It’s strange to think that just over three weeks ago, I was sat at this computer looking at the Betamax website, and trying to put into words the news we had just been given. One little email, barely a paragraph long, had landed in our inbox and absolutely turn the world upside down. Without wanting to get all teary eyed about it, I think it’s fair to say that we’ve had very little in the way of lucky breaks over the years… And when I say “very little”, I mean absolutely bugger all.
A few years back we were on the verge of signing to a decent record label, only to get a call one day saying that the company had gone bust. Shortly after, we actually put pen to paper with a small label (more or less a one man operation) which disappeared almost before the ink was dry – And I literally mean missing-persons-disappeared. We’ve been on the receiving end of more than our fair share of fixed battle of the bands competitions, we’ve had gear stolen from us…. Oh the list goes on, but put your violins away, I won’t go on – you get the idea!
The point being that when we submitted our little video to Graham Coxons website, I think its fair to say that we expected absolutely nothing from it. I mean we hoped, obviously, but from over 6,000 bands entering the tour support competition, the odds of us getting anywhere near it were astronomical – and coupled with our wretched luck, we had almost written off the idea before we’d had it! We got a few votes – more than we expected in fact – and we took a little bit of comfort from that, but there were a lot of bands getting a lot, lot more than us. And then there was that line about “Graham Coxon will be choosing….”. So even if we managed to muster up the extra votes, what were the odds that he would choose us. We’d submitted the video for Pigs which has received as much criticism as it has praise over the years, and we hoped that Graham might interpret it the way it was intended… But with our luck? Nah, probably not.
Turns out we were wrong. We spent a fair amount of time backstage with Graham and the band that night, and somehow we never got around to asking exactly what he thought of the song or, indeed, the video. I guess the very fact that we were there was all we needed to know (although a part of me is still interested to hear his opinion!).
Anyway, I’ve kinda skipped part of the story… Ya know, the bit where we travelled to Oxford; met and supported one of the UK’s greatest artists and guitarists; played to a crowd of 1,300 (which is approximately 1,295 more than our normal crowd); played an absolutely corking set which went down unbelievably well; and then spent an hour or so backstage chatting to Graham and his band about car boot sales in Kent and Vespas. That’s about it really… Nothing to get too excited about, ya know…
(How am I doing at the “nonchalant” thing? Are you convinced?)
I won’t bleat on about it too much – I’ve already bent the ear of every friend, family member, and even random people in the street with the story, and I’ve no doubt I’ll be re-telling the story in great detail for a long time to come! Besides, I need to hold something back for my autobiography… For now, just in case you missed it, you can click here to watch our video blogs from the day.
I will, however, try and sum it up by saying that it was a genuinely amazing and humbling experience. I met some fantastic people who, by the way, were also incredible musicians, and some of the most down to earth people you could wish to meet. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve been a massive fan of Graham Coxon for a very long time – pretty much since Leisure (the first Blur album). I’ve never been one for having musical idols, but Graham Coxon is one of probably only 3 people in history that I have truly admired. One of those three has long since retired, and the other is dead, so our little “15 minutes” moment with Graham is probably the closest I’ll ever come to fulfilling a dream, musically speaking.
Ok ok, I’ll stop gushing now… In fact I feel slightly embarrassed to think that, through my new found friendships and associations with Graham and his band, he may even end up reading this – but what the heck!
So… What now?
Well, dear reader, we honestly don’t know at this stage. Things have definitely changed in Betamax-land; Emails from strangers, hundreds (in fact I think its now thousands) of extra views of our videos on YouTube, random strangers from Oxford posting videos and photos of us online. These are all very new experiences for us, and there’s just a general change in the vibe around us at the moment… Whether that is going to translate into anything more, who knows? Instinctively I want to say “no” because I’ve suffered literally years of rotten luck and false hopes – But… well, I instinctively thought we had no chance of getting the gig in the first place so…. who knows!?!?
Anyway, in the short term, there is definitely one piece of news for you – this Saturday, we’ll be returning to our home town of Chingford to play the Artisan. We had to cancel our last gig there at the last possible minute unfortunately, so it’ll be good to come back to our dedicated following (hi Mum) and hey, if you’re lucky, maybe I’ll bend your ear about this gig we did in Oxford recently…. Have I mentioned it?
Oh… And one last thing… Remember those extremely limited edition Betamax Promo CD’s we told you about a few weeks ago?
Well we held a few back and the first 5 people to contact us here will get one posted out to the for Free! 
See you Saturday!
~Bob
The three of them came together as Betamax and played their first gig in February 2003. Since then the band have played hundreds of gigs and recorded a ton of demos, and in late 2011 they released their first full studio recording of ”Ninety-Nine” (iTunes, Amazon, etc)
