Since last weeks storm of newsprint and PVA glue, things have come along. My front room has been momentarily freed from chaos. Two and half days – solid sticking down of the weeks headlines yet I’m none the wiser about what’s actually going on in the world. Rather than get caught up in the worry, I turned to red acyrlic and black spray paint, which has replaced any anxiety in my mind with a fine layer of fumes. However, having perhaps learnt a lesson from ‘The Lost Belongings’ limited editions, this time I took to spray painting with a make shift mask. Don’t think these old man lungs can handle another thick and sticky gloss coating, and for sure a lack of vocals with which to call out and complain with made this particular man a true psychotic misery. On this occasion, history doesn’t have to repeat itself.

Anyway, plan to today is to record a set of new songs so’s those murderous little fuckers have something to get their teeth into. After that, the next stage in my wonky plan will be to fill these little chests with crooked treasures, so keep in touch, and be sure, I’ll let you know how it’s all going down. xxx CroOK.

She has five photographs entered in the competition including the tarred and feathered shot of yours truly.

Last week she had three photos all in the top 10, one of which was in first place. Please help give it one last push by voting before the competition ends.

Thanks so much.

Tom

xXx

Ps Dan, if you’re reading this, I got your email about the tattoo. Sorry its taken me so long to reply, I’ll be in touch soon.

x

Beautiful Daze marked the end of The Crooked Family’s Festival Season 2010. Other news, completed album and artwork, as I speak, is now on route to the manufacturer – no thanks to the fucking French who were too pussy to print the artwork due to ‘blah blah blah’ content – what a load of bollocks, but we’ve dealt with that anyway, for after a moment of profound panic someone over this way, with a pair of balls big enough, agreed to take the job on, so all is well in hell and right on target for the 4th October release. Anyhow, my attention has now turned to making a limited amount of special edition boxsets . . . phase one: the material blag.

Wednesday morning Matilda and I fleeced Mornington Cresent station of its last remaining copies of The Metro newspaper. By 9am we were lurking around the recycling bins just outside Sainsbury and managed to pick off a few old dears, relieving them of their soon-to-be-dispensed-with outdated daily rags. Next mission was striking a deal with a ‘not to be named’ takeaway place up Camden High Street. Once done, we dragged our hoard back home, stuck on some Johnny Cash, and made a start on prepping the materials.  Come yesterday morning and the real work began. As you can see from these happy snaps taken only moments ago, everything we plundered is being put to good use, though admittedly it looks like a bloody mess at this particular moment. Hopefully, with a bit of luck and hard graft, my front room turned art factory will slowly begin to make more sense. I’ll keep you updated as I go . . .

However, this means that the Market Stall is not gonna be appearing in Camden today. Sorry for anyone who was planning a trip, but I’ll be getting it together for next Friday, I promise – just that I really need to make a aggressive start on these broken arts before their darkened crafts have their wicked way with my daft sod brain.

xxx

Yours SINcerely

CroOK

Heading down to Devon for the Beautiful Days Festival 2010, there was an unspoken anxiety that each of us held silently inside, I could feel it in myself, and sense its presence in everyone else also. Latitude had been a riot of sundrenched pleasure and musical lunacy, and it would be interesting to see if it could be recreated again. 7am last Friday morning, the sky was colourless and empty and a brisk and lonely chill that threatened us with typical British rain, the kind that washes away any scent of enthusiasm – a weekend best spent under the covers watching piss poor action movies? Fuck no, not for us anyway . . .

5 Hours later and we’d made our peace with the weather, and so too accepted that Beautiful Days might well be a very different festival than Latitude. No matter, we had our medicines, we had our instruments, we had the constant aggregative nature of each other’s company, so we were ready. On arrival we witnessed two burly security man handle some poor teen, release him of his tickets, and drag him away to some place I hoped never to stumble upon. Then en route to our parking place we managed a wrong turn into a field lined with police riot vans and hungry looking uniforms – at which point Bruce turned white with fear, reversing the hell out of there, luckily unnoticed.

By 3pm we made temporary camp, and for the next few hours, like trolls lurking on the bridge, led campsite folk into the main festival arena with our stripped-down gypsy set. This began what would turn out to be a whole weekend of performing, and as wonky as it may have been, by 12.50 the following day our efforts on that bridge seemed well worth it.

The Big Top tent was gently buzzing with excitement and nerves, ours and theirs, for it was obvious that hangovers and comedowns were aplenty. Apart from a general consensus that I should never ever be allowed to speak to the general public between songs, the gig was a joy. We appreciate everyone who made the effort and took a chance on us bunch of misfits, you made our weekend. And for the record, what I actually said, trying to explain my obvious sweats and shakes, was “we got on some 4 year old Mandy last night” meaning MDMA, rather than “. . . 4 year Maddie” which is how some of the audience apparently took it. Hmmm, well, moving quickly on . . .

3pm we headed over to the Dirty Dave’s stage where I punk rocked a short set between main stage Q and A. Perhaps the most diverse and interesting stage, more arts than music. We later saw ‘The Agitator’ here, who is well worth checking out if you get the chance, and also ‘British Sea Power’ providing an instrumental noise sound-track to some strange Black and White film. All bloody good stuff. As the weekend drew over we witnessed our dear Hg go all twisty and momentarily turn into a crooked question mark, whilst Bruce did his best to lead us into bog and huge filthy hog infested swamplands. The rest is probably best left where it lies.

So, turns out that Beautiful Daze wasn’t one bit like Latitude, but without a doubt equally as brilliant. Many many thanks to all those we had the pleasure of meeting and getting messy with, t’was a dirty and delightful weekend, some great memories, and many lost on the hills of that place in Devon. Whoever you were, we hope you keep in touch.

Xxx Mr CroOK.

Can’t Bear paintings, greeting cards, postcards, thee back catalogue, the new single and maybe this week some hand cut and fucked t-shirts (because the black ‘straight’ ones are annoying us). Also, two new charms are on sale, with a restock of the two other little treasures as well (see above, pictures by jenny hardcore). All this nonsense will be available in the website shop come next week, but its far nicer meeting in the real world, hand to hand, eye to eye, so come down and have a sneak peek. Mines a coffee with 2 sugars before 11am and any can of lager from then on in. Fair trade. Cheers weirdos . . . CroOK?

Click To See Full Image:

Liveblogging in effect… We’re in Camden on a sunny Friday afternoon.  Bruce & I have repaired to the Lockside Lounge for sustenance and wi-fi access while Mr Crook mans the first ever attempt at hawking our Crooked wares via market stall.

Releases, t-shirts and bags are available, but the main thrust is the (relatively) new Can’t Bear merchandise (postcards and greetings cards), which some of you have already seen at gigs.  We’ll be making them available via the website very shortly.

We have video footage from our trip to Latitude that will one day be edited and will see the light of day.  At the moment, it’s all hands on deck to get the album out.

Yes, at last the album has an almost-finalised release date of 4th October.  We have until the end of the next week to turn that into a beastly reality.

In the meantime, here’s some great footage that we spotted on YouTube of Dorothy Deserves at Latitude.  Thanks to Nige for shooting and uploading it.  x

Here’s the Crooked Cart at Latitude, shortly after the crowd had descended like locusts on the merch case and all but cleaned us out.

I’m on a mission to uncover the meaning (and language) of the slogan on the side.  Presumably not “Crooked Cart”.  Can anyone help?

Thanks to Rachel Blackman for the pic.  x

The band plays this Sunday at the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch.  Nearest tube station is Old Street (10 min walk), or you can use the new-fangled Overground line to Shoreditch High Street (5 min walk).

Supports come from Medway’s Archie Wah Wahs and Dalston’s The Sans Pareil (who those of you with long memories might remember supporting the band at 93 Feet East a couple of years ago).