By the lake

Sometimes when you spend time alone, you realise things you didn't think you could.
Little walks turn into tiny adventures, the relevance of clocks temporarily subsides and spirits are lifted. Like if a foggy cloud of grey that usually follows you around decides it wants to go away and read a book for a bit.
Water often helps this, which is maybe something to do with the science behind cloud formation, deformation and precipitation. It's also nice to look at though, which could be a different reason altogether.

I've always liked a good boat as well, for as long as I can remember. Or since last Tuesday (whichever came first).

I spoke to this swan for a bit too:

He didn't say very much although you could tell he felt a real contentment with his life. His little swan face kept saying "breathe in, smile, and be happy".
My lack of bread became apparent and he swiftly departed.

Just thought I'd share.
xx

The Gig Issue

The PoZe stuff is coming along quite nicely now. Some rough edits of the new tracks are nearly ready and the other day we began mixing 'Spare Fairy', another session which Greg and some of the other guys did back in January.

The EP is starting to sound quite big now and we're all pretty pleased. Not as big as maybe a flying jet, or a sphinx from Egypt, or Simon Cowell's ego/bank balance.

(Look at his smug little face)

Still quite big despite this though. Perhaps the aural equivalent of David Mitchell's IQ, this is a joyful size.

And what better way to celebrate than by organising an evening of local punk bands for only £3 entry? Apart from a Lottery win or flame-grilled chicken panini, though these aren't valid options.

We had a special bond as the "door team":



Quite a comfortable turn-out in the end, and nothing broke.
What a fine day. A fine day indeed.
xx

I've got a brand new Combined 5-day Weather Forecast

Remember that bit I said before about the rain and the weather and globe-spanning networks and glorified windbreaks? (Don't worry, it wasn't that interesting anyway)
Well it happened again. Yesterday. And we were dry. Then we went all wet.

The Dorset Steam Fair is always an experience, and this year they had a big outdoor staging thing with lights and sound (fortunately). People could stand on it with their instruments and sing if they wanted, although only if they'd been good and had eaten all their greens.

We had a watch of Ant's acoustic set and then wandered around for a bit, encountering plenty of candy floss, fried food, working engines of the 20th Century, those organ things that you wind up and they make noise, broken engines of the 19th Century, and rigged sideshows along the way.

The sky teamed gallons of wet, fields of mud swallowed a formerly white pair of French-graffitied Converse shoes, and I nearly bought a giant banana with a face although they were a bit yellow for my liking. Plus there was something about their eyes (I've never found myself able to trust enlarged depictions of stuffed fruit, hopefully this will ease with time).

Here's a picture of what our evening set looked like from the rear view like on Sky Digital's multi-angle sport thing. We particularly enjoyed the bucket positioned just in front of the stage monitors catching drops of precipitate whose straying towards the equipment nearly damaged the equipment (many of which were in fact emanating from our soggy selves).
Ant then decided it was time to put me back in my cage:

I'm drumming there tomorrow night and sorting out some kind of all-day festival on Saturday. I'll have my coat though, the coat protects. And entertains.
xx

Strike a PoZe

All plans were in place after only a few emails - Bournemouth's Glam monster of the early 90's would inevitably remanifest itself at some point.
Looks like the demand just about qualified as "popular" now.



Greg (the main one) arrived from Nottingham on Tuesday and it's been non-stop Recording, Reunions, Rocking and Renthusiasm every since.
A host of both old and new PoZe faces have pulled together to do their thing on two freshly-arranged tracks earmarked for a new online release.

Several days/reminiscences/flasks of (rock 'n' roll) tea later and we've managed to record virtually everything, with the ever-vast task of making it all blend/metaphorically kick the metaphorical listener in their metaphorical face pencilled in for next Sunday.



Hard rocx & mettals. Genius.
xx

Tent tunes for all

Yesterday I realised that, ploughing ever-further into the present digital age of instant communication, globe-spanning networks, and 24/7 media-inundation, our primitive reliance on outside weather conditions is often astounding.
Not least where outdoor music festivals and events are concerned.

A 5:30 slot meant there was plenty of time for the fields to waterlog before our set - this was inevitable.
By the time we had arrived the PA was long gone, with the staging (in true Heather Mills style) left only half-standing. It seems the clouds were so upset by the immorality of splatting rats and hooking ducks being so popular among today's youth that they could no longer hold back their tears.

Still, we made the most of it, squeezing into the only remaining intimate little marquee and instead offering an improvised acoustic rendition to around thirty or so cosily chilled teen folk.
Having no initial idea of how the songs would translate onto a minimalist set-up certainly threw that extra bit of spice into the mix (we put this spice through channel six on the outboard desk as it was DI'ed).

Our glorified windbreak looked like this but with people in it and a different shape:

Good fun in the end. And some people even told us we had managed to scrape a degree of tolerablility, although we'd never met them before so they were probably just being polite.

xx

-

It was announced yesterday that the one person responsible for my main passion in life is no longer with us. Sad times for anyone who has ever mic'ed a guitar cab, twiddled an EQ-knob, or shown frustration towards a tempered multiband compressor; with the world's guitaring population most likely feeling a similar tinge of upset.

The next time I boot up the Tascam, it's for Les.
xx

Drum kit-sized peg in a car-shaped hole

Sometimes you find out who your friends are, it happened to me only yesterday.
Although this wasn't down to some form of gargantuan betrayal, where a devout group of intimate confidants is forced to take sides between two disputing parties while causing an irrecoverable rift in the process (like in that F.R.I.E.N.D.S programme. Or M.A.T.E.S).

Instead, and on a somewhat smaller scale, a cheery pal planned, aided and executed the loading of a tiny, tiny car with a many-pieced drum kit (about three hours pre-gig) when he probably had some better things to be doing for himself.
We had to remove the whole parcel-shelf, detach the speaker cables and everything. Manic.

(artist's impression)

A kind favour soon to be returned. I think I'll buy him a packet of Gary Barlows as a thank you.

He likes them.
xx