my my my microkorg

I just won this thing of beauty on Ebay for under £215
soooooo SIKED!
I'm going to lock myself in my bedroom writing magical electro masterpieces until i've become the next jean michel jarre (my dad loves him!)




spikey!

MJF for lyfe

i was watching Back to the Future yesterday and just felt that i HAD to write a post about my absolute undying love for Michael J Fox!
He is just the epitome of the perfect man....boyish good looks, handsome but not in an arrogant self aware way, good dress sense..quick witted and good on a skateboard
ok actually this is when he's playing MArty McFly but i'm pretty sure he must be like that in real life too!
Actually i started reading his autobiography once and got about half way through....was really sad when it got to the bit where he realised he had Parkinsons disease...he was really young to get it and first noticed something was wrong when he started getting a twitch in his little finger...pretty scary.
but anyway he will always be my ultimate pin up....(oh and mikey from the goonies but that was when i was about 10!)

MJF forever <3

The Magic Step

Does anyone remember those Clark’s magic key shoes?
Absolutely amazing shoes from the days when little girls still wore lovely dresses and buckled shoes and didn’t look like baby prostitutes!
Absolutely amazing advert aswell…kinda like the lion the witch and the wardrobe feel to it!
I remember wanting a pair soooo much but the closest I got was a hand me down pair of Transformers hologram shoes from my brother that were clearly for boys!
They really don’t make adverts as good as this anymore!!!

When we were young

I found my diary from 1993 on my bed yesterday...i think my mum put it there...
but anyway i started having a read through and it was completely hilarious remembering what life was like at 8 years old...and nothing got more complicated then getting up, going to school and coming home to play with my barbies...
i also discovered in a lot of entries that i'm reading a comic called 'Whizzer and Chips' which sounds like it's straight out of an Enid Blighton story!!
but after doing some google image hunting, the memories came flooding back of characters with names like Pongo Snodgrass and Mrs Fusspot!! How innocent it all sounds!!! Nothing like Bliss and all those pre pubescent magazines you get these days with miley cyrus (16 yr old disney star) pushing up her bee sting boobs in a 26AA padded bra!
Only thing i found slightly disturbing is that the illustrations are VERY similar to that of Viz (adult comics with characters like the Fat Slags hahaha!); it's quite funny really!

OUr New music video is finallly up!!!

So leigh finally won his battle with youtube and managed to uplaod our new video without it crashing!
Friend of the band and director extraordinaire Rob Heard came up with the concept and shot and directed the video all in my living room in new cross! we made all of the outfits ourselves and had a lot of fun making it!! Also thanks to Richard Boot and Alanda Dunne for being fabululous camera assistantst!!

New release

so the artwork for our next single Under the Bed is finally ready....and we have a load of lovely new press shots that my friend Chris took..they were a lot of fun to do and thank god the acrylic paint washed out of everyone's face!!!
p.s
i am very much enjoying photos of cunning squirrels at the moment...may post one in a bit!!

Oihhaa can i haz?

I just found this picture and it made me Laff!!




Tried to take some promo shots last night…I swear we are the worst band to have our photo taken!
Like I never know what to do with my hands haha!
In other news the promo copies are on their way to our lovely press people as we speak so very very excited about what the next
2 months will hold in store for us!
xx

SWEETS!

i found this photo of one of the idents for MTV's International rebrand in collaboration with UK studio Universal Everything...it's basically a shit load of sweets all piled up together and then they crash forward and spill everywhere...click here to watch the whole video..it's called International Sweethearts....it reminds me of charlie and the chocolate factory and the child catcher from Chitty chitty bang bang!

we made a music video

We absolutely worked our arses off at the weekend filming non stop for our new music video for next single Under the Bed!
Original concept is by the brilliant Rob Heard, who was also directing and he totally brought out the best in us…it was a very intense shoot!
here are a few photos from the weekend so you get an idea of our costumes; we made them all by ourselves and it was amazing how much effort everyone made
with only a week to prepare!

here we are with rob



getting my living room ready


DUDLEY!!


monsters gotta chill




you can see matt's hand under the bed where he had to stay forl ike 3 hours!


lovely assistant Alanda Dunne


Grrrrrrrrr!!

funny interview in Same Teens XOX

so the wonderful Manchester zine Same Teens XOX conducted a little interview with us after an all ages Artrocker gig we played a few months ago and here it is in full glory


Read the whole of issue 11 on the Same Teens XOX Myspace blog

phooottteeeessss

so sunday was bloody great!
mark is an absolutely amazing producer...really brought out the best in us
and has such attention to detail...
so i am soooo excited now about releasing the single....
bring on august!!!
here's a few piccies from the day:


matt asleep on the job

leigh smashing it with mark





xxx

Recording at the Square

We’re recording the vocals and guitars to our new single on Sunday and I’m very very excited!
We just got moved to a different studio owned by Miloco called The Square and it looks so good!
Here’s a photo of the lovely nice and shiny floor and drumkit!!
Expect more photos next week of us dancing around and getting down to business xxx

new songs and garlic

i had one of those weekends where it just seems to go on forever so when it's time to go back to work on monday i've almost forgotten i've got a job and it's a real shock to the system!
anyway it's mid morning now so i'm almost used to it again...don't really mind my job actually..i'm just knackered!!
went out in oxford on saturday night...actually the first time ive ever been there..very picturesque and lots of boys walking around in blazers and ties bless em!
but ayway on sunday i went to leigh's flat in wembley and we cracked out not 1 but 2 brand new acoustic songs! working titles are 'Learning to Smile' and 'Not our night'

it'll probably end up with one being the 2nd b side to our upcoming single and
then the other being released as a free download over the summer...
felt like we had a really productive day though...leigh even taught me how to make indian flat bread...it's just so quick and easy although mine was a bit tasteless so i threw loads of garlic on it and now my hands still stink!
ellen xx

New acoustic song Perfection

I’ve just uploaded the acoustic version of Perfection to our myspace page
It was actually the 2nd B side on our debut 7” Count in My Head
but just thought I’d upload it to the myspace so you can have a listen!
We’re currently writing and recording some more acoustic tracks which we’ll be releasing via FREE download this summer, in the build up to our next 7” release..
Woohoo we love a freebie xxxx


kids love lies myspace

deal

So I finally joined the dark side and got a blackberry…eeeeek!
Ive become everything I hate!!
But seriously it’s quite useful coz I can check my emails on the way home from work
And then I can get on with having a life when I get home and not go on my laptop!
In fact I bloody love my blackberry…….don’t know why I was so against them before!!

Anyway I bought this amazingly cheap blue playsuit in Primark the yesterday
For £4.81!! absolute bargain and now I want to get about 50 playsuits in a
All different colours to wear at gigs…it’s my new thing I think definitely!!

Also on the hunt for some sparkly sequin hotpants that don’t make me look like a pole dancer….

x

voices

had to cancel practise tonight as my voice is soooo husky and cracked and i wanna take care of it and make sure it's ok for recording in a few weeks..
soo excited about playing with the Thermals..they're bloody great!

i've actually become addicted frosties...just have a box of them at my desk and work and have about 4 bowls a day....so bad!

dam tube strike...i had my face in someone's armpit for the whole train journey this morning!!
xxx

elephant

i've sort of gathered that it's exam time for a lot of people...believe me as crap as revision and essays might seem now, i would do anything to be back at sixth form or uni then a full time job!!!
but anyway someone sent these photos round at work about really funny answers people have given in maths exams....i swear i should have thought of this...you know when you just get a question and you're just like what the f**k does that even mean?
this one was my favourite!!!

Sellindge

We played at Sellindge music festival on Sunday which started off with me picking up raf and his drum kit at 10 in the morning
Only finding out when we got to the festival that they had a house kit we could use…dam!
Anyway was great fun…the BBC Kent introducing tent had a great atmosphere and actually seemed to be more buzzing than the main stage, particularly
later on in the day when a band called Los Salvadores played a blinding, ska/punk/gypsy/folk a la Gogo Bordello type set…the crowd were going mad for them!
Also watched Polka party…they were great and had some really catchy songs, particularly one about Surbian tennis!!
Saw Royal treatment plant play the main stage…we got them to play at our single launch earlier this year and they are lovely and very good!
Also bumped into Megan from the brilliant Thomas Tantrum as they played on the main stage on the Saturday…theyre a great band to see live
so try and catch them if you can!
So all in all it was a lovely little weekend, although I must say I’m never gonna do a heavy night of drinking before a festival
ever again…my voice is so broken and husky today…I sound like Frank Butcher 

I was drawn back to the cheap allure of the Afterskool club in London…but it’s in a new venue now and doesn’t really feel the same as the old one…
Also seemed to be loads of really young girls there who were just going round snogging loads of guys who were all mates…they were literally playing pass the parcel with these
girl’s mouths…so GROSS!
Think of the lip herpes haha!

Anyway enough about that…will post up photos from the weekend soon
xxx

Club NME in Essex tonight!

So we’ve got an out of town gig tonight which is great coz it means I get to leave work early woohoo!!
Playing at Club NME at the Barhouse in Chelmsford Essex with New Islands and Dan Le Sac DJing
…
We were also chosen as the pick of Club NME in NME magazine this week which was rather nice of them!! Here’s the clipping: (i look god awful in that photo!)

finally

so i finally decided to turn this into a proper blog...not something i just write in like once or twice a year!
as far of the band goes we've had such an exciting few months, with the release of our debut 7" on Cherryade records, which is an amzing amazing label!
It's run by rachel and adam who are the loveliest people you could meet and rach is actaullyl they are so passionate and involved in music and it's great to work with people like that; likewise our crack team of press and radio, leah and luke are so lovely and it's really nice to work with people that you actually get along with and can have a pint and pack of crisps with ya know?!!

so Count in My Head picked up some great support from huw stevens, steve lamacq, zane lowe and nick grimshaw and it was great to get some recognition; we even hunted down Lamacq at the camden crawl and gave him a copy of our vinyl, luckily he seemed please and not scared that we were crazy stalkers!!
a few highlights would be recording our first radio session at Maida Vale and being chosen to play on the BBC Introducing stage at Radio One's Big Weekend which made us all feel like proper rockstars!!
in true ellen fashion i downed a cup of beer that had fag butts in it just before i went on stage....PUKE!!
but it was great, the lovely nick grimshaw introduced us onto the stage and we got a really good crowd in there so its just given us a taste to play more festivals...

when we played in brighton last weekend these 2 guys called Ben and Jim who had driven 3 hours to come to our gig after seeing us on the radi one website...it was sooooo nice to chat with them and really hit home that gaining fans and getting people to hear your music is far more important than getting a major label deal!|

here we are playing some slot machines in brighton arcade,,,,,i broke the machine after this with a faulty 2p!





this is matt, leigh and raf's dance which they will take to britains got talent next year...it's called 'Women's bits'



So then as soon as we got back from brighton we had to spend the day in a lovely recording studio called Miloco in North London where we began recording our next single Under the Bed with amazing producer Mark Williams. He actually went to school with Raf but is a totally established producer and has worked with loads of great bands like Bloc Party, The Cribs, Placebo...so we felt great to get into the studio with him and so far we have the drums and bass finished for the A & B side so are very very very excited....i cant wait to release it!!!

here we are with mark







roll on the bloody 21st june which is when we'll be finishing off recording....in the meantime, we'll have some exclusive free acoustic tracks out this summer before the next release so keep your ears peeled and your eyes posted...
lots of love
ellen xxxxxxxxxxxx

woah woah woah

i haven't written anything in this foooor aaaaaggggess so thought i just had to give it a little whirl again...
got up at like 7.30am today and its a saturday..what the hell is wrong with me!!

loads has happened since my last post...we're getting ready to release our debut 7inch Count In My Head on cherryade records and have been getting loads of good shit comin out way....airplay on huw stephens, john kennedy, zane lowe and have few good bits of press coming up including Artrocker, Music Week and something in Disorder magazine about musicians and their musical heros but more willl be revealed when that happens!

just wanna say thanks to BBC Kent introducing....they've been such great supporters of us..giving us lots of airplay and it was great to pllaya t their 1st birthday party in folkestone last week.....we drove back to camden afterwards and get wasted....you'll never know how much the 2 words SPRING BREEEAAAAK will mean to me after that journey....MAtt went nuts just shouting it at people our the car window...especially funny in shoreditch!!

played at MOnkey Chews last night in camden....bloody great venue..could actually hear everyones instruments for once!!

next gig is the big one...single launch at the lexington! sooo excited!
lovely kate is making us a wicked poster with unicorns and sea turtles and lovely stuff on it...can't wait to see it!!! oh yeh and MUSIC VIDEO will be ready next weeeekkk!!!!

i'l post up all the photos and shit but for now i;m off to lewisham to buy a new needle for my sewing machine hahaha!

ellen xxxxxxxxxxx