February 2012
2 posts
6Music Introducing
Hello!
Tom Robinson is playing new single Mestle & Portar this weekend on BBC 6Music Introducing…would be great if you could listen in/stream it at your leisure and let the good old Beeb know what you think via their Twitter/Facebook/Email links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0089jhs
Tour isn’t far away now, we’re going to have a limited run of lovely A3 posters for...
New tour, new video.
Here’s the dates, all with Mark McCabe: Thursday 1st March - The Royal Park Cellars, Leeds Friday 2nd March - The Garrett, Manchester Saturday 3rd March - The Bright House, Birmingham Sunday 4th March - The Mother’s Ruin, Bristol
Wednesday 7th March - The Lamb, Devizes Thursday 8th March - The Green Park Tavern, Bath Friday 9th March - The Port Mahon, Oxford Saturday 10th March...
January 2012
2 posts
Writing
Just a quick thought that’s nonetheless too long for Twitter:
That thing when you’re working on a song, and you’ve had it in your head for a few days/weeks/months when suddenly you have a moment of doubt and can’t for the life of you work out whether it has hooked itself into your brain because a) you’ve written something properly good or b) you’ve ripped off...
New Year's Resolutions
Ok, so it’s 4th January but here goes:
1. Get married. This should be pretty easy to fulfill, what with being engaged and the wedding booked and all, so nice to get something easily achievable.
2. Finish more songs. Previous years have probably had “write more songs” as a resolution, but I realised recently that I write loads of stuff that I either forget or just get bored of...
December 2011
1 post
2011: done.
It’s been a fun, busy, tiring, but let me re-emphasise this: fun year. I released my first full-length album (have you not got it yet? Head to Amazon or email me), played 65 gigs in 4 different countries, did some DIY merch making and somehow found time to work a full time job, get engaged, and occasionally even sleep.
Here’s my highlights in the form of a The Queen-style end-of-year...
October 2011
2 posts
My review of Ben Marwood @ the Louisiana, Bristol... →
danncove:
On my old music blog. Might be worth transferring it to a tumblr…
Something For The Weekend...part 1
What a weekend, what a long weekend…WHAT AN AWESOME WEEKEND:
In short -
Drove to Harrow, ate 2 slices of pizza, played songs, celebrated my 10 year buddy-versary with my pal Nicky, got my face melted by Hold Your Horse Is, did the Safety Dance (and one less dignified), stumbled home, ate hummus, slept like a sardine, woke up, went to Nandos with the Fool’s Paradise crew (extra hot +...
September 2011
1 post
Destroy It Yourself: T-shirts.
It’s been a while since I sold the last of my Lost-inspired (ok, ripped off) t-shirts, and it’s time for a follow up.
Coming soon to a torso near you:
In keeping with the DIY motif from my recent debut album, I’ll be screenprinting them all with my own bare hands (ably assisted by the lovely @mrsthief).
So here’s the plan: they’ll be £8 at gigs, in standard or...
August 2011
1 post
Something For The Weekend...
…no silly, not the Sunday morning cookery and chat show that @mrsthief and I used to spend far too much time watching (but haven’t bothered with since I had an argument with Tim Lovejoy on Twitter about his insane opinion that musicians should just do it for the love and not expect to ever get paid*), but the clever subtitle of a brace of tour dates that Ben Marwood & I are doing...
July 2011
2 posts
2000 Hangovers
I did it again - in a classic case of not listening to my own advice, I broke my face with booze at 2000 Trees. It was fun though, as always.
I feared that I might have also broken my effects pedals with booze when a tentatively stamped foot on the fairly flimsy Greenhouse stage caused an unopened can of beer to fall onto my pedalboard and explode everywhere a few songs into my set…somehow...
Meryl Streep was never on You Bet...
…this is a message for people of the future, a public service announcement for people who, like @mrsthief and I, may find themselves tuning in to a repeat of 90’s charity challenge fest You Bet!, missing the start of the show to find someone called “Meryl Streep” appearing as a guest. Someone who looks nothing like Meryl Streep. And who is English. But who everyone keeps...
June 2011
4 posts
It's nearly July...
…and that means it’s nearly time for 2000 Trees : ACE. More of that in a minute - just a quick thank you first to everyone who came to one of the May tour dates, it was a lot of fun. My tour diary maintenance is pretty atrocious at the moment - mainly because typing about how much fun it was being out on the road just throws into contrast the monotony of the 9-5 routine - but...
Oxygen Thief album = 1 month old today! #teamDIY →
Hey peeps, my album turns 1 month old today so have put it up to stream online to celebrate: http://soundcloud.com/oxygenthief/sets/teamdiy It’s only going to be up there in full for today, so if…
Album = 1 month old. #teamDIY ?
Hey peeps, my album turns 1 month old today so have put it up to stream online to celebrate: http://soundcloud.com/oxygenthief/sets/teamdiy It’s only going to be up there in full for today, so if you could pass the link around Facebook/Twitter/etc then that’d be awesome. I’ve a couple more favours to ask if that’s ok? I’m not too fond of the concept of...
DIY tour diary - leg 2
Just a quick jaunt this one, v.London-centric with a gig at The Cricketers in Kingston, and one for a friend’s brother’s 18th birthday party. Let’s forget the fact that I went to the dayjob for a bit inbetween and call this:
Day 9: Kingston Another thoroughly hardcore Radio 4 soundtracked journey, with a justifiable sense of déjà-vu from last Friday’s identical jaunt. Arriving at The Cricketer’s...
May 2011
5 posts
Played on BBC 6music by Tom Robinson
Afternoon all - I’m sat in a post-Ireland daze at the moment…had a great few days bussing around the country playing my first gigs on the island.
Will write a proper blog about the weekend soon, but just wanted to post that I’m ecstatic to share that Tom Robinson played Terry Nutkins Salute on BBC 6music on Saturday night/Sunday morning…describing it as “acoustic...
DIY May tour diary - leg 1 →
What happened to the weather? It was bakingly hot and beautiful, like all the summers that your parents tell you they experienced every year of their lives at your age* when it’s pissing down…
DIY tour diary - leg 1
What happened to the weather? It was bakingly hot and beautiful, like all the summers that your parents tell you they experienced every year of their lives at your age* when it’s pissing down through July and August……..and then suddenly I walked out the front door this morning to find I needed a jumper and an umbrella. Bastard.
Such meterological phenomena aside,...
Destroy It Yourself review round up →
Reviews have started coming in for the album, thought I’d put them all in one place:
Live-Music-Scene Moon And Back Music Stereoboard.com (9/10) Blagsound (7/10) Whisperin And Hollerin (7/10) Neon Filler…
Album is out, SHAZAM! →
Morning all - I’ve just got back from the first leg of this tour and to say I am a bit tired would be a statement massive enough to collapse in on itself, creating a black hole and destroying the…
April 2011
4 posts
Stats!
Just before I rush out skipping into the sunshine I thought I’d just do a nerdy stat post:
I’ve got 482 followers at www.twitter.com/oxygenthiefyeah (I regularly block spam accounts, so the vast majority of those are actual people)
464 listeners at http://www.last.fm/music/Oxygen+Thief
382 “likes” at http://www.facebook.com/oxygenthief666
Which is going to get to that...
Album preorder update / Free download single.
—————— Album —————— At the time of writing it is precisely 4 weeks until the release of my first full-length album “Destroy It Yourself”. …D(IY)-Day is Monday 9th May, so if you could preorder it via one of the following links that’d just about make my life: http://www.banquetrecords.com/BTR9...
Album preorder/tracklist details.
So, a very few eagle-eyed readers will probably have noticed that the previously announced tracklist was actually an April Fool! Ahahahahaha, hilarious eh? As if I’d write an album about Nick Knowles - I much prefer that guy who presents Rogue Traders, he’s awesome!
Anyway, here’s the real tracklist:
Show Em Who’s Boss
Modesty Is Dead
Mestle And Porter
Terry Nutkins...
Album tracklist announcement:
Righty, think it’s time I actually got round to posting a bit more detail about the album…so here’s the lowdown
Oxygen Thief - Destroy It Yourself
The first in a three part album cycle inspired by the works of presenter Nick Knowles, which focuses on his most well-known and arguably greatest achievement: DIY SOS.
Tracklisting as follows:
This Partition Must Go
The Long Road...
March 2011
7 posts
New website: www.oxygenthiefmusic.com →
Oxygen Thief has a new home: www.oxygenthiefmusic.com Ok it’s the same url, but it’s a new website that works better than Myspace so everyone’s a winner right? OT ————————————- …
Booking a tour...
…have a few dates left to fill, anyone up for sorting something out then drop me an email to oxygenthiefmusic [at] hotmail [dot] com - pubs, venues, arenas, stadia, or house shows all welcome.
Due to petrol being a) expensive, and b) environmentally suspect, I want to avoid doing any ridiculous zig-zaggery if at all possible so keeping things 2-3 hours(ish) away from the previous/next...
New website!
Hello! Come on in, welcome to my new abode - don’t worry about taking your shoes off, we’re all friends here…and the carpet is only metaphorical anyway so is pretty easy to keep clean.
I’ve wanted to sort out a proper website for ages, but it was always so damn easy to just update Myspace with gig details…my how times change.
This basically integrates feeds from...
Album update
Nothing tremendously exciting to report other than the fact that it has been put into an envelope and posted off to be manufactured.
Actually that is quite exciting, and somewhat terrifying - I’m having waking nightmares that it’s going to come back sounding as if it’s being played backwards by James Blunt with one of his hands cut off, and that artwork is going to look like...
Census thoughts... →
Census form has arrived - aside from concerns about Lockheed’s involvement there’s also The Census Campaign to think carefully about. Writing “Jedi” in the religion box is fun and all, but…
Album + Gigs: March, April & May →
HELLO THERE! The album is tantilisingly close to being put in the post and made into an actual real life object, rather than just a collection of .wavs, Photoshop files, and good intentions. I can’t…
Oops
I forgot I had a tumblr account, might start using this instead of blogspot - here’s some gigs I have coming up:
16/03 - The Fleece, Bristol with Dave McPherson (from Inme) & Howard James Kenny 25/03 - Bath 31/03 - Slak, Cheltenham 07/04 - The Greyhound, Nottingham 08/04 - Stereo, York 09/04 - The Garrett, Manchester 10/04 - The Cellar Bar, Worcester TBC I’m also booking...
January 2010
1 post
2009 is dead. Long live 2010 →
Blimey I’m crap at this blogging lark - it’s been what, 6 months since the last one? Naughty Thief, must try harder. So it’s a new year, a new decade, and with all that come the traditional slew of…
October 2009
5 posts
The Artist Formerly Known As Plinth →
So, Anthony Gormley’s One&Other project has finished - 100 days, and 2,400 people later it’s all over……..I didn’t realise I would be ushering in the final 24 hours of the event with my slot…
Tour video diary parts 10 & 11 - the end! →
here it is - the last installment of our tour video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry-DlQe7Hh4
Tour video diary part 9 →
Tour video diary parts 7 & 8 →
Day 7 Day 8 - in which our racist expectations of the people of Newcastle are all confirmed…
New guitar? →
I’ve just accidentally started trying to haggle down the price of a sexy new guitar (http://pictures.kyozou.com/pictures/_7/6010/6009019.jpg) that I’m hoping to get from a shop just up the road near…
September 2009
7 posts
and as progress goes
I think I did ok last night: managed to cobble together 1 completely new song, polish up one that I’ve been fiddling with on and off for over a year, and also scrub up a couple more that have been in the works since earlier this summer. There’s still a bit of work to do before I end up playing them live though…………I simultaneously love and hate playing new stuff...
Tour video diary part 6 →
Tour Diary - day 5 →
Tour video diary part 4 →
I have a stupid laugh…
Tour video diary part 3 →
Tour video diary pt 1 →
Day 1 started in the most rocking of all ways : installing a washing machine at home. The dream is being well and truly lived ladies and gentlemen. DIY done, gear loaded,…
Tour video diary part 2 →
will be back tomorrow, something went wrong……
August 2009
3 posts
We are all dead →
Ah man what has happened to us? Anyone would think that 9 days in a row playing gigs+drinking booze until we either fall over or fall asleep is somehow not the best way to maintain a healthy…
!@*#ing tour diary - day 3 →
It’s so hot here nobodycanbreathe and all we want is some a i r but there’s none, and when we open the windows there are bikers trying to climb in and belly dance at us, and noise from a gazebo of…
Tour soon! →
Wow, the tour is starting in just over 1 week. My plans of getting a bit fitter in preparation have fallen a little flat a) by getting really drunk a bunch of times (2000 Trees + the…
July 2009
1 post
Education Fail →
Yeah, gibberish or double dutch perhaps
June 2009
3 posts
Here comes the bride →
T minus 4 days till awesome Dr Owen gets married + my coversong learning duties end for the summer. I’ve really enjoyed doing this + taking part in people’s big days, but I’m also itching to get to…
Swindon! →
Holy crap that was fun - just got in + am enjoying a well deserved beer and one of the several million episodes of Quantum Leap sitting on my Sky+ box. People of Swindon, you sure love…