Monday, January 24, 2005
My weekend, by AK (aged 6 and-a-half)
I woke up this morning (der der-der-der der) to the news that today is officially the most depressing day of the year. Well, Mondays are pretty bad, but it was actually fairly pleasant walking in to work from where I parked my car and getting caught in a light dusting of snow. But I see their point.
This weekend saw me doing my best to drink myself into a world of trouble (and most people try to drink themselves out of a world of trouble..). You see, this is one of those times where I wonder if it is wise for me to detail the events in my life for all the world to see. I can’t even change the names to protect the innocent, as too many people will still be able to piece things together and it won’t just be me who gets in trouble. Anyway, thankfully I managed to get away with a couple of questionable decisions on Friday night - and when I say "get away with" I mean "wasn't stupid or drunk enough to do any real or lasting damage to myself or others". I'm probably completely wrong, or reading too much into events, but I definitely have a guilty feeling following me around today.
I have apologised to the girl I was trying to seduce by text Fri night, I actually think that her boyfriend is an alright bloke and I shoulda known better!
To the girl I woke up with on Sat morning - although nothing happened, it was just one of those friendly, snuggling, non-sexual things - the above statement also applies.
Guilt is worse when you don’t actually have anything to feel guilty about - at least if you've done something to feel guilty about then you probably had a great time doing it.
Saturday was productive, despite particularly aggressive and tenacious hangover: achieved much and discharged several important duties that were key to my continuation as a member of my family. For the first time since records began, I did not have a rehearsal or a gig on a Saturday - I almost didn’t know what to do with myself - celebrated by watching rugby on TV and letting my body recover from the previous night's exploits before hooking up with James Glanville, golden-throated singer in White Sunday (we have our first gig at the 3B's on 9th Feb) at the Pitcher and Piano in Reading. Met a load of his mates, all of whom were sound as a pound, and proceeded to get stuck into the JD with Jim. Off to Revolution we went (yeah, I know, you don’t have to say anything. It's free to get in and it's open late, OK?) where we drank and hung out some more.
Spent a good deal of time trying to figure out which ones of Jim's attractive lady friends were single, being as they were pretty foxy! Don't think any of them were though, gutted. Anyway, all was going well until James - being the gentleman he is - felt the need to defend his own girlfriend from some unwarranted abuse. Fair play to him. I remember thinking as he was frog-marched out the door by the security "You, sir, *hic!* embody the finesss, mos' chivalrousss elements tha any man could wish to uphold". I got the low-down on what happened afterwards, sounds like pretty standard fare, somebody-had-too-much-to-drink-and-some-issues-to-get-off-their-chest stuff, and it was more rough-and-tumble than a proper fight, so no biggie. If I recall correctly, the main beef was that someone thought that James thought he was a rock star (which can be annoying), but I think J has a pretty good claim to at least being one of the brightest musical talents in Reading, we should be able to back up his attitude with plaudits pretty soon.
Sunday was another exercise in hangover management. Had to deliver some books to a friend of my mum's at about midday - heading out into the blinding sunshine was painful, but worth it. The lady in question turned out to be much foxier than I had remembered, and luckily for me she had time to stop and chat for a while. Hmm.. Bet she's not single, tho. Curse my over-developed sense of morality. Aren’t rock guitarists supposed to be excluded from the normal rules of social interaction? Then why does my conscience prevent me from stepping on anyone else's toes? Actually, now I think about it, I seem to save that sort of thing for very, very, very special cases. And I think that's the way I prefer it. So I've boiled my own argument down to "Why aren't there more single women (whom I don’t work with) around?", which I suppose is a fairly common lament.
So, after a brief encounter in a car-park in Caversham it was off to pick up Nat from Marlow and head over to the studio in Hackney for a Red Antennae rehearsal for a gig this Friday in Islington (http://www.blogger.com/app/www.larkinthepark.com). Except we aren’t called Red Antennae anymore, Red Antennae has now become the label name for all of Dan's projects, we have been re-branded(!) as Stonepark, after Stonor Park nr Henley. I maintain that it would be better to wait until the new site was complete and ready to launch before we announce the change, but Dan and Nat just want to get on with it, so it's kind of being filtered out in phases. Rehearsal sounded great, Nat is looking much better after her recent mumps-and-conjunctivitis bout, and we even got to work on some new tracks, so pretty productive! I felt bad about not visiting my bro and his better half who live in Hackney, but we are always so pushed for time that we are usually in and out and battling through traffic back to Reading without having done half the things we want to. Oh well, to misquote Homer J - "Just because I don’t visit don’t mean I don’t love you."
Dropped Nat back, stayed for a cuppa and caught the start of "Never Mind the Buzzcocks", then back home for a re-heated roast dinner courtesy of my sister. Lovely! Mmmm….! Brussel Sprouts! Top one, nice one - sorted. And Bez won Big Brother! They say that every band has to have good chemistry, and he was the best chemist in Manchester.
This weekend saw me doing my best to drink myself into a world of trouble (and most people try to drink themselves out of a world of trouble..). You see, this is one of those times where I wonder if it is wise for me to detail the events in my life for all the world to see. I can’t even change the names to protect the innocent, as too many people will still be able to piece things together and it won’t just be me who gets in trouble. Anyway, thankfully I managed to get away with a couple of questionable decisions on Friday night - and when I say "get away with" I mean "wasn't stupid or drunk enough to do any real or lasting damage to myself or others". I'm probably completely wrong, or reading too much into events, but I definitely have a guilty feeling following me around today.
I have apologised to the girl I was trying to seduce by text Fri night, I actually think that her boyfriend is an alright bloke and I shoulda known better!
To the girl I woke up with on Sat morning - although nothing happened, it was just one of those friendly, snuggling, non-sexual things - the above statement also applies.
Guilt is worse when you don’t actually have anything to feel guilty about - at least if you've done something to feel guilty about then you probably had a great time doing it.
Saturday was productive, despite particularly aggressive and tenacious hangover: achieved much and discharged several important duties that were key to my continuation as a member of my family. For the first time since records began, I did not have a rehearsal or a gig on a Saturday - I almost didn’t know what to do with myself - celebrated by watching rugby on TV and letting my body recover from the previous night's exploits before hooking up with James Glanville, golden-throated singer in White Sunday (we have our first gig at the 3B's on 9th Feb) at the Pitcher and Piano in Reading. Met a load of his mates, all of whom were sound as a pound, and proceeded to get stuck into the JD with Jim. Off to Revolution we went (yeah, I know, you don’t have to say anything. It's free to get in and it's open late, OK?) where we drank and hung out some more.
Spent a good deal of time trying to figure out which ones of Jim's attractive lady friends were single, being as they were pretty foxy! Don't think any of them were though, gutted. Anyway, all was going well until James - being the gentleman he is - felt the need to defend his own girlfriend from some unwarranted abuse. Fair play to him. I remember thinking as he was frog-marched out the door by the security "You, sir, *hic!* embody the finesss, mos' chivalrousss elements tha any man could wish to uphold". I got the low-down on what happened afterwards, sounds like pretty standard fare, somebody-had-too-much-to-drink-and-some-issues-to-get-off-their-chest stuff, and it was more rough-and-tumble than a proper fight, so no biggie. If I recall correctly, the main beef was that someone thought that James thought he was a rock star (which can be annoying), but I think J has a pretty good claim to at least being one of the brightest musical talents in Reading, we should be able to back up his attitude with plaudits pretty soon.
Sunday was another exercise in hangover management. Had to deliver some books to a friend of my mum's at about midday - heading out into the blinding sunshine was painful, but worth it. The lady in question turned out to be much foxier than I had remembered, and luckily for me she had time to stop and chat for a while. Hmm.. Bet she's not single, tho. Curse my over-developed sense of morality. Aren’t rock guitarists supposed to be excluded from the normal rules of social interaction? Then why does my conscience prevent me from stepping on anyone else's toes? Actually, now I think about it, I seem to save that sort of thing for very, very, very special cases. And I think that's the way I prefer it. So I've boiled my own argument down to "Why aren't there more single women (whom I don’t work with) around?", which I suppose is a fairly common lament.
So, after a brief encounter in a car-park in Caversham it was off to pick up Nat from Marlow and head over to the studio in Hackney for a Red Antennae rehearsal for a gig this Friday in Islington (http://www.blogger.com/app/www.larkinthepark.com). Except we aren’t called Red Antennae anymore, Red Antennae has now become the label name for all of Dan's projects, we have been re-branded(!) as Stonepark, after Stonor Park nr Henley. I maintain that it would be better to wait until the new site was complete and ready to launch before we announce the change, but Dan and Nat just want to get on with it, so it's kind of being filtered out in phases. Rehearsal sounded great, Nat is looking much better after her recent mumps-and-conjunctivitis bout, and we even got to work on some new tracks, so pretty productive! I felt bad about not visiting my bro and his better half who live in Hackney, but we are always so pushed for time that we are usually in and out and battling through traffic back to Reading without having done half the things we want to. Oh well, to misquote Homer J - "Just because I don’t visit don’t mean I don’t love you."
Dropped Nat back, stayed for a cuppa and caught the start of "Never Mind the Buzzcocks", then back home for a re-heated roast dinner courtesy of my sister. Lovely! Mmmm….! Brussel Sprouts! Top one, nice one - sorted. And Bez won Big Brother! They say that every band has to have good chemistry, and he was the best chemist in Manchester.
The analysis.
I thought I was nervous, I don't think I quite realised how nervous AK was until I read his blog entry the day after the gig though!
That was a totally bizarre experience. Other than Sonic Undermind the only band I've played with was my old school band. Who kind of don't really count. All those guys I'd been playing with for ages before we'd done any gigs. The Müf thing has gone really fast. We've only been together 3 months and we pretty much had a month off at the end of November. Hardly anyone had really heard our stuff either so I had no idea how we'd go down. I had a feeling that, because of the quality of the other guys, even if I had a bit of a nightmare it'd be pretty tight etc. There was always the chance that people would hate the songs though. As much as you make music that you like, for yourself, it's always much nicer if other people like it as well.
That was also probably my most sober gig. Being on first was a big help but I only had one beer before we went on. Definitely a good thing, I am a lot shitter when drunk. Going on first is quite an advanage on that score.
The downside of being on first is that when soundchecks (inevitably) overrun you are soundchecking in front of whatever crowd has already arrived. By the time we got on stage with the Müf fans who'd got there early and the massive Sandcreek Massacre fanbase starting to arrive in force, there was a bigger crowd for the soundcheck than for a lot of gigs I've played!
Luckily, the sound was immediately really good on stage. Sometimes a really bad soundcheck can totally blow your confidence but it went really well.
Now I'm sick, have a cold, so I'm probably rambling. In summary - wasn't perfect, we got some really good constructive feedback after the gig from various people. We played more than performed our songs and one of our songs isn't quite right yet. It's almost there but it doesn't feel right, it was the only one we cocked up (although covered well?) on the night and I think that's because we're not feeling that particular change, it's not natural enough.
That said, as first gig goes it was much better than anyone has any right to expect and the reaction to the material was better than I'd hoped. Now, let's hope there's a review somewhere! (and that I don't look shit in the photos).
That was a totally bizarre experience. Other than Sonic Undermind the only band I've played with was my old school band. Who kind of don't really count. All those guys I'd been playing with for ages before we'd done any gigs. The Müf thing has gone really fast. We've only been together 3 months and we pretty much had a month off at the end of November. Hardly anyone had really heard our stuff either so I had no idea how we'd go down. I had a feeling that, because of the quality of the other guys, even if I had a bit of a nightmare it'd be pretty tight etc. There was always the chance that people would hate the songs though. As much as you make music that you like, for yourself, it's always much nicer if other people like it as well.
That was also probably my most sober gig. Being on first was a big help but I only had one beer before we went on. Definitely a good thing, I am a lot shitter when drunk. Going on first is quite an advanage on that score.
The downside of being on first is that when soundchecks (inevitably) overrun you are soundchecking in front of whatever crowd has already arrived. By the time we got on stage with the Müf fans who'd got there early and the massive Sandcreek Massacre fanbase starting to arrive in force, there was a bigger crowd for the soundcheck than for a lot of gigs I've played!
Luckily, the sound was immediately really good on stage. Sometimes a really bad soundcheck can totally blow your confidence but it went really well.
Now I'm sick, have a cold, so I'm probably rambling. In summary - wasn't perfect, we got some really good constructive feedback after the gig from various people. We played more than performed our songs and one of our songs isn't quite right yet. It's almost there but it doesn't feel right, it was the only one we cocked up (although covered well?) on the night and I think that's because we're not feeling that particular change, it's not natural enough.
That said, as first gig goes it was much better than anyone has any right to expect and the reaction to the material was better than I'd hoped. Now, let's hope there's a review somewhere! (and that I don't look shit in the photos).
Friday, January 21, 2005
What a (Sugar) rush!
Prior to last night, the scariest things that had ever happened to me were probably:
1. Having my spine compacted in a rugby scrum; ambulance to hospital, not being able to feel my feet, "would I walk again?" stuff.
2. A car crash outside Nettlebed, bounced off a wall, 360 degree flatspin, car was totalled, to this day I don’t know how the driver and I survived. From happy and relaxed to brown-trousered terrified in the space of about 0.5 of a second. For years I could summon up cold sweats at will by just thinking about it.
But last night was probably scarier because I saw it all coming, and if I could bottle that sort of adrenaline rush, I'd soon be loaning money to Bill Gates. The last six months of gigs have all seemed very workmanlike for me - not that I didn’t enjoy them, but I didn’t get those insane butterflies in my stomach that get the creative juices flowing. Last night, my first gig as singer/frontman in about 5 years, was mind-blowing, absolutely amazing. It's all very well and good to stand in the corner wailing away on the guitar, but to stand out front and put your soul out there for public consumption is something else. For about an hour I felt like my heart was going to pulverize my chest cavity; unbelievable. It was like my first ever gig all over again - now I remember why I do this: forget everything else, all the "industry" bollocks, it means nothing. I would run through walls to get that feeling again (Feb 16th at the 3B's, as it goes!). I only had one JD last night (still my preferred throat-loosener) but this morning I feel about as depleted and come-downy as I have ever done.
I think the gig itself went well, I had to make up the words to our last song cos I over-reached myself in going for deep, meaningful lyrical content instead of rhyming couplets that I could remember, and we missed out a whole section to another one, but everyone clapped and cheered us in between songs, and the feedback was good. All I know is that I want to get back on that ride again as soon as I can. Iain was fantastic on drums (not a surprise, but a total pleasure) and was improvising some amazing fills, Sam's bass was thunderous (someone came up to me afterwards and said he was blown away by Sam's playing), and Mikey was legendary - everytime I got lost or tripped over myself through the effort of trying to remember lyrics I just looked and listened to where he was and found my way back again. Not a bad start to our gigging history! 25 mins flew past in the blink of a particularly loud eye.
Big thanks to the Sand Creek Massacre (who were a bit flat last week, but I "got" them last night, full marks to them. I'm used to bands who have the complete "image" being pretty average performers and songwriters, but these guys are holding a pretty impressive hand), Rebus and Off The Radar, all of whom were pretty bloody amazing. Luisa (as ever), Mike and Jo at Sugar Rush, everyone who came down and Wolfie who really is a "sound" bloke.
1. Having my spine compacted in a rugby scrum; ambulance to hospital, not being able to feel my feet, "would I walk again?" stuff.
2. A car crash outside Nettlebed, bounced off a wall, 360 degree flatspin, car was totalled, to this day I don’t know how the driver and I survived. From happy and relaxed to brown-trousered terrified in the space of about 0.5 of a second. For years I could summon up cold sweats at will by just thinking about it.
But last night was probably scarier because I saw it all coming, and if I could bottle that sort of adrenaline rush, I'd soon be loaning money to Bill Gates. The last six months of gigs have all seemed very workmanlike for me - not that I didn’t enjoy them, but I didn’t get those insane butterflies in my stomach that get the creative juices flowing. Last night, my first gig as singer/frontman in about 5 years, was mind-blowing, absolutely amazing. It's all very well and good to stand in the corner wailing away on the guitar, but to stand out front and put your soul out there for public consumption is something else. For about an hour I felt like my heart was going to pulverize my chest cavity; unbelievable. It was like my first ever gig all over again - now I remember why I do this: forget everything else, all the "industry" bollocks, it means nothing. I would run through walls to get that feeling again (Feb 16th at the 3B's, as it goes!). I only had one JD last night (still my preferred throat-loosener) but this morning I feel about as depleted and come-downy as I have ever done.
I think the gig itself went well, I had to make up the words to our last song cos I over-reached myself in going for deep, meaningful lyrical content instead of rhyming couplets that I could remember, and we missed out a whole section to another one, but everyone clapped and cheered us in between songs, and the feedback was good. All I know is that I want to get back on that ride again as soon as I can. Iain was fantastic on drums (not a surprise, but a total pleasure) and was improvising some amazing fills, Sam's bass was thunderous (someone came up to me afterwards and said he was blown away by Sam's playing), and Mikey was legendary - everytime I got lost or tripped over myself through the effort of trying to remember lyrics I just looked and listened to where he was and found my way back again. Not a bad start to our gigging history! 25 mins flew past in the blink of a particularly loud eye.
Big thanks to the Sand Creek Massacre (who were a bit flat last week, but I "got" them last night, full marks to them. I'm used to bands who have the complete "image" being pretty average performers and songwriters, but these guys are holding a pretty impressive hand), Rebus and Off The Radar, all of whom were pretty bloody amazing. Luisa (as ever), Mike and Jo at Sugar Rush, everyone who came down and Wolfie who really is a "sound" bloke.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Few hours to go...
On stage in a few hours. I'm getting pretty nervous. Towards the end with SU I didn't really get nervous about gigs. I'd fuss about details about getting there or getting kit there or whatever but once we were there and ready I was pretty confident that it'd go ok. Even if we didn't play at our best we'd normally go down alright.
New band, new material etc. is totally different. I'm confident about it, and I know that (without wanting to sound cocky) even if we don't play blindingly it'll be pretty tight and stuff and although very few people (4) have heard our stuff the feedback's been good... so there's not really any rational reason to be nervous.
Still, I am bricking it a bit already. Normally I don't even get nervous until about an hour or so before so maybe I'll be a total mess before we go on tonight. Hopefully I can relax when we start playing. I know once I'm up there playing it'll seem like it's only lasted 5 seconds and it'll all be over. Feel free to use the comments to make cheap innuendoes about that last point.
New band, new material etc. is totally different. I'm confident about it, and I know that (without wanting to sound cocky) even if we don't play blindingly it'll be pretty tight and stuff and although very few people (4) have heard our stuff the feedback's been good... so there's not really any rational reason to be nervous.
Still, I am bricking it a bit already. Normally I don't even get nervous until about an hour or so before so maybe I'll be a total mess before we go on tonight. Hopefully I can relax when we start playing. I know once I'm up there playing it'll seem like it's only lasted 5 seconds and it'll all be over. Feel free to use the comments to make cheap innuendoes about that last point.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Charity gig
Went to see the venue for this charity gig yesterday. I can't say really that my impression of the beauty of Slough was enhanced, but the place was cool. Great space for bands, nice size stage. Great acoustics too, the roof is designed for live music and has those acoustically dead tiles. It was totally flat in there, not even a hint of an echo. It's a really good space for a gig. And it's really easy to get to from Reading by car. Literally a minute's drive off the motorway.
The guy who seems to run the place, a real great character called Earl, is letting us have the venue for nothing, they have someone coming in to do food all day and are providing door staff etc.
So that seems to be sorted, now all we need to do is book the bands, which is ongoing, and sort out the sound and lights and things. Other than that it's mainly going to be the mad panic organising stuff on the actual day.
Most important thing is sorted though, Kevin Harrington has offered us sticky backstage passes to use on the day! Woo! I love those things.
Müf gig in 2 days. Nervous excitement is creeping up on me!
The guy who seems to run the place, a real great character called Earl, is letting us have the venue for nothing, they have someone coming in to do food all day and are providing door staff etc.
So that seems to be sorted, now all we need to do is book the bands, which is ongoing, and sort out the sound and lights and things. Other than that it's mainly going to be the mad panic organising stuff on the actual day.
Most important thing is sorted though, Kevin Harrington has offered us sticky backstage passes to use on the day! Woo! I love those things.
Müf gig in 2 days. Nervous excitement is creeping up on me!
Monday, January 17, 2005
Monday, back to square one.
Monday morning.. what a drag. What a Danny-La-Rue-Hinge-and-Brackett-Lily-Savage-panto-dame size drag. Only a very short while ago it was Friday afternoon and everything was good in the world, I was getting ready for the penultimate Müf rehearsal before our debut show and the weekend's itinerary was all laid out in front of me. And then - in the blink of an eye - the weekend rushed past my head like a mobile phone being flung at a petulant and antagonistic Man Utd. striker. And here I am, struggling to come to terms with another week of the grind. Oh well, shit happens.
Müf rehearsal was a bit flat for me, but then I like rehearsals to be flat every now and again - it reminds me that I'm not there to have fun, I'm there to try and work hard and develop the music and the performance. As long as I get one rehearsal in every ten that goes brilliantly and is a pleasure to be at, I don’t mind. It's gigging that is the fun part, not rehearsals. But this one was OK, anyway. Still need to memorise the lyrics for Thursday, but that shouldn't be too hard now that I'm familiar with the set, etc. I just don’t want to have to have a music stand in front of me holding the lyrics, or be squinting at them taped to the floor, etc. I'm most concerned about a little ditty we've written called "The Clown Song", in which the lyrics are a kind of disturbed ramble rather than rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. It's a lot like some of Primus' monologonous lyrics, spoken rather than sung, which is all good, but new territory for me to get up and recite in public. Ah well, adrenaline is our friend.
Sat was a case of getting up at stupid o'clock to drive to Loughton, Essex to meet up with my bro, two cousins (one of whom is the groom-to-be), and my uncle at his pub in Debden. We were off to Lakeside shopping centre to get measured up for Morning suits for the wedding, and it turned out to be a good laugh. One big plate of food at the pub later and it was back down the M25/M4 to make it (just…) to a White Sunday rehearsal in Reading at Plug n' Play for 3 hrs. It was only the third time we've properly got together but already the chemistry is starting to happen and we're almost ready to launch ourselves on an unsuspecting public. We've got four or five gigs lined up for February now, can’t wait to see what happens. The gig at the Fez club on the 23rd Feb is supporting Pure Reason Revolution (a Reaidng band signed to Alan McGhee's Poptones label) so fingers crossed we will be at maximum gigging speed by then.
Awoke on Sunday on a mate's sofa (which used to be my parent's sofa, but that's a long story), not remembering passing out the night before (exhaustion rather than excess, I'm afraid!) to a text from Natalie O'Neill, she of the diva vocals for Red Antennae. She was making sure I wasn't going to be late to pick her up to go to the studio in Hackney. I was already cutting it fine.. So gulped back a quick cuppa and shot over to Marlow to collect her. Poor thing, she's had mumps and conjunctivitis so she looked like the last thing she wanted to do was go and rehearse all day! But being the trooper she is, she did anyway. We had a band meeting to decide the way forward for 2005 too, and we've decided that Red Antennae is going to be the name of the record company that Dan is in the process of setting up, an umbrella term for all the different musical projects he's involved with at the mo, and in the interests of brand identity and clarity, the band formerley known as Red Antennae will be changing their name to something else. We have a working title, but it's unconfirmed - Stonepark. I won't bore you with the whys and wherefores, suffice to say that Stonor Park (just outside Henley-on-Thames) was an inspiration. I'm sure an official announcement will be released at some point with confirmation of the re-branding. Glad I didn’t get any Red Antennae tattoos done, anyway. Still, good to have a label (of sorts) of our own, we're speaking to people about distribution, etc. but it's early doors yet.
Still waiting to hear back from Godin guitars about possible endorsement of their lovely, shiny, Canadian-made products - I'm not holding my breath, but at least I've got through to the man responsible! Will be easier to negotiate once Müf have sold a couple million CD's, I should imagine. Perhaps herein lies the problem?
Müf rehearsal was a bit flat for me, but then I like rehearsals to be flat every now and again - it reminds me that I'm not there to have fun, I'm there to try and work hard and develop the music and the performance. As long as I get one rehearsal in every ten that goes brilliantly and is a pleasure to be at, I don’t mind. It's gigging that is the fun part, not rehearsals. But this one was OK, anyway. Still need to memorise the lyrics for Thursday, but that shouldn't be too hard now that I'm familiar with the set, etc. I just don’t want to have to have a music stand in front of me holding the lyrics, or be squinting at them taped to the floor, etc. I'm most concerned about a little ditty we've written called "The Clown Song", in which the lyrics are a kind of disturbed ramble rather than rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. It's a lot like some of Primus' monologonous lyrics, spoken rather than sung, which is all good, but new territory for me to get up and recite in public. Ah well, adrenaline is our friend.
Sat was a case of getting up at stupid o'clock to drive to Loughton, Essex to meet up with my bro, two cousins (one of whom is the groom-to-be), and my uncle at his pub in Debden. We were off to Lakeside shopping centre to get measured up for Morning suits for the wedding, and it turned out to be a good laugh. One big plate of food at the pub later and it was back down the M25/M4 to make it (just…) to a White Sunday rehearsal in Reading at Plug n' Play for 3 hrs. It was only the third time we've properly got together but already the chemistry is starting to happen and we're almost ready to launch ourselves on an unsuspecting public. We've got four or five gigs lined up for February now, can’t wait to see what happens. The gig at the Fez club on the 23rd Feb is supporting Pure Reason Revolution (a Reaidng band signed to Alan McGhee's Poptones label) so fingers crossed we will be at maximum gigging speed by then.
Awoke on Sunday on a mate's sofa (which used to be my parent's sofa, but that's a long story), not remembering passing out the night before (exhaustion rather than excess, I'm afraid!) to a text from Natalie O'Neill, she of the diva vocals for Red Antennae. She was making sure I wasn't going to be late to pick her up to go to the studio in Hackney. I was already cutting it fine.. So gulped back a quick cuppa and shot over to Marlow to collect her. Poor thing, she's had mumps and conjunctivitis so she looked like the last thing she wanted to do was go and rehearse all day! But being the trooper she is, she did anyway. We had a band meeting to decide the way forward for 2005 too, and we've decided that Red Antennae is going to be the name of the record company that Dan is in the process of setting up, an umbrella term for all the different musical projects he's involved with at the mo, and in the interests of brand identity and clarity, the band formerley known as Red Antennae will be changing their name to something else. We have a working title, but it's unconfirmed - Stonepark. I won't bore you with the whys and wherefores, suffice to say that Stonor Park (just outside Henley-on-Thames) was an inspiration. I'm sure an official announcement will be released at some point with confirmation of the re-branding. Glad I didn’t get any Red Antennae tattoos done, anyway. Still, good to have a label (of sorts) of our own, we're speaking to people about distribution, etc. but it's early doors yet.
Still waiting to hear back from Godin guitars about possible endorsement of their lovely, shiny, Canadian-made products - I'm not holding my breath, but at least I've got through to the man responsible! Will be easier to negotiate once Müf have sold a couple million CD's, I should imagine. Perhaps herein lies the problem?
Best of times/worst of times
So, I got a call out of the blue on Thursday from my mobile phone company offering me a new phone. I'd been meaning to get in tough with them about changing my contract to something more sensible and getting a new handset for ages but I'm insanely lazy and hadn't got round to it.
So, I got a brand new Nokia 6630, which is a very cool 3G phone, 1.3 megapixel camera etc. Sweet. It's also an MP3 player so I can have mp3 ringtones... but... for some reason that didn't work? Why not? Well the greedy biatches at Vodafone decided that on their version of the OS they'd disable that feature! What utter wankers. This is basically (I think) a ruse so that they can continue selling overpriced polyphonic ringtones to people rather than just porting mp3s onto the phone from their PC. I have requested the unlock code from them so that I can do that anyway but in the meantime I found a workaround. So if anyone else has a Nokia 6630 from Vodafone and wants mp3 ringtones without unlocking do the following:
1. Get your mp3, open it in i-Tunes.
2. Select the tune in i-Tunes and in the menu choose "convert to AAC"
3. This will then save as a .mp4 file. Change the extension to .mxmf
4. Copy that renamed file to your phone. You can now select it as a ringtone. The built in mp3 player can still play it too.
Anyway, much as I think the ringtones are a rip-off, I'm a massive fan of games on phones. My old phone had backgammon which I used to play all the time. Each game lasts 5/10 mins so it's perfect for those "hanging around with a few minutes to kill" type breaks. There's a much, much better backgammon game for my new phone so I bought that pretty much straight away. Only £3 and I've already played about 40 games on it. Much better value in pence per minute than some full price PC or console games I've bought.
Busy this week, going to look at the venue for this charity gig tonight (more on that tomorrow I expect), Müf rehearsal on weds and gig thurs!
So, I got a brand new Nokia 6630, which is a very cool 3G phone, 1.3 megapixel camera etc. Sweet. It's also an MP3 player so I can have mp3 ringtones... but... for some reason that didn't work? Why not? Well the greedy biatches at Vodafone decided that on their version of the OS they'd disable that feature! What utter wankers. This is basically (I think) a ruse so that they can continue selling overpriced polyphonic ringtones to people rather than just porting mp3s onto the phone from their PC. I have requested the unlock code from them so that I can do that anyway but in the meantime I found a workaround. So if anyone else has a Nokia 6630 from Vodafone and wants mp3 ringtones without unlocking do the following:
1. Get your mp3, open it in i-Tunes.
2. Select the tune in i-Tunes and in the menu choose "convert to AAC"
3. This will then save as a .mp4 file. Change the extension to .mxmf
4. Copy that renamed file to your phone. You can now select it as a ringtone. The built in mp3 player can still play it too.
Anyway, much as I think the ringtones are a rip-off, I'm a massive fan of games on phones. My old phone had backgammon which I used to play all the time. Each game lasts 5/10 mins so it's perfect for those "hanging around with a few minutes to kill" type breaks. There's a much, much better backgammon game for my new phone so I bought that pretty much straight away. Only £3 and I've already played about 40 games on it. Much better value in pence per minute than some full price PC or console games I've bought.
Busy this week, going to look at the venue for this charity gig tonight (more on that tomorrow I expect), Müf rehearsal on weds and gig thurs!
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Making Waves
So... I seem to have got myself involved with helping organise a charity gig for the Tsunami disaster... in Slough! (I don't do much work for charity but I love talking about it?) Anyway, it sounds like a great idea. Got the first meeting tonight with Graeme Nash (who's been the driving force behind getting things going) and Rob from 5 Second Hand Rule who initially posted the idea on Berkshire Live.
If you fancy helping e-mail me and let me know what you can do. If anyone can potentially donate a PA for the day/do the sound that'd be fantastic. Speaking of which, there are a few more charity gigs going on. Thursday at Colorz in Reading it's Lu's birthday party, the proceeds of which are going to the Tsunami appeal. Also some in Feb - check out josaka gig guide and berkshire live for more details of all this stuff.
If you fancy helping e-mail me and let me know what you can do. If anyone can potentially donate a PA for the day/do the sound that'd be fantastic. Speaking of which, there are a few more charity gigs going on. Thursday at Colorz in Reading it's Lu's birthday party, the proceeds of which are going to the Tsunami appeal. Also some in Feb - check out josaka gig guide and berkshire live for more details of all this stuff.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Over the Moon
I'm currently reading Dear Boy, The Life of Keith Moon. Which the brighter readers amongst you might have spotted is a biograpy of the great Who drummer. It's a great rock biography, as you might imagine, and I'm only up to the early days of him joining The Who at the moment.
As an aside did anyone know that Keith Moon's parents were Alfred and Kathleen Moon? I wonder if it's a complete coincidence that we had Alfie and Kat(hleen) Moon in EastEnders recently? Crazy. Maybe I should write to the BBC and ask.
Right, when I started this post I had some point to make about the Keith Moon book. I have no idea what it was... er...
Oh yeah, the stuff in the book so far has been about the unsigned 'scene' in London in the 60s. It is really interesting stuff, amazing how things have changed these days. Back when The Who were forming it seems to have been almost entirely covers bands playing covers. I think partly because of this they got regular residencies. If the crowd knows the songs you can play week in week out. Having a weekly residency would be great and I'm not sure that's entirely just because you have to make less
effort booking gigs! It also didn't seem to occur to them to write their own songs at first. Oh how things have changed. We're so demanding these days. Some things don't change though, there were still hardly any drummers and loads of singers/guitarists.
My brother got me The Best of The Vapors (you know, Turning Japanese...) for my birthday which I'm listening to now. It's really good. We have this little thing where we each try to buy each other CDs the other won't have heard and might like for their birthday or Christmas, so far we've both done really well and FOPP makes it cheap too!
13 days 'till the first Müf gig. I'm SO excited about it now. Now that I'm happy we can play the songs properly it's much more relaxed and less stressful. Rehearsal tomorrow as well. :)
As an aside did anyone know that Keith Moon's parents were Alfred and Kathleen Moon? I wonder if it's a complete coincidence that we had Alfie and Kat(hleen) Moon in EastEnders recently? Crazy. Maybe I should write to the BBC and ask.
Right, when I started this post I had some point to make about the Keith Moon book. I have no idea what it was... er...
Oh yeah, the stuff in the book so far has been about the unsigned 'scene' in London in the 60s. It is really interesting stuff, amazing how things have changed these days. Back when The Who were forming it seems to have been almost entirely covers bands playing covers. I think partly because of this they got regular residencies. If the crowd knows the songs you can play week in week out. Having a weekly residency would be great and I'm not sure that's entirely just because you have to make less
effort booking gigs! It also didn't seem to occur to them to write their own songs at first. Oh how things have changed. We're so demanding these days. Some things don't change though, there were still hardly any drummers and loads of singers/guitarists.
My brother got me The Best of The Vapors (you know, Turning Japanese...) for my birthday which I'm listening to now. It's really good. We have this little thing where we each try to buy each other CDs the other won't have heard and might like for their birthday or Christmas, so far we've both done really well and FOPP makes it cheap too!
13 days 'till the first Müf gig. I'm SO excited about it now. Now that I'm happy we can play the songs properly it's much more relaxed and less stressful. Rehearsal tomorrow as well. :)
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Short-term memory blow-out
Mike must have told me that it was his birthday on the 5th at least 3 times, and I still managed to forget. I'm a bad person, a worse friend and an unreliable source of companionship. If it wasn't for the fact that I make Mike feel tall, I'm sure he'd have booted me out of the band by now.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Nought-to-Riffty
It gets to that time in the evening when people have been drinking for a bit too long and they think there's some potential that they might start flagging. This happened on New Years Eve it was suggested that we needed a coke based cocktail to pick us up. I (bravely) took up the challenge.
I wanted something that'd bring out both the sticky sweetness of the coke and the lemony sharpness. With this in mind I carefully selected Southern Comfort for the sweetness and Midori (a melon liqueur) for the fruitiness. Added some white rum for extra alcohol and little twist. Mix that lot with ice, pour into a tall glass and add coke to the top and a slice of lime. An ideal mid party pick me up.
Oh, it's my birthday today. This means that just like yesterday I'm 364 days older than AK. I remember when getting older was a good thing.
I wanted something that'd bring out both the sticky sweetness of the coke and the lemony sharpness. With this in mind I carefully selected Southern Comfort for the sweetness and Midori (a melon liqueur) for the fruitiness. Added some white rum for extra alcohol and little twist. Mix that lot with ice, pour into a tall glass and add coke to the top and a slice of lime. An ideal mid party pick me up.
Oh, it's my birthday today. This means that just like yesterday I'm 364 days older than AK. I remember when getting older was a good thing.
Happy New Ears!
Well, the festive season has been successfully negotiated, and as ever my birthday served to be useful only as a day of rest and recovery from the excesses of 2004. Several people have asked me to take issue with my parents over my birthday, a date (Jan 3rd) which has been described as being both impractical and inconsiderate. I shall pass the complaints on.
So - to summise: Christmas was great, spent in Wales with my grandparents and cousin Chris, got caught in a blizzard on Christmas day. Nice to have a white Christmas, even nicer to get a new CD player for my car!
New Year was spent in Bristol with fellow blogger Mike at a Left Side Brain houseparty. Always good to party with a rock band, and singer/guitarist Gareth was an excellent host. It was a cocktail party, which could have been painful but ended up being just about right. Spent all of New Year's day recovering, playing guitar, watching Led Zep DVD's and generally hanging out being muso's. Very cool. Mike invented the "Nought-to-rifty" cocktail, but I think the full name is "Nought-to-rifty in six shots". Drummer Ryan made some tasty Pineapple cocktails, and everything after that went a bit hazy..
First Müf gig coming up fast, think we want to try and get some stuff recorded once we successfully negotiate the gig, then book up some more!
2005; looking good.
So - to summise: Christmas was great, spent in Wales with my grandparents and cousin Chris, got caught in a blizzard on Christmas day. Nice to have a white Christmas, even nicer to get a new CD player for my car!
New Year was spent in Bristol with fellow blogger Mike at a Left Side Brain houseparty. Always good to party with a rock band, and singer/guitarist Gareth was an excellent host. It was a cocktail party, which could have been painful but ended up being just about right. Spent all of New Year's day recovering, playing guitar, watching Led Zep DVD's and generally hanging out being muso's. Very cool. Mike invented the "Nought-to-rifty" cocktail, but I think the full name is "Nought-to-rifty in six shots". Drummer Ryan made some tasty Pineapple cocktails, and everything after that went a bit hazy..
First Müf gig coming up fast, think we want to try and get some stuff recorded once we successfully negotiate the gig, then book up some more!
2005; looking good.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Happy New Year!
Hello everyone. Not sure I've got much to say here but after so long without posts I thought I should put something up.
Er... what have I got to tell you. Müf gig is a mere 16 days away now, we had a rehearsal yesterday and have the set all finished and can play it pretty comfortably. Still got three rehearsals to go before the big day so I'm happy about that side of it. Now I can start getting excited!
Have started learning the Mandolin, it's got tiny frets! It is a lot of fun, it definitely has a very different feel to the guitar and the fact that the tuning is different means that you naturally fall into slightly different riffs. Might be interesting to write on it and transpose to guitar. Maybe it'll make my fingering more accurate on the guitar too.
Er... what have I got to tell you. Müf gig is a mere 16 days away now, we had a rehearsal yesterday and have the set all finished and can play it pretty comfortably. Still got three rehearsals to go before the big day so I'm happy about that side of it. Now I can start getting excited!
Have started learning the Mandolin, it's got tiny frets! It is a lot of fun, it definitely has a very different feel to the guitar and the fact that the tuning is different means that you naturally fall into slightly different riffs. Might be interesting to write on it and transpose to guitar. Maybe it'll make my fingering more accurate on the guitar too.
