assistant were live

Many thanks to everyone who braved the cold to come out and see Assistant play in Brighton last night - was very nice to see you all. Sorry if we sounded a bit ropey; that was the first time we've all been in the same room for about a month, and it probably showed. But we don't really care about a few fluffed outros and hope you don't either. Either way it was good fun as always.

We played a set of pretty familiar songs for anyone who's seen us recently, and hopefully played a few songs for the last time - we revived 'John Wyndham' for the first time in an age and it sounded very flat next to some of the newer songs. On the plus side, renditions of 'Sixteen Months', 'Criticism' and 'August Song' sounded really good; 'Engines and Anvils' and 'What It Means' were beset by slight hitches and vacillations of tone (courtesy of my sore throat). I felt a bit more self-conscious than usual but that's because I made a couple of early mistakes which put me off my stride a bit. I still think we sounded pretty good all the same. Next gig should be confirmed in the next few days.

A quick word about one of the other bands on the bill: Big Red Buttons and the Bitten Mittens are quite easily the oddest and most original band we've played with; they were really super - a bass player seemingly playing on fast forward and yelling gruff lyrics over some exceptional, loose drumming and the sole other member's cello, coming up with all sorts of splendid and other-wordly squeals, scrapes and melodies. The music was quite unlike anything I've heard, sounding in places like Tom Waits twinned with Bootsy Collins, or - as Sam aptly put it - Captain Beefheart crossed with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. At different times you could hear bits of free jazz, delta blues, avant-rock and p-funk. Completely bonkers and most endearing. Go check 'em out on myspace, but most importantly try to see them live. They were great. Everyone watching was grinning madly. We hate them.