It’s been quite a funky bank holiday weekend all told: I ended last week at another Sticky Shoes gig at The Hop, an all-dayer with lots of students in attendance who hadn’t got tickets for Leeds Fest. I bimbled along with the camera and took a few pics. Bit odd really, lots of folks sat on the floor (there’s no seats at The Hop’s upstairs venue), the last time I did that was in 1996! The bands were mostly local Philophobia-signed acts and included the Piskie Sits who Radio 1 have been taking an interest in recently.

Saturday brought a bit of relaxation and preparation for Sunday lunch. Our greengrocer on Wakefield Market (“Venables’ Vegetables”) has been doing deals with local allotment holders and consequently most of the fare is sourced within a 5 mile radius of Wakefield itself: beans, carrots and broccoli were all local plus we had spuds from my mother’s garden at Netherton. Yum. New Yorkshire Pudding tins and a few other bits and bobs made for a good shopping experience.

During the evening Nicky was out with Clare, so I reorganised and hooked up the studio to more closely resemble the live setup. I retired the old XV-3080, the Fat Procoder, two MIDI patch keyboards, and the 19″ rack to give me back the desk-space. End of another era really – that rack was in the first ever Cheese Factory in Fulham although as time has marched it’s become more sparse. The new layout is a bit easier to control, and doesn’t have equipment all over the place which I won’t use – I’ll let you know when stuff gets listed on eBay.

Sunday was largely spent eating, drinking, and watching the Belgian GP. We commiserated Jenson’s crunch by knocking back an entire 1L bottle of port. Glug glug.

Finally Monday, and with raging insomnia I ended up in the studio again at 6am with the Sennheiser headphones on. Wading through the 300-page manual for the XV-88 keyboard I eventually managed to get it to do my bidding and it’s now a firm part of the Obvious Pseudonym stage setup. By mid-morning I was trying to write new music and getting nowhere fast – that is, until I broke out a disco beat. Oh yeah baby, mid-life crisis in full swing, I’m the king of disco doncherknow! By about 2pm I’d got the basics of yet another OP song, Dan showed up at 4ish, Si at 6, and we hammered through it until pubtime at 8. You can see a few pics of the creative process here.

Groovy, baby.

I am aiming to get the following done by mid-August:

• Write at least three new songs for Obvious Pseudonym.
• Fix up the more innovative bits of EasyHIP.
• Learn Adobe Flash and Actionscript 3.0 – or at least read the manuals.
• Go through one of my photography coursebooks and learn photogropery stuff I’ve not yet got my head around.
• Sleep.
• Build sandcastles with the kids.
• Eat piles of low-fat stuff (especially seafood).
• Swim in the Med far too much and do lots of walking, getting a bit fitter in the process.
• Come home with plenty of Domaine De La Grangette and Filles De Septembre rosé wine.
• Recharge my batteries ready for some new projects come September.

Hmm. Need to buy Speedos. Wonder if anywhere in Saltaire sells ‘em…

(On reflection, perhaps this should be ‘Things I Plan To Do On Holiday But Will Forget About Once I Relax’.)

The weekend has passed in a blur, the eye of the storm is behind me and I’m back on the outskirts of insanity – hence why I’m writing this on the train.

Last weekend Nicky and celebrated being married 10 years – an astounding feat considering we’ve had more ups and downs than many couples have in their lifetimes. The plan was to have a big 10th wedding anniversary party and invite lots of our friends, especially the ones who didn’t make the wedding back in 1999 (because we didn’t know them then!). Strictly speaking our anniversary was on the Friday so I took a half-day and worked the other half from home so I could take Nicky to lunch (Cowshed, nom nom) and check the stage rig.

And so to the party, at York House Hotel in Wakefield. Not a bad venue although I was a bit irritated you had to go next door to Sloane’s to get any draught beer or anything more complex than a bottle of Peroni, and if you wanted any sandwiches except tuna you were unlucky. No matter, folks seemed to enjoy themselves.

It was absolutely lovely to see some friends we’d not seen in so long including friends from University, and folks who’d travelled miles and miles to come and help us celebrate. We got prezzies too, something we really weren’t expecting!

Obvious Pseudonym did a short set comprising Dancefish, Take Away The Tears (a song I wrote for Nicky some years ago when we’d first moved to Crofton), Credit Crunch, Keith Chegwin For A Day and Disco Sauce; we’re doing most of this set again tonight at The Hop in Wakefield, do come if you can. Lesson learned from Saturday night, don’t try and play blues in a key you’re not used to while drunk – poor Jim and Ryan ended up in different keys themselves, as did I, really very silly and mercifully we ended that rather quickly. Ryan did a couple of songs, and Lynn (of Peculiar Blue) did a lovely version of Summertime. Even Ben got in on the act singing his song ‘Hula Hoop’! And there was dancing of course.

Sunday was a bit lazy, we had to retrieve the stage rig from the hotel and we treated everyone to chicken and chips for lunch. A game of Triv followed by a brief band rehearsal and the world was OK.

I’m really looking forward to tonight’s gig, I feel much more confident about it (but not complacent). That said, I’ll probably crap myself the moment I turn up and it ‘becomes real’ again.

Edit: Photos are online over on Shadyron’s and Colin’s photo sites. Thanks guys

It’s Monday morning and I’m nowhere near as tired as usual – not quite sure why but it’s pleasant! I had a relaxed weekend – maybe that’s got something to do with it; usually I feel it’s all gone in a rush and I’ve not had any time to myself but instead we spent the weekend tidying the house, remixing backing tracks, and sorting more photos… and we didn’t have anyone round for lunch, dinner, tea, or wine (a rare occurrence in itself).

I popped down to Doncaster on Saturday night to meet up with Lee and Jem, with a few drinks in Tonik Bar. Not a bad place, bit loud for conversation but it’s a long time since I’ve seen a real-ale handpump in a dance bar. Pity I had to get the last train back but it was still pleasant and I only got a little bit rained on.

Just in case you’ve forgotten, Obvious Pseudonym are playing the Open Mic night at The Hop on 20th July (Facebook event here) and after last week’s disastrous rehearsal where my keyboards refused to work properly and everyone was on a short fuse I’m much better prepared this week having remastered one of our new songs (“Dancefish”) and got my rig ready. Phew. The CME Vx7 keyboard debacle continues (the broken one still hasn’t been picked up and the vendor has seemingly gone to radio silence) so I’ll give it to the end of the week then lodge a Paypal claim.

…but before OP’s performance it’s mine and Nicky’s 10th wedding anniversary on Friday (10 years!), and on Saturday we’re having “a bit of a bash” in Wakefield with lots of family and friends showing up. We’re bound to have a post-party houseful complete with the usual imbibing which accompanies these do’s, and I’m chatting a few friends up to ‘do a turn’ (plus a guest appearance from OP); this also implies that next Monday may be a different story and I’ll be absolutely knackered.

BTW, Nicky’s joined Twitter – you can find her under @nickyrowb.

A week and a half since the last blog entry and I’m still feeling run-down and a bit all-over-the-place. I can’t really blame this on ‘needing a holiday’ now since last week’s shenanigans either!

Last week, indeed: a trip to Magaluf for Lee’s stag ‘do’ (pics here). We were pretty well-behaved, got reasonable suntans and worked out by the second day that if we just sat drinking beer wearing false moustaches and Hawaiian shirts we were chick-magnets. I’d rather be a novelty than be totally left alone to be honest but given how young the Magaluf totty was I think we doubled the average age of the place.

While we were over there I went to see DJ Sash! (he of ‘Encore Une Fois’ fame) playing a set, and got told to “fuck off Dad” by some young lass. Grand – I’m now officially a dad-dancer. Still, Sash seemed like a nice chap and it’s given me a bit more of an interest in acquiring a Pioneer CDJ deck.

We travelled Easyjet – the first time I’ve done a budget airline since the abysmal experience I had with Ryanair in 2003-ish. In spite of initial fears I was pretty impressed with the flight itself; that said we were told nothing of the delay departing from Luton, and the stewards in Palma airport were pretty clueless about how to arrange the passengers for boarding – it looked like he was trying to herd cats. The flights were smooth, with customer-focussed on-board stewards and although the return flight didn’t have all the refreshments the cuppa was reasonable. Treat it like a bog-standard bus and it’ll be fine.

Back in the UK, my Roland drum pads and Alesis DM5 arrived and we spent some time last night practicing for our next Obvious Pseudonym session on 20th July. We finalised the set-list – there are three new songs of which one needs some radical re-arranging, and the other two probably need a bit of a looking-at so I’ll be spending tonight and Wednesday night doing that sort of thing. It’s likely we’ll still do Disco Sauce and Cheggers on 20th if enough folks ask.

On Thursday we’re off seeing Blur in Hyde Park (typically it’s at the peak of the current heatwave, something of a pattern since we saw U2 at Twickenham); if they perform anything like their Glastonbury set it’ll be fantastic. Meetings in London on Friday (and hopefully time for some photography together with a late afternoon/early evening beer or two with friends, if anyone’s about).

I’m really looking forward to Saturday, which will be at least partially spent in the photography pit at London’s Pride festival just in front of the stage – hurrah for press passes and Anthony’s persistence! Paleday are playing with The Pink Singers, no doubt that’ll be a stonking set which you really should catch if you’re anywhere nearby. Still not sure who the headliner is but I know Jimmy Somerville, Kele Le Roc and Heather Small are all making an appearance.

Over on the work side, I’m slightly relieved one of the potential projects I was going to be (re)involved with has ‘gone away’ again (before rumours start, I’m not referring to Fotopic.net as explained in this post). This leaves me enough time to get my teeth into a couple of other new things as well as helping a few friends out. I may be back on the market in October and will probably fancy a change if anyone’s hiring for then.

I mentioned in my last post that I’d stuck a 40GB 1.8″ Toshiba HDD in my eeePC 901 (it being one of the early models still fitted with the ZIF socket). It’s working fine although it does get a bit warm occasionally. Interesting that both the Eeebuntu and Easy Peasy variants of the Ubuntu distribution failed to install correctly (mucking up the grub install), yet the desktop edition of Ubuntu Jaunty has been absolutely flawless. Very pleased with that and gives me the bits of non-free software by default where I’d have to jump over barrels if I’d installed Debian (y’know, unimportant stuff like wireless and LAN drivers!).

Thanks to the presence of the extra codecs, I can also pop Gaydar Radio on while at work – streams just dandy over my Vodafone 3G dongle for all the cheesy dance remixes you can eat! Just plop mplayer http://mp3.gaydarradio.com/high on your command line and Robert’s your mother’s brother. Huzzah!

So that’s it for the moment. Braindump over.

A bit of an odd weekend really, I know I did lots but I’ve got this feeling that I’ve actually accomplished nothing. Friends will no doubt disagree but it’s just a vague feeling of not being able to see the wood for the trees.

This could be because a couple of potentially disastrous things happened last week although they were largely sorted by the time Friday evening came around. I’m certainly trying to eat properly and keep reasonably in shape, so I’m not blaming this vagueness on blood sugar issues. Strange really. Maybe it’s just because I’m not really getting my teeth into anything and firefighting everyone else’s projects.

So, as for accomplishing things: the extremely heavy dancefloor is back in the garage (thanks for the help there Dan); the new cat flap is fitted (rfid tagged kitties, they’re really annoyed now they wear collars but it’s pretty cool having a display which tells us which cats are in and which are out); I’m all up to date on uploading photos; two new projects have staging areas and framework sorted; I’ve cleared a load of crap out of the garage; I’ve finally managed to get my grandparents’ old B&O Beomaster 1200 stereo hooked up in the office (mmm, FM does sound nice through it although the base needs new indicator bulbs); worked out that the Beogram 1202 needs the motor stripping and rebuilding at the very least, but more about that later…

I also picked up four tickets each for Party In The Park 2009 at Temple Newsome (where pop youngster Little Boots will be headlining), and also for Opera In The Park 2009 where Nicky will be performing as part of Leeds Festival Chorus. If you were in the queue in Millennium Square during the morning I may have inadvertently taken photos of you.

I spent a lot of yesterday plugged into my headphones in front of Logic, so we now have almost complete backing tracks for two of the songs we’ll be performing at the forthcoming Obvious Pseudonym Do Open Mic Monday gig. 6 weeks to go, we’re more relaxed but still not exactly sure which songs we’ll be performing (and probably won’t until a few days before) but I’m quite optimistic of a November release for the album, probably launched at our first full gig.

Realistically the feeling of ennui and bollocks should go away by the end of the week when I head to Spain for a week with friends (missing half of the British GP, gah). I can’t really afford to do ‘no work’ all week but I do intend to sort my head out somewhat.

More anon. Hopefully less emo next time