What not to wear?

Some days it seems that what you wear says more about you as a band than anything else. Music? Don't be so silly, it's all about the shirt. Or possibly, as suggested on The Guardian Music Blog, the jeans. If that is the case, then we're a bit screwed to be honest - our band 'uniform' is jeans and black shirts (although Emma gets to wear whatever she wants, as she has more fashion sense than the rest of us combined!). So, unless we can join the ranks of Mötorhead and Status Quo, singled out by the Guardian article as the two bands who wear jeans and "are not s**t", it would appear we're destined to burn forever in music hell...

So, do clothes actually matter? If The Levellers gig that me, Phil and Emma went to on Saturday is anything to go by, people don't really care that much! The crowd, as might be expected, had quite a few beards (ok, technically not clothes), a fair number of scruffy waistcoats, and a LOT of ripped jeans. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary. So how about the bands? Well, first up we had Hobo Jones and The Junkyard Dogs. The only way I can really describe their outfits is some combination of pirates and farmers - a bit odd, but not that out of place, considering the gig... Up next, Pama International. They walk on stage and, shock horror, they're all wearing suits. The audience seem slightly confused. But then they start playing a very tight set of Specials-esque Ska/Dub/Reggae, and no-one really cares - they're all enjoying the music (or at least enjoying the cider anyway). And how about the headline act, The Levellers? Well, needless to say, they were all wearing jeans...

So, for now anyway, we think we're going to stick with our combination of jeans and black shirts - it might be a bit dull, but it seems to have worked for enough bands in the past, and we reckon that our energies are much better directed to entertaining you with our music! And you never know, if you come along to the album launch we might even splash out and wear some brown...