Sooo: I spent Sat night with mini Cleopatra. We went to a boozer in Notting Hill, got drunk, then went back to hers and rolled around all night. I'm not gonna lie to this girl about how I feel, it eventually goes tits up if you do and believe me I've tried keeping up with rich girls in my time and it doesn't work if you pretend. I mean this girl has flats in London, Liverpool and New York?? So I voiced my concerns and she said she didn't care coz she needs someone to bring her back down to earth a little.
All good.
She cooked me breakfast consisting of French sardines on toast with tobasco sauce?? I didn't query, I just ate...
Not bad actually, kinda shocks the system into waking up.
We sat and chatted all day ( well actually we ranted on about the state of modern pop music ) then she went off to some party in Soho house. I didn't go, it sounded all a bit too celeb for my tastes and I wasn't really dressed for it, plus I'm not really a fan of Soho House, it's all a bit "Oooo Look at me!!" innit!
So yeah, I'll just see what happens eh? She's texting me as I write. Good girl.
Oh well, onwards and upwards I guess.
I'm finishing up a few loose ends this morning, and then I'm gonna chill all afternoon.
I've also tidied my flat after the embarrassment of mini Cleopatra turning up out of the blue and now it's soo clean it's just not funny. Doesn't half make you feel better waking up in a tidy flat.
Sooo; I finally had my date with Sunday paper art director girl last night. I missed seeing her a couple of weeks ago coz I was stuck in Guilford after the festival.
Anyway... we hooked up on Tues, had a couple of drinks and went back to her ( slightly fuck off ) pad in Notting Hill, knocked back a few bottles of wine, a couple of grams of pretty shit coke which, by the way, was supplied by Kate Mosses dealer and I'm thinking: " If this is what Kate Moss is putting up her nose every day... She ain't even doing drugs??"and went to bed and rolled around a little ( actually...a lot!)
I kinda like this girl, she's classy, she's artsey, she's creative but... I just think that she may be a little out of my league. I just don't earn anything like what she does? But...we'll see. She actually turned up on my doorstep Thurday night, bottle in hand, which kinda wasn't really a good idea as my flat is a fukin tip as I've been touring sooo bloody much that everything has just been dumped everywhere??
She stayed the night, in the filth??
Ooops.
I told her I thought I was a bit out of my depth with her, but she still keeps on texting me?
So there you go, my very own mini Cleopatra. What to do!
What else, oh yeah, I returned to the club last night after spending about a month away ( I had a mate of mine D fill in for me ) We've decided to open the club an extra hour over the summer as we've acquired the extra license to. The extra hour fukin dragged on and on though and I felt myself falling asleep at the end, but, it did make for less chaos and binge drinking.
The punters just seemed to peter out towards the end instead of the "Trying to cram as much alcohol down one's neck as is humanly possible: That you usually get? Sooo maybe it's a good thing. The smoking ban thing though??? Talk about trying to manage half a club inside and half the club outside? Pain in the fukin arse really. We have to employ about 5 extra security just to police the street outside and that cost money, an extra £800 to be exact which is kind of a lot on top of an already around £2000 bill! Jeez louise...
I'm not working till Monday/Tuesday now, so I'm thinking that maybe it's time to clean the flat, or go to the pub, or both.
Click on any pic to make em larger ( you know it's worth the effort)
Sooo; St Petersburg was pretty damn spectacular, a load nicer than grim old Moscow. Beautiful scenery, uber Beautiful women, good food , good gig. All good really.
The band arrived on Friday afternoon and after checking into the hotel we were all whisked off to a party by a lake organised by the British council on Friday night.
Far too much free booze was consumed and I kinda ended up back at the hotel absolutely fukin plastered. Managed to knock a toilet door of its hinges seemingly, don't remember much about it though? Ooops never mind....guilty as charge!
Woke up the next morning with a bangin' headache and managed to miss a trip to the Hermitage which I'm a little pissed off with myself about coz I would have loved to have seen some of the Picasso's.
Anyway, we arrived at the gig around 3ish in a spectacular venue on a beach on the banks of the Neva river next to a walled fortress.
I mean, you really can't go wrong with scenery like that. Beautiful summers day it was as well, had a spot of dinner in the mini Pacha club which sits alongside the main stage and we all chilled out for a couple of hours drifting between the club and the main stage to take in a couple of the other bands.
The band went on stage at around 8 in the evening and, to be honest, did one of the best gigs I've seen them do all year. The main stage sound system would have done a main stage three times the size, it just sounded sooo fat that it just wasn't fukin funny. If you look at the next pic (Taken from on stage when one of the other bands were playing) you can pick out the buildings on the opposite side of the river, and the sound system had sooo much throw on it that I was actually getting the vocals to bounce off the buildings and back to the stage giving this unbelievable kinda 3D surround sound thing going on.
Absolutely fukin magic!! I couldn't have wished for better acoustics.
Fukin lovely!
The crowd loved it as well, we got some great reviews the next day, unlike Lilly Allen who was sooo pissed she couldn't actually get her words out??
Ooops... Well done Lilly; guess that'll teach you to drink voddy straight from the bottle?
Tell you what though she's a fukin real cutie in the flesh. Much better looking than her press shots and just a lovely girl to chat to as well.
Pisshead though.
I should know!
Sooo, it was all back to Pacha to get right royally drunk for the night and then back to the hotel for a few more drinks and then bed.
Sent us all off with a firework display as well... Very kind!
All good.
Woke the next day, went to Mcdonaldsky's then back to the airport for the trip home.
I tell you what though, fukin airports are becoming absolutely nightmare places to visit nowadays. I mean, surely an airplane is just a bus with wings right? So what the fuck is up with all this fukin waiting and queuing and more bloody waiting, and more bloody queuing, it's sooo fukin frustrating.
We got back to Heathrow and ( even thought the plane was sat right next to the gate) we had to wait 3/4 of an hour for a bus and some steps before we could get off the damn thing????
You'd have thought they would've rang ahead?
This is all at a gate with one of those bendy things that comes out and joins to the plane so you can disembark as well??
But oh no! We have to wait for bleedin steps???
Before you ask, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the bendy gate thing either?
I wouldn't be at all suprised if that had something to do with all the political shit that's going on at the moment between Russia and England.
Keep em all waiting, that'll piss em off!
Absolute fukin madness!!
I arrived in a good mood and left the airport in a foul mood...What the fuck is that about eh?
I guess I've arrived back to a completely flooded England. My gaff's OK though ( Thank gawd)
From sun to shit in three hours?
Oh dear!
Fantastic weekend all around methinks, no drama's ( as such ) beautiful place, superb gig and a fine time was had by all.
Sooo: Fuck me, I'm not actually sure where to start on this one, would it be the trumpet player T falling asleep at some random airport in the middle of nowhere, missing his flight and having to be extracted at a later time, or the guitarist getting locked up in the drunk tank for the night, or the tour manager getting fired, or the two days spent by the beach recuperating with my mate C after the gigs ?
Needless to say, I only returned from the weekends gigs last night and have a day off before flying to Russia in the morning!
Anyway, I arrived at Lounge on the Farm last Thursday and basically hung out till the band turned up on Sat evening, it was good to catch up with a few old mates, have a chat, get stoned etc. Bumped into Sweedy gwirl but, to be honest, we didn't have a lot to say to each other, never mind eh! I may have upset her later by the presence of my mate C, but... she's just a mate so I didn't see any harm in inviting her?
Sooo, Thurday night:
I was sat in the bar and this guy comes up to me and he's like: " Any idea what this bar's gonna be called?"
Me: " Yeah... Brian mate?"
Him: "Brian?"
Me: " Yeah man...Brian!!"
Him: " Err ok!!"
Obviously I was taking the piss, obviously he didn't cotton on, obviously I had no idea that this guy was the sign writer for the bar... Ooops!
Soooo...it came to pass from that day forward the bar was to be known as... A Bar Called Brian?
I didn't know he was the fukin sign writer did I !!
Friday night was spent hanging out watching bands by the sound desk and generally getting pissed. It got to around 1am and I'm like, sat bored, no beer, by myself when along comes Sweedy gwirl and dumps a 24 pack in my lap. Good girl, top skills.
I hung around for a little bit longer, got drunk, then pulled out the sleeping bag and wiped out.
Sat morning woke up, had breakfast, watched more bands and just hung out some more. My mate C turned early afternoon and we got sooo pissed it just wasn't funny. We trudged around the farm, playing silly buggers and generally just having a laugh. At one point I even bought her a new dress I think?
Sat night, sobered up a little and then did a corking gig with the band, we sat around till like four in the morning getting more pissed and fell asleep in the VIP tent with C, we had hotel rooms but we were far too pissed to start driving about at that point.
We got woken by the girls running the VIP tent at like fukin 9 in the morning ( and they nicked my bottle of bloody vodka??) I hate being woken up too early and it left me in a foul mood, so me and C got in the car and just buggered off to Guilfest for gig number two ahead of the tour bus.
We arrived at Guilfest at 2pm after a pub lunch, met up with the band again, had a bit more food and a lot more booze and discover that JR ( the guitarist ) had been arrested the night before and thrown in the drunk tank?? Something to do with a hotel bar lock-in, a Karaoke machine and a moody hotel guest. I won't go into it in too much detail here, but needless to say he had to be sprung loose by his girlfriend the next morning ( who, luckily for him, has friends in the CID)
Sooo... we're three songs into the gig and JR appears from the back of the stage, plugs up his guitar and joins in, only to be blasted by an on stage smoke machine which in turn makes him throw up on stage!
B ( the lead singer ) announces that we're sorry the guitarist has just arrived...but we had to break him out of Jail this morning... Ooops!
The crowd fukin loved it!!
Guilfest had a beautiful FOH desk and sound system only to be spoiled by this Environmental health dickhead with his Sound level meter and his stupid 90db sound limit, who kept telling me to turn it down every two fukin minutes??
He's like ( pushing his stupid meter in my face) : " Turn the bass down please"
Me: " I can't even hear it mate?"
Him: " It still needs to be turned down"
Me: " Do you wanna mix the band then??"
Him: " No?"
Me: " Well fuck off then, I don't come into your house at 11:45pm and remove the can of beer your drinking do I?"
Him: " Errr no??"
Me: " Well don't come into mine telling me what I can and can't fukin do mate eh, go on, fuck off...let's go!!"
Note to Environmental health dickheads and their stupid sound limits: You don't go to festivals to listen to quiet music you fukin idiots?? I wouldn't care if it was a decent level (say 105db) but 90db is a fukin shit limit to impose ( it's about as loud as your vacuum cleaner gets ??) Fukin rules, fukin regulations, fukin sick of them, fukin 'A' !!!
Can you tell that I'm a bit anti-authoritarian?
I could have got some magnificent pictures from the FOH tower but... the battery ran out in my camera yet again.? ( remind me to take a bloody spare in Russia!!)
Anyway the gig was a stormer, so all good.
Me and C got soo pissed in the afternoon that I really can't remember the rest of the day although I can remember trying to find the car at 2am in the middle of a field whilst throwing stones and shouting at the police mini drone helicopter that had followed me across the field.
" Go on, fuck off with your surveillance and your mini chopper and your smoking ban and your 90db sound limit and and and....!!!" ( falls over in mud )
I was only left alone when the key fob triggered the car locks and the car lit up like a Christmas tree signifying that I wasn't actually trying to steal a fukin car? I pulled out my sleeping bag and kipped on the back seat. Gawd knows were C had got to ?
I was awoken the next morning by C who turned up in another car with another mate R who I had no idea was at the festival and who C had no idea was friends with me? Small world eh.
We spent the rest of the day ( Monday ) in Guilford with a load of R's mates at the pub and then went back to this guys house, smoked spliff, drank Cider and eventually wiped out.
Nice day!
Jeez this is a long post.
I spent the next couple of days in Hastings, by the Sea with C. C has a good old English beach hut, so we spent Wed ( Tues was spent in bed ) by the sea drinking wine, eating Greek food ( Humous olives pitta etc. ) and enjoying the sun.
A very British day out, lurved it. Bit sunburned though.
Got the last train back to London last night, and here I am again, writing it all up. Today I'm relaxing and tomorrow it all starts again in Russia ( St Petersburg )
Turning into a good year methinks...
Not sure how or why the tour manager got sacked, but I'm sure I'll find out all the goss tomorrow?
Soo, I'm off to Canterbury for the weekend so I won't be around for a couple off days. Should be a good weekend, my mate C (girl) is coming down to see me Sat and I ain't seen her for a year or so, sooo that should be a lot of fun, good laugh is C.
Yep I'm in Canterbury for a few days, then I'm off to Guilfest for another gig Sunday, then back to London Sunday night and then I have a date on Monday with (J) the art director of a well known Sunday paper. Won't mention which paper, coz I don't really want to implicate her on this blog. we shagged a month or so ago and I just thought "Well that was nice, can't see me seeing her again though probably due to the fact that she earns about ten times what I do?"
But... she kept texting me??
So now we have a second date. I actually wouldn't mind having a creative girlin my life (who's actually shit hot at being creative) as opposed to the huge amount off blaggers you get in London.
Prime example: some girl stood by the mixing desk, at a gig, at the club the other day: " I'm a sound engineer as well you know!" She says.
"Oh really!" I reply: " You think the guitars are sounding a bit harsh, do you reckon I should cut a bit of 2k out mate?"
Her (blank faced expression) : " Errr what, what you on about?"
Yeah right your a sound engineer love, everybody's a sound engineer, just like everybody's a fukin DJ???
What can you do?
I digress.
So yeah, hot date on Monday night. Hope I'm not too fucked from the weekend?
Listening to: The Chemical brothers " We are the Shite ( Sorry night) " Highly anticipated... badly let down to be honest. I wish every fucker in the music would take off the Rose tinted spectacles and realise that: On the grand scheme of dance music production things, this is actually a bit shit. I mean the " Salmon dance track" is actually a fukin embarrassing take on old skool hip hop. Couple of half decent tracks but, in general...it's toss. Nuff said!
"But it went straight to number one? " You say. Yes, but everybody bought it without hearing the damn thing coz "It's the Chemicals innit!!"
Funny: all the "Music industry" reviews for this album are fantastic. Yet...all the blog and third party reviews are totally toss. Go figure!
Sooo: What's happening? Well just chilling between gigs to be honest. I have a long weekend which was supposed to be three festivals, but one has been canceled due to the land being waterlogged so I think that I'm gonna go early to the first festival in Canterbury on Thurs night and hang out with my good mate S for a few days till the band arrive on Sat. This is where I met Sweedy gwirl last year, and I guess she'll be working the bar again this year, so that should be an interesting meet?
Talking of girls, Sun, I just kinda wanted to be on my own, so I went to this pub I've never visited before and sat in the beer garden, reading the Sunday papers and just basically just chilling out when two girl and guy sat next to me at the opposite table. I took no notice of them till one of the girls pipped up in a heavy Russian accent: " Why you sit by yourself, you come sit with us?" The bloke sat with them says: " She's single you know!" And she says: " Yeah come sit, you can be my new boyfriend?"
Very odd??
Soooo, never one to pass up a challenge, I went and sat down with them. Turns out the girls were from St. Petersburg, which just so happens to be where I'm going with the band in a couple of weeks.
This girl (Lena) says to me: " You put me in suitcase, I definitely fuck you!!"
Me: " I'd love to, but I don't think that's gonna be possible dear."
She then went on to tell me that her ex boyfriend never gave her enough orgasms.
Which is nice!
As I said before I'm: " Never one to pass up a challenge!"
Interesting little girl that one, lovely body, even if a little forward.
We ended up having a little touchy-feely at the end of the night.
I have Lena's number so I'm sure she'll be getting a call.
Amazing what you find on a Sunday when your not looking.
Ok; I totally can't be bothered to do anything today, but I do need to go and buy some food, so I guess I'll have to haul myself out the door and to the supermarket.
Observations from Wales following a Welsh gig last night.
Welsh people are mad.
The Smoking ban and being with a band all night ( who can no longer smoke on stage, in the dressing room etc .etc. etc ) is a recipe for a fukin nightmare.
Working within a smoking prohibited venue fucking sucks!!! I mean, a backstage smoke free dressing room? Where's the rock n roll in that. If I wanted to have a clean living, healthy lifestyle, I wouldn't be involved with fukin music would I??? We all just sat there twiddling our fukin thumbs!
Welsh people are mad.
Don't park your tour bus in a non tour bus parking area, coz it will get clamped and you will have to pay £200 to get it released.
Welsh girls are fit...but mad!!
Don't arm wrestle your mate on a bands flightcases as they're trying to unload them from a venue at 3am, then get pissed off when you get kicked out the way. Sorry...you wanna arm wrestle your pissed mate, we wanna go home!! You won't win!!
Just coz you're pissed off the bands lead singer ain't turned up, has had to be replaced last minute, and your an old fan, it still doesn't give you the right to start smashing up the side of the tour bus with a spanner/wrench/chain/hammer/whateverthefuckitwass??? Special note to this bloke: If the rest of the crew had been outside and not just the tour manager, you would have soooo woken up in hospital this morning mate... Fact!!
Welsh people are truly mad.
Don't sit in the rearward facing seat on a tour bus in front of a table full of beer, spirits etc! This is especially true if the tour bus brakes are applied liberally in a " Oh shit we've missed the turn off!!" kind of way. ( I got fukin drenched!!)
Don't ever mistake a line of coke, for a line of cat piss strong, heavy duty base speed. You won't sleep much!
Try to always do gigs where the in-house engineer is soooo bad, that when your band goes on stage they sound absolutely fukin amazing ( I like this one)
If you must do a few tunes with the band following an Ableton live backing track, don't hit the warp button, cos the track wiiiillllll plaaaaaaayyy reaaaaalllyyyy fukiiiiinnnnn sloooooowwwwwlllyyy and the band will loooook like theeeey're plaaaying in slooooooow moooootioooonn!!! Funny as fuck to watch though, none of them [the band] could work out what the fuck was going on. I'm sure they all thought they'd been spiked with acid, I mean at one point I thought I had, coz I couldn't work it out either? These things are sent to test us I guess.
Welsh people are mad ( as fish!)
Bit of a mad little gig that one, awesome (did I really just use that word) Logic line array sound system, we totally rocked it as well.
Quote of the night ( Tour manager and driver ) : " I'm not a fucking taxi service you know!!"
Err yes, yes you are???
I sooo could've stayed up there instead of traveling back last night (one of the band actually did) There were girls hitting on us left, right and centre.
Got home at around 6am, now I'm up again, have a few hours to kill and I'm going back to work ( at the club ) at around 7pm.
No rest for the wicked eh?
Talking of gigs, the Worlds most hypocritical set of gigs have just kicked off. Any musician who claims to be environmentally friendly is talking so much shit you can virtually smell it.
I've said it before but... Carting tour buses and huge lighting/sound rigs around the world and then burning enough petrol/diesel to power the kind of generators needed to make that stuff work ain't in the least bit green. The average sized festival stage generator produces enough power to light up a small village and the some?
Note to Sting, Coldplay, Radiohead, Madonna, Paul McCartney etc etc. etc: How many fukin bits of plastic have you sold in your green fukin careers? Considering you're just Solo Artists/Groups of blokes from Cambridge etc. You lot generate more waste in a year than your average household would produce in like, 1000 lifetimes.
Sooo: Totally haven't had the time to post this week, what with this, that and the other.
Off to Wales Fri for a gig with the band and then back Sat for the club. Sunday I'm gonna chill out as I feel that all I've done all week is run around and I'm a little tired.
Smoking ban's working out well, I've noticed that the smoking population of London are spilling out onto the streets while the half a dozen or so non smokers occupy the comfy seats in the pubs???
I never realised just how many people actually smoke. One of my locals has a heated tent outside, and this place has been absolutely mobbed (with smokers) since the ban.
I can't believe we actually sat back and let the government fuck us up the arse over this issue.
It's pretty obvious to me, that after a week of seeing what I'm seeing, the majority of pub goers are actually smokers, I guess It goes hand in hand (not any more?)
They [the government] are bang out of order. We need some fukin riots I'm thinking!
Wiki edit wars. This shit to me is really interesting, only for the fact that I had a huge Wiki editing war a couple of years ago about the history of a certain 90's Rave artist. I originally found the article on Wikipedia and, after noticing a few mistakes, corrected them only to have them uncorrected by the author. I then re-corrected them, only to have them fukin uncorrected again? This went on for a couple of days and I eventually tore the article down out of disgust .
"You could easily have had your information wrong?" You say!
Well that could have been the case; but for the fact that the certain 90's rave artist in question was actually...me!!
Sooo: Talk about landing on your fukin feet. My landlady is selling the house we live in coz she wants to move back to Ireland, but ( and it's a huge but ) she still wants to have a base in London so she can visit once or twice a year and... she wants me to find it and look after it for her.
"So what?" You say. Well, my landlady's a bit of an old mad eccentric, she never opens her mail and she avoids issues like the plague ( her flat is a fukin tip ) . This is finally starting to land her in a lot of financial shit, thus the move back to Ireland; It's a kinda running away and dumping dept thing, which ain't really that hard to do if you can skip countries.
But...if she buys a new house in her name she can then be tracked and caught. Sooo ( and this is the good bit ) She wants to put her new house in my name????
Totally fukin mad idea, but...!
I (obviously) have absolutely no fukin problem with this¿
At all!!
She's old, she has no family and she kinda considers me as her surrogate son. I've looked after her for a good few years now and I've always been there when she's needed a shoulder to cry on and besides, my parents are both long gone so it's kinda nice to have somebody you can call family.
And...No I'm not fukin sleeping with her!
Anyway, she'll sell the house we live in ( Which is worth about 1.5 million ) split the money, buy one house in Ireland, then leave me to spend £400,000 on another in London!
I've actually known about this for a couple of months now, but she's sooo bloody eccentric that I took not one blind bit of notice. Until, that is, this morning when a couple of property developers turned up to view the house.
Fuck me; I've gotta feeling this is actually gonna happen?? Which begs the question, " When she pops her clogs and the house is in my name, then surely it'll be my house?" I'll get some advice, but I think that plain and simply, it'll be the case
Lippy-lipsticklawyer If your reading, now would be a good time to speak up dear!
Soo what happens next is anyones guess. If she does sell and I'm left to buy, I'm going straight to the property auctions for a bargain.
Mad how even with £400,000 to play with in London you still have to look for bargains???
So yeah, well see.
I ain't gonna get excited yet tho, counting chickens an' all that.
Hmmm!
I went to a garden party that one of the locals from the pub was throwing yesterday. It was a kind of " If we can't smoke in the pub, then well damn well smoke at fukin home!!" party. About 50 of us chipped in money, hired a cocktail barman and then got thoroughly slaughtered on exotic cocktails. It was actually a load of fun and now we're thinking about doing it a couple of times a month at various locations.
Fuck the ban, fuck the government, you can't stop us, we're bloody English you know !
The pub remained empty all afternoon seemingly.
I can't see Tom the landlord being too impressed though.
