!!! 

We’ve not posted any of our gigs after connect on myspace yet but be assured their are some great ones lined up, some indoors, some outdoors, some close to home and some slightly farther away. but all will be revealed next week. Anyway in short I promise to update this blog more regularly and we’ll hopefully see some of you at 4.30pm on Sunday in a field. (or at least up the front for a dance during the Jetpacks!!!)

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Ok so the aim of this blog is to create a straight forward post with little to no fat, inspired by the guy with Total Body Lipodystrophy who was on ‘This Morning’ this morning. Any way, news, not been too much of that recently. We’ve been working quite a bit behind the scenes on some new songs and we’ve started recording some new demos, hopefully you’ll get to hear something in the coming months. This is the first time in years that we’ve recorded something ourselves, I’ve recently become something of a Pro Tools nut and we’ve been cracking open my new rig and seeing what it can do. For proof of my degenerative pro tools disease, wait ’til I’ve had a few drinks after a gig and ask me about our recording, you’ll be lucky if I’ve stopped talking by daybreak. Or you could just ask one of the Jetpacks who were recently victims to one of my awful nerd outs (for previous nerd-outs see weezer blog below).

In other news, we’re playing a gig this Sunday (20th April) at Stereo in Glasgow for Oxjam, we havn’t played the new Stereo on Renfield Lane yet so we’re really looking forward to it, plus if you don’t come we’ll tell people it’s because you hate charity!!   

I fell asleep listening to my ipod last night on shuffle. I would not advise it as I was rudely awoken twice, once was to the sound of Tilly and the Wall screaming at the start of ‘Sing Songs Along’ (annoyingly thats also Richard’s ringtone so it becomes quite hard to ignore, great tune though). The second time was bizarrely to the sound of my own voice which was strange. It was a recording from the WLID session we done with Marcus Mackay of a song called ‘We Are Your Size’, which you will know, and may have been bored to tears by, if you saw us at any point last year. Anyway I had a little self indulgent listen to it and was actually able to listen to it through so I may put it up on our myspace to let the quiet rhodes goodness relieve any exam stress for you folks if you so desire. 

Wow that was a pretty fatty blog I can never stick to what i set out to do! oh well. See you Sunday.

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Ok all. I didn’t indulge in wishing =w= tidings to everyone anyone who reads this blog last thursday I was too busy listening to my albums and pondering over who else might be wearing a weezer tee on the most holiest of days. For anyone not familiar with this holiday which shares it’s date with a much more famous greeting card day, I have been celebrating International weezer T-Shirt Day since 2000 when I bought my first weezer shirt. Before 1999 I was a pretty casual fan listening to The Blue Album a bit but when I was 13 I discovered Pinkerton. It was Christmas ‘99 and after that I felt totally an utterly compelled to adorn myself and my bedroom with all things weezer and spend most of, if not every waking minute of my life, listening to Pinkerton, downloading b-sides obscure rarities and then the green album when it was released in 2001. It’s no secret that in the early days we played almost every weezer song under the sun and were slagged off for almost being a weezer cover band by our school… I was going to say friends but that’s not the word I’m looking for… Anyway, I still think that if it wasn’t for weezer we wouldn’t be making the kind of music we make. So basically  I found out that on the 14th Feb every year weezer fans throughout the world wear their t shirts on that day, apparently to commemorate the anniversary of the bands first practice… though I’ve always suspected that it has a lot to do with a happy coincidence of dates and the weezer core fanbase’s  (which I very happily belong to) dating ability. The only thing is that the unity of the day has always been lost on me. The weezer top I wear is a black and white baseball top with ‘weezer 00′ on the back to signify the year 2000 when I bought it, even though I have other tops now I still choose to wear that one every year as a sort of tradition. Here’s a picture of us in 2002 at a weezer concert at the Barrowlands in which you can see a bit of my favourite t-shirt:

This Picture was actually taken by Karl Koch and appeared on weezer.com the following day. (best day ever!!) When I was in school wearing it under a white shirt on 14th Feb everyone could see the letters on the back and I always loved that people knew what I was doing and some folks even joined in. However, It is always freezing in Glasgow on 14th Feb so I’m always wrapped up as I assume every other hypochondriac weezer fan like myself is, so I can never spot anyone else partaking in the great day. I have since come to the conclusion that I don’t want to know if anyone else is sporting one because I’m starting to suspect that I might be the only one. So just savour the =w= day messages and calls I still get from friends on that day. Anyway, if you were wearing a weezer t-shirt on Thursday or even if you weren’t I just wanted to wish a happy =w= to all…and if you were out gettin romantic then I hope you didn’t que too long at Clintons to get that red teddy bear that just says everything you could never articulate in just the right way… (ooh that was a bit bitter, better save that sentiment) … and that you had a nice evening (perfect). 

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Personally I’ve had a lot worse weeks than this one; it’s only Monday and already this is shaping up to be a pretty good 7 days.Reasons: 

1. We’re playing a show at the 13th Note in Glasgow on Thursday. We haven’t played there in years and I’m really looking forward to it. One of the bands we’re playing with, Jesus H Foxx, Richard and I saw a while back in Edinburgh supporting our friends Make Model and they were amazing. I had been drinking for quite a while already, sure, but I do remember turning to Richard and talking about how awesome I thought they were. They’re on first on Thursday so Id get along early if I were you. I think doors are at 8.30. 
2. It’s the Macworld conference tomorrow in San Francisco. Even though I’m at home in Glasgow I’m still pathetically geeky enough to get excited about it. I won’t go more into it, but if you know me then you’ll understand (maybe understand is to strong a word but at least be aware of) my love of all things Apple. Last week I man aged to seriously mess up my Mac which runs Pro Tools and spent the better part of a week trying to fix it, It was commented by some that I was a little bit irritable for a few days there but you’ll be glad to know all is well again.
3. And thirdly, Craig from DF Concerts got in touch today to book us as the third band on a bill at King Tuts in Glasgow on 15th February. That particular evenings line up also includes Lightspeed Champion AND Semifinalists!!!!!!  How amazing a gig is that!!! We are ridiculously excited for this gig ’cause we’re big fans of both of the bands and were going to the show anyway!!! If you haven’t heard of either of them then you absolutely must check them out!!!

So, those are my reasons to say ‘Screw you Geldof!!’ On this fine Monday evening. It’s been a pretty sweet one! Hopefully see some of you on Thursday where we’ll have a new tune for you to hum and maybe even shake your hips to.help the endorly Ps. Hope everyone had a great New Years!  

Bad things about being really busy:

1. You get really tired and stressed
2. Your website goes a little bit out of date

Good things about being really busy:

1. You get to eat a weeks worth of advent calendar chocolate in one go!!!

So as I sit here surrounded by tiny brown parcels, trees, bells, angels, santas and strangely no Simpson shapes even though I bought a Simpsons advent calendar (rip off), I realised we didn’t say a proper thank you to Adam from Y’All is Fantasy Island or Graeme and the Gimmie Shelter Guys for our wee run of charity gigs last week, so major thanks guys I hope we raised loads of money! If you made it down to either of these shows, or the 3rd Annual Say Dirty Christmas Party on Thursday thanks for getting involved they were all really great fun. Highlights definitely included Frightened Rabbit, Alan Bissett and my new loop station working 100%!! That percentage will probably drop due to it being a tricky little biatch to master but I think I’m getting there. Anyhoo, Have a great day tomorrow anyone who is reading this on Christmas eve and if I don’t post before 1st January, have a happy new year. See you 2008!

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PS. Leon? What the HELL!!!! He’s the first ever Scottish Christmas No 1! Thats shit we could’ve had Malcolm but oh no we have to put up with some little whiny X-Factor winner yet again only this time he’s one of us!! When will people learn! I mean I bet that half of the people who bought that piece of shit didn’t even listen to it and if they did I bet they didnt listen to it twice! I mean ‘When You Believe’? what?! when I believe what? I believed that we were finally gonna get rid of this shit but oh no Cowell, ITV and over 275,000 idiots put end to my dreams. I don’t believe anymore, ‘We’re All Going to Die’… FACT!

…. Oh and Merry Christmas