17-5-10 – Good times, Bad gigs / Funderiffic!

Alrighty!   This was a much busier week than the last one, with…

- A Gig in Birmingham (2/10)
- A Gig in Glasgow (3/10)
- A Gig in Edinburgh (2/10)
- Ogre chillage
- Applying for several bits o’ funding

Paid Practice

There are some times when you’re in a band trying to break a new area that you just have to cut your losses and think of things in a different context.   I feel like I did that a lot this week.

Brum had basically no-one there, so we just viewed it as getting paid to practice.   I never understood why a promoter would put on a gig and not promote it.   Surely they’d get the clue from their occupational name.   Hell, I managed it with the Worcester gig ages ago.

On the good side, Rachie surprised me by turning up at the gig!   So I got to spend the evening with her.   She and sketch raved together while we practiced on stage, so it wasn’t a complete loss

What’s a Glasgow Kiss?

Turns out it’s a headbutt.   Glaswegians are slightly prone to violence, apparently.   Anyway, even though there were a few people at the gig, they were all older people that didn’t look like they were massively into rap/rave/metal.   We did get a few congratulations from randoms though after the set

After the show we stayed at Kieran’s second-cousin’s.   Which was awesome.   We played DJ hero, looked at a plethora of pricey guitars and basses, a top of the line DJing setup and an electric drumkit.   It was like they had a toy for each member of YAWA.

Well worth the 7 hour journey up there.

*sigh*

Edinburgh had even less people than Birmingham.   In fact, one person came.   Why?   Because they changed the venue last minute… and didn’t tell anyone.   Fantastic.

However, that one person seemed to really enjoy the fact that he could hang out with the bands so it wasn’t all bad.   We played the third set of the week to the third less-than-ideal crowd of the week, then hung out with the awesome sound girl and the guy from the audience.

I proceeded to get seriously ill and promptly went to my cousin Clive’s flat to stay the night.   I hadn’t seen him since I was about 6 or something, but he was kind enough to let me stay.   I tried chatting with him, but after a while I just couldn’t because I was shivering too much.   He must’ve thought I was on drugs or something.   After a good night’s sleep I woke up to sun streaming through the window, seagulls squarking and a nice tidy room.   It was ridiculously relaxing.

However, I found the 9 hour journey home less so.   Apparently the rest of the guys continued their night in Edinburgh until 4am, crashing in a travelodge, so they regaled me with stories of that, but after those tales were exhausted, I turned to my lifelong companion Pokemon to entertain me.   I’ve got Pearl if you’re interested, and I finally got round to beating the Elite Four on it.

Incidentally, this seems like a good time to mention that on Pokemon Blue, I actually caught all 150 pokemon.   I had a busy childhood.

Civ?   Civ.

Ogre managed to claw his way down to Wellington to hang out this week!   After general catch-up-age, he proceeded to make my computer a zillion times better with a new 3D desktop “Bumptop” and a piece of online software called “Dropbox” which is basically an internet-based shared folder that integrates seamlessly with your operating system.   So damn useful.

But yes, we inevitably ended up playing a long-winded turn-based strategy game, Civilization IV this time.   Apparently Civ V is coming out later this year, so watch out for the dip in blogging regularity then.

Funding!

I’ve applied for a few grants and chucked a few over to Scratch as well, I’ve not got much back as of yet, except for a competition to win 15,000 of investment capital, which I got through the preliminary round and they want me to make a 60 minute presentation to them in Oxford!

I’m not so sure I’m happy with investment capital, as I like the idea of owning the business fully, but I guess we shall see how it goes

Next week on Dave’s Blog

I’ll be jumping back into some…

- Secret Project Production
- 7 Day Song-ery
- Travel Insurance claiming (I finally got the forms through)
- Perhaps a Kettering gig

Later, neighbourinos!