I swear we're gonna need a union soon...

so the band i'm in, Flash! Flash Flash! Photography, had our first ever 'band meeting' last night. despite not being enough like one of Murray's meetings in Flight Of The Conchords, it was a successful venture. we're going on tour in late May / early June, and it had become an incredibly cluttered state of affairs trying to keep everyone up to date with the things that two of us were organising and relaying to the others via email strains where we just wanna take the piss out of each other. plus, and i'm guessing there's nothing particularly special about this, we're the kind of guys who go:

WOULDN'T IT BE MEGA AWESOME IF WE TOOK A SMOKE MACHINE AND TROOP OF NINJAS ON TOUR WITH US!!!???

and, y'know, there had to come a time where we had to sit down and work out the feasibility of things like this*. and so, the regular patrons and staff of The Angel pub, just off trendy London town's famous Denmark Street, were last night treated to the sight of five fully grown men (combined age 135, average maturity 15) with agendas and Alpine Lager discussing how we'd make Flash! On! Tour! work.

now, i'm not going to prattle on about what was decided, but it did make me think about the inner-workings of bands. we're not a full time band, and, the occasional Lostprophets support slot aside, we're not making any attempts to Make It And Get Famous, meaning that this tour and its logistics, given that we all work five days a week, is a pretty big deal for us. there's decisions on how we travel, what gear we need, where the ruddy hell we're playing and how much we can reasonably lose on each date before what started off as a normal hobby fork-out ends up leading to bankruptcy. suddenly you realise, this isn't a band going on tour, and nor is it a Sum Of Its Parts situation - it's five people's lives, and what one person thinks is perfectly reasonable might rub someone else completely up the wrong way.

for us, from the start, the premise for this band was to just have a laugh and get drunk with our mates whilst playing some songs. which is cool, but when you're planning a tour, or planning recording, or whatever, you soon find out that having that collective decision making mentality will always make everything five times more complicated. oh how glorious it must be to be in Weezer. you get a call from Rivers:

"yeah, i've written the new album. learn it. we're going on tour in a few weeks. you will be available."

but in real life, we're all well aware that it works nothing like that. and, to be honest, despite it being relatively pain free, it shouldn't work like that. the personality traits and lifestyles that go into creating your material should also be prevalent in the inner workings of your band. at the very least, having the freedom within a band to say you disagree with a decision says more to me that you're all in it for the right reasons than any amount of punk rock posturing about togetherness, especially when 60% of the members are beyond gutted that you've ended up with a t shirt design done by the GCSE art student little brother of your ego-maniac singer (hi!, by the way).

whilst i realise none of what i've just said is in anyway groundbreaking or anything other than the completely fucking obvious, it's simply nice, on a personal level, to recognise that i'm part of something that, regardless of its size, is still working in a democratic manner. and it's just as rewarding to feel that i'm going to be spending an awful lot of time in a few weeks with four other twentysomethings that i'm comfortable voicing the opinion

"i am NOT having anything to do with fucking ska"

with, and who i'd expect something equally blunt from in return.

Democracy rulez, ok.




*for anyone wondering, we could probably afford the smoke machine, but the ninjas were fucking ridiculous money. stealthy wankers.