Been quite a good few weeks practicing and getting the live versions of Boho Sheep arranged. When we started recorded, we didn't really know what was going to happen and so we didn't think about how we would recreate the songs live. Playing acoustically with guitar, drum & vocal is so simple you can't really get it wrong - but as a five piece? Electrically?

So to have been getting the kind of reviews we've had over the passed few weeks while out playing as a five piece rock band is really satisfying. Our first outing at the Triangle Festival was so well received and no one could believe that was actually the first gig for the band!! We landed a great slot for Rhythms of the World pretty much on the back of our first gig!!

Since the festival season ended, the gigs have been a lot less glamourous and more testing!! Take last Wednesday at the Halfmoon in Putney. Get asked to headline the night, show up at 5pm in London to soundcheck, kick our heels for a couple of hours, then watch the two other bands on before us. The second band over-runs cutting into our set time (11pm cut-off!!) and then gathers up all their friends and leads them out of the venue before we start to play.

There is something fundamentally wrong with muscians in London, but it's quite easy to see why. The music industry is about as cut throat as anything could be and musicians are so tied up in not missing their one chance, doing anything they can to promote themselves, they forget something really important. It isn't a competition. They don't hand out prizes for coming first in this race. There is room for everyone no matter how good or bad they are.

We like to think we're good - we've got an album being released so to some extent that's our credibility, but it's not for us to decide. We actively support musicians we work with - watch them play, lend them equipment, help organise gigs, etc. And yet so many of them turn round and spit in your face with the arrogance of a 'Mick Jagger'. Guys, get over yourselves. It's hard enough trying to play in London, with having bands you're playing with trying to do you over. The promoters and the venues are already doing that for us, we don't need to join the party.

I'm not having a moan - it's just really strange how people work in London - it really is a bit of a musical anomally. Elsewhere in the UK, it's nothing like as bad, so we made a decision this week: we're going to start looking for gigs further north, and stop going south unless we really have to. Hopefully we'll get a chance to meet some nice people and do the one thing we want to do: play our music to a new audience and hope they like what they hear.