For our first Bandcamp release we take a look back at the last decade and a bit of DCW gigs. Ever since the beginning I’ve tried to record most of our shows in order to get a feel of what we sound like. I have a tendency not to listen to them though, leading to quite a backlog of unheard music, but over lockdown I made a concerted effort to sit down and listen to everything on my computer (there’s some other even earlier stuff not digitized yet).

I did it methodically, going through each gig, each song, giving them a grade as if we were in school. Then I compared the A versions of each song against each other to come up with hopefully 14 winners. Dan Tremor helped out a lot in the choosing of the tracks. They were recorded using a Sony minidisk player and a lapel mic (until 2013) and then a Tascam recorder. These resulted in WAV or high quality MP3 files which were then cleaned up and mastered at One Cat by Jon Clayton.

Now these are not desk recordings, so if you’re looking for some clean facsimile of the studio recordings you’re probably listening to the wrong band anyway, but if you like getting a little (sometimes a lot) of the ambience of the venue and audience, then go get yourself a double Pernod and take a listen!

Indeed, for some people there will be a certain nostalgia listening to these recordings as many of these venues (12 Bar, Buffalo Bar, Bull & Gate) no longer exist. Remember the slam of that door leading to the toilets at the Bull & Gate! But even if you’ve never seen us live, these recordings will give you a feeling of this period of the band’s history.

And for that reason I’ve gone for the feeling of the performance over everything else. Sure, I mess up the second verse of Jonny Bentham’s Dilemma, but by the end of the song the amps are smoking and the fire brigade has been called, so it was always going to go on this album. I also make a mistake at the start of Stretch Out, but helpfully do a recap of the messed up first verse at the start second.

You can listen to the tracks individually, but I’ve also included a mix with the songs edited together as if performed not over the space of eight years, but in three 20 minute long sets (I wanted to do it in two 30 minute chunks but Bandcamp didn't let me).

Some other thoughts while I’m here: I always ask for reverb on the vocals, which sometimes, depending on the sound engineer, is a request that just gets ignored. So for our ‘10 Years of Bluebeard’s Rooms’ gig at The Lexington I said during soundcheck: “You can’t put too much reverb on these vocals.” Well, it sounded like I was singing in a cellar in the world’s largest cathedral. So we rolled it back (twice) but it’s still pretty huge.

Playing with the Fat Whites at Saul’s legendary Slide In was a great one, Ian Button’s favourite of all the gigs he played with DCW, and it’s no surprise that there’s two tracks from that gig on here. The audience were rammed in, people got naked, and it spurred on the performance.

There’s also a couple from the Bull & Gate. After the gig the sound guy shuffled me into a room and asked if I wanted to buy a DVD of the gig for £20. The visuals weren’t great and it seemed a bit like a shakedown so I passed, but maybe I should have got it, as it turns out that was a good one, judging by my scorecard.

Finally, a gig at the 100 Club is always going to be special, but my parents were at this one, along with a lot of friends, including Medders who you can hear at the beginning giving a shout out to Dan Treacy.

Anyway, thanks for listening and stay tuned for more Bandcamp releases in 2022.

All tracks previously unreleased, apart from 'In The Limo' which was on Soundcloud. All venues in London, apart from where otherwise stated.

Personnel (as far as I remember and can work out):
Tom Mayne (guitar and vocals), Stu Saunderson (drums), Ian Button (bass), Jes Walton (bass), Mark Watts (guitar), Chris Potter (guitar), Adam Croucher (guitar), Rhi Tucker (keyboard), Mary Boe (keyboard), Hayley (keyboard), Tom Alder (guitar, violin).