The Adventures of Humble Bee.

Easter Saturday 2008: Humble Bee plays its first show, to an enthusiastic if perplexed crowd of friends and various associates. Its two members decide that, seeing as how they've now made the transition from wooden toy to real boy, they should offer all of their recordings to the world, and offer proper, respectable press releases. Here, then, is a first draft of a real, sensible biography of Humble Bee.

February 2007: At a small gig in a tiny venue, Ben, frontman of noise-pop act Meanwell College, escapes the racket and retreats to the beer garden. There he is introduced to various friends of friends, including a shy stranger called Carly.

April 2007: Ben and Carly continue to see each other throughout various places and times, brought together by a mutual acquaintance - for the moment, let us call him he - who, for varied and different reasons, is starting to give both of them the shits.

May 2007: A conversation occurs between Ben and Carly, which goes a little something like this:

Carly: You know, you should really write a song about him.
Ben: That would be hilarious. Although, it would make him rather too proud. Besides, he didn't really do anything to me. You know, you should really write a song about him.
Carly, cheekily: Well, maybe I will.

Later that week, Carly sends Ben an e-mail with the words to Perfect On Paper. Ben, bored and curious, begins the process of twisting guitar parts together, and using his incredible microphone abilities records the song and sends it back.

June 2007: Carly eventually records her lead vocal, takes it home, and creates a myspace page. She uses the name Humble Bee, which she reclaims from her previous, unreleased musical efforts. Seeing as he knew about the old Humble Bee, it would be easy to expect him to discover a Humble Bee myspace attached to Carly's own, and from there hear her scathing, vicious (but still cute and chirpy) song.

Yet, if he did discover Humble Bee that way, he decided to keep all of his thoughts to himself.

July-August 2007: Ben travels through Europe, occasionally stopping by Internet cafés to keep in touch with the outside world. By the end of his journey, he has received two more song/poems from Carly.

November 2007: Ben finally decides to get around to recording music for the next two songs, and they appear on the Humble Bee myspace. Carly finally gives him their myspace password.

December 2007: Ben and Carly sit in the beer garden of yet another cosy establishment, where Ben lets slip to new musical friends that the two of them are "in a band". Carly laughs so hard she nearly spills her drink. The others actually take them seriously, add Humble Bee as online pseudo-friends, and begin to talk about gigs. On New Year's Eve, Ben is actually introduced to someone as "Ben from Humble Bee."

January-March 2008: Despite this new attention, Humble Bee lies silently still, without doing or saying anything. Perhaps they were waiting in the darkness for a clear approach to attack; more likely, they were slack and careless and harboured no ambition whatsoever. More people, however, find the band, and all strangely assume that it is more than just a musical wooden toy created for their own quite nasty amusement.

In the meantime, he begins again to talk to Carly. In one angry conversation, he quotes lines from Perfect On Paper. Ben's and Carly's original mission is complete.

March 2008: The headlining band pulls out of the first ever Wish, an indie night at Producers' Bar featuring bands, DJs, videos and, given the season, the Easter Bunny. Rather than attract a new headliner, the event's organisers genuinely, seriously and fearlessly approach Ben and Carly as an opening act. At 11.30pm on a Friday night, Carly calls Ben, possibly wondering how they can get out of it. Ben, already quite drunk, instead insists that it will be fine, they can totally play a show in eight days' time, and to accept with glee.

This despite the fact that Humble Bee had only three songs, and that despite their recording prowess, Ben and Carly had never played a song in the same room at the same time, ever. Ben and Carly finally gather around, and in the space of one week write two more songs from scratch, record, and rehearse three full times. Carly begins to play glockenspiel, something neither of them had any idea how to do.

22 March 2008: In the face of adversity, Humble Bee's first ever performance is a rolling success.

To Be Continued. (Hopefully.)


Humble Bee on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/humblebeecarly. Humble Bee will be playing Popsicle at the Edinburgh Castle, Friday 6 June.