Monday 27th March 2006 : Paul

I DJ'ed in Glasgow on friday night.

think it went alright! i didnt get bottled off at least! :)

although i did end up at a really terrible party afterwards and then ended up walking the streets at 7 in the morning on my own trying to find my way home. :(

judging by whats been going on in all of our blogs over the past few weeks it would appear that all of the machetes are in serious need of someone to look after them.

here are some tunes that have been floating my boat recently :

Hide and seek - Imogen Heap

Run Into Flowers - M83

Followed The Waves - Auf Der Maur

Keep Fallin' - Hot Chip

Double Dostiev - Zongamin

My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion - The Flaming Lips

Brother - The Organ

Broken Heart - Spiritualized

Andvari - Sigur Ros

Peace and Love

Paolo x

Saturday 3rd December 2005 : Paul

Chuclet continued....

I'm afraid i have to disagree with Natasha on the chocolate situation as undoubtedly the best kind of chocolate in a box of Roses, or any other box of chocolates for that matter, is always the strawberry cream!
I'm also very partial to the orange creams and orange crunch ones too. Basically soft centres that taste like some sort of fruit are generally a winner. (Except the grape flavoured smarties but thats another matter altogether.)

I went to see Antony and the Johnsons in Glasgow the other night. He may look like a big, fat, gay mental patient/ middle aged woman but fuck me he's got an amazing voice! his songs are unbelieveably beautiful. 'Hope There's Someone' always makes me cry.
Anyway on a much less tearful but certainly more frustrating note we have been trying to come up with a tracklisting for our new album.
its all about getting the right combinations of songs in the right order. We're close i think. Real close!

I can't wait for you all to hear the new album, i'm extremely proud of it and i know Cal and Nashii are too.
We're going to be playing most of it at the gig at stereo next week so if you're coming along you can have a listen and tell us what you think of the new stuff.

Anyhoo i best be off now, but i promise to write more log entries from now on. I've been neglecting it terribly.

See you soon
Peace and love
Paolo

Tuesday 9th August 2005 : Paul

"Tour Diary"

Well we have recently completed our tour of the British Isles and the idea was to keep you updated as we were on the road. Unfortunately that didn't quite happen due to the excessive amounts of both drinking/sleeping we did while we were away. So i'll try to recollect any interesting events that happened to the best of my ability.

Started in Glasgow supporting the outstanding Battles, we all nearly sweated to death, it was one of the hottest gigs we've ever done in our puffs.

Then came Oxford and much to our surprise this gig was even hotter than the one in Glasgow (touring in summer man its sweaty, sweaty work!) and both myself and Callan are forced to go topless for most of the gig, although natasha refrained from doing a Courtney Love and baring her chest to the audience.

London was great as we were pushed up to headlining the show after Macrocosmica's van broke down in Dumfires! Our friend simon takes some beautiful pix of us, we'll hopefully have copies of these to let you all see very soon! We go out to a very trendy pub in Shoreditch called Catch, which rather un-nervingly is full of boys who are dressed exactly like me, down to the hair and the beard and everything!. Spend the next day in the park in glorious sunshine. Nice.

Then came Wales and 3 shows with our friends Ipsofacto. Those kids like to party and at one point we say goodnight to Natasha only for her to re-appear 2 minutes later leading a conga line 20 people strong around the house we were staying in, which happened to belong to the parents of one of the bands girlfriends who were away on holiday.

Brighton was excellent as we were playing with the truly breathtaking Duracell. Then took a late night walk down to the where the sea meets the entrance to the marina. Very nice indeed! only 60 miles from the coast of France apparently. Leeds was as always math-rock-tastic.

Then came Glasgow and Edinburgh where we played with the likes of Down The Tiny Steps, Nanobots, Cayto and the Deaf Mutes all of whom were wonderful.

Went to T in the Park too Snoop Dogg was a definite highlight.
Fashizzle Dizzle!
Thats all for now if i remember anything else you'll be the first to know!
Peace and Love
Paul

Thursday 30th June 2005 : Paul

sshheeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!!!!

So there i was yesterday afternoon minding my own business when i get the shout from afriend that there is a spare guesty for the oasis concert at hampden last night.

On the strength of the fact that the wonderful Super Furry Animals are supporting i decide to head along.
I have never seen so many Burberry cap wearing, Le Coq Sportif tracksuit tucked into football socks, dripping in cheap gold, swaggering like they've lost total control of their upper body neds in one stadium.....and i'm a season ticket holder at Celtic park!

Between the neds and all the boys who seem to think that its still1994 and think that the Stone Roses 1st album is the greatest album ever (shheeeeeiiiiiners, as i ilke to call them) it makes for one of the most bizarre gig experiences i've ever had. The smell of stale buckfast was over whelming!

It was like Logan's Run before oasis came on with the people in the seating area lining up in the stairwells to rush the security and jump over the wall onto the pitch.
Several hundred were successful and then ran about the pitch being chased by several police and a security guard in a wheelchair. wild to say the least.

The Furries were great although some sections of the crowd were booing them.
As the chap sitting next to me so eloquently put it
'Oasis mono-brow, Supper Furries high-brow.'
Good day

Paolo

Sunday 5th June 2005 : Paul

Welcome Friends Of Machete to our brand new website!
We would have told you sooner that this was coming but we didn't want to spoil the surprise.
This is a new section of the site known as the log.
It will be a place for us to express our opinions, share our thoughts, bitch, moan and generally talk shite to you all.
It is my great pleasure to be writing this first entry for the log so im going to use this opportuinty to say how excited we all are about going to Italy on tuesday to play our first gig outside of the UK.
We are headling the launch party for the Scottish Pavillion at this years Venice Bienalle.
4 days 1 gig a different party every day, you do the math!
We'll post up any humourous stories or recollections when we get back.
if you have any thoughts on the new site please leave them in the guestbook.
See you all soon
Paolo