Obviously Kirsty's advice is old news by the time that I hear it...
'Fill your house for free!', she urges the nation...
Shut up Kirsty!! I was on to a good thing before you started spilling all my secrets!
Kirsty Whateverhernameis from Channel 4, I love you but you're bringing me down, I feel that you are taking all of the treasure away from me, making the scrounging, freewheeling lifestyle of mine suddenly BoHo and 'on-trend' and turning the term 'skip diving' from a frowned upon nasty, nasty business into a medal-placing sport!
I rejoice and despair all in the same breath.
Finally the world agrees with my methods.
But stop pilfering all my resources!!!!!
I glance around my front room. Our front room.
And I see how little I have spent.
Bought new.... a floating shelf... the small wall-mounted cabinet housing our (ahem) 'borrowed' projector... the sofa from Ikea and the cushions (that my partner thinks we should now substitute for something more grown up....
A charity shop provided the secondhand table and a couple of the chairs...
For free.... a 70’s teak sideboard (from down the road), a bakery tray tv unit holding a fat-back tv that formerly lived in an outdoor toilet... salvaged chairs... a vinyl cabinet (from down the road), the filing cabinet (from one road away), a drop-leaf table (from down the road), the record player (from a few roads away)...
and that is just one room!!
The cost of living that has been a constant source of ire to my girlfriend (now fiancée) is a minimal cost.. from the description you may think we are living in something like a junk shop (just don't check the shed), but the truth is we have a unique home that reflects a passion for things that people think are no longer useful... yet they've saved us a packet... and they've meant we can grow our own style naturally
It has taken time, but in some respects my other half has definitely converted
Kirsty may be trying to sell the 're-use and recycle' idea to the mainstream, but avoiding the twee chiché and with a twist of Ikea chic, we have made a home for ourselves that exists outside the world of leather-corner sofas and 'neutral' colour paint schemes
Thanks Kirsty, but we've already got this covered.
I'll admit it sounds like the most boring chapter in the Harry Potter series or perhaps an adventure that Sherlock Holmes and even Scooby Doo willingly passed on.
But the combination of 'home' life and steadfastly fixing my age at 30 finds you suddenly caring about the oddest things.
Those of us that remember the way things were remember when crisp packets held more and Wagon Wheels were bigger, and in a similar entry of world weary dissatisfactions I have now found that cuprinol seems to disappear.
(Anyone uninterested in D.I.Y based rants/observations may want to find something more thrilling to do with their lives right. about. now.)
Certainly, the tin looks full upon opening, but as you progress trying to preserve your decking, behold, that it disappears before your very eyes.
I'm currently on my 2nd (new) tin this summer, having found the first was empty after only coating the decking 1 and a half times...
The old tin I just finished, it managed the decking twice over and then some, a few additional coats plus yearly applications to the garden furniture and a few touch ups here and there that saw the first tin last around 3 years.
And now, with the newest tin opened I want to cry thinking how much I have just paid for it and finding that it doesn't want to go very far.
'Found a cable spool down the road and brought it home if u want it'
....
'I don't tink so'
...
'But what about ur pinterest board?’
oh dear, after spending an afternoon turning an old unwanted wardrobe (from my brother's bedroom, replaced by a rather swish looking chest of drawers from a charity shop) into additional shelving for my kitchen cabinets, I could feel the creative impulses flowing through me...
sadly, mundane tasks have to take over and I have to nip to the co-op to pick up some bread, but one essential part of my lifestyle (hold on people, cos it's gonna get real crazy from here on in....) is to vary the routes I walk home, incase I may happen to stumble upon any random, discarded, unwanted crap that may just serve a purpose...
and as I make my way back with a 95p loaf of thick-cut white own-brand, I notice an idle cable spool stood in the middle of the path.... hey, that'd be bloody handy, since my uber-artistic little brother has got that pinterest board about cable spools and pallets, yet, to my knowledge does not have a great deal of cable spools or pallets currently at his disposal
I've picked it up, opting for carrying it home, rather than rolling it home, when I hear a familiar voice shout my name... shout my name quite angrily... shit... I've been rumbled!!
I turn around to see my girlfriend at the end of the path, I turn around and wave, trying to conceal the cable spool unsuccessfully behind me, I think on my feet, I set it down and it on it, acting casual.... 'I thought you wasn't gonna be home til half five?’
My girlfriend is already well aware of my habit of picking odd bits and bobs off the street... 'And what are you gonna do with that?'
'I'm gonna give it to my brother, he has a board on pinterest about recycling ol cable spools and pallets, I'm sure he'll make use of it'
afew hours later, and I find out that he probably won't....
I lay in bed while my girlfriend is snoring next to me.
I'm cursing the alarm that I thought that I had turned off last night, yet still went off at half eight this morning, I curse that I cannot now get back to sleep
it has been a while since I have actually managed to get a really good lay in, to wake up later than intended feeling rejuvenated and harbouring no real guilt over the hours of daylight missed. it is an affliction, that my mind is too busy, and once it has been turned on it is hard to turn off again.
I wake up. and then I think.
I've thought about the comic that I didn't finish reading in bed last night, I thought about how my girlfriend told me that recently she has been counting herself to sleep and has rarely made it past 60 seconds (and I can certainly attest to this), indeed, this morning she has stirred a handful of times already and just rolls back over to sleep, whilst I have laid there hoping that I may succumb to sleep yet again, just til half ten or 11, have a real lazy morning.
I have thought about a couple of music apps that I downloaded last night, and how I might hope to record them and incorporate the Be Bot into my own compositions, I have thought about the lamp shade I want to buy from B&Q and that I probably need some screws to put the boards up in the geek room so I can get a move on decorating the final wall, I have thought about upshire car boot sale, and putting the washing out in the garden, and about writing a blog about thinking too much.
and sometimes, I wake up, and I do.
springing out of bed, leaving it unmade as I launch myself into the first task of the day, be it painting, loading or unloading the washing machine, washing up, tidying up, sweeping up.
I am proud of my aptitude to wake up and start achieving things on my day off, but some days, like today, I really would just like a lay-in.
I recently acquired a new addition to my penthouse geek pad, turning it from a unique attic space into an amazingly retro hang out.
as with many other unique items in my house, they are things that are seemingly unwanted by other people, found by me on my travels, chucked out and neglected.
yet unlike many of the other unique items that I have brought home, my girlfriend was actually rather impressed that I had rescued an abandoned vintage record player.
I had learnt from previous experiences that if I do not act quick enough, then I am likely to lose out on these spoils to somebody else, and so when I noticed a huge pile of random rubbish dumped outside a property alongside its 'to let' sign, I knew that I wouldn't have long if I wanted to lay claim to the metal mystery box and a wooden case below it that I had spotted and had got me intrigued.
it was lucky that I had invited my brother to swing by, as I dragged him out on a brief mission to investigate further, I politely rang the doorbell before rummaging through the contents of the front garden, prepared to ask if I could help myself to any unwanted goodies, getting no answer, we preceded to unravel the mystery of the mystery boxes.
on top was a reel to reel cassette machine, looking like a control panel of a time machine, even if I had no real use for it, it was still spectacular from an aesthetic point of view.
but the true treasure was below it, a complete record player in a beautiful wooden case, with a Hulio Inglesias 7 inch still on the turntable.
again, I was thankful for my brothers assistance as it would have been too much for me to have carried home myself, and when the journey was done, I plugged it in with trepidation.
Everything worked perfectly and it provided the impetus for me to finally get my arse in gear and rearrange the geek room that had been a work in progress and a storage space for far too long.
the lovingly reconditioned Shcreiber cabinet that had been fly tipped and dragged back from an underpass near Waltham Abbey made its way into the attic, to live out the rest of its life alongside the large wooden trunk that had been chucked out from an old couple down the road that were moving and is now full of fancy dress clothes, the broken briefcases that had been dumped a few roads away and the ikea display cabinet that was actually bought brand new, I put on display my girlfriend's set of Hatori Hanzo samurai swords, plugged in my brothers lava lamp and with all our extra bedding, tomato tins and toilet rolls tucked away out of sight in the eaves of the loft, the geek pad suddenly seemed to be wonderfully realised with these new additions.
there is still work to do in there, it is still a work in progress, but as I now set up to build up a small collection of classic or equally kooky slabs of vinyl through scouring charity shops, I have a rather enviable chill out pad that I'm proud to have put my own unique stamp on.
the downtime and the freedom that you are afforded are certainly to be viewed as a positive, as long a you can stay focused and continue to set yourself goals and tasks to be completed.
but there is a downside too, amongst the chances I have to put on a load of washing, tidy the house (or the garden if the sun decides to shine), put washing away, make dinner and all manner of other domestic chores that I shouldn't derive quite so much pleasure from, I also need to commit enough time to job searches (cos that mortgage isn't gonna pay itself).
which wasn't terrible to begin with, giving it a little time each day, I soon found that even in this disastrous economic climate, there still appears to be a good number of jobs advertised in the job sector I am best suited to, heck, with 12 years experience, I should have no problem should I!?
and here is where the plot thickens, and why unemployment seems to deaden people.
on a couple of occasions, for a couple of retailers, I have been asked to conduct an online suitability test.
this should surely be a walk in the park, after all, I know that I'm more than suited to the job already.
and right then, my entire working life and my charming personality is to be nobbled down to ticking boxes for set questions with no reflection of true self.
and since taking these two tests, one potential employer has already deemed me unsuitable for the job without even so much as talking to me.
I can now see the frustration that people must go through, even I, with my previous experience am simply not good enough, Jah help some of the other poor unfortunate souls that are out there looking for work, and when it is important to keep your head above water, remain positive and cling onto your sanity, these blows to your confidence can hit you hard.
I've had my mood swings because of it, but I've picked myself up, dusted myself off and kept looking, and tried to keep smiling
and now I know full well that employees of a large high-street pharmacist must be the ultimate human beings in order to have secured their hard-earned current work role, you are certainly a better person than i!
well, i would like to introduce you all to my very first unemployed blog post...
for just over a week now i have probably been the most active bum on the planet, refusing to let losing my job bring me down too much, so instead i have been trying to fill my usual work hours with as much as possible
this means that i have more time to make sure that the house is always tidy, i have finished checking and editing my NaNoWriMo novel, i've finished reviving and painting the cabinet that i found flytipped and shall now use in my geek room, i've reorganised messy drawers, i've gone out for long-ass bike rides, heck, i've done bloody loads of stuff, including getting my CV up to date and starting applying for new jobs
all in an attempt to not feel mopey and useless and bored, in fact, i'm quite enjoying all this extra time to do things that matter more to me, the only problem is that paying bills and a mortgage are also pretty high up on my list of priorities, but my time as a house-husband is in fact rather liberating, now if only it would stop raining long enough for me to get out and do some gardening!
despite this extra time, there are a handful of things that i haven't spent enough time on yet.
the first is blogging (hey, i've been busy with other stuff!)
the second is my music (hey, i've been busy with other stuff!) but as i was telling my brother the other day, music is a hard beast to tame, a couple of hours sat infront of a machine with the intentions of producing a groundbreaking piece of music will more likely result in being sat infront of a machine for two hours and still not be much further than when you loaded it up, indeed today i have tried to complete the final track of a Giles Babel EP and found myself going almost nowhere with it, and when you are trying to get the most out of every hour it is hard to accept that time can just slip away alongside any further achievement... but i'm sticking with it, don't you worry, maybe i'll have another crack at it after i've put the dishes away...
and the third... i've done nothing at all to draw your attentions to the t-shirts that accompany my currently worked on EP, four tracks are complete, four t-shirts are complete, and yet, as of typing, i've only loaded one t-shirt up and have not even mentioned it anywhere at all...
in my defence, i had a lot going on. and in my defence, i've still got a lot going on. but getting the Giles Babel collection up to date needs to be another task that i sit myself down to complete
so before i waffle on too much i think i may leave it at that, you've had a little update, and i shall now think about making myself some lunch, putting away the dishes, hoovering the front room, maybe doing a bit of polishing, uploading the next three t-shirts in the collection, tackling that fifth and final track again and then perhaps i shall see you on the other side to discuss the t-shirt in the next couple of days perhaps...
so why don't i leave you with the first track, Poptarts and Battleships, from "programmed to prevent war" and a little subtle link to follow if you'd like to view the tee right now, and i'll be back with more info soooooon
my brother helped me with a bunch of boards that i had acquired for the princely sum of zero pounds and zero pence that needed cutting to fit the slant in the ceiling, i made the job look harder than it actually was, my brother helped make it easier.
i then decided that before i plaster these boards with piles of comic book panels that i have acquired for the princely sum of zero pounds and zero pence (and also research mod podge and decoupage glue) that it would probably be a smart idea to start painting the adjacent wall so that i do not splash paint about where it is not wanted a ruin a lot of time and effort.
so off to Waltham Cross i went, in search of 'the right shade' (oh no, not these decisions again), stopping off at the charity shops and being blessed with the discoveries of a rather 'manga-fied' looking Darth Vader Figure, a talking Syndrome from The Incredibles, and both a General Traag and Footsoldier figure from Turtles, two figures that i used to own, back in the day (in fact, i get the distinct feeling that the footsoldier was actually my brother's) and then onto Homebase, where i invested £3.19 or so in a tester pot of paint.
and the following day was spent sketching a rough outline on a wall and getting really artistic, checking back to my reference material and standing back and feeling proud of how it is all coming along so far.
and over my next couple of days off it should come along further, possibly even getting close to completion.
probably costing me another tester pot or two to make up the colours i need.
i still look around my house now, going on nearly a year and a half since we bought it, and occasionally the sparseness shocks me, and i want rooms to be full, and complete, but i told myself that the home would grow naturally, attracting oddities and embellishments over time that would make it truly unique, and not just a copy of a trendy hipster pad that could easily be paid out for and bought wholesale in one lump.
and as wonderful as life as a pop star must be, and how great it must be to have a huge bloody mansion (to think, i could actually have the library room that i have always wanted for myself), i may be kidding myself, but i still think that i would struggle to break from my frugal ways, and would surely still want to be hands on with my own decorating.
although i may be tempted to part with some of my millions to pay for a commission of this quality...
i did spend the few days after completing my NaNovel not really knowing what to do with myself, knocking out a blog entry, but other than that, feeling slightly lost without the crutch of frantic and near-constant writing to lean on.
i could feel how devoting so much time to it had seemed to have given my life purpose, and how blocking out practically everything else (plus the looming deadline) had given me a strong focus.
sadly i feel it slipping away from me already, as 'normal' life creeps back in and all the jobs i had put off until i had finished writing now needed doing.
in addition to housework etc, there is still some more home improvements that need further advancing (if not finishing) before christmas, mix in my intentions to record another christmas single, a follow up to my 2008 effort, and also wanting to learn to play guitar a little more competently and my time is soon spent. and then there is the full time job that i will need to fit all of this around.
i've also made promises of a couple of reviews of Enfield bands that need to go up on Desperately Seeking Susan Boyle sometime soonish and seeing if the Enfield Advertiser will go on ignoring pieces submitted on local acts by a local journalist, which i probably can't do until i've rewired some speakers, and i guess i've got my work cut out for me yet again.
progress on the NaNovel will wait for now, i'll take another look at it in January perhaps, give myself some distance from it and return to it fresh in the new year to work on a second draft, but for now my girlfriend is reading her way through it, and i am preparing a pdf copy to fire off to a handful of people for judgement.
and if i could find the time to write 50,000 words in just 29 days, i really haven't got much of an excuse for infrequent blogging, have i?
yet it does feel slightly odd bringing darkness into what was a rather unbelievably spacious looking attic space, but it will be worth it once all the ideas are in place and come together properly.
and now we are raising questions over what will be done with the fireplace in the front room, i suggested the exposed brickwork should be painted white.... my girlfriend suggested we paint it black.
we in England have been promised an Indian Summer all week, it finally decided to arrive today.
most people pray that our country's pitiful amount of sunshine will actually land on their day off, but i tend to be quite the opposite.
whilst other people may relish the chance to laze about in the sun on their day off, i actually see it as an inconvenience, for whilst we are supposedly living in the future and so much of our lives depends on keeping our social networks up-to-date, i would much rather break away from the computer when the sun is shining, which means that remix-work or writing or blog-posts will likely go AWOL whilst i seek to spend my few hours away from housework out in the garden or on the sun-drenched streets.
owning your own home becomes such an enormous burden, waking up on a beautiful day to find that this unseasonal warmth means the bedclothes need changing, and of course the bedroom needs sweeping, and clothes need putting away, and the washing up too, not to mention the fact that i want to finish a remix that needs to be submitted today, when all i should really be doing in basking in the sun like a teenage mutant vitamin D obsessed turtle.
so with housework done, i proceed to prepare for our unseasonable Barbeque, it will be the first of october on saturday, today, on wednesday, just three days prior to that traditionally autumnal month, we are experiencing heatwaves and planning for BBQs, just a shame that the sun still seems to set at some time just after 7pm.
so i google some vegetarian BBQ recipes, head off to the Co-Op down the road to pick up a couple of ingredients, and then later, with my dishes ready to marinate and a couple of sailor jerry and cokes down myself, i proceeded to make room in my fridge for the influx of beer that i expect.
jars of olives and capers are repositioned, and tubs of philly are moved.
last week i had gone looking into Forbidden Planet for a couple of back issues of some DC comics (that i never managed to find), particularly the DC Retro-Active line of comics, featuring stories by writers and artist from the '70's, '80's and '90's.
i was looking out for the 80's era Superman issue, anything featuring Batman, and the '90's era Green Lantern.
y'see, i liked Kyle Rayner, of course i liked Hal, but i was also quite into this new age of comic books that seemed to be occurring around me and the new blood in superhero talent that seemed to be taking over from some of the old guard.
of course it was all a marketing ploy back then and given time the status quo would be restored (hmmmmmmmmm) and of course, the new Green Lanterns and Green Arrows and whatever else would be usurped by their predecessors given time , but i didn't realise that then.
anyways, much like most plotting for modern day comic books, i have no idea where i thought i was going with this, but i do know that i told you guys that i was intending to shed light on some almost forgotten blog-posts, and y-know what, as fate would have it, the oldest of those posts actually does pertain to circa '90's Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, and a rather unfortunate predicament his girlfriend found herself in..
see....
this is almost practically relevant to my BBQ preparations.
i had to find room in our fridge for all the chicken and other marinated meat that were likely to turn up.
and yeah, a bad guy stuffed Kyle Rayner's girlfriend in a fridge.
i might explain further tomorrow if the sun isn't shining.
it also handily doubles up as my filing cabinet now
i feel as if i am following in the ikea trend of life by having dual functionalities for my furniture
and i am also following the green way of living by rescuing a piece of furniture from the side of the road (with a lil help from my brother) and thus recycling it in my own home, meaning that not only have i saved this filing cabinet from becoming just another addition to a landfill site somewhere, i have also probably reduced my carbon footprint or something equally green and trendy to be doing by not having to buy a new piece of furniture
although i am in the market for some new furniture
probably from ikea
the home is slowly becoming a contrast of ikea products and stuff that other people no-longer seem to want (should i call it up-cycling, no, cos that sounds stupid)
a couple of our garden chairs had been discarded just down the road from me (although one of them does only have 3 legs, perhaps this is why it was no longer wanted), the extendable table was a bargain from a charity shop and the same goes for a couple of the chairs around it, other chairs in the house have also been chucked out of their old homes for no good reason, our tv unit has been up-cycled (hmmm) from its original purpose as bakery trays, in the spare room there is a, frankly, quite stunning re-upholstered chair that my brother up-cycled (arrgggghhhhhh) and gave to me as a present for my birthdayaaand there is still a rather fetching trunk in the shed that i still haven't found a use for just yet, but i shall.
i've just got back from a quick wander around the block
i didn't intend to walk round the block, but i did anyway
my sole reason for leaving the house this morning was to claim a cheap looking little three tiered unit on wheels that had been sat in a front garden on my road for the last couple of days
and herein is where the problem lies.
the poor ejected piece of furniture was about midway up the drive of the house, and in my mind i consider this something of a grey area, i know for certain that there are other people that have no qualms (for i have seen them with my own eyes) about getting stuck in to a pile of rubbish or a skip on someone else's property, but i'd be happier to make myself known to anyone that may be in the house and make my intentions clear, just incase they find that helping myself is something they didn't want happening and i end up on the receiving end of some unwelcome attention or abuse
i actually went down to the house after work on monday and knocked, yet despite there clearly being a telly on, and i could see a PC all fired up and running and what looked like a socked foot, there was no answer, perhaps the socked foot wasn't actually attached to a working leg, i am unsure, but i could see that someone was obviously home, and even tho they didn't notice someone politely knocking on their door, i was concious that they may notice someone making off with something from their front garden, so i left it
i returned this morning with the intention of having it away if there was no answer again, it seemed a safer bet that most inhabitants would either be at work or at school, making for a slightly less embarrassing getaway
but i was too late, it was already gone, and i kicked myself knowing that someone with a lesser set of morals had probably upped and away with it without so much as a second thought, whereas i had been mulling over the idea of helping myself to it since spotting it on sunday afternoon
i also kicked myself as i already envisaged it being put to use as a slightly more practical solution for my computer that is still temporarily set up in the front room, with the monitor set atop a folding table, which then has to be removed and stuck back on the floor if anyone fancies a cup of tea with biscuits or we have guests over and bring out the cheese and wine
i also pictured the small stereo sitting rather comfortably on the bottom shelf, whilst a few light reads, magazines or perhaps my library books might look rather smart in the middle gap
alas, it was not meant to be.
so, if there is a lesson to be learnt from this, i guess i should learn to lose my fear and slight social embarrassment and act upon my impulses, or else live with the disappointment
i decided that i wouldn't walk straight back home, instead i'd take a quick wander around the block (as you already know)
and what do i discover, a home throwing out a cheap looking filing cabinet, sat in the middle of their front garden, now, i'm not entirely sure what i'd do with it, but i'm sure i could find a home for it, i'm just not sure i'd feel entirely comfortable wheeling the thing home (presuming it even had wheels)
there are a number of things in my life that i would like to do
occasionally i find it useful to make a list of the certain things that i want to achieve, and i know other people live their lives by constantly listing, i think i particularly find it fulfilling to cross through my list and slowly whittle it down to a short number og goals that have so far remained unobtainable
ok, so i know i bitch everytime NME decides to publish a list in it's magazine and that my last post was over a week ago, inching ever nearer to that two week mark, but those lazy gits actually get paid for bumping their heads together and sticking a bunch of things in numerical order, i merely try and jot down ever may be going through my mind, writing and updating in whatever free time my hectic life allows me
you've probably missed out on some real gems of blog posts that never were, simply cos i just wasn't able to get near a computer for long enough to communicate my ruminations..
which reminds me of something else i should probably add to the list..
this is what i want to do:
actually get my Riot Music EP completed
grow a proper beard
find a decent modern-looking blue sofa-bed for the spare bedroom
buy some frames and the blinds for the spare room
remember to actually properly look at the items on the pages of the ikea catalogue that i folded over so that i wouldn't forget
write up reviews/articles for the new EPs from Getaway and Twisted Hearts
try and blag my way into reviewing the autumn Crystal Fighters tour
and work on keeping Desperately Seeking Susan Boyle a little bit more frequently updated
of course there are tons more things i'll have to do, since i went to my cousins wedding last week instead of having time off for myself the upstairs floors need sweeping, but that was possibly getting far too mundane and pedantic to keep listing, oh and i should bring the wheely bins back up the drive this evening, but that would be stupid to give you each and every task and chore
i just wanted to let people know that i am still here
i am still writing (when i get the chance)
and i am still trying to get my house in order and inch slowly closer to having a complete looking (or at least updated) decor throughout
i'll refrain from using my blog as a noticeboard in the future
the aesthetic of our house has taken a change for the better
after only owning our own home for 10 months, we now have our first clock on the wall!
my girlfriend moans that she never knows what the time is in our house, having to check our phones is obviously too much of an inconvenience and the clock on the oven is barely ever right, due to having the buttons to change all manner of things, including the clock, at a rather convenient height so that people are forever leaning on it (we are currently an hour fast i think)
the clock was in fact a birthday present from my mum before we had even bought the house and is part of a rather fetching layered effect set of photo frames, which we picked up afew extra additional frames to match it so as it didn't look quite so lonely on the wall
all the photos are of me and my girlfriend, and i despaired as we went through a crowded harddrive of five years of pictures that of all the ones picked, none of them showed me with a decent amount of facial hair
gifted with rather young looks, and still being ID'ed at the age of 27, i made a significant life choice to remain bearded, or at least quite stubbly, this decision is also beneficial to my rather lazy attitude to shaving
i relented and went with the pictures we had chosen, there was nothing wrong with them at all except i felt that they didn't reflect me, as i am right now
which got me thinking on how long these photos are gonna be on display, and how we and our lives may change
of course we could always update the photos, but then again we could also be in the same house in our 40's or our 50's, perhaps with kids that are growing (or grown) up, and i wonder what they will think of the photos, and considering that i already cringe looking at my bald, non-fuzzy youthful face i wonder how we will look back on them ourselves in the years to come
every photo that is now proudly framed up carries certain memories with it, of the time and the place and what we were up to, on the beach in felixstowe after my cousins wedding, chilling with a beer at the balloon fiesta in Bristol, both in fancy dress at a friends birthday party, out for a sunny day in hyde park, a dry day at Glastonbury and just messing about with the camera when she bought it for me in 2006, times worth remembering that don't deserve to be languishing on a 100gb hard drive
whilst i was quite tempted to post up another superhero offering, i decided against it since i was afraid of offending those less inclined towards comic books
but i can't promise a break at all from general geekiness
and for that, we head to my attic, which has been designated as the geek pad in my house and which i finally got round to starting decorating while my girlfriend was away in india, yep, it was back to colour swatches and once again looking at a whole bundle of similar colours, trying to figure out which particular tone would be best
on monday, it took a step closer to completion as i got rather creative with a couple of shades of red, a paintbrush, and my right hand
(i am sworn to secrecy as to the complete look, but their is a sneak peak right here)
on tuesday, once the (splattered) paint was dry, i took up the plastic sheets, took down the protective wrapping and put the exceptionally priced ikea glass cabinet in its rightful place, stood back and felt proud
my brother had already been round to help put the cabinet together as i was far too excited to leave it boxed, and a fortunate trip to a charity shop resulted in the purchase of quite a few retro action figures, perfect to kickstart my little nostalgic collection, but having the wall painted, the cabinet in place, and the figures standing to attention made all the difference
and sat proudly on the very top shelf of the cabinet is the beautiful animated style Princess Leia statuette that my girlfriend bought me as a present a couple of years ago, it had spent too long in it's box, and since moving into our house i have been super-keen to get it on display so that it can be fully appreciated
there is still plenty of work to be done before the geek pad is complete, but this week it has definitely taken a huge step in the right direction, and i have spent this very night not just blogging, and updating my contributions to byford365, but also scouring ebay for some film posters to grace the walls of my (ahem) penthouse surely my effort redecorating must have upgraded it from being 'just' an attic
perhaps it is slightly old fashioned to pass on a demo CD to someone.
i like to think of it as nostalgic instead.
and this is the story of how, with clammy palms, i handed over my CD to Eddy Temple Morris yesterday:
so perhaps my own self-promotion has been a little bit lax of late, perhaps my own musical work ethic has been a little lax of late, i have become accustomed to the truth of the mater that these things will happen when moving into a home, my own home, with the other half (well, half hers too actually)
the spare bedroom has one blue wall and one white wall that i have taken it upon myself to paint, the remaining wall is still that nasty possible-magnolia-really? colour that it has been since we moved in, i would have painted it except she has talked about stripping the textured wall paper from the walls and i don't want to have painted it all for nothing
and yes, the room does actually have four walls, but one is entirely taken up by fitted wardrobes, although i did once consider painting them
but this isn't a case of decoration, this is more a matter that i fully intend to move all my kit into that room and it become my little haven to hide in and create whilst she watches television downstairs, but for now the computer still sits around downstairs, leaving my creativity rather stunted when she turns the tv on
plus, once you consider all the time i actually end up watering the garden, cleaning this, washing that, cooking something, and a whole bunch of other household chores that i hadn't really anticipated yet feel duty bound to complete so i don't end up living in a complete shit hole, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to fire up the machine and start manipulating sounds
and with all this repeatedly happening since last september, why should i waste an opportunity to burn a number of tracks i am proudest of and pass them along to one of my all-time musical heroes?!
Eddy TM would be DJing as part of Akira The Don's album launch party, and Eddy TM is a DJ that i have huge love and huge respect for, and i am extremely proud that he has played one of my remixes on his long running Xfm show, aptly named The Remix
so i pondered the structure of the CD, settling on an equal mix of original material and remixes, including The Enemy remix that he had already aired, and a rejigged Akira The Don track, since it only seemed appropriate
now, i have been training myself to not act like a complete fanboy when meeting famous people, but those that i hold in the highest esteem still cause an outbreak of hysterics in me, and it was no different when Eddy walked past me, i wasn't even facing him, and yet i felt his prescence (or perhaps caught him in the corner of my eye) and my heart skipped a beat
the plan was to grab a little chat with him and try and retain a sense of composure, but the gig moved swiftly and i would have felt that i was disrespecting the performer and Eddy himself if i tried to catch his attention and hold a conversation during a gig
and so there was nothing left to do but approach him whilst he DJed, seriously, the guy is a consummate professional, graciously accepting the CD from me and even holding a slightly disjointed rhetoric as he cued up and mixed tracks whilst observing that i wasn't going anywhere just yet
i introduced myself, told him how much i thought of him, allowed him to do what he had to do, and then continued to tell him that he had played a track of mine before, at which point Eddy took a little more notice, looking over the almost unreadable tracklisting in the poor lighting and acknowledging that, yeah, he remembered it
he then remarked that he thought we had met before, blimey! either he is an extremely gracious person making a lucky guess, but i believe that i saw recognition in his eyes, i didn't expect for him to remember at all, it must have been a good couple of years ago at least, but i'll quite happily live with the belief that Eddy TM not only is a great DJ, but also a great human being with superhuman skills of recollection
we briefly discussed the artwork of the promo, that he loved, and that i admitted to half-inching and not really being able to claim as my own, and then i said i would leave him to it, he had a job to do after all, and i left beaming...
i hope that he will give it a listen and i hope that he will enjoy it, i would be bloody ecstatic if he saw fit to air anything from it but that is regardless, the most important thing is that he is something of a hero of mine and that in the two brief moments that i have been able to converse with him, Eddy has been nothing less than a complete gentleman and an all-round nice guy
and i couldn't ask for anything more than that when meeting a personal hero
but i didn't really let this worry me as i took a week of off work to spend a little more time doing up the house alongside my girlfriend, it didn't prove to be quite as productive as the first spurt of hard work from last year, hindered somewhat by bank holidays and other plans, but a fair amount of gardening was tackled, contemplations of the spare room and geeky hideout in the attic were made and the kitchen walls were partially painted
and whilst my tenure at the Advertiser seems to be crumbling and my home inches closer to looking less like a work in progress i do also have some other news that had me quite literally dancing around the house
it appears that glasswerk seems to be upping its game in the hands of a new editor who has already hooked me up to review MC Lars when he hits London this month (with my fave, Akira The Don, in support) and provided me with a care package that arrived last week of CDs to be reviewed.
i had already troubled this new editor with a fussy description of genres that i would be willing to write about, in accordance with my own whims that i would no longer put up with some of the utter rubbish that got sent my way in the name of 'journalism', i seem to have less time to call my own these days and wouldn't desire wasting it on trying to find something clever and worthwhile about a release i really couldn't give a toss about
and i fully appreciate the effort made, most of the names were completely new to me, but the discoveries involved in having these on rotation made me realise again just how much i love discovering new music and being a part of the wider music scene through my reviews and blogs
receiving far more play than the other CDs recieved has been the debut album by Berlin based DJ and label boss, Daniel Haaksman, that shall be released later this month, the blistering Baile Funk was exactly to my taste and the carnival flavas made short work of housebound jobs, one particular sight to behold was my rythmic ass-shaking as i stood atop my kitchen units, splashing a vibrant lime green onto the walls that seemed to suit the current soundtrack as i imagined myself in a skimpy sequin costume addorned with peacock feathers.
see what i'm capable of doing when i put my mind to it?
not only have i stripped the decking to the best of my abilities whilst catching a fair bit of sun at the same time, i have also found the time to do my fair share of house work, read a comic in the sun whilst enjoying a beer that gets me up to date for reading Final Crisis, fixed the toilet, unfixed the light that needs to be returned to B&Q and fixed my dupstep mix.
of course, i thought it was finished the first time round, but a few little niggles and issues that had been raised by my girlfriend have been taken into consideration and with a little bit of tweaking i'm hoping that it shall meet with approval
nothing drastic has changed, everything has stayed the same, i have just readjusted a handful of the transitions as a number of tracks seemed to be coming in too loud and ruined the flow slightly, but like i said, i thought it was fine the first time round... let's see if i go back for any further edits....
but i am proud of it, the title pretty much says it all really...
wub be good to me, a dubstep cut'n'paste mix by Hunchbakk
i basically cut and pasted the whole thing together in Acid, creating my own little loops and edits and merging tracks together as best as i possibly could, and i'll say it again, i am proud of it, for every little niggle or obvious flaw there have been other mixes, transitions and edits that have been so smooth that they have not raised any attention at all, it may not be perfect, but it's mine.
and so, perhaps for a little piece of history on this mix.
it was created for a friend that doesn't like dubstep.
we were at a dubstep night at Bar Form, and to be honest, it was slightly on the boring side, there was no real variation, nothing to really hook anybody in to the music, some of it was banging, but the rest of the time it strayed into repetitive and generic territory.
my friend was particularly unimpressed and it was easy to pinpoint what it was she didn't like about what was being played, yet i insisted that there would be dubstep that i think she would like and vowed to knock together a CD of tracks that i think she might have liked.
except some of these tracks and mixes were going on five or six minutes or more long, and strayed into repetitive and generic territory, so instead of just knocking together a playlist to burn off and wallow in the glove compartment of her car i instead thought i'd try and get a little creative and actually mix the tracks to suit her attention span.
so, in my own way i decided to splice together a mix that would reach back to the moody and pioneering dubstep of Burial as something of a history lesson, but also take in more vocal based tracks and remixes, as well as covering a number of more recognisable tunes in a filthy dubstep disguise, and since i couldn't let her get away without a little something to challenge her i also threw in tracks from Caspa and Rusko amongst the more palatable tracks as something of a contrast.
so what are you waiting for?
download it
share it
share feedback
let me know what you think
and for those that have to have the whole package, at teh top of the post is the front cover, at the bottom of the post is the back cover, and for those with snazzy printers that can print onto CDs (you lucky people, you) i have also put together an image suitable for the CD which you can find over here
there is absolutely no way that i am gonna get reeled into having to sit through Episode 1 again, not least when i'll have to pay for the privilege on seeing the stupid thing in 3D, no thanks George.
quick to jump on this blooming stupid 3D (but not even really 3D, just a bit 3D) bandwagon that will lead us all into the mouth of hell, George Lucas climbed down from the giant money stack he had been sat on at his Skywalker ranch and decreed that his 6 Star Wars films shall be re-tooled with some crummy 3D and then drip-fed into cinemas over the course of 6 years in order to bleed die-hard geeks of more of their earnings.
i grumbled when i first heard the news, but now a release date for Episode 1 has been pencilled in for next february i feel the need to grumble a little bit more, and publicly...
we'd start at the start (or the middle, dependant on your personal viewpoint) with Episode 1, by no means a classic, but despite the derision and the fact that the film is far from great, i've held a kind of naive fondness for it in my mind, but sitting through it again, i was relieved when the end credits rolled
back in 1999 i think i was kinda caught up in the hype, full of excitement that my generation would have it's own Star Wars legacy to witness anew after growing up with A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi as a standard Bank Holiday TV staple, i don't ever remember being shocked by the revelation of Luke's parentage as it was almost a received wisdom.
right now tho, in 2011, The Phantom Menace sticks out as a moment that the dream soured and as a terrible choice of a way to spend a couple of hours (and however much a ticket to a 3D film will be going for in 2012).
thankfully the other two prequels managed to claw back some of the self-respect lost in Episode 1, but the damage had already been done, and we became imbued with more of a curiosity for parts 2 and 3 instead of being blessed with another huge cultural phenomenon for a later generation.
(and i dare say i may be tempted to sneak into the 3D screenings of Episodes 2, 3 ,4, 5 and 6 as they roll out)
now we are at the halfway point with our screenings (well sort of, she slept through most of Revenge and should realy catch up) and we'll probably fire up the projector tomorrow night and step back in time, but further into the future, although they're all a long time ago anyway, but i'm sure you catch my drift, yep, we'll be watching the 'special' edition of 77's A New Hope.
ok, the lightsabre duels are a hell of a lot slower, and no-one jumps around so much, but nobody mentions midichloreans either, so the other factors that date it don't really matter at all when put into the context of Episode 1.
and for those that are bored of the same song that the Mos Eisley Cantina Band have been playing for what seems like an eternity, then perhaps tune into this Star Wars honouring video for mopey rockers Scattered Trees (no, i hadn't heard of them either) that, through the kitchen sink drama of some Imperial downtime, shows the downside of capturing pretty female jedis if you're a bit of an emotionally charged stormtrooper.
oh, and Boba Fett knows how to play drums, reinforcing his reputation as one of the coolest characters of the franchise.
and before i go, i must also comment on how impressed i am with their use of some chalkboard paint nonchalantly daubed on the walls, looking very cool.
