tilly, ferries, men, women, children...

In our ongoing effort to post pix and words almost weeks after their actual occurrence, here is our latest installment of stuffs that has been goin on in the world of lil onez. So, like many a blog n' pix, here is some show n' tell snapshots of our lives in the past 2 weeks.

Rough Trade
We played an instore at one of the Rough Trade shops in Covent Garden. This show easily takes the cake in terms of performing in a smaller than small area.

If you look closely, you can see that Lee is playing his vintage midi controller on his lap.
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Here lee attempts to place it on top of Brian's bass amp.

Later Brian puchases an army coat from a nearby shop, and General Brian is born.


Later that night some of us and our visiting family scoured covent garden for a Mexican restaraunt called Cafe Pacifico, that was recommended by several friends. Not quite San Diego or LA, but an acceptable substitute that let us get our fix.

BACK TO THE BBCs (plural)
We returned to 6 Radio, this time for a live session on Tom Robinson's show.
He paid us one of the nicest compliments in regard to our song-smithing by telling us a Brian Eno quote: "an arrangement is when someone stops playing."

The next night we played on Mark Radcliffe's show on Radio 2. A hilarious, quick-witted gentleman that I think caught us off guard. Every conversation portion was cluttered with laughter.

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Tilly Tour Begins!
We met the Tilly kids for the first time in Glasgow. A very sweet bunch of kids with such a fun live show. The shows with them this past week have been good fun.

Ferry Ride w/Men Women and Children
On our ferry ride out to Ireland we noticed there was another band onboard. Always funny when you have those moments when you cross paths and kinda scope each other out and then whisper to one another, "another band". Nothing was said until 2 days later when we were leaving Dublin and pulled up behind them while waiting in line for our ferry. Within 5 minutes of walking onto the ferry all bands were already chatting and laughing over cider. A good lot, those men women and children. We later got to hang out again in Nottingham, when we played the same night at neighboring venues.

Uncle Lee's Video Diary #5

Uncle Lee's Diary
Chapter 5: Alien Robot

Starring: Lee, Ian & robot

numbers, mondays, vdays

Wow. The past few days have been quite crazy. On Saturday we opened for the Magic Numbers here in London. They were all such nice people, not to mention absolutely great live. It was an honor to share the stage with them. We all jumped around watching from the balcony then later the side. The forum was gi-hugic! Easily the largest venue we've ever played thus far. Fun, scary, crazy. We were forewarned that the numbers' fans would be kind and attentive, which they totally were.



Monday marked the release of Sing Song, here in the UK, and with that an album launch party went down at The Social. We were reunited with Johnny, our previous tour mngr/sound engineer, who did sound for the night. It was a grand time on and off the stage.






Happy Valentines Day!

-lil'onez

"Damn it Valentine, you never plan ahead, you never take the long view, I mean here it is Monday and I'm already thinking of Wednesday... It is Monday right?"
Fred Ward, Tremors

saturday ramblings

Working on some guitars in the studio today. Attempting to not let the anticipation of tonight's show distract us. We're ridiculously looking forward to playing with the Magic Numbers, but it's a new scenario in that we're going from recording to playing a show all in the same day. In recent interviews the question has come up, "which do you prefer. Recording or performing live?". Our general (and cliche) answer has been that they're apple and oranges (I'm sick of that saying. How about legos and toothpicks?) On one side of that rock coin you have time to dedicate to being creative. A place where you can foster ideas and collaborate on songs. The other involves a third party (the listener) and is more like a relationship between you and the crowd. And throughout the duration of the permormance anything can happen. It's the inevitable chaos in any social gathering. Either way, in the live setting the two groups feed off each other in terms of energy. a lil symbiotic I suppose. So, like the interview, no conclusion is reached, no preference is found.

However today we get to do both. And thankful for every minute of it.

amor y abrazos,

lil'onez

things to look forward to
- Magic Numbers show tonight.
- album launch party on Monday
- new episode of Heroes on Tuesday



lee & ed


brian on the floor. sans neckpillow

lil'piggies!

apparently the latest fad in china. take a look below. he/she's all sorts of cute.


Mini Pigs Article

london sessions

and so begins our London writing/recording sessions.

We're currently working on new songs here in London. We do have more shows approaching as well as the Tilly and the Wall tour, but before and between we get to isolate ourselves in a creative cocoon. Mr. Newton, our friend and producer, is with us as well, working the desk and collaborating on ideas. We keep having moments where we look at each other and suddenly have one of those odd reality checks where we come to the realization: we're not in Burbank recording. We've never recorded anywhere else so this is of course a real treat for us. Also, it's always good to get out of your comfort zone, for the sake of growth that is.

fandango el ritmo

dictionary.com's word of the day is below. Try and use it in a sentence today.

idee fixe \ee-day-FEEKS\, noun:
An idea that dominates the mind; a fixed idea; an obsession.

A week in review...
We played a gig about a week ago at Club Fandango @ Dublin Castle in Camden. It was nice playing a smaller club. A tad more grit and a bit more intimate. Grintimate? Kinda akin to the Echo or Spaceland back home. Big thanks to Adie for letting us use the pix below.


photo by Adie

A couple days later Ed and myself did our first live radio interview. It was on Steve Lamacq's show on BBC 6 Music. It turned out he attended the show at Dublin Castle and had some great questions regarding rhythms and latin influences. It was an honor discussing music with him on and off the air. A memorable experience to say the least.




love&laughter,

ian/lil'onez

p.s. Prince's halftime performance has easily become an unwavering idee fixe amongst all the Little Ones band members.

Birmingham/Portsmouth/London

Ok, we've obviously fell off the blog wagon for some time now. And now here we are at yet another game of catch up. so be it...

Birmingham, an extremely cold club in terms of temperature that was quickly heated by pleasant bodies whom were nice and supportive of the bands. Dave Newton, our friend/engineer/producer, and his lovely wife and friend Bekki were in attendance. Genuine people whom we've never spent time in another country with till then.






Off to Portsmouth, a naval town, the following day. We met some kind folk, and there were even those who already attended a prior show on the tour. Very cool.



Before we knew it we were back in London for the final show of the tour. The Scala was an interesting venue, a former theater structure, with a multitude of rooms. Lobbys, bars, upper bars and balconys. The final night of any tour is a precious event that brings a sense of sadness wrapped in joy. The final performance of 3 bands that shared the stage for many nights, a celebration, yet a parting of ways. We are ridiculously grateful to share this first experience with Loney Dear and the Boy Least Likely To. They were kind, sweet, comedic, and helpful. Hats off to you new friends!

Magic,

theLittleOnes

a lil' short: Ed vs. TheBoyLeastLikelyTo's Yellow Elephant
location: Scala Soundcheck