waiting

here we go again

london aquarium

i'm really happy with my family's new blog so far (although i wish my dad would have contributed something to it by now) that features daily posts, quite often photography, although any creative output is acceptable, as i have published a few poems over there already

what i am proudest of is the fact that it has reignited an interest in photography for me, making sure that i am always on the look-out for an interesting shot or angle

for the most part i have kept my blogs seperate, but it does give me the scope to occasionaly allow them to cross over, so where-as on monday i only featured two photos, i have decided to revisit my day and flesh out this post with a handful of the other photos that i was torn between, yet didn't want to include on Byford365 (a working title, although it may stay that way) for the sake of brevity

it was my girlfriend's birthday last saturday so she had decided that she would take full advantage of being able to get her own way, and chose a day out taking in a trip to London Aquirium, since i often moan about going there again whenever she usually suggests it.

unusualy, i haven't included any of the photos i actually took inside the aquarium, since i wasn't overwhelmed with the end results, so instead we have a few photos from the journey there, as well as a couple of oddities i saw along the way and also my first ever experience of Yo Sushi! (which i guess is slightly ironic considering the amount of seafood i ended up scoffing, whereas my vegetarian girlfriend had no such concerns)



finding inspiration

i haven't really made an awful lot of noise about the couple of other blogs that i either have on the go or am involved in, the first is still a little bit of a work in progress, while the second is more personal, although both are in plain sight for all to view if they know where to look

but lets shed a little more light on the second one shall we? the more personal one.

it is something of a digital trinket box perhaps, online, that me and my brother (and hopefully sometime soon, my dad) can all contribute to...

as all three of us are afflicted with the curse of spending time thinking and not spending enough time doing, i thought that it could be used as a prompt to spur us each into action, attempting to find or create something, anything, each day and share it

from my own perspective, i know that i often write either poetry or features, or sometimes have photos that i want to post, but i find that the timing is not write, not wanting to bump something else off of sitting at the top of my blog if i feel it needs to hang around a little longer to garner more attention, and ultimately not wanting the kind of blog that moves so fast that within a few days of being away so much could have been missed, it is these strange invisible limitations and restrictions that i wanted to free myself from...


and lo and behold, has it been an interesting experiment so far! i'll readily admit that some days i have had to purposefully look for my latest contribution, but more recently ideas have flown more freely, not only that, but the latest photo added by my brother (along with the few others posted on his own blog) were actually the catalyst for my latest poem, inspired by the desolate and intrigueing images of discarded memories and dumped furniture

(and yes, you are stepping on my toes slightly, but i'll forgive you.... this time)

the day we found grandad had been flytipped

it was just under the flyover that we found him

upturned and half-out of his usual chair

along with a handful of belongings

and photos that had addorned walls

he looked dazed, confused by it all

the poor old sod

with remote control in hand and a furrowed brow

eyes fixed on the same telly that had seen him through the past fifteen years

now smashed and propped upon a pile of breezeblocks

and he greeted us with very little fanfare

merely stating that the reception for channel five was the worst it had ever been

stray sofas 11

the last time i posted sofas was in july??

why must the months keep hurtling past so quickly?

by the looks of it, this sofa could be related to this guy.  but i think he's is a bit tougher, for a start, he has managed to keep his cushions, and is still in a rather respectable condition.  and secondly, it looks like he has knocked out a fridge in order to get a prime place in front on the bin shelter, that he looks longingly at, wishing to get inside.

more candid shots of the Bush

it's hard to resist these puns when the opportunity arises

and since i didn't want loads of Laura's great shots detracting from my Bushfest write-up i kept the images to a minimum, but it hardly seems fair since all the bands put in such great performances and some of the photos really reflect the atmosphere on display that night

so here are a handful more....

so, that's ten photos of nine bands!! phew! still a couple more great ones in the weekend's write-up, along with a 9BlinD track from their latest album to stream...

and it also appears from these pictures that joe from 9BlinD can't actually stand up straight.

credit where it's due:

all photography by Laura Harvey

all mod cons

and now for a little bit of time travel, not too far, but lets set our dials for a year ago.  those heady days of a summer passed when stray sofas seemed to be around every corner. at first i thought the strays had been hibernating for the winter but perhaps enfield has managed to clear up its infestationof street furniture much the same way that trafalger square has been cleared of pigeons.

let us journey to July 2009.  and a stray sofa that had a reputation that found its way back to me, i checked it out and my, it was a thing of sheer beauty. who could ever ask for more?

but please, be careful not to tread on any butterflys.

think of the children...

and during this long and baking walk that i took i happened to find myself winding down roads i don't think i have ever been down before and found myself wandering past the fairly recently established Oasis Academy: Enfield.

in the midst of a world cup there is always a sense of energy in the air, an energy that one pupil in particular had channeled into a little bit of critical graffiti slandering the Brazilian team.

it is not the overwhelming temptation to put his mark on the blank canvas of walls erected around a building site that i would like to see the child strung up for, no, it is his extremely poor and incorrect use of the English language in such a close proximity of the school.

seriously, what are they teaching them there?

room with a view

the blog has been quite fast moving this past week, with me fulfilling my promise of posting up some poetry that i hadn't had the chance to publish yet, as well as a little bit of photography and a short piece on Doctor Who.

which has left me no time to post up some more of my music, since today i'm giving you a glimpse of a forthcoming Enfield Advertiser article.  last saturday i saw Room 9 tear the roof of off the Kentish Town Forum and it hardly seemed fair to wait while the paper tries to work through the backlog of reviews that have once again built up.

of course i'll be giving a heads up once the article is in print, but for those that can't wait that long, here it is...

Room 9 @ The Emerganza Final, Kentish Town Forum 03.07.10


Room 9 breifly graced my music column in the Enfield Advertiser when they played an acoustic led set at Bar Form in march.


The Edmonton/Wood Green based band played a powerful set that commanded everyone's attention and had everyone in attendance in complete thrall.


so i was only too happy to check out the full blown live experience when they invited me along to check them out performing at Kentish Town Forum.


and was i in for a shock.


lead singer Lee Tarrier is a friend of a friend, a fairly quiet guy who is never anything less than affable, approachable and sincere but to see him in action as the full band rock out i was surprised by the transformation i was seeing.


my jaw remained on the beer-sticky floor for the entire first song as the the unnassuming guy with a day job as a special needs teacher stalks onstage silohetted against the backdrop of bright lights of white and red strobing through the atmospheric smoke screen and then proceeds to raise the roof and the spirits of the gathered throng with an unbelievable and unboundless energy.


heavy guitars, heavy bass, heavier drums and heavily devoted fans truly rocked the Forum as Room 9 tear through an incendiary four song set, tooled with big Metallica riffs and Rage Against The Machine styled rallying lyrics that iniate many call and responses and fists pumping in the air.


The passion and proffesionalism the band play with belied their short slot in the UK final of the Emerganza Festival for unsigned bands, you could almost believe that this was the homecoming gig of their world tour, with the big production values that the Kentish Town Forum affords them it is truly a sight to behold and hopefully a harbinger of bigger venues and good fortune in the not too distant future.


and although Room 9 narrowly missed out on reaching the international stages of the competetion tonight was an absolute triumph for the band and their fans and will see them blaze a trail with a number of late summer gigs and the release of their eagerly awaited debut album in November.

credit where it's due:
photograph by Floyd

british summer time

if this was a boring boring blog i would regale you with tales of how my girlfriend helped me have a glorious and relaxed bornday, chilling in her garden while she prepared a selection of cheese and crackers, cocktail sausages, olives, a jug of pimms punch, homemade scones with clotted cream and jam and strawberrys dipped in chocolate.


but it isn't that type of blog, so the only reason i bothered to mention all that was to put this photo in the right context.

.

the lack of a Glastonbury gallery 2010

this year's Glastonbury was too hot for creative thinking

that is the reason that i do not have much in the way of visual evidence to share on my blog

what i do have for my own personal memories are some great snapshots of great times spent with great people


and as we managed to make it back in good time this year i have spent a good length of afternoon just chilling, dozing off, drinking milkshake, enjoying a real wash with something other than baby wipes, finishing reading the Superman 'One Year Later' story, starting reading The Beach, and uploading my photos.

but i won't starve you of visual stimulation entirely...

an ice cream cone accident

so i think attempts to make recent blog posts more focused on myself and my attempts at creativity have been rather succesful.

but one thing that does seem to be lacking around here is my own photography which i very much intended to rectify by posting up afew odd shots and returning to the stray sofas.

lucky you though, you got a brand new photo AND a brand new poem in that last post, completely and utterly unplanned and unbelievably inspired

and for today...

an ice cream accident.

a starbucks coffee cup in the rain

It's coming down heavy,

it's all umbrellas and

sheltering under soggy

newspapers or just

accepting that you'll

get soaked through

And as it comes down

heavier still

it drums a solemn

discordant refrain

on the crushed plastic

of a starbucks coffee cup

in the rain

rarely glimpsing digital grimaces

(image 'borrowed' from www.slutever.blogspot.com)

i'd become kind of stuck with my poetry, i'd hit a wall, everything i wanted to write about i had already written about and i didn't want to repeat myself over and over.

i hadn't written anything for a while, until last friday.

boredom induced clicking was taking me back to the same websites i check several times a day despite a lack of updates.  but i realised that i had not been over to Slutever in a while, it is deserving of more than just a casual glance to waste afew minutes, it is a blog with heady tales of bohemia, of squats and drugs and sex.

in short it is pretty much everything my blog (and my life) isn't.

Slutever provides me with an escape, in much the same way that i have a disturbing number of herion fixated books (Motley Crue: The Dirt, Trainspotting, Anthony Kiedis: Scar Tissue, the list goes on....) on my shelf at home yet have never touched drugs in my life...

it is filthy and slightly dangerous, yet viewed from a safe distance.

but one post in particular... and to a certain extent, a second... sent my synapses firing, thoughts and inspiration and online lives, obsessing over social networks and how we wish to be percieved.  i tapped away and soon i had a new poem.



this one is dedicated to Karley, Mavi and Theresa:



peering
pouring over digital images
rarely glimpsing digital grimaces
youth
edit
smile
edit
only fools view the blurred life
only fools parade their private lives
and still retain the date stamp
edit
truth can be betrayed by portrayal
edit
why live the life that nobody wants
edit
your life is so much better and now
you can
edit
prove it




.

my father's son

(my grandad's wall)

last week was the second week in a row that i had ventured out of the house in a sleeveless top in my neverending quest to defeat this stupid t-shirt sun tan.

i spent a day out and about wandering around with my Dad, it started as a walk from mine to his which usualy takes 15 minutes but instead the whole journey took somewhere around 4 hours or so, possibly more.

we set off after a slice of watermelon each and as i'd already shown him a couple of houses that i'd seen on the market i thought we might as well take in a couple of detours so he could see a couple more that i may or may not have been interested in.

and so a quick walk turned into a longer walk which turned into a trip down memory lane for the both of us as we cut through wastelands and fields, A-road neighbouring forests and dirt tracks, chatting the whole way, about places my Dad used to take me and my brother when we were younger, and places that my Dad had been when he was younger.

we contemplated past times and good times and ended up walking in a very non-direct way to Cheshunt where my Dad grew up. we stopped at the corner of the graveyard my grandparents are buried in and from there my dad pointed out the resting place of a school caretaker he once helped out when he was a child.

we went where things used to be, we found the back garden wall that my grandad had built and some friendly neighbourhood types chatted with us and helped fill in some of the blanks in my Dad's memory.


the time spent together is so much more than i could ever realy sum up in this meandering blog post and meant a hell of a lot more to me than i ever realised it could, but like last months wedding it reminds you who your family realy are and when you put so much focus on looking forward it's sometimes good to look back.

stray sofas 9

not wanting to get sued

and as promised here is that review of last week's Sel-Out gig, keep you eyes peeled cos a cut down version should be appearing in the local rag soonish


Sel-Out 2 @ Bar Form 18.03.10


People that go along to gigs, have a couple of drinks and catch a handful of live acts often have no idea of the time, effort and worry that goes into putting on even the smallest of events.

And the second Sel-Out held at Bar Form is certainly no exception.

Selma Ramadan is having to deal with one bassist not being able to get out of work early enough for soundchecks, DJs that have gone house-hunting, another bassist having to leave the gig early so he can get to his nightshift despite the fact his band are due to be headlining , and a solo artist calling in sick and cancelling completely .

this is just some of the shit that a promoter has to deal with.

which all comes after the initial complications of trying to book bands and chasing bands that don't return your emails, arranging that there will enough kit to be shared onstage and also holding down a full-time job.

and unless you've got a well known and well respected established event that will thrive purely on reputation alone you also need to text everyone in your phone, email everyone in your address book and make all your facebook friends aware that you need them to come out and show their support.

and you also hope that everyone else involved has been doing the same.



And so, at 8 o'clock on a dreary Thursday evening in Enfield Town, the doors are thrown open for the night to begin.

It’s just a shame that a handful of punters are more punctual than the DJs due to kick off the night.

But by the time Benjamin Darius Ralph steps onto the stage some of these stresses are forgotten as his soothing acoustic solo show flits between original tracks and a number of cherry picked covers.

Room 9 usually like to rock out but tonight they are a man down so instead they bring a stripped back set of songs to Bar Form, anyone that thought this would hinder the act are proved wrong as Room 9 swiftly impress everyone in attendance with a laid back sound and astounding vocals that make you wonder if a full-scale set could ever be any better than the unique and intimate performance being put on tonight.



and in a strange twist of circumstances, Getaway, a band that didn't even have a name when they confirmed to play this, their debut gig, have found themselves plucked from second on a bill of four acts, and have had the daunting task of headlining thrust upon them.

and if there were any nerves, it certainly didn't show as the trio carve themselves a sonic identity that takes its influences from roughly 40 years of rock n roll history filtered down to a memorable 25 minute set, mixed up with diverting aside of self-proclaimed 'Essex hip-hop', and finished off with a rocking bluesy number.

And although the financial rewards are rarely enough to cover costs, the sense of achievement provides satisfaction enough and it’s the risk takers that continue putting on gigs and showcasing bands that keep the music scene alive.


credit where it's due:

photos by Lauren Knight

fully furnished

it seems to me that over the winter a lot of the strays that are usually out on the streets may have gone into hibernation, the few times that i have seen sofas i've either not had my camera or not had a chance to stop

so let me use this lull as a chance to play catch up yet again

and how apt that this scenic alleyway near the centre of Waltham Cross with good travel connections nearby, is only a mere stones throw away from a flat that i am considering looking at.

as you can see, this alley is fully furnished with a discarded mattress, a stray sofa and a sewing machine, aswell as a number of suprise goodies supplied in black bags.

an excellent oppurtunity for first time buyers