Unreleased & Unheard Songs 1998-2007

Milhouse started life as a mix tape for my brother who was having a year in France as part of his Degree course. I had some space on the end of the cassette so decided I would record some songs live and completely improvised and they might turn out at least funny to listen to. One of those songs was about Radio 1 (now 6 music) DJ Steve Lamacq (included here). I sent off the tape and said the songs were by 'Milhouse'. A few weeks later my brother called to say he had got the tape and his roommate loved the Milhouse songs and when was I going to do any more.

About the same time I had replied to an ad in the long gone Newport record shop Happy Daze advertising a local fanzine. The ad namechecked Bis, Dweeb and a few other disco punk-pop type acts who were about at the time. I wrote back suggesting I would like a copy of the zine and may be able to help with reviews, interviews etc. as I was getting into my Helen Love, Gel, Ash phase and had friends in London who had zines out. I sent off my pound and got the first issue of Spacehopper which was absolutely ace and full of the bands that I was listening to plus reports on the Sandown High 'scene'. I sent Alan Spacehopper a few of the songs I had recorded as Milhouse and he wrote back suggesting he could improve on these by utilising his four track cassette recorder. The first session was a run-through of 'Steve Lamacq which became our first demo.

Shortly after recording we decided it was time to play live, and so armed with the Casio and my brother's Washburn guitar, Alan, Rae and I raced through a 150mph version of Lamacq at the Royal Squadron in Ryde. An older guy in combat trousers came running up after we finished saying he loved it, it was enough encouragement to record more demos anyway and Alan distributed tapes to kids at Sandown High, whilst I set off to start my first year at Winchester.

All that Matters was certainly written in Winchester with a few others that unfortunately got lost, mostly bubblegum three chord ditties about bands, Sanrio, glow in the dark and stuff I was into at the time. We recorded another demo around this time of two new songs (untraceable for this compilation). This session utilised a better sounding drum machine, harder guitars and a faster pace and it was agreed that we needed to recruit new members. Milhouse went through various line-ups and played a few gigs over the next year, including some with my school friend Pete on guitar who added some much needed depth to the recordings.

We finished Summer 2001 with a recording of ‘Softly’ which was more rock-orientated than the Helen Love and Gel inspired early recordings. Softly was featured as the first track on a compilation CD put out by Platform One and some people heard and liked it. That September whilst at Portsmouth Uni I got the Platform One Compilation CD sent in the post and found that Chris Phillips had done some great drums on our tracks – we originally recorded to a click track. I had already met former Sandown High student Steve Hart by this time and pestered him to play drums in what I was attempting to forge which was a new Portsmouth line-up of Milhouse. The tracks from the CD helped persuade Steve to jam with me and Andi from Anaheim who had given Milhouse their first gig back at the Squadron.

The new line up of Milhouse, bolstered their set with a few punk-pop covers of the time and played their first gig at the much missed punk- rock mad house the Horseshoe in Southsea. Andi booked us our first recording session with the new power trio line-up at Liongate Building where the University’s Access to Music course were offering free sessions to local bands. We recorded a demo with ‘Never Listened’ as the lead track and that was enough to get us on a gig at the 500 capacity Wedgewood Rooms where so many of our favourite bands had played.

Dave Milburn was on mine and Steve’s course and we had often chatted with him about doing something musical together. In an early jam session with Dave on guitar, Steve had asked if Dave if he knew any Goldfinger (at the time we did a cover of My Head by the US punk band). Dave proceeded to play Goldfinger by Ash, which was infinitely cooler. It took us a little while before we realised how just how cool this young man from Northamptonshire was.

Dave, Steve and I recorded a new song I had written when I was in a pissed off mood. The title was the pretentious ‘How I became part of the popular set’. The song’s title was actually inspired by the name of a meal at a local takeaway but fitted with the recordings more emo-driven sound. Angrier, tighter and with punchier guitars and bass, the song, engineered by Ahmed Latif, was eventually featured on a compilation CD ‘Fingers Crossed’ which Russell from DIY label Red Crayon Records put out. This was a big deal to us. Russell said the track had generated some interest in us (amongst other bands included were the hyped My Awesome Compilation). This led to working with Russell who booked us for some of his all-ages gigs on the Isle of Wight and generally helped promote what we were doing. We had also started to play a bit more locally, often with Pete joining on second guitar. We played a few supports with bands such as My Deaf Audio from Brighton and Guttermouth which helped boost our profile locally.

These activities eventually lead to our first release on Red Crayon, a split CD with Weiser under our new name Day of the Fight (named by Pete after a Stanley Kubrick documentary).

Pete’s input into the band had a real positive push in organising our gigs, running short lines of merchandise and setting up our own recording studio When Parrots Attack on the Isle of Wight. Day of the fight was without question our most successful time. We had memorable gigs with Jetplane Landing, Biffy Clyro, Reuben, Midtown and Beezewax as well as shows with our peers in Jets Vs Sharks, Chillerton and Awkward Silence. Our gigs at Chinnerys in Southend introduced us to Dan Claydon, who along with Andy Williamson ran an enterprising web-zine and promotion outfit called Gamefoe. Dan offered to put our full length CD Modern Rock Hall of Fame out on DIY label From Outside Earth which was a massive compliment and in tune with how we operated as a band. In any case it felt a whole lot better than signing with the well-known ‘indie’ label that courted us briefly.

A tour with Frank Turner was probably the last big thing we did as Day of the Fight followed by headlining the Bandstand on the Saturday at the 2007 Isle of Wight Festival. Soon after we returned to studies and I started writing and performing under the name ‘Champ of the Day’.
I did a mini-tour with Kenneth Ishak from Norway’s Beezewax in 2008 which taught me a great deal about the intricacies of a performance, song-writing and generally handling yourself as a ‘solo’ artist. The songs I recorded at this time with Dave Snocken in Birmingham remain some of my favourite sessions, included here for the first time as a set.