33.5 - Alien Vs Predator (Not Really)

I reject your claim that I am "cheating" with this image by saying nyah nyah.

Let's stick with the only mildly homoerotic "Aye Tunes Hearts Peenko" theme a bit more today.
Much like yesterday I blamed Urusei Yatsura for this blog existing, today I blame Chemikal Underground for giving me the stupid idea to promote gigs. Chemikal Underground and beer.
"How on Earth can you blame Chemikal Underground for you being a fool?" you ask? Well, I'll tell you. It was back in January of 2010, wandering down the road for a bus after the Chemikal anniversary gig at Celtic Connections that drunken conversation with Lloyd took a turn to us both saying that we quite fancied putting on a gig at some point, with me taking the next logical leap that since neither of us knew the first thing about putting on gigs, why not team up? It seemed like a good idea at the time.

How well did it work out? Well, results were mixed. The first gig was a roaring success, with us having to turn people away at the door, and is still just about the happiest experience I've ever had. Relief, booze, and pure joy is a heady mix.

The second one was booked almost entirely while drunk, a result of me bumping into Ross, then of Little Yellow Ukuleles, now in So Many Animal Calls, in Bloc and asking if he fancied doing a gig the following month, which we then had to hurriedly arrange. Lloyd saw Randolph's Leap at GoNorth while drunk, and we got them too, and We're Only Afraid of NYC missed out on doing the first through an imminent baby arrival, so were obvious people to invite to play the second. It wasn't as successful, but was still a hoot.

In hindsight moving to a bigger venue for the third gig was a mistake. The bands were great, but not as many people turned up as we'd hoped, at least according to the person on the door, and by the end of the night the wind was out of our sails a fair bit. We'd already thought about making that our last joint gig for a while, and it was a pretty easy choice to leave it alone after that.

From there we each put on a few things of our own, and would occasionally talk about doing something else at some point. Then, opportunity! We'd both been lucky enough to hear Adam Stafford's then upcoming album Build a Harbour Immediately quite a while before release, and annoyed pretty much all of our friends by telling them that we thought it was brilliant. An idea appeared, why not ask Adam if he'll let us host the launch gig for the album? Adam agreed, we lined up a couple of our other favourites to play too, and all went well. Right up until a few days before the gig that was, when we very sadly had to lose PAWS from the line-up due to pretty awful personal circumstances. I'd still love to rope them into playing a future AVP, but now that they are all signed up with Fat Cat I suspect they might rather deal with professionals. Hiya PAWS.
Gig number four was nonetheless ace. People came! People enjoyed it! Afterwards I did one of the drunkest DJ sets of my life, which is really quite something considering some of the ones I've done.

At some point along the way we developed a curse. Little Yellow Ukuleles split up. Come On Gang! split up. Mitchell Museum went on hiatus. For a while I really feared we might break Mondegreen, but Mitchell Museum are back now, so I think we'll be OK...

Everyone was happy. Maybe sometime we'll do another, but until then keep your eyes peeled as we both have a solo attempt at gig putting on or two coming up in the next few months.

Anyway, here's all the bands that played. Click their name for more on them, click the song name for, um, a song. All these bands are ace, apart from the ones who no longer exist, who were ace.

Aye Tunes Vs Peenko - Captain's Rest, 30th April 2010
Campfires In Winter - Mortigi Tempo
Mitchell Museum - Tiger Heartbeat
Kid Canaveral - Couldn't Dance

Aye Tunes Vs Peenko II - 13th Note, 17th July 2010
Little Yellow Ukuleles - Discopants
Randolph's Leap - Squeamish
We're Only Afraid of NYC - With Bullets

Aye Tunes Vs Peenko III - Classic Grand, 5th November 2010
I Build Collapsible Mountains - Rails
Come On Gang! - Fortune Favours the Brave
The Seventeenth Century - Roses in the Park

Aye Tunes Vs Peenko IV - Stereo, 20th August 2011
Mondergreen - Slouching Digger Paper Wagon
Miaoux Miaoux - Snow
Adam Stafford - Step Up, Raise Hands