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