A shitty racket: the boys in the well story.

By Arthur DJ Urquiola

To be perfectly honest, it's hard for me to write about, or even

consider, boys in the well as a band. I look at it more as a great

summer experience that took shape as a fun project thaty capped off

everything that I had wanted to do musically and lyrically at the

time.

Summer 2003 - I had just come back to Hong Kong from England where

I'd had my mind blown day to day going to gigs and seeing bands that

I thought I'd never see. Bands that inspired me to play music

in the first place when I was younger. That old chestnut. Somehow the

gigs that I was watching in basements, bars,back rooms etc. were more

intense and intimate than watching ants ona big stage. it's these

shows that I found myself going to more and more, the diy shows that

made me want to make some noise, write shitty lyrics and be in a band

again.

I had such modest ambitions when I got back to Hong Kong and started

jamming with Adam, who I had been in bands with before. For the first

time ever while in Hong Kong the goal wasn't to get gigs, make a name

for ourselves in 'the scene' and get a record out. Making a shitty

racket anywhere with amps, drums and a pa was so fun, so

exhilirating, that making music again was an achievement in itself.

Somewhere along the way Paul and Greg got involved. Paul was only

around for a little while, an almost member, having to leave before

any gigs. But his contributions certainly warrant a mention. He wrote

the killer bass riff to 'A plague of insecticons' and made another

song of ours 'Starscream's ghost' sound like Milemarker with his

amazing keyboard work. greg has always had an insatiable passion for

making music. He's a great well-rounded musician and an intense live

presence.

I don't have the time and space to say what it's like to work with

Adam. I've known him since I was 8 years old and we've been through

way too much shit together. Watch any band that he's in and get

schooled.

Lyrically, my approach to boys in the well was to be both abstract,

yet more personal than anything that I've put pen to paper for. It's

not nonsensical but it came from a very stream-of-conciousness

approach while writing in a dingy 'cell' in south London in the dead

of winter. The transformers thing was a bit of an in-joke between us.

We basically decided early on that if we ever record anything that we

had to use stuff from the movie as samples because they were so

absurd. The episode titles were just as out there so we pilfered them

for use as song titles. If you don't get 'boys in the well' yet then

you're a moron.

Musically speaking, boys in the well was everything I wanted it to

be. We started off very emo-hardcore. Just a jangly wall of noise

with weird time signatures that we could flail around to, scream alot

over and most importantly, not really worry about playing flawlessly.

However, when we entered the warehouse band competition later that

summer, we were told that could play two songs and had a 12 minute

time limit. We decided to make the most of it and just tried to make

our songs longer. We ended up changing our approach, adding weirder

changes and incorporating some of the fucked up jams we had during

practice.

In total we've played 3 sets to a total of less than 30 people.

People kept on walking out on our first show at the wanch, even our

friends who got a call from Daniel long distance and split to talk to

the prick. The warehouse competition was fucked. We played to Mike

and Bry from Cedar Drive and Gareth. The judges came in half way

through our first song and must've tripped out on the noise coming

from the three dudes on stage with their backs to them. Our last show

at the wanch earlier this year was better and we sold a few copies of

the cd which we were selling for the first time.

About the facing the drumset thing. Yes, we were taking a page out

of antioch arrow's book. Secondly, if we weren't facing Adam then

everything would've fallen apart. Most importantly however,, I

insisted on it so we wouldn't keep getting bummed out by people

walking out or the looks of confusion on people's faces. Y'know we

may have bummed you little fuckers out but I remained happily

unaware, played on and had a great fuckin' time.

Adam's always been a brain, a fucking super genius. He'd set up

recording facilities in his living room where we ended up recording

our split with spermatic chord. The amazing part was that he recorded

the drums seperately at Green Music without the aid of guitars, bass

or vocals. Adam just went and did his thing. He is that damn good. I

think he did a great job mixing down the split. It came out sounding

awesome considering it was all pretty much free. I highly reccomend

picking it up, if not for our shit then for Spermatic chord's songs

where Adam showcases his killer chops.

I'd like to thank the small handful of people who watched us play,

especially if you didn't walk out. Mad props to the Cedar drive guys

for playing with us at both our sets at the Wanch and totally

slaying, and being the only people who came down at one in the

afternoon on a Saturday to watch us play at the warehouse. Thankyou

to anyone who bought our cd. We thought it came out great, but if you

didn't like it then that's cool too... suckers.

Being in a band shouldn't be about worrying that you'll fuck up in

front of a bunch of strangers, working to be embraced by a scene that

you'll probably end up growing out of eventually. It is certainly not

about getting bummed out by little bitches saying that your band is

shitty. It's about being in your favourite band, playing your

favourite music, writing your favourite songs and, if your lucky,

recording what will end up becoming your favourite cd that you

can't stop listening to. In the summer of 2003, I learnt all of that

with the help of three of the coolest guys, talented musicians and

closest friends that I've ever had.