pseudo fame

You know, it's wierd. I'm on a minibus at this moment speeding back (literally, this driver is a nutter) from the cambridge area, having been on the sepura barbecue evening, which was fun. Met people i have emailed, which is cool in itself, email can get a lot across but face to face is something else. I mentioned the andorra trip to give my move to sepura some context, and a couple of people did the 'you're interesting' dance in our chat which was cool. People should keep being interesting, it's such a shame people give up.i was thinking i'd have to do the same yesterday morning, but now i'm not so sure. Maybe there's a strata of pseudo muso i can be. Still pushing myself but not living in bedsits?

Quick note - looking forward to this friday's gig at O'Neills. Should be a cracker, I'm going to take the 6 string and get the bugger gleaming with a brand new set of medium elites on there.

Heard from Jamie s new job is giong well - he's got a company Hyundai(!) and he's waiting for the S3 roadster he's getting as his kosher company car! Says he's doing really well and I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong job :)

He was driving a Nissan Micra before he took this job... with his rock n roll coupe he'll get himself killed Bolan style! Jeez....

I'll try to talk him down this friday. Wish me luck :)


----- Last night's Practise Diary -----After the standard warmups on the Warwick Fretless...I sight-read "the chicken" from the Jaco book. Man, he was funky...

Waitin' in for a parcel....

... so I grabbed me some practise time on the ol' 5-string! Yes, Cliff the Hohner B-Bass V got a few good licks this morning. A bit of Jaco too, I was working on Chromatic Fantasy again. I'm up to about the end of page 2 at the moment, but you need to be very warmed up before you can work on that stuff!

Finally left the house at about 930am. You can tell I'm dedicated... breakfast was still arguing with my stomach when I sat down for a moment's practise, knowing I'd be there a little while.

The heavens opened while I was doing it though - I've seen thunderstorms come on quick but this took me by surprise.


----- Today's Practise Diary -----AM (smug grin) : 45 minutes including warmups and some reading Jaco

Ooooo, I've been naughty. Popped out to see a couple of friends in Chesham. Wierd place. Spent a nice evening in a nice pub drinking nice beer and musing on the collective niceness of open-source and how, paradoxically, it produces greate software for no fiscal return.

You must all slap my writst in comment form.

----- Today's Practise Diary -----

Skegness!

Wow, surreal stuff! Just had a 2.5 hour trip across the fens in an authentic london routemaster bus! I'm now in Skegness thinking about fish and chips in a classic english seaside setting...

Wierd being on the top floor of a london bus careering through the fens, watching harvesters taking broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes... Like the driver of the marble arch route got horribly lost! Ever seen the harvesters they use for cauliflower? Regular tractor, trailer, and a huge conveyor belt which carries the veg from the front of the tractor to the covered trailer behind!

You get a lot of smiles in a london bus outside london.

Rats! Had to throw over a gig!

Nuts. Saturday night and I should be in London, but it's work work work. The new job has a rather large learning curve on it so I'm treating myself to some research. Hmmmm.

Oh well, tomorrow should be fun. We're heading for Skegness on a london routemaster bus!!!


----- Today's Practise Diary -----Usual warmups including slap ones for scales (2 octave)B flat scale stuff"Chromatic Fantasy" reading from the Jaco book.

Daily practise reaps its rewards once again!

I know, I missed a few days in the diary - new job and all that! - but I'm religious in the evenings at the moment. I'm working from the Jaco book with Chromatic Fantasy (which I did learn the first couple of pages of a year or so ago) and Teen Town / Portrait of Tracy (hullo Smurf ol mate!) which I worked out from record before getting transcriptions. I'm enjoying a spot of reading again!

All that live playing is great - it's definitely made my hands one hell of a lot stronger - and now to go back again to something more cerebral... well, it's actually pretty cool. I suppose the variety is helping. All that as-you-go-along was bound to make me lust after some brain stuff eventually!

I must collect my strings from the local place - they can order out for me for reasonable price, which is cool - BTW, does anyone know where you can get Warwick EMPs online?

Nic and I had a wicked time yesterday, we played Wii tennis for about an hour straight as doubles partners against the Wii, and we totally whipped their ass - by the time we'd finished, the skill levels of the opposition were 1900 and 1200!!! That's very pro, by the way.


----- Today's Practise Diary -----A warm veloute of the usual warmups (which I'm shrinking a little), followed byAn Entree of Chromatic FantasyCompote of Sweet Fretless Scale Practise

That should do nicely. :)

First days...

Well, I think I'll be OK at Sepura. Lots of stuff to read, lots to take in as you'd expect, but I reckon there's some dweebyfun to be had.

In an attempt to keep my practise diary again, I'm going to use Blogger's templates to make a note of how much I do like I used to do on A4 bits of paper...

Warmups and exercises: 30 minutes.
(cut short for dinner)

Well, it's time.

The wedding gig on friday night was ok. Jay's new job is definitely tiring him out though, he was pretty shot by the third set. Steve had an entire bottle of vodka to himself (it's like having rasputin as your drummer) and even blagged some red bull substitute off me late in the evening.

The guitar gear misbehaved again. The guys really need to dig out the gear from the van of an evening, set it up and check all bits. Buzzing for 2 minutes on stage and cutting the set short is not good!!!

Today I start a new desk job at Sepura.

Thanks to everyone who wished me good luck. I've heard from several agents that they're a good company to work for. Just wish they weren't at green park. Reading really sucks.

Maidenhead town centre is like Faliraki on a saturday night btw. There's more baby chavs conceived in piss-laden doorways in that godforsaken hellhole than are planned in china I'd wager.

Wedding gigs!

Tonight, matthew, I'm going to wear a gold suit. I kid you not. I'm going to look like something out of either a bond movie or maybe a poor-taste talking heads gig.

Should be a giggle though.

Listen, if anyone's reading this I want to know about motivation. What keeps you going? I'm losing interest in keeping Janeiro's myspace running! Help me out...

Toodle pip!