So we've been busy touring with Milow in Germany and It's been great so far! The band also asked us to come along for the ride on the European dates in Nov so It's great that we're keeping busy. We've just finished playing with the Fray in Munich and got a great reponse from the crowd. We'll be here for a few days so if anyone has any good tips on where to go, please let us know. We'd also like to thank all the people who clapped, shouted, screamed and sang along with our music at all our gigs so far. We love you!!! Keep it up!!!

On another note, we discovered a wee program on our tour ipod that we can draw pictures on. It helps with the boredom on long journeys, and we draw a wee pic of the Martin & James entourage. They're very life like! Please see below : )

M & J x

Hey everyone,

We have been very lucky to have spent the last few weeks supporting Razorlight and then Boyce Avenue on their German tours. We have a wee break for a few days to catch up on some sleep, and then we head off to play with Milow on his tour around Germany which starts on the 4th Oct.

We've had an amazing time on the last few tours, and thank you to everyone who bought our EP, clapped along with our little drum or chatted with us after the shows. It's been great traveling around such different cities, seeing the sights and meeting people who like what we do. We hope to see some of you again along the way when we play with Milow. We will also be playing on the 3rd Oct at Salle de Fete in Maiche, which we thought was a festival in Switzerland but is actually in France. We're looking forward to that one too.

Our EP 'Bad Dream' is now available on Itunes in Germany and should be available in the UK and elsewhere very soon. So keep an eye out!!!

We'll also be posting some tour photos and videos, once we get around to editing out the bad bits ; )

Lots of love

M & J

Well, we've survived our first Berlin winter. Even by our Glaswegian standards, Berlin has been freezing. Feels like we've been living in a meat cooler for the last few months. We've kept ourselvers warm by keeping busy though!


We started doing demo sesions for our debut album back in September. We recorded two songs, Wrong directions and Bad Dream at Popschutz studio in Berlin. (www.popschutz.org)  We were working there with our producer Jem (Peter Seifert), keyboard player Stuart MacLean, bass player Stefan Gade and drummer Tim Lorenz. The tracks turned out so well they set the bar for the rest of the album.

For the past three months we've been in several different studios in Germany. Firsty, we went to Clouds Hill studios in Hamburg (www.cloudshillrecordings.com). This was an amazing place to work. As well as a massive collection of vintage mics, it houses an original Neve mixing desk built especially for George Martin. It was shipped from Air studios in London last year, so we were very careful not to spill any drinks on it. We didn't have much time to go out and see the Hamburg nightlife in the ten days we were there. We did however bring some of it to the studio on the odd night.............Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday,Sunday...........: )

After the Hamburg sessions, we returned to Popschutz in Berlin, which has now become our second home. Popschutz is a really cosy studio which was built and is owned by a the members of Brokof, a really cool Berlin band. check them out at www.myspace.com/brokof. We had really good fun recording at this studio, with regular visits from the bands dog who seemed to like our harmonies. By this point we were well on our way to completing the album, and we did most of the vocals in this session which lasted about ten days.

Our third and final recording sessions were in Dussledorf at a studio called Black Sheep (www.blacksheep-studio.org). We were feeling refreshed after a brief visit home for Christmas and looking forward to getting back to work. It seemed like we'd brought the Scottish weather with us as the place was covered in Snow. We worked with Jem and engineer Ollie, who was also present in Berlin. It was a busy time but really enjoyable and we managed to get everything we needed done. Studio owner Juergen Dahmen also chipped in with his Hammond Organ and Lesley speaker which sounded amazing. In between takes we recorded short videos of some songs in weird locations. We did it with a small camera,  and it's something we'll keep updating every week. So keep checking back here and on the myspace to hear some new stuff and see some strange vids we'll be posting soon.

So folks, that's where we are at the moment. Hopefully we'll have the album for you guys to hear soon. We just like to thank everyone for their consistent support, and all the encouraging comments. We've only had one really bad comment, but that guy is now sleeping with the fishes! ; ) 

Thanks to Astrid's mum and dad for taking us to see Köln and giving us our first taste of Kölsch drinking!  Thanks to Jem and Olivia for letting us stay at their house and taking us out to eat Eisbein and drink Alt beer in Düssledorf!  The battle between Kölsch and Alt beer lives on................we won't say which we prefer : )


Love M & J   x 

As you can see we have been having a right old time in Berlin. When we arrived the weather
was blazing hot and we took advantage of it by throwing ourselves into the Badeschiff in
Kreuzberg, which is a pool built out in the Spree (river). They have sand all over the shore and a bar and it is pretty close to paradise. Once we were finished there we headed down to the Oststrand bar, which has a beautiful old barge moored alongside it, where you can sit and pass the time with a quiet bevy, listening to the waves gently lapping on the shore..aah.
On the 9th of July we headed off to the historic town of Hamburg, where we played at www.balconytv.de/. This was above the Reeperbahn and you should check it out because the woman who interviewed us couldn't understand us... She seemed to think that a Glaswegian accent was something akin to Ewok or something. Despite her nervous laughter it all turned out okay and we were in fine spirits when we played the Mobile Blues Club that night. It is an old converted Gypsy caravan and has a lot of atmosphere. It was packed and we played a good show so were in fine spirits later when we hit the karaoke bars in the redlight district. We are proud to say we both won professional status. After that we went and found the monument to The Beatles. One of the funniest things we saw in Hamburg was the van that was advertising "The Hamburg Old Whore Tour". We kid you not. One for the lonely people who've been lonely a long time. Ahem...

Back in Berlin we played at a ramshackle old bookstore (twice in the one night) and made enough money to fund our bicycle-hiring habit, which is our preferred mode of getting around Berlin...as you can see in the photos. We have also been recording a whole bunch and have a few pearlers in the bag. All in all we have probably ten great songs you haven't heard, so for the next two weeks we will be finalising the tunes we are going to put on our first ep, so that you can finally get a record off us..yah!

Tonight we are playing at a place called Oxident on Frankfurter Allee and have just moved into a new apartment in Prenzlauerberg, so it is all go for our last three weeks. Tomorrow we will be setting up the mics and equipment here and getting on with recording...
We will be off to Leipzig in a few weeks so that should be fun, by then we will have rehearsed
all the new songs for live and can start extending the set a little bit. Until next time, take care of yourselves.

Here is a copy of the set we've been playing for the last few gigs, having Stuart on keys for these gigs really made them special. Both of the gigs last Sunday were really good. Spectrum fest is a great event showcasing lots of acoustic acts as well as full bands. We were really grateful to be a part of it.  Paul and Simon (the guys who run  www.acousticedinburgh.com) have offered us another gig in May as part of Acoustic Edinburgh which will be a great one to do.  The gig at the Goat was also really good, as a lot of our friends turned out to see us. We're sounding really good as a three piece now, we even played Wrong Directions for the first time live. Scott Keenan, a local singer/songwriter organised the gig at The Goat for us, what a great guy! We played to a crowd of about 60 people and they were all listening so intently you could hear a pin drop. We agree with Ray LaMontagne on this point, respect and communication makes for better gigs! Everything is moving along quite nicely, thank you very much.

So we arrived in Berlin and made our way straight to Friedrichshain, which is in East Berlin. It is a pretty cool place. There is graffiti all over every surface and everywhere you look people are putting up markets, opening bars and making art. We went for cocktails at the CSA bar on Frankfurter Allee, which is in the top ten bars in the world book. We did our country proud...and that's all we're going to say about that. The concert on Monday night was really cool. However, the PA system was a total relic of Uncle Joe Stalin's era and we had to borrow a friend's studio set up to put on the gig, so it turned out really well, with studio quality sound. Big thanks to everyone who came and especially to Katharina who took the beautiful photos. You can check them out on the site.

On the Tuesday night we went out with our friend Paul to a bar in Kreuzberg, where a guy was making squiggly noises on a Roland groovebox, while a sax player from New York played his instrument like a goose. Call us stupid, but both of us are sure it was either totally beyond our comprehension or not so hot. However, we also both agree that you can say this about a lot of art. That's all we're saying about that.

While in Berlin, we pioneered a couple of new model looks, one of which is the 'bedroom eyes', of which James is the sensei master. I discovered that my talent lies in the 'he looks away into the distance' pose. Which is a favourite of the Shaolin monks, or so we've heard.
We also took some shots in a very old graveyard, all respect to the people lying there. The locals maintain a very tidy resting place. I discovered the pockets of my new jacket from kreuzberg were too small to put my hands in. We also rode on the famous U2 line on the u-bahn, which was nice, as we felt an affinity for our Irish compadres.

On Thursday we made a little film of three of our songs, which will be up on the site soon. Big thanks to Kai and Sven, who gave us their expertise so kindly (and free!). It is hard to beat free. Kai is also cutting up a video, so we can't wait to see that.

Go see Kai's work here! www.neueweltfilm.de/produktion.htm

Check out the photos here of the gig and all the other stuff we got up to. Cheers!

ps. we raced to the airport after the shooting of the film and we missed our plane by three minutes. After being mocked by the counter staff we felt a little jaded. Then we went out to the legendary White Trash and did our nation proud...to drown our sorrows...and that's all we are going to say about that.

Just working on the site. We will be in Berlin playing a gig on the 24th March at Intersoup.Pictures below. Can't wait. Thanks for all your kind words on Myspace. We will be putting up more photos, song, videos and downloads over the course of the next three weeks. Cheers Martin & James

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