Tim Burgess on Twitter

Sometimes when you don’t understand something it can lead to amazing things – where an in-depth knowledge of the subject might just put you off. Kind of like magic. You see a trick and are amazed, someone explains it to you and, well, the magic’s gone. And sometimes the sheer pointlessness of something is what makes it really moorish.

I’ve been a little like that with Twitter – I’d got me a MySpace and was amazed at how being on tour or out of the country meant I could remain in contact with everyone I knew and lots of people I didn’t even know. It was open 24 hours and was a place you could find bands and they could find you.



MySpace was abandoned by the side of the road when it got a puncture and everyone was accommodated in the passing Facebook superbus. I happily packed away my MySpace and stuck it in the loft just next to the Christmas tree and my Scalextrik.



Alongside Facebook’s inherent showy offery sneaked a strange animal that took me some time to get used to. While other social networking sites invited length diatribes on what effete pastime or wholesome soup its proprietor was sampling – Twitter was more like a quick burst of brevity that involved a more detached kind of interest – like nipping out for a pint with the person instead of secretly scouring their photograph albums while they are out of the room, after inviting you round.



So, I got myself one of these Twitter critters – unsure of each other at first, I could see what Stephen Fry had eaten for his tea or what bands mixed well with middle class foods - Prosecco and The Bunnymen, Sushi and The Banshees seeing as you ask.



It was like a new puppy and mistakes were made – some people seemed apoplectic that I retweeted everything and this just made it more tempting. What else could I do with something that said “@timburgess is a f***king tw*t, he just retweets every sh**tting message” yep, I retweeted it.



As personal as it may seem, it’s still you and a computer or phone and people dotted around the globe having a few of your life and occasionally chipping in with maybe a gig or video they think I might like. One morning – I get up very early – I sent out the message “Morning tweets, coffee?”



Within not too long lots of followers were ordering “@stevemonkey Yeah, Tim got a ceiling to plaster in Kettering, need a coffee to get me on the move”, “I could murder a tea our kid, big night out for my brothers birthday.”



It was all virtual, but lots of things are nowadays, and, anyway, I like making coffee for people so I would tweet them back “here you go, @stevemonkey, let me know how you get on!”



The first day about 20 early risers joined in, four days later a virtual queue of 35 formed as soon as the message went out. I kind of felt maybe like a morning radio DJ would – nothing earth shattering but people seemed to like it. Soon enough we would put songs on the jukebox – imaginary jukebox of course, YouTube links that people would request and listen to.



Each morning regulars would come back and new people would arrive – specials would be announced and duly ordered.



It now needed a name to give it some real substance and about three weeks ago Tim Peaks was up and running – still no more real than an email or a TwitPic but it was kind of like Field of Dreams. Blend it and they will come. And they did.



News arrived that former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had started a rival twitter based café and we offered him some work. He joined in and a surprising knowledge of The Charlatans was uncovered (cynics would say a parliamentary expenses flunky was the other side of the room on Wikipedia) anyway the self proclaimed ‘fellow North Country Boy’ lead to Twitterati like Caitlin Moran to exclaim “who said Twitter was useless when you can watch a Charlatan and a former deputy prime minister shoot the breeze over coffee.”



Friends like Noel Fielding and Carl Barat stop by and we’ve just started a loyalty card scheme – offers have come in for doing it for real at festivals and we’ve started a line of merchandise to raise money for Trekstock too – get yourself a mug for work and help imaginary diners and raise money too.



Never one to shy away a pun I’ve embraced twitter and we’ve done a live #timterview and #timteractive listens to each of The Charlatans albums are planned – done from different places like our studio, a record shop and a Twitter followers house.



So the whole thing adds up to little more than a hill of virtual coffee beans but it means a lot to us and those that come in each morning. So let yourself go, swing by, get your card stamped and lets celebrate pointlessness with a virtual espresso. Stick summat on the jukebox would you?

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This article was originally written by Tim Burgess for Artrocker - and we'd just like to thank them for letting us share it with you.