SICK NOTE INTERVIEW (June 2007)

Something freaky is festering in the back streets of Cardiff, something strange that has not yet been classified by science or the NME. The world at large has yet to hear about it, but those that frequent the underworld are aware that it is growing at a pace that will make it unstoppable once it breaks out. Like a hospital super bug it is highly contagious and those that have been in contact with it have been sent into uncontrollable bouts of dancing and been compelled to phone in sick the next day, but because of the originality of it no one knows quite how to deal with it. What follows is a cut and paste from two interviews, chats in beer gardens, bars, cellars, fields and busy streets, with Doghouse, the vocal component of the phenomenon that is Sick Note.

Get On The Bus (2005)
1: Brand Man
2: Romance
3: Get On The Bus

Live At The BBC (2006)
1:Phone In Sick
2:Gimmie Dat Harp Boy
3:Ectoplasmic
4: I'm In Love


Phone In Sick (2007)
1: Phone In Sick
2: Phone in Sick
(Flapsandwich re rub)
3: Phone In Sick
(Tommy Tank's Moist Rub)

Taxi For Mr Blair (2007)
1: Headshot
2: Gimmie Dat Harp
3: Taxi For Mr Blair
4: Freelance Opportunist (video)
clcik here for review

Yep, pretty original, but somehow we have to give it some sort of label so you know what we are talking about. “ A fantastically ugly racket influenced by The Fall, Captain Beefheart and LCD Soundsystem, yet with a large dose of originality thrown in, funked-up epic electro punk that guarantees to blow the roof off... or post new rave sums it up for us” Doghouse tells us. Indeed it does, but because the sound is so original unless you have seen them it still does not mean a lot, so we feel the need to take it a step further. You have a real bass player (The Oracle), a real drummer (The Grinder) and a laptop (programmed by Johan Flapsandwich) producing gigantic pounding dance rhythms. Then layered over the top you have the manic vocals of the Doghouse himself.

“At the moment, the songs come from Johan coming up with something on the laptop, then we add bass, drums and vocals over the top. It has worked quite well but I am keen for us to start writing stuff starting somewhere else and then laptop being added, I would like to see us experiment with every permeation that we can”. Nothing is what it seems with this band though. “I don’t really have much input to the vocals, I open my mind and they come to me, I am merely the psychic mouthpiece for Doghouse, a Mississippi Delta bluesman, who enters my body and uses me to spread his hedonistic message”. Are you starting to get the picture now? They are sending ripples out across the nation, and to prove it “We already have bands forming that are imitating us, we really are setting standards here for others to follow”.

We are quite used to the idea that really good bands often fail to make a name for themselves, cos we know talent and fame do not necessarily go hand in hand, but there is an air about this lot that makes you think you are witnessing something special. “Oh yes, this is the one” front man and vocalist Doghouse tells us, with a degree of justified confidence. “We have all been messing around in bands for a long time, some of us over twenty five years, but this one really does feel special. We are starting to get a lot of label interest now but we are holding out for the right deal, we are going to be big”.

Doghouse thinks this will be good for us all, as he despairs at the current state of the music scene. “I watched Jools Holland last night and there was a band called the Cribbs, I have never heard of them before, they had 8/10 in the NME, but they were shit. I do not know what is going on but the NME seem to be promoting bands and like mugs some of us go away and buy the CDs and I feel sold out every time, it is just rehashes of 80s music and not very good rehashes at that, the spirit isn’t even there. I formed a band because no one else was doing anything that interested me”.

“We have interest from labels, but obviously not enough interest. The difficulty is not getting people to show interest, but to get the record labels to get off their arses and come to see a show. We have not quite mastered getting our sound across on CD yet, and seeing us live is what we are really all about, it is an event, it is expressing ourselves, the CDs don’t really convey that vibe yet, they are just an after thought at the moment”.

Not content with sitting around waiting for a label, they have put out some mighty fine CDs on their own label, and despite the idea that they are ‘an after thought’ they are quite tasty. “We have had a lot of discussions about it within the band, I want to get an album out as soon as possible and we have got an albums worth of material, even if it is 80% studio and 20% live, but within the band there are others that want a big explosion with a record label, so I am not sure how it is going to work”.

One of the releases was launched with a massive party, the day before the last Monday of January which an eminent scientist has calculated is the most depressing day of the year. The single, ‘Phone In Sick’ encouraged the proletariat to ‘give up the day job’. The capitalist system did not quite collapse the next day due to the number of ‘sickies’. “Hey, you gotta start somewhere, everyone’s got to start somewhere, before you build the house you gotta make the bricks. Its something we intend to do every year and I am sure it is gonna grow and grow. It was successful, but there are plans for an even bigger event next year.”

The most recent release is entitled ‘Taxi For Mr Blair’, released two weeks before Bliar handed in his notice. So are The Note more than just a good time band, is there a hidden political edge? “Every ingredient that comes into the band comes from somewhere else, its never something intentional, its always been a case of opening up the third eye and seeing what is going on around us and whatever comes in comes out in the songs, so yeah, ‘Taxi For Mr Blair’ comes out, then two weeks later he announces he is going, maybe I am some kind of psychic truth sayer or maybe he is going because of the single, who knows. Its too good a song to throw away, maybe it will become ‘Taxi For Mr Brown’, but I am sure there will be a better target that will emerge”.

This year’s ‘Phone In Sick party’ was headlined by Eat Static. Other big name bands to share a stage with The Note include Dreadzone Sound System, 808 State, Altern8 and The Alabama Three. “Jason has had the bright idea of putting us on with big name bands which has been fantastic, it has also been fantastic that every time we have done it we have blown the main band off the stage. It sounds arrogant, but it is true. We are a tough act to follow”.

This is becoming increasingly obvious to all around, especially promoters and the other bands that have to share a stage with them. “We played the Workhouse festival in North Wales. We were due to play in the middle of the afternoon, the same time as Portugal were knocking England out of the World Cup on the big screen as it happens, we tried to persuade them that we should be higher up the bill but they would not have it. Matters were not helped by the fact that video plays an important part of the show and they don’t work too well in the middle of the afternoon. So 4pm arrived and we were set up on the main stage; so far so good, but two things were missing... the ever important mouse and the bass player!!! You could taste the tension; the two dancers,  Dr. Conchar (Scottish Al) and Nurse Nightly (Caris), were already started on the tequila. A few phone calls were made round the site and a mouse was located, but still no bass player... I was just about to self-flagellate, in an attempt to hold the crowd, when miraculously, stage right, the Picassoesque face of The Oracle appeared. With no time for a "Hello" or "Kiss my arse", the bass was plugged in and we were ready to anoint the crowd with those special Sicknote alms...the greeting of "Good afternoon people who don't like football" was received with roars of approval, and from then on in the crowd were like plasticine in my hands. Within a few minutes the tent that housed the main stage was swamped with people of all tribal affiliations and the place was bouncing. The sound engineer said that we were the only band to play the festival that had people running across the field to get to us; there were kids literally moshing in there like there was no tomorrow. We have been asked back, but they are putting us higher up the bill this time!”

There has only been one hiccup in the rise to fame, an appearance at the Nelson Village Fete. “It was amazing, we just ignored by the crowd, the only ones showing interest were this kids. But it turns out we were not being ignored, on the contrary, behind the scenes and in the shadows opinions were being forged, and a plan of action was formulated; the set was to be cut short. A message came through from the back of the stage. ‘If we get off the stage now, they'll pay us half the money promised, but we must get off the stage now! We are not suitable for the event’. Not suitable for the event? Too right we're not suitable for the event; the word 'event' itself, implies that some kind of activity will take place... I've seen more life in the morgue!. The Oracle and the Grinder then made a vain attempt to persuade the events organisers to give Sicknote the full fee, as promised, but this was thwarted by the ever increasing presence of large-framed, rugby-playing clones; an obvious show of strength and intimidation in support of the events organisers..."No you don't deserve the full fee there was too much swearing!"” But ever the professionals, they have not let Nelson put them off “Absolutely 100%, ten out of ten, we will play anywhere, so long as they guarantee they will pay us the full fee”.

Most of the band have been around for a good few years now and played in lots of other bands, drummer The Grinder still is in other bands, three of them! Captain Paranoid, Cakehole Presley, Space Vipers.. and that is just the ones we know about!! On the night they played with Babyhead in Newport, the Oracle was also booked to play bass with another band down in Barry. He had hoped to fit both gigs in but a delay in Newport meant the Note had to make do without him. “Occasionally it is a problem”, Doghouse tells us, “but the main thing is keeping it together. People do what they do and we get together when we can”. Luckily Flapsanswich was able to add some bass lines to make up for the lack of a bass player. “We get more sense out of the drum machine than we do the real drummer, but we definitely get more love out of The Grinder”.

The live show is something else, a carnival of chaos with bizarre masked dancers and surreal videos. The set would not be complete without P&O providing stunning tailor made visuals, and of course Scotish Alan, their very own Bez. “We did a gig at a bikers party in Blackwood and a girl asked him if he had anything under his kilt, so he showed her, but a week later down the Walkabout he had his cock out for almost the entire set, so we had to tell him to cool things down”. He behaves most of the time now, but in the Newport he did nearly have Mancub’s eye out when the Babyhead frontman got too close to the stage got too close to the stage during Sick Note's set.

Sick note are definitely on the beginning of a special journey, but with these characters, who knows which they are gonna turn next. Keep up if you dare.

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