beethoven has made like a banana and split
thanks to anyone who came to a gig and suported
yeah so alot is missing from this, but this is as much as i can remember that happend to us.
so after reading the really really long asob bio, i decided i'll write beethovens story from start to finish. dw it wont be long. beethoven started back when i, matt, learnt how to sort of write music. i came home one day after a guitar lesson and asked to nick moylan to come have a jam with me. we sat down on a stage in my bedroom and wrote a song. later to be called attention seeker. we also learn how to play today by smashing pumpkins and did a cover of that. we then spent the rest of the day tryin to find out how to spell beethoven. we didn't have much luck, typing in 'how do u spell beatoven?' into ask jeeves. it just came up as oven stuff. so we asked mark abraham how do u spell beethoven. so he told us.
we decided we wanted to make a band so got nathan tretton to play bass, and ryan thomas to play drums. i think. we had a band practsie at ryans house i remember, where we tried covering busted, year 3000. it didn't really work.
the next practise i can remember was at joe lewises house, where he played the drums and me and nick played the guitars. i had written 2 new songs. nick said the one sounded like it should be called celebration, and the other one we called the joel long song. i think because i wrote some stupid lyrics about joel long. 'she said whats wrong? he said its joel long'. that practise i think we decided to call attention seeker, attention seeker. because at the time we were pissed off with kids sayin they were gay. they were just confused and wanted attention. kissin boys wasn't the answer they were looking for. o yeah, i also remember joes mum comming in and sayin it was the best bit of racket we had ever come out with.
the next move for beethoven was to get craig murphy on the drums. joe on vocals. nathan on bass. me and nick on guitars. i think we wrote some stupid songs, that i dont remember. and had a practise or 2 in craigs bedroom.
one day at craigs house i say i have written a new song. i play it to the guys and they like it, i tell them i want brass in it. so we decide to ask andrew laurie. then one day i invite some of the guys to my house. i show them automatic by less than jake and say, i didn't write that song, its a less than jake song, i wanna cover it. we didn't even know the brass, we just made it up, it sounded nothing like ltj. we put brass to some of our other songs.
one day i was watching tv and heared this weezer song, so i went to my bedroom and wrote wake up, or my ways. what ever u call it. we then get our first gig, at our year 9 ROA ceromoney. we played it with our good friends the funky presidents of wayne, and walking example. although at the time we didn't get on too well with walking example. it was pretty cool, we played wake up, and at the end eveyone ran on stage.
we asked andrew to find us some more brass players. out of all the poeple he asked, only oen turned up to a practise. danny law. he got a really bad first impression of us. we made him wear a turban, and got sdome promo shots done. there was a sax girl he asked to join, but she sucked, so we kicked her out because she said she was quittin coz she thought beethoven was a shit name.
we wrote some more songs like, the happy happy song, which rbf ripped off us. we also wrote ur ex best friend fancys you. about rob mills and richard sharpe. we then played our first real gig, and a teen spirit. we didn't even know how to play our instruments proply. our songs were awful.
we went into the studio for the first time. which was some guys bedroom who knew dans sister. we recorded wake up and your ex best friend fancys you. we had wakeup on purevolume for a while. but the other track was never heared by anyone else. at least i think. soon after we took downt he track coz it sucked.
we started getting abit worse. then played in toms bar. and the lady there was spekain to em syain how much she loved us, and nick was shoutin. witch! witch! in my ear. i hope she didn't hear, she was really nice. that gig was joe cootes first show with us, he had only been playin the trumpet for about a week too. i don't think he even knew all our songs. the next day we all mooched school to go record in glamorgan university. joe lewis didn't, he went to school and put his education first. craigs brother and 2 of his friends recorded us. everythign looked really professional. but no one knew how to work the equipment. at the end of the day we had 2 really badly recorded tracks. the brass was all wrong on them too, but we didn't relsie at the time. we got home to find that the cd didn't work and we didn't have the tracks. i think that was for the best tho.
we played some more really shit shows. wrote some more songs. then joe lewis joined another band, angels fall to flames. things turned pretty sour then. after alot of argueing. he left to join aftf full time. we then spent about a year looking for a singer. where a few of the members tried stepping up to the mike. but it never worked. after a long time of searching danny brought us big ben. at this pooint we had gotten new guitars and amps for christmas, and we started writing some serious songs.
we played a few shows, cleaned up our act abit. we got dance routines, and some members lost some weight, got haircuts, got sexy. the story from here is pretty much all the same. we played very little shows. all to old men. but we were desperate to get on something. we met rick who told us about the music business and said we're gunna get fucked. we then started playin in tj's every week, for all different promoters. no one went to any of the gigs.
at one show in tj's, it was packed with old men and our parents. some guy recorded us, and we chucked all the tracks onto a cd, and sold it at a teen spirit. the only beethoven cd to be released. we only made about 10 copys aswell, so if u have one, ur really lucky.
we started making money from playing shows. we even got paid to play at a wedding. we started playing in the meze alot too. and we played a few really good shows. we also started playin a few private partys. looking back they werent so bad, they fed us, and gave us beer. we then played at the meze botb, which was a biggish thing. to us it was. we came first in all our heats and won the compitition. i think all the votes were form us and our friends, so victory didn't seem so sweet. but we got given curry and a recording session down lil scamp studios.
we recorded our tracks and played some lame shows in tj's again. we didn't end up releasing the ep because we knew how shit it was.
that was as far as beethoven would ever go with the lineup and set. i think our last show was red nose day. i cant remember. i was upset coz my girlfriend was breakin up with me so i drank away my problems. and we played at 2 o clock in the morning. we were a drunken mess, i think andrew was playin the wrong songs. we didn't relise this would be our last gig. but i think it was. we went down in a mess. some members stoped comming to band practise, and some got jobs which would effect us. but at least it was a fun journey.
