Dancing cat saloon!
  
Saturday afternoon we found ourselves on a shortline bus to Monticello, I’ll tell you this, we were both very happy to find it was clean had a lot of leg room. Small things please us these days, seriously, we spend alot of time on buses talking about- buses. We played at the dancing cat saloon which is right opposite the Woodstock site and we loved it. We were very well looked after, Jonathan (who works there) picked us up from the bus station, we had dinner, I had crab cakes, MMmmmm…. and Tom had a jimmy Hendrix burger, he was slightly annoyed to find out that the burger did not contain any Jimmy Hendrix, at all. We drank Magic hat beer which is  now my favourite of the beers, but not my favorite of the hats, I prefer a Tribly.
After we had dinner, as the locals were eating thiers we got up and sang some songs, and the cool thing about it? they didn’t mind! they actually liked the music and they were a very lovely crowd. When we finished Jonathan dropped us back to the bus station and we headed home to manahttan, wondering if there was a real life musician we could put in a burger and eat.

We really enjoyed this gig and would happily do the 2 hour bus ride up there every week to play, after all, the buses are clean and have lots of  leg room :-)
  
 We Highly Highly recommend you visit this venue, its worth the drive from  Manhatttan, the food is gorgeous, the beer is fab and the staff are amazing.   
  
 Check it out!
  
 http://www.dancingcatsaloon.com/Dancing_Cat_Saloon.html

Halloween, Rally for sanity, Washington!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday afternoon we went Jon Stewarts Rally to restore sanity in Washington, it was packed and such a cool thing to have been a part of, although no one is really sure what we were a apart of, some of the signs were brilliant, we got to hear Ozzy Osbourne, couldn’t understand what he was saying but who can? 

We were invited to play at the Surreal DC Mansion Halloween Ball, It was def the best night we have had since we got here, Tom thinks the same cos he got to wear make up…. 

We weren’t sure what to expect, In the UK we are a bit rubbish at Halloween, I don’t even remember the last time I dressed up. But here in the states they LOVE it, house’s had been decorated for weeks and everyone was dressed up. We played our set and then had lots of free beer (we are easily pleased) the night was fantastic, people were very complimentary about us, or maybe they were just frightening of us because we looked so SCARY!! and the people there was soooo friendly! which is a pleasant change from NYC, don’t get me wrong, we love it here, but we have met some rude fuckers, its a city thing, people who live in a busy city think its an reasonable excuse to be bad mannered and rude, well, let me tell you this, ITS NOT! the only excuse I would ever use for being bad mannered and rude would be if I was tired, or hungry, or not getting my own way, or if the bar had closed, or I was tired and hungry and not getting my own way in a bar that had closed. 

The next day we were tourists, we walked around and looked at big things, Monument- Big thing in standing on the ground. The Lincoln Memorial, Big thing Lying on the ground. Congressional Building-Big building standing on the grass. We went to the White house for dinner, it was OK, but not that impressive, its all kind of, white. Barack was Ok but I thought he would be funnier and I don’t think there was any need to order in pizza, he could have got someone to cook with all those chiefs he has. I got the impression he didn’t want us there……

Some photos from the rally to restore sanity!

Gigs! 

So far we have played at  Arlenes grocery, the UC Lounge, Rockwood music hall, Bar Nine and the Wicked Monk. Our Favorite by far was Rockwood Hall, we loved it there, we had a sound man who knew what he was doing, they passed a tip Jar around and a random guy at the bar bought us all drinks- My ideal night :-) Bar Nine had become another favorite spot, they have great band playing there and nice bar staff, which is important to us because we are unemployed so we spend half our life in bars. we have you see, its called networking, a very important part of being a musician ..ahem. 

We have plenty more gigs coming up, Ace of Clubs, Fontana’s, madison square gardens…..check our myspace. 

Here are some photos, we promise to get more up but we had no camera for the first 6 weeks. the dog ate it.

Radio shows!!

we have started playing some radio shows, our First one took half my life to get to, it happend like this-

Jo- So Tom, were are we playing?
Tom-  ‘er some radio show in New York’
Jo- what part of New York tom
Tom- ‘er, not sure but it cant be that far’
Jo- you do realise New York is a state and not just a city Tom?’
Tom-‘say what?’

A 9 hour bus journey with a stinking hangover later we ended up in Rochester, playing Live on WITR.
The following night we Played a gig at the Bug Jar and frankly met some of the strangest people I have ever met in my life. No offence if you come from- or live in Rochester, but It was the weirdest town ive ever been to… Have you seen the wicker man? I’ll say no more.
Second show was WMFO 91.5fm Boston (Tuffs University)- We Had a great time, we were made to feel very welcome. Its worth a trip to Boston just for the Lobster and chower, YUM! Really enjoyed this one, topped of with a couple of pints at Cheers- has to been done.
The third one was at New Paltz- Live and Local with Nikki G. It was awseome! Had a really good time, Nikki and Kyle were great and we would love to get back there before xmas. we even tried to save  money on this trip, and by doing so we turned what should have been a 6 hour round trip into a 12 hour one. Really? wont do that again….. did get a couple of free pints though, the best thing about being Irish, always happens :-)
We will keep you posted on on coming radio shows!

A place to live- New Jersey. 

People often ask us ‘were do you live Jo and tom?’ Manhattan we say. which basically is a lie, we would love to live in Manhattan but you cant unless you have at least 6 incomes. 

We live in Weehawken, New Jersey, but when we say that people reply with ‘really? I’m sorry’ or ‘why, for the love of god why, WHY?!!?’ Now this Jersey racism we don’t quite understand, Jersey has produced Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Tony Soprano and Danny DeVito, how is Jersey not cool? well I think the cast of Jersey shore has a lot to answer for. We are ten minutes from the center of Manhattan and check out our pictures to see the view from our front room, that makes it well worth living in Jersey.  

Did you know, New Jersey was the setting of more than 100 battles during the fight for American independence? No neither did but it just came up on Google and I’m running out of things to write so I thought I would include it. 

So In future, when people ask us ‘we do you live Jo and tom? we will say Manhattan. 

PS Jersey Cows don’t come from New Jersey. They come from Jersey, an island in the English Channel. ( I actually copied that from wikipedia)

Leaving London/Long story..er..still quite long- 

Me and tom decided we wanted to move to New York to give our music a try over there, why? basically because were bored and a bit jaded with the music scene in London. To get there we sold everything we owned on Ebay, like, everything, my favorite shoes, jackets, clothes, cuddly toy.Tom sold his guitars, his sanity, his computer, his sofa his dvd’s and cd’s… You would be surprised at the shit people will buy, any old crap, at one point I  even considered putting Tom on there to see what I could get for him. The Lagan played at our leaving party and Tom Dressed like a red neck, which weirdly suited him…. our plane journey is a blur, we didn’t even drink he FREE booze (I know right?) the valium knocked us out. when we stepped out of the airport we thought we were in Thailand, the heat was unreal, New York was in the midst of one the hottest summers ever, we really enjoyed that, walking round the city all day, sweating and stinking, It didn’t at all put us in a bad mood, Thank god for Starbucks and its free WIFI. We were ecstatic when we woke in our hotel on the first day to find we were over looking a prison (picture included) and we were even more thrilled when the bank blocked our cards so we had no money and couldn’t get to play our first gig in Queens. My excitement was simply not possible to hide when The Lovely people at the YMCA we were staying at wouldn’t let us use the phones to call the banks, (apparently they cant call overseas…seriously?) we had to use a pay phone, even though we had no money and that’s why we needed to phone the bank. 112 dollars a night for a bed? Not very Christian if you ask me. But the best part of it all, the best part of that first month? well, I cant decide between the equipment not arriving from the UK or the three drum machines we had to buy cos they keep breaking. The fun we had! If I could go back in time I would do it all again in a heartbeat.