thinking about stickers

2011-04-23T20:23:00.002+01:00

Sup. I've moved. I'm here now. Join.

Sorry. Sorry.

2009-01-27T18:11:00.003Z

Me: 'Something really good happened to me over christmas'

Finn: 'Yeah? What's that?'

Me: 'I managed to wean myself off gossip blogs on a diet of shit internet connection and swimming.'

It lasted about two weeks. For two weeks, I neither knew nor cared about the intricacies of John Travolta's son's tragic death, or what delightful outfit Katy Perry is using to pad out her fifteen-twenty. I did keep up my subscription to Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle newsletter (goop.com. Do it. You'll never forward something so much to so many people) and people do tend to keep me posted on the highlights of Winehouse-watch. But I was out. I thought.

It was the bloody GUARDIAN that lured me back, printing just one of a series of out-takes from Madonna's recent press shoot/milky bondage session. I was intrigued. And then I was astounded.

Surely, if you're Madonna, things like this, unphotoshopped out-takes, do not just....accidentally end up on the photographer's website. They do not HAPPEN to seep onto dlisted.com. Not without a red-string garroting. People I ask seem to think she did it for publicity. But I dunno. I mean, she's Madonna. Surely there's a point where you'd be like 'y'know what? I'm not sure I wanna look like the uncanny opposite of one of those heartwarming pictures of a little girl dressed all up in her mothers floppy hat and double size stilettos... I mean....just for my self esteem and stuff....I mean....people are gonna buy this record anyway, right?'

But then maybe the record industry is sicker than we know. Maybe the only way to bolster Madonna's slumping sales and save the business was to release some fucking terrifying pictures and wait for everyone to go nuts.

She would've been better off doing a Poor Britney, it seems. Nobody seems to find these pictures as disturbing and oddly.....moving as I do. They remind me of the time Finn, a friend of ours and I ended up in an empty Auckland strip club on a Monday night, drinking glow-in-the-dark drinks and watching a 65 year old stripper. She came and hung out with us after. She only worked when they were short staffed, it turned out. Mostly she bred miniature ponies in Karaka. But she liked to keep her hand in. So to speak.

That's enough now, isn't it.

I'm in a recording studio. Henning is next to me, Dan next to him reading some guitar wank mag. Finn's through the glass playing an acoustic guitar. I'm not telling anything else about it. Maybe a couple of things. Five out of six people present are wearing blue sweaters, which is a very odd coincidence. There's an amazing deli outside. Grizzly Sutton is mastering the record across town today, but we're here, so we're not there. How's that for a paradox?

The thing we are doing sounds really quite good, also. There are BONGOS ON IT.

Tomorrow we're making little movies with Jane. After that we're back here. And then on Monday....

We wrote a setlist for the shows. Is it better to start sorta lowkey and beautiful and build towards a bloody squalling mess at the end, or would you rather we came out screaming and then gave you a little rest?

Things we've been doing

2009-01-16T11:41:00.004Z

Sorry for the delay. But back now and I promise to be super efficient. Besides, I'm in London again, and it's distinctly indoors weather.

I spent my last days in Sydney going to the aquarium and putting the finishing touches on a tan the likes of which I've never had before. I can see why people do it, all of a sudden. It's like magic. Or crack. The realisation of, I can turn myself a different colour! And then the natural progression to How far can I TAKE this?

The answer, it turns out, is far enough that people can tell, but not so far that anyone's really that impressed. Cheryl Cole, I aint. Or, to continue the crack metaphor....oh, there's no point even writing her name, is there. But I like the way it makes my hands look like they belong to a wizened crone who spends her weekends tending an orchard in some kind of tropical paradise. Which is kind of what I was. Without the orchard.

Anyway. While I was wandering the aquarium (Manatees: quite something. They look like aquatic labradors. I've never seen an animal look so CONTENT) and avoiding Sydney cockroaches (dear LORD. Truly, the stretch Humvees of the cockroach kingdom), Henning was having a baby. Well, not WHILE. Actually, it was WHILE I was having an awkward conversation with my cousin on Christmas Day. The conversation went like this:

Her: 'So what did you get for christmas?'

Me: 'Um....a bikini and a tshirt...some chocolate coins...What about you?'

Her: 'Oh, I didn't get that much, like, just some clothes and some other stuff....Cos, like, I got a BMW for my gradation present, so, you know.'

Me: 'Oh.'

She's probably reading this. Sorry Caroline. I don't mean anything by it. It was just a bit surprising.

But anyway. Henning is famous in Veilworld for, among his many other talents and quirks, being consistently a FAFFER. When we're getting a bill in a restaurant, Henning can be guaranteed to be ordering coffee, which will take twenty minutes to arrive. We once nearly missed the eurostar because he was buying liquorice. He brought a juicer and a feather quilt on a tourbus. We've spent many a morning swearing in a hotel lobby because Henning's 'just finishing his sauna...'

Etc.

So I suppose it should be no surprise that his offspring showed similar inclinations, making her way into the world just after christmas, a mere two weeks late. I guess a womb is not so dissimilar from a sauna, really.

I haven't met her yet but I've seen pictures and she's adorable, which is probably Henning's girlfriend Tania's doing. It's bizarre and immensely exciting though, to Skype video Henning and see him, pajama clad, coffee in one giant fist and baby clutched snugly under his arm with the other.

In business news:

Last night went to the launch of Great Escape festival's New Zealand speciality wing, or something. I guess every year they focus on one little known distant country's current crop of poster-ready indie-with-a-novel-cultural-quirk bands, and this year it's NZ's turn. Finn did a couple of acoustic songs and we got to see Brendan Smythe who is the nicest man alive and helps us get funding from NZ on Air from time to time.

Also they had canapes. And wine. It was in the NZ embassy. Whenever we go to the American Embassy, there are dudes with machine guns everywhere. At the NZ one, you walk in some automatic doors on a street just off Picadilly, opposite a steak house, and say to the girl at the desk, 'um...hi, I'm here for the...music....thing..?'

She pushes a button, and you walk through a door that sets you free in the embassy. It's brilliant. And what's even better is the view from the glass walled 17th floor, 360degress of nighttime london and nothing to do but try and figure out whether you're above the london eye or not, and where the Trellick is.

We're doing a bunch of stuff with Jane in a couple of weeks as well, so there's that to plan. Not to mention this album business, still. I know some people got a bit worried after Finn's myspace plea, but don't worry too much. Flickers and doubts, rather than natural disasters.

Apparently the London shows are selling, so it's probably a good idea to get tickets now, if you wanna come. Which, of course, you should.

2008-12-22T00:08:00.004Z

2008-12-20T06:54:00.002Z

Waiting for the album, waiting for the album....we've been waiting ages too. But with the bunch of live recordings floating around, not to mention an entire unmixed song, which seeped out thanks to a spur of the moment decision on Dave Allen's radio show in Portland a few months back, there's surely enough to whet the appetite just enough to get dribbly if you know where to look. No doubt it won't be long before promo copies get sent out and someone 'accidentally' drops one in a shared folder, but in the meanwhile....yeah I know, I know. It's fucking AGES to wait. At least you lot aren't waiting in FEAR. Our waiting is combined with the low grade fever of 'what if they HATE IT?'. We think it's good. But when you made it, how are you supposed to know. Brandon Flowers probably thought leaving the S off 'dancer' would make as much sense to everyone else as it did to him, and look where it got him.....

Or maybe he just did it for attention. Once, we burned guitars. Now we just mess up our grammar.

If it helps, my Mum's two favourite songs are House She Lived In and It Hits Deep.

There are dates on the myspace. Turns out whoever it was who was talking about London shows knew something I didn't. They'll be on the website shortly as well, but I can't remember how to work it.

2008-12-19T01:49:00.001Z

This was on the bathroom wall. It was as wide as my hand.

2008-12-13T02:22:00.003Z

I'm in Australia, stealing internet from the Polish Embassy. I would've stolen it from the Serbian one, but they're having some sort of luncheon and I thought if I sat down in front of the gate they might come out and run me off.

There are tour dates coming. I've seen em. Probably nothing definite for a while, people like to....I don't know. Haggle? Change their minds? But what there is at the moment involves Europe, April, and May. Maybe just get out your calendar, or wait to see if you get a 2009 one for Christmas, and run a big gold line through those months with a VEILS? beside it.

It's hot in Australia. And the birds can all imitate mobile phones.

2008-12-06T19:40:00.002Z

Doing the address labeling for veilchristmas:

-There is a town called DEFIANCE in Ohio.

-Italian addresses always sound like directions to a castle, and quite often have brackets in them.

-The Netherlands has a lot of roads with really, really long names.

-Someone has listed their street name and number as 'Duck Puddle #34'. They may be joking, but I don't see where the funny is, so I'm putting it in the mail and seeing what happens. It's got a postcode...

-There are a lot of people who like the Veils in Illinois. Maybe there are just a lot of lonely people in Illinois, trawling the internet for free Christmas card offers to make their festive season that much cheerier.

Arts and Crafts

2008-12-04T18:07:00.001Z

'Soph?'

'Yeah?'

'I like it...but...do you think you could make it so it's vomiting stars?'

'Yeah, probably.'

And that's the only clue you're getting about what our christmas card looks like.

2008-12-03T14:42:00.000Z

We've done two photo shoots this week. Which is a pretty weird way to spend a week. For some reason it always seems to hit me when getting on tube escalators, what an odd little life this is. You're waiting in the crush for someone with a pram to work out whether to go handle first or baby first towards the turnstiles, wearing enough makeup to cover literally any imperfections, even structural ones, and indeed several acceptable natural features, you've just spent an hour having someone run forward every four minutes to stop your fringe splitting into unflattering chunks, and it sometimes feels a bit....wank.

The first shoot was our own one. Press shots with our friends Ricky and Nicole, somewhere in N1, by the river with a mousetrap on the windowsill, complete with very, very dead mouse. Post dead. Would class as mummified if it wasn't sitting in the damp. Damp is bad for mummies.

They're such a disgustingly unnatural thing, press shots. I never thought about it so much before. You see pictures of bands and you never stop to consider, hang on, why are they all just happening to be standing in front of a white wall, facing the same direction, staring into the middle distance? It seems like a perfectly natural thing to do. Then you come to do it and you feel like a twat. But then if Dan and I take a moment to look disgustedly down eachothers outfits, then fall into giggles, you end up with a series of photos of me squinting with four chins and Dan looking like a hobbit getting a happy finish.

When I got home from that one (which actually turned out well - myspace pic an example, gold stars for Ricky and Nicole) I came across this article about some magazine cover where someone (Bryan Adams, I believe) had the idea of getting rock star's daughters naked and taking some snaps. Aside from the general slight oddness (can't put my finger on it....naked chicks, cover of women's fashion magazine, should be fine....but something....something....maybe it's cos one of them is pregnant....but you can't tell that...oh I don't know...) my first thought was about Bryan Adams. Surely he's mates, or at least nodding acquaintances with one or all of the fathers. Surely. And wouldn't that make things a bit awkward? Like 'Hey Bry, loved those nude snaps of my kid you did the other day! Your idea, was it? Brilliant, brilliant!'

I mean, Henning's about to have a baby, and from the reactions to certain jokes we (Dan) have made, people generally feel that daughters should be off limits to your mates. But things are different in famous-person land. Having your Dad's mate take nude photos of you becomes a legitimate, lucrative-for-all-involved way to spend an afternoon. Which is odd, because if I got one of my Dad's mates to take nude photos of me and a couple of friends, I'm sure people would think it was a bit strange. Especially if it was for money.

Anyway, I was looking at it, and thinking about how much more awkward posing must be when you're naked, and how many more little accidents could occur that would be way more embarrassing than having four chins. And that made me feel a whole lot better about everything. So thanks Bryan. Thanks Peaches, and Kimberly, and Ronnie Wood's daughter whose name I don't know because she's not in the London Lite nearly as much.....thank you.

Then yesterday we did this Rankin thing. Which was a whole other level of surreal. I was chirruping away in hair and makeup, admiring Goh the hair man's pretty skull necklace, which he then revealed was a cunningly disguised USB stick.

'It's got all my passport, ID number, flight details on it. My friends gave it to me for when I get lost in a foreign country....'

'Do you often get lost in foreign countries?'

'Um....not....so much.....just...well, last time I went to Ibiza I got in...some trouble, and I had no ID...'

'What kind of trouble?'

He glanced sideways as though the walls had ears. Given that we were in a roped off bit of the Dazed and Confused offices, they probably did, but you wouldn't think D&C staffers would be strangers to the type of trouble that can happen in Ibiza.

'I'm not telling you. I'll get in more trouble.'

Everyone had to wait on me for ages, but there were snacks and they were eyeing up Rankin's impressive setup so they were alright. We trotted into a white box and about fifteen people buzzed around doing.....things....probably very important technical things....the man strolled up to the camera, which was held in place until he arrived. He took about twenty pictures and somehow we all came out looking terrific in every single one of them. I don't know how he did it. Possibly it's got something to do with the enormous computer rig running some space-age version of photoshop that everything pops up in the second after its been taken. Not a double chin or weird mouth malfunction to be seen. No wonder people always look so good in magazines. It was astonishing. And for someone so fucking famous, he wasn't even an asshole. He told us all we were very photogenic. Which was very kind of him, even if a little hard to believe from someone who photographs Andre 3000. It was a bit like when you go to the hairdresser for the first time properly (in my case when I was about 13, I understand they start kids at 7 these days but when I was 7 my hair was matted into a solid block at the nape of my neck and it didn't really progress to it's adult state of flat drapeyness til I hit puberty) and you're all awkward and you don't know what they're going to do and they seem so glamorous that when they tell you you've got 'lovely cheekbones' it's the best compliment you've ever had because clearly they know.

And then this morning I got up and read about this Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls/you're fat thing. Much like the naked rockspawn cover, it sorta was interesting to me, given the image conscious week we've had. I always feel weird when people get in public fights with their labels. It's a bit like fighting with your mum on the street. Even if Rough Trade did something really irritating (which they haven't, by the way, just in case you were stripping off your clothes and getting out the camera in heady anticipation) I think I'd be too worried about hurting their feelings to....pour out the tale. Images of Geoff reading my blog, crying...'I thought she LIKED me..'

Clearly I have a vastly inflated idea of how important I am to Geoff Travis.

Anyway. The properly weird part was the story itself. Unless, as a cynical friend of mine posited, it's a stunt. The girl's not fat. And if she was fat, then surely it's up to her if she wants to wear something that doesn't disguise that. They let Beth Ditto do it. But then she is fat. It's her thing. Her special unique thing. This girl's probably just got what all of us who don't do shitloads of situps have got. I think she's fucking brave, frankly. You wouldn't get me in a croptop in a video no matter how much everyone else liked the idea, let alone if they didn't.

The fact that no one at Rough Trade has (to date, I'll let you know) suggested I go to the gym, and in fact the only image direction they've given us is 'perhaps Soph could wear something other than a tshirt and jeans?' made me grateful all over again. Even if it was just an appreciation of the fact that with things the way they are, everyone expects you to be whoring yourself in some way, but that some ways are a lot less shit than others. I'm not naked in front of an ageing crooner, and nobody says a thing when I grab four chocolate biscuits off the Dazed and Confused snack counter and head for the door.