It's been a busy couple of weeks, I suppose, looking back now things I did a week ago seem like they could be a month ago, which is quite refreshing as time normally seems to be speeding up to me these days. The band has been busy in persuit of results and I've had my head buried in various life admin tasks.
A week ago on Saturday we played our first show as Fragile Creatures at the Unitarian Church, Brighton. We played there a couple of times as Adam Kidd Band and vowed not to return after some really shambolic nights. The lovely church acoustics are excellent for voices but throw in a rock drum kit and you'll hear nothing else, it also seemed like a tough place to convince people to go to, people seem happy to watch a street gig when they set up on the steps, but venturing inside is another matter, particularly with no bar to speak of.
When we were offered this latest show there seemed to be a number of factors that would improve that outlook. For starters we would be playing acoustically, so it was more likely people would be able to hear the music as we intended; the show was part of Brighton Fringe festival, which lent publicity an air of professionalism and we were supporting a Serbian folk singer - Lady Jalena... which sounded like the sort of thing that would pull in the festival crowd.
When we arrived it seemed that things were not going to run according to plan, by this time they had already abandoned the idea of charging £5 and had made the night a fundraiser for amnesty international, which wasn't a problem - we weren't expecting to get paid anyway. Then we found out that Lady Jalena was still stuck in Serbia and another act from the bill, Martyna, had called in sick. Furthermore the PA system was limited to a couple of speakers and a four channel desk... so no monitors and not even enough mics and stands for our four vocals! To top it all of it looked like we would be going onstage during the Champions League Final.
We were determined to put on a good show regardless of any difficulties, particularly as we'd recruited a cahon player (Billy Protheroe) for the gig and rehearsed with him every day for a week! A couple more acts had been found to start off the night and Kate, a great sounding group with a harp, had been bumped up from first on to headliners (we weren't quite sure why, but we weren't complaining - happy with the penultimate slot we'd been booked to do). When our turn to take the stage came the room was practically empty and we were convinced we'd be playing to our girlfriends and Tom's sister! I sarcastically took the mic and said something like, 'yeah, we're onstage now you can all come out from where you're hiding'... and people actually did! By halfway through our first number the room was looking comfortably filled and we played a great set - with a couple of brand new numbers. Into The Night ended up being a weak point, with my acoustic guitar suddenly jumping up in volume and the groove being somewhat elusice. That aside the night went really well. Here's the setlist:
1. Stowaways - first ever performance
2. Fragile Creatures
3. Just A Fool
4. Slow Down
5. A Message
6. Into The Night
7. This Strange Dance
8. End Of The World (For Two) - first ever performance
9. Empty Head
The previous Sunday we'd had a brand new demo of End Of The World (For Two) played on the BBC South Introducing show by Simon Price. I ran into Simon in a bar a few days earlier and he told me he was taking over the show again from regular host Phil Jackson. I vowed to get him a new song recorded in time for it (to help promote the Unitarian Church gig)... and then promptly fell ill for three or four days. So then on the Friday and Saturday I managed to get the guys from the band over seperately to put down their parts in my home studio. We were all really pleased and a little surprised with the results so less than 24 hours after my final mix the song was going out live on a bbc broadcast!
Then on bank holiday Monday we went in for a day at Brighton's Metway Studio to record Stowaways with Toby May on drums and Matt Twaites engineering. Again we were both surprised and very pleased with how good the results were... there's even talk of Stowaways as a potential single. Still it might not be this recording, and I'd rather not jinx it by saying any more on the subject!
In other news my computer died recently, I turned her off at the mains and then she could no longer find windows. I think this was an issue with Sata drivers (having my OS on a Sata Drive) and windows XP... but I cannot claim to be any sort of expert and had to resort to calling in the big guns (Dad!) to help me sort it out. This has meant a clean install and thankfully my DVD drive has started working again! I think I learnt a valuable lesson tough - I am a lot more productive at home when I can't get online as easily! With my PC down I spent a lot more time working on my laptop, recording demos and grabbing time to spend on my Kiyomori project. I'm glad it's working again now, after the busyness of the last coupld of weeks I've felt in need of a wee break and a return to streamed entertainments... last night I caught up on my southpark!!
Finally jogging... a couple of months ago I ran the Brighton Marathon. If you'd told me at age 18 I was going to run 26 miles in 3 hours 47 minutes I would probably have laughed at you! I did it though in the last few days I've found the lure of remaining fit too hard to resist. I don't have any intention (at the moment) of competing in an event again, but my girlfriends flatmate has signed herself up for the London marathon in April next year. When she did the Brighton marathon in its inaugural year several of her toenails fell off!
I seemed to fare a lot better with my first bash at a marathon so I've offered to train her a little, so the long slog isn't as much of a shock to her system. Now, I only trained for three intensive months and loosely for three months, to build up my general fitness. We are way ahead of schedule, but I've suggested we run 6 miles once a week until we're within three months of the even when we'll go into a stricter regime.
On Thursday last week I went out in the midday sun and attempted a run to Rottingdean and back, to prove I could still do it myself to myself before I started trying to give instruction to someone else! I made it but had to stop twice - the gps tracker on my phone told me I'd started out running at 8 miles per hour and kept that up for 2.5 miles. Considering my average marathon pace was about 6.5 mph I was really killing it (and my chances of completing the 6 miles) so I slowed down and managed the rest of the run at a more reasonable pace. Then on Sunday morning I did again, but this time as a supposed trainer! It went much better yesterday, with a nice even pace throughout and only taking a short break to walk up the steep hill from the undercliff walk to the clifftops by the marina.
I think I'm going to enjoy the 6 mile a week fitness drive a lot more than the intense scheduling of trying to build up your distance to marathon length. Still, 6 months of 6 weekly milers and we should be able to hit the longer distances without too much worry.
Time to sign off methinks, another long blog that's probably vaguely tedious. Nonetheless I do see myself as more of a diarist than a reporter... so this is all you're getting out of me!!!
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