Well there you go it’s what it says on the tin, a huge MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone who reads this or glances at it (even if it’s the middle of june when you come upon this marvellous piece of prose!)

Here’s hoping you all get thoroughly stuffed with turkey and discover that long lost medieval ability for proper careless feasting and debauchery. (I say long lost, any saturday on St Mary Street, Cardiff, is definitely medieval.)

Anyway enough talking rubbish,

I hope everyone’s splendid and has lovely christmas times!!

Well ten years ago everyone was gearing up for the millenium, scary stuff! 2010 obviously isn’t as big as 2000, still you know, it’s a round number so a landmark year by default.

Every paper, magazine, tv programme, radio show, blog, website breathes a little relaxed sigh because all hey have to do is fill themselves up with top tens of everything.

TheAutomatic.co.uk is no different!! Oh no! Not at all! We can be predictable with the best of them!!

So without further ado I’m going to do my top ten albums OF THE DECADE *gasp* *shock* *mild terror*

I found it pretty hard really, so I’m going to cheat and pick one from each year since 2000 and in no particular order other than chronological!

2000

Queens Of The Stoneage – Rated R

An epic way to start a decade eh? Frost, Rob and I all went to see QOTSA on this tour in the Newport Centre it was the loudest thing I’d ever heard, my ears spent many days ringing. Better Living Through Chemistry is an awesome track masive riffs fading into quiet harmonies, go have a listen!

2001

Supergrass – Supergrass

This album had plenty of massive singles with Pumping On Your Stereo, Mary and Moving. It’s a move away from the more fuzzed up, noisy sounding In It For The Money. It’s got a lot more psychedelic vibe it’s good for partying and chilling which is sweet! Get Faraway off this album it’s massive choonage!

2002

Minus The Bear – Highly Refined Pirates

I got this album on the last date of our first ever tour with Hard-Fi in Brighton a few years after it came out. It pretty much soundtracked driving around in a van for that year. They have some of the biggest melodies, it’s like they’ve taken Yes’s Steve Howe and taught him how to play 3-5 minute songs of awesomeness! Have a listen to anything off this album, Spritz!!!Spritz!!! is a good place to start though.

2003

Evan Dando – Baby I’m Bored

This was the soundtrack for my A-levels, I got into this before The Lemonheads. It’s stripped back and simple, lyrically it’s really honest the whole album just has a really good feel about it. Check out ‘All My Life’.

2004

Ryan Adams – Love Is Hell

This album was originally released as two separate EPs, due to the record label typically knowing best and once again getting it staggeringly wrong. It was eventually released as the one album and it’s gooooood!! It’s one of those albums which is hard to dip into without having to listen to the whole thing. Have a listen to City Rain, City Streets.

2005

Super Furry Animals – Love Kraft

Probably the biggest sounding SFA album with choirs and orchestras all over the shop it’s brilliant. Not as commercial as the previous Rings Around The World and Phantom Power (also both amazing albums) Love Kraft is the first furries album where each member of the band has lead vocal duties at some point or other. Check out Zoom!

2006

Peeping Tom – Peeping Tom

It’s Mike Patton so you know it’s going to be good, it’s Mike Patton with Rahzel so you know it’s going to be really good, it’s Mike Patton with Rahzel and Massive Attack plus Dan The Automator plus a million others so it really is very good. Plus it has some damn cool packaging.

2007

Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog

The man named himself after a dietary supplement, what’s not to like? It’s a lot more upbeat than his first two albums, it’s a proper good LP full of nice chilling tunes. Check out Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog).

2008

Xavier Rudd – Dark Shades of Blue

I love this album, it’s the heaviest Xavier Rudd album (well the only Heavy-ish one) mixed by Joe Barresi (Tool, QOTSA, Kyuss Weezer) It came out just after we’d finished This Is A Fix. I saw him live in The House Of Blues over in LA while we were recording and I associate this album most with that time. It’s honestly really good. Check out Shiver.

2009

Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers

From about the age of 13 ‘The Holy Bible’ was pretty much on loop on my little discman all the way through school. This album is amazing, using lyrics the Richey Edwards left behind, it’s the first album they’ve released since ‘The Holy Bible’ which manages to evoke what made them so brilliant and vital in the first place. Check out Journal For Plague Lovers

So there you have it a top ten of sorts. I always find it hard to do things like this I know tomorrow there’ll be whole different top ten albums in my mind. A decade is a long time and there’ve been a load of good albums. It’s hard to whittle all those down to a measly ten. I’ve basically tried to get a bit of everything in there so hopefully you’ll all enjoy!!

Shazam!!

Last week we released ‘Interstate’ on download only! It’s the first release we’ve ever done completely by ourselves through Armoured Records.

So, just an enormous big up to everyone who was lovely and brilliant enough to spend the few pence and have the track in their computers, mp3 players, USB dongles, any other kind of digital media type thingy you can think of!

You really are all ace-cakes!

Just thought about it and I haven’t written anything on here for ages, so I think it’s about time I did. I mean it’s that or watch Midsomer Murders (I’m kind of doing both, ROCK AND ROLL!!)

Anyway first off massive massive massive massive thanks to all the peeps who came to the shows last month, we hardly advertised or mentioned it anywhere really so it was cool to see so many people. Last week in the cold cold north was awesome, cheers m’dears!

I think at this juncture it would probably be rather apt to mention we have a little song out on Sunday. Interstate is our first self-released single ever so we’re excited just to see what happens and prove you don’t need the whirring cogs of massive corporations to make things happen. In fact, whisper it, at least we can get the record out on time.

So you can go to these two places Play.com and Amazon.co.uk and pre-order it there; it’s going to be download only so it’ll be on iTunes and all that razzmatazz too on sunday!!

That’s about it really, we have a couple of acoustic type sessions next week so keep an eye out and we’ll post them up here for your enjoyment, plus a new lahverly cover!

So remember INTERSTATE is out SUNDAY!

See y’all soon!

Well having just got home from a hectic few days of gigging, mixing and telly type charity-ing I’m a little pooped!

Thanks to everyone who came to the gigs in Swansea, Preston and Ipswich. They were new ground for us, playing the kinds of venues not normally associated with putting on gigs. So it was cool to see people who I’m guessing wouldn’t usually be there coming along for the craic!!

Anyway there was a lot of driving, I mean loooooads!! Ample time to listen to some music so here’s a few tunes from the journey’s!

Pretty Girls Make Graves – All Medicated Geniuses

Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer

Gruff Rhys – Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru

There you go some thankfully offered tunes!

See y’all in Sunderland on Wednesday hopefully

And Remember Interstate is out 7th December!!

Aaah, there’s nothing like reading a good book is there? It’s wholesome, satisfying like a really good roast beef dinner, with good gravy!

There’s a feeling of accomplishment that comes with finishing a good book.It’s spending too much time squinting at books under bed covers that got me these glasses (that or sitting too close to the telly, or my stigmatism, it’s probably my stigmatism!)

Anyway this year I’ve got into a minor obsession with books by Bruce Chatwin. They’re well worth checking out, he’s somewhere between Kerouac and Dostoevsky in style I reckon, I’m sure people who know better could shoot that down in flames though.

I read his book ‘On The Black Hill’ this summer, and it’s really stuck with me.

It’s about the lives of two hill farming twins on the Welsh border near Hereford. it sounds thrilling I know! I can hear you all typing it into Amazon right now!

You don’t need to here’s a link ======> Amazon or be proper friendly to the old planet and use a library.

I promise it’s well worth a read, it’s got some pretty powerful stuff within its bendy covers!

Besides it makes a change from Twilight and all those Katie Price novels.

Well that’s leg one of our first tour finished til Thursday!

So a big ooh ooh to everyone who came to

TUNBRIDGE WELLS!!!! *Yeeeeeeah, woooh!! chamone*

SOUTHEND *aaaaaaaah, cmaaaaaahn, raaaaaargh woop!*

KINGSTON *King-STOOOOOOOOOOON wooooooo!*

CWMPARC *ooooh ooooh oooooooooh, oggy oggy oggy!!*

WREXHAM *woo woo, woo woo, woo woo, Schwiiiiing!!*

Thankyou to y’all, they were our first ‘touring gigs’ in ages, and you made them  sweet! Hope you all enjoyed the new stuff!!

Thursday sees us in Swansea so pop along if you are too!

Then it’s up north. “Hello Preston!”

Eastwards ho! after that to Ipswich. “Alright Ipswich?”

Then more north after all that.

Fear not the rest of you, we’ll be announcing more dates very very soon. So so so soon, we’ll be going eeeeverywhere!!

Check back soon for them thar gig dates!!

Morning all! Welcome to day two of our end of year mini tour of places that don’t often get gigs!

Thanks to everyone who come to Tunbridge Wells last night it was an awesome way to kick off the tour. Last time we played there was almost four years ago with The Kooks, which seems pretty mental!

Anyway at the moment we’re all in the van headed for Southend which is always a good show. Last time we played there was a rollercoaster opening called ‘What’s that coming over the hill…’ a bit strange but pretty cool!

If you haven’t already remember to have a gander at the video for our new single ‘Interstate’ on the YouTube.

Also there’s a link to a free track somewhere on this site on te front page. Just put on your email and have a listen and keep it forever and ever!

Oh and one last thing, if we’re not coming your way this time fear not for we have a shedliad of gigs to be announced towards the end of the month!

Today we’re starting up the Automatic touring machine. It needs a good couple of days to get it turning over and lots of pulling on chokes etc. after so long having been in studio, and what with all this cold weather and all!!

So yeah there’s muchos other exciting stuff happening too!

Hopefully by tomorrow you’ll all know all the deets for our new single and be seeing the video and all that jazz!

Anyhoo hopefully be seeing some of you in the next couple of weeks round and about it’ll be massive shakes I do believe!!

I wanted to write something very clever here about how massively annoying I’m finding the X-factor this year. Too much bile spilled out though and I stained my jeans so I’ll save you the hassle.

Anyway, have you had a look at the charts? It’s pretty terrifying. No worries for us though with our next single (TBA very soon!) because Timbaland (aka Rich Jackson) has produced it! (That last sentence may be subject to some massive fibs!)

Anyway with X Factor bulldozing all the shit it can muster into the top 10 here’s a brief respite!

Kate Bush – Cloudbusting

Seasick Steve – Diddley Bo

Mclusky – She Will Only Bring You Happiness