22-3-10 – A painfully quick recap // Excitement?

So much has happened that I couldn’t possibly recap in detail without going crazy, so I’ll bosh things out in the form of a list with quick explanations (barring the first one that I wrote a section about in Germany before I collapsed from exhaustion)

A lot has happened since I last blogged, including…
- Supporting an 80s pop sensation with YAWA

Sigue Sigue Sputnik

Now I’d never heard of them before, but…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk30a0qsVIk

They were huge in 1986. I wasn’t even born in 1986. But yes, that didn’t stop it from being one of the most Hilarious gigs in recent memory.

YAWA piled into the van and we headed off for the oh-so-exotic Bilston, where a promoter had added us to the bill of this show a week before.
This didn’t stop him from having a go at Kieran and Jamie for not selling 50 tickets (Note to that promoter: If we could sell 50 tickets in under a week to a show in Bilston, we would put on our own gigs.) – even thought they were helping him load up the headline act’s backstage room with food (clearly the job of the support band).

So we unloaded, soundchecked and found ourselves at the back of the Robin 2 venue nibbling on cheap fish and chips and having a good ol’ natter. Then people filed in. Considering they have over a million youtube views and nearly destroyed Jamie + Kieran’s backs with the amount of food in their requested rider, they didn’t seem to be as big of a draw as expected.

But amongst the people was the manager that YAWA had met with once before. She’d come to check us out live before making a decision whether to get involved with the band. So we knew we had to do something special.

The first band on was an industrial metal act with a decent vocalist who had a spine for a microphone stand. It seems most of the bands on the lineup focused on image, as the third band had a ribcage for a microphone stand, as well as those so-solid-crew-esque contact lenses that make you look like you only have pupils, no iris.

But yeah, we smashed it – even got some of them dancing. We impressed the manager and her friend and made some new fans.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik were something else though. Hilariously repetitive music, but spectacularly sequined costumes. Jamie almost pulled one of them after the show (No joke, I think the guy kissed Jamie at one point.)

All in all a surreal night. Good luck to the lead singer and the electronics guy in the band who were getting married in South Africa. I hope they have a long and prosperous life together.

- YAWA finding a manager (Lady called Emma Rose – nice girl, good at organising us and we’re making it official soon)
- A well-connected agent taking a liking to YAWA (Guy who works for Trivium, Bullet for my Valentine etc)
- Lolling at Zak trying to use his new double bass pedal (He’ll get it eventually, bless him)
- Entering and winning the red bull bedroom jam live show competition (Thanks to everyone that voted!)
- Rachie’s birthday! (Awesome times – seemed like just yesterday that I was hanging out in her house chatting to her friends late into the night for her 16th. Same kinda situation, but this time laser quest was involved, with Kieran adopting the moniker “Straight Rambo”.)
- Making my first video for G66 (I got paid, yay!)
- Making my first product description for Primeloops (Check it out: http://www.primeloops.com/loops-samples/product/orchestral-scores~134/)
- Almost finishing the business plan for boyinaband.com (So close!)
- Going to freakin’ Japan (This one needs a sub-list)
- The 5 hour delay + Frankfurt (Never fly Flybe, German hotel breakfast buffet = win)
- Visiting Harajuku (So many gangstuh clothes!)
- Getting gifts for homeslices in Akihabura (7 floors of anime, games and general geekery. That’s just one of the hundreds of buildings.)
- Meeting Hannah’s Japanese friends (Awesome fun trying to communicate when the language isn’t fully understood!)
- Meeting Hannah’s Finnish friends in what can only be described as a ravey S&M Dungeon restaurant (I wasn’t quite sure where I was.)
- Meeting a random Japanese girl on the plane back (Wa-ka! She gave me a Tsuru (origami swan!))
- The cancelled flight back + Frankfurt again (Gale force winds shmale force winds… but they at least paid for my hotel this time… but not the first time, when it was their fault the flight was delayed. Who needs logic?)
- Finally getting home and Flybe losing my baggage (seriously, never fly Flybe)
- Playing live on t’internet for Red Bull Bedroom Jam (It was BOILING and I got no free red bull. Awesome fun though!)
- Going down to London to meet @Jordanfish (He’s famous. Seriously – check @Jordanfish on twitter and look at the number of followers.)
- Some exciting upcoming projects with Jordan (Secret stuff atm, but all will be revealed!)
- Recording, mixing and ordering the YAWA EP (Man, that took weeks and I summed it up in a sentence.)
- Ordering new YAWA T-shirts (A plain ol’ logo this time, no robots! :O)
- Gigging in Barrow-in-Furness (Awesome gig barring the retarded sound man who cut us off before the last song without even saying anything.)
- Writing most of the 7 Day Bassline song (Cheese <3)

I will endeavour to keep on top of things now.

This week will entail:

- YAWA’s EP Release show!
- Getting the YAWA EPs and T-shirts (Or it won’t be much of an EP release show!)
- Possibly meeting up with Jordan Fish for secret project-y stuffs!
- Finishing the 7 day song and starting the tutorials
- Starting work on another Axe Fx Tutorial
- Wishing I could play Dragon Age’s expansion that Rachie bought me ><

Okay, so it’s back to regular blogs for me. Apologies once again for the massive gap. As you can see, things have been more than a little hectic. There are a lot of exciting things going on and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next few months.