Keep Your Eyes On The Road - A very late, but proper thank you!

Hi everyone.

Rather than hitting you with the 2nd half of the tour blog so soon, i thought that on the eve of the first TV broadcast of the video for 'Keep Your Eyes On The Road' on MTV Rocks, i really need to dish out some serious thank you's to the people involved who travelled from all over to come and help out. Ash (Director) knows how much i appreciate his endless hours of work and what he has achieved with this video.

But it's so easy to get caught up in your own little world when making a video like this. It's safe to say that after my 45th hour of being pixelated i was more than ready to commit suicide if i had to spend to any more time on set. So my head was definitely spinning.

So i think it's time i properly thank every single extra. I don't even know if there has been a cast list released with all the extras' names, some of which were of my best friends, some i actually don't know! Im sure if Ash (the director) is reading this he may be able to comment if i have forgotten anyone.

So it's time i thank you all properly for your amazing work and let everyone else know who you are.

So the first extra is the pretty lady in the bed next to me in the 'bed' scene. This is no other than my wonderful other half Sofi Lundgren. For the record, after she slips out of shot it was actually her turning the cone and replacing all the glasses on the bedside table. That was by far my favourite scene to shoot becasue i basically had to lie down in my bed next to my lady for two hours. Now that was much nicer than sitting in a chair at an awkward angle for 6 hours!

We then have the three people who devoted 6 hours of thier time to film just 6 seconds of footage in the labyrinth style 'helping hands' scene. They were:

Soozy Creamcheese - That really is the only way i know her. I didn't wan't to put her real name as i like to think this one is! I dont really see her that often and so thats why it was particularly special she came and helped out on what has become one of my favourite scenes.

Jen Burdess - I speak more about later
Keith Smith - Ditto
The next set of extras you see are the people kindly hammering the nails into my coffin, and then mourning my death!

The first is Ali Aaron. A good pal of mine who i used to work with.
The second is none other than director Ashley Dean, followed by Marcus who owns the space we used to shoot this scene and maker of my coffin. He was wearing some awesome shades with his black suit and as he was shooting the scene we realised his head was out of shot and so the shades wouldnt get seen. So thats why if you look carefully, his head pops into shot for about 4 frames just so you can see the shades!

Next my upmost thanks goes out to my 8 humble backing dancers. Some of which travelled from as far as London just to come and be in this scene. They are the following:

Rob Wills - My best friend in the world for the past 16 years. He's the guy in the turquoise jumper. He suffered hours on the stinky megabus from London to come and shoot this scene and i can't thank him enough.

Lins Wilson - A lovely friend and bassist/cellist/synth player in the Lone Wolf live set up and also cellist in Grammatics. She's the red head in the plain dress (provided by Ash im sure she'll want me to say!)

Kelly Taft - Another highly cherished pal and girlfriend of my friend Wu who is going to be playing Bass for the next couple of Lone Wolf dates. Shes wearing a yellowish dress and has long blonde hair/glasses.

Danny North - Well what is there i can't say about this ace gent. Simply a top top man. If you have seen any photographs of me over the past few years, chances are they will have been taken by Danny. He's wearing the brownish striped shirt.

Chris Leeds & Jen Burdess - I met these two wonderful people randomly at a gig about 5 years ago and we became very good friends. They are sadly moving back to the USA for good in a couple of weeks, so it meant a lot to me they they were in this video. Going to miss them dearly. Chris is in the grey trousers and Jen is the red head with black rimmed glasses.

Keith Smith - An old friend who kindly drove me all over the country for pretty much nothing when i was first starting out. He is a man who i keep reminding i owe him about a thousand favours, but he never seems to cash them in. So here's another reminder Keith you GEM! Keith is the handsome dude in the blue shirt.

Elly Oracle - The way we met is about as bizarre as it gets. She provided me with a cage for my cat Lupin when she had a knee operation! ha ha. But Elly writes for a few different sites about gigs and happenings in the Leeds music scene and is one of the brightest and bubbly people i know. Elly is wearing a reddish dress with short dark hair.

After the 'dancing' part there are a few more people that pop up for the odd frame spinning around in a chair. One of them is Ash's Dad who was always helping out throughout the whole process, making nice food and generally being awesome. There was also one of Ash's friends called Rachel who makes an appearance.

Then for the final section where a sea of people seem to appear from my body there is a veritable banquet of Leeds faces there, but you may need to pause the vid and skip frames to catch them all! But they are everyone from the previous scene with added:

Jon Foulger - Ace friend and also a member of the Lone Wolf live troop.
Fran Rodgers - Another old friend who i love dearly. Phenomenal musician also.
Dan Howard - One of my best mates. was frontman of the now defunct Wintermute along with Dave Hemmings who is also in this scene, and also one of my best mates! Leeds is going to be a sad place when Dan moves away :(
Wu - who i mentioned earlier. He arrived in time to shoot this scene. Diamond geezer stangely a big fan of Darius Danesh.
Sofi Lundgren - The other half i mentioned earlier.

And i think that's it. I know it's a cliche, but i think it is quite obviously the truth when i say that without all of your help and patience this video could not have been completed to look the way it does. It's also a great document of all the ace people i know at this point in my life.

So basically - I thank you all!

Now if you weren't in the video, next time you watch it you need to try and spot everyone!

have fun!

http://vimeo.com/10001188

Transexuals and Alcohol - A recollection of the tour (Part 1)

Oh Wild Beasts. How i love you, you beautiful gentlemen.

As i write this blog, the gents are still on tour around mainland europe and aren't due to get back until April 21st after an almost incomprehendable string of dates that started in Australia back in January.

For a couple of weeks i was the lucky gent who got to be tour support. On this occasion it was Lone Wolf by name and by nature. I left the band at home crying and waving handkerchiefs as i set of with the beasts in our sleeper bus. Here's what happened:

Portsmouth

First date of the tour and i hadn't played live solo for nearly a year. So i believe the term 'bricking it' came out a few times. Met Erland and The Carnival (other support band) and we seemed to hit it off straight away. Another great set of guys. I actually cannot remember too much of this gig as i know i pushed it a little too hard on the first night due to my excitement. I woke up the next day fully clothed in my hotel room with half a bottle of Budvar in my hand... You do the math.

London

KOKO! Possibly my favourite venue in the UK. A friend of mine (Lee Vincent of PABH) and i got to interview Steve Albini and watch Shellac there a couple of years back, and i was just as in awe of the venue at my gig on march 4th as i was back then. I had one of my favourite gigs ever. The crowd simply rocked. My amp did decide to die onstage at the beginning of 'Keep your Eyes On The Road' and so i got to use Simon Tong's cool vintage Wem amp in replacement which smoothed over the situation.
Wild Beasts played an incredible show to a sell out audience. I won't be forgetting that one.

Warwick

Of all places. Who would have thought that this would have been such a great venue/gig. But besides the gig, the most important thing for us was that after a couple of well earned days rest with our girlfriends, this was the first night on the sleeper bus and we were all giddy about it. Our driver Gee turned out to be a gem. A proper mackem with an obsession with the word 'fisting' and his most perculiar of catchphrases that i have still yet to quite understand the meaning of: "If In doubt...fart". Go figure...

Bournemouth

60 Million Postcards. The decor kind of rang a homely bell for me and thats because it's owned by the same folks who own Leeds' 'Nation Of Shopkeepers'. I got to have a nice afternoon sitting by the sea writing lyrics and listening to Gee snoring in his bunk. Strange how a Mackem snoring can be so comforting.
Gig was a strange one as the room is kinda wierd, but i enjoyed it a lot. I also enjoyed playing footie with Benny (beasts) whilst having the luxury of crew packing the bus for us!

Norwich

We spent a couple of days in this glorious town. The first half of the day off consisted of Hayden and I trying to follow his iphone to a hotel that actually wasn't there. Then when we did eventually find it, thay lady behind the counter wouldn't let us upstairs to our day room (where Benny was currently checked in and showering)for fear that we might - in her words - beat him up!
We spent most of it hanging out in nice cafes and having a well earned rest. On the evening we all messed our minds up by going to see Shutter Island. Great movie.
I just remember us walking back not saying a word.
The gig the next day was absolutely awesome. I loved it. Once again the crowd were excellent.
Highlight of the evening? Being told by a transexual man i was really cute and he wanted all of us to come back to his house for a party where apparently there were 'loads of maids and everything'! ha ha. I politely declined that offer, although in hindsight i think we all wanted to at least poke our heads round the door to see what we were missing! Im sure we were all conjuring up different images of what this party looked like!
We settled for our own party on the bus that night. There weren't any maids.

I'll let you digest all that before i tell you about the rest of the tour. Maybe tomorrow. Take care all.

xxPaul Mxx

Welcome

Hi everyone.

I decided to reach far outside the realms of myspace, facebook, and twitter to find a place where i can actually talk to you personally.

The 'official' Lone Wolf website is under construction but in the meantime i will be blogging here to let you know what i'm up to.

This is an absolute joy to be honest. Sometimes i have so much to tell you and i simply cannot fit it into a restriction of 140 characters, and i end up sending about 5 tweets just to say 'tonights gig was excellent!'. But seeing as i just did it in 27 characters, i don't know if it would be an improvement to Twitter to give you more letters, or a lesson that i need to stop rambling. Talking of which....

So "What the hell is going on Lone Wolf?" i hear you cry...

Well after your amazing response to the video for 'Keep Your Eyes On The Road', my friend and super director Ashley Dean is currently hard at work on the new video for the next single. Although i'm tempted to reveal everything about this i feel like i should keep it under wraps somewhat for the time being. This is my first post after all and so i can't tell you EVERYTHING!? What i can reveal is that it is going to be amazing. If you follow brokenpixelchat on twitter you will get to see photos from the set almost every day.

But what i can tell you is that after my solo tour with Wild Beasts, im happy that the full band is now going back into rehearsals for our forthcoming Live At Leeds appearance. Seeing as the band is such a god damn supergroup, I have to swap members every now and then. On this occasion the very selfish Lins Wilson of Grammatics fame has other engagements and so we will be bringing in the talents of one of the most treasured faces of Leeds, my good friend Wu, former frontman of the now defunct 'This Et Al'. I think this will be Wu's first time on stage since the demise of This Et Al, So we are still managing to keep our supergroup status.

We are going to be playing at Leeds' most amazing Brudenell Social Club at 6pm on May 1st which will be our first Leeds appearance since we supported Shearwater back in Feb.

So anyway, I could bombard you with a ton of news, but for the time being i'll let you make yourselves comfortable.

Speak soon

xxPaul Mxx