tis the season to be Gobi

Festive greetings one and all!

Winter has properly set in. It's been dry and extremely cold solidly for about two weeks now and Christmas has crept up and suddenly hit me like an avalanche.

Aside from the hype, the adverts and the questionable music I have become quite a fan of this time of year recently. I now understand Christmas as being a time where you are with the people who mean the most to you and with whom you can appreciate one another for being the people that you are.

I have had an incredible year this year and we have managed to do things in this band that we never imagined we would do together, I feel at this point part of a musical family not just with people within the band but with people that we have met and people with whom we have shared our music with. People we have shared stages with, people who have shared their music with us, friends we have made at shows, people who have continued to keep in touch with us and all of you people who have generously helped and supported us in so many ways throughout the course of the last 3 years.


Wherever you are and whatever you may be doing. Thanks for commenting, writing, calling, blogging, clapping, singing, supporting and most of all thanks for listening...

Enjoy time with your friends and families over the next few weeks and we will see you on the other side!

Sending you buckets of Happy Xmas cheer

James and the Gobi wan Kanobis
x

Launching the Two Spot Gobi podcast

We are excited to announce that we now have a Two Spot Gobi podcast. Matt (Trumpet) and Ben (bass) launched it. As it's the first one, we thought we'd give you a free song 'Borrowed Time' from the new album.

We'll do it every few weeks. If anyone has any suggestions of what they might like to hear in the podcasts please drop us a line...

You can get it on itunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=297096028

Or if you don't like itunes:
http://podcast.com/show/107156/ Ennnnnnnjoy.

Rob and the boys from Gobi land

Home...

So after another flight, a bus journey and then a short walk, we have arrived back in Brighton ready to get things moving....

It is a little weird coming back from somewhere like California, where the sun shone all the time we were there (ok, perhaps there was a little rain in Berkeley but we understand!) to England in November where it seems like it's dusk throughout the whole day.

Ahhh, ok I just realised I'd started a blog about the weather and so I think I'll change the direction here so as not to appear to British!

In Berkeley it was great to meet so many of you, but I thought I'd share one of the funnier moments.

A lady comes up to me whilst we are signing stuff by the merchandise table shortly after we played and asks me to sign a cd for her husband who's a HUGE fan. I take the cd and open it stoked with the compliment and start writing a message to him saying "hope you enjoy etc etc..:" and continue speaking to her. She tells me how they're always listening to our music and even played one of our songs at their wedding. Slightly surprised, I asked her which one....she tells me it's the big single 'I'm Yours', and then says she's really looking forward to seeing me play later.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I wasn't Jason Mraz, so instead I smile having just signed her CD and say "thankyou".....I hope her husband can forgive her!

Rob :-)

Blackberry's, Blueberry's and Rasberry's..

So enough of Matt's postcard to mum style blogs, here's something a bit different........

We are now on board the magnificent Continental flight to Phoenix having left NYC. As advised by our air steward the mobiles, blackberry's, blueberry's and raspberry's are switched to the off position and we have just enjoyed possibly the rankest (gross for our US readers) airline meal ever...infact it was so rank/gross that I had to give my microwaved chicken burger to Dino to eat and even he had trouble finishing it off.....







Then with the meal came the Hershey's chocolate bar, the most talked about chocolate bar in the whole of America. Having heard all the hype and being a complete chocoadict I decided to give it a go and here is my review............YUK! It tastes like sick, sorry Mr Hershey's I is sticking to Cadbury's or even better, that eco conscious wonderful multi-national Nestle for my extreme highs and damaging sugar lows.

So all in all not a great combination. Then just when you think it can't get any worse, this happens:






I mean what do you think I am Dino? your mum?:

tour diares vol 1

We're aliens, illegal aliens… Englishmen in New York!

Yes sports fans we have touched down over the Atlantic and embarked on our very first US tour. This is to be the first of many entries into what will eventually become our tour diary.

We arrived mega late last night after an annoying delay, got a taxi [giant Chevy bus!] from the airport to our digs, ate some disgustingly unhealthy food and went straight to bed.

This morning, the fitter members of the band (!), Matt and the Bens, were to be found participating in that favourite New York local past time of jogging around Central Park. It was a beautiful morning and, after breakfast, the whole gang walked the entire length of the Park to get to Manhattan where we spent the day in awe of the shops and buildings and generally mucking about.

We had lunch in the Hard Rock Café, Times Square and then went to register at CMJ HQ. This evening we rode the subway back up to Harlem, where we are staying, and thankfully got back without dying!

So assuming our luck continues into tomorrow, see you then with news from our first gig here!

Gobi x

Have a listen

Our bags are packed all ready to go for our first US tour, before we go we thought we'd show you what we've been up to for the last few weeks...pay a visit to our myspace page to hear 4 tracks from our debut album 'Everywhere You Should Have Been'.

www.myspace.com/twospotgobi

We hope you enjoy them and let us know what you think.

We will be touring USA in the next few weeks:

22nd October - National Underground, New York, NY, $10, http://www.myspace.com/thenationalunderground
25th October am - Good Morning Arizona TV, AZ
25th October pm - The Clubhouse Music Venue, Pheonix, AZ
28th October - The Roxy Theatre, Los Angeles CA - $11.50, http://theroxyonsunset.com/sleeping-at-last/
31st October - SDSU OAT supporting Jason Mraz, San Diego CA
1st November - Greek Theatre supporting Jason Mraz, Los Angeles CA (TBC)
2nd November - Greek Theatre supporting Jason Mraz, Berkeley CA

We hope you'll follow us on our travels, through our blogs/videos etc, and look forward to seeing you at a venue near you...

Thanks

Rob and the Gobi boys

Mixing

Goooooood morning madam!

Matt here (gobi spare part) reporting on our latest shenanigans.

Maestro Lewis and myself are back in the studio for four intense days of mixing, after which we hope to have finished the recording part of our album! James has picked up the artwork from our kind personal artist and it looks fantastic; we are all very excited!

We are expecting the other boys to pop in at random intervals and make sure the drums/bass/vocals are loud enough (!) and generally cause trouble.

Well must go now I have a lot of important tetris to play.

Ta ta for now!

Matt and the Gobis x

US TOUR

Hello all.....

We are delighted to announce that we will be supporting Jason Mraz on 2/3 dates during our US tour. We'd also like to wish him congratulations on being number 1 in the American charts...good job! The tour so far looks like this:

22nd October - National Underground, New York, NY, $10, http://www.myspace.com/thenationalunderground
25th October am - Good Morning Arizona TV, AZ
25th October pm - Freakin Frog, Las Vegas (TBC) NV
28th October - The Roxy Theatre, Los Angeles CA - $11.50, http://theroxyonsunset.com/sleeping-at-last/
31st October - SDSU OAT supporting Jason Mraz, San Diego CA
1st November - Greek Theatre supporting Jason Mraz, Los Angeles CA (TBC)
2nd November - Greek Theatre supporting Jason Mraz, Berkeley CA

We hope that if you happen to be in reaching distance of any of these dates then you'll come alone, and perhaps even bring a friend or two! The Roxy in LA is looking like it's going to be a great show, so get your tickets now!

Thankyou to all of you who came to Komedia last night and made it an amazing experience for us, we hope to see some London folks at Proud Gallaries tonight, on stage at 11pm, should a be a great night.

Stuff

Hey people!
So a few weeks later on and we're back in the studio to record Vocals
for the album after an action packed weekend of gigs, shmigs and
birthdays!

We've been busy planning the US stuff and getting ready for another
blast at Komedia this thursday and for our first show at Proud
gallaries in Camden on friday which is set to be a classic.

We may very well have some exciting news soon so stay tuned!

Best
Rob and the TSG massive

usa

New blog:

So after a 6am wakeup call, 4 out of the 6 boys of Gobi land took to the London streets and queued (that means 'waited in line' for all our American readers!) outside the US embassy. It was a nice occasion, surrounded by police with their fingers on the triggers of machine guns. We were also not allowed to take anything into the building with us that was metal which meant we had to even take our belts off....we would have taken some photos to show but weren't allowed our phones!! damn

Anyway, 9 forms, 4 fingerprint scans, 3 million dollars, 1 strip search (ok this bit's not true, just for added effect!) and two hours later we emerged successful with our US visas....horray.

Now free from the re-occurring dreams of forgetting our passports to go to the US embassy, we can now embark on the dreams of forgetting our passports to go to the airport!

Just Matt and James to get theirs now, fortunately we have a replacement in store just incase:

Watch this space...

Recording the album

So today we begin recording our debut album...we are currently in a studio in Souf London laying down some drums, bass and guitar and all is sounding sweet. Our super producer J Male of Republica is wearing suitably funky sun glasses and all is go. Last night we played a great gig at Coalition in Brighton with two fabulous bands Seeker and Kiina, both worth checking out.

we will keep you updated...

US Tour

So after many months of thought, we are in the last stages of our Visa application and it is looking like we will be in the US at the end of October, with shows confirmed in NYC on 23rd October, and LA on 28th October and we are waiting to hear from Phoenix AZ, San Diego CA, San Francisco CA, and Chicago IL (I'm just showing off my geography of the states by putting the CAs,ILs etc next to the city - but probably have it wrong so apologies!).

It will be a shortish promotional tour of about 6/7 dates prior to the release of our debut album, but if you feel we've missed anywhere that we should definitely be playing or know anyone who might be able to help then don't hesitate to drop us a line at info@twospot.co.uk.

We hope to do a more expansive tour of the US in 2009, but we hope you'll jump in the car/plane/train and come and say hi in October.....

Peace
Rob
TSG

Gobi Gobi Gobi

Hello hello dedicated blog readers!

We write to you from tour manager Al's residence in Guildford (a decidedly rustic yet hospitible environment) where we just arrived straight from playing Aylesbury Festival in Kingsbury Square, Aylesbury. The weather (for a change) held out for us and many local music (and booze) lovers turned out to lend their ears.

Tonight we are going to chill out before the Camden Barfly gig tomorrow, which we are mega excited about.

Notice my compadre James sporting the latest in limited edition gobi summerwear available only at gigs (and soon to be online) so see you there!

M and J x

Two Spot Update

So a few people have messaged us asking various things. As you've
taken the trouble to do so, it would seem like a nice idea to put some
answers to questions.Musical tastes....We all come
from pretty different musical backgrounds which is what I guess gives
the band a different spin when it comes to our overall sound. In terms of what music we listen to, I can really only answer for myself, and guess the others...my ipod is filled with a selection from classical (lots of it!) right the way through Jazz, to the worst pop- music you could ever imagine! I stop off on the way with some Radiohead, some Singer song-writer stuff like our kid Jason Mraz, and
then touch down with Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye etc.... You'd probably find a lot of Jazz on Matt's ipod (if he'd buy one!),
Ben M would have a selection of Dave Matthews band (who most of the band like for one reason or another) and anything with drum beats that go mad!, Dino has mostly House 'n' garage with some hip hop
representin' 9T7! (sorry that's too much of an in joke!). Ben R might
change his mind most days about what he has but perhaps some Red Hot Chilli peppers and classical - but no Jazz! Then I asked
James and this is what happened:http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/4/7/2/f_Sleepingbeam_43564fa.jpg
You just can't get the staff
sometimes..........so, now it's your turn..tell us, what
do you listen to?!Rob

Gobi fat camp

So as previously said, we were lucky enough to be featured in Perez Hilton's blog...it came out of the blue for 5 out of 6 of us who'd never even heard of him. So we checked out the site and sure enough there we were, with a slightly strange band photo, staring at the camera.

It seems his site is the be all and end all of gossip, and furious debates about us were in progress. There were some nice comments, some to make you cry and then some truly weird ones.

The highlight for me so far was one of the comments on the site saying that we are too fat to be in a band! Once I read this I relayed the info to the others...After 4 hours of crying, Ben R has now said he'll only eat bread and water...I'm also going to cut down my food diet from 350 bags of malteasers a day to just 300. Ben Matthews has made it his task to lose at least 5 stone by the end of the week so he can fit into that little dress he's always loved, and Dino...well he said he'll never eat again. Matt and James are way too out of control and fat with their eating habits to start any new regime, so perhaps we'll just send them to fat camp this summer!

That said, we are excited about all the stuff happening right now and plan to be in the US in the not too distant future so stay tuned.

Rob and Two Spot Gobi:

Perez hilton

Hey, we're on Perez Hilton....woohoo!
Check it out:

http://perezhilton.com/2008-06-25-listen-to-this-let-the-sun-shine-in-2#respond


Exciting times

Two Spot Gobi
www.twospot.co.uk
www.myspace.com/twospotgobi

Perez Hilton

Two Spot Update

At last Brighton has been given a good bit of sunshine for us to 
enjoy...We've been enjoying a week's winding down time after 
the single release which was probably the busiest week we've ever 
experienced, but also was lots of fun.I've taken this 
opportunity to get back in to song writing and have managed to write 
about 4 in a week! not bad going I think! Now starts the 
proper work on our album, getting the tracks sounding sweet on record 
is different to playing them live (as we've been told just about 1 
milliion times by various know it alls).  Of course they'll still have 
the Gobi flair and will make you smile, laugh and cry, hopefully in a 
good way, and not all at once as this is the transformation that 
happened last time I did that...http://img28.picoodle.com/img/img28/4/6/23/f_warpmem_b6f0210.jpg to http://img29.picoodle.com/img/img29/4/6/23/f_BigCheesyGrm_48afb47.jpg
We hope you'll keep watching and enjoying the music from 
whichever corner of the earth you happen to inhabit....Rob :-)

5am Gobi

So we just came back from a weekend of recording the video for our single on a roof top in London which was a good laugh. The part that wasn't a good laugh was getting up at 5am to be there although it has to be said there is something I like about getting up super early. It's nice to stroll around the streets with no-one around and feel like you have a bit of a headstart on the world. Dino (guitar) and I were in charge of making the sandwiches for the shoot the night before which proved to be more of a task than we'd initially thought. To feed 6 hungry guys (especially when they're as fat as Ben M!) is no easy task, but to then add on a full on hungry film crew makes life a little harder. Here are our sandwiches, a careful selection of egg & cress, tuna sweetcorn, and ham salad.....this is only half way through making... http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/277..." ALT=" http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1..." ALT=" http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/8..." ALT=" http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6..." ALT="

***TWO SPOT GOFREE***

Hey everyone,
So as you probably have guessed from the artwork etc, we have a single 
coming out on June the 9th. This can be pre-ordered for just 67p by 
going here http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download-Album/4-/5506792/Sunshine-Lady/Product.html

We'd really appreciate your help spreading the word about this as 
we're working flat flat out but can't be everywhere at 
once.......so..........

Things you could do to help -

- Change your profile picture to our lovely flashing one. Just drag/
save it to your desktop, then upload it as your own picture.
- Post some of our banners around the place, if you have a blog, then 
feel free to put it in.
- Tell all your friends, mothers, fathers, daughters and brothers 
about our single
- Join our mailing list
- Come to our london gig for free with the single or watch it live 
online on stickam.com

If we sell lots of singles, we could even chart which would take the 
UK music industry by surprise, and we'll never forget......

Best wishes
Two Spot Gobi

gobi one kanobi

So being the polite individual I am unlike the other hooligans I play 
in a band with!, I wanted to say thanks to all you folks who came down 
to our Komedia show last week and made it sooooo fun.  It's real cool 
to have seen it grow right from the first gig we ever did at the 
Joogleberry Playhouse in Brighton, where we stressed at getting 50 
people there, to now where we're a little further up the ladder 
playing to 300+ people each show, so yup thanks for that.  Also have 
to say sorry to anyone who I managed to hit by throwing tulips in to 
the crowd - you were obviously looking at the wrong band members 
though, ha!

The best news of all is that summer is just round the corner, and it's 
now time to hang up the 20inch thick jackets I've been 'bustin'', and 
throw on the summer clothes...ole.

If you haven't already seen the collection of comic videos that were 
filmed on my mobile phone, then you should check them out on our 
ilike.com page...it's the place to be.

Right that's enough drivel from me for one day....

See you folks's soon.

New Blog Gobi

Greetings

Well, we’re all getting excited about our single release, “Sunshine Lady”; so excited, in fact, that we couldn’t resist blatting down the M4 in heroic fashion to make a video for it. A trip like that takes two cars, two drivers, 4 other band mates, lots of tunes (some better than others, and the odd TCH – UNE, in this case just about anything by System of a Down, which not everyone likes it has to be said, or as Dino likes to say “to be fair”), and for some of us, dirty food, for others, ladida stuff from Marks and Spencer’s….

Getting back involves night time, A-B, rally style, no stopping kinda driving, and no one is better at that than Mr Ben Mathews, and on this drive we even saw a high speed pursuit, which Rob would have liked, but he was in the wrong car, a sort of family saloon he likes to drive, a bit like an old Mondeo. Also in this car could be found one Matt Ellis, a man who is generally more likely to be off the boat than in a car, and of course Mr “Junior” James Robinson and Dino D Dawg, no doubt snoozing like babes in the back. I was with Mathews in his ridiculous road eater…makin’ time..

Making the video was fun, down in the basement of an old studio, I think the same place Massive attack used to record. In charge of proceedings was one Nick C, old friend, writer and director of plays that gladden the heart and bring you tears if you’re not careful. With him were a few awesome folk who together helped us to (a) look like a band, (b) be ourselves, (c) stop pissing about too much and (d) generally give us the help we need, and for which, we are truly grateful.

Other stuff, we’re writing new songs which we are feelin good, hopefully ready for upcoming shows, I have a new computer which looks like it came out of a hospital, but cost 60 quid and has Cubase on it, which means it’s sick, and as it’s not a Mac.. Also, Spring is a comin, sunshine, swimming, and all sorts of good things….

Peace Out

Ben (bassman) Roasairo

Greetings

Hi Folks

Hope you are all suitably watered and well rested after the easter period. After retiring to our respective towns, villages and cave (Ben R) Gobi are working on a couple of new treats, to be unveiled upstairs at the Komedia (24th April). We've also been booked to appear on 107.2 JUICE FM on Monday April 21st at 5.30pm where you be able to hear a sneak preview of our first single, Sunshine Lady, due for release on 9th June, you'll also be able to hear Ben M do the whether and catch the traffic with Rob :), so if you have a radio,
or the internet, then tune in...

Thats all for now, Over and out

Dino

Bloggin'

YO!

Two Spot onetime on the blogspot! We figured this type of thing would be a good way to keep in touch with everyone and update on situations occuring for to keep the troops in the loop. Broadcasts will be regular. Some will be humerous and some will be serious, but regardless of the content the plan is for me and other gobi's to make our feelings known. There are exciting times ahead for us and it means a lot to us that all you guys are a part of it... I'll be back here soon, so keep tuned in. peace and smiles. James