Thursday the 24th of July
Good day to you ladies and gents! I write to you from the bowels of the black beast as it thunders murdorously toward Southampton. This past couple of weeks has seen us travel from sea to shining sea, beginning with an interesting performance in glorious Skegness. I say interesting as we travelled there without Mark (who was struck down by a deadly fish-finger sandwich), and bumped into a young chap named Luke who very kindly learnt our entire set in an afternoon prior to deputising heroically for our absent bass player.
Mr. Lees had recovered sufficiently to be wheeled on stage at Shrewsbury with a drip the following day, but decided to retire early. This as it turns out was a wise move, as Jim proceeded to take on board enough lager to down the HMS Belfast, shortly before being bullied most embarrassingly by a 9-year-old girl.
The following weekend saw us on our way to T4 On The Beach via Nozstock. After soundchecking at the former we were meandering toward the later through the Malverns when Jarvey was heard to mutter the immortal words: "Ah... I believe that's the last of the diesel." as the beast spluttered and died on a hillside miles from anywhere. As punishment he was dispatched to find fuel while the rest of us enjoyed a game of ultimate frisbee in front of some sheep and a couple of very suspicious pensioners. Meanwhile Jarvey had commandeered a local youth (named Baz) who we promptly took to Nozstock, which was a triumph as you can see:
T4 on the Beach. What can I say? In our brief but glittering musical career we have played TV style events before so, having some idea what to expect, we arrived in good time. We were not disappointed!
If you have ever wondered to yourself, "Is there an event where the cast members from any TV program on channel 4, ever, all congregate." I can tell you... there is. We have now officially met everyone who has ever been in Hollyoaks. More importantly we bumped into this man:
Does it get any better than this? Well, we only went on to headline the whole thing. I kid you not - Kelly Rowland and The Sugababes did an admirable job of warming the crowd up for us and Lil' Chris did an admirable job of introducing us as 'Envy & THE Other Sins', despite our careful instruction. Still, he's only lil' I suppose...
Wednesday the 16th of July
Pheasant season is upon us. For all the details of this year's tournament in Birmingham, please visit the pheasant page. Doubtless you are familiar with the complexities of this most subtle of games, but if you need an introduction/refresher, you should probably watch this:
Furthermore, a full account of all the drama, glory and tragedy of last year's World Championship can be found here, so have a read, enter your team and we'll see you in the park!
Wednesday the 9th of July
What a plethora of unusual envious opportunities there seems to be this month! This coming weekend sees us enjoying X-fest, a kite surfing festival on Skegness beach, followed by a one day indie festival in Shrewsbury, where we'll be appearing alongside such luminaries as New Young Pony Club, The Mystery Jets and The Holloways.
We had such a splendid time in York and Coventry, even despite the inclement weather, that we can hardly wait to pootle off to the next ones. In the meantime, you can hear some exclusive interviews and performances on Minster FM, who will also be popping some footage of the carnival on Youtube.
Pheasant Championship time is approaching rapidly, we'll be revealing the date and one or two other bits of entertainment shortly...
Monday the 30th of June
It's Carnival time! We imagine that York will be more than a little like Rio this Saturday as we find ourselves at the Copmanthorpe carnival. We have vivid imaginations. Barely having gathered our thoughts on the matter, we'll find ourselves on Sunday in Coventry's Memorial Park, alongside a host of stars.
4pm is the time on both days at which we will be strutting on to the stage. A certain amount of strutting will probably be taking place at other times too. All the details (apart from the strutting) are here: www.copmanthorpe.org.uk/carnival (Saturday 5th July) www.godivafestival.co.uk (Sunday 6th July)
Oh, and our email is finally back in action, apologies to everyone who's tried to write in the last few weeks, restrain your typing fingers no longer!
Monday the 2nd of June
If you've been trying to email us, yes our email is broken at the moment, we're trying to fix it, but we don't seem to have the right sized spanner, sorry! Hopefully it'll be back in action soon, so please keep persisting...
Tuesday the 27th of May
High time for some news I'd say. The merry month of May initially has seen us continuing to serenade the good people of this fertile land from East Sussex to Cumbria, Ali electrocuting himself in the face with a tennis racket, and further envious forays into the world of celluloid (coming soon to a youtube near you!).
Also sinners throughout the country are gearing up for the new Pheasant season. The date for the 2008 World Championship will be announced very shortly on these very pages, so you too should probably brush up on the rules and get practising...
If you're somewhat mystified by the lack of any information relating to last year's tournament, worry not as a full and frank account will be online very soon. For the time being here's a shot of Jim looking ferocious:
Thursday the 8th of May
Look what a marvellous sinner named Neko made in support of Emma's campaign!
Aren't you a creative bunch?!
Tuesday the 6th of May
Birmingham did not let us down, providing a fantastic finale to our tour! What's more, we're playing in Brum again tonight, although on a slightly less triumphant note, to commemorate the Jug of Ale, in Moseley, which is closing it's doors in a couple of weeks. We're playing alongside other local heroes Deluka, Gundogs and This Love Affair. It should be an emotional night.
We've updated our Wares page, to feature the new t-shirts and hoodies, so get shopping!
Don't forget, we have an all new fansite and a
forum wherein you can discuss the finer points of sinning.
We quite fancy supporting The Hoosiers again, given how much fun it was last time.
You can demonstrate your support for this idea by signing a petition, started by Emma (click the scroll to visit the petition):
We'll be sending one lucky signatory some kind of as yet unspecified freebie to thank them for bothering!
Sunday the 27th of April
Our tour is drawing to its conclusion - tonight sees us playing in Leeds, at the Cockpit, with just Liverpool and, finally, Birmingham, awaiting our arrival on Tuesday.
We now know more than we did before about the mammalian kingdom, and have experienced Scottish hospitality in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Mark is still recovering.
Our faithful touring companion, Phil the Pheasant, has endured the indignity of occasionally being called a grouse in return for being greeted with immense volume and enthusiasm everywhere we've been. For making a small, plastic bird happy, we offer you our heartfelt thanks.
Brum, we shall see you on Tuesday, and everyone else, watch this space, we've got a few dates over the summer coming up, not least the legendary Secret Garden Party, which is headlined this year by Grace Jones! Visit their beautiful website by clicking below, and hopefully we'll see you there if not before!
Thursday the 17th of April
Good evening, sinners. Just thought I'd touch base and let you know that touring is a joy, the rider is still flowing and we haven't killed each other yet. Although Jarvey did nearly bore us to death by making us watch the full 12 hours of 1980s miniseries 'Shogun' (starring Richard Chamberlain as Captain Blackthorne) in sequence in the van. He's now moved on to David Attenborough's 'The Life Of Mammals'... Thankfully there's always Flashman.
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In other news 'We Leave At Dawn' is album of the week in Stornoway!!
Therefore we should like to raise a toast to the good people of the Isle of Lewis for being so damnably Envious.
Stornoway
Anyway, must dash - but rest assured I do love thee, damn it.
Tuesday the 8th of April
Well, our tour is underway, and we've already met a host of new sinners, so hello to you all!
Some sinners are especially active, creating new and very envious sites out there in the wider world of cyberland...
We'd suggest you pay a couple of them a visit. There's Adam who's set up this Bebo page, and not forgetting Emma, who's set up this rather wonderful site.
And thanks to everyone who sent in video ideas for Man Bites God - we've been overwhelmed by the number and quality of the ideas, clearly you have very fertile imaginations! We will be choosing our favourite very soon and hence announcing the competition winner, so watch this space...
Monday the 31st of March
Today will be a day long remembered. It has seen Jarvey falling off a ladder (deliberately), Mark knocking Ali unconscious with a dustbin lid and Jim in drag (again). Oh, and we released an album, but that's pretty trivial in comparison. Having said that, I can heartily recommend getting yourself a copy so here's a link to HMV for your convenience:
"Hang on a minute", I hear you cry, " there's no way I'm going to part with my hard-earned cash until these swines give me a feel for the circumstances in which the album was made!" Well, I'm afraid if you're still holding out for Jim's recording diary it's going to be a long wait - he was far too preoccupied with 'sitting down' during the latter stages of recording and couldn't finish it, so this hastily-compiled set of images will have to suffice...
Anyway, in all seriousness this is a pretty big day for us all and we'd like to thank everyone who's helped make it happen. I can never get enough of Jim dressed as a woman.
Wednesday the 5th of March
We're on our way to London at the moment, to play our first gig with The Hoosiers tonight.
This is definitely exciting.
Obviously Jim's done a stirling job of writing his much-anticipated recording diary, of which one instalment has made it to our own website.
To summarise what he might have written, there was much drumming for a week, and then he lost interest.
Fortunately for everyone else, after the drumming came a whole load of other studio shenanigans perpetrated by us, which culminated in a mastering session on Saturday, and a completed album!
We're now on the road for the next few weeks, so hopefully we'll be encountering many Sinners new and old along the way, and hawking our new T-shirts and badges to you all! Some of the gigs appear to be selling out, so if you are intending to come along and haven't got round to purchasing a ticket it might be prudent to do so now. There are links on the shows page to all the ticket outlets.
If you're coming to the gig in Birmingham on Friday at Bar Academy, be sure to buy a drink for Andy the Stage Wolf, our trusty roadie, whose birthday it will be!
Finally, you can hardly have missed our references to Highness' release this week, don't forget to get your copy here, will you?
Tuesday the 25th of February
Apparently you can hear our witterings on the Sun's latest "Bizzare" podcast, hereabouts.
And here's a first look at the cover art for We Leave At Dawn (click the picture to place your order)
Monday the 18th of February
This chap is a true sinner!
What makes his act of devotion particularly special is the fact that he used permanent marker to do the job! Splendid work, Adam! He has also set up a bebo profile in our honour, which you can visit here.
Saturday the 16th of February
We've been recording a string quartet today (well, we've been watching other people do the actual recording, and the playing, but we were there at the time)! This has been great. Jim's finally started writing a diary of our time in the studio, although notably only when Channel4 asked him to do it - our own site just isn't high profile enough for him now he's a "celebrity" (in his own mind).
Should you be inclined to read his accounts, you can do so here.
What's more, we've just booked even more gigs through March and April, especially for everyone who's written to us asking us to visit where they live, hopefully we'll see you all somewhere on this tour. In fact, we really ought to come up with a name for this, out first proper tour, if you've got any suggestions, please feel free to email them to us!
The folk at Gigwise have interviewed us. Jarvey is now referring to himself as "Jarvis". He thinks it makes him sound more like a butler.
Thursday the 31st of January
Recording is now well under way, and you'll be pleased (if unsurprised) to hear that it's going fantastically well.
We've just booked a load of gigs, pop over to the shows page to see where and when.
Jim's promised to write a recording diary, but in the meantime, here's the new video for Highness for your delectation:
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