January Just Swept By...
What the hell happened to January? It seems to have flown by!
We started out with Ben's birthday - his main present was a 3/4 size Stratocaster and an amplifier, and I've told him that if he can play three chords I'll let him plug it into my Line6 Spyder amp for a bit of a thrash. His party was at Soccer City in Leeds, involving a couple of games of football and some soft play. The date clashed with the only footie game not cancelled by snow and (being by Elland Road) the place was chock full of Leeds fans! I found myself thanking goodness that Ben hadn't insisted on wearing his Sheffield Wednesday top as we cut a phalanx through the hundreds of fans at the venue.
Then it was Nicky's birthday the other week (I bought her a pushbike); we had a house-ful of friends and the night involved much dancing, Singstar, and general fun. I did manage to do something bad to my chest: it started off feeling like a cracked rib but I think I've probably just pulled a muscle, leaving me low on sleep and scrabbling for the coproxamol a couple of times a day. Going slow has been the order of the past week amidst the 'reminders' from my mother to take it easy.
More recently, last weekend was lovely. It started on Friday with drinks in Leeds to see our friend Colin off before he emigrates to Canada at the end of this week! More than a few pints of Peroni in Leeds' Sandinista bar, meeting up with friends we've not seen in a while.
Saturday brought a reunion of staff who worked at Painthorpe Country Club in the 90s. The club itself was razed to the ground for new a housing estate (the company went bust, building work stalled and consequently the area is now full of derelict partially-constructed housing). However, about 7 of us showed up at The Hop travelling from the sunny climes of Bristol, Chesterfield, Leeds and Wrenthorpe to chew the fat over the years since the club was around. It was really quite lovely to see coworkers I had a lot of respect for, and find out what they'd done with their lives - needless to say we all ended up the worse for wear and I fell into bed at around 2:30am. Consequently most of Sunday morning and afternoon was written off to a hangover.
The band is getting its groove on - just in case you've managed to avoid my incessant marketing and PR I'll mention (again) that we've got a gig coming up at Escobar on 6th February. This is a Saturday night one where we're supporting two other bands who are much more 'our' sort of thing - it'll be fabulous and I can't stress how much I'm looking forward to it. We'll go through most of the card including Westgate Run, Disco Sauce and probably Keith Chegwin For A Day in a chock-full venue. Eeeeeeeeeeeeee I'm so bloody excited!
I recently acquired some new kit at home to augment the sound - among them Korg Electribe ER-1 and EA-1 units, and a Korg Prophecy (one of the few synths I regretted selling years ago). Those are starting to make their way into the recordings as well as inspiring Simon and I to do a little electro side-project without any songs per-se but more along an 'evolutionary soundscape' type thing.
That said, I spent last night in the studio remixing Disco Sauce for the Saturday gig and started working on a new song which has a working title of Bond. We have two band rehearsals this week which will be tiring, but ultimately incredibly satisfying I'm sure!
My PSO work in London is starting to take more of a front seat again - all this e-learning stuff and statistical analysis. It's quite good fun but very hard work (and led to me doing some multi-agency observation towards the end of last year), and although technically it doesn't involve as much learning experience as my work in Saltaire it's fascinating to see how it all works. Everyone seems happy with progress and with the mornings getting lighter again I'm feeling quite optimistic (it's all been a bit too much like this recently).
So, February, you ain't allowed to go as fast...!
We started out with Ben's birthday - his main present was a 3/4 size Stratocaster and an amplifier, and I've told him that if he can play three chords I'll let him plug it into my Line6 Spyder amp for a bit of a thrash. His party was at Soccer City in Leeds, involving a couple of games of football and some soft play. The date clashed with the only footie game not cancelled by snow and (being by Elland Road) the place was chock full of Leeds fans! I found myself thanking goodness that Ben hadn't insisted on wearing his Sheffield Wednesday top as we cut a phalanx through the hundreds of fans at the venue.
Then it was Nicky's birthday the other week (I bought her a pushbike); we had a house-ful of friends and the night involved much dancing, Singstar, and general fun. I did manage to do something bad to my chest: it started off feeling like a cracked rib but I think I've probably just pulled a muscle, leaving me low on sleep and scrabbling for the coproxamol a couple of times a day. Going slow has been the order of the past week amidst the 'reminders' from my mother to take it easy.
More recently, last weekend was lovely. It started on Friday with drinks in Leeds to see our friend Colin off before he emigrates to Canada at the end of this week! More than a few pints of Peroni in Leeds' Sandinista bar, meeting up with friends we've not seen in a while.
Saturday brought a reunion of staff who worked at Painthorpe Country Club in the 90s. The club itself was razed to the ground for new a housing estate (the company went bust, building work stalled and consequently the area is now full of derelict partially-constructed housing). However, about 7 of us showed up at The Hop travelling from the sunny climes of Bristol, Chesterfield, Leeds and Wrenthorpe to chew the fat over the years since the club was around. It was really quite lovely to see coworkers I had a lot of respect for, and find out what they'd done with their lives - needless to say we all ended up the worse for wear and I fell into bed at around 2:30am. Consequently most of Sunday morning and afternoon was written off to a hangover.
The band is getting its groove on - just in case you've managed to avoid my incessant marketing and PR I'll mention (again) that we've got a gig coming up at Escobar on 6th February. This is a Saturday night one where we're supporting two other bands who are much more 'our' sort of thing - it'll be fabulous and I can't stress how much I'm looking forward to it. We'll go through most of the card including Westgate Run, Disco Sauce and probably Keith Chegwin For A Day in a chock-full venue. Eeeeeeeeeeeeee I'm so bloody excited!
I recently acquired some new kit at home to augment the sound - among them Korg Electribe ER-1 and EA-1 units, and a Korg Prophecy (one of the few synths I regretted selling years ago). Those are starting to make their way into the recordings as well as inspiring Simon and I to do a little electro side-project without any songs per-se but more along an 'evolutionary soundscape' type thing.
That said, I spent last night in the studio remixing Disco Sauce for the Saturday gig and started working on a new song which has a working title of Bond. We have two band rehearsals this week which will be tiring, but ultimately incredibly satisfying I'm sure!
My PSO work in London is starting to take more of a front seat again - all this e-learning stuff and statistical analysis. It's quite good fun but very hard work (and led to me doing some multi-agency observation towards the end of last year), and although technically it doesn't involve as much learning experience as my work in Saltaire it's fascinating to see how it all works. Everyone seems happy with progress and with the mornings getting lighter again I'm feeling quite optimistic (it's all been a bit too much like this recently).
So, February, you ain't allowed to go as fast...!
