Knackered but still happy.

Alas, my falsetto is getting falser by the minute... can't seem to shake this cough! I was saddened to hear of the death of Richard Whiteley: although not an avid watcher of Countdown, it's one of those shows which has entered british conciousness so deeply that even the format of the show is used in stand-up comedy (a sure sign of a much-treasured cultural gem). He also had the capacity of use his demeanour to great effect when delivering some quite surreal humour, I seem to remember. Good on him.

The Band
Things continue to continue! No concrete stuff about deals, signings etc but Dan and I are developing quite a bass/drum rapport: his right foot, coupled with the extreme spring he puts on his bass drum pedal, means he can really pile in the kick drum rolls. Combine that with the re-emergence of my machine gun triplets using slap and snap, and we're locking together in an almost primus-type way. The stuff we were writing last night had a stone cold groove to it!



The Studio at Home
I have started to unpack! The monitors are out, the speakers are out, and just breaking the back of getting a few things out of boxes has made me feel like I will get it all done eventually!

I'll be coming home from the rehearsal tonight slightly earlier than usual, I think: this level of tiredness can't continue... I may be making myself ill, and it's off on holiday soon to Crete! We've got various parents who are being kind enough to mind old pond towers for us. I tempted my Dad by offering the services of the projector so he can fly his flight simulator on a massive screen :) He was quite interested. Heh!

3 showers in one day? I don't take a bottle at all...

What a weekend... had to go into the loft in the soaring heat of the emerging English Summer. Outside temperatures hit 30-something degrees, and inside temperatures hit this 30-something :)

Ah, the joy of stashing boxes. I had to have 3 separate showers on Sunday, with an evening rehearsal with Gigolo. Which was OK, we actually started writing some new stuff which I've captured onto minidisc. Good groove, and the beginnings of some structure! We've all decided it's time to get a multicore connected to the studio upstairs from the rehearsal room so we can get recordings done easier. We could even do some semi-pro bits for gig promo stuff. That'd be cool.

Ah, Gigolo... the name... apparently it doesn't go down well with the company men who came to see us in Oxford last wednesday, so we might be looking to rename again... I'm still fond of Neo, which was one of my suggestions and made it to the final round ;)

Tricky thing, naming a band. How do you get across that urban groove/soul/funk feel in a name?

Any suggestions... hey, email me!

In other news, Jake likes my website and thinks I'll do the Gigolo one. I'll make sure it's plastic enough so I can change the name at a moment's notice... heh heh!

Darkened stage...

Darkened stage II,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

Thought I'd post a pic of the stage after we soundchecked. You can just see my Warwick Stack on the right, behind the slats of the strange wall thing. The PA stacks look so mean!


- - - - - Slideshow!!!! - - - - -
Found out Flickr's slideshow feature looks fantastic - fades in and out and everything ;) - you can check out the slideshow of my Gigolo pics...
[ ..:: Here At Flickr! ::.. ]

Music Music Music Music!

We gigged last night. Bridge again...

Fan-tas-tic gig! I've uploaded all the pics I took with the VS3 I had in my pocket to flickr - [ The Flickr Photos are Here! ] - not a bad haul, but I really need to get my hands one some of the pics taken by the club photographer, a thoroughly gallic lookin fella who can crawl around a stage without being noticed taking closeups of hands, faces, drums... pretty pro with the flash going off in the corner of my eye during several songs!

We've got some interest from a French label as well, a bunch of "senior" guys were there last night with Neil, Jake's ex-manager (don't know what their relationship is now; Neil seems like a friendly sort, and apparently they spent a long time working very hard to get Jake noticed in London).

As ever, lots of good feedback from people in the audience - the club was full! My lord, Oxford seems to have some beautiful people in it... also the usual rash of drunken dimwits ;)

My "funks me off" bass solo came off really well for once - I introduced a hamonic rhythmic slap section into the middle, and it worked! I really, really need to congeal that whole solo and practise it until I know it backwards!!!

I loaded 100 - and - something kilos of gear into the car (cabs, amp, basses, stands, mic stands, mics, recording equipment, cables, clothes - I wore the dreadlocks! - a mixer which might have been used, jake's keyboard, which I'd fixed the night before) and forgot my shoulder bag, which contains all my cash cards. The Xantia was almost empty - oops - so I had to cadge 20 quid off Abid here at work (bless him!) so I could get to the gig and back! Fortunately it stretched to Pizza Hut salad plate at £5 as well, so I totally loaded it up with pasta and stuffed myself with good carbs, which definitely kept me going until 2am when we finally finished breaking down the 5Kw PA system (loads of overhead: didn't have to run it flat-out, therefore fidelity sound, good reproduction and less boom! Nice) which Nobby the Great had brought and mixed up for us at 24 hours notice - what a star. Good gear too, mackie 32 channel live desk, the works.

Jame and Richie were kind enough to let me scoot off once I'd loaded the car (we'd already done Nobby's stuff). Getting it unloaded back in Dorney was an exercise in tiptoeing around with 30 kilo cabs and amps! :)

All in all, a deeply rewarding experience, although not financially... yet. We had to pay for the PA last night (well worth it it was too!) - I've got to keep an eye on how much I'm spending on diesel, rehearsal rooms etc, just in case things get tight and I need to work out what to do - just having moved house to a place far away from work (well, compared to Rosemore) I'm unsure how money will get spent from here on in! This is the first month... cross fingers ;)

Man cannot live on smiles alone...

But if he could... I'd be totally full up right now!

Not Strictly Musical...

Not Strictly Musical...,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

Well, the resurrection is in full flow with the Gigolo project, so allow a little leeway, gentle reader.



The kittens we adopted this year finally went in for their ops. once healed, they can finally venture out and bring back dead things instead of toy mice. the new pope could use that as a great counter-doctrine!



Either way, this is Talisker in her darth vader outfi.

Slightly Disturbed Amphibian

Slightly Disturbed Amphibian,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

0K, I admit it. I am really just testing the P910i posting to the blog.



But the picture does express my feelings at the jamster crapheads who pollute every single ad break with the noise I stuck on my handset 18 months ago...



Good rehearsal last night, but I must start checking the levels I'm using into the MD recorder before I start recording! digital distortion is not pretty.

Rehearsals.... more rehearsals....

No, not a "water, water" desert type moment, I'm really enjoying them at the moment. Had a legitimate 2-handed tapping moment on monday, so good I recorded it on the new P910i I've just got - top handset, it's actually restored my faith in SonyEricsson after the joystick on the T630 started acting up after only 8 months.

Ooops, got to go - another rehearsal!

Must start thinking about a Gigolo website. Something stylish. Don't want to put shockwave all over it though, pain in the arse.

Music update!

Well, it's about damn time...

The Band
OK, it's time I referred to the band by their correct name, Gigolo - a name I didn't initially warm to, but which encompasses a lot of the touchy feely funk/soul style I enjoy. I can see myself in a band called Gigolo now, and visualisation is half the battle. Hmmm, bit poncey, that. :)

There's all sorts of really exciting stuff being said, but being "experienced" (see: "not fooled again"!) I'm taking them with a pinch of salt. Jake does have great contacts though, he spent a lot of time in London trying to get signed, big showcase gigs etc: these contacts are apparently very impressed by what we can do.

And after last night's rehearsal, I think they'll be even more impressed - a spontaneous breakdown section was inserted into one of the tracks: I started playing a really simple motif on the top C at the 12th fret of the 6 string Tobias bass, then Dan started playing a really heavy metronomic beat. Now the guitarists both start harmonising with the motif, Javier starts this brilliantly squidgy little synth thing, then....

I dropped my left hand and added the bass in while keeping the top motif going with my right! Two handed tap, in the tune, and both parts were really poking out nicely. That bass is a beauty: good to look at, fantastic to play, and top sound. All this with the Q-tron on for more max squidgyness.

The breakdown sounds so sonically dense, and yet the parts lock really well: you can pick things out and really groove to it.

This is so much fun - I've never been in a band like this. Let's hope it's all going to get even better!

Give Me Road Pricing And Give Me Death...

Of out-of-town shopping centres, anyway. I got ranty with some mates on a mailing list so I thought I'd lazily post it here. It's got... feeling. ;)

It relates to recent stories regarding road pricing proposals here in teh UK and a press release from Friends of the Earth...

- - - - - - - - - -

Well well well. One sentence mentioning alternatives to the car. What a surprise. We've spent the last 20 years becoming more mobile so we can contribute to this wonderful open economy. No more jobs for life, etc, live farther from where you work.... And now...

Big stick, no carrots.

Don't get me wrong, we've got to change the way society thinks and works, but we've come too far. Out of town shopping centres, lack of bus and train (and moving them into private, profit making hands) links and services (thanks Dr Beeching) - all these things came as a consequence of the wonderful physical mobility which (pardon my simplifying) essentially tory doctrine about upward social mobility (have a car and house, be successful) created.

It's interesting that alternatives really aren't getting mentioned, apart form the usual glib crap about the railways never having carried so many people (ask a commuter while he's breathing someone else's armpit) and more investment than ever (stat crap)... Labour would hate to give the impression they want to nationalise a resource like trains which might, if actually taken seriously as in other european nations, get people from A to B and creating wealth like good little ants...

Oh - and 2p a mile sounds great. Now, how the hell do I work out how to get to work on B roads which are carrying all the other traffic which doesn't want to pay £1.35 to get past J11 of the M4?...

And I haven't even talked about the technology involved (part of which is in my technical sphere) - any estimates coming out of government about how much this will cost, when it will work etc should be laughed at with an Uzi.

I've had enough typing reasoned responses to stuff like this. Unless we stand up as a nation and tell these overstuffed lawyer career politician crapheads to go get a real job for a while and come back to earth where the rest of us live, we're doomed to be force-fed half-baked politically-warped ideas like this one. Voting is pointless.

There, I said it again ;)

"The Feeling" - you and a drummer approaching telepathy

The posts are coming out of me thick and fast today. I suppose I should adopt a less wordy style and start sticking buzzwords in like other less verbose bloggers...

bt i cnt b bthrd. :)

Dan the Drummer Dies Divinely Demented
Dan and I have started having those "moments" that drummers and bassists should have (and which I haven't really known for a long time, not having rehearsed extensively with one drummer for a long time now). I'll put a little background in.

This song, "funks me off", is a real funk blast, but it's the tune where we get a solo each with an intro spot from Jake. You know, the music hall number. The guitarists are big fans of rawk and/or roll and they've come up with an impressive harmonised twin guitar offensive for part of their solo spot. Dan (bless him and his slightly injured hand - another thing we have in common, my right, his left) plays much more driving bass drum parts during this stuff, so I decided to stop being quite so Flea and instead kept a tight low E to octave E with his bass drum.

When we finished working through that the first time Dan shot up from his kit, eyes blazing and proclaimed loudly that he was in love (bless) with that section of the track now, and could we play it again?

This we did. Dan's got a really solid right foot, he doesn't wander too much bar to bar and that's the real trick.

However, at one point we stopped as someone called time (they wanted to say something) and Dan ended the drums with a little fill across the whole kit, which I matched beat for beat by accident on the bass. Javier (keys man, and some player) was freaked and said we'd started to achieve some mental symbiosis of some kind :)

This, as any bass player knows, is exactly where you want to get to. And in perfect time for the gig on wednesday. Nice.

Dan gets the stitches out from his left hand today. With any luck this won't impede his progress at all... cross fingers. Me, not him.

Know your amp. Or at least the size of the %!?& thing!

D'oh
I decided the 4U case from Stagg wasn't the best for the job, so I decided on a pukka (excuse Jamie Oliver quote) SKB flightcase from Flightcase Warehouse. Top speed delivery, it arrives today.

But you see, gentle reader, the case is a 2U effects rack. So not only is it not deep enough (I need 455mm) it's also not tall enough (I need 3U).

What was I thinking? D'oh!

Turns out, though, that FCW guys have a great attitude and good returns policy. As soon as I get the invoice I can return a copy of it with the goods for a full refund, and I'll be ordering a replacement 3U full depth case from them ASAP. I the meantime I'll just have to put some extra support into the stagg case somehow... I do have some ideas. :)

The Band
I love being in this band. Everybody is so full of energy, it infuses me with thoughts I haven't had for a long time. Last night, for example, I actually found myself planning a solo in "funks me off", replete with big machine gun triplet outro!

It's just so much FUN!

Blimey! Of speed and where the loud things are...

Holy crap, that woke me up - the blogger new post page loaded ultra fast!

It's all good news, well almost.

The Amp Saga
I've decided to end this long-running battle to have my amp and have it working. To recap, the final story is now:
1) Get amp delivered 5th April
2) Finally purchase cabs for end of April.
3) Discover amp not working, just mains hum from the speakers.
4) Take amp into london bass centre myself (31 Kgs of it) at overall cost of around 40 quid
5) Amp takes 3 weeks to get back to me despite my leaving them my address and receipt details of transaction for guarantee job
6) TNT don't deliver despite Nic being in all day
7) Amp finally gets back to me and TNT have managed to play football with a 31Kg flightcase.

Seriously, the box the amp in the flightcase had fragile tape all over it, and it was fully of holes where crap had pierced the box. Nightmare worst case scenario for 1250 quids worth of amp.

All that was wrong with the amp initially when I took it back in was an internal connector which had fallen off. When I looked inside the Amp after removing its slightly bent (I kid you not) form from the case, 3 connectors and the frickin power tube were all flapping around in the case of the amp. Thankfully the tube wasn't broken.

I put the poor thing back together and it seems to be working fine - big volume test last night at rehearsal, it sounds excellent - but it's been shafted more by trying to get it fixed.

I'd recommend that if you buy anything from the Bass Centre, ask them explicitly not to ship by TNT, and that if they do, you'll send back anything which looks like it's been shat on by a neanderthal asshole in a luton transit.

I've decided not to go any further. The amp is currently working. If it stops, I'll get warwick to fix it, not the bass centre. There are dents and scratches on the body of the amp which give me the impression that it may have had some rough handling before it went back into the flightcase as well, but that's a different story.

I'm mightily pissed off with all of them, the useless bastards!

Still at least it's working, looks great and sounds better.

... and now it's couriers that are the problem. Oh yes.

Yeah, right. Apparently it did get despatched on friday, 24 hour delivery, so it should have arrived yesterday. My guess? The driver was too pissed to drive and left the van at a pub.

Bet it's broken when it arrives as well.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I'm so PISSED OFF with EVERYBODY!

In other news....

Music
We've got quite a VIP for the gig on the 25th. Major vocalist from leading band! No more to be said...

Curse the Bass Centre. Curse them and their nose hairs.

This isn't funny anymore. I rang on Friday from Rosemore during packing of the last dribbles of crap, only to be told they don't have any contact details for me at all (lost the stuff I filled out when I dropped it off) - not even a phone number.

This was actually useful in a perverse twist, as I could get it delivered to the new house. So I quoted them the new address, and was told "despatched friday for delivery on monday". Fat chance... no sign of it yet, now I'll have to ring them AGAIN.

They don't even stock the strings I need anymore: last time they had to get them shipped in from Birmingham!

Time to buy elsewhere, I think. Why is it always this way? You find somewhere you can get what you need, then they either get conglomerated or just bought out, and BANG... there goes the stock range down to the lowest crappy denominator (korean built bass fest for 14 year old kids with daddy deep pockets and only 4 and 5 string sets of strings)... same happened with Sound Control when I used to shop there.

Pah.

Moving completed... BUT...

Well, I'll include the odd non musical posting as well.
The New House
It's wonderful, the pictures do it justice. The internals are in a better state than Rosemore's, and very shortly we'll have a new boiler as the current one has been trashed by bits of chimney falling into it - they forgot to line the chimney (oops!) - we found this out the hard way when we tried to fire up the boiler on tues only to be rewarded with a thin wisp of black smoke on top of the house and an overpowering fuel oil fume smell inside it :) Luckily a little air cleared the smell.

Turns out this is a silver lining - new boiler = more efficient, plus it'll have separate timers for heating and water, which suits me.

The old house is quite forlorn: I didn't think I'd have any moments where I regretted moving out of it, but to be honest I don't think I realised how much I like the place. Got a little something in my eyes looking at the rabbits frolicking on the back lawn. Then I went back to moving furniture we're ditching about :)

Nellie the Virago is taking the luxury path to the new place courtesy of specialist bike movers, who sound like they really do actually care about the bike!

The new house is, of course, totally full of boxes, but Nic is doing a spectacular job of working through them. She managed to get the 2-man-lift TV out of the box and onto the TV unit thing herself, which means I'm now a little scared of her.

Music
Had to miss weds practise, which I was really looking forward to, but to be honest my stuff was all over the place (the move guys were enthusiastic to say the least!) and I was exhausted after 12 hours of packing and moving stuff. I drank about a litre or so of red bull type linctus-sweet drink, so i figure I probably had about 400 MGs of caffeine.

The studio does not exist yet, but will soon. The new Warwick Pro Tube IX amp, BTW, still isn't in my hands but should be delivered (to the new address) on monday. Luckily they didn't have my address (or phone number, I might add - lost that bit of paper very well. I think the Bass Centre may be losing it a bit, esp since they became part of House of Guitars. Seems like they're not really on the ball any more) - so I could ask them to actually deliver it to the new address.

This sunday's rehearsal will be top fun, and the first run up the M40, so I'll be measuring miles and time. We've got to learn loads of new tracks in time for the first gig on the 25th, three half hour sets need to be filled.

Enough!

Bloc Party Addiction

Wow, I'm getting completely addicted to Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. Heard of them last year when in Amsterdam with a bunch of miscreants I knew at Uni. Great week (orange day at the weekend, stupendous fun, I'd recommend it to anyone, the whole centre of the city becomes like one big festival site).

MTV was on most days and nights, and Bloc party's "Banquet" seemed to be on all the time, it hooked me immediately, all spiky and catchy.

Now I can't stop listening to Helicopter!

The Band
Things are getting even more interesting. Jake seems to have red bull for blood, he's on the scent of something big, I reckon. Dan tells me he and Jake have been sorting loads of stuff, and we've got our residency gig sorted, it seems: starting on the 25th, I gig each week, a greater gig frequency than I've ever had before.

This will be where hard work actually starts!

Also, I hear stuff from the guys that the gig on the 25th will be pretty special, with lots of "interesting people" coming along... I'm trying to concentrate on my part to play in all this, rather than getting carried away.

Still, it's great to have something which has some speed building up behind it, rather than the years since I left uni, which have been filled with small short-term alliances (although the ones in london were fun, I can say I've gigged in london - and the wedding reformation of Citrus Waltz was top fun)...

I'm a little scared. Bear with me. This is actually a good thing, maybe this'll push my technique to new places. I've always wanted to be as fluid as Zender... maybe this'll do it.

Currently I'm listening to Belle and Sebastian... odd stuff.

Clouds and sunshine...

Hmmm, a bit of a hackneyed title, but I'm no lyrics man.

Stuff has happened. Not all good stuff, but life is supposed to challenge you a bit and I've spent too much of mine so far trying not to get into situations where I have to make decisions: I'm pretty sure at some level I'm always petrified of making the wrong one.

El Stacko
Well, I got some speakon cables last saturday (ta maplin) - pity they didn't have any 2.5mm diameter conductor ones so I'll have to see how these 1.5mm ones work out in the short term - they're all I could get. I also took the time to buy some "proper" XLR to XLR balanced mic cables.

I spent a portion of the weekend meeting up with some old friends down on the Reading meadows, where they were chasing around after coloured plastic discs which sail when thrown. I thought only retrievers did that, but there you go, there is a game called frisbee.

On arriving home, yours truly eagerly hooked up all items, and turned on the amp (mute on, of course, although I'm sure the amp has speaker protection). Preamp lights are on, we're go across the board. Plug in the 6 string (no pod yet), hit the mute to turn it off and....

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzhummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Bollocks.

I fiddled with cables (checking their polarity and wiring against the helpfully located labels on the amp and cabs) for about half an hour, but nothing could elicit any noises from the stack. The poweramp section is buggered. Arse.

So, I rang the bass centre in london (or now, the "house of guitars" as they are known) and yes, they are open on sundays, but the amp guy doesn't get in until tuesday (bank holiday monday y'see) so I could drop it off.

Wanting to get things moving as quickly as possible, I got up early on sunday, and tried to get into london (ealing broadway by car, then overland to paddington and circle to liverpool st, then a shortish walk to their place). Took me 3 bloody hours, lugging 26 kilos of busted amp. Thankfully the luggage shop ("left luggage") in Paddington has baggage trolleys which will take 30 kilos, so after I hit paddington things became a tad more comfortable.

So far all I know is the amp guy is looking at it. Grr. I'll ring him in a minute and see what I can find out...

The Band
Things seem to be moving apace: our residency at Bridge in oxford looks to be in the bag - 25th of May is our first gig. Last night, however, we played something of a mini-showcase style gig for some assembled contacts of Jake's. It's gone awfully well... but I can't reveal any more than that right now. We really did play blindingly well though, Dan's drumming is becoming something of a revelation!

Phew! Enough for now.

It's all together. Zipe.

More Musical Matters.

OK, now I need to fill in the important stuff.

Wrist recovery
This is continuing to go really well. My slap came back much quicker than I'd hoped: it seems to be pretty much back up to scratch apart from the fastest of the triplet stuff, which is fair enough considering that I still can't use my right hand to lift really heavy stuff at the moment. Fingerstyle is going just fine. The only thing I need to do is make sure my nail beds don't get quite so hammered with my slap style: I fear I need to work on that or I'll end up peeling them back horribly. My index finger is showing the strain today, and I've got another rehearsal tonight!

Recording session!
Had another session with Joost for his college project, doing Stevie Wonder's "MasterBlaster". Good fun, but I really wish I'd had more time to work on it (I squeezed it into a couple of evenings work, which meant I got the feel, and the couple of unison riff areas in the tune down OK). First take! And I was sat in the control room playing along with a MIDI interpretation of the tune Joost did as a placemarker to record against. Totally hysterical vocal lines, and this massive lo-fi choir patch in the second chorus which meant I lost my place in the run-through before the recording!

Still not sure if I got the second unison bit right, though. Oops, just checked. Joost's MIDI was right, I forgot the high section! Blast. Wonder if he wants to re-record it? Thing is, with moving and the oxford funky pop act, I really don't have time to do much of anything at the moment, including "proper" practise. The rehearsals are pretty much all I'm doing at the moment (which is very very bad of me).

Audiences at rehearsals!
I mentioned this in passing before. Jake does seem to know a lot of guys who can do the sorts of things we need to be able to do. His previous agent (he was based in london a while ago from what I gather) used to scout for EMI, and he's going to pay us a visit during rehearsals. The audience we've been getting recently are involved in the club "Bridge" in oxford where Jake is trying to get a residency for the band. I think our guitar players didn't realise how good we'd get after a few rehearsals. The original material is sounding really great, the interpretations the whole band are making of the recorded versions (from Jake's studio) are original and fresh. Sounds like our erstwhile 6 stringers have a fairly successful paying rock act which gets a fair few gigs: I've told Jake I don't have any other acts and I'm concentrating on making this a goer. It's cool, he's actually demanding a level of loyalty which I'm starting to enjoy.

New Gear - the Stack from Hell
Well, I don't have the cabs yet, but at least I've paid for them :) Didn't hear anything from Mad Monks for a couple of days so I rang them - turned out they'd emailed me at home (my ebay account is registered to a home email account) rather than the email address here at Pana where I wanted them to mail me. After treating me like a lost friend, they quickly ironed out payment, and I managed to get 60 quids worth of polycarbonate 4U rack mount (Stagg, I think it is) for the Warwick Pro-Tube IX head to sit in. Which means even my feeble wrist will be able to lift it easily (and comfortably).

Bit of advice: if you buy an amp head which says it's rack-mountable, but it has rubber feet on, don't skimp and leave a rack out of the order: get one to fit, the amp head will be incredibly awkward to lift and carry!

Now all I need are a couple of speakon cables to hook the whole shebang up. And some floor reinforcement. :)

Must stop buying things!

Location, location, location...

Lots more rehearsals later, we're getting the occasional audience out at jake's place. I thought I'd post some interesting details, and some not so interesting ones, in the spirit of keeping things up to date :)

Movin' movin' movin'

It's going to get more interesting in the very near future, Nic and I are moving house: out from under Newbury, and up the M4 to just north of windsor to Dorney (Multimap), a tiny village just over a hill from the M4 (feels really rural for its' location).

With the rehearsals being in the studio in Crawley near oxford (Multimap) this is going to make life a little tough - I suspect the M40 is going to get used in preference - but if I continue working at Panasonic for a while (Multimap) trying to stop myself from going insane, then the drive up there of an evening ain't so bad.

The house is so worth it though. Check this baby out!



A stunning house. It even has a grapevine and a sky dish!