Toupé

This Saturday!

Looking forward to it.

First rehearsal in about two years...

We're not ones for rehearsing, you know that. But with the gig coming up to the new changed date of Sat 31st Jan, at The George in Andover, we thought it might be time to polish our turds a little.

So we headed to The George and practiced. We ran through some old stuff and worked on some new ideas. And then we went for strippers in the venue next door. YAY!

Here's some photos:

Jay: healed.

Saddam Evans, ripping up the bass guitar.

Yay - strippers.

We also laughed our heads off at this silly song in progress called 'LikeHate' where we list somethings we like or hate. Find it here.

LYRICS:

Grant: I like my women like I like my coffee...with a good sense of humour and a job.

Jay: I fucking hate it when I'm stuck in traffic and I can't turn around and go home.

Grant: I like it when I watch Inspector Morse but I don't like it when there's adverts.

Karl: I really like it when I shower in the shower but I hate it when I find a pube.

Happy Barry Day! (Twitter/Toupe feed added)

Here at Toupé we'd love to extend a warm cupping from across the pond to the USA who've elected a Barack Obama successfully without shooting him. :)

It's a great day, it was a great speech too. Full of reasoned rhetoric as to why no-one should get ahead of themselves just yet, and realise that turning around the current state of crap is going to require logic, fore-thought, compassion, carefulness and most of all energy.

These are all qualities Toupé hold dear to their hearts. So rather than jump straight into the process of gigging, we're having our first rehearsal in a little while on Thursday ahead of the gig next FRIDAY the 30th in Andover. 

We'll have to bash out some of the older tunes and get our heads down on some of the newer ones too. It's going to be full of laughter and I'll even try and document as much of it as possible in images and sound so you can hear what the hell we sound like these days.

In the meantime, I've entered the world of Twitter. It's sort of like Facebook status', but on a much more conversational level. Many of the top news broadcasters are using Twitter to keep track of what's going on in the world. At the moment I keep track of Stephen Fry (who's Tweets have been read to me with great enthusiasm before) and the excellent solo bass player Steve Lawson, who's been updating his Facebook page with Twitter for a little while, which led me to looking into it. Also many, many geek friends are all over it. 

I've set up a feed, to the right of this post, and it will get updated once I post anything. It could be exciting, it could be something mundane. It could be something I don't necessarily think you should know about me. :)

If you're scared of Twitter, then go ahead and use the new Notification tab I've thrown into the right hand bar as well. It will tell you, in whatever common place reader you feel like, that the Toupe site has been updated. 

21st century...get with it. And I mean YOU, Isle of Wight!

Grant

Disturbing conversations with Karl...

I something to show Karl last night, it was late and the only place open to meet up was a burger place we both knew. We got chips and sat down in his car to business. 

What did I have to show him? Well...It's very special and his eyes lit up when he saw it. He was so impressed that he took it in his hand, played with it and then put it in his pocket.

More will be revealed later.

But then we started talking about the new batch of songs. We laughed a lot at some of the lyrical ideas I've been having recently and Karl put on some Fishbone.

Weirdly, in the midst of the conversation we mentioned that we might need to get someone in to make sure we aren't going too far with one of the songs. Then the conversation took us to throwing around the idea of writing a full on love ballad.

I think we need to get someone in. :)

The thing I showed him? 

A USB flash drive. Yup.

G

TAAAA DAAAAA !!!

first blog! oh yes!  being a blog vigin was killing me!!

Things is looking good! Jay is on the mend after his crocodile accident, Grant got the new shoulders he was after and i have finally finished with my hand bag making fetish. There is already about 10 cracking ideas that are slowly being morphed into tunes and i've found some old foot stomp noise makers in the loft which i gonna prime up to make evrything sound fresh .. less of the distotion and more of the thick side of beef tones. Now comes the writing sessions and the gigs.  the best bit!!!

keep your peepers peepin!!!

K.

Wait for it! Wait for it!

Any minute now, Karl Evans is going to make his first update to toupe.co.uk.

Expects words that are not in the dictionary, like 'splumy'. Expect excited words about the year to come. Expect the sexy ooze the K exudes!

I'm drunk. Been watching the hilarious Henning Wehn at Hampton's Comedy Night, Southampton, and now back to polish off the Peroni in the fridge. Yup.

Grant

Obi Wan Karlobi...working hard on the next batch of songs!

Strap 'em in kids! We're fueling on ginger nuts!

FACT: Ginger nuts taste the same whether you buy the expensive ones or the cheapest ones. 

January 30th - The George, Andover

Ok, we've had a good chat (14 texts) and Jay is back up and running after a few months with his hand in a splint. So we've decided it's time to stretch our legs and play a show. The first one since August 2008 in Guernsey.

It's at THE GEORGE, and ANDOVER, HAMPSHIRE.

On Friday, Jan 30th.

We've all gone a bit girly about it as we absolutely love playing at The George. The crowd are always warm and generous and the strippers in the front bar are always a wonderful rock and roll treat for a sweaty band to come off stage to.

We've done one gig there as our alter-ego, DR GASH AND THE PAEDS. So it might be time to resurrect the electrical tape and the long white coat for that one. :)

Come along if you feel like coming along. We'd love to see you there!

G to the T.

We're coming back...promise!

It's been a little while since we've played together. It was a conscious decision to make the next batch of songs were from all sorts of new places and inspirations. 

Things are already beginning to sound wonderful.

However, Jay severed the tendons on the back of his hand at the end of 2008 and it's put us back a little bit whilst he takes the time to heal. It's not much fun for him, so any messages of love, spunk or happiness to him are warmly received. 

Although his injury has not been good for making music, it is really good for inspiring nights out with good curry and strippers.

But soon, we'll be hitting the stage again. With new songs. And some awesome new pole dancing tips and techniques. See you soon!

Grant - Toupé