ComEnts

Ah, the joy of Monday. Top weekend, quite tired today though;

Fri - played a fantastic gig with Red Antennae at Lark in the Park (www.larkinthepark.com) in Islington. Our first outing without Tim on drums, as he's left to go to uni - we were a bit worried as the last time we played with the laptop providing the beats it sounded awful, really weak and lame and 2-dimensional and rubbish! However, the boffins at Gibson Enterprises brought some new software into the Ant Farm which have fattened, sweetened, re-en-juicenated and generally beefed up the laptop tracks, and we sounded great on Friday ("20% more hip-hop" was one of various opinions expressed), and had a great time playing. The headline band was one that I had gigged with before in Yankee 99er, their bassist was a cool guy (he said some very nice stuff about me, so I'm bound to like him, innit!) and apparently the guitarist they had playing with them was ther original guitarist from Yes (played on theior first two albums?) he certainly looked the part. He was playing an Ibanez JEM model with the hand-grip and everything. We had to leave after their first song though so I didn't really get to check him out that much. Cool experimental drum and bass prog-metal/funk/groove tunes, possibly more suited to a club/DJ night than a live music night, but all good stuff nonetheless.

Saturday, had an awesome rehearsal with Müf - new tunes just seem to be falling out of us at the moment, always a good sign! Need to re-think my lyrics and vocals though as I started out wanting to be all serious then thought that it should be more comedy, then changed my mind again - I just need to sing something I like singing, basically. The lyrics will come, but I need to make sure I can sing and play my guitar part at the same time.

Sat night saw All Wrapped Up playing at the Bier Kellar in Bracknell, not a bad night all round, apart from the promoter making my life difficult by paying us by cheque.. my fave part of playing at the Bier Kellar is using the swimming pool/sauna/jacuzzi in the gym after we've soundchecked, we have the place to ourselves pretty much, and it's wicked - great to chill out and relax before showtime. New songs went down well, crowd was predominantly hen-nights and people were dancing, singing, having a good time. Sound was pants, but that's the Bier Kellar for you.

Sunday saw me head off to London to see Goldie-Lookin' Chain at the Astoria - they were brilliant, not just a gimmicky Chav band, a proper old-school hip-hop experience. Fantastic banter, great tunes, PHAT sound and quality lyrics. Bit of a late one for a Sunday, but well worth it.

And the mighty Toon army beat Man C in a seven goal thriller, should help get us the team spirit and collective belief that we'll need to get back into Europe. Been too much bad press out of St. James' recently, but from what I can tell/hear, Mr. Souness will see us right. Our defence still needs some shoring up though, hope we can get that guy from Celtic.

Hope you all had a good weekend,

AK