Arse
Another one for the 'They coulda bin contenders' file, then.
As is traditional in these situations, the official statement seems frightfully level-headed and matter-of-fact - but this is a band that has just released a new single, recorded a forthcoming album (now not forthcoming, I suppose) with Steve Albini, and has a string of upcoming UK tour dates.
(I suspect there are several promoters up and down the land currently heaving weary sighs and muttering "Oh bugger it!" as they set about hastily rearranging everything. Bands - if you're looking for a gig, there may well be some spare slots going begging in Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London...)
What with all this activity, you'd think this is exactly the time to step on the gas, not pull the plug. The band certainly didn't drop a hint that their plans involved anything other than moving onwards and upwards when I did this interview with them towards the end of last year.
It doesn't take the deduction skills of Sherlock Holmes to conclude that all of a sudden, something fucked up. Did someone have a big fight with someone else? Did someone say 'Bollocks to it!' and walk away, pulling the house down as they went? We don't know what went wrong - just that something did.
As it happens, I wondered if things were entirely tickety-boo in the House Of Birds when their gig the other night at the Queen Of Hoxton mysteriously turned into a DJ set at the last minute, without the full band being present. Maybe that was the night of the fateful argy-bargy.
So, the gig circuit just got a bit more dull. Things that I was looking forward to will not now happen. Arse. As always in these situations, we may get some interesting new stuff hammered together out of the wreckage, but at present it's hard not to dwell on what we've lost.
Still, as a general point of principle, I think it's always better to burn brightly, if briefly, and then quit leaving the crowd yelling for more. That's got to be better than plodding on for ages until the final fizzle-out arrives in a flurry of diminishing returns. Not that this was the situation here, of course: the band were still new, still cool, and on the brink of great things. But maybe, in the end, pulling the plug in this abrupt fashion will prove to be a counter-intuitive master stroke after all.
Nevertheless - arse.
As is traditional in these situations, the official statement seems frightfully level-headed and matter-of-fact - but this is a band that has just released a new single, recorded a forthcoming album (now not forthcoming, I suppose) with Steve Albini, and has a string of upcoming UK tour dates.
(I suspect there are several promoters up and down the land currently heaving weary sighs and muttering "Oh bugger it!" as they set about hastily rearranging everything. Bands - if you're looking for a gig, there may well be some spare slots going begging in Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London...)
What with all this activity, you'd think this is exactly the time to step on the gas, not pull the plug. The band certainly didn't drop a hint that their plans involved anything other than moving onwards and upwards when I did this interview with them towards the end of last year.
It doesn't take the deduction skills of Sherlock Holmes to conclude that all of a sudden, something fucked up. Did someone have a big fight with someone else? Did someone say 'Bollocks to it!' and walk away, pulling the house down as they went? We don't know what went wrong - just that something did.
As it happens, I wondered if things were entirely tickety-boo in the House Of Birds when their gig the other night at the Queen Of Hoxton mysteriously turned into a DJ set at the last minute, without the full band being present. Maybe that was the night of the fateful argy-bargy.
So, the gig circuit just got a bit more dull. Things that I was looking forward to will not now happen. Arse. As always in these situations, we may get some interesting new stuff hammered together out of the wreckage, but at present it's hard not to dwell on what we've lost.
Still, as a general point of principle, I think it's always better to burn brightly, if briefly, and then quit leaving the crowd yelling for more. That's got to be better than plodding on for ages until the final fizzle-out arrives in a flurry of diminishing returns. Not that this was the situation here, of course: the band were still new, still cool, and on the brink of great things. But maybe, in the end, pulling the plug in this abrupt fashion will prove to be a counter-intuitive master stroke after all.
Nevertheless - arse.