We Do Adventure

A couple of years ago Poppiholla, Chicane's take on a Sigur Ros track, was undoubtedly my song of the summer. This year that title is likely to be taken by something of the Hurts' album Happiness. Both of these are unfortunate confessions to make before today's big announcement for they betray a fondness for electronica and retro-styled synth pop. However, unashamed and undeterred, I will offer this suggestion for your summer fix of pop punk rock. Peace & Love is the latest recording from Gilgal, they band which Rowan and I form two-thirds of. It is one of those relentlessly energetic tracks that demands repeated plays at high volume. You could drive fast to it, dance crazily in front of the mirror to it or take your choice between air guitar or air drums. (Full disclosure: I'm the guitarist but when it comes to air instrumentation I am almost exclusively a drummer.) It may not be the sound-of-the-summer but it is certainly a sound-of-the-summer type song. B...

We're gigging tomorrow and Saturday. Gilgal. That's us. Rowan and I and Budo, our drumming co-worker at Novi Most in Jajce. If your eyesight is good you'll see from the poster that the gigs are at two different caffe bars in town. We're actually playing outside two caffe bars, because at this time of year any caffe bar that has the option to operate outdoors does so. These will be are first gigs in Jajce, if you don't include our cameo in last November's AVNOJ event. As you'd expect, we've been putting the hours in rehearsing. We're ready to play about 35 songs, including extended guitar solos and an acoustic set! Quite how the evenings will play out is anyones guess at this stage. Experience has taught us to at least try to be relaxed about such minor details start and finish times, and whether another bunch of guys are going to hold an impromptu jam on your instruments half way through the evening. I guess in the UK advertising like this is ...

I show this photo not to illustrate man's propensity to spread a little around the middle but because it was my favourite photo from our recent camping experience. That it is pains me. Not because I have anything against any of these guys; the photo was the idea of the bloke doing the pointing and I thought I'd do them all the favour of blurring their faces to spare their blushes. And it's not that I dislike the photo. I like how it captures the happy wind down after a mad five minutes that mixed testosterone and a diving board. My pain is because of all the good photos I didn't manage to take. Four days camped out at Boračko jezero, the lake you get a glimpse of in the picture, came with some fantastic sights that did not include excessive man flesh. The sunlight, the mountains, trees, clouds, weird and wonderful bits of wildlife: all of these I tried to capture. I failed. The photos I downloaded from our camera this afternoon have no mystique, no sense of wonder. ...