TOTALLY knackered. Really. :)

That 3 night in a row thing last week left me dazed and confused on Sunday morning, I'll tell ya. All 3 nights were pretty full on, with the third one seeing Jamie pretty much having to sit down at the end. The O'neills gig on Friday night wasn't without incident either - on his second foray into the crowd (I now have to fix the wireless Nady sender for him again!) he got into it a bit in a crowded moshpit zone at the front and had a clash of heads with a female member of the audience. Both were not really hurt, but Jamie was pretty dazed and rested his head against the stack on his side of the stage for a minute or so while he recovered while Steve and I continued!

Drink being what it is, Jamie got some lip later on suggesting he had headbutted the girl (which he definitely didn't!) - Jamie took that kinda personally, which I don't blame him for at all. But students will be students, after a few beers - these were americans too, really up for having a good time. I suspect they must have thought Breeze were more like the Pistols by the end, how wrong can you be? The Breeze work ethic is terrifying to behold... :)

I'm itching to get into my studio and tinker... need a myspace site with some homegrown audio on it!!!

Cheersh

A

Gig gig gig (literally)

3 gigs in a row: one last night in Izi's in Witney (mental night, people falling backwards onto the stage from the "mosh pit"), one tonight in O'Neills and then another one Saturday night at a birthday do somewhere...

and it's a 3-piece... with me singing a bit (gulp!)

Richie is on hols (hopefully having fun!) so it's just me, Jamie and Steve. As it shall hopefully be in Andorra come january... I think it's going to work out pretty well. I'm not used to singing and playing, takes a bit for me to back off and play simply so I can concentrate on singing a bit: a very different style of performing for me. I'm not singing all of particular songs yet, but there's definitely one or two I can do. Just have to guage what my voice is capable of and remember my diaphragm. Stop tittering at the back.

A

Circular Arguments

Not another "should I have a kid" thing? Nah. Had enough of that question. I was listening to the radio this morning and not only did R4 (I'll admit I do listen in the mornings on the way to work, although I'm pretty sure it's bad for my BP) have some twittery stuff about a blogger in Paris, but the local radio berkshite channel has their "blog" in the mornings where locals witter on about the weather and lack of resources.

Which made me wonder if my nonsensical scattergun crap was worth writing (let alone reading!) - just another whiney middle class white boy (if 35 qualifies) railing against stuff he can't do anything about...

Maybe I should just stick to stuff about music.

Getting older...
Hmmm. I've been watching my hands with interest during the last few weeks since I got back from holiday. 2 weeks out, and I thought I'd have a tough time of it when I got back: this is partly true. The breeze gigs have been hard work, but what's odder is the stiffness in my right hand (I'm paranoid about that one - that's the wrist I broke in Canada) which seems to start up if I don't practise really really hard in the evenings for at least 45 minutes. If I do that, I'm strong as an ox: all that billy sheehan/stu hamm/pastorius/flea stuff comes flying out as easily as ever.

I really should be making my own music by now. Some silence in the evenings would help I suspect! No excuses now either, I've dumped every sample and loop CD I have onto the studio PC so I can scan and drag as quickly as I like to try to mash something interesting together. Even found sounds for Halion I haven't installed! Tut tut.

BT and virgin net
Dweeb stuff. Haven't had any ADSL now for getting on for 7 weeks: virgin's policy is to listen politely to you complain to their 25p a minute tech support line, ask BT to do a basic line check even though you've TOLD them repeatedly that ADSL has been disabled on your line (can't hear anything on there with the ADSL filter out - should hear a lot of high pitched noise) and only after the third BT response that "nothing is wrong" do they raise an engineer call. Or rather they don't.

Then the BT line went out completely (no voice either) so now I'm totally stuffed. Called BT on the mobile, got calls diverted, helpful fella name of Andy made all the right noises and told me he'd get an engineer out on monday (this was last saturday). Great, thinks I, what a helpful chap. Text message alerts tell me it's actually going to be a week on monday (OK, I'll let that one go, thinks I), then I get another text on sunday morning saying an engineer will call that day, and nothing happens: no engineer. Called them back last night, and apparently there isn't even a voice fault registered on my line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This bore out what their online fault tracker service said (http://www.bt.com/faults) which pissed me off even further.

Virgin net AND BT, you're both a bunch of useless organisations. (note: keeping it printable)

Now I've found out some underground cables have been identified as substandard, so they're being replaced.

Hopefully this'll mean we'll get 2MB ADSL for the first time....?

I'm not holding my breath.

Gigs gigs n more gigs...

It's all Breezy at the moment. Jamie just told me about another good gig in Witney mid-sept, which I'm happy to do. Should be a blast, a birthday party!

I've been working hard on the Warwick 4-string with heavy strings, in particular playing "parallel universe" by the Chilipeppers using the 3-finger right hand technique I use for fast passages. It must have worked, I picked up the 6-string yesterday and found it so easy to play it was a great laugh! This will now be added to my practise schedule. I'm also considering the benefits of quitting Coffee: I'm sure I read somewhere it's bad for your joints in the long term.

On that note, I've noticed a slight stiffness in my ring finger last joint - at the tip - which vanishes when I practise: perhaps this is my body's version of cold turkey. Practise or seize up! I suppose I should keep an eye out for wear and tear, after all I've been playing for about 18 years now (half my life!) and I haven't slowed down a bit (apart from not playing Iron Maiden all the time with 2-finger triplets - I was very proud of that, try playing "somewhere in time" all the way through playing all those triplets with 2 fingers! I discovered later that Steve Harris - for it is he - uses 3!) - so I should keep an eye on my joints. I'm on chondritin and glucosamine as joint-protectors so hopefully I can look forward to another 30 years of this insanity!

the kid question
The incorrigible Joseph Reeves - who is most likely the only person to read my ramblings here - posted an interesting comment to my little metaphysical notes about having children which has set me thinking once more about the whole topic. I considered this morning that the fact I haven't made a big positive decision about it (i.e. "yes, I'll do it") might indicate that I still have the same attitude as I always have, that it's just not compatible with modern south-east england existence, cost of living, loss of capitalistic comforts etc, but I then second-guessed that and remembered that I'm actually a rather risk-averse person. I tend to believe that I can't do something, so I don't start it (or it seems that way from previous experience of stuff I've done).

Joe also expressed things in a rather eloquent fashion from one musician to another - "The difference between someone else's kid and a kid you're really close to is like the difference between the loud shite music of the inconsiderate bastard next to you on the bus and performing in a band."

I hadn't thought about it that way. But it does rest on the premise that you want to bond with the kid in the first place - surely you only put up with stuff because you want to?

This is a most interesting internal debate, which is doing a great job of filling the 38 minutes to and from work (when the M4 isn't shite, that is)

Last thursday's Breeze gig... I feel like a proper...

Musician!
It's not that I don't normally, but usually I'm content to keep quiet at the back and get endlessly self-critical about the way I'm playing things. Something about last thirsday was totally different though - Steve (drummer) and I were on something in the air, I think, totally wired - reading each other really well (jay noticed). And I took - gasp - a solo which - double gasp - I enjoyed!

Seriously, you've never heard such a mangled midsection in Long Train Running - I went totally batshit. Really enjoyed it, dug in hard on the Warwick. I actually took a bow at the end of the track and meant it!

Got big kudos off the crowd who wanted to yak about it as well - big shout to the bass player guy who also has a warwick, see you this thursday mate, same place, same time - 10pm at O'Neills in Oxford!

It's grand being a musician, it really is....

Embarrasment of riches...

Well, I'm much in demand it seems :) Got a first meeting of Project X (as I will call it for now until it becomes something concrete!) tomorrow evening - I'll take along my gear but I suspect it'll be something of a jam session to get to know people, which'll be fun, I haven't stretched my legs in a band scenario in a while (it's been a good few weeks since the last Breeze gig!).

Speaking of Breeze, was hoping to get together before thursday but the evenings this week after monday all got used up before we had a chance to get a room (so to speak)... still, I've done a lot of work on "tell me baby" (some of it in the car - harmonies on those choruses, very nice), Chili's latest, and I'm now pretty confident I can cover that track well enough! So thursday's gig may contain it... ? We'll see. One of the guys from Panasonic says he might drop by and check us out. The guys have that new PA as well, I'll be asking how much gear I need to bring: maybe stack jr will do... speaking of which, looks like I'll be changing the setup again soonish. If we move to a smaller place, I've got too much amp gear. Way too much! I need some lightweight cabs with lots of projection and power handling, which are smaller than the full size 4x10 and 1x15 Warwicks I have now. Could cost a bit, I'm wondering about Eden or bag end or whatever boutique crap contains those rare-earth magnets that give you big power handling. Watch this space.

Oh, and Jay from Breeze (bless 'im) threw me some dep work which I might take on - it depends on time, really, how much I think I have - all this work is in the oxford area and I live near windsor, for 'eavens sake! But a Madness tribute act with lots of work? Could be fun ;)

Either way, the late summer of '06 looks like it's not going to be boring, and you can't say fairer than that.

And Andorra, while not thrashed out in detail yet, is still on... oh yeah

Cheers m'deers

Rebirth of a rebirth??? :)

Something this way comes...
An interesting week, this one! Breeze is getting well underway in Oxford, O'neills gigs a gogo until the end of the year - and the guys have got themselves a new 3K (yipe!) PA! Total stars they are. I've also got another interesting proposal on my desk (so to speak) which might come to something interesting... won't say more now, don't want to jinx it.

I've been digging into Chilipeppers stuff HARD on the Warwick 4 string - fingers tingling at the tips every night, I'm determined to be up and ready for the first Breeze gig in 1 weeks time. Jay is cool with getting together to work on a couple of new ones including "tell me baby" - the current Chilis single - which will go down a storm! The bass is classic slap flea, really simple and grooving. I think I should be able to hold down a vocal harmony on the chorus if I'm lucky. Hopefully the PA will improve my gravelly snore-ravaged tones... :)

I hadn't realised how out-of-shape my hands were until I really started to dig in. Not fatigued per se, they just wouldn't do what I asked when told to work hard! Quick enough.... just no power. So it's bass weight training time!

And it's fun too. Just realised I should take all the CDs for the books I've got and get them onto the iPod. Why didn't I do that sooner? Could then do that slap course with so much less hassle! The portable Sony CD player I've been using has a MASSIVELY loud "beep" when you press keys - why?

Wierd. Japanese, eh? Who can fathom it.

An experiment.....

Not tried to embed something in the blog - let's see if this works....



priceless - it gets better the longer you watch.

I've been out of the UK to Crete taking a well-deserved break (god knows how my bank balance looks) - but the Breeze gigs will be soon - the guys have a new PA! Big big big and shiny shiny shiny. Nice!

Right - did that embed work?

To kid or not to kid....

Not some dude-style reference to comedy pastimes. Should I have kids?

If you know me, you'll know committing that question to any form of readable stuff is quite a step forwards. I've been debating the issue again with myself on and off for the last few weeks, running around like the proverbial rat in a maze down the usual blind alleys labelled "self-loathing", "mortality", "loss of self", "economics" etc etc.

And I still have the feeling I don't have enough information to make the decision. I'm a terrible decision maker anyway, and barring infanticide (which is a little messy once the authorities know you've got one) there's no real way to reverse your decision once it's been made.

I've always been dead set against having kids, mainly due to the usual middle-class vices of having free time to think and hobbies. If you think about stuff enough you never do it: fear is the mind-killer.

But, predictably as the sun rising and setting, I've come to wonder what the hell I'm doing anything for: if all it's for is getting a couple of strands of molecules to make it into another protoplasmic carrier for 4 score and 10, it all seems pretty bloody pointless.

I wish there was someone I thought could tell me something about this which would help... there isn't, is there?

So I'll do the trad british thing and muddle through, I guess. I bet most kids are accidental...

If anyone's listening out there in information blizzardsville, let me know if you made the decision and did it, and why.

Peace.

Peace is spending some quality time with your family, after having to persuade yourself out of the hectic mind-set that life in the south east gives you.

Leicestershire is stunning in the sun.

A

Breezy n bright

I should start writing crosswords... the post title could correspond to the gigs at o'neills, or the weather, which is much more like the June we know and love. Pre-summer, as I used to call it: not as still as July/Aug/Sept (and, in the SE here, October) but one hell of a lot warmer than April.

I just got the new Chilis album. 28 tracks of gold dust, I love the simplicity of the tracks, the way the arrangements leave me to fill in spaces, the lack of huge instrumentation: it's so good to see a band with the confidence to trust their songs and not fall into overkill. The lushest RHCP album has to be "One Hot Minute", mainly down to the influence of Dave Navarro, who filled in the guitar for that album. It's a great album, but shows that the 4 piece we have now has a solidarity about them which produces some of the best music I've heard in a long time. There's contrast here - it's not all introspection - there's trademark funk, and you can hear more of John F's influence coming in. In particular, the harmony vocals are startlingly good on this album, doing a great job of filling out spaces where lesser bands would have dug into a synth pad or something.

Everything is mixed so wonderfully dry, it reminds me of beaches somehow.

Now, more metaphysically - I recalled recently a line from "The Princess Bride" (indulge me) - "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." - is our pace, our consumerism, all of it, destined only to crush us....?

Resilience.

How resilient are you? Do you have a depth you need to sink to before you rise up again? I saw a woman this morning on (gasp splutter) GMTV who was "an alcoholic". Well, she was actually bright, well spoken and had exactly the right opinion of why she drank, and it wasn't like she was in the gutter:

bluntly, she was alone, and scared. Said she's always been scared, and booze dulled fear of stuff so she could cope.

Doctor Hilary (sic) then piped up with medical addicition mumbo-jumbo, totally missing the point. How many alcoholics out there are drinking to dull fear, pain, anxiety, job worries, marraige worries, lack of self esteem?

Modern life+booze equals the UK boozer phenomenon.

But try hearing that on TV. Nobody ever puts the who puzzle together, least of all our MPs.

How many bars are there in the westminster asylum for the terminally egotistical anyway?

Hmmmm.

Another Breeze gig, wot a scortcha (apols to the sun)

That's the newspaper AND the actual item.

Good gig last thursday, but I'm well under par at the moment. Far too many unforced errors and stumbled pickings-I'm exhausted, not getting any sleep, but with any luck things will change after the 16th when I see the sleep docs at Churchills Hosp in Oxford. I'll get a neat machine to strap to my face and fall asleep having air pumped into my nose. Hopefully then I can get some sleep.

I never thought I'd have what is essentially a genetic defect: this OSA is partly due to the shape of my throat and mouth. Feels a bit odd to wander through life for 30 odd years with no real problems and then face up to being built wrong. Sort of like facing mortality, in a way.

Should I be grasping for wanting kids at this point?

I do know there are people who start families because they've run out of things to do. That sounds like the worst reason to have kids to me! Are most families the result of burnout, early onset middle age crises, burst condoms and tequila binges? That's a sad society if so...

I need to write some lyrics. It's all in there waiting to get out. Catharsis is good for you.

Another great Breeze gig! Who is Robbie Williams drummer anyway....?

Yep, another great night last night. Was "supposed to be" tonight but Jay got confused :) at one point after the first set someone approached Jamie for his number (a guy, I might add - arf arf!) saying he was Robbie W's drummer and he was "always looking for good support acts" - yeah right!

Good crowd last night, they always sing along really loudly to the crowd pleasers that Jay stokes 'em up with ;)

I'm thinking of getting some flightcases with half decent wheels on for the stack, to protect the bits in (smelly) transit (so to speak). Jamie says he'd really like to case up the Marshall head... I suspect Rich would like his amp cased too, I've got it at home to look at like I did Jay's the other week, the knobs are all well shagged and the preamp doesn't work too well - he generally plugs a guitar POD into the poweramp input on the back (which sounds good!)...

Trouble is, if I flightcase the Warwick cabs, they won't fit in the car any more. D'oh!

Hmm. Thinks.

Diversifying a little... indulge me.

Ok, I've been gigging with Breeze a lot, which is fun. I'd like to be gigging more with tempa tempa, but it's not happening. That ship seems to have sailed.

Add to this a flaccid day job and you have one thoughtful Andy once again asking "what the hell am I doing all this for?".

I know, it's too easy to give in to despondency, but seriously, I don't have any faith in anything being worthwhile right now: I'm totally down on people, who seem to me fundamentally selfish creatures (nearly getting wiped out on the M4 the other week didn't help), and our whole system of society, from huge bonus payouts to fat idle gits who fail to run businesses properly right down to Jane "einstein" Goody, the thinking man's thought-arsenic. Sold lies about consumerism, pensions, products, owning your own home, starting a family, being in a band with a crack at it, etc etc etc is all starting to finally tell on me. I've had it.

But there's no other way, it seems. I watch it all happening around me with a sort of dreamy, drugged-up anger which doesn't feel hot any more, just despondent.

Perhaps it's time to start thinking about something different. Oh yes, back to my day job, which got shipped to china. I used to test phones, you know: now, I write macros for a living. Very intellectual, very deep, very quality oriented.

Ho very much hum.

Normal service will be resumed shortly... I hope.

Breeze and Sweat

Wow, just remembered I should put something in about last weeks breeze gig at O'Neills in Oxford: best yet. I felt much more in control (although I think in future I'll take a 4 string!) and we had the pub totally rammed with wildly dancing singing punters. Jamie's showman qualities are outstanding: he really knows how to wind up an audience, and dispenses with hecklers without alienating anyone.. apart from the heckler heh heh

More playing-on-the-bar antics, and this time I got the bassline for the killers track much truer, actually listened to it the other week and realised they have a very inventive bassist: I'll be checking out the other tracks on the album with a more critical ear!

Practise is all about theory and slap at the moment. It's coming on quite well. Also tentatively volunteered to help something musical at the local youth club if I have time!

Cheers chums

Reeeeee-cording'

Wish me luck, today I'll try to get something that isn't too awful onto some tracks of Jake's at the WitneySoundCentre.

Got some cider, had a chicken wrap, sitting in the stunning early May sun. This is the life. Worth the 1 hr drive!

Mill streams a gurglin' and I'd let myself into the studio if:

1) I had keys
2) I wanted to get out of this lovely sun.

A quiet moment in an otherwise tortured existence.

Question of the day: do you find the widespread use of the made up infantile word "radicalised" (and the many crap forms therefrom) as annoying as I do?

I swear modern journalists are getting so lazy it's a real turn off.

I'm 35 you know.

the calm before the breeze

the calm before the breeze,
originally uploaded by Spammy Spamton.

Arf arf! Breeze, bricklayers arms, marston lots of fun. Restrung the 6 string, sounds zingy on Warwick EMP 25s!



Wish me luck... I'll be reading the songs as we go along!

New songs! Tempa fun...

Jake's going to get me to lay down some bass tomorrow, and sent me a couple of new tracks to listen to yesterday: on one of them, Jamie T was singing(!)-he's got a great voice, sounds like Kincaid from Brand new heavies!

Great track too, total BNH funk style. I'm working on lines for that.

The other one (bounce, current working title) sounds trickier to lock down: possibly Jake may want to keep that one all electronic? We'll see wht I can conjour, eh?

Man, Reading has a lot of ugly naked bellied people in it.

Arf!

That new years resolution of 2005...

This blog started when I decided to get involved in something which was going somewhere musically and which pushed my bass playing, really energising me to new heights and confirming to myself that I've got something creative to give to a project. Janeiro really made me feel that way. It even made me feel a sense of belonging to a band which you want to feel, less of a spare part or a session player and part of something vibrant, alive, building, growing... luminous. That feeling saw me through a lot of the worthless vibe in my heart which was planted and nurtured by Panasonic's feeble appreciation of my efforts.

But.

As ever, this is only a personal view. It's how I feel. Since we lost Javier and Dan, we've gained 2 very capable, affable, talented musicians, but they're both in london. this wouldn't be a problem if they 9-5'd it like yours truly (that feeling I was talkng about got me driving a LONG way in the evenings!) byt they're both pro musicians, so they're pretty much always busy. As a result, there hasn't been a rehearsal in a couple of months, and the gigs in Izi's, while fun, have seen more covers drifting into our set.

This isn't how I saw my resolution panning out. Few gigs, no rehearsals, and once again my dweeb knowledge sees me being web liason, which might as well be a full time job! It really needs a lot of work which I don't have time to do the way I'd like...

I find myself cursing work more and more these days, it's really getting in the way.

Tempa tempa needs to get loads more gigs and more togetherness pronto! I'm also worried that Jake and George now have their own Myspace artist profiles, george has a great song on there!

Hmmm. Stuff to contemplate. I should really get some of my material on Myspace.

Cheers punters

Andy the increasingly worried.