February EP

Well folks, what's a hard working, completely anonymous and slightly hungover band to do on a long February week? The wind howling through the rafters of TDHB house and trees/fences rent assunder by great heaving walls of invisible force drove the boys into the studio to warble and strum. You can hear the results here and we hope you like them.

Love and hugs, TDHB>

Interview for post of manager...

Fabulous amounts of excitement in TDHB house! We had an answer to our management ad! Herewith the transcript of the interview, God what a laugh!

DH: “Hello mate, can I call you Nigel? Good. You’ve had a good look round the house and met all the boys, what do you think?”

N: “I see the roll of ‘Band Manager’, (at this point, Nigel used the index fingers of both hands to form ‘quotation marks’, alarm bells started tinkling) as more of a remit. And that remit would be to maximise the interpersonal, organic or if you will ‘natural’, (he used his fingers again, bells now chiming rhythmically) progressive elements of the collective conscience, which forms the greater percentage of the output, performance wise, of ‘The Dave Howes Band Brand’ (eyebrows rising). I would take it upon myself to co-ordinate the multi-layered infrastructures that form the basis of your chosen performance art.”

“I personally benefit from a well developed portfolio of established relationships in many fields of entertainment and the business machinations that they accompany into the multi-faceted areas of ‘showbiz’. (bemused expressions all round), and what is more, I’ve listened and analyzed the current output which you’ve kindly provided me with, and in my ‘humble’ (jesus!) opinion, your writing and orchestrational skills would only benefit from a firm guiding influential pair of hands such as I would bring to the table. I’ll leave you a number of copies of a business plan that I’ve formulated. Please take some time to peruse, ingest and digest this, as I feel it will only serve to re-inforce my aforementioned bullet points. (He was wearing a sickening grin at this point). Okay, I’ll leave you to talk between yourselves and you can call me anytime, ciao ragazzi.”

N leaves in his Audi…

DH: “Well, first impressions?”

JM: “Has he finished?”

IF: “Wanker”

OB-S: (waking up) “Is dinner ready?”

SS: “Scrambled eggs okay?”

DH: “I think that’s a no then.”

The management of TDHB, it was decided, would fall yet again on the shoulders of whoever answered the telephone first.

We will, of course, keep you, our loyal reader, informed.

Love and hugs, TDHB

The quest for a gig continues...

This last week has seen great excitement in TDHB house. We were offered a gig!!!
It was at the Original Farmer Giles in Penge, a battle of the bands type of thing.

We arrived at the gig only to find that we’d left all our equipment behind.

A van with no equipment in it.

We made our apologies and left.

More to come,

Love and Hugs, TDHB.

Better luck next time.

This Week's Thrilling Installment!

Well folks, we thought it was about time to give you an update on how things are going in TDHB house.

Firstly, we had a reply to our ad for management!

We couldn’t believe it when we returned from our weekly shopping trip to find a message blinking in our e-mail inbox!!

It turned out to be from a guy who used to be in the army as a lieutenant or something. He very kindly outlined his vision for “raising band discipline to an acceptable level” by sending us off on a sort of “boot camp”, which would, (according to him) “improve team building and brotherhood within the platoon, er sorry, band.”
He revealed himself to be a fan of “beat combos” such as The Grumbleweeds and The Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band.
We had a band meeting…
And decided to reply, make our apologies, and turn him down.
Or as Sticks put it: “Fuck that for a game of soldiers.”

Secondly, the phone rang last Sunday, and when it was finally answered feverish excitement rippled through TDHB house as we had been offered a gig on Tuesday night!
It was a support slot for The Violent Vomitters at the Percy Pointer’s Porcelein Night at the charmingly named Douglas Barder’s Legs in Penge.

We arrived at the gig, only to find the venue surrounded by police wearing Kevlar vests and armed to the teeth. Apparently, a local nutter with a violent dislike of the colour green had taken umbridge to the venue’s recent redecoration. After storming the venue with pocketfuls of grenades, wrapped in bullet belts and carrying at least one heavy machine gun, he’d taken the venue manager and bar staff hostage. His demand for the immediate re-decoration of the building (mainly in red if I recall correctly) had been passed on to the brewery.

We decided not to wait for their reply however, made our apologies and left.

Oh well, let’s hope for better news next time! Keep the faith!!
Regards,
TDHB.

Introducing the Adventures of The Dave Howes Band!! Hurrah!!

Life in a rock band can be hard, trawling from town to town with a truckload of gear to play gig after gig in front of everyman and his dog for very little financial reward and no recognition. There’s never any money for food, drink, equipment or recording time. Any sort of success is a dream, the future is perpetually bleak, and as for groupies, well, what self respecting groupie would go near a band which stinks to high heaven, wears rotten stage gear and whose skin care leaves a lot to be desired?

But what a life…

Life in The Dave Howes Band is distinctly different however, thanks mainly to the good fortune of Otto “Bassman” Bastion-Smythe and his parents, who won a substantial amount of money on the Lottery. Otto is dedicated to life in the band, and his parents are very understanding, so they gifted a huge percentage of their winnings to their son. He purchased a sizeable mansion in a leafy corner of Surrey, and invited his band-mates to move in with him. He built a nice, compact and user friendly rehearsal/recording facility under the watchful eye of Stan “The Man With The Cans And The Sliders And Ideas Above His (Work) Station” Stanchion, installed a games room, mini-bar and small spa, and the future of The Dave Howes Band was assured.

It was January 2007 and a momentous band meeting was called. Everyone was there. Dave “Dave” Howes, Jeremy “Fingers” McGraw, Ian “Sticks” Flashman, Otto and Stan all agreed that there were two things which were on their “urgent requirements” list:
1. A manager,
2. A gig.

Dave decided to chart the progress of the band during 2007 and to post it on the band’s new blog. If you’re reading this, then you’ve found it, and we, (The Dave Howes Band) hope you enjoy it.

THE SEARCH FOR A MANAGER #1

Tremendous amounts of excitement in The Dave Howes Band house!

Today we placed an advert in the musical press for the post of manager. We have been getting increasingly frustrated with our own efforts. At the time of writing we still had yet to successfully play a gig, and we reckoned we were in need of s steadying influence. Well, all we can do now is to wait for the replies to come flooding in and keep our fingers crossed that someone worthy of the position sees the ad.

We will of course keep you all up to speed with any developments so stay tuned folks!

Love and Hugs, TDHB.