The People's Republic of Ramonia

Here are a few snippets of randomness about our Italian tour, which, even now we have completed it, still feels a bit unreal. You can read Mutt's excellent and intensive diary here , but I thought I would fill in the gaps, or add some bits that I observed along the way. There are also some quite pictures available on flickr , if you want the full slideshow! Some of them are quite funny though. Anyway, before I begin I would just like to thank Paulo (Mr My Honey Records) himself for inviting us, along with Fabio (and his family) for putting us up in splendid style on the first night and everyone else who worked on our EP, promotion, accomodation, food or who just turned up to here what we sounded like!
So, day one... It was a very early start (the flight was 7.15 actually Mutt, but at that time 15 minutes either way makes no difference), but we arrived in good time to be met by Paulo and his Methane powered Fiat! That sounds sarcastic, but I think it's a great idea, that is good for the environment and wish that there were more alternatives in the UK. It did make squeezing my specially bought for the trip hard case into a boot mostly filled by a gas tank quite tricky though, so Mutt and I spent many a fine trip huddled up to it, along with Mutt's guitar case. We spent a nice afternoon wandering round Paulo's home city of Brescia where I believe Paulo himself examines every drop of milk personally. Our apologies to the people of Brescia that their milk was not so intensively studied for the week we were dragging him around Northern Italy. We had been told about the radio interview, but were living in denial until we were actually on the air and talking rubbish. We had an interesting chat with Jean-Luc on Radio Onda d'Urto for about 45 minutes in which he played quite a few of our tracks and we butchered 2 of them live. We worked out later (at the gig in discussion with Alessandro from "Le Man Avec Les Lunettes" who mastered it), that the EP tracks turned up in Alphabetical order, as that is how Windows lists things on a data disk. Still, I think the order works quite well, despite this. Also (getting very technical here), the start of our gig was a bit fraught as after the soundcheck we went to eat large quantities of pasta and veal (or cheese in Mutt's case) and Ramon Jr (our trusty laptop) went to sleep and shut down his harddrive. Then when we turned up (a bottle of good local red wine later), and I pressed "Go", he was still asleep and didn't rouse quite so easily. The glitches in the Dog Song weren't as bad as the 2 minutes it took to load Unwind, in which everyone including Mutt thought I'd gone mad as I spouted total bollocks continuously interspersed with "It's still not loaded" as a clue to Mutt that something was up (that he singularly failed to pick up on) to an almost totally non-English speaking audience. They looked ever so slightly confused and thought they'd come to see some avant-garde English stand-up routine I think. I set Ramon up to stay awake at all times after that by pouring double espresso's into his PCMCIA slot. The rest of the gig went mercifully very well,and we played our first encore (albeit after a request to play "Just 1 more" - mostly politeness maybe, and I don't know what would have happened if we'd tried to play 2 more!). We drove back to Fabio's afterwards listening to the "Let it Bee" compilation (out now on My Honey Records - as is our EP!).

The Peepls Repooblk vo Ramonia with great honour announces the opening of it's new Official Ramonian Embassy rov the benefit of all Ramonian people in Italia. It is located at Zuni in the city of Ferrara, and should be the first port of call rov all Ramonians visiting the fine country of Italia. It will be providing all the usual facilities expected ov the Ramonian People, including Free Fresh Ramonian Air, the compulsory singing of our glorious National Anthem ("Oh Great Minnow!") on the first Monday vo each week, and interactive water enhanced waste disposal, freshening and cleansing compartment. The embassy was established after long and intensive negotiations between the Ramonian Minister vo Culture, the Secretary ov State vo Ramonia's Mental Health and Welfare and representatives of Zuni who now carry the esteemed titles of "Ramonian Ambassador & Manipulator vo Sound" and "Ramonian Chief High Commissioner & Dispenser vo Grappa".

For the Glory vo Ramonia and the Workings ov the Great Minnow!