there is a crisis in the slow lane, are you figuring life out?

So things have been pretty great of late, despite having my bag stolen last Wednesday. It had quite a lot of my stuff in it, including passport, provisional drivers license, debit card, cheque book, Young Person's Railcard, a Twofold hoodie and an AC Milan scarf amongst other things. I was watching Rolo Tomassi at the time, so that numbed the pain somewhat, but it still sucked.

Anyhow, while piecing my life back together I suddenly realised I wouldn't be able to buy tickets for Sunny Day Real Estate without a debit card, but thankfully someone else bought them for me so all is well! They've just announced that they're playing Groezrock Festival the day after so I'm very tempted to make the trip across to Belgium for it... we shall see!

Had a nice weekend with Esmee, introduced her to some people at the hockey club, had a few drinks, then we headed off to Brixton to see Johnny Foreigner. Because of the situation with my stuff being stolen I couldn't buy a ticket in advance, so Alexei kindly sorted us out and Esmee got him a small bottle of gin to say thanks. Aw.

The next morning I'd promised to cook her breakfast and then in horror realised that I actually had no food in the fridge. Thankfully I had enough things to make pancakes, which was pretty great. Band practice was good too, we finally managed to agree on a link between a 3/4 and 4/4 part of a new song, which meant we're pretty close to finishing it now. It's quite cool, starts off quite twee and then completely changes into some kind of American Football-esque guitar playing sorta thing, it's nice. Bit epic at the end too. Don't think we'll play it live though.

The rest of the week has been fairly laid back, another practice last night, also went well. I'm seeing Oceansize play tonight, which is a bit odd because I hadn't actually planned to (I really don't like Heaven as a venue). The thing is, I was clearing out the stock room at work last Friday (now that we're pushing ahead with plans for the studio) and I found a box of their merch on one of the shelves. Before they played Kingston in October they sent all their merch over to me to collect at the Peel and sell that tour, and I genuinely thought I'd given them all their boxes - especially as noone mentioned to me that there was anything missing. Turns out this had just been put on a shelf by my dad to keep out of the way and he hadn't told me. I rang the band and they've kindly sorted me out for tonight but I got a bit of a shitty text when they insinuated that I'd held onto the box as a ploy to get guestlist. Fucking hell. Maybe a few years ago it would've crossed my mind but if I'd wanted to go to the gig, I'd have bought a ticket ages ago, like I've done with every band I've seen so far this year (bar the JoFo fiasco, but that couldn't be helped, given the situation). It does suck when I'm genuinely trying to do a good thing and I get pulled up about it - although I understand their grievances.

So, I hope it will be a good gig and as a show of goodwill - not that I really need to, but I feel like I owe it to them to show it's not about getting into places on freebies.

The weekend looks good. Seeing Esmee on Friday, hockey on Saturday followed by a gig in Epsom. Can't wait!

Current listening:
Otterley - EP 1
Radiohead - My Iron Lung EP
Oceansize - Home And Minor EP

good things are coming our way

Been a LONG time since I wrote anything here, this isn't going to be a massive update but I think I'm a lot happier at the moment so I might as well have this page starting on a better note or something.

So yeah as of yesterday I am going out with a lovely girl called Esmée, we went away at the weekend to St Ives together which was pretty fun. She'd basically had a bunch of holiday time from work that she'd not used, and her sister's fiance's family own a cottage there, so we made use of it. The weather was lovely, and it was nice just to spend some time together away from all the hustle and bustle of our usual climes.

It also pretty much reminded me how much I like her and showed that we can go for a while without getting annoyed at each other. Which was good. And I think a bit of a turning point. Usually I fall for girls straight away and I'm like all "omgzz" about them, not this time, but I think it's been much healthier and I hope it gives the relationship a bit of time and space to flourish. It's just nice to feel wanted!

In other news, we're building a studio in my workplace. I've budgeted for all the gear we need, it's going to be incredible. Am so stoked but it's going to be a lot of hard work learning how to use all the equipment and operate well in a day-to-day studio environment. However if it works out, then I'm pretty much set up for life.

Myself, Reevesy and Chris from our hockey team were talking about moving in together but I think I may have to put that on the back-burner for the time being, at least until summer, what with the new developments - also we're looking at buying more property, at which point I can live in it then we can use the income from rent to go towards my dad slowly retiring. It's pretty exciting times all round, to be honest.

Sunny Day Real Estate just announced a London show but allegedly it's part of a bigger UK tour. I'm doing everything in my power to try and get a support slot, but also I think I might have holidays sorted out once I find out what cities they're playing in. Can't fucking wait!

Current listening:
Johnny Foreigner - Grace And The Bigger Picture
And So I Watch You From Afar - s/t
Future Of The Left - Travels With Myself And Another
Mew - No More Stories...

how is it you feel then? i remember you in the top of my room

Obviously definitely not worth even five minutes of someone's time then.

There's a lot of things going wrong which are making things a bit of a struggle, and not a lot is keeping my chin up. At least the latest batch of heartache might dig me out of the songwriting rut.

Current listning:
Sunny Day Real Estate - s/t
The XX - XX
Bjork - Debut

i am sure sure sure you are a matador

Sometimes I really do wonder if all the crap is worth it. I guess this weekend will tell me whether it is or not.

Aside from all the emotional bullshit, actually seem to have a half-decent weekend lined up. Tonight, after a brief sleep, I should hopefully be heading up to London for Jose Vanders' EP launch. That is if there's still tickets. Here's hoping.

Saturday I'll be getting a train with Issy up to London, where I will be making like Zane Lowe again and interviewing Johnny Foreigner. The slightly weird upshot of it is that Beatcast are recording it for a forthcoming DVD, so I think I will be on Johnny Foreigner's next album somehow. Bizarre. Maybe it will kick-start a career in television. HA.

Sunday I think I will be chilling out, maybe band practice, maybe go see Blakfish in Kingston. We shall see.

In other news, it's my 14th season at Surbiton Hockey Club, and the first week EVER that I've been available to play, and not selected. Wow.

Current listening:
Sky Larkin - The Golden Spike
Mineral - End Serenading
Death Cab For Cutie - The Photo Album

don't get any big ideas, they're not gonna happen

So the blog has been neglected for a little while. Apologies to all you avid readers out there. Hoho.

Don't really know what to say. It's been a bizarre few weeks. A bizarre summer, I guess. Last year was weird cos it was the first one without Lindsay but this year, I'm not sure, it seems weird in a different way.

I kindof feel like I've gone off the rails a bit, I don't really seem to have any structure in my life at the moment, and for the first time ever I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads except there's not really any decisions to make. It's a weird state of being in limbo.

As a result, I feel like I'm going a little bit insane, and I've been doing some really stupid things lately. I spat at someone on a hockey pitch at Shagfest, something completely out of character, something which is definitely not part of my regular game and it's something I'm incredibly embarrassed about. But someone did say to me "sometimes good people do bad things," which I guess is one way of looking at it.

Also since about June I had been seeing this amazing girl, I dunno, she just seemed to come along at the right time and although it took a little while, she captured my heart in all the right ways. We're into the same stuff, she has amazing tattoos as well, and beautiful eyes and a beautiful smile and ARGH. She's great. But in a bid to make things a bit... 'proper', I guess, I've basically just acted like an absolute mental and whatever, I think I've pretty much ruined it now. Like I always do. So, well done del. Well fucking done.

I think in conjunction with that, and with Linds' death and my parents being away on holiday at the moment for an extended period of time, it's really hit home that I'm not dealing with loneliness very well right now. It's not even productive loneliness, my music-writing seems to have ground to a halt at the moment and lyrics just aren't coming out like they used to, which is baffling. But yeah. I'm lonely. And I'm not really sure what to do about it. I guess this blog is the only place I can really put stuff like that because when I'm out, I just put on this happy face and I don't like people fussing over me, and I guess everyone thinks I'm fine all the time anyway.

Aside from all the doom and gloom, there's been five great things that happened this summer. Aside from the spitting incident, we won Shagfest. I haven't won anything in hockey for fucking years, and this was fucking great. Our side was really strong, and we deserved it. We were first in and last out of the bar as well, so we took every aspect of the tournament seriously.

We also recorded our EP in Scotland, and while it was a stressful and difficult process, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. On top of that, before we headed up, we played the best show ever supporting Dananananaykroyd at New Slang, I had an amazing day with great people, and in general it was fucking ace.

Last week, I bit the bullet and paid for a Reading ticket pretty much to see Radiohead. I enjoyed it a bit too much. And paid for it the next day. But I wish I had spent that set with her. It would've been a great end to the summer if I had shared it with her. Sigh.

Then lastly, I had a new tattoo done on Tuesday. It's a Sigur Ros tattoo and it has a song title as part of it, which means "within me a lunatic sings". People at the hockey club are a bit baffled by it but it seems to have gone down quite well.

I hate that I don't really have anyone to talk to about all this shit, y'know.

"So I’ll wait til I find the remote part of your heart, when no where else will let us choose a comfortable start and even if the breath between us smells of alcohol, we'll call it confusion in the best way possible."

Current listening:
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Arms And Sleepers - Black Paris 86
American Football - s/t
Future Of The Left - Curses
Idlewild - The Remote Part

it's my personal demon that keeps me in line, and keeps me in real time...

I haven't written in this blog for fucking ages. But I felt like I should update in some way.

On Sunday we spread Lindsay's ashes and it's kinda weird that I have not really had anyone to turn to and talk about it. I responded to a very emotional situation, and seeing my parents cry again, by getting ridiculously drunk in the afternoon/evening. It seems to be the only way I know how to cope, and I'm really worried about that fact. I thought I was over my brother's death but when things like these bring it back to the surface it's clear that it will take a lot more work.

And I also think that it's really sad that I can only open up to a fucking blog.

In other news, I'm a bit pissed off with Kingston and just life in general so I'm going to visit Fia for a few days. Not taking my phone, or my laptop, not looking at Facebook, not checking my gmail, can't wait to get away from all the shit.

Hopefully I'll come back feeling like myself and less of a wreck.

Current listening:
Aconite Thrill - Recliner
!!! - Louden Up Now
4 Or 5 Magicians - Wakey Wakey Everyone!
65daysofstatic - The Destruction Of Small Ideas

hi my name's del and i hate snow.

that's pretty much all i have to say.

I think I've lost my inner child or something, and I'm glad that right now I don't have a girlfriend, otherwise I would've been dragged into making a snowman, or having a snowball fight, when all I want to do is curl up in my nice warm bed and watch 24 and American Beauty.

Which, incidentally, is EXACTLY how I spent London's most snow-filled day in 18 years.

Does that make me a loser? I don't think it does.

Over the weekend, Scarlett and I finally finished the lyrics to Waterfalls (The Song Jose Couldn't Have), and it's sounding well fucking good. It even has a massive chorus, which sounds ace. Lots of woah-ohs. This is something I would never do usually but it works. I've always argued that songs with a catchy ba-ba-ba style line are annoying, because if you have a catchy melody, you should use it to say something important rather than waste it on lowest-common-denominator crowd-chant vocals. So we've mixed that together and come out with something ace. When I'm on my laptop later I'll post the lyrics.

I also finished re-writing Everything Is An Education, added a few more lyrics and somehow made it sound even more bitter! It's ace, I've also stolen a line from American Beauty, because it fits really well, and hopefully should be able to take a sample from the movie, from this scene: Click click click. Waterfalls is probably the first time I've tried to write about positivity in the local music community and fighting the good fight. It's very Jetplane Landing.

Aside from that, things are good, I get paid tomorrow and we have a show on Friday:



Do come down if you can.xxx

Current listening:
Colour - Unicorns EP
Mineral - End Serenading
Denali - The Instinct

...say you'll be the burden of my life?

So last night, thankfully all my stress was alleviated by Tubelord, Colour, Calories and Tall Ships absolutely ramming out the Old Blue Last like I have never seen it before. It was ridiculous. It was the best feeling knowing that we only needed about 10 extra people in (after advance sales) to break even, so to have at least 150 in (I haven't done the maths yet) is pretty incredible. There were lots of good industry people there to impress as well, and I'm looking at taking on the London-bound responsibilites of more bands as a direct result of the success of last night.

Bosh.

Another good thing was seeing people I hadn't seen for a long time, particularly Jess and Marsha, two people I always have massive fun with and recently, never really seem to get to hang out with at all. It's kinda weird how sometimes you grow apart a little without really meaning to, but just a tiny bit of effort is all you really need. Note to self for the rest of 2009 - make a little bit more effort.

I watched Yes-Man in the cinema the other day, to kill a bit of time with Sean and Toby before I bopped round Charlie's house for the evening. Aside from it actually being quite good, and Zooey Deschanel being one of the hottest human beings alive, it made me realise that I had a lot in common with the main character in the film. I guess it's good doing as much as you can and keeping yourself busy, and I know for a fact if I didn't then I would end up just being depressed and dwelling on shit things.

Which brings me to the recurring dream, that I haven't had for a while but have started having again recently. It's pretty horrible, basically it involves me finding my brother somewhere and I look at his face and his eyes are all dilated, but he's talking to me and it's just random words coming out, like he's on drugs, and I try and shake him in a panicked attempt to sober him up but it doesn't work and he dies in my arms. Every fucking time. It's pretty much the most horrible thing my brain could ever conjure up. I don't know why it's doing this to me.

That said, it's countered slightly by the recurring dream where I pretend to make up with Gee and Alistair, pick them up from some party, and then leave them stranded in some wilderness.

In other news, there's this song I'm writing and it's actually the catchiest thing I've ever written. This pop song malarky might just work.

Current listening:
Mogwai - Come On Die Young
Nick Drake - Bryter Layter
Iain Macaulay - Daylight

too late to tell you you were wrong, another woe to dwell upon...

...I am an idiot and I ruin everything. I am an idiot and I ruin everything.

Not had the best of days at all. Been bored shitless at work and spent most of the day making arrangements for tomorrow night's Tubelord show at Old Blue Last. Lots of people asking for guestlist, always seems to be the same names, always.

I nearly had an argument with an agent who didn't want to pay the (frankly brilliant) cheaplist price of £2 for the show, claiming he shouldn't have to pay to see his own bands - it's not the norm, apparently. I would've argued with him, that the way I do promotion in London isn't exactly "the norm" - ie, at this level, I actually try and pay the bands - and that for example, someone who works at Sainsburys might want to get their food for free but just pays a bit less than everyone else. Which essentially, was a good analogy.

But, like the weak and feeble shit I am, I caved in. "Course you can have free guestlist. And while you're at it, please take my principles with you, they're no use to me anyway."

If there's one thing in the world I hate, it's being undermined. If there's one thing in the world I hate more than being undermined, it's being utterly powerless to stop it. I will be the first to admit that I am absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of the London music industry, but I'm trying to make a difference. I have no funding, I have no backing, all I have is an idea that bands should be treated fairly. It's not "DIY" in the sense that ALL the money should be given to bands, in fact I'd say it's quite far from the DIY ethic, in that I try and run things in an efficient, business-like manner. But I can't continue to operate in the way I do, if I lose as much money as I lost last year in putting on shows.

Sometimes it's nice being a carp in Kingston but when you swim up the river to London, you realise you're just a minnow. I'm determined to be more like a shark as each day goes by.

Incidentally, I am still rubbish at things and it's taken me about 10 days, a new personal best, to completely ruin something that was amazing. I think. I don't know. Maybe I just worry too much. I hope so, at least.

2009 started brightly but now I'm back to a recurring theme which came about in 2008: "Dear ground, please open up beneath me. Cheers."

Current listening:
Mew - Frengers
Jetplane Landing - Backlash Cop
Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up Til It Was Light

it's been a difficult year so far, i've had enough of being torn apart.

It's been a while since I did this so I figured that while bored at home in that sortof between-Xmas-and-New-Year purgatory, I'd add to it. It's ridiculous to think that in 2 days time it'll be 2009, this year seems to have gone pretty quickly. I can't help but feel that this has been the biggest emoational rollercoaster of a year that I've ever experienced. I also realise that at times I may have acted like a complete penis but there have been many other occasions that have made up for those actions. I like to think that this year, I have been around for my friends a lot more than in the past, and at the very least just been a bit more reliable and focused.

I also feel like I've achieved something this year, it's not massive but I haven't achieved anything for a while so yeah - passing my driving test has been a pretty good thing. I've also been ridiculously happy with the outcome of my band and finally feel like I'm writing the songs I've been capable of writing - and knowing there's a whole lot more still to come. Thanks to a few people (lol) for showing me anger, despair, betrayal and a few other less-than-favourable human traits, it's made my creative side go mental. Bish bash bosh.

Let me tell you about our recent gigs. They have been pretty special. The first gig back (first mistakes.in.animation gig for 6 months, pretty much) was our appearance at New Slang. On my birthday. With a bassist who'd only rehearsed with us about four times. We debuted four new songs, and had nigh-on re-written an old one. It was stressful, but when we got on that stage, we clicked like we never have before, as a band. It felt really fucking good. It felt electric. From the very first riff in Bite It to the cathartic ending of The Punchline, everything went so well that when we got off-stage, I was exhausted, exhilarated, beaming from ear to ear. We were a fucking band.

The rest of the night is a drunken blur, this is what happens when the venue gives you five bottles of champagne, two crates of beer, and all your friends are around. We played to 800 people, I knew this before we went on-stage but I didn't tell the others in the band because I didn't want to add any more pressure. Hell, we'd put enough pressure on ourselves before the show and we didn't need any more than this. I guess I work a bit better under pressure though, I always have done, and that night we were invincible.

The next gig, a couple of days later, I covered a few Get Cape songs at the Get Cape Xmas party. It was basically a bit lol. But I got to see a few faces I hadn't seen for a long time, and it was a lot of fun. It also pretty much paid for my Xmas shopping, which was good.

Christmas came and went, and I actually really enjoyed it despite the very notable absence. My parents handled things very well, and we had Christmas dinner with family friends so it was good to have other people around. We played a game of Kings and my mum was brilliantly racist, it was hilarious.

After Christmas, we had our This Is Not Revolution Rock End Of Year Party for the 3rd year running. This, in tradition, has consisted of Tubelord and Colour, plus two other bands invited along for the ride. This year it would've been Blakfish and Johnny Foreigner, except JoFo had to pull out at the last, so we filled in instead.

The show for us was good, musically I thought we were pretty spot-on but neither Scar nor I could hear our vocals so it was difficult. However, we're not going to be playing New Slang every week so it's something we're going to have to get used to. Although it's difficult with so much going on, if we rehearse well, the songs will become second-nature and we will be able to deal with difficult circumstances a bit easier. I had a bit of a 'rock-star tantrum' at the end of our set because a string broke, I think it confused everyone, not least myself. I realised that we had actually played to quite a large crowd though, and later it transpired that we had managed to cram 189 people into the Fighting Cocks (which is capacity 90). Lolocaust!

There are some other things that made the night really fucking special too and I won't go into them on here but needless to say it has left me a very happy boy for the last few days.

We have another show tomorrow night, not only playing mistakes.in.animation songs but also doing a second set covering Biffy Clyro. This is going to be a bit odd though because I'm pretty sure Andy hasn't learnt half the songs but there you go. I think me and Dave could almost get away with doing it as a two-piece though... We shall see! Scar has learnt the songs pretty well too, she is saving me by doing lots of vocal harmonies and singing the high bits that I can't do. Should be good fun if nothing else, and we're getting paid in booze, pretty much.

Plans for 2009:
- Sort my back injury out
- Record and release an EP. Maybe an album at the end of next year.
- Release a record by my band on my own label.
- Release a record by another band on my own label.
- Tour. Tour. Tour.
- Beat the Estonian national side at hockey.
- Get the girl, save the world.
- Get down to 75kg...

Final thought for this blog, if you're going to be in a band with "del off the internet", probably don't write a fairly candid blog about it that he can google fairly easily. Oh, Scar...

Current listening:
Jose Vanders - Red Black Blue & The Tortoise
Sigur Ros - ( )
National Forest - s/t
Mogwai - Young Team