Britpop threesome Fiction Plane recently opened for The Police for their reunion tour. And I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that front man Joe Sumner happens to be Sting’s son. They sent over a few tracks from their sophomore album, Left Side of the Brain (released last May on Bieler Bros Records) with commentary by the band.

You can catch them this Sunday along with our very own Lord Jason’s Death By Sexy, and Justin Trawick & Band @ DC9.

1940 9th Street, NW
Doors 7pm, Show 7:30, 21+
$10 advance / $12 at door

It all started innocently. I had made friends with the Rostovs when the Scherbatskys came to town. During the course of one evening I had made flirtatious conversation with the two most beautiful girls in the room. To Kitty I pledged a life of wholesome pleasures, family, warmth and stability. To Natasha I proposed that we escape the country at nightfall and lead a life of scandal. They were from different families living in different provinces so I had no idea they would confer with each other, let alone that they had shared holidays together as children and had taken a blood oath of loyalty to each other. They discovered my two-faced deceit and promptly told the old count while I was out on the veranda flattering his wife. The game was up. I came clean. I knew I had done wrong, but I couldn’t help my heart, so I challenged the old boy to a duel. As we drew our weapons, time stopped for an eternity. I loved them both. I had nowhere to go. A shot rang out. The old man fell. I knew from that moment that I would never again feel peace in my heart. How I wish the victory had been his.

Watching television was the only thing I could do. It’s automatic. I was paralyzed for years. Drink was the only escape, the only way to interact with the real world but it comes at a price. The fire in my belly led me on to do beautiful things, things I started but couldn’t finish. The promises were made, the feelings were real, but in the cold light of day I was too afraid to face them. I retired to the television, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t cause any more pain and I would be out of harm’s way. It was as close to death as anything I have seen. Was it better to live in a coma or die in a bar brawl? Like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, my mind swings from one extreme to the other sixty times a minute.

We had been stationed here at the Somme for almost a month. Trenchfoot, scabies, gut-rot and insanity were rife amongst the entire division. Still, spirits were high and we were anxious to get over the top and stick it to the Germans once and for all. Seven days of heavy bombardment from the air had made the enemy weak enough for us to start the ground. At the break of dawn, the order came. The first rank was sent up. Not a single one of them made it more than twenty feet. The second rank went up and again none survived. Rank after rank of our boys were sent up to their certain death, just soaking up bullets. By the end of the day we had lost 19,000 men. It was a disaster. Those of us in the later ranks felt a mixture of horror and relief that we had been saved by nightfall. No one could sleep. We sat pensively and awaited the order to retreat. Surely we couldn’t carry on in the face of this failure? We were wrong to think so. The order came through to resume attacks at dawn. It was madness. There was nothing to be won here. Not an inch of ground had been gained. As my division was prepared to be sent up, I looked into the eyes of the boy next to me. He was terrified out of his wits, the whites of his eyes red with fear and exhaustion. I shuddered and dropped my bayonet. Our rank moved forward, I ran the other way with all my might. The corporal fired a shot and ordered me to get back. The others called me a coward. I heard them but I didn’t care, I was blind with rage. I ran in my mud sodden boots until I reached the town. I told the guards I had an urgent message from the front. They refused to let me in, The General was having a top level meeting they said. I screamed at the top of my lungs and barged through into the hallway and took a left to find five men sitting down to breakfast. Their genial laughter stopped abruptly as I stormed in, looking like some kind of feral creature. The men, clean as whistles, drinking sherry at this early hour in the morning looked at me with disgust. Henry Rawlinson, the man who had decided to resume the futile battle, had spilled a little jam on his frilly white shirt and a butler was attending to it. I looked him square in his outraged eyes and could think of nothing to say but “Why?”

12/9 @ DC9
http://www.dcnine.com

9:00pm Fiction Plane (coincidental anagram of ‘Infant Police’)
http://www.fictionplane.co.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/fictionplane

8:15pm Death By Sexy
http://www.myspace.com/deathbysexy

7:30pm Justin Trawick & Band
http://www.myspace.com/justintrawick

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