CRUNCHY BISCUITS

Former RBS chief Sir Fred Goodwin 'threatened staff with disciplinary action over biscuit'

2012-01-31T15:24:00.000-08:00

Having the wrong kind of biscuit served with his tea drove disgraced banker Sir Fred Goodwin to threaten catering staff with disciplinary action, according to a new account of the financial crisis written by Chancellor George Osborne’s former chief of staff.

The former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) vented his anger over the pink wafer in an email titled “Rogue Biscuit” in an example of his “overbearing” management style that may help explain the collapse of the bank in 2008, the new book claims.

Authors Matthew Hancock, who worked for Mr Osborne before becoming an MP himself in the last General Election, and Nadhim Zahawi, the founder of YouGov and a fellow Tory MP, have argued that the peculiar characteristics of key figures are vital to understanding the crisis.

Their book, Masters of Nothing: How the crash will happen again unless we understand human nature, calls for regulators and politicians to focus more on dominant characters to prevent dangerous financial exuberance in the future.

According to a piece published in Prospect Magazine on Thursday, the book includes an account of how RBS staff “went into panic mode” after a window cleaner fell off a ladder in Sir Fred’s office and broke a small model aeroplane. Recalling staff’s trepidation at explaining the accident to Sir Fred, Peter de Vink, managing director of Edinburgh Financial & General Holdings, claims they “were absolutely terrified of him”.

The authors reveal that Sir Fred “went so far as to refuse to allow his chief economist to attend the Select Committee hearing, until the chair of the committee was forced to call and explain that if he chose not to attend he would be summoned, with the full force of the police in reserve.”

All I Want is a Bounty

2012-01-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

New Song, recorded tonight at gra n sarah's flat,, using his new strat with tremolo,, this song had to be sketched down on the mobile phone voice recorder as we didnt have vocal mic's available.. but the idea is there for future reference , we will hopefully use it to develop a song from this idea...

lyrics came from an imagined drive to Scotland, stopping off at a trailer park. hoping mostly to get hold of a bounty chocolate bar... some excellent guitar work from Gra here, incorporating his new fender mexican strat, with floyd tremeolo.. a comforting and slightly haunting song!

Save the Whale

2012-01-24T06:49:00.000-08:00

I Have got the idea , from a John Shuttleworth song, to save the whale - i will make some whale shaped biscuits, using a whale shaped biscuit cutter I found and bought off ebay, and bring these along to the new art exhibition in portland hall spa:

Facebook Event

hopefully this will successfully raise awareness for saving the whale, i will put the whale biscuits up for sale at £50p each. then all the proceeds will go to the save the whale charity donations:

Save the Whale Webiste

if you would like to see the video of John Shuttleworth singing his song 'save the whale' just look here below!

John Shuttleworth - Save the Whale

- Getting the hang of cutting

the dough

loads of whale shaped biscuits!
... should raise a few squid for the whales!

There may also be further whale biscuits available in the future, please contact us for details

Thanks!

and thanks to all the people who bought whales.. raised £40.00 for the whale

Reply

2012-01-07T03:36:00.000-08:00

Hey fellas,

The hatstand looks cool. I haven't seen many here, so I can't give you any tips for the structure. Like with the music, I guess just going for it and trusting the flow goes way beyond any research as to 'wot is right'. Afterall everything we do (not just the music) should reflect who we really are. Part of that is original creative leading edge genius', so let the hatstand be that too, a work of original creative leading edge genius. That's my input.

As for blog writing, well I don't feel it right now. You know me, when I got something to say I'll say it. So it's not out of shyness or lack of enthusiasm that I don't blog about my current life. But I do appreciate your encouragement. It'd be nice to have a lot of interesting things to write in a blog post. Like meeting lots of biscuit fans, travelling the world, etc. So that's certainly my intention. I'd like to visit Thailand, maybe India (Kerala) and possibly kuaui, so I'm focusing on being in those places right now. I see this as a year of travels for sure, so I'll have no probs posting pics and thoughts. It's funny coz I could write a blog post out of this if it were not for my perception that viewers only care about the 'having done' part, as opposed to be 'intending to' part. Yet why should I care, when # 1 What other people think of me is none of my business (unless they're loving me, so I'll jump on that bandwagon, lol), and # 2 time and space is an illusion, so there is no difference between 'having done it' and 'intending to do it'. If I'm putting off blogging because I think nobody would be interested in what 'I'm intending to do' then equally I should not blog when 'I have done something'.
It is the 'putting off blogging' that is the core intention running things. If I 'intend to blog about my travels' with the realisation that there is no time and space, then, as that Crunchy Biscuits tune says 'Why wait?'

Oh I didn't, here I am! Hmm, I thought I was writing this in an email reply. Now I'm blogging it. I'm outta 'here'. I need some space!

Or do I?

Lemon.

The Lego Hatstand

2012-01-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

Today we made a start on creating the new sculptural art piece, a hatstand made from lego, jason headed down to the waterfront art project space with a rucksack full of lego and, referring to the waterfront's own in house hatstand we began our journey modelling our own lego version.. we managed to sift through the lego we had and put our bricks into the beginning of the shaft and legs, scaled against the real thing, with some helpful input by waterfront artists as regards to accompanying the work with a lego hat, and umbrella, as well as some of the technical details involved in building. hopefully we will have this thing completed for the next exhibition, as well as collecting some sound files for an accompanying sound track and some video including real time noises of the lego being manipulated and live video from the creation of the hatstand! .. keep tuned for more progress over the coming weeks when we should have the finsished hatstand and video for the song 'got a hatstand, it's made of lego' (WEEK 4)

http://crunchybiscuitsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/crunchy-catalogue-of-recordings.html

An Old Classic Biscuit related song...

2011-12-26T08:33:00.001-08:00

UBUK launches key brand activities to drive snacking category sales in New Year

2011-12-23T01:10:00.001-08:00

Date: 05-12-2011

United Biscuits (UBUK), has announced the first wave of activity for 2012. The plans include a first ever event sponsorship for McCoy’s, a promotion that will help retailers capitalise on the sales opportunity provided by the link between McVitie’s biscuits and hot drinks and a new Jacob’s brand extension designed to significantly increase savoury biscuits sales.

McCoy’s hits the bullseye with PDC darts sponsorship

McCoy’s are delighted to announce that it has embarked on a three year deal as the title sponsor of the McCoy’s Premier League Darts. The tournament sees the world’s top eight players – including the legendary Phil “The Power” Taylor, reigning Premier League Darts champion Gary Anderson and PDC World Champion Adrian Lewis - play each other over 15 weeks across the UK, including the Play-Offs in front of a packed house at The O2 in London. Additionally, McCoy’s will be a partner sponsor for all the other events under the PDC banner.

From February, McCoy’s will be announcing the sponsorship via an on-pack promotion that will feature on both handy packs and multipacks to increase awareness of the sponsorship. The packs will encourage consumers to go online to the McCoy’s website to be in with the chance of winning VIP tickets to the McCoy’s Premier League Darts Play-Offs by participating in the McCoy’s darts challenge.

What time is it? It’s Dunk Time!

To help retailers capitalise on the sales opportunity of linking hot drinks and biscuits, McVitie’s is launching ‘Dunk Time’ – a new campaign to encourage consumers to brighten up their brew and enjoy a biscuit with their cup of tea. A multi-faceted through-the-line campaign, including an interesting on pack promotion, will be launched to support McVitie’s Dunk Time. it promises to help retailers make the most of this opportunity to boost sales by cross-selling hot drinks and McVitie’s biscuits.

Featured on packs of McVitie’s biscuits from February, the Dunk Time promotion will encourage consumers to enjoy their hot cuppa or coffee with a tasty McVitie’s biscuit by giving away over one million Dunk Time branded ‘mega mugs’. Consumers can have a chance to win one instantly by simply entering a unique code online on the McVitie’s VIP Club website (www.mcvities.co.uk/vipclub) or by collecting 45 points as part of their membership to the loyalty scheme, which was launched in 2010.

The three month campaign will also include a national radio partnership to promote the activity on stations, such as Magic FM, BRMB and Key103FM. The promotion will be advertised across digital, radio and print channels together with competitions to win holidays to destinations such as Sri Lanka, Kenya and Switzerland. There will be an experiential sampling team to bring Dunk Time to life in high footfall areas, offering consumers the chance to win biscuits to be delivered to their offices.

UB will be supporting retailers with a heavyweight activation programme, including eye-catching shippers and POS materials that will enable retailers to cross-sell McVitie’s products with hot drinks and drive awareness of the promotion.

Grabbing a larger share of savoury market with new snack range

With savoury biscuits representing a fantastic opportunity for retailers to grow sales, UB is launching Jacob’s Oddities, a brand new range of bite-sized savoury biscuits, to grow the UK savoury biscuit market.

Available from March, Jacob’s Oddities is an irresistibly light and crispy, baked snack biscuit. The tasty bite sized snacks come in an amusing mix of unexpected shapes with no artificial colours or flavours. The range comprises of two delicious flavours, Cheese and Smoky Bacon and is available in multipacks of five x 25g packs (MRRP £1.75), 125g sharing packs (MRRP £1.42) and 30g on-the-go packs (59p).

The launch will be supported in 2012 by TV, poster, online and radio advertising, plus sampling and in-store activation.

Strong launch to 2012

Jon Eggleton, Marketing Director, UBUK, commented:

“We have a strong 2012 marketing plan, as always, which will ensure that we drive sales across our biggest brands.

“Darts has become increasingly popular in recent years and our partnership with the PDC is the perfect platform for McCoy’s ‘Real Man’ positioning

“Jacob’s Oddities has been developed on the back of the most rigorous consumer research. There is a huge opportunity to grow the savoury biscuits market, particularly with an established brand that is providing a range of new tasty snack biscuits. The launch of Oddities will accelerate the growth of the savoury biscuits category by attracting new, younger consumers through this fun and engaging new product.

Jacob’s Oddities will develop this segment of the UK’s savoury biscuit category and provide retailers with a new opportunity to grow their sales of savoury biscuits.

“McVitie’s latest VIP Dunk Time promotion highlights the massive opportunity presented by cross selling biscuits and hot drinks. 86% of McVitie’s biscuits are eaten with a drink, but only 8% of drink occasions featuring a biscuit, so there is another big growth opportunity for retailers. This engaging Dunk Time promotion will help retailers to sell to those people that aren’t having a treat with their hot drink and will encourage them to purchase biscuits more often.”

Source: AC Nielsen w/e 08.10.11

Video for ''Strong Woman''

2011-11-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

A song that started with dan's guitar recording idea, this version of strong woman was revisited during our lounge recording session at my house!

Enjoy!

Spiders and Toads!

2011-10-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

A few new videos for some of our songs:

Public Spider

We were discussing via email recently, pondering over what video would be good to do next, I (chris) mentioned to the others that "public spider" would be interesting, to film such a creature in a public space for the music. ..
The other day my neice had a toy spider, which i had a go of and then forgot about, until I remembered our recent conversation , also remembering that she had mentioned it being bought by her daddy from Tesco! That's when I decided to head down to Tesco for a breif film of the spider from the halloween toy section, luckily there was one left.. I bought nothing from the store and just left with the film, not exactly shoplifting! Just a bit of innocent spiderpumping

An excellent example of Jason's popcorn drumming style.. you can hear it steadily build and the popcorn effect crescendo near the end of the song!

Enjoy the video!

Floor of the Forest

A video taken from the Mere Sands nature reserve:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_Sands_Wood

Hope you enjoy them!

...Also

Cave Music

2011-07-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

We're discussing an idea to make some noise in a cave, this one in the lake district would be great, I've visited it before - think it would be a bit wet underfoot, but i am sure with enough planning, cameras and sound gear we could get some great recordings from the depths of this cave. I think we need to do a bit of preparation and thinking yet, and with Dan Lemon in London town he will have time to gather ideas and stimuli to bring back to the cave. Now the Bedford Park experiment is done, we set our next location at the cave...we even have a song recorded 'living in a cave' (week 4), so maybe a return to this song is in order. Well thats all for now anyway!

Scotch Eggs

2011-07-09T18:16:00.000-07:00

I found this film of some merry scottish people - if you watch it all youll see why I had to post it up here! ha ha HAAA

Bedford Park Project

2011-07-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

We carted our gear into Bedford Park Birkdale, up a small hill under some trees, to see what we could come up with there. Was really rainy, we got wet, a great experiment with some interesting results!

Part 1 - Park Potatoes
Part 2 - Bedford Park Branches
- Instrumental

Nothin but Cabbage

2011-06-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Yep heres an interesting song, with footage from kirk's allotment, when kirk had this allotment. Song Recorded Week 14 (2009) at the herald house.

Jason - Drums
Chris - Bass
Dan - Guitar

2010-07-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

had a quick go at recording some kings of leon, its not very practiced but it has a certain roughness which is quite fun!

on this track ~ chris / guitar
pete / guitar

Kings leon [july 2010] mixdown by spuggy234

2010-05-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

songs from week 19

2010-05-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

heres a few youtube songs from week 19 that ive just done.. we have been doing some music for the past few weeks, but no recording! as we are having a cable shortage right now, it may take a bit of time to sort out. but we should be back recording soon. also pete came to our last session, and wants to do more with us , so stay tuned!

-chris

Road to Biscuits

2010-04-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

Some people know what they want to do for a living. Others find out over time discovering bits and pieces till it all comes together. The saddest lot are those who’ve never had the opportunity to find out (self-inflicted or otherwise).

I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve known since I can remember that I’ve always wanted to be a writer.

Music on the other hand is something I’ve had to discover. From fantasizing about being in a band as a kid to playing around with the guitar always left in the Quiet Room at college. From hearing about classmates getting gigs; wondering what it would be like to sing with them to deep and meaningful discussions about music with my old friend and “musical brother” Eddie.

I got my first drum during university; a little tribal thing with a clay base and proper animal skin (Egyptian I think). I’d jam with another musical friend of mine at the time (Steve) and sometimes we’d belt out a scorcher.

It was also during university that I first learnt to dance. Before then I was much too shy and self-conscious. But I had a good group of friends and we’d get on the dancefloor in a circle and it felt good. Since then the dancefloor’s been my thing. I’m not a drinker but I can still go out and have a good time (and I’ve gotten compliments too from friends, friends of friends and the admiring faces of strangers). It’s all about being comfortable in your skin and then you move in a way that feels natural to you; even when I air guitar - but then that’s because I’m a geek.

I met Chris just before I left for university but we didn’t get close until I came back. We’d have similar kinds of deep and meaningful conversations as I’d had with Eddie and we kept the fires burning for music whether we were in bands or not.

My first band was with Eddie and a guy we’d known since college called Si. He was the Butthead to Eddie’s Beavis, the Wayne to his Garth – you get the picture.

Looking back there was so much I didn’t know about music at the time that it’s no wonder we never got off the ground.

My second band was with my cousin and his workmates at the fairground. I’d been playing the drums for about a year having got a job and money and one day got a call from him. He asked if it was true that I’d got a drumkit. I said yes. He asked if I could play. I said I could keep a rhythm. He said that was good enough and I was in. I didn’t mention that I didn’t know much else but as fate would have it the lead singer was an ex-drummer and he taught me the basics.

That band fizzled out. I clicked with the bass player, probably because we were the only ones willing to have fun and mess about. Maybe it was because we were both on the rhythm section but we’d get a kick out of matching our fills. Everyone else pushed too hard to learn the songs which I get but you can’t work hard and have no fun (just as you can’t the other way round).

So I learnt rudimentary drums and a bit about band dynamics.

After that nothing much happened by way of music. Chris joined a jazz band and played Summertime or something. He learnt lots about the production side of thing. Became a great pianist… The drums eventually went into storage. I danced more and more during nights out and sang my heart out to records.

Little did I know that The Crunchy Biscuits were forming behind the scenes…

To be continued here…

Dracula Meets Frankenstein Meets Crunchy Biscuits

2010-04-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome once again to Milk and Cookies Time at Castle Biscuits. Today's story will be all about the origins of two frightening (in a good way? You decide!) songs; Now It's Alive, It's Frankenstein & Look Out! Dracula!

So we did a rough and spontaneous take of Frankenstein some time ago and I thought that'd be good to write lyrics to. It's straight to the point, with an easy structure and fun content so adapting Mary Shelley's horror/sci-fi masterpiece should be fun. It was and I came up with this:

Now it’s Alive - It’s Frankenstein

With a ball of string and a pair of scissors

A patchwork man from the cemetery village

Awake!

With the rod of Zeus and a mother of thunder

A killer’s heart and a childlike wonder

Obey!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Crushed some flowers and killed some children

Tried to hide away in the top of a windmill

You ran

Away

You played god and he played rough

Can you make a wife from the corpse of your love?

Is he man or is he monster?

And is he really gone forever?

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now It’s Alive!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

Now it’s alive

Now it’s alive – it’s Frankenstein!

…it’s alive…

Look Out! Dracula! on the other hand has no music yet just an inspired singing style Chris came up with for an early song called Dungaree Kangaroo. It sounded like he was singing Look out Dracula! and as I've been meaning to do another Universal Monsters themed song this seemed to fit:

Look Out! Dracula!

A tale!

A tragedy in Transylvania!

A terrible man called Vlad the Impaler

Lover, a killer, an immortal saviour

If you sold your soul to unholy Satan

Please stake me

I loved a vampire

Please stake me

I loved a vampire

Inside the bride of

Vlad the Impaler

She bites like a diamond

She tries to save ya

From a miserable life and a wife who hates ya

Please take me

She hates me

He crossed the land

The rain came down

In a boat in a tomb

Filled with sacred ground

Sailors went missing

Rats came ashore

The priests wept blood

And the wives turned to whores

Throw me a lifeline

Show me a good time

I’ll drink from your bloodline

In time before dawn

Throw me a lifeline

Drink from his bloodline

He swore he loved ya

From a lifetime before

Look out! Dracula!

It is good fun writing stories for songs.

Incidentally for you purists out there I know that Frankenstein's Monster is the correct term but it just doesn't fit lyrically. So there.

Son of Scotch Eggs!

2010-04-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today's post is brought to you by the recurrent theme of Scotch Eggs.

So we've had another few weeks off getting our shit together. I think it's like in American TV when they take a break in the middle of the season. So now we're at Season Two Part Two and possibly approaching our season finale. What end story will we write for ourselves? Will the scotch eggs return to devour us all? Or is it Bubba Ho-Tep part 13 resurrecting yet again for another chomp at our brains?

Speaking of scotch eggs I should say that these images are from the Harwood Arms in Fulham (London I think) of a little pub who made it big last year with a gourmet menu. Never been there but those eggs sure look nice!

Here is me from Season 2 Part 2 Week 1 (okay now it's getting confusing - and pedantic). Chris was pretty knackered that day so slept it off leaving Dan and yours truly to come up with our own stuff. What I mostly remember is the sheer fun of getting back together after time off. Dan has gotten good though. I'm looking forward to where it will take us.
Also when Chris had woken up and it had gotten late we decided on a quieter thirty minute session (where I can control the volume on my drum machine). We did some good stuff and I was well chuffed when I learnt how Chris spontaneously vocalises nonsense lyrics. I listened, tuned in and became a fully fledged duel vocalist. Even though it was about sheep.

Week 2 we turned heavy metal.

Weeks 3 - 14 who knows? If I might get back to the TV analogy (heh, I said anal) it'll be like when the series stops doing one off/stand alone episodes and concentrates on doing an arc. It's like where the big bad turns up in the sub plots and escalates a conflict to the season finale. Something is baking here at Biscuit Stately Manor and we are preparing to slay with six and four stringed axes and er... pointed drumsticks.

Tune in soon for newer, exciting developments!

P.S. Ok I'll admit it, these eggs do look testicular...

Journalese

2010-03-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping a journal for the past twelve years. Somewhere to explore my thoughts, unravel the secrets of the universe, emote and practise writing. It's the kind of writing you don't have to be self-conscious about because you know it's for you alone.

Well for the past eight weeks (or Season Two of The Crunchy Biscuits as I like to call it) I've been keeping a similar but smaller journal chronicling my journey. Chris says I should share a few snippets but it really is boring stuff about twiglets, Chris's bum cleavage and Dan's slippers (which sounds a lot more interesting than it really is).

So what can I tell you folks?

Dan's last entry was pretty inspiring. He's not one for labelling our music (as he likes to keep his mind open), but if I were to try I would say we're post punk grungey jazz jangly rock with a hint of flamenco. I hope that clarifies things.

I might also post you this:

travel light! get your kite! (recording in the house 5-3-10)

2010-03-09T13:06:00.000-08:00

yep, some new material here from our last recording outing in the herald house - just before which we encountered an interesting set of biscuits in tesco... see the pic. we're all most amused at these very tasty chocolate bar derived treats!

that's fun

2010-02-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

recorded 26 feb 2010 at the herald house. we recorded the song earlier that evening , and then messing about on jason's notebook with some fun features we accidentally created the video material for the song we called 'that's fun'

this is also fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-_DPb-Uf3M

jumper dance

2010-02-26T02:43:00.000-08:00

chris's youtube channel type88video

2010-02-24T02:38:00.000-08:00

ep, i have a lot of old material to work through, maybe re-do or make videos for and upload to youtube, some of it really old!! so im going to put it on this page:

http://www.youtube.com/type88video

will make uploads now and again when i go over old stuff or come up with new things.

here's the first i have uploaded 'thumbing the records' it reminds me of being in a tranquil place, or just idly thumbing through some records, in a tranquil place. enjoy!

more songs up on youtube

2010-02-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

heres quite a few videos as im in quite a productive mode !

dog in the way!

this recording from our second recording session at Dagg studio in June 2009, we've had lots of fun and usually start singing this one when approaching jason's house to pick him and his drums up,,, his german shepherd Jerry Lee usually starts barking and gets over excited, probably disturbing their new dog and scaring dan quite a lot"!

go left:

this is a re-take from an earlier week when the recorder we were using ran out of memory on the card - so we only got half of it... on week 14 we played the song again and managed to get it sounding ok

bowl of my soul

no place like gnome..

summer rain

feel the love inside

bag saturday 19.2.10

2010-02-20T06:12:00.000-08:00

here is a recording done yesterday in the herald house - we spent a good few hours getting things recorded again using just 2 mic's this is an interesting sound from the room. here is the first song we have uploaded 'bag saturday' with a pic of an icy morning frozen window in the van.

and here is jason later that night wrestling with his array of plastic bags he uses as drum protection from the elements when locked up in his outbuilding. (the drums, not jason) great!

songs from 19.2.10

- bag saturday

biscuits every day...

2010-02-14T21:38:00.001-08:00

we are thinking this is quite funny

scotch egg party! in the house 13/feb

2010-02-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

recording again in herald house this afternoon, decided to do some photos with scotch eggs following dan and i being inspired by them enough to write songs /riffs about them ! we also got a really interesting tribal sounding thing going quite late on - i was so exhausted after doing the vocalizing noises on this one, needed a good rest and recover afterwards, and a scotch egg! recording was done just using two condenser mic's placed at right and left in the room,, this was becuase most of the other equipment was being used elsewhere that night (in the herald) - but it gave us a chance to try out how this would work, its a totally different sound!

song: "THE MUD SHOWER"
recording this one was fun and quite exhausting especially on the vocal bit, at the end with the 2 level wailing.. we were sitting listening to it afterwards and we seemed to get a feeling of something happening in another room, almost like a shower running - we also though it was quite earthy and tribal, so thats how we got the title

Enjoy! -chris

Really weird. I was bored today so I looked on bbc iplayer to see if anything was good. I just watched this film:

http://bbc.co.uk/i/qmf1w/

You should watch it man. Honestly, it's a lot like the images I was gettin in my head when listenin to mud shower, and even when recording it. The themes of cleavage, mud, tribes, drums, wailing (there's a witch doctor type dude who sounds a lot like you sound on the record), and the theme of exhaustion and trying to overcome it are both in the recording with the incessant beat and in the film (you will see wot I mean when you watch it though). even 'fine sand' in the pic on youtube, n in the film there's a scene with quick sand, which is fine sand n mud basically, I think! Crazy stuff.

Laterz.

Dan.

videos: deer hunters (week 13) / pear drop rain (week 3)

2010-02-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

more dan riffs and crunchy bees

2010-02-09T20:24:00.001-08:00

yep , some more to look over, here is what we have:

0331 - interesting sorts of things here, i like the rhythm guitar idea.. why not start with something like this and slowly add different elements, some cool chordage going on and wobbly notes i like those, ur obviously experimenting around here quite a lot

0334 - quite a definite rock start riff, then a change of key , i like the way the guitar sounds after you have changed key here, can really appreciate the way that amp sounds when it does its thing! its a very basic idea, but of course with the potential to be anything it wants

0335 - yes similar to the previous one, like an extention to the chord change idea and general structure. its slow and plodding , sort of reminds me of jurassic park or mammoths for some reason. dark growling, slow. and steady, quite an interesting change where it goes into a droning note with occasional breaks which really lift the drone out and make it more interesting, good! it reminds me of some song, but i can't think what right now

(tired old blues) - like it, straight away i am getting something of a light and colourful riff, maybe not quite tired or old, which is kind of interesting considering your choice of title! i like the little variations you keep trying, it helps to vary things and see later on a more careful listen to what and how it affects the tune, great one!

check out! this sounds kind of tired and old :::

(tired old blues with OverDrive), yes , it jumps out more doesnt it? just has more of an abrasive quality. its once a again a great starting point for something to tie into, lets try a few things out!

Tea for Two

2010-02-04T17:31:00.000-08:00

check out this myspace, i have been recording for the duo 'tea for two' and we have 5 new tracks up!- chris

http://www.myspace.com/teafortwouk

midweek riff reviews

2010-02-01T18:41:00.001-08:00

well here i am. after a pork sandwich and some chocc milk im anything but sleepy here at 2 am so what better to do that look through the recent barrage/tirade/influx/torrent/ tidal wave of riffs sent from sir dan.? not much really so here goes:

(most of these recordings here are straight of a digital handheld recorder, so for reference we are going by the tags generated by dan's machine)

DW_c0302 - some lovely sustained grunging off here, it reminds me of a tune by black rebel motorcycle club 'spread your love' yes, but also has elements of formula one racing and im getting a creamy overtone, sort of like dairylea

- Yeah, ta. I think we did this one last recording session. It wasn't anywhere near distorted though, so prob sounded way different. And yeah, I checked out that black rebel puppy club song, n yeah it has that sort of vibe don't it. Cool! 

DW_c0303 - moving on, what sounds like a solo , its pretty interesting! very melodic and expressive and improvasational, i am getting to the bit where it appears to be on the second half like you are re-visiting the first half. yes some very oriental sounds coming accross here.

- yeah, it does sound oriental don't it. As if we were on one of those Chinese style sailing boats, harboured off Hong Hong, looking over to shore thinking of a way to  import Jammie Dodgers without paying tax. 

DW_c0304 - this begins off sounding like a palm-muted thrash riff , and carrys on in that vein i would say! pretty hard and extreeme here, i think we could get some heavy shit on the go here! :)

- Yeah, heavy shit indeed. This sounded very good when I played it speeded up to double speed on the recorder. I just gotta play it faster for real next time! 

DW_c0305 - yes, now we move onto black sabbath?, hmm maybe, but there is a change of pace, nice tune here i think this could well be a good one!

- Yeah, I quite like this one too. If I can ever remember how to play these things again, lol. Is black mudbath the one ozzie osborne was in? 

DW_c0306 - im liking all the variation here, its a solid little tune, great the way the muted bit is contrasted

- Yeah, goin between mutin n not mutin is a good way to make me sound like I'm doin different things, when I'm . just playin the same riff, just mutin it. So it makes me sound better. I like this one. It's got energy. When you first hear it, it gets ur attention. I like that! Glad ya dig it!

DW_c0307 - yes, more solo - it reminds me of the tune from the big breakfast a bit, it could well be a theme tune to morning with anne and nick or good morning too! pretty bright and cheerful.

- lol, it is isn't it. Not all of these I can think of ever usin, but I record it just in case it might be useful. As in this one, it is rather cheesy soundin, so may pass on it. I think ur spot on, it is like a breakfast show or something. I think Borat could host it. 

DW_c0308 - i am getting freshly cut grass, more specifically lawnmowers , probably

- yeah, first few goes were tryin to get it into, then found the flow. I think this could work in a song to change the pace. Something to keep in mind for when we do the lawnmower song. Maybe freshly cut hair. I just got mine cut today. You virtually needed a lawnmower my hair was so damn long, lol. 

DW_c0309 - sounds like you are moving around the frets a bit , and getting to some new surprising sounds

- Hmm, yeah. I can't feckin remember wot I was doin. But fuk if it sounds clever then, yay! 

DW_c0310 - terminator

- If you think about it, as the terminator lived in 2020 or something, he doesn't yet exist, so when he does exist I'll send this to the corporation and we'll make a billion! Cool!

DW_c0311 - yes,,, im liking the driving rhythm, and the thick crunchy tone coming from the tiny amp.. this could do well in itself its a great sound byte,, i might just take this wav in and paste the rest onto it and build around it, or maybe we could all do this one friday? great one!

- Yeah I have my headphones in, full blast, makes the amp sound so much louder. So when I'm playin this stuff I'm really into it. It's a goodun, yeah. Glad ya dig it. 

DW_c0312 - this also sounds fantastic, very slow and meandering, but fizzy and crackly , just in a sort of relaxing way. this could be great with some slow drums , bass and solo or duo vocal wailings over the top.. then maybe a short interlude to listen to the sound of the wind in a sea shell or some ants crawling accross a potatoe.

- Yeah, well I had in mind Jason was talkin gettin an 'epic sound'. This sort of reminds me of 28 days later or some film like that. Sort of when all hope seems lost, the fallout of a disaster, people are lookin around thinkin shit wot do we do, which way shud we walk, all that dramatic shit. EPIC! situations. Peopel found out wot they're made of, all that kinda scene. It's very crackly but it doesn't sound the same without distoirtion so there was no point sendin u an undistorted version, coz yeah u cud hear it clearer but it wouldn't be the same. I'd lvoe to do a soundtrack, have our music in a film. I'd fekin love that. I always dream of it. It will be! 

DW_c0313 - sounds like it could well be a bass line, there are some nice natural sounding harmonics coming accross here, how have you achieved these?

- Yeah, could be a nice bassline. I've been interested in harmonics since I first picked up a guitar or even knew wot harmonic was, when I just had an acoustic spanish guitar. In fact I preferred to not fret the note most of time, but to play with it to get a diff sound. I remember when I first heard Rory Gallagher, it was exciting coz I'd never heard someone use harmonics so well. I think it's a personal thing, I not really sure wot I do. Sort of a mixture between very slight right hand mutin, then left hand I think hold down string but not fully down. There's so many miniscule variations, you gotta do wot works for you n wot sound u like. I love the possibilities from just one note. 

DW_c0314 - this could be a classic rock track, i am getting zz-top and all kinds of that stuff here, classic . rock. nice ending :)

- Earlier that day before recordin these, I was watching the endofentertainment youtube channel. Only the next day I realised this riff sounds a little bit like this rhythm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9qeUl08YL8
I wasn't thinkin of the song at all, dunno if it's a cover or wot either. Anyway just goes to show things stick in your mind. I guess that's why I try not to listen to so much music. I mean I'd rather music be a representation of many aspects of life, so when I go to record I don't want it to be a rehash of wot I've been listenin to "song wise". I want it to be about my day, my attitude, a new perspective, my feeling. Music's everywhere, but most say music is wot u listen to by a band or a DJ, and that's music. That's so limiting. There's music in a smile, or in the trees, or in some big jugglin tits u saw today. So yeah, you never switch off. So in fact I do listen to music, all the time. You gotta show it in a different way. Turn that smile into a tune. Happy days!  

DW_c0315 - this is like DW_c0314 - part 2 or something.. yes that is what its like!

- Yup. Think I was tryin to do summit, not sure wot, but summit, lol. 

DW_c0316 - very heavy , dark and dangerous sounding, the amp sounding again like when you scrape the black bits off toast really hard... i really like the middle section, it has a sense of completeness when you return to the original theme. cool

- Yep, I liked playin this one. It has got a change, as you noticed, and it does work I agree. I think we did this last recordin session, but again it wouldn't have sounded the same, as would've been too clean sounding. Yeah we biscuits r dead hard, we scrape the black bits off toast, and sometimes we don't! So Don't mess with us! 

DW_c0317 - this is a pretty solid idea for a riff.. some timing issues to iron out but i am liking the shape of what that could become.

- Yeah, it's ok. Simple enough. It's a start, could go somewhere, like you say. Cool! 

DW_c0318 - nice change of pace, im getting meat loaf and bread sticks. thats it for now! haha

- Yeah had to squeeze one last riff in, lol. It's ok I guess. I could've gone on n on, but I was mercifull. Untill the next day!.... 

DW_c0319 - this has certain rings of metallica .. very nice sympathetic ringing of the unplayed strings coming through , which makes it sound unusual and rather eerie. i like the way it develops, veers off and sort of arrives some where

- Yeah, cheers. I just wanetd to play around with one riff here, and get diff sounds from the notes. Sort of like wot I was saying before, getting the most from just a few notes. So little bit of slidin here n there, vibrato, mutin, etc. It lasts a while because I wanted to see if I could use a riff to work for a whole song, n I think it would. That's the idea, to get some or all of these to work in whole songs. 

DW_c0320 - a delicate descending melody, just like when a feather falls gracefully from the underbelly of a wood pigeon that has just scratched it's nether regions. short but very sweet

- Yeah, it has got a sort of postman pat about it (with wood pigeons scratchin there nether regions of course).  

strong woman (take 1) 323 - ahh now , i like the sound of this, that amp really does shine on this recording, i am really thinking dan, that you should create a video for this on its own, it would be interesting to hear what you do with the spritely middle bit.

- Yeah, I see you've done a little vid. Well I not sure it really worthy of a vid, but I guess it's doin no harm. I'm thinkin of lycis for this one all the time. Little bits come to me now n then. It'll be a goodun. Glad ya like the sound of it. 

strong woman (take 2) 324 - yes can hear you must have either changed guitar pickup setting, sitting postion , position of recorder or some other factor.. but a different sound altogether, a lot softer - has a lovely gentle movement like water when its not a bad storm. the middle section is a lot more mellow too and returns more slowly to the main bit.

- I pretty much played it just like the first take, but turned the distoirtion off on the amp. I thought you wouldn't appreciate the first take as it may have been a bit too harsh, so I recorded this second take. Just goes to show wot I know, lol, as you liked the first take. Good job I sent it! Nice one! 

strong woman (take 3) 325 - starts and i can hear a bit of phone interferance... then strong woman picks up again - i can hear some new development using higher strings, im getting a little bit of paradise city for some reason - (where the girls are strong and pretty),,, yes nice sounds i reckon some good ideas to think about there, im liking the changing bass string work right at the end of this one.. lovely! great

- Yeah, I wanetd to play it without the middle section, n add a little more higher string change, all fingerstyle. This is my fav version, but I do see the value in the first two takes with the middle change. Something just came to mind actually. The slow fast change in take 1 and 2 reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smUFDvltYrA
So i guess it can work.

Super, smashing, great!!!

Dan.

friday 29/jan/2010

2010-01-29T19:01:00.000-08:00

back in the herald house this afternoon until midnight, we took a load of recording (just over 3 hours) so got quite a bit to check through, expect some stuff to be posted up pretty soon! also expect to see some of jasons notes hes been jotting down his thoughts on matters of importance. or not so important but maybe amusing. great stuff

damson jam

2010-01-27T13:26:00.000-08:00

the herald stage (before new extention)

2010-01-27T12:13:00.000-08:00

Feet in the House on 22.01.10

2010-01-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

Back in to the house at the Herald, last friday we did some more recordings - Jason took to the guitar for the first time ever for a few of the tracks! working through in a different sort of way, everything is on one big project in the computer so we've been picking through the material afterward and then finishing them off as we work through them, got a few done and have a few more to look at..

Titles:

Guitar Riff
Night Ride
Ray Ears
Where on Earth
Damson Jam

Vivian Girls

2010-01-19T16:38:00.001-08:00

went to see some great live music in liverpool!

The Herald and House

2010-01-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.theheraldlive.com/

music for 2010! (recording 15.01.10)

2010-01-15T19:58:00.000-08:00

yes, our first practice/recording session of this year got underway , see picture from that here. and soon video/songs will be posted up! we hope to get another one in next week and see what comes of that. , some more ideas to try out

songs list for friday 15th Jan 2010

- bongo christ
- scotch egg shoes
- headlights (never there)
- harmful fly
- (not there)
- ZZ lime
- lionel mountain
- unfinished
- now its alive its crackly frank (1) --
- now its alive its crackly frank (2)
- not its alive its crackly frank (3)
-
- now its alive its crackly frank (4)
- now its alive alive its crackly frank (5) followed by
hidden footage at around 5:20 mark
- fizzy mumbo
- slower shower
- devil gone blues
- scotch eggs?? superb recipe guide here

video - dressing town (week 21)

2010-01-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

25mm badges available

2010-01-10T08:06:00.000-08:00

yes, here we have done some small badges prints. available on request!

video - yellow noise

2009-12-27T12:44:00.000-08:00

here is a video for our song 'yellow noise' its quite a jam orientated recording - have fun with it!

chris

Annoucing the release of Sir dan lemonJ harrisons video

2009-12-27T11:49:00.000-08:00

here it is! a piece of music video work where dan takes his original riff used in the song 'bubba ho tep' *an early crunchy recording from the dagg era* and uses it in combination with some pretty freakishly scary monster footage. this is a pretty interesting piece so get stuck in!

I've never seen a rhino

2009-12-24T09:43:00.001-08:00

green nono

2009-12-24T08:31:00.000-08:00

THE CRUNCHY CATALOGUE OF RECORDINGS

2009-12-24T05:10:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of the recordings that we have done, some are yet to be named and some may yet be changed or updated so this is going to be a work in progress...

Codes:

C = Chris Oliver (aka 'Mr Pink Wafer / Cauliflower' / et al)
D = Daniel J Harrison (aka 'Lemon J' / Lemon J Puffinson )
J = Jason Lee (aka 'Jammie Dodger')

V = Vocals
G = Guitar
B = Bass guitar
D = Drums
P = Percussion (such as Bongo's or Tabla's)
S = Slide Guitar
AG = Acoustic Guitar
SG = Spanish Guitar

Format explained: - C (G / B), J (D)
So the above means that Chris Oliver played Guitar and Bass guitar on that particular track, and Jason Lee played Drums. As I (Dan) am not listed, I guess I must've gone looking for scotch eggs or something.

WEEK ONE (at dagg studio southport)

- bacon pie
- border control
- combover
- crazy song
- folded blanket
- jellybeans on the guitar

WEEK TWO (at dagg studio southport)

- bakery bash!
- diddly sca
- dog in the way - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- doublemint
- fish fish fish
- haunted farm - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- leisure time
- living in a glove (tarzan)
- no way down
- octobear - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- raw cliffs
- spider plant - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- wellington boots
- whalebone

WEEK THREE (at Dagg Studio Southport)

- bowl of my soul
- bubba ho tep
- cougar at the pantry
- dudes dudes dudes dudes dudes
- genie on the hour
- heavin' steven
- i got no time
- late last sunday
- leaning on the gate
- mole out of hell
- on the floor baby
- pear drop rain
- principal tie
- show you the way
- sky of wales
- trapped in a cable
- waiting for the toaster
- wolf woman
- yellow noise

WEEK FOUR (at Dagg Studio)

- bazza mambo moo
- bows and arrows
- cherry in the rain (noel edmonds)
- crabstick crawlers
- crabstick crawlers reprise
- fishery fishing song (1)
- fishery fishing song (2)
- fly teacher
- got a hat stand, its made of lego
- honky tonk horn blower
- les dawson's tie
- life without stain
- living in a cave
- pea soup
- pork chop chomp
- stolen rock
- the spanish border
- three little words
- wallet mullet

WEEK FIVE (@ DAGG southport)

- air tank
- bad beanbag
- fort lauderdale
- funny ha ha
- golden showers
- hell's pineapple
- I aint got the blues
- into the wild
- jelly mould
- read it
- seat suites
- spaghetti spaghetti
- sweating
- telephone tape
- tits mc graw
- titty fuck
- velcro iguana
- wait wait for the snake
- why wait

WEEK SIX (@ DAGG)

- bees wing
- cinnabar - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- come on baby stroke my fish
- cow pie blues
- crap salad
- got a hat stand, it's made of lego (2)
- guiena pig
- inside the box
- jigsaw pigsaw
- kitchen doom - C (B / V), D (G), J (P)
- mama - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- midget's menu
- rudolf elec
- swirling moth blues - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- the flipping lines
- typewriter

WEEK SEVEN ( AT DAGG SOUTHPORT)

- always not ready - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- chief bedtime skipping bear - C (B / V), D (G / S), J (D)
- cleethorpes castle
- my sick duck
- generation game
- hailstone wars
- i've been sick - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- makeup shakeup
- on the floor of the forest
- owee oo0h
- saloon dion - C (G / S / V), D (B), J (D)
- tea towel
- i've never seen a rhino (formerly the incredible bun)
- the theme from the crunchy biscuits
- tweed on toast - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)

WEEK EIGHT ( /// SKIPPED WEEK

WEEK NINE (AT DAGG SOUTHPORT)

- cauliflower pants
- dog in the way (take1) revisiting the track....
- dog in the way (take 2)
- drainpipe
- dungaree kangaroo
- locket tune
- no body
- sweet dream pie (formerly pie lullaby)
- sir john's shed march
- slide park
- zippy's chippy - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)

WEEK TEN (@ DAGG SOUTHPORT)

- a nice pond
- apple pie appetite - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- brown paper bag - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- dinner bat
- easter eggs
- fly teachers flight
- freeze fish
- go left
- grumbletweezer makes total mash - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- hurry hurry - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- jam overdrive - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- novoscotia - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- novoscotia (reprise) - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- now its alive (it's frankenstien) - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- oh poo
- see saw - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- socks for sausages - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- wallpaper
- whats all this?
- whippet crap

WEEK 11 (@ Dagg Southport)

- ugotta
- all other tracks yet to be named.

WEEK 12 (@ THE HOUSE)

- castle strudel
- lada louts
- steven survivor
- thinking about pie

WEEK 13 @ the house

- deer hunters
- dream of man D (G), J (V) (Lyrics by Jason Lee)
- guve it away
- green nono
- if you mattered not - D (G), J (V) (Lyrics by Jason Lee)
- illegalese - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- jason and dan jam
- lemonous mellow
- poo no.2
- shes my lover - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- shes my lover 2 - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- spam jam with J an Dan
- spamma mia
- spamming around
- the blue ball blues
- washing line
- we've come for you

WEEK 14 @ THE HOUSE

- (13 tracks yet to be named)
- go left (full recorded version)
- nothing but cabbage
- super smashing great

WEEK 15 @ the house

- (8 tracks yet to be named)

WEEK 16 @ THE House

(friday)
- amber cabamber
- boys banned
- devil seas (take 1) - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- devil seas (take 2) - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- eye of the tiger (cover) - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- featherstone hearts - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- five alive - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- flying leopards
- frogman
- lemon supper
- rock blogger
- silo
- sound saga
- up in the hills

(saturday)
- bubble & squeak
- cheesedinner
- life long
- make indigo
- motorpike
- mrs jelly belly - C (B), D (G), J (V) (Lyrics by Jason Lee)
- rag man muffin - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- ridge mountain
- simia
- terrible moan
- treadmill

WEEK 17 @the house

- lemon juice groove
- writing on my lunchbox

WEEK 18 @

WEEK 19 @ // some work outside the house

WEEK 20 @ the house

- fire in the breadbin
- iceberg march - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- it's gone
- jason eating crisps
- matchbox baby
- new wires frontiers
- russian spoon
- shipping out
- slider
- slippery anchor
- sounds of sunshines
- spidery legs
- tea time at groggins
- throw it away
- tightrope line - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- tightrope line (take 2) - C (B / V), D (G / S), J (D)
- travel oars

WEEK 21 @ the house

- dressing town - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- dunnage trousers - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- jason and dan - D (G), J (V)
- lemon not lime - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- where on - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)

SEASON TWO - WEEK 1

- bongo christ - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- scotch egg shoes - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- headlights (never there) - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- harmful fly - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- (not there)
- ZZ lime - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- lionel mountain - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- unfinished - C (D), D (G), J (V)
- now its alive its crackly frank (1) -- C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- now its alive its crackly frank (2) -- C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- not its alive its crackly frank (3) -- C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
-
- now its alive its crackly frank (4) - -- C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- now its alive alive its crackly frank (5) followed by
hidden footage at around 5:20 mark
- fizzy mumbo -- C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- slower shower -- C (G / V), D (B), J (D)
- devil gone blues -- C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
- scotch eggs?? superb recipe guide here -- C (B / V), D (G), J (D)

wk 2

Guitar Riff - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
Night Ride - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
Ray Ears - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)
Where on Earth - C (B / V), D (G), J (D)

Dan's House Session - Yet to be listed

Chris's House Session - Yet to be listed

Bedford Park Project - July 2011

Park Potatoes - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)

Bedford Park Branches - C (G / V), D (B), J (D)

song 3 *instrumental* C (G), D (B) J (D)

Dan's Video for the ''cinnabar''

2009-12-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

nice work here dan, i think these red items really go well with the sounds in the song - especially when that wall plaque comes up its very exciting viewing. ha ha
-chris

The day Michael Palin met Crunchy Biscuits

2009-12-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

So Mr Pink Wafer (Chris) and I (Lemon J) met Michael Palin today at a book signing at Broadhurst's bookshop in town (Southport). There was a moment of panic on the way, as I, being the Lemon that I am, got my dates mixed up and brought along:

"Sarah Palin, halfway to Russia (lookin out my window), the early years".

Luckily Mr Wafer had brought along Michael's book, which of course is:

"Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980-88 by Michael Palin"

After about 40 mins of freezing our "finegrs" off in the queue, Michael finally got to meet us. He'd even put the fire on for us, which was decent of him. In fact, although our encounter was brief, Michael was a true gent, a jolly nice chap, just as we already knew, of course.

Just before we walked up to meet him, some nice ladies from the book store kept askin us what we wanted Michael to write in the book. We kept saying it was ok, because we wanted Michael to write his own thing. After being asked a few times by the ladies, I just blurted out "we're crunchy biscuits, so we want it signed to crunchy biscuits." The lady looked puzzled for some reason, and stopped asking me after that.

Anyway Mr Wafer asked Mr Palin to write something about Crunchy Biscuits, while he simultaneously threw a couple of Crunchy Biscuits badges on the table and told Michael a bit about what we're about. I asked Mr Bicycle Repair Man, erm I mean Mr Palin what was his favourite biscuit. Well I'll let Mr Wafer reveal the answer to that, as he has the picture of the signed book which he'll be adding to this blogpost soon, no doubt! Michael looked really pleased to meet a couple of nutters, as everyone else seemed pretty ordinary and just wanted things like, "To Mildred, Love from Michael" signed in their books. He seemed to revel in being able to write pretty much anything (as long as it concerned crunchy biscuits) in the book we gave him to sign.

He shook our hands and off we went. A brief but brilliant encounter. Yes Michael Palin finally got to meet Crunchy Biscuits, and get a couple of priceless badges to boot. The man is surely blessed.

Thanks Mr Palin. What a legend!

Lemon J

PS: on our way out, Palin shouted over at us: "the original Crunchy Biscuits, eh!" to which I returned, pointing back at him: "Yeah, you'll remember that name"

What a day! BUZZIN!!! :D

-------------------------------------------------------------

waiting for the toaster - video

2009-11-06T09:11:00.001-08:00

Video Featuring Daniel (lemon J) Harrison preparing toast - an interesting look at the waiting we do for such things as toast to become toasted. part of Dan's guitar solo is timed in with an impatient moment where he's checking the toast in the video - aarrgh! its not quite done!

2009-11-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

HI, ..we've been adding a few of videos to youtube and we've had dan's halloween themed myspace list of music. As last week was quite packed with events we have not had a day of recording - i just posted this song up on myspace and called it 'super smashing great' (from week 14) . I reckon its a crazy sounding thing that reminds me of when you let a dog off its leash to run around and go mad where it likes - ok for a laugh! so the video when it gets done will reflect this with some lively movement of the camera. More videos to come for lots of songs (some of them with moving images!) we may be doing some more recordings on saturday or sunday coming up.
-Chris

super smashing great

Biscuitgate

2009-10-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

British politics: The cookie crumbles

Will the U.K. government finally fall over thanks to Biscuitgate?
By Barry Neild — Special to GlobalPost
Published: October 24, 2009 10:16 ET

LONDON, U.K. — It has survived the worst of the financial crisis, weathered conflict in Afghanistan and shrugged off an embarrassing parliamentary expenses scandal, but the resolute leadership of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week looked like it was finally crumbling — over cookies.

With an election looming in early 2010, Brown has been out on the campaign trail, trying to reverse a plunge in popularity by persuading his jaded public that the media has unfairly miscast him as an aloof and gloomy leader beset by indecision over key issues.

So it was that the prime minister, in the role of a friendly man-of-the-people, joined a Q and A session with subscribers to parental advice website Mumsnet, little suspecting that what was intended as a cozy chat would become a storm in that most British of institutions: a teacup.

Happy to talk about weighty matters such as education, climate change and the economy, a loquacious Brown easily parried most of the questions but stumbled over a disarmingly simple topic raised by one curious mother: What's your favorite biscuit?

Not to be confused with the floury companion to gravy often found on plates in the southern United States, biscuits are what the British call cookies — or at least they do when they're not referring to them by bizarre and unappetizing brand names, of which there are hundreds.

Workplaces across the U.K. would grind to a halt unless fueled by Hobnobs, Ginger Nuts, Digestives and Custard Creams, with consumption levels reflecting not only the quirks of a country of tea drinkers but also their need to compensate for such a wet national beverage.

While it should therefore be no surprise that the voters of Britain would be thirsty for news of what their leader dunks in his morning brew, Brown clearly thought the matter too flippant and ignored it, despite being asked by Mumsnet readers no fewer than 12 times.

"Maybe he needs to consult with his advisers on what would be the most vote-winning biscuit to admit to liking," wrote one Mumsnet member, as the prime minister wrapped up his 70-minute chat, brushed non-existent crumbs from his lap and headed home to Downing Street.

But the questioning didn't stop. Reporters quickly took up the baton, pestering his press people for an answer. The following day Brown's biscuit breakdown made front page in the London Times. The right wing tabloid Daily Mail, somewhat predictably, called it "Biscuitgate."

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/united-kingdom/091022/british-politics-cookie-downing

Romany

2009-10-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

Yep, its some zippy

2009-10-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hey, we've just finished putting this piece of video together at the house on our 20th week of biscuit creations - enjoy flipping zippy going all over the place all to the crazy sound of our song zippy's chippy - inspired by the rainbow chippy in birkdale village Southport ... and my thoughts about if zippy himself was to serve chips there, dropping them all on the floor and stuff - what a great time that would be.

Visit our Myspace page for more:

http://profile.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits

you need to see this epidode of rainbow to fully understand: /see 2:48 for zippy extract/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M62SnbNizIM

Thanks!

Biscuit Education!

2009-10-16T01:50:00.000-07:00

from this website : http://bbab.org.uk/

Revealed: The most dangerous biscuit in Britain is.. the Custard Cream

Sep 8 2009 By Janice Burns

CUSTARD creams are Britain's most dangerous biscuits, it was revealed yesterday A study claimed an estimated 25million people in Britain had been injured by biscuits.

Hidden dangers included flying fragments and daredevil dunking in scalding tea. And custard creams were the worst offenders, posing the biggest risk to innocent dunkers.

Around 500 people a year need hospital treatment because of biscuit injuries.

The study by Mindlab found 29 per cent of adults had been splashed or scalded by hot drinks while dunking or trying to fish the remnants from hot tea.

They also found 28 per cent had choked on crumbs and 10 per cent had broken a tooth or filling biting a biccy.

More unusually, three per cent had poked themselves in the eye with a biscuit and seven per cent were bitten by a pet or "other wild animal" trying to get their biscuit.

One man ended up stuck in wet concrete after wading in to pick up a stray biscuit.

Mindlab have now devised a Biscuit Injury Threat Evaluation, or B.I.T.E. Custard creams get a risk rating of 5.63.

The study was commissioned by Rocky - which was rated the country's third riskiest type of biscuit.

Mindlab International director Dr David Lewis said: "We tested the physical properties of 15 popular types of biscuits, along with aspects of their consumption such as dunkability and crumb dispersal.

"Then a mathematician correlated these findings with a nationwide survey of over 1000 adults."

Mike Driver, of Rocky, said: "Working with biscuits every day, we'd long suspected they're not as innocent as they look - and we were right."

Week Five Alive

2009-10-13T06:20:00.000-07:00

This week and maybe next we've all decided to take a short break to recharge our batteries - here is something we recorded on the 18th Sep - adapeted for YouTube by sir Daniel J Harrison just today.

nice work dan! :::::::::::::

week 17

2009-09-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, did quite a lot of recording this week in the house,, i was feeling a bit sick and flu'ish but decided to press on! we had aeroplanes passing over us constantly cos of the air show but couldnt hear them when playing loud.. see the my space for a few more songs just recorded between sat and sunday (see: http://profile.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits ) - we have plans soon for outside recordings possibly from a cave and other things to do with more videos! so stay tuned :) chris

for the song: restaurant nightmares

for the song: trawlermen

New Eurofighter music video by - Daniel 'lemon J'

2009-09-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

yep, having just found this home crafted YouTube gem of a video and being quite excited about it i've decided to post it up here - I'm quite enjoying sir Dan's creation here - he explains all about the decisions and thought processes that went into this in the info bit on the youtube page, so be sure to have a quick look! hopefully we will be adding many more to our youtube account - i have one specifically in mind of a song about allotments and pumpkins - so stay tuned!

-Chris

recording in the house / studio

2009-08-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

We have started doing our recordings in a house in Southport town.. It's great cos its near a pub! actually meters away from one.. we got a few tracks done on the Saturday and filmed a few instumental ones on friday , its a good set up allowing us to review material over speakers before starting the next song - so we can adjust along the way,, should be even better when its a bit more finished in there. This week we had our friend mark down with his camera to do some filming work, hes going to collect up some material and work it into his own film, should be interesting. so were pretty excited by working here for the moment - we went for a chinese meal to celebrate, mmm pretty good!

-Chris

blind train - the new song

2009-08-16T07:23:00.000-07:00

heres an image for our song 'blind train' .. im enjoying this song, the guitar part really sounds like a train grinding along on some tracks and maybe blindly going along according to its tracks route.. also this pic of someones guide dog guiding them along like a train seems quite a good connection - there are some ''woof woof's'' in the song which further tie all this together - im pretty pleased with it and on my next train journey ill be sure to have it on my mp3! Dan has further ideas on this song and title:

''blind train is like people are born and they're put on tracks, you're expected to do this, follow the family tradition, culture, etc. Even down to following the 'genes'. You're expected to look the same as your family to a degree. These are 'tracks' and each person is the train. Tracks are ok to a degree, but there's comes a point in life when we are conscious, we have choice, which overrides all of the aforementioned expectations. People who stay blind and don't create their own tracks will eventually crash, because it's not the destination their 'higher being' wants to head to. You can't fake it, you can kid yourself for a while, but you'll eventually crash. That's why people get ill, in all manner of ways, coz they're on some predetermined tracks, not their own, n it don't work that way.''

jelly dogs, lemon puffs, coffee and cakes in liverpool

2009-08-15T09:36:00.001-07:00

Vintage aluminium dog and peas jelly moulds up for auction on ebay!

yep, this week we've had a meeting/outing in liverpool doing a bit of discussion and equipment buying ,before our recording practice at dagg studio southport, our 11th week of recording was pretty good! although we lost 11 of the first songs done to a nasty amount of loud hum from one of the mics being too loud next to an amp.. however we managed to re-capture a song and made a few more up.. after which a good few hours were spent in the kew branch of mcDonalds discussing various sorts of things. new ideas include balancing boxes of biscuits atop the heads to see how that affects things, using snorkels, and bringing jelly with us as a sweet energy boosting snack. perhaps eating the jelly through snorkels would sound interesting... also the idea to use some of jason's writing skillis in the form of short 4 line verse formats to use as song lyric inspiration - we've also discussed the possibility of having small runs of vinyl records done in the future that we can sell individually. Dan is also working on some home made music videos but is struggling with cyberlink software and a slow home PC,, i would like to suggest a video including zippy from rainbow trying to serve chips with his big 3 fingered hands to customers in the birkdale 'rainbow' chippy, would be ideal for the song 'zippy's chippy' im sure this could be possible if we asked them about it. (news just found: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2147604.stm ) biscuits too are a possibility - there are a few of the new songs up, have a look! http://profile.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits

- Chris

Week X

2009-08-11T03:22:00.000-07:00

Yes folks it's that time again and welcome to a very special edition of Crunchy Biscuits Adventures. This week we found our intrepid heroes dare the soundscapes of Nova Scotia, Dinner Bat (the oy song!) and Now It's Alive, It's Frankenstein!

Frankenstein came about because I was playing dead in Chris's garage earlier and I think it stuck in Chris' subconscious when he came up with the lyrics.

We were talking the week before how as soon as the mics come on there's this pressure to perform - interfering with our process. So we suggested we take a leisurely approach this week. That idea went right out the window when Chris was inspired by our manic jamming to keep the energy up and go speedy crazy one song after the other.

It killed us but it did have the added benefit of allowing me to record my first drum solo which resulted in a lot of screaming and tiring myself out. The song (Grumbletweezer Makes Total Mash) descended into a chilled out jazz vibe after that but the damage was done I had been liberated and no one would be safe thereafter.

We also ran out of memory too so didn't get to record all of Go Left which was a shame because it was a goodun. Still enough of it's there to refer back to if we ever decide to do it again.

And then there was the mystery of the unknown Doritos flavour. See they'd been doing this promotion of not labelling their bags so you don't know what you're getting. When it came to our Crunchy Biscuits Break I handed them out. Dan said they tasted like Monster Munch. I said they were beefy...

... and three hours later Chris called out "Pot noodle!"

Awww, those were the days...

a sea saw

2009-08-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

i've been messing around with our new song 'see saw' and found this pic here, ive tried to sort out the eq's and stuff. see how you like it at:

http://profile.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits

sweet dream pie

2009-08-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

yes 'sweet dream pie' available here : http://profile.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits , have a listen to one of our newest tunes ! I have selected this strange and dreamlike artwork for the song,

here is what i had to say in my email sending the song over after some work:

'' I like this song a lot and think it has a lot of good things going on in it,, i like the faded level of the vocals not taking over too much, maybe the guitar is a tiny bit too high , and the bass not quite clear enough,, but overall its understandable and good.. i have adjusted the eq's a bit and filled in the guitar part with another secondary distorted electric cos i think i sounded slightly out of rythm in some places, so the other part will accompany the lead and iron out the wonky stuff i was playing on my broken stringed guitar, great! ''

heres some possible lyrics to this one:

SWEET DREAM PIE

I looked high on the riverboat
rivers rise up
had to let me down but
you would'nt let me

high on the rythm
that rythm's never done
9 9 9 9 9

Don't let me wind, unwind
I'm just satisfied
Leave my leopards fine

Why why why
did you let us, let us
just leave my drivers and I

why why why
opposite
why why why

why why why
babysit
why why why

LEAD BIT IN BETWEEN -----------------------

Dinnerplate, Dinnerplate
I don't do nothing but
laugh and overtime

Tea high
dinner fly
let's just settle by
lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie

lie lie lie
lie lie lullaby

lie lie lie
lie lie lullaby

lie lie lie
lie lie lullaby

oooh

BIT OF A GUITAR SOLO-----------------------

lullaby
lullaby
lullaby

-Chris

Bubba Ho-Tep

2009-08-03T04:12:00.001-07:00

No image gallery would be complete without our god and inspiration...

Yes we did indeed do a song called Bubba Ho-Tep. It's one of our best.

Dan thinks we sound a little like The Fun Lovin' Criminals on it. It makes me larf. Especially the part were Gra laughed at Chris's expressions during the recording.

Thankyoveymuch... left the building.

Cows Pie Blues

2009-08-03T04:03:00.001-07:00

This what you get when you cross British comics, a bandmember called Dan and a song called Cows Pie Blues.

For when you have to go like clockwork. Yes, a clock made from the shit of cows. I kid you not.

Crabstick Crawlers Reprise

2009-08-03T03:55:00.000-07:00

I would hate to meet the crab these balls came from...

Crabstick Crawlers

2009-08-03T03:51:00.000-07:00

Serving suggestion.

Mole Out of Hell

2009-08-03T03:44:00.000-07:00

See how his little hands wave at you.

If I had the skills, I would photoshop little flames around him.

Illustrating Songs

2009-08-03T03:22:00.000-07:00

So fellow Biscuiteers. You may have noticed Chris likes to post what at first may appear to be random pictures of cougars, toasters and the like. There is a method to his madness, to quote ole Shakes-a-spear.

His plan is to illustrate songs we've done, like Cougar in the Pantry and Waiting for the Toaster. He also does the same thing with our Facebook profile image.

So with that in mind I shall now follow in Chris's example presenting a little gallery of images with explanatory song titles.

Go fuck yourselves ~ Song lyrics

2009-08-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd post some song lyrics here. This ones called 'Go fuck yourselves' and I want it to have a bluesy feel, and I don't mind singing on it, or all sing on it. Bit of screaming, different harmonies, bit of muppeteering might work. lot's of crazy guitars, bass and drumming. Could go slow bluesy beat while talky singing the first verse, then crazy shouty singing second verse with more rockier sound, then onto a massive conglomeration of crazy sounds, possibly high pitched slide work, then gradually slow it down and nice and quiet until the last line is spoken (sort of in an aggressive growly way), then much louder and a big power chord ending and I wanna see Jason work them drums for the finale too! boom boom bbb b b b b b bboooooom! BOOM! yeah!

Go fuck yourselves
Yeah that's right I said go fuck yourselves
Try it out, you might like the taste

So go fuck yourselves, coz this is me
Can't you fukin see, it's the only way I can be
Wallow in your will, but I can't be still
So go fuck yourselves, coz this is me

That's just me tellin ya what I want to know

----------------------------------

That's it.

Week 9 Review! - Chris snaps his G-String! but gallantly soldiers on!

2009-08-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

So, looks like I've been roped in to write the review for week 9. huh, like as if my musical genius wasn't contribution enough! Anyway, onwards...

So I'll just get on with writing up what happened at the actual studios. I mean you don't need to know what happened on the run up to that do you? Oh well if you insist, I brushed my teeth, changed my shoes and had a slash. I also drank a shedload of water coz I was very hung over.

Picking up Jason we saw he had his flares on and some crazy big shoes (I can't remember what you call em, ermm...Platforms?) . He'd made extra effort as a friend of ours is planning to "documtentize" one of our musical recording outings, but alas it won't be for another week or two.

During setup, Jason put on some of the cheesiest OAP cruise ship music you'll ever hear anywhere this side of, well, anywhere! But there wasn't time for the Tango, we had to plug in and tune up!

After setting up, Jason had the brilliant idea that Chris should, to paraphrase, "try strumming the guitar more like Pete Towsend and less like George Formby! for a change." *No offence George, you're our hero!* With a bit of trepadation at first (Would George be turning in his grave!?!) Chris soon took this task to hand with his usual enthusiasm. In fact with so much enthusiasm that by the end of the first song he'd snapepd his G-string. But we biscuits are made of crunchier stuff, and Chris gallantly soldiered on, doing brilliantly if I may say so, without this most important of strings.

You know what, I haven't heard back the tunes we did yet, so I can't really comment too much on that just yet. But I felt week 9! it was a very good session indeed. We thought about the tunes a bit more before going full throttle into them. As a result we only recorded about 10 new tunes this week (ONLY! lol, that's an album right there!) but I believe we'll have progressed even more as a result. I can't wait to hear them back!

As I say I can't comment too much yet, but as I also said earlier, Chris did very well on the guitar, I stayed on the bass all night on this occasion, and Jason's drumming sounded cool.
To be honest, at this stage at least, we don't really comment so much on each others playing. We're all our own worst critics and our own best lovers. Yes I love myself, boo hoo! If I do something that I think is great, I'll say so, just as much as if I thought it was cr@p!
Having said that, we are starting to make more and more suggestions to each other, and Jason is really growing into the role of musical director, if you will. Again, it's all about progressing, and I envision us all as being in the mixing bowl at the minuite, slightly separated to a degree, like different ingredients swirling ideas around, and one day we will all be a part of one huge crunchy biscuit, and anyone who takes a bite out of us will experience the most marvelous taste. Ok, that's about as corny as I can be, for now!

Basically the one is the all, the all is the one as my m,ulti-dimensional mate Bashar says.
bashar.org

With about fifteen minutes to go we (or someone) decided we should give the all time classic "Dog in the way" another go. Unfortunately I had a "moment" and I couldn't for the life of me get to grips with the bass line, despite Chris' best efforts showing me how to play this insanely simple yet effective bass line. It felt like, like when someone asks you your name and you can't even remember it?.... Oh, only me then, hmm. Anyway we managed to do a take but I think we all agreed it didn't really work. We'll hear more soon enough!

Five minutes to go and we blasted out another tune, then it was time to pack up. I even managed to have a bit of a chat to Aaron, the proprieter of Dagg studios, who's a jolly decent chap. Well actually Chris is always chattin to him at the end but my heads always usually elsewhere (like, "how does twinkle twinkle little star go again?") . Anyway least he now knows I'm not a mute/and or something now, lol. At the end of the night my hangover had cleared. Amazing isn't it, to think that blasting out tunes at incredible volumes in a small room is the best hangover cure in the world! You heard it here first. Cheques to Mr Daniel James if you please.

Pics will be edited in at a later date. Like when Chris returns from Coventry! And no!, we didn't send him to Coventry! I can assure you!

So for now it's goodnight from me. And it's goodnight from me! :D

Crunchy Biscuits Crunch Japan!

2009-07-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

There's summit about the Tokyo/Japanese audience that seems to bring ther very best out of bands. The SRV one I posted earlier from Tokyo was fucking insane. As is this one. I reckon if the Crunchy Biscuits band ever tour, we'll do Japan first. I might even try n mastermind a cult following in Japan, lay the foundations if ya get ma.

Sianara! PPuL!!!

Imaginary Week 8

2009-07-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

I was off with a case of major man-flu (or minor swine flu) this week so the Biscuits remained in their tin. But we can always imagine what may have happened.

So to paraphrase Alan Moore here's an imaginary story. Huh, aren't they all?

We arrived to find Dagg Studios full of pornstars dubbing their new movie with authentic orgasmic cries. Ever the troopers we soldiered on.

The surprising thing about pornographic voice artists is that they look nothing like their visual counterparts. Instead the best sounding women look like ordinary plane Janes. So next time you dismiss some chick for her looks think about what's inside of her (ie a healthy pair of lungs).

We warmed up with a Crunchy Biscuit style adaptation of Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee, each of us taking turns to perform a virtuoso solo. Segued nicely into a new track called The Birds and the Bees - nursery rhymme-esque and inspired by next rooms shenanigans.

Chris used up all the batteries on his camera taking pictures of the ladies (for his own personal use, he said) so I've had to resort to an older picture to illustrate this weeks blog. He also brought us our next bit of merchandise - Crunchy Biscuits Action Figures! They're caricatures of our good selves and each figure comes complete with musical accessories (including a mini kazoo for yours truly!). They also have in built action features - Chris has a mouth-splitting siren's wail, Dan has a Pete Townsend guitar windmill signature move and mine's called drummer-choking-on-his-own-vomit.

We also did a song called Jump Ship featuring Dan on the foghorn, Pull the Chain with me on the toilet and Look Ma No Hands with Chris on the piano.

Because we were in the end room, when we went on our break we had to go through next door to get outside upsetting the poor voice artists. And when our break was over they needed some inspiration so we went back pantless.

We ended our session with Soggy Biscuit Blues and a power balad version of Saloon Dion.

Much fun was had by all and we hope you tune in next week to see how youtubing Stevie Ray Vaughn and Oasis inspired Legendary Dan.

Crunchy Biscuit Tin

2009-07-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

Someone had the great idea of converting a biscuit tin into a ukele!

We'd be happy with just a biscuit tin with our name on it...

on the floor of the forest

2009-07-20T08:07:00.001-07:00

This Week @ Dagg (week7)

2009-07-19T04:06:00.000-07:00

yes, good! we got a fair few songs done. it was wet and rainy so we were using umbrellas and plastic bags to protect equipment while moving it.. there was a small smouldering mass of vegetation over the wall next to Dagg Studio when we arrived which we were all having a look at - the rain was beating it down, it smelt pretty interesting. This week we were using 'the viz' for inspiration - particularly 'aesops cables' a fine story. I will be working through some of the recorded material and trying to get something out of that

-Chris

mama

2009-07-17T04:37:00.000-07:00

here is some artwork that I found whilst searching for an image to go with our new song 'mama', we did not know what the text was until checking it out in the interenet cafe today - but it goes quite well with the songs manic structure (probably :)

check out 'mama' on myspace now! http://www.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits

-Chris/Dan from the internet café opposite wilkinsons cameras on eastbank st (£1/hour) but no coffee at the moment :(

dagging away

2009-07-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

week six at dagg,, yes good amount of songs recorded - and jason takes to the bass! see picture... we have been getting updated on the material we've recorded so far - so that we've got copies of everything and emailing the thoughts during the week,, this helps to come up with new bits of ideas and send them forth so there are some ideas floating around before we get started. I will just about have jasons usb device updated this eveining, so ill drop it off later!
reverb pedal is fixed for friday,, and i'm working on some bass drum recording and EQ issues, its tricky to get that punchy sound sometimes! in the meantime see what has been made from 'jigsaw pigsaw' on myspace: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=150793336

-Chris

Previously on The Crunchy Biscuits...

2009-07-10T03:45:00.000-07:00

So before Week Six commences I best lay a post down saying what happened the week before.

It began with Chris handing me a sweaty tissue. At least he told me he'd been sitting on it, possibly collecting the sweat in his muchly exposed butt crack. He told me afterwards BTW.

He also handed each of us our first Crunchy Biscuits merchandise, a little badge (pin for you Americans) featuring the Cougar in the Pantry art. Ohhhh it made me larf.

Gra captured the modelling pose.

And I captured the Guitar Hero pose.

We played a blinder of a session that night. I took to the Muppet vocals again starting off the soon to be classic track - Tits McGraw.

Gra sang Golden Showers with great riffage and a vast improvement on the drums by moi. Not content with playing bass, rhythm and lead Dan took to the bongoes. Oh yeah Chris has been dabbling on drums too which makes me happy cause then I can play frontman and strut me stuff.We also got to see the first steps in Chris and the End of Entertainment's Super Secret Mission which fills me with much glee for the future. More news on that later when we can reveal what exactly is going on. Suffice to say it is really cool and should involve our next piece of merchandise - The Crunchy Biscuits biscuit tin.

Also if you ever breakdown on the highway and see The Crunchy Biscuits Mystery Machine - expect to be laughed at as we drive past.

One For the Album Sleeve

2009-06-29T12:56:00.001-07:00

The Theme From “The Crunchy Biscuits”

ROOOAAAAAARRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a town in the west, named after the south
There’s a band in a studio off Sussex
Although they play here and now
They come from the past
In the days before the bible in Pre-Atlantis

It was there that a great masterful chef
Baked his first chocolate cake
And he said he would eat it after supper
And woe was this cake the cake of all cakes
And had the people not tasted anything quite like it before

Well this cake was the talk of the town
And the people they did ask if he could make another one
And the chef said he had forgotten how he did it
Well the people were afraid to finish what was left
So they let the cake remain untouched
It grew stale and it turned into a biscuit

Whooaaooaoaoaooaoaoaoaoaooaoaoaoah-ooh!

Woe did the ages pass
Atlantis sank
Continents split
And at the bottom of a temple in the bottom of the sea
Lay the treasure of all treasures the first of all crunchy biscuits

Oooh…

And the gods took a pity
On the near forgotten and half-eaten biscuit
And imbued it with mystical powers
So the biscuit now could dream and it wandered the seas
In spirit form did it search for a new owner
But the fish weren’t too bright
And the dolphins lacked sweet teeth
So the spirit of the biscuit took to land
It was there in the west, named after the south
That the spirit of the mystic biscuit took possession of a rock and roll band
Ladies and gentlemen we present to you…
The Theme From the Crunchy Biscuits

..It's made of Lego!

2009-06-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

Following the new song 'got a hat stand, it's made of lego' I have found this mp3 player on the internet in the style of lego. It's a good idea to play your music on a piece of lego for sure! I think these will replace ipods and eventually houses.

http://www.geekalerts.com/lego-style-mp3-player/

-Chris

WAR!

2009-06-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

OMG Chris and I are updating you at roughly the same time!

Mine was better!

Wins!

(chris edit:))... no way! i win with my fancy text in blue with italics! I plan to have the best post ever when i document the first ever printer designed to print straight onto biscuits....mmmmmmm

I'm stayin out of it - Dan

Too late you're here now - we'll take it out on you! -jason

Week 4 at Dagg Studios

2009-06-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

Jason here! So another Friday pops up and it turns out to be a hot one. We had the studios to ourselves so Proprietor Aaron gave us an extra room for air flow (and fan which we never used - you can see it in the picture to the left).

As we were setting up Gra called to say he could make it which made me do the Snoopy dance with glee.

Gra, I must add has to sit down while he plays guitar. It's a bit of Jeff Healey thing methinks. But that's alright, because being the drummer it's nice to have company at that level.

Oh yeah, due to the heat and Chris's penchant for screaming vocals there was sweating of the buckets. Buckets I tell you! It was dripping off his nose!

I also did some singing, slowly getting used to the mikes. I did a warm up at first with Gra on guitar. In my head I sounded like a cross between Brian Johnson and David Coverdale. In reality I sounded like a Muppet. Still Pork Chop Chomp came out alright.

During break Dan and I shared a packet of biscuits (technically they were cookies - American Oreos to be precise).

We also took a group picture of the van just so you know we don't look like Scooby Doo characters (Gra decided I was Shaggy - I may have the hair but Dan has the shirt).

(Hmmm... blank space. I know I'll fill it with lyrics).

"Well I'm hangin' on your pork chops
Chicken wings
Spare ribs"

"ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR"

"Whoo! Yeah! C'mon baby!"

"More widdly on the guitar!"

Month One @ Dagg

2009-06-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

we've done four weeks of recording and doing things at Dagg studio,, it's been great fun and we've got some interesting ideas down! last friday was the most sweat i've ever sweated! i was dripping so much i felt like i was underwater! thats got to be good! .. pics here:

Every biscuit is a brother

2009-06-23T12:55:00.001-07:00

Now there's a song title! lol

Anyway just wanted to take this opportunity to thank his crunchyness Sir Chris and Viscount Jason for warmly welcoming me into biscuit heaven. I think when people know you aren't takin the biscuit, but that you are a biscuit, then you are part of the biscuit bretheren forever more. For every biscuit is a brother and what a lovely crunchy chocolate covered nutty feeling that is to behold!

It's like finally returning to the biscuit tin from whence I came.

So cheers guys.

PS: It was nice to meet Graeme again, and I look forward to dying of guitar skill envy when I meet Mr Rich.

Cohorts of The Crunchy Biscuits

2009-06-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

JEREMY: "Then sometimes I like to just cool it on stage with maracas"

SOME GUY: "Ah, like Bez"

JEREMY: "No, nothing like fucking Bez"

-Peep Show quote.

We have our very own Bez...

His name is Al. He like rocks, apes and mooning. I am thinking he should be in random band photos. Maybe even give him album covers. Iron Maiden had Eddie the Head didn't they? We can have Al. Imagine Greatests Hits - An Inspirational Collection Tray of Crunchy Biscuits... Al in a maid costume, serving biscuits. Actually I take that back, Freud would have a field day with it...

I've already got a few other themes in mind for our album sleeves. I am thinking a James Bond one would be cool. Rich is naturally Blofeld. Gra would make a good Q. Chris with his beard would be funny as Miss Moneypenny. By that token I can be Pussy Galore. Which leaves beardless Dan as 007.

Ingredients

2009-06-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Crunchy Biscuits band blog.

A truly inspiring collection of dark and light rock tracks. A rich and crisp sound, coated in groovy goodness, topped in self-mockery and individually hand-wrapped in Britain. May contain nuts.

Suitable for egalitarians.

Best Before Doomsday.

Serving Suggestion - LOUD!!!!!

Mystery Machine Gunner

2009-06-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

The Crunchy Biscuits very own Mystery Machine (I'll have to get Chris to take a proper picture soon).

Equipped with Venus Flytrap chairs for crushing Jason, machine gun ammunition belt (one of Chris's conquests -apparently he got it from a girl)

(CHRIS EDIT: she left it in the van! i was doing a taxi service!! )and jam packed with amps, drums, bongoes and guitars.

Leaving us very little room for the mysterious fifth member (beaming down to our planet some time soon), his 4, 6 and 12-stringers, tablas, keyboard, drum machine and other Biscuit related goodness.

Perhaps what we really need is this:

toast

2009-06-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

Cougar on a Plate...

2009-06-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

yes, ive found this cougar here painted on a plate - it was used as the image for 'cougar at the pantry' on our myspace now! (http://www.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits) I want to find some other animals painted on plates. I think there should be plate zoo somewhere

-Chris

back at dagg for session III

2009-06-19T18:48:00.001-07:00

Week 3 at Dagg Studio! and gra has made an appearance! .. got loads of stuff recorded and we're about to look over it all in our usual email reviews back and forth! . As you can see this week we are in 'the yellow room' , and nice and spacious it is too! water this week this fuelled our creativity for such inventions as 'cougar at the pantry' and 'waiting for the toaster'. and 'pear drop rain' here's some pics!

-Chris

ccc

Distant Cousins?

2009-06-18T09:28:00.001-07:00

So I was searching for biscuit related goodness and found these:

The Disco Biscuits are a Philly trance fusion jam band. They’ve been around since the nineties and have had all of 10 different spin off/side project bands.

Living proof that biscuits is a fine name.

Freshly Baked Biscuits - Week 1, 0 and Before...

2009-06-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

So here's a little history on The Crunchy Biscuits. Back when we were a fresh faced spritely lot the Biscuits had their origins in one off sessions round people's houses. Such delectable tunes as Pubic Yeah, High on Lemsip (Low on Love) and Queen of England graced our ears.

Another Cohort of the Crunchy Biscuits jammed in those days:

He has gone by the aliases Jacko, Jim and James, is a tall lanky lad and has moves that could put Mick Jagger to shame.

Yours truly didn't officially join till after that. And of course this was in the days before we took to the studio so jamming was a pretty rare thing.
Still we kept talking about our dreams and passions for the band and I like to think sheer enthusiasm kept the fires burning.

Around February/March of this year the Biscuits had their last Jam @ People's Houses were Anal Custard. Messy Beanbag and No Place Like Gnome originated (with the added backing vocals of the neighbour banging on the wall shouting "Fuck off you knobhead!").

So we looked into finding a place to jam and even though Gra was busy with wedding plans and Rich was finding a place to live, I said to Chris well we could just tighten the rhythm section if the other two can't make it. I don't like to exclude people and Chris was like well we need to try the place out first in case we don't like it. So off we went to Dagg Studios.

Chris invited a legendary fellow called Dan to play guitars for us that night.

And so Week One began! Which resulted in some very iffy recordings what with our noise output overblowing the mics. Still Bacon Pie, Combover and the other tracks we did amused us. The low-fi vibe gave us a very punk feel.

And there you have it, a rough guide to the history of The Crunchy Biscuits.

2009-06-16T11:24:00.003-07:00

JASON'S 'THE CHILLI SONG' (in red hot)

A song that captures my chill, Chris’s eccentricities, Gra’s pee-yow and Rich’s virtuoso.

Extra Hot Chilly. Halo Burning Murder Chilli. Satan’s Ass Ring Chilli. Chill Bum Burner. Burn’s New Arse Chilli. Yes we’ve got a title.

We want it to be cool, but with enough sauce, sass, funk and groove to get you hot. Ok then we can play with the temperature. Is it sexy? Yup and laid back too. Like I couldn’t give a monkey’s nuts. And funny too.

Burn’s New Arse Chilli

I may look chilled
But I’m burning on my own fire
My cheese is grilled
My buns are packed with mighty high fibre

I’ve got a bed of crisp lettuce
To lay you backflat
I’ve got a sausage with a message
In a tight tortilla wrap

You take your fill
You pay the bill
You wipe the corner of your mouth
I bounce your checks
I take your tips
But you know you’re coming back

I trace a finger down the spine of a list of fine wine
I pop your cork I let it breathe in a post coital sigh
On your legs I spread a napkin embroidered with my name
Burn’s New Arse Chilli
Branded in flame

And every night with me is by candlelight
Satisfaction guaranteed I’m open any time
Even on the holidays I can’t say no to you
I’m not fussy if your company’s a tabletop for two

You take your time
I take your coat
I’ll always pull out your chair
You lick your fingers
Lick your lips
And your shoulders always bare

I take your order
But I warn you
My sauce is true to my name
You can see it in the window
Burn’s New Arse Chilli
Branded in flame

Oh would the lady like it flambé?
Can I put your cream on ice?
Can I butter up your muffin?
And lay you on pillowed rice?

- J

Dagg in the way...

2009-06-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

This photo I found on the internet whilst researching names for our songs.. it seems to really suit the song 'dog in the way' also that song is up on our myspace right now!! .......

http://profile.myspace.com/crunchybiscuits

-Chris

Some ideas for new songs...

2009-06-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

I will look into gettin adsense done. I did actually have an idea for a song title:
"guitars for guns"
I imagine like if all the guns in the world turned to guitars. Everyone could work out there problems by having guitar duels instead of shooting each other. You could imagine a news broadcast saying "A teenager burst into a school today playing Eruption by Eddie Val Halen at exceptionally loud volume while hooked up to a 500 watt amplifier. Officers arrived on the scene with semi-automatic telecasters, in large enough numbers to quel the situation. Nobody was harmed in the incident, and in fact many of the pupils thought the teenager rocked!" LOL.

Now all I gotta do is write the song/music, lol.
If you come up with anything, cool.

-Dan

attack number 2 at dagg studio !!

2009-06-15T00:23:00.000-07:00

In our last visit to Dagg Studio we took a bit more equipment - an old mixing desk (borrowed from Dan) and a load of mics and a PA which Dagg provided for us for an extra £5, after a bit of setting up we managed to squeeze some songs out of the equipment.. some quite interesting and fun ones at that! stopping for a break roughly half way through we realised that we had all forgotten to bring a drink and the carpetted walls in the enclosed room was keeping all that heat in.. dry snack a jacks was not going to be an easy snack.. here's a few of the pics

-Chris

dan can you hear that? (i dont think so)

stuff happening outside jasons house later that evening