Showing posts with label dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dance. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Strong Coffee

Man, I hardly slept last night. I just couldn't sleep. I remember seeing the clock at 3:20 thinking "For fuck's sake SLEEP!!" I think it was due to the 3 strong cups of coffee I had over at Lee's earlier. Now, I don't normally drink a lot of coffee - I used to when I was at College/Uni - but I've started drinking it again recently, and last night I needed one ....or three.

I was over at Lee's doing some overdubs on Mockery. It took us probably about 4 or 5 takes before we were happy with what we've got - all recorded in nice managable chunks. Now it's really starting to take shape.

We also had a lot of time to record Lee's guitar parts to Ghost Written and play around with 2 new ideas/tune. One of which you can hear below. It was just recorded as an acoustic guitar played to a click track.... but like I said I couldn't sleep last night so I had a little fiddle around with programming some beats to it.

Have a listen and tell me if you can tell that I'd had a lot of coffee that evening...

Lee's Idea 1

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Amazing birds

Last night me and Scott (gramatically tha should be Scott and I) decided that we should work on the free give-away CD's for Thursday's gig. We'd left it a bit late and time was running short. We had this great idea of putting two tracks on there and then recording a track in a couple of hours - just a random jam.

While we were writing the tune we thought it would be a good idea to grab some random samples from the TV so we did a bit of channel hopping and stumbled upon a David Attenborough programme on UKHistory. We ended up getting totally side-tracked for about an hour because this is some of the stuff that was on there. Totally amazing...







...as you can imagine, we didn't get much work done.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Daft Hands...

Ok, I've had my rant for the day. Now to restore a positive flow of chi energy for the song that Kanye West has so viciously attacked, here's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger as demonstracted with hands! The first 50 seconds or so are a bit boring and feels odd to watch but wait until the lyrics start and it gets amazing!!

Thursday, March 29, 2007

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!...

Crown Pub 1


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!!

DSC00851
somersaults 2 somersaults 1
In the hotel


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.

Chk Chk Chk 08
Chk Chk Chk 10
Chk Chk Chk 03
Chk Chk Chk 04


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!

Morning after


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!

James feeling sick
Waiting....!


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!!

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

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!
















Thursday, December 14, 2006

How not to care...

This is the way to live! To not give a damn about what other people think and just have fun. This bloke has given me hope in the human race...