Colindale, London, England // 7.15 pm // Mostly sunny 8ºc / 46ºf
Monday, 23 March 2009
Friday, 20 March 2009
It's a jazz day
Colindale, London, England // 4.22 pm // Mostly sunny 11ºc / 52ºf
I don't quite know how many of my blog posts have been named after a lyric of the song I'm listening to at the time, but I know it's many. And it's happened again here, thanks to Robin Blamires' special jazzy show as part of Smoke Radio's marathon broadcast last week. Robin, if you're reading this, I did intend to wake up to listen to the show. My alarm even woke me up at 4.55am, but I just couldn't pull myself out of bed. So thank you for the link!
Been a few weeks since the last blog. Something that I have been doing every week is going to the radio station in East London to do some more rehearsals for my forthcoming radio show, the resurrection of Grooveline. I've not been giving specific details about the show or station until it is concrete, but we are almost there. At the moment it looks like the show will be launching, available online, on Tuesday 31st March at 7pm till 8pm, and will be so weekly. I've been really pleased with the rehearsals so far. It's sounding more like a real radio show that it has in the past, at least production wise. Features return to the show. And I'm really enjoying the challenge of cramming it all into a neat 60-minute package. There will also be a great show webpage to support the show, featuring the facility to listen to the previous 4 weeks of shows on-demand. I'm really excited about it all, and hope to confirm the details sometime next week.
Everything has been going well at work, but it has all been going an hour earlier. Because I work for an American company, and to American time, and the fact they went into "summer time" 3 weeks earlier than the rest of the world, I've had to wake up at 3am instead of 4am. It's amazing the difference it makes. Getting the car into work in the morning usually, shops are loading up with stock, news-stands are open and milk trucks are out. It feels like early morning. But at the moment going to work, at 3am, news-stands are shut, kebab shops are full of pissheads, girls with their arses hanging out of their skirts are trying to flag down taxis with their ridiculously tiny handbags waving in the air. It feels like late at night!
It's also meant going to bed closer to 9pm, which is even more difficult. Roll on BST!
The last two weekends have been busy, and spent in the West Midlands. Two weekends ago Elle and I went to a reunion-of-sorts in what was my home for three years, Stafford. Elle and I met up with a group of old friends and spent the afternoon and evening going round our old drinking holes, and some of the new venues that have sprung up. Besides those though, not a lot has changed. But it's always nice to go out of London and be able to buy a pint for considerably less than £3!
Also that weekend I watched the Scottish Cup 6th Round match between Celtic and St Mirren. We had beat them 7-0 the previous week. But surprise surprise, St Mirren managed to dump us out of the cup. And pretty comprehensively. Still, we made up for it the following weekend by beating Rangers 2-0 in the League Cup final! I watched the game in a fairly scary Celtic Supporters Club in Wolverhampton.
Which was last weekend, and started with a night out in a pub in Hammersmith with Elle and some of her workmates. On Saturday we drove up to Walsall ready for a night out in celebration of Elle's 26th birthday which was on Monday. We went out in Birmingham on Saturday night after a few drinks at Elle's mums. The plan was to end up at the club Gatecrasher on Broad Street, but we had a few drinks elsewhere first.
Finally, we were queuing up to get into the club, and the queue was moving fairly fast. Our group got to the front of the queue, the door attendant took one look at me, shook her head and said "Nah, he's not going to get in". For a second or so I thought she was joking, but it was soon apparent that she really wasn't. We were asking her why but didn't really give us a straight answer, although something suggested it was what I was wearing (a dressy shirt, smart jeans and black shoes - all well within their dress code for the night). Meanwhile, chavs wearing pretty much tracksuits, and girls with their tits virtually hanging out were all streaming inside the club. For being part of a party of about 7 respectable people, and a night out for Elle's birthday, I was pretty upset.
The door person told us to go to someone else further down, in the hi-vis jacket, and ask *her* why we weren't getting in. So we did. To be fair, I remember looking a bit like a lost sad puppy at this point, but I just couldn't understand in the slightest what the problem was. As it seemed, either did this other women who, on being asked why I wasn't being allowed in, umm'd and ahh'd for a good while as she looked me up and down, trying to find a reason. She couldn't, but she followed that by "Well it must be the shirt. It's just the wrong type of shirt". The wrong t.... the... WHAT THE F*CK?! The wrong type of shirt?! I don't remember seeing *that* in the dress code! By this point, I felt rage bubbling up. This wasn't the first time this had happened to me in Birmingham. And the other time it happened it was for similarly baffling reasons, and *again* on Elle's birthday night out. At that point I decided that I was never going to part with any cash on anything to do with Gatecrasher again, and decided after the night had ended I was going to boycott Birmingham and never have a night out there again.
We ended up going somewhere else where there was no problem. It seems everyone had a good night anyway, but it really did spoil my night. I don't really know why I took it so personally, but I just hate being responsible for spoiling what had been planned for weeks, maybe months.
When it comes down to it, if that is going to be their criteria for the door then I don't want to be in a place like that anyway. And I hope they let in record numbers of drug dealers, people with knifes and those who intend to spike girls drinks in, just because they were wearing the right kind of shirt. The quicker they get shut down, the better. And then with hindsight they may think maybe they should have rethought their entry policy.
I don't quite know how many of my blog posts have been named after a lyric of the song I'm listening to at the time, but I know it's many. And it's happened again here, thanks to Robin Blamires' special jazzy show as part of Smoke Radio's marathon broadcast last week. Robin, if you're reading this, I did intend to wake up to listen to the show. My alarm even woke me up at 4.55am, but I just couldn't pull myself out of bed. So thank you for the link!
Been a few weeks since the last blog. Something that I have been doing every week is going to the radio station in East London to do some more rehearsals for my forthcoming radio show, the resurrection of Grooveline. I've not been giving specific details about the show or station until it is concrete, but we are almost there. At the moment it looks like the show will be launching, available online, on Tuesday 31st March at 7pm till 8pm, and will be so weekly. I've been really pleased with the rehearsals so far. It's sounding more like a real radio show that it has in the past, at least production wise. Features return to the show. And I'm really enjoying the challenge of cramming it all into a neat 60-minute package. There will also be a great show webpage to support the show, featuring the facility to listen to the previous 4 weeks of shows on-demand. I'm really excited about it all, and hope to confirm the details sometime next week.
Everything has been going well at work, but it has all been going an hour earlier. Because I work for an American company, and to American time, and the fact they went into "summer time" 3 weeks earlier than the rest of the world, I've had to wake up at 3am instead of 4am. It's amazing the difference it makes. Getting the car into work in the morning usually, shops are loading up with stock, news-stands are open and milk trucks are out. It feels like early morning. But at the moment going to work, at 3am, news-stands are shut, kebab shops are full of pissheads, girls with their arses hanging out of their skirts are trying to flag down taxis with their ridiculously tiny handbags waving in the air. It feels like late at night!
It's also meant going to bed closer to 9pm, which is even more difficult. Roll on BST!
The last two weekends have been busy, and spent in the West Midlands. Two weekends ago Elle and I went to a reunion-of-sorts in what was my home for three years, Stafford. Elle and I met up with a group of old friends and spent the afternoon and evening going round our old drinking holes, and some of the new venues that have sprung up. Besides those though, not a lot has changed. But it's always nice to go out of London and be able to buy a pint for considerably less than £3!
Also that weekend I watched the Scottish Cup 6th Round match between Celtic and St Mirren. We had beat them 7-0 the previous week. But surprise surprise, St Mirren managed to dump us out of the cup. And pretty comprehensively. Still, we made up for it the following weekend by beating Rangers 2-0 in the League Cup final! I watched the game in a fairly scary Celtic Supporters Club in Wolverhampton.
Which was last weekend, and started with a night out in a pub in Hammersmith with Elle and some of her workmates. On Saturday we drove up to Walsall ready for a night out in celebration of Elle's 26th birthday which was on Monday. We went out in Birmingham on Saturday night after a few drinks at Elle's mums. The plan was to end up at the club Gatecrasher on Broad Street, but we had a few drinks elsewhere first.
Finally, we were queuing up to get into the club, and the queue was moving fairly fast. Our group got to the front of the queue, the door attendant took one look at me, shook her head and said "Nah, he's not going to get in". For a second or so I thought she was joking, but it was soon apparent that she really wasn't. We were asking her why but didn't really give us a straight answer, although something suggested it was what I was wearing (a dressy shirt, smart jeans and black shoes - all well within their dress code for the night). Meanwhile, chavs wearing pretty much tracksuits, and girls with their tits virtually hanging out were all streaming inside the club. For being part of a party of about 7 respectable people, and a night out for Elle's birthday, I was pretty upset.
The door person told us to go to someone else further down, in the hi-vis jacket, and ask *her* why we weren't getting in. So we did. To be fair, I remember looking a bit like a lost sad puppy at this point, but I just couldn't understand in the slightest what the problem was. As it seemed, either did this other women who, on being asked why I wasn't being allowed in, umm'd and ahh'd for a good while as she looked me up and down, trying to find a reason. She couldn't, but she followed that by "Well it must be the shirt. It's just the wrong type of shirt". The wrong t.... the... WHAT THE F*CK?! The wrong type of shirt?! I don't remember seeing *that* in the dress code! By this point, I felt rage bubbling up. This wasn't the first time this had happened to me in Birmingham. And the other time it happened it was for similarly baffling reasons, and *again* on Elle's birthday night out. At that point I decided that I was never going to part with any cash on anything to do with Gatecrasher again, and decided after the night had ended I was going to boycott Birmingham and never have a night out there again.
We ended up going somewhere else where there was no problem. It seems everyone had a good night anyway, but it really did spoil my night. I don't really know why I took it so personally, but I just hate being responsible for spoiling what had been planned for weeks, maybe months.
When it comes down to it, if that is going to be their criteria for the door then I don't want to be in a place like that anyway. And I hope they let in record numbers of drug dealers, people with knifes and those who intend to spike girls drinks in, just because they were wearing the right kind of shirt. The quicker they get shut down, the better. And then with hindsight they may think maybe they should have rethought their entry policy.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Monday, 2 March 2009
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Boing
Colindale, London, England // 11.30 am // Mostly cloudy 8ºc / 46ºf
So apparently today is the first day of spring. Doesn't really feel or look like it at the moment. I'm sitting here in the living room bloody cold. Granted, I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and the heating hasn't been on for a few days (until a few minutes ago) but it'll still be a while before we're all wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts in the sunshine. In fact, I'm sure I saw some snow forecast for next week!
It was a really long, hard week for some reason. Come Friday, I was absolutely done in. I didn't get a great deal of sleep through the week though, for various reasons. I can't remember which day it was now, but the day of the plane crash in Amsterdam meant absolute chaos at work, and I had my busiest day there since I started at the company. Still it was good experience, although a few alcoholic beverages were certainly required to get over the day!
On Thursday night I went to visit a radio station in East London, with the aim of bringing my show Grooveline back to the masses, plus helping out at a worthwhile radio project. It went really well, and I met the station manager, got a tour of the station, and handed in a show proposal. It seems quite likely that'll I'll get a show, and I've got to go back in again on Tuesday to record a demo. I'm planning to make it a one-hour show. That's completely different to what I've done in the past, where the show has ranged from 2 to 12 hours. But I'm actually really excited by the prospect of producing a tight, concise good sounding quality soul music show. My friend Robin Blamires on Smoke Radio has proved how you can make a 1 hour show sound great and fit a hell of a lot into it without making it sound rushed or stressful, and it's fair to say that the structure and idea of the new Grooveline will be very much based on Robin's show.
It'll also see me bring back two of my old features, plus a new one. Additionally, the radio station provides each show with fantastic, dynamic and easy to update show pages, which I will do my very best to keep up-to-date to complement the show perfectly. And one of the best features of the show page, which I'm very excited about, is the possiblity of listening again, on-demand, to the previous four weeks of shows.
So the first demo will be recorded on Tuesday, and we'll see what they think of that. I'm just looking forward to getting back into the studio, for the first time since last August.
Yesterday I went to the Irish pub in Kilburn to watch the Celtic game, where we absolutely thrashed St Mirren 7-0, which is absolutely brilliant for our goal difference compared to Rangers. I actually believe that game will win us the season. Meaning, I think we will win the league on goal difference only, and by a few goals and no more. Mark my words.
Didn't do as well with my betting on the other SPL games though, getting only 1 out of 4 results correct. I now have £39 in the betting kitty from my original fiver.
During the game I got a really emotional call from my mum, who is caring for John during his treatment for cancer. For the first time since it all started, I cried yesterday. I just felt so helpless being so far away, but I know they appreciate they can call me and let everything out anytime, and I know they can't really do that with anyone else. It's the very least I can do, and I'm going home for a weekend at the end of the month, but it doesn't seem enough. I'm working on making that better.
Last night we headed over to West Ealing to a housewarming party of one of Elle's friends. It was quite a quiet affair, but a good night and a chance to meet some really nice people. Getting back from there at 2.30am was pleasantly easy too, with two nightbuses.
I've just had a visit from our local councillor for the Burnt Oak ward. I think she was pleasantly surprised that she could have a conversation with someone who was actually remotely interested in politics, and someone whose vote she could rely on. Plus that fact that I'm fairly young. I've never worked out if I'm allowed to vote in the Scottish Parliamentary elections. The fact that I've not lived in Scotland for over 7 and a half years might count against me, but it's something I've never checked out for sure.
So apparently today is the first day of spring. Doesn't really feel or look like it at the moment. I'm sitting here in the living room bloody cold. Granted, I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and the heating hasn't been on for a few days (until a few minutes ago) but it'll still be a while before we're all wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts in the sunshine. In fact, I'm sure I saw some snow forecast for next week!
It was a really long, hard week for some reason. Come Friday, I was absolutely done in. I didn't get a great deal of sleep through the week though, for various reasons. I can't remember which day it was now, but the day of the plane crash in Amsterdam meant absolute chaos at work, and I had my busiest day there since I started at the company. Still it was good experience, although a few alcoholic beverages were certainly required to get over the day!
On Thursday night I went to visit a radio station in East London, with the aim of bringing my show Grooveline back to the masses, plus helping out at a worthwhile radio project. It went really well, and I met the station manager, got a tour of the station, and handed in a show proposal. It seems quite likely that'll I'll get a show, and I've got to go back in again on Tuesday to record a demo. I'm planning to make it a one-hour show. That's completely different to what I've done in the past, where the show has ranged from 2 to 12 hours. But I'm actually really excited by the prospect of producing a tight, concise good sounding quality soul music show. My friend Robin Blamires on Smoke Radio has proved how you can make a 1 hour show sound great and fit a hell of a lot into it without making it sound rushed or stressful, and it's fair to say that the structure and idea of the new Grooveline will be very much based on Robin's show.
It'll also see me bring back two of my old features, plus a new one. Additionally, the radio station provides each show with fantastic, dynamic and easy to update show pages, which I will do my very best to keep up-to-date to complement the show perfectly. And one of the best features of the show page, which I'm very excited about, is the possiblity of listening again, on-demand, to the previous four weeks of shows.
So the first demo will be recorded on Tuesday, and we'll see what they think of that. I'm just looking forward to getting back into the studio, for the first time since last August.
Yesterday I went to the Irish pub in Kilburn to watch the Celtic game, where we absolutely thrashed St Mirren 7-0, which is absolutely brilliant for our goal difference compared to Rangers. I actually believe that game will win us the season. Meaning, I think we will win the league on goal difference only, and by a few goals and no more. Mark my words.
Didn't do as well with my betting on the other SPL games though, getting only 1 out of 4 results correct. I now have £39 in the betting kitty from my original fiver.
During the game I got a really emotional call from my mum, who is caring for John during his treatment for cancer. For the first time since it all started, I cried yesterday. I just felt so helpless being so far away, but I know they appreciate they can call me and let everything out anytime, and I know they can't really do that with anyone else. It's the very least I can do, and I'm going home for a weekend at the end of the month, but it doesn't seem enough. I'm working on making that better.
Last night we headed over to West Ealing to a housewarming party of one of Elle's friends. It was quite a quiet affair, but a good night and a chance to meet some really nice people. Getting back from there at 2.30am was pleasantly easy too, with two nightbuses.
I've just had a visit from our local councillor for the Burnt Oak ward. I think she was pleasantly surprised that she could have a conversation with someone who was actually remotely interested in politics, and someone whose vote she could rely on. Plus that fact that I'm fairly young. I've never worked out if I'm allowed to vote in the Scottish Parliamentary elections. The fact that I've not lived in Scotland for over 7 and a half years might count against me, but it's something I've never checked out for sure.
Monday, 23 February 2009
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Our lives are shaped
Colindale, London, England // 11.03 am // Cloudy 2ºc / 36ºf
I've had a great weekend so far, including a couple of fantastic gigs over the last two nights. On Friday night Elle and I went to Kilburn for the Talc gig. Before that though, we went for a drink in a pub just down the road from the venue, called the Brondes Age.
The venue itself was called The Luminaire, above the Kings Head pub. We were on the guestlist so managed to get discounted entry. The place was quite quiet when we arrived, but it soon got really busy and was quite packed by the time the band took the stage around 10.20pm.
Like I said in the last video blog, Talc are very entertaining and they did not disappoint on Friday! Dr Fun and The Gift, ie. Talc, were wearing the trademark suits and bowler hats, and the rest of the band, including Bobby Fame on drums, were wearing "Staff" t-shirts. They played a selection of tracks from both their albums, plus a couple of covers. There was a fair bit of swearing, and a rather surreal moment when Lionel Blair was mentioned in the lyrics of their track "Niteklub", when the band suddenly stopped, and Bobby Fame came to the fore to warn us that Lionel Blair just "appears" when least expected, quite possibly a figment of his own imagination.
As well as being entertaining, they are a really tight band too, especially the horn section which at one point featured the saxophonist playing two horns at once! And I always love to see and hear the vocoder being played live through a Yamaha keyboard, which there was an ample amount of.
All in all, a brilliant gig and a band I'd definitely love to see again. And it appears that, according to Elle, it is the best gig I've ever taken her to, mostly because although she's not a great fan of the music, there was more to it this time which kept her entertained!
We left there shortly after the gig and went home. I was absolutely shattered when I got in, having been awake for almost 24 hours. I almost fell asleep on the couch holding a can of beer which almost sprayed forth on the carpet, so I called it a night.
Felt really really rough yesterday when I woke up. I didn't drink that much on Friday night, but I think whatever I did drink combined with the extreme tiredness really hit me, and I had to go back to bed yesterday afternoon in order to feel better for the evening.
And by the time it got to the Sunburst Band gig last night, I felt totally fine. This gig was at Cargo, which is a club I've always fancied going to. We headed there after some greasy junk food in a local chicken place, and already the place was really busy, even though it was only 9.30pm. The venue is quite small, with an under-the-arches, warehouse-type feel to it. Great crowd though, and a really good atmosphere.
Benji B from BBC Radio 1Xtra was DJing, and some of the stuff he was playing was incredible. Really high quality 70s and 80s soul and jazz funk, most of it completely new to me but all of it fantastic.
By the time The Sunburst Band took the stage, the place was absolutely rammed from wall to wall, which was great to see. And the band tore the roof off the place - their gig at the Jazz Cafe last year was fantastic, but this was something else. I think the atmosphere of the venue helped too. It did take a while for the crowd to get really into it, but by the time the band signed off with the David Bendeth classic "Feel The Real", which was just stunning, I've never seen so many people crammed into such a tight space, dancing and grooving so enthusiastically to a piece of music. Definitely one of the best gigs.
Again, we left shortly afterwards, especially as I realised we could actually catch the last tube back home rather than suffer nightbuses for 1 hour and 10 minutes. And thankfully we did indeed catch the very last tube of the night.
There was one low point to the weekend, and in fact to the past few weeks, and is something I've not yet mentioned. My mum's partner, who has pretty much been a dad to me since I was 3 years old, is battling cancer. It started off as testicular cancer, which is something I've written about in depth before having had a scare of my own in the past, and in the knowledge that I have a higher risk of developing it due to complications when I was younger. John's cancer was missed first time round due to a ridiculous hospital error, which meant by the time he finally underwent surgery to remove the source, it had spread. The outlook is positive and everything looks good for a full recovery, but he started chemotherapy this week and that is never a good experience for anyone. I spoke to my mum for a good while yesterday after she had been to see him, and she was deeply upset at how much he was suffering as a result of the treatment. It's going to be a long road for the both of them, and as always at times like this I really wish I could do more. I'm just glad that my mum, who has had her own serious health issues over the last few years, is there for him. We're hoping John will get home today after the first round of his chemotherapy.
I've had a great weekend so far, including a couple of fantastic gigs over the last two nights. On Friday night Elle and I went to Kilburn for the Talc gig. Before that though, we went for a drink in a pub just down the road from the venue, called the Brondes Age.
The venue itself was called The Luminaire, above the Kings Head pub. We were on the guestlist so managed to get discounted entry. The place was quite quiet when we arrived, but it soon got really busy and was quite packed by the time the band took the stage around 10.20pm.
Like I said in the last video blog, Talc are very entertaining and they did not disappoint on Friday! Dr Fun and The Gift, ie. Talc, were wearing the trademark suits and bowler hats, and the rest of the band, including Bobby Fame on drums, were wearing "Staff" t-shirts. They played a selection of tracks from both their albums, plus a couple of covers. There was a fair bit of swearing, and a rather surreal moment when Lionel Blair was mentioned in the lyrics of their track "Niteklub", when the band suddenly stopped, and Bobby Fame came to the fore to warn us that Lionel Blair just "appears" when least expected, quite possibly a figment of his own imagination.
As well as being entertaining, they are a really tight band too, especially the horn section which at one point featured the saxophonist playing two horns at once! And I always love to see and hear the vocoder being played live through a Yamaha keyboard, which there was an ample amount of.
All in all, a brilliant gig and a band I'd definitely love to see again. And it appears that, according to Elle, it is the best gig I've ever taken her to, mostly because although she's not a great fan of the music, there was more to it this time which kept her entertained!
We left there shortly after the gig and went home. I was absolutely shattered when I got in, having been awake for almost 24 hours. I almost fell asleep on the couch holding a can of beer which almost sprayed forth on the carpet, so I called it a night.
Felt really really rough yesterday when I woke up. I didn't drink that much on Friday night, but I think whatever I did drink combined with the extreme tiredness really hit me, and I had to go back to bed yesterday afternoon in order to feel better for the evening.
And by the time it got to the Sunburst Band gig last night, I felt totally fine. This gig was at Cargo, which is a club I've always fancied going to. We headed there after some greasy junk food in a local chicken place, and already the place was really busy, even though it was only 9.30pm. The venue is quite small, with an under-the-arches, warehouse-type feel to it. Great crowd though, and a really good atmosphere.
Benji B from BBC Radio 1Xtra was DJing, and some of the stuff he was playing was incredible. Really high quality 70s and 80s soul and jazz funk, most of it completely new to me but all of it fantastic.
By the time The Sunburst Band took the stage, the place was absolutely rammed from wall to wall, which was great to see. And the band tore the roof off the place - their gig at the Jazz Cafe last year was fantastic, but this was something else. I think the atmosphere of the venue helped too. It did take a while for the crowd to get really into it, but by the time the band signed off with the David Bendeth classic "Feel The Real", which was just stunning, I've never seen so many people crammed into such a tight space, dancing and grooving so enthusiastically to a piece of music. Definitely one of the best gigs.
Again, we left shortly afterwards, especially as I realised we could actually catch the last tube back home rather than suffer nightbuses for 1 hour and 10 minutes. And thankfully we did indeed catch the very last tube of the night.
There was one low point to the weekend, and in fact to the past few weeks, and is something I've not yet mentioned. My mum's partner, who has pretty much been a dad to me since I was 3 years old, is battling cancer. It started off as testicular cancer, which is something I've written about in depth before having had a scare of my own in the past, and in the knowledge that I have a higher risk of developing it due to complications when I was younger. John's cancer was missed first time round due to a ridiculous hospital error, which meant by the time he finally underwent surgery to remove the source, it had spread. The outlook is positive and everything looks good for a full recovery, but he started chemotherapy this week and that is never a good experience for anyone. I spoke to my mum for a good while yesterday after she had been to see him, and she was deeply upset at how much he was suffering as a result of the treatment. It's going to be a long road for the both of them, and as always at times like this I really wish I could do more. I'm just glad that my mum, who has had her own serious health issues over the last few years, is there for him. We're hoping John will get home today after the first round of his chemotherapy.
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