Diggnation Live 08

Had an AMAZING time in London with Lisa. We got the train up to London, arrived at about 5. Then it was a case of hopping on the tube and DLR to our hotel which was right next door to the Excel Arena. The DLR wasn't running for the last two stops so we walked it with a short cut through some weird industrial area, almost getting lost but not quite! We had a pretty good idea which direction to walk in!

Anyway we found the hotel ok - it had a weird pod in the room for the en-suite bathroom. It was nice inside but very strange... here's a capture from the Ibis hotel virtual tour.



After a quick freshen up we headed for the Arena - got in there nice and early, and got our pass. There was nobody at the door of the hall cos we were so early so we went to grab a burger - but when we got back the queue was snaking all around the exhibition units!! As soon as they opened the doors to the hall google opened the free beer stand. We got ourselves a good seat before we got the 'Googlebeers'

Here's Revision3 CEO, Jay Louderback giving us a quick insight to the Googlebeers stand...



About 10 mins before the show I ran out there to grab some beers. I only took 4 - 2 for me and 2 for Lisa. I didn't take the piss like some people did. Some people were coming back into the hall with a laptop bag full of bottles and as many as they could carry in their arms. A bit cheeky if you ask me. But still, thanks Google. I almost feel obliged to upgrade my Gmail to a premium membership ... Almost... not quite!

So, yeah, it was cool. We made some new friends, had a laugh before Kevin and Alex came on stage. There were all kinds of people there from your stereotypical geeks with slick side-parting, glases and pens in the top pocket of their cheap shirts, to skater kids with piercings and long hair... and everything between. Some had their laptops with them, there was one dude playing Spore while we were waiting in the queue to be let in. Here's some more pics - starting with a short clip of all the people in the hall...









After the show there was an after party at the bar next door. It was sponsored by Digg and Facebook - I think the founder of Facebook was there but I didn't know what hee looked like. We had a few drinks, chatted to random people and got to meet Kevin and Alex as well as the guys behind the camera Glen and Prager. Kevin and Alex did a thing where they were giving out freebies to people who could answer the right questions.... this is where I use other peoples photos....



...and now a few from my photos...





The rest of the photos can bee seen in my flickr photoset.

All in all we had such a great time.

Home Alone

So Lisa's buggered off to Wales for 4 nights. Which leaves just me and the cat left to fend for ourselves!! She went yesterday and I already miss Lisa loads - just don't know what to do with myself. But that being said I can always find things to distract myself - I've got loads of little tweaks to do with the BV album mixing, I'm learning how to use Final Cut properly (God it's sooo fuckin in-depth and professional! FACTOID: The Coen Brothers used Final Cut to edit and colourize one of my favourite films - No Country For Old Men)



I've also got The Force Unleashed to play - which is totally frickin awesome! Absolutely love the storyline in this. If you're a Star Wars fan (which I clearly am) then you have to check this out because the story is mindblowing!



Last night I finished off watching series 3 of Battlestar Galactica. Woah, what a finale?!?!?! Battlestar is, IMHO, probably one of the the best sci-fi shows in the history of all TV ever - it's sooooo realistic and dark and the characters are deep and ... and... I could go on but I won't!

Before Lisa left we popped into ASDA to grab a few things and just as you walk in they had boxes and boxes of Carlsberg and Kronenberg (18 bottles) for a fiver each!! So we grabbed a box of each - there were loads of freshers there buying them by the trolley load! So, all in all, I've got loads to keep me occupied, 36 bottles of beer in the fridge and a chippy/chinese/indian take-aways just round the corner .... I think I'll survive!! :)

Zizzi in Bournemouth

Just a quick post to say that I thoroughly recommend Zizzi restaurant in Bournemouth. It's a pizza/pasta type restauant and it where Yellow River used to be on Richmond Hill. Great decor, amazing food, really nice staff and an open kitchen creates a really friendly atmosphere. Check it

2 bottles of wine and a highlighting kit!

So Thursday was pay-day for me! Finally after 2 weeks of being totally skint I had some cash so I did some food shopping at Somerfield - got a few groceries in... and some wine of course. They've got Linderman's on offer right now so I thought I'd give it a go - a bottle of white and a bottle of red.
On Friday we opened up the red to go with our pork loin steaks and it tasted so good Lisa popped down to Somerfield to get another bottle. After opening the second bottle I asked Lisa if she was ever going to use that hair highlighting kit that she bought about a month ago. She says "D'ya know what? I was just thinking about using that!!"
I said "Well, I wanted to get the ol' clippers out on my hair this weekend. But if there's any left over highlighter can we stick in my hair to see what it looks like. If lit comes out shit we can just shave me head!"

Now I used to be a bottle blonde a couple of years ago but thought I'd stop to let my my hair rest, so this was kind of like 'for old times sake' type-thing. I only wanted to put slight highlights in it but cos my hair's short (and we were pissed) we ended up covering all my hair. So now I'm blonde again. Completely freaked me out when I woke up the next morning. I'd forgotten all about it!

Happy New Year - 8 days late!

NYE was fun - we went to Scotty & Lottie's flat to hang out with them and see the new year in. Got wasted and had a general good time. I've got pics somewhere, I'll put some up on my flickr when/if I find them.

Xmas in general was good. How was yours?

Radiohead played a NYE gig which I missed. If you missed it too it's here...

Bill Bailey

Me and Lisa went to see Bill Bailey at the BIC on Saturday. It was amazing. I'd completely forgot that we'd bought tickets until about 2 weeks ago. We ordered the tickets in May after we saw him on the Jonathon Ross show and he was talking about his up-coming tour.

The German Market is in town again for Christmas. We had a steak burger and 2 glasses of Glühwein before we went to the concert. Glühwein is mulled wine and is great when you mix it with a pint of strong German lager - get's ya pissed quicker!

I'll upload a clip of Bill Bailey later on.

No posts for a week...

Yep, I've sent no posts for a week! So what the hell's been happening since my last nerdy tech post?!? Well, it's a mixture of 'not a lot' and 'too much to mention'. My main thing has been preparing for moving out of mine and Scott's flat to move into Lisa's flat. Lottie will be taking my place.

Friday 2nd Nov, 2007
Went to work - it sucked. Scott and Lottie were off to London to see Carter USM supported by Sultans of Ping. Lisa came round to help me pack some stuff. We also managed to get wasted and stay up til 4am!! Not good as I've got a gig the next day!!

Saturday 3rd Nov, 2007
This was the day of the all-dayer at The Gander (oh and Rob's birthday!).



For those that don't know (shame on you) this was a day to celebrate the re-opening of The Gander as a premium local venue for unsigned bands, and to give Imogen and Chris a good send off as they're moving to Japan. Their departure will essentially be removing a leg from the Betika and Dutch Husband table. Luckily Betika have found some fitting 2 by 4 to prop up the table while they're away. Dutch, on the other hand will attempt to stand up as a three legged table. What the fuck am I talking about!??! I dunno... I think I've lost it.

Anyway, we got there at about 2ish to set up. I was starving and a bit shaky on my legs after only getting abut 4 hours kip and being hungover like a bastard. I got myself a Subway and bottle of water. We did sound check with Dave Purse on drums - Scott was still on his way back from London and apparently there were railworks on the track so his train was delayed. After all sounded good I got my frist drink of the day and enjoyed the first two bands.

I'd seen Slate Caverns before. To the untrained ear it sounds like he's making shit up on the spot. But I've seen him several times before and I know that what he's playing is pre-planned, written and sharper than a surgeon's blade. He's also the only act I've ever seen use his foot to play guitar, his knee to control a wah-wah and both hands controlling two separate pedels simultaneously. Amazing! If I ever write a film, I want a Slate Caverns "tune" in the soundtrack.

Creepythinguy was great too. Reminded me of a Graham Coxon solo acoustic gig - if he ever did solo acoustic gigs that is. It was interesting to see him using a nylon stringed classical guitar though.

We were up next. The crowd was getting big by the time we got on stage. I thought we played like shit. My bass was slightly out of tune near the beginning, even though I'd tunes up. Both the guitar amps were WAYYY too loud and I fucked up loads on the keys during Pale Blue Dot. There were more but can't remember them. Anyway, we played and entertained. And what did me in the most was that people were coming up to us and say we were awesome. One comment was "You guys should be fuckin' headlining Glastonbury, or sommat!" I'm like, "Glad you liked it!" But I wasn't gonna start putting ourselves down. If he enjoyed it then that's cool. My job was done. I just took it.



We had to get all our stuff off stage and get it home before we could relax and enjoy the rest of the day. I've played at an all-dayer before and when it came to taking my stuff home at the end of the night I was drunk and left half of my shit there never to see it again so I wasn't gonna make the same mistake twice. We dropped our stuff at James' and Emma gave us a lift back.

By the time I got back Dead!Dead!Dead! were on stage - man, I didn't think we were gone that long! But that's ok, cos I love D!x3. Such a good band. They were giving out free CD's too - which I wish we'd done. Actually, that reminds me. I spent three hours the previous night making an "Album Preview/Exclusive Demos" Blind Voyeurs CD for the raffle and I don't remember hearing it being mentioned. I think Tone might've forgot to put it in with the rest of the prizes. Oh well.

As the night went on my memory of what went on get's hazy - not that I felt drunk at the time. I remember getting my nursery rhymes mixed up with Simone at one stage and Nikki was being my clapping buddy (we were both holding drinks so we used our spare hands to clap - she was my left hand, I was her right hand)

Potts was on a mission to find the most disgusting combination for a drink - and came up with Tequila & tobasco shots! He made me his guinea pig and force fed me the prototype (the git told me it was a normal tequila) and although it was really hot it was bearable. It ended up being like an endurance test as we were challenging each other and other people to down one, too - I think I had 3 or 4 of them!!!!!



Me, Summa, Kai, Potts, Mark and JB went to iBar after for more drinks. Were were in there for a couple. Kai didn't believe me that the owner of iBar wrote the original Worms game. I had to call Andy over to prove to him that he did. Even then Kai said "I dunno.. I think you set that up!" After a drink too many it was time for us to all head home. I think I completely passed out as soon as I hit the pillow.

Sunday 4th Nov, 2007
This was a null-day. Too hungover to do anything!!!!!!!!!!! Stayed in bed - even that was an effort!

This week so far
Lottie and Scotty went to Wales on Monday for a dirty week in a log cabin with hot-tub and jacuzzi. Which was good for me cos that meant they were out of the way for me and Lisa to start doing some proper packing and shifting. My bedroom is all echoey now - all that's left in there is a matress and a check of drawers - both of which are to go to the tip.

And that concludes the summary of my week!

Friday evening

So we got back from Southampton and got a text from James asking if me and LIsa would like to go down to Urban Beach for a few pints and to listen to some live acoustic acts. We though 'yeah, why not' but by the time we'd sat down after a long day shopping we were both knackered. I managed to rejuvenate myself enough to be able to go out but Lisa just wanted to have a bath and get an early night. But she offered to give me a lift down there, which was cool.

I met up with the guys out in the veranda. It would normally be cold but the had an array of outside heaters to keep the punters toastie-like. I didn't know many of the people there... I knew James, Emma, Potts and Ben and that was it. There were another 6 people there that were friends of James and Emma's. I recognised one of them but I can't remember his name. The bands were pretty good. Sarah Griffin doing her usual folky self-written songs reminicent of Katie Tunslut... sorry Tunstall. And the other act was two surfer dudes called Burning Shepherd (no myspace) still living in the mid 90's singing grunge ballads like Stone Temple Pilots' Plush.



(man, how 90's was that video?!) Don't get me wrong, I love Stone Temple Pilots ... or used to when I was a student anyway... and I thoroughly enjoyed the reminder. After we'd downed 2 pints and shots of sambuca me, James and Potts decided it would be fun to recreate the success of The Knights of the 31st album.

Unfortunately all my instruments and mics etc are over at Andy's in the studio so we stopped off at James to grab his acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, ukulele, USB mic and bottle of red wine. I'm not a wine expert but I know that the worst and cheapest wine to get is a merlot - avoid it like the plague. Which is why I was surprised to see that James, somebody who's pretty cultured and has european tastes, has a wine rack full of fuckin' merlot!!! Sort it out James!! Anyway, it was free wine and I was pissed so who's complaining. We stopped off at an off license to grab a bottle of vodka and some mixers. Pott's offered to pay the shop owner in the form of song. The man grinned but declined.

We got back to mine and started by doing shots of vodka and setting up the equipment. The next 6 hours were a blur... no seriously, they really were!! All I remember is seeing Potts crash out on the sofa at about 5 and getting him a sleeping bag before I went to bed. And that's it!! I don't remember anything else. All I have is nine 10 minute recordings of absolute drunkeness. Some of it is actually quite good. We even managed to record sections of bassline and loop them with some drum loops and then record over that on seperate tracks. Some of it is actually genius and will be nicked for Blind Voyeurs ... but 80% of it is utter pish! It's funny to listen to though ... if a bit embarrasing!

Blind Voyeurs Gig - at Kyps 27/09/07

On Thursday 27th, Sept Blind Voyeurs had a gig at Mr Kyps. I was real excited about it cos it's a great venue with a amazing sound system and proper lights and dry ice. I knew it was gonna feel like I was in a proper band, not a pretend one from granny-capital Bournemouth. Hahaha!!

It was good fun hanging out with the other bands backstage. Before we started some of us were a bit worried about a couple of things - the size of the venue and the projected visuals. We thought the place would be too big and the fact that we didn't have a white sheet to project our visuals on were concerning. I maintained that there was nothing to worry about. The other guys were flapping and saying we should've at leat wore white t-shirts. We told Kat our concerns and she tested the projection for us.... it looked effin' amazing! You couldn't wipe the grins off of the guys faces.

The actual gig went well. I know that I made a few fuck-ups here and there, and the guys know that they did too but they were just minor details.... except at the very end of the very last song Scotts bassdrum pedal fell apart, so we had no bassdrum for, like, the last half a bar! Nobody noticed and, to be fair, looking at the videoclip you really can't tell. Speaking of video clips, here's a couple from BHone...





We produced 50 CD's for that gig, all limited and numbered, and we didn't expect to get rid of many. In fact at the beginning of the night we put about 20 of them around the venue and a further 10 by the front door, thinking that we would need to collect left-overs after the gig. But to our amazement when we came of stage we had people asking us for CD's as the ones that we'd put out had all gone!! We gave out the remainding 20 and even then there were still people that wanted a CD!!!

All the other acts played well too. My favourite bit was at the very beginning when Chris (Little Boat) started playing. Everyone was stood at the back when he started and by the time he'd finished his first track about 30 people had creeped up to the front - it gave him a scare. He said it was like some kinda Zombie film and got everyone to give a Zombie-like moan.

All in all, It was one of my favourite gigs we've played!

Homeless person

I was in Boscombe with Lisa yesterday during my lunch break and on the way to the high street from the car park I saw a homeless guy begging. I'm not a person that looks down on these people or anything - in fact I'm quite the opposite. If I'm not skint myself and I happen to have some spare change I don't mind every now and again giving them a few bob. But this guy was taking the piss - he was sat there looking all convincingly dirty with ripped up clothes and a little cardboard sign saying please help.... but he was using the hands free headset on his mobile phone!!!! What the fuck?!? It wasn't a cheap one either it was a proper new one.

Have I missed something here? Have the government started handing out free mobile phones to the homeless in order for them to be able to help themselves find accomodation or jobs? I very much doubt it. But then it got me thinking, what if his mobile was a contract phone - you need to have an address and bank account to be able to have one.

Lisa said that she heard on the news the other day that some homeless people in London can make up to £200 per day!

Fuckin' cheek! That's all my faith in homeless people gone. That prick has ruined it for all homeless-kind as far as my contribution is concerned.

Time goes by so quickly!....

It's true! It really does. It doesn't feel like nearly a month since my last post but hey. It's actually getting harder to get round to doing a blog post these days. Y'see I not only have this site to manage but I also have my Facebook page, my Myspace page, my band's Myspace page, my Flickr page, my YouTube page and my band's YouTube page to manage. Also, I do actually get pretty busy at work so I don't have a lot of time to update stuff then. And in the evening I've been concentrating on Blind Voyeurs debut album (which, by the way, is coming along nicely!) .... then there's video clips to edit and flyers for gigs to design...blah blah blah!

Anyhoo, I went to Pauls Stag Do last weekend. As you know Paul's getting married to Kim and so it's customary to get the stag (Paul) as rip roaringly drunk as possible to remind him of how good life is when you're not married. No longer can he have night's out like this. ..... or so they say. You know, I don't think that still applies these days. I'm sure Kim will let him go out as often as he does already whether they were getting married or not. and the same goes for most of the couple that I know - I'm sure if they got married it wouldn't change a thing. Such is the modern way.

Anyway, For the stag do me and Kirsty's fella, Glenn, drove from Southampton trainstation to Paul and Kim's place up in Leeds. (Lisa drove me to Southampton to meet up with him) We made pretty good time actually - left the station at about 9 - got to Leeds at about 1am. We were greeted by Paul - Kim was out with Kirsty and Fran. He gave us both a nice cold beer each and then watched a bit of crap telly and then we crashed. I crashed on the sofa with the sleeping bag. Just as I was dropping of the girls came back from their night out and jumped on me. We chatted for about 10 minutes and then they all went to bed.

We got up early the next day to get suited and booted. We were off to Haydock for a day at the Races!!!!











I won 100 quid on my first race! That pretty much paid for the rest of the day. Below is a video clip of Glenn helping the 'Hen' from a hen-party get her phone back as she dropped it over the barrier...



After the races we went into Liverpool to do a bit of a pub/club crawl. I really can't remember much about this but I have a few photos and a video clip...

Lisa's Birthday

It was Lisa's Birthday on Thursday 21st. I had the day off work so we could spend the day together. I bought her a pink iPod Shuffle - she loved it! She couldn't wait to wake up on Thursday so I let her open it on Wednesday night after midnight. Everytime she looks at it she forgets how small it is!

Also on Thursday, Simone Hudsbith finally gave birth to her first child - Amelie Jane Hudsbith. Congrats to her and Gary. So that's two people I know's birthday's that fall on the Summer Solstice. Speaking of which I woulda liked to have gone this year but the nasty weatherman told us it was gonna rain... but it didn't. Nevermind, we had a great day anyway.

Simone's not the only one to have a new addition to the family. Me and Lisa got ourselves a kitten. She's a little bit older at 6 Months (she was born on the 29th January 2007 - 9 days after my birthday!) and she's a mental bundle of loveable fluff. Completely dizzy and has mad spells - but on the flipside she comes looking for cuddles. Perfect.

Last night me and Lisa sent out a round robin text go get some people to come out for a pint at the Malt & Hops to celebrate Lisa's birthday. It was a bit last minute - we were expecting rain - so it was a small affair. Rachel turned up first. We hit the pool table for a couple of games. Then Kate and Glen turned up - they got the taxi. Had a few more games of pool. We were just getting into the swing of things and ready for some serious drinking when they called time at the bar! No fair. So me and Lisa went back to Lisa's flat with Glen and Kate to have a couple more drinks and introduce them to our new cat and watch a bit of Rambo II on the tele. Top night.

Neglect is an ugly thing!!

Ok, it's 11th June, so here we go with what now seems to be a MONTHLY blog post! Why am I leaving it so long to actually post something I do not know. Will have to sort it out. The thing is, I've done sooooooo flippin much in this last month that if I sat down to go through it all it would be July 11th!

So let me summarise what I've done in real quick fashion...

. Me and Lisa were going to have kittens (YAY!)
. The Kittens died! (BOO!)
. Lisa's parents came down to stay for 10 days. It was nice.
. My band played a gig at 60 Million Postcards. It was nice.
. We've written some new tunes. They are nice.
. My mum bought a new TV. It's bloody HUGE! (47" HD-LCD!!)
. Mum complains that she STILL can't see the TV!! WHAT?!
. I'm growing my hair!
. Went to a local mini-festival organized by the Fire Dept. It was great!
. Went to bhone's all-dayer at The Gander before it closed down. That was amazing.
. Discovered Tarantino/Rodriguez's double bill film called Grindhouse! Excited.
. Enjoyed reading the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels vs Betika nonsense on solidair's message board. Ridiculously pointless but heart-stoppingly entertaining.
. Bought Tomb Raider Anniversary! Totally amazing!!
. And finally met up with Kim and Paul on Friday after work and had a wicked random night out in town.

There! Hope that covers it all. There are lots of pretty pics in my flickr account covering a few of the above events. Go check it out.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and keep this up to date.

Sat on the blog...

Fuck me it's been such a long time since my last post that I decided to start this post off with a four-letter f-word shocker!!

So what have I been up to exactly. Well, since my last post (the one about my lovely new macbook) I've been up to Wales to see Lisa's parents. We must've brought bad luck with us cos during the course of our stay we witnessed a sheep giving a difficult birth, a tree falling down across their neighbour's driveway and their TV packed in! Since we left Wales we've heard that their fridge and dishwasher had packed in too!! Oh dear.

Lisa's taken back the goldfish. Me and Scott have been looking after her goldfish for about a year and now Lisa decided that she'd like to have her around her place for a bit. I'm not bothered mind, but I kinda miss the little bugger swimming around in the corner of our lounge.

During the weekend just gone, Lisa and I drove up to Worth Matravers to see James and co for a birthday drink. James, Emma, Potts, Summer and friends were staying at a cottage for the weekend to have a murder mystery weekend. I was invited (along with Lisa, Scott and Lottie) to go too but none of us could afford it. Anyway, we went to this little pub called Square & Compass. It's a great pub with great atmosphere. There's chickens wandering around the grounds, people playing harmonica and guitar, some people go there to make sculptures, real ales straight out of the barrel and it had the worlds smallest bar (I don't know if it's actually the official worlds smallest bar but it was pretty darn small!) Such a chilled out hippy vibe. Loved it.

My band, Blind Voyeurs have just released a YouTube channel called Blind Voyeurs TV (or BVTV for short) and it will eventually have lots of video clips of us lot. We're planning on having clips of gigs, clips of us practicing and generally larking about. Right now we've only got two videos uploaded but that's only cos we've just got started. In the favourites section we will have a whole load of videos that we like from some of our favorite and influential bands. If you get bored or there's nothing else on TV head on over there to see what we've got. If you've got your own YouTube channel add us as friends or subscribe to our channel to keep up to date.

Chk Chk Chk at The Thekla, Bristol

On Saturday 24th March, Scott, James, Rob and myself went up to Bristol to see Chk Chk Chk. I have to quite honestly say that it was one of the best gigs I've EVER been to. The gig was originally being held at Bristol University but got moved to The Thekla - which is a ship converted into a night club/live music venue - because one of the stage lights had fallen the day before and work was being done. James drove us up there in his Clio and we had to suffer the wrath of Scott's smelly arse all the way up there!

We stopped off at the Crown Pub just outside Bath on the way to Bristol for a meal and a pint cos we were starving. The pub was dead and our food still wasn't in front of us 45 mins later!
After I complained our food finally arrived. My burger looked like it had been barbecued, the cheese had evaporated and the salad was hot! It was obvious the food wad been stood under those heater lights waiting to be taken to our tables for about half an hour!!

This is our feedback!...



When we eventually arrived in Bristol we had to start looking for a hotel or hostel to crash in cos there was no way were were gonna drive back after the gig. We went into pretty much every main hotel in the city... well, when I say WE what I meant to say was I as I was the one sat in the from passenger seat. Rob and Scott were in the back and we were in a 3 door car so it was easier for me to do all the negotiation. We were looking for a couple of twin rooms - that is a room with two beds. But we figured we could probably get away with getting just one twin room and then sneak the other two in to sleep on the floor. We eventually found a place (Premier Travel Inn) that was doing Double rooms with pull out beds sleeping a total of 4 people for only £55 a night. Wicked skills!! Me and James got the room. We were given two keys so we kept one for us and gave a key to Rob and Scott to sneak in while we parked the car. The room was well bigger than we thought it was gonna be. It's actually a really good value place to kip - I was well surprised!!





When we got there all of us needed to 'christen' the en-suite with a turd from hell! Well, it was a long drive and, unlike Scott, we held our farts! Anyway... this is getting gross!

We headed for the Thekla and luckily it was just a straight walk from the hotel towards the city centre and we were there. The Thekla was probably one of the weirdest venues I'd ever been too but after I got my head around the weirdness of it all it turned out to be such a wicked idea!! I want one in Bournemouth!!!





The first band we saw were Blood Red Shoes. They were ok - nothing special. Kinda like the opposite of the White Stripes. Girl on guitar singing, boy on the drums ... also singing. Booze was nice and cheap. It was a student hang out.

Eventually, Chk Chk Chk came on stage and we were stood right at the front. I can't really express how fuckin good this gig was, man. I've got a few pics and some video clips but it doesn't really explain how good it was. You just had to be there. Band members were swapping instruments and just jamming, lots of interaction with the crowd, crowd surfing...although this was accidental. One of the singers was stood on the edge of the stage and got pulled into the crowd. He was surprised but after a couple of seconds was loving it giving a 'bring it on' gesture to his band mates. When he eventually surfed back onto the stage he was dropped on the middle monitor speaker and landed on his back!! Later on in the evening he was stood next to me during the DJ set and I asked him how his back is. He said "Right now I feel fine - I dosed up on painkillers and tequilla" I laughed and said "Man, you're gonna feel that in the morning!" He agreed.






After Chk Chk Chk had finished their set the crowd were whipped up into a hyper-active frenzy. Plea's for "More" and "Encore" were ignored as the sound engineers and roadies started taking apart all the equipment and packing stuff away. After it was obvious that they'd finished their set people grouped at the bar and chilled. They'd certainly left the place in a buzz.

On wondering where to go to next, Rob asked some random person if they could recommend any other clubs to go to. It just so happened that this person was they guy who organised the night at The Thekla! He said jokinly to Rob "Y'know technically I could take that as an insult in that you're literally saying that you'd rather be somewhere else!" But he knew we were only asking cos we thought that the night was over. It wasn't! The bass player was about to start DJing. And he played an AMAZING set!!

That was followed by another touring band called The Mules. They were pretty cool. A bit rock-a-billy-ish, they would be good for Fish Seeks Bicycle. They weren't amazing but after a couple of songs and people started to get what they're about everyone was dancing. The main star of the band was obviously the drummer. He was also the singer and obviously the song-writer. I didn't take any photos of them but if you go to their MySpace you'll see pics and hear some tunes.

Knowing that the clocks were going forwad that night we decided at about 3:40 that it might be a good idea to head back to the hotel! Bearing in mind the DST factor the time was in actual fact 4:40 and we had to get up at 8 to head home! We eventually only had about 3 hours sleep! All too evident in the following picture!



On the way home James was starting to feel the effects of the hangover so stopped for a breather! Unfortunately, the field right behind him had just had muck-spreading so it wasn't really the best place to stop!! If anything it woulda made him feel MORE sick. I know it did for me. We were not happy!




But we got home safely and the first thing I did was have some cereal (cos I hadn't eaten) and then went to bed for about 4 hours before heading off to Southampton to see Lounge play at The Joiners!!

Joiners Gig for Blind Voyeurs

Yet again, I've not updated in a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time - so I'd best fill people in on what's been going on!

My band, Blind Voyeurs, had a gig at The Joiners Arms, Southampton supporting Maps and The Longcut. Tone from BHONE has done a full review of the gig. The nigth went really well and we had a great reception from people who had never heard of us before. One guy said we blew away the headline act! I wouldn't have said so in my opinion but thanks all the same.


Taken on my mobile during soundcheck









Below is an 8 minute video clip from the gig taken by Tone from BHone. In it we're playing The Christening followed by Pale Blue Dot. Apologies for the darkness of the clip!

Photoblog 1 - Weekend at Charlies...

On the weekend of 17th Feb me and Lisa trekked up to Newbury to stay at Charlie's for the night. We hadn't seen them in a while and originally were going to go to a relative's Christening but Eastender-style friends/family feuds got in the way! So instead we went up there and got pissed on about 3 bottles of wine. The medication for my tooth had finished the day before so I had the all clear to drink booze! We started drinking at about 5:00 in the afternoon and carried on til about 1am. We all got hooked on the Wii. It's so true about how the Wii has converted non-gamers to it's charms. It's not overly complicated, it's not mindlessly violent, it's just simple fun. No really ... it is! If you haven't tried one yet get yourslef round someone's house who does. Get lots of wine or beer in and order a pizza cos you're guarenteed to a good 4 or 5 hours of solid fun!


Fudge - the cutest cat EVER!


James pretending to be a dog!


Charlie drinking like a lady


Showing Claire how to play Golf on the Wii


This was all I can see from where I was sat!

The Christmas period.

Christmas was great this year. Normally, I have to make sure everyone else is happy and do lots of journeys to other peoples houses to make visits when all I want to do is stay home, open my presents and get fat! This year that was pretty much all I did. Ok, I went to my mum's in the morning for Christmas lunch and exchanged presents but we were back home by about 3ish. And I went to my dad's on Boxing Day to give him his present and had a pub meal. But other than that we stayed at home.

Lisa bought me a Nintendo Wii. I knew I was getting one (see?) but it was still cool to actually finally open it... especially after all the news reports about many people with pre-orders being disappointed with stock shortages. I've got to say that it is an amazing console and thoroughly recommend one. Everyone who came to my place over the Christmas period will have played it and loved it so much they're like, "I've gotta get one!". It really is sooooooo much fun!

It was also that time of year for the Glenigan Christmas Party! What a yawn that was. I only went for the free booze! Oh and the members of the board performing the YMCA! The rest of it was boring. Being in IT we always get put on the table right at the back somewhere - usually behind a pilar so we can't see the awards being presented. This year was no different. I eventually moved to a different table with Andy. The food was pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. After the meal was the awards. This always bores me cos I'm not in a department that can be given an award. After that there was a really bad covers band. I felt like I was at someones wedding. Yep, all the usual cover band sinners were played - Mustang Sally, You Can Leave Your Hat On etc etc etc. After that it was the moment I was waiting for...

...play it if you dare! After that I went home.

After Christmas me and Lisa went up to Newbury for James 8th Birthday (for those of you that don't know, James is Lisa's God-Son.) We stayed over a couple of nights and did a bit of shopping in Newbury. I bought myself Yakuza for the PS2 for £9.98...



New Years Eve was a big ol' party at Andy's in Three Legged Cross. This was Blind Voyeurs first secret warm-up gig. It was a warm-up for our first public gig at Centre Stage on the 5th Jan. We managed to practice the whole set before the guest arrived so when we played we were HOT!! I think we surprised a lot of people cos they were expecting something chilled out and ambient. It was our fault cos we did tell then that we were! Oh well. After our little half hour we DJed, got very twisted and jumped in the hot-tub. Good times had all round!