A slice of Matt pie...

A little fling

2008-10-21T15:32:00.002+01:00

No guarantees but I'm contemplating having a fling with my blog.

A lot of people have bemoaned the fact that my last blog is counting down the days to my wedding - which happened on December the 29th of last year and was, I assure you, a very nice day.

As I am working hard at the moment I do not have the time I need to give to this blog but I feel that if I put my mind to it I might be able to do a whopper... the mother of all blogs... a blog so big that if it were a terrorist faction it would appear in 24 series 199 because it is so formidable. Even Jack Bauer would poop himself at the thought of this blog.

Maybe next year...?

December 2007

2007-12-05T01:08:00.000Z

December 2007 is racing away with itself. It's hard to believe that I get married in three weeks and 3 days but that is in fact the truth.

I've been so busy I've hardly had time to think about it which is sad but I am now starting to get excited, nervous and excited... but mostly excited. After all I think Chell is mighty fine and I love her!

Things I'm looking forward to:
- The big day. Hanging out with all our friends and family and celebrating with them!
- Seeing Chell in her dress!
- The Honeymoon. Going somewhere warm in January... who'd of thought it!
- Actually being married, after all this time!

Number 8... the final Omnisonic gig... Dundee

2007-11-25T00:17:00.000Z

Wow. What a night and what a crowd! Tonight was a great gig and marks the end of an awesome ten days on tour. It was a tiny stage but a fantastic venue that took us through the finishing line and completed our tour. Which was a tiny one by Delirious' standards, and a big one by ours.

Sound was great tonight. Big and powerful, even though the stage was so small that I had to put my amps underneath it! I liked that - it felt like I was being clever.

We spent the time that Delirious were on stage in the VIP lounge overlooking the venue, apparently they could see us up there. I wonder if they were jealous of our lovely soft, white leather seats and colour changing mood lighting while they were getting all sweaty on the stage? Perhaps?

I'm going to sign off now - sorry it's a short one. I'll reflect on the tour properly later, but for now it's time to get some rest before the long drive home tomorrow.

Gig 7 - Aberdeen

2007-11-23T20:41:00.000Z

We're sitting in our dressing room having just played our set. Delirious are on stage playing their set. From the murmurs rumbling through I can guess that they're currently playing 'Rain Down'. Things are good.

A starting point. Aberdeen is flippin' cold! All the buildings are made out of granite, which is apparently radioactive - cool. But granite is grey - not so cool.

Tonight I think we played well. Levski thinks he had an off night but I'm not so sure that anything was dramatically bad at all! Apparently there was a slightly challenging drunk bloke in the front row who was shouting 'who are ya..?!' as we walked on. I didn't hear him even though he was right in front of me...ah the miracle of in ear monitoring! Awesome.. Didn't hear him therefore confidence wasn't knocked therefore still played decent guitar and sang in-tune.

Before the gig tonight Delirious called us through to their dressing room to pray with us. It was a cool moment.. it was great to hear their heart for us through prayer. It was really affirming and supportive. The heart I heard was that they are for us and what we are doing. Which is kind!

Tonight we're leaving for Tillycorthie which is about 10 miles North of Aberdeen - even higher up! Crazy... we're being put up with a friend of the promoter from this gig, then tomorrow we're gigging down in Dundee, which is about 1hr 30 South. After that? Home time. We'll be driving home on Sunday... but none of that yet... we've got another gig todo.

Gig 6 - Belfast

2007-11-23T00:32:00.001Z

Tonight we played the Spring and Air brake venue in Belfast, N. Ireland. It's a tasty, small-ish venue just off the city centre and along from the BBC building. It was the craziest smallest stage of the whole tour so far. We ended up cramming our gear and ourselves onto it for soundchecks and our part of the gig. Unreal.

It's been another great day. As I write this I'm laying here under a teenage mutant hero turtles duvet, on a bunk bed in the parental home of Matt White (who is, for lack of a better all-in-one title: our roadie / drum tech / spiritual guidance counsellor) and I am feeling really happy with the 75% of the tour that we've experienced so far. With just two more dates to go it's pretty exciting to think back to where we've been over the past week and what is in store for us over the coming 12 months.

There's talk of trips to Europe and Canada and a new album looming. Who knows where it's going to go? I suppose that going home with this experience under the belt is going to be helpful and enlightening.

This evening's gig was a bit hard work, although we were assured afterwards that we played well and the crowd were with us, it was difficult to sense that on stage; not helped by a poor monitor experience for me. Where did my Bluesbreaker go in the mix? Who knows... all I know is that wasn't the same mix that we sound checked with. Nevermind - 1 out of 6 ain't bad!

I've been offered one of Martin's guitars to buy...I'm thinking about it, but I'd have to sell my Les Paul first. If anyone wants to buy my awesome sunburst Les Paul Standard, for around £800 then let me know?

Tomorrow brings a new day, and new country (bonny Scotland) and a new audience, who we would love to take along for a musical and spiritual journey... Aberdeen should be good I hope...just need to re-nail that monitor mix!

...the night before tonight. Gig 5 - Dublin

2007-11-22T23:08:00.000Z

Temple Music Bar. Last night. Great venue in Dublin, which is a place I've never been before, in fact I've never been to the Republic of Ireland before. It's nice there.

The big news of the day was concerning one Martin Smith. When we arrived we heard that he was still on the bus. When he didn't turn up for sound check a few enquiries later we discovered that he wasn't well. Apparently he had been sick as a parrot. And here's the big news...

Over tea I sat with Stu Smith (Delirious' drummer) and he told me that Martin would probably make it for the gig but wondered whether I knew many of their songs. Which I do. But not the words. But he said that I was the back up plan!

Now I'm sure this was tongue in cheek... but I can now say that I have been officially asked to sing for Delirious. I am Martin Smith's understudy. 'I'm gonna be....a history....' etc. Nevermind, I'll settle for singing for E=.

The gig was great, there was a real spiritual vibe about the gig - it felt like there was something more going when we were playing. We sensed that even before we played. Awesome night.

After the gig for our accommodation we ended up 30 miles south of Dublin in a place called Greystones (I was excited to see another place later on called Blackskull - if only they could do a 1/2 and 1/2 name swapsee). We stayed in a Theological College there and were hosted by a bunch of enthusiastic students from the college. Many many stories of Chipper shops (see Matt Whites blog) and awesome breakfast venues...

Anyway for now...I shall sign off cos I'm being antisocial and I need to blog again in sec about tonight!

Ferry...cross the Irish Sea

2007-11-21T15:28:00.001Z

Last night at 10pm we left Liverpool docks on a P&O Irish Sea ferry, bound for Dublin. We were allocated cabins as, to our surprise, (and prompting a quick rebooking) we discovered that the ferry journey was 7.5 hours! Bleurgh.

So, after an evening meal aboard the ferry we retired to bed in our little cabins... thus beginning one of the worst night's of sleep that I've had in a long long time. I woke up in the morning (5 am!) to discover that my sheet had slipped off the bed and I was baked from the 2,000 tog duvet provided. We went down for breakfast then left the ferry in the still dark streets of Dublin.

me in the car getting ready to leave the ferry

After being misdirected by the TomTom for 30 mins we decided to get out the town and headed for Howth Castle, to the west of Dublin. Once we arrived in the mega metropolis of Howth we discovered:
1) Free parking!
2) The sea
3) That we were tired enough to fall asleep again.

Fast forward 7 hours and here I am sitting in the Temple Music Bar in Dublin, waiting for sound checks to begin, so I thought I'd give a quick update.

Still having tons of fun though...just feeling a touch jaded

A photo from the UEA gig

2007-11-19T23:38:00.000Z

The Plug - Sheffield

2007-11-19T13:13:00.000Z

Last night was our gig in The Plug. It was probably the hardest night of the tour so far... I think the pace of touring caught up with us a bit. It's been four days of solid traveling and gigging so far, it's exhilarating but obviously does take it's toll on us.

The Gentlemen played first last night. They're a hyper indie rock band from Sheffield and they enjoyed the bonus of a home crowd. It made me think that we don't really have a home crowd, having never really gigged in Chelmsford. I don't know how possible it is to rectify that either as there aren't very many good gig venues in the Town. Maybe we need to build one?!

The venue last night was really nice. And really clean. No sticky floors, which made a nice mid-gig talking point.

My monitoring was a bit squiffy last night again...I think I need the level backed down. Might be a good idea to take a look at that in Dublin.

As for now I'm sitting at my 'soon-to-be' inlaws tapping away in the office while Jon watched the Da Vinci Code in the other room. It's good to relax before we let ourselves rip into the second half of the tour!

Swansea... Sin CIty Club / Venue

2007-11-18T01:27:00.000Z

Yeah that name is pretty apt. The venue tonight took us from yesterday's sublime to today's ridiculous. From the spotless church environment of the 'National Revival Centre' in Horsham to the Sin City club, where the floor is so sticky that they never have a problem with flies.

The venue tonight was a lot smaller, and the ticket sales were less because of that but the venue still felt rammed. Apparently there were around 500/600 people there tonight.

Our set was slightly shorter than the other two nights and we really enjoyed playing so it felt like it went too quickly! We started with Masterplan again and finished with White Suit... a first, we normally finish with Book Club. Another little tweak tonight was that I intro'd Athens and said a little bit about the song. During the set I had this uncanny sense that this grubby little place is where we're meant to be; meaning these kind of venues, not Swansea... It was almost audible it was so clear. I don't think that means we're gonna need to change direction massively as a band but it's definitely something to hold to and think about.

It was the most stressful change over we've yet done. We have to remove stuff from the stage and straight through a nearby door into a fire escape. The fire escape was covered (and I mean covered) in pigeon poo. Which is ironic because the Pigeon Detectives played the venue just 2 days ago; you'd of thought they'd have caught the culprit and cleared up the scene of the crime, but alas, the pigeon poo bags have got off scot free again... I digress... So all of gear needed to come off before Delirious could come on so it was a busy 10 minutes! Mitson got a bit stressed but it was ok...

Today we finished our soundcheck quickly and got down to share dinner in a nearby restaurant with crew and the band. It was good to get a chance to relax with them and chat.

We're really enjoying this whole tour business, it's kind of weird, we said today that we don't really want it to stop.

Getting tired now... looking forward to some days off at Wigley after tomorrow's gig.

Horsham

2007-11-17T00:20:00.000Z

"Your sound was... meaty" was one friend's appraisal of E= tonight. Matt White went as far as to say it was the best he'd EVER heard us. Whoo blimey you say!

Tonight's gig was in a warehouse / church building in a corner of an industrial estate in Horsham... a place I have never been. I guess it's only a place you would go to if you have a gig there... or family. Or, of course, you might live there. But that's unlikely.

The PA was massive - bigger than last night's I'm sure of it. Trev did a sterling job once again...awesome FOH - Thanks Trev. Mark was great on monitors too. Everything worked very nicely. That is apart from my wah.

I took the wah out of my setup today - I need to send it off and get it fixed. I'm going to get it 'mod'-ed, and turned into a Hendrix cry baby (apparently the new ones have a different sound). The Hendrix wah will have more wwwhhhhhhaaaaaa and lesss hheeeeeiiiiiiisssssss. So 'm told.

I've also put in an order for a new GigRig Humdinger amp distro thing which will also sort out my impedance problems at the pedal end of things. It's all good.

No snapped strings although Jon is going through sticks like they're balsa wood. He is an animal!

Delirious sounded great tonight - I'm enjoying this whole tour business muchly...

UEA LCR

2007-11-16T00:10:00.001Z

One down... seven to go...

We just got home from a great night up in my homelands, the stomping grounds of M Leeder... NAARICH. It was a goodun!

A few firsts happened tonight:
We played with Delirious
We played a live set with in ear monitoring
We played 'Athens' and 'Ted Talmeer' for the first time

All of these thing happened and went well.

Other good things:
My guitar rocked tonight - didn't go out of tune (apart from Freedom where it had a hissy)
We were toit - like the toiger
In-ears rule still

Here here.

A few things for improvement:
I need a new wah pedal
I need a new signal splitter
I could do with tweaking my mix for tomorrow (slightly more drums - esp kick)

All of these things could be improved but 66% of them cost money I don't have

It was really nice to have my brothers at the gig tonight - and my sister-in-law! Thanks for coming Bob, Ang and Mike! Hope you enjoyed your first taster of E= live

Other than that I need to sign off and go to bed... Horsham here we come!

PS (If you want me to report on any other aspects that I haven't here please do let me know. :)

E= on tour

2007-11-14T17:47:00.000Z

Tomorrow we go on tour. We start in Norwich and end up in Dundee...via all manner of places around the uk and ROI. I've got to say it's gonna be exciting, we've never done this before and we all know that touring with Delirious is going to be exciting and challenging.

I'll try my best to keep a regular blog going on throughout the duration of the tour.

I always get told off by Chell when I wish away gigs and events because I'm worried about performing at them but this one, whilst I am scarily compelled to do the best job possible I am also looking forward to it. How bizarre to think I would actually be looking forward to gigging this much!

We're gigging a 45 min set which includes a couple of brand new songs - Athens and Ted Talmeer + a few old crusties like White Suit, Freedom and Breakout. At the moment we haven't included Take Broken Me in the set because it slows the tempo down a bit too much. We're taking a gamble on that I suppose.

Last night I spent time on my knees praying. It was great. I know God's with us on this one. I'm sure the messages (even though they are subtle) will emerge from the bizarro lyrics I write and the music will be good music!

If you get a few minutes do think of us:
- Traveling is gonna be long and hard work. Pray we have stamina and healthy cars.
- Performance will take it's toll on us. Pray that we keep stamina and continue to have fun.
- Ideas and the next season. We go into the studio to start recording shortly after we come back from the tour. Pray that we are inspired to take stuff we learn from the tour into the next album.

Thanks. Watch this space... I promise...

Let me appeal to your better nature

2007-10-18T11:51:00.000+01:00

It's been a while. Every so often I have to have a breather from Blogging...I dunno why that is but I just take a break, and come back stronger...so to speak. I don't know how many blogrolls I've been banished from. I don't know how many mobile phone address books I've been deleted from but here goes...I am sorry. Particularly to Mel, for she seems to take the absence of regular bloggers the hardest. Chell's just as bad as me...

Anyway, what would a first blog n ages be without some actual content. It's good to be back...

I was in Sainsburys the other day getting some food. Not much mind, just a few bits and bobs for tea, some new tooth brushes and a couple of bags of jellys (gummy candy to our transatlantic friends). I get to the checkout and the lady gives me a wide toothless smile and asks me, very kindly, if I would like help packing...

Now, I don't know what I look like when I go shopping but I'm pretty sure I come across as a fairly able bodied young man, with good strong arms and a twinkle in my eye. So what is it that makes this woman think I can't handle packing a few plastic bags of veggies and tooth brushes? I must come across so weak to her?

Anyway, my pride ensures I don't ask for help. So what does she do? What does she do to this poor, single white male? This weak man? This silly, weak man who she has assessed can't even pack his own bags? Well, she promptly concentrates on throwing my shopping through her scanner and into the packing area as quickly as she can until I am left with a pile up of groceries so high I can't reach the carrier bag dispenser.

I finally get it packed (as she sits idle - happy at the embarrassment she has caused me) and at the end of it all with an 'I-told-you-so' expression she happily takes my money and nectar card. Why I aughta!

So, what should I do next time? Do all check out people take pride in asking this and then, after the 'no' comes, go to extra effort to try and trap your hands under the potatos? I really am at a loss. Is online shopping the way forward? I have no answers.

But that is me for now... :)

Surface

2007-09-12T17:28:00.000+01:00

Look at this - it is so cool.

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Stick Maniac

2007-07-09T10:40:00.000+01:00

Check out this little guy

Mr Postman

2007-07-05T15:06:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the delay...evidently I don't love my mac enough to blog on it.

Anyway...here's a story to get me back into it. Yesterday I made an attempt at sorting a pile of letters and bills that have gathered on my dining room table in the past month or two. It was a mammoth effort and I got into the flow of opening letter after letter and quickly redistributing paper either into one of my bill piles or the bin.

Well, it turns out that one letter wasn't addressed to me - although I didn't find that out until I had opened it. This letter had been sitting on my table for a month and a half. Upon opening it I found a cheque for £1,500! Yikes! You know the scariest thing - the first thing that went through my head was to ask myself if I could change the name to look like M.LEEDER! Well, after quickly giving myself a mental slap I realised that this was unethical and just wrong!

So today I took it down the road to the correct address (which was, btw, on the envelope, the postman got it wrong, I must have sticky post I guess!) They were alright about it - although my story sounded unconvincing to even me (and I know it's true!) I felt well dodgy. The moral of the story - always check who your post is for before you open it.

I love ... mac

2007-06-14T19:04:00.000+01:00

I have come over to the side of good. I am no longer held captive by the manacles of monopoly. I have been released into a world of beauty and small, white, plastic boxes. I am the proud owner of a MacBook.

I love it. It is the single most beautiful thing in my life (apart from Chell of course). It can do everything. Apart from operating my washing machine (although I've emailed Steve Jobs with a few ideas) it can do pretty much everything else.

And this is my first blog on my mac - during which I am happily having a video chat with Lard, JMoney and Irish boy. This is the coolest thing ever. I will try not to blog too much about my mac but I feel it is certainly worthy of at least one post.

Anyway, that's enough today. I aso did a VERY cool thing today but I won't blog about it until I have the photos from Will and Debbie. I'll blog about today in a week therefore. Sorry that's confusing.

RAH

2007-06-12T00:06:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday night we played at the Royal Albert Hall. Cool.

Harry Potter

2007-06-07T18:09:00.000+01:00

So, friends, I think it would be good to get some discussion going on amongst us with regard to the pending release of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' on July 21st.

WARNING - the following post has spoilers from all the previous 6 books - if you don't want to find out too much, don't read on...

Anyway, I am looking forward to book 7 coming out. Apparently there has been a guarantee of NO BOOK 8 - which I for one think is a good thing. Harry Potter is a pretty good read, although I think the quality of the series goes a little wayward in book 5 and 6. Hopefully she can pull it back with number 7?

I've had a little think have a few thoughts and questions and it'd be good to hear everyone's thoughts. Quick aside, one of my favourite memories of working in the Mission Team office in Morden (as it was then) was sitting quietly in bookclub with James G, Steve C, Lard K (I think?) and possibly Phil H all reading The Order of the Pheonix the day it came out...bless us all!...

Anyway...

#SPOILER REMINDER - DON'T READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW#

1)Will Dumbledore be coming back in book 7? If he is dead, has he made his own horcrux?

2) Is Harry a Horcrux? Therefore does he need to kill himself to rid the world of Voldemort? Or is there just too much LOVE in him? Does Harry die at all?

3) Dumbledore's death seemeed a bit too easy (book 6). Is he dead? Is Snape, who killed him, a goodie? Was it someone else using polyjuice potion?

4) Does Petunia or Dudley have magical powers?

The Fruits of Sunday

2007-06-02T08:43:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday, when it was raining, we were bored, so we made this...

Last night with... the ISB

2007-05-24T17:43:00.000+01:00

Last night we drove into Elephant and Castle to visit Territorial Headquarters. It was fun.

The purpose of our trip was to prepare and practise for our gig at the Royal Albert Hall on June 9th. We're playing a short set in the middle of the Salvation Army's Gospel Arts Festival and we're hoping it's going to be really good!

Last night we played through our song 'Take Broken Me' which we're performing live with the International Staff Band - which for those of you who don't speak Salvationist means 'very-musically-able-Salvation-Army-brass-band'. Hope that clears up any misunderstanding.

Whilst we went in a little apprehensive and nervous, we came out really positive and excited as the song sounded so beautiful and full. We're really looking forward to the night now - it should be amazing!

The sales pitch: if you would like to get tickets to come to the Gospel Arts Festival then please visit the Royal Albert Hall Box Office Webpage. We'd love to have your support on the day!

Duke Special - last night

2007-05-16T10:19:00.000+01:00

Last night we went to see Duke Special at the Shepherds Bush Empire and it was blindingly good. It was a bit of a last minute thing really so we phoned mid morning to find if there was any room left - there was! Four seats - second row back - stalls! Proper brilliant!

The bloke in the middle at the piano is Duke Special - also worth pointing out is the bloke on the left who is Ben Castle. Even though we were second row there was no one on the front so we were really close!

I did take some video. The sound is slightly dodgy though and in no way reflective of the quality of the musicianship and show.

So there you have it. The bloke is a genius. Whole heartedly recommend you keep checking out what he's up to. Hope he goes from strength to strength!

I hate Eurovision

2007-05-13T00:14:00.000+01:00

It's pretty obvious really. An event like the Eurovision song contest is pretty easy for anyone to hate.

Unless you are Serbian.

Then you love it.

This year was a first for me - I have never watched the Eurovision before...I've made it to my 27th year and finally I have got round to making a date of it. I started off enjoying - hopeful even. Hopeful that uber-camp SCOOCH could well 'pull it out of the bag' or even have 'slotted it home' or whatever cheap semi-inuendo bingo line they wanted to 'squeeze in'. It was not to be. Eventually our tact changed to hoping that the UK would not get any points at all! But that was not to be either...thanks to the Irish and Maltese. Shame really - we could have been the runaway failures...but now we're just also-rans.

But seriously, I know nothing about European politics but it strikes me that objective appreciation of a decent performance or tune has very little to do with where one ends up at the end of the night. Every neighbouring country giving their neighbours a pat on the back and 12 points to boot. Obviously not having any neighbours can't help us. Maybe the Maltese just like us because, like them, we're also an island? Or maybe people don't vote for us because over history we've probably attacked every one of them at least once and nicked all their best inventions and claimed them as our own. Or is it because we don't use the Euro yet and we're being punished through pop music!? Maybe we just didn't have enough goth in our entry?

But aside from my bitterness - what can we do to sort things out next year? I suggest there are three options:
1 - Start a petition to not put in an act next year - leave them to it. They only good thing about it this year was the staging and the Germans...and they got pathetic points too. And they haven't got anywhere near as chequered a past as we Brits...have they?
2 - Put in Coldplay. They're not doing anything else at the moment. Chris Martin can do some activist promo at the same time. 100 million viewers in one hit? Nailed it! Could be embarrassing if they get nil though...
3 - Send the Beckhams. They'll sort it out - and they're not doing much at the moment either. Everyone loves the Beckhams. David can sing. Victoria can pout and do keepy ups.

Perfect.

It's ours for the taking next year - you mark my words.

New Project

2007-05-11T01:00:00.000+01:00

It's really likely that we'll be doing a new album this year. Probably going to be into the studio in September - which means I've got some writing to do...

Is there something that you would love to hear a song written about? Anything at all?

Ideas on a postcard...

Or a comment...

(Phil L - I've still got yours on the back burner)

ROOTS day 3 - Sunday

2007-05-07T02:01:00.000+01:00

Bedtime seems to be getting later and later. Tonight we finished a busy day with a tasty, tasty midnight feast at the curry house. Pasanda, Mushroom Pilau. Always. Beautiful.

Earlier on the day we spent a good chunk of time with Katie Pearson (and those two other folk who hang around with her). Katie was extremely cuddly and we're sure she's gonna grow up to be a lovely and fantastic person - especially with parents as cool as hers. God bless you Pearson family!

Session was good tonight. After a mighty long time of sung worship (about an hour) we had Sandra Ryan in to remind me how far I've got to go before I live like Jesus. Wowzers. I think everyone should be supplied with a flak jacket and body shield to hide behind when people like Sandra speak. We were all transfixed but I'm sure that everyone was wondering whether she might do something crazy any second - and maybe pick them to do something very public and shameless.

Even the illustration she started with was fairly coarse. Before saying anything she picked 19 people from the congregation to stand in a line at the front and then asked them if they believed in God. And if they didn't they had the option to go back to sit down. She used these guys to talk about the 19 who were responsible for the 9/11 acts of terrorism - which Sandra pointed out that, whilst they were horrendous acts of violence, they were also incredible acts of faith. You don't see faith like that - she repeated.

Then the venue shut down and we went outside to pray during the sunset. Nice. Must...remember...challenge...

ROOTS - Day 2... which is Saturday.

2007-05-06T01:05:00.000+01:00

What a busy day!

Morning session. Lunchtime magazine. International Development seminar with Mel. Evening Session. Gig. I feel like I've been carrying a guitar around with me all day long.

So, ROOTS is half way through already. Feels like we only got here...two days ago. This event is seriously short! What a lot of effort for 3 days worth of event. (1/2 day Friday - 1/2 day Monday)

Anyway, pretty tired now so I'm going to go to sleep like a wise person.

Hopefully this night will be quiet and peaceful with no sleep talking to write home about!

Friday 4th May - ROOTS Day 1

2007-05-05T00:59:00.000+01:00

No incredible revelations today - certainly nothing as exciting as the castle room! Upon further research today though it turns out that this room is the poshest one in the hotel...I suppose you could call it the honeymoon suite. I think that says something pretty special about mine and Jon's relationship.

The afternoon has gone pretty smoothly. Once a few venue things were ironed out and we were soundchecked I was pretty well relaxed for the rest of the evening. Songs this evening were:

Give thanks to the Lord our God and King
Wonderful so wonderful (Beautiful One)
Lord You are good
There's no condemnation (I'm alive)
Strength will rise
Open the eyes of my heart Lord
Blessed be Your name

That's not interesting really - but it's nice to keep things recorded proper like.

This evening we celebrated Shawn's 33rd in style at Nandos. Complete with chocolate caterpillar cake it was proper good. Good chicken and good company. Had a nice chat with Suz about her trip to Zambia - sounds pretty amazing. You should chat to her about it some time. Here are a few of the animals she encountered while she was there:

As you can see she encountered some fairly scary stuff over there. Hopefully she will leave a comment at some point to explain her experience in more detail...or summit...

And finally, here is a picture of Me, Glyn, Michael Owen, Chell and Suz on our way back to our respected sleeping venues...being taken there by the Goldmember. As you can see we are still very happy at this point. Long may it continue.

ROOTS - Thurs 3rd May...the day before

2007-05-03T23:32:00.000+01:00

Soooo, just arrived at Southport for ROOTS 2007. Tried to get into the venue - but it was locked...so we went to the team gathering which was already in full swing. It was lovely - a few crisps, a few prayers, a few videos, nice to see a few friends too... and then our short evening had to come to a close. Hence, it was bed time...

Which meant going to the hotel that will be home for the weekend. Which only turns out to be the best darn-dest hotel in the whole of Southport! I arrived to be taken through a rigourous door opening routine (3333 - clever eh? Don't break in though...)

And then...the room...this room is...amazing!

Take a deep breath and see below...I'll walk you through it...

IT'S A MEDIEVAL ROOM! This is angle 1 - on the left you can see the four poster - with curtains. On the right is the en suite. Complete with turrets! And you can see the hatched ceiling effect! I wanna train some clematis over that bad boy!

Here's the view looking back to the door. Note tapestry on the left hand side and most importantly (although hard to grasp the beauty of in a stationary photo) the moving, fire effect wall lamp! How can this get better? It can!

This is the bathroom. This is the view from THE OUTSIDE! Yep - stained glass windows on the bathroom door. Hence Jon and I can watch each other taking a dump...in technicolour!

This is gonna be the best weekend EVER!

Block

2007-05-02T11:25:00.000+01:00

I am at a total loss on what I should blog. I am experiencing blog-block. I dislike it when this happens. What I have been trying to do is store up a few ideas that I can blog about for when I have moments like these, but it would seem that the part of my brain that stores those bits of information has been blocked as well...

The other night Glyn was taking notes on what I said. That is, he typed everything I said onto a laptop, and then he read it all back to us. I think I might be his hero - I'm sure that's not normal behaviour? Oh hang on, it is Glyn... Anyway, I did wonder whether a similar principle could be adopted for moments such as these. So to demonstrate I will now type everything that comes into my mind for the next few minutes:

I hope Glyn has booked his hotel room for tomorrow night
I really must phone Will and tell him that Matt and I don't need to stay over tonight anymore
I hope my flowers will not have been eaten by pesky rabbits when I get back from ROOTS
ROOTS!? Must think about that some time soon...
I hope Jeff Lucas doesn't comment on my blog again
I really must stop saying stupid things
My PC is making a funny noise
I aught to listen to that CD I was given

Just read that back and it's pretty riveting stuff. Well, no idea has a chance to fail unless you try it - and I think we can safely say that this one failed.

What do you other bloggers blog about when you feel you should blog but the ideas aren't forthcoming?

NEW & IMPROVED - Self washing hair

2007-04-30T19:24:00.000+01:00

Washing my hair in the shower the other day I was reminded of a theory I heard in my school years...

I think it went something like 'if you leave your hair unwashed for 3 months it will start to wash itself'. The theory being that then you would never again have to wash your hair. So, in year 9 I decided that, instead of trying to attract members of the opposite sex, now would be the best possible time to make myself as scanky as possible in an effort to prove the theory wrong. So I didn't wash my hair for a month, and yeah, it got fairly rank. In fact, I don't think I ever did see it through. One thing's for sure...the girls ran a mile and I think that it dawned on me to start washing my hair again.

I dunno if I was hoping I would end up looking like someone out of The Levellers or some other dread-sporting, marley-esq dude? But I never had the guts to get to the end of the exercise. And so I ask by the medium of blog, has anyone ever done it? Is anyone still a proud host of unwashed hair (and all the other living benefits that have inhabited therein)? Is there any truth in the rumour? Or is it just a playground myth that the clever, suave boys tell the geeky little gimps to keep the competition sparse?

Eden

2007-04-25T12:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I woke up. Not amazing I know - but it was a bizarre start to the day given what happened afterwards. Everyday I wake up to the Chris Moyles show, and yesterday was comedy Dave's birthday. Because it was his birthday he chose the first track to be played...the track he chose? Rock and Roll Star - by Oasis. The opening song from their album Definitely Maybe.

So later on I travelled down to London with my friend Chris Spring (who I have blogged about before) because he asked JM, Levski and myself to play for him in the studio - recording a new track he's written called It Don't Offend Me. The studio is called Eden Studios and is in West London - that is where I'm sitting as I type this. This place has been responsible for tons of cool recordings but it hadn't dawned on me that this is where Oasis recorded Definitely Maybe! Now that might not be very important for many other people but for me, a true inheritor (sp?) of the 90s I loved it! Awesome! Here's a quick piccy of the studio with Chris sitting there recording some acoustic guitar...

So, yeah...like I say...tons of cool recordings.

All cool, except for one...

One album which just so happens to be amongst my least favourite albums of all time!

(Sorry, I've slipped into a Rob Bell writing style...I'll pull it back...)

One album that in the mid 90s I tried and tried to listen to. You see I wanted to enjoy it. Some of my friends were raving about it. "Have you heard this album?" they'd say. "It's the best thing since the Las" they'd say. And I would listen, and I would squirm, and I would most definitely NOT enjoy.

The album in question? CAST - ALL CHANGE

I'm sorry, but I simply can't see what was ever good about this album. Does anyone have it? Does anyone still listen to it? If you were involved in making it, I am sorry for offending you, but I just can't see the attraction.

So clearly any decent studio has it's duffers. And I'm just getting that off my chest after all these years.

Anyways, back to the waiting game. We're waiting around for a hired guitar to be delivered... as you can probably tell by the length of this blog I've got some time on my hands...

Shorty

2007-04-24T00:30:00.000+01:00

It's late tonight and tomorrow is a busy one but I wanted to blog, just to keep momentum up really.

How has your day been so far upon reading this?

"Temple of the Sun"

2007-04-20T09:34:00.000+01:00

Currently I am trying to make a website for work. It's proving a bit of a nightmare and is testing my memory to the limits with regard to the stuff I learnt on my uni course. I did a BSc in software engineering which I finished about 6 years ago - and it certainly feels like a long time ago now. Everything I learnt about object oriented programming and WYSIWYG user interfaces is now but a mere blip in the back of my head. So now this new conundrum is testing me.

Yesterday I spent hours trying to figure out a solution. I browsed hundreds of web sites and forums and phoned a few friends but still to no avail. However, after yesterday's weirdest thing EVER I feel that today could be the day of the naffest game EVER! Upon browsing the Sun Microsystems website (yes I really was that desperate!) I discovered that those crazy chaps had developed a platform game in which you can, and I quote: "Put your C/C++ coding skills to the test". I realised that I did in fact study C++ at uni and clicked to play the game...

The premise of 'Temple of the Sun' (i.e. Sun Microsystems) is that you're an adventurer (Indiana Jones type) who discovers this ancient 'Developers' temple. You have to collect gold coins and jump around missing arrows but the most amazing part of this game is that every so often you are posed with a C++ coding problem which you need to 'debug' before you can continue! Seriously, who thinks up this stuff!? But maybe that's not the most worrying thing - of course I didn't play for long (of course - I wasn't really totally addicted), but the first three debugging screens I came across I got the answer right first time! Whoop! Maybe being a musician isn't my calling after all?

Chell x

2007-04-19T15:14:00.000+01:00

Quick bulletin - Chell is now a blogger. Hurray!
(See my blog roll for her blogspot link...)

The weirdest thing EVER

2007-04-19T14:57:00.000+01:00

Recently I worked with my Mum and Dad on my shed. Essentially that means my Dad made me a new shed and I helped him as much as I could. In order to do that we had to knock down the old shed and clear the area of brambles and an old rotten dead tree. So Dad came with chainsaw in hand and we chopped down the tree.

The tree was made up of lots of smaller trunks - rather than just one big one, so there was plenty of felling to be done. It was only after we had finished the chopping that it became apparent that we were being watched by a new additon to my garden. See below for the weirdest thing EVER!

Yes my friends, this guy was INSIDE one of the tree trunks!! This happy little fella is Bernard. He is a tree-trunk-teddy, and as you can see he is mighty pleased to be released from his trunk prison after all this years.

I do need to point out that this is not a man made artefact - he actually was inside the tree! How bizarre! If you want to see Bernard in the flesh (his bark is worse than his...) then come and visit soon before he catches the black lung and rots away. :)

A week at Butlins

2007-04-17T10:44:00.000+01:00

We are at last back from Spring Harvest and the first word that springs to mind is 'phew'...

For those who haven't been to spring harvest it is an unusual experience. One that can quickly immerse you in the sub-culture a la Christian man and lady. Admittedly I am a Christian Man or Lady but I will pretend from this point that it wasn't me and continue to point out the speck of dust in my friends eye.

Now Spring Harvest isn't all bad but there are a couple of things which I have questions about.

Number 1: The skyline.
The skyline is a big semi-permanent butlins structure. It is the hub of the whole site and during the Spring Harvest weeks it becomes the Christian shopping and promotional mecca. Row upon row of literature, table upon table of different kinds of bibles, and fluffy toys, and bookmarks, and prayer cards, and wristbands, and bible covers, and computer based stuff not to mention everyone with their stall telling you about this charity or that and why you should help them out. I didn't know you could get so many different kinds of bibles? Obviously there's lots of versions, and for good reason too - it's good too express the nuances of translation in a variety of ways... but the formats, there are so many. Metal bound, leather bound, paper and card bound. Bibles for your pda, for your pc, for your filofax (does anyone still have one of those?). Water proof bibles, 'bible-in-a-bag'. Pretty pink ones with holograns. Serious yet classy brown and clean ones. Ones with flowers on. Some without. The list goes on. There must have been over 200 kinds of bible available from the shop. Where do you start? Do we need so many options? Or is someone out to take advantage?

I think that a friend of mine put it very well when she mentioned that she didn't know she needed so many resources to be a Christian. I expect the apostles thought that when they visited the bookshop too... although I suppose they wouldn't have had 'New Testament and Psalms' editions - and there wouldn't have been any need for red letters just yet...

Number 2: The Hosting Chalet
Possibly the scariest place on the site and one that I didn't discover until the last night. A group of the guys from our venue decided to visit the hosting chalet at 1am after being encouraged out of the pub at closing time. Our group was large in number and with not-so-little dutch courage (not mine though incase you were wondering) we descended on the chalet where the shmoozing happens.

And that is all that happens there.

I quickly discovered that I am not good at shmoozing.

All these leaders trying to promo their charity / project / latest bible range and champion it to other top cats as they worked the room. Obviously the content of the night was not to be repeated - I don't want to face another 'lucasarts' comment on my blog - but I was fairly surprised by the blatancy of the purpose of this venue.

One story I heard about happening during the week was when one top Christian celeb (appearing at a Butlins near you soon!) chatted away for a good 10 minutes with a friend of mine thinking that my friend was in a more influential position than he actually was. When my friend informed him of his current career choices the celeb made his excuses and within 15 seconds had turned and walked. Incredible. Now I wouldn't say that's a way to care for anyone.

Not even a family member.

In closing? Well, at last Sunday came and it brought with it some relief. Home was calling. Tiredness had taken over and the team lounge was no longer an exciting place to be. So that's that for another year. As for iScape? Well the venue was brilliant. The team were legends. The delegates were lovely. The music was loud. Martin the sound guy was fantastically inappropriate and funny. God was there for us to meet. All in all pretty good. But I'm glad to be home.

The questions...the peskies

2007-04-04T11:02:00.000+01:00

When we go to spring harvest the person in charge of organising the after hours programme will book us into each venue's evening session to promote our gig and try to get a few more of them along.

Suffice to say we don't like these little occasions.

It could never be said that myself, nor Paul nor Jon are walking self-promotion machines. We're all pretty cheeky but nonetheless a little on the shy side...

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to blog some of the questions we were asked in an effort to get back some suggestions for better/funnier/slicker answers so that we might do a better job next time! Here are some of the slightly naff questions we had:

1) If you were a superhero which one would you be? (Admittedly this was in the kids venue so we'll let them off)
2) What did you have for breakfast? (How do you make that funny!?)
3) What influences your lyrics? (I know that's a little personal but I have no idea how to answer it with 'panache')
4) What one tip would you give to anyone trying to 'make it' like you have? (Ha!)

Simon and Yvette

2007-04-03T19:37:00.001+01:00

Why do some people get more than their share of pain?

Please pray for our friends Simon and Yvette - they are going through the hardest year of their lives.

We love you both loads and loads. x

ElectraTrek

2007-04-03T19:19:00.000+01:00

Here is a picture of me, Jon and Paul tryng out a brand new travel gadget - we're assured it will make a positive difference to our travel time.

You can clearly see that Jon (left) is wondering where he plugs his mac in and Paul (right) is simply not impressed. As for me, I'm happy striking a pose and holding in a turtlehead. "It's life Jon, but not as we know it"

The last few days have panned out thusly:
Liverpool Friday to Sunday
Home -> Minehead Monday
Minehead -> Home Today

Life is busy again - very busy. I'm already a bit fed up of motorway service areas.

Gig last night at Spring Harvest Week 1 - down in Minehead was good. About 300 turned up - so we turned up as well! (It was pretty loud)

The weekend was spent up in Liverpool doing a weekend of training and having a good time with the chaps and ladies up there.

Off to Skegness tomorrow for a gig tom night and the next night too. Then a weekend off - which is good. It'll be nice to be home for easter.

Guy Love

2007-03-30T01:19:00.000+01:00

I think it is helpful to stick in this video post to help clarify what I was talking about in my reply comment (see previous post)

PS This is my 100th blog post - my blog is a centenarian! Whoop!

No hyperlinks please, we're Northern Irish

2007-03-28T23:48:00.000+01:00

Comment was made today that all I ever do on my blog nowadays is link to other websites and videos. I would like to argue that this is not true and that I still am in the process of writing a valuable record of my life and my likes. Although I can see that just hyperlinking and importing video is a good way to blog, and relatively effortless, I must stress that this is not the be all and end all of blogging, therefore this evening I chose to blog by writing...

This week Chell and I have celebrated two things:
1 :- it was Chell's birthday on Sunday. She was ** years old (She was born March 25th 1983)
2 :- the following day (March 26th) was the one year anniversary of our engagement. Pretty awesome eh? My only regret is that this time last year I didn't blog on actually getting engaged. Why? I dunno really. Could have been all manner of reasons... the biggest one was that I didn't know how to express the way I felt at that time without feeling like a muppet. Well, now I can...and I can put up a picture of the ring...

You will probably notice it is not on Chell's finger but I promise you it's the one I got her. Modest, pretty and a little gem - just like my fiance! (See, these are the cheesy platitudes I was worried about writing last year...ah well)

So this week I don't mind that time is spinning too fast and there's too many jobs to fit in not enough hours. I just know that I am in love with a beautiful girl who loves me back and we can't wait to start the next bit of our lives together. Roll on December 29th!

Pandora

2007-03-28T00:02:00.000+01:00

I'm sure most of us have seen this before... www.pandora.com but for those who haven't it is a treat to behold. It's a site where type in the name of your favourite bands and artists and it searches out other music that sounds a bit like them.

That sounds a bit rubbish until you try it out and it comes up with all kinds of crazy stuff that you've never heard of but as a method for discovering new music it's pretty brilliant.

Wikimapia

2007-03-23T12:12:00.000Z

Just stumbled across this website and I believe I have sniffed out a fun game opportunity here. The website ties in with google maps but you can label up anything you want - the tag line is 'Let's describe the whole world!'. Now that's just asking for trouble...

In the top left hand corner you click 'Add Place' then put your little square on the map and click save. It then asks you for a description. If we all do a few I think we could soon take over the entire world with our blithering definitons of diverse and unique places!

Check out my 'add'. Here's a clue - it's a church and it's in Chelmsford. Go...hunt!

A little bit of me

2007-03-22T22:02:00.000Z

Over the past 5 years my guitars have gone everywhere with me so it is with heavy heart that I find myself selling one... and also, I am shamelessly going to promote the sale of my guitar on my blog. So if anyone wants to buy of piece of rock perfection then click here and bid!

Oh and yeah I'll write you a song for your next album Mr Laeger - no problem - what would you like it about?

This has to be seen

2007-03-15T22:59:00.000Z

I'm not going to be able to afford a PS3 - but this looks incredible! It's like The Sims - except everyone is real!

An Apple a day...would be too expensive to keep up for long

2007-03-15T21:19:00.000Z

Ok, so here's the scoop. Spoke to Chell on the phone tonight and she said these (soon to become legendary) words. "If you sell enough stuff you can can buy a mac" Whoop, whoop. That's virtually a green light already! And funnily enough today I sold a guitar pedal for a decent price...so now I'm scouring my house for other things to sell - a fact that Chell will be happy with in itself! (She thinks I collect junk - whereas I'm confident it will all prove useful one day. Anyone for a go on my blowup whale?) So far I have the following for sale:

- A '61 reissue Cherry Red Gibson SG: £700
- A Marshall JTM 6o 1 x 12 with 1 x 12 extension cab: £350

I have lots more stuff to sell but some of it's a bit rubbish - might sell on Ebay though? I'm sure someone will buy that old Epsom printer...

Oh and I can write songs by request - if you want one written I can negotiate a fee!

Tom and his mate

2007-03-15T00:57:00.000Z

No, this isn't a MySpace post - it's about my sat nav... what a wonderful device it is too.

As of Christmas day I have been the proud owner of a TomTom One Europe version - Chell in her extreme generosity and kindness bought it for me. Sure, there have been a couple of incidents (one being when I was towing the trailer and it took me down a dirt track just wide enough for my car which in turn tried to lead us straight through a deep looking ford. We decided that wouldn't be the best idea and had to unhitch and push the trailer back up the lane! Hmph!) but on the whole it's been very handy.

The reason I mention it now? I haven't yet had a chance to try out the mainland Europe maps but today I had some time so I had a browse. I pointed it at Lake Garda, in Italy where we went on our hols last year. Apparently it would take 13 hours to drive there and it was 950 miles away... Funny how having the figures there in front of me made it all the more tangible; it suddenly felt like 10 minutes down the road! Full tank of diesel? check. Sat nav? check. Who's with me? Off we go!

Time to Type

2007-03-13T21:17:00.000Z

...I got overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I was doing. It all started with a busy week around valentines day and then, because I've been up and about loads I've got so many stories that I've gradually become paralysed from the wrists down, and as such haven't been able to write. It's like TOO MUCH has happened to even be able to think about blogging about it. I think if had been able to keep going on the 'little and often' method it would have been fine but, even now as I type, I find myself away from home again. But at least there's an Internet connection here...

I find myself at Sunbury Court, the Salvation Army's antique retreat centre. It's very nice here. And it's particularly old and warm, like an overtly ornate and mismatching old people's home - it must cost a bomb to heat this place. In fact it must cost a bomb to do anything in or to this place.

By way of getting over the blog-clot (that sounds horrible in itself) that I have been experiencing here is a distilled version of the last few weeks. Since my previous post I have:

Been to Glasgow for the Territorial Youth Rally (Scotland Edition)
Been into London on valentines day to share a lovely day with Chell. We went to the Ice Bar (it was cool), the Marriot Hotel next to Westminster Bridge (it was posh), AND we went to IHQ for a coffee and cup of jelly beans (it was...well...IHQ!)
The next day I met Grinner in Covent Garden for a coffee and a good chat following which I ventured into the national gallery to look at Monet and Van Gogh. It was awesome to see some real masterpieces in real life, like Monet's Waterlilies, Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Van Gogh's chair! Incredible.
We (E=) went to Leicester South corps to play a gig and play during their worship on the Sunday. It was great to have some catch up time with Matt and Lizzy (and Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby) Elsey.
Led worship in Chelmsford Cathedral
Visited the Osteopath for the first time ever. It was awesome - I got cracked around all over the place. Loved it. I want more crack! (Can I say that?)
Played a gig with Dweeb in Coventry - it went well. It was at the Nexus Academy venue. Very nice too.
We had the prayer party at Mashbury - singing in the sticks! God bless us Mashbury residents!
We had a great meal out with Andy Hill to celebrate his *****y-eth. Happy Birthday to you!
We had a weekend off!
And this last weekend we did some training with the Essential Course delegates, I played football with them that night (ALOVE UK beat them 29 - 13: Leeder got 2 for ALOVE UK)
Then we gigged in Yeovil at 'Nth Fest' - along with One Hundred Hours, Vera Cruz, Dweeb and 15 or something other bands.
Then we led worship in Exeter at South Western Division's Youth Councils.

That is why I haven't blogged. I had so much to say about each one I didn't know where to start and I got overwhelmed. But it's out now - I'm glad I was able to blog all that and draw a line under it too. Now I can blog with confidence once again - safe in the knowledge that there is nothing more to say other than blogging day by day. (Rhyming as we go - E I E I O)

As for now? Well, currently on retreat with all the officers from London NE division. So far it's been a really positive experience I am very glad to announce...may it continue that way too...

I'd better sign off now because I don't want my constant 'tap tap tapping' to irritate anyone sat here reading in the library. Here's to purposeful blogging and no more blog-clots - ever! ;-)

This is awesome...

2007-02-09T14:08:00.000Z

(Probably don't need to say this but FYI: all the noises you hear are 'human generated'!)

Let it snow...

2007-02-08T12:45:00.000Z

The snow has ground things to a halt in Mashbury. The normally bustling metropolis is quiet as a glutton's fruit bowl and quite frankly that's no bad thing. Today is a day of going slowly. It was meant to be a day of rehearsal but as neither of my fellow band members wanted to make the trip over in the potentially death trap conditions all is quiet in the Mashbury air.

So I sit here reflecting on life. And thinking that I aught to do something constructive with my day but currently I am content to work my way through season 4 of 24 and eat chocolate orange. In fact, pretty soon I might go and make some dinner downstairs, and then return to continue with my 24-a-thon.

After all, yesterday afternoon I spent 3 hours alone in the cold sitting in my car (which wouldn't start) waiting for an RAC man to come and sort out a new battery for me before I could drive home from Northamptonshire. It sucked and I'm kind of glad for the naturally-enforced day off. Now if only my friends could get here and we could have a snowball fight...

Words can't express...

2007-02-01T18:28:00.000Z

Do you ever have moments when words can't express how you feel?

I do.

There have been times when I'm looking out at something so breathtakingly perfect and beautiful. Some sculpted landscape. I might be standing on a hilltop looking out, words sticking in my throat - I can't express how I feel. I wish I could stay there forever. But if you asked me how it feels I couldn't say. I know it's the most fantastic sensation and at the same time so frustrating...because if you asked me how it feels I couldn't say.

There's moments when you look at someone you love and you realise you love them being in your life so much right at that moment that you wish you could experience that kind of emotion at that intensity all the time and you wish time could stand still. But at the same time if you did have that emotion at that intensity all the time you'd know it wouldn't quite express how perfect you feel right now.

Or, like has just happened to me, you hear music so beautiful that you wish you could climb up inside it and rest there amongst the harmony and melody. (Maybe take a listen to the music from the balcony scene in Romeo & Juliet - an instrumental version of the song 'Kissing You' sung by Des'ree and see where I'm coming from...)

'Pre-New Years Resolutions' - Revisited

2007-01-27T09:16:00.000Z

On December 7th last year I blogged about my apparent inability to stick at things. Well, if anything I have continued to think about that blog a lot, and try to improve, so in one way at least I am gradually getting better at pushing through. I have started a lot of new things this year already. I wouldn't say they're new years resolutions but...well, I don't know what else they could be...

I bought a book from TESCO about study skills. It was actually a book for people still at school / college to help them study for their exams but nonetheless I found it an extremely interesting read and it spurred me on to buy some more books that were referenced throughout. The main development book is a book on how to read faster.

Whilst I love reading I find it frustrating that my reading speeds seem to have tailed off in the last 5 or 6 years, a trait which is apparently common when you leave full time education. The book I'm working through has self-assessment exercises throughout to help you measure your progress. The first one, which helps you work out your benchmark, encouraged me a bit but also showed me I've got a long way to go! I read at 189wpm, which is about average, although I have a comprehension of 80%, which is above average. The book reckons you can achieve reading speeds of 400 + with really extreme cases where people can read 1,000 + wpm! Can you believe that? Apparently it's all true. That must be pretty weird... I wonder if it takes all the fun out of reading?

I've also joined the gym. I'm currently going as much as I can. I took up an offer highlighted by the Money Saving Expert which I still heartily recommend. The site has a link to a Pruhealth promo scheme where you sign up for Private Healthcare and get free Cannons or JJB gym membership for 6 months! Pruhealth costs around £19 a month so it's quite a deal when most Cannons health clubs are £50 + (I think the Chelmsford one is £60+). I'm trying to get swimming and exercising as much as I can - this year I am determined to surpass the sit up farce of 2006.

Cannons also have an Osteopath, so I might even be able to get my back fixed at last!

Still alive...

2007-01-25T22:09:00.000Z

Hi, just a quicky to say I'm still alive...

I'll blog something good soon but I feel like my album review in the previous post was a bit of a flop; both personally and in terms of blog-visitors. I think that perhaps my confidence has been knocked by the lack of interest in it.

Anyhow, back soon...

Strangelove - Strangelove

2007-01-08T22:37:00.000Z

Strangelove's self titled 1997 album is one of the jewels of my record collection - unfortunately not many people knew about them then (nor today really) so it never did as well as it should have. In fact I've got it mind to do a few of these blogs on my favourite albums - and most of them that come to mind never really achieved much commercial success. Maybe that's just the way I'm wired?

I first discovered Strangelove after rooting around my brother Michael's music collection back in 1995. He had a copy of their first album 'Time For The Rest Of Your Life' (another blinding set of songs) and I fell in love with it on my first listen. The band only released two more full length studio recordings, the second being 'Love and Other Demons' (thought by some to be their best) and this one, 'Strangelove'. The third and final was the most pop sounding of the lot and I think that might be why it's become my favourite...especially in my old age. I hope you won't mind me taking you on whistle stop tour?

Superstar, the first track of 11 opens with a mournful, cascading guitar chord. The outlook seems bleak - and from this point onwards it has to be said that the band tread a fine line between sad reflection and bleak self-loathing. Doesn't sound like a recipe for success? Well, no, it wasn't... but it's brilliant! Perfect pop melacholy. I love it.

Other highlights... Freak gives a glam tinged angry rock song with a well crafted bridge. Someday Soon, whilst not the strongest song on the album, has one of the best outros I can remember. The whining slide guitar gives way to the pounding rhythm section pushing and punching its way unstoppable and relentless to the end of the song. Awesome! I really love the sentiment of The Runaway Brothers "...both threwing up round the back" - Patrick Duff lyricism at its best.

The pub piano cleverness of Another Night In heralds the arrival of one of the most poppy tracks on the album; it was one of the singles but again, it didn't do too well. It's a really prime example of the Stranglove guitarists' ability to intertwine 2 or 3 melodic lines into a greater whole (when I was fortunate enough to see them live there were times in the set when 4 out of the 6 band members were playing guitar - we're talking full on wall of sound) - something they were brilliant at and something I've tried and failed to emulate loads of times!

The Greatest Show on Earth is a song writing highlight of the album and it's intricate arrangement makes it a good listen. You know you're back in '97 when the horns start up at the start of She's on Fire, a track which at times sounds like Suede (comparisons to Beautiful Ones wouldn't be unfair). It's a slower paced track which is might well be placed at this point in the album to slow things down a bit before the finale. Mona Lisa has an element of 90s dance music to it - it again highlights the ability of the rhythm section, especially the super tight drummer.

Looking back at how much I've written I think that'll do. Strangelove were not any worse than their contemporaries. In fact in some ways they were better. But they probably found their feet about 2 years too late to jump on the band wagon. They are at times disturbed, momentarily unhinged yet always very, very good. I wholeheartedly recommend you check them out and enjoy. Let me know what you think if you do.

I'm getting married this year

2007-01-02T17:49:00.000Z

2007 brings with it many things but one of those things will be the year I get married to the mighty fine Michelle!

Up unto this point I've not really thought too much about the wedding - it was a conscious decision I suppose. It made sense to me to wait until the new year so then I could really get to grips with what I need to prepare and organise.

My jobs for the wedding are as follows:
- to organise what music we will have
- to book the cars
- to book the honeymoon

...and I think that is it... do you think I've got a good deal there? I mean obviously there is lots of stuff to do together...such as guest lists and booking venues and stuff, but my personal list of things to do is pleasantly short methinks.

Anyway, there's wedding blog number 1.

Electralyte on iTunes

2007-01-01T22:31:00.000Z

This is a cheeky little plug - if you didn't know already the band has made it onto iTunes...but even better than that we're currently being featured on the iTunes uk store homepage - something we're uber proud about.

I'm sure it'll only be on there for a few days (it's been advertised on the homepage since the 29th Dec!) so go check it out while it's there! We are there...right at the bottom of the page under the title 'Exclusively on iTunes'.

Oh, and if you don't own a copy of our album Breakout then go ahead and buy the thing off iTunes. It's only £7.99 and comes with two tracks which don't appear on the cd version of the album. They're really good too...honest! If you do own a copy then you can just buy those two tracks on their own. Super.

(Sorry for blatant plug - I try not to plug on here too often as I realise it's not my place to do so...I'm just pleased that's all!)

Speeding into 2007

2007-01-01T21:57:00.000Z

Happy New Year! But... hang on, what's this envelope I just came home to? Surely nothing bad yet? Wha...? A speeding ticket? 41 in a 30? Pesky rotten speed trap!

Christmas...with friends

2006-12-17T23:22:00.000Z

Things are ramping up to Christmas for sure. What a brilliant time to meet with friends that you don't see enough of! This weekend has been manic socialising for Chell and I - starting with a night of poker (gamble free of course, my fellow good-solider friends) on Friday night. When we wound up at 2am I was definitely winning (for that round) but I'm sure if we'd have stayed on a bit longer I would have screwed up sooner or later - especially as I didn't have the foggiest what was going on for the majority of the time.

Saturday was shopping in Chelmsford - meeting up with White and Harries. I managed to get part of Chell's present - at last. Sat eve Mel came over with a jolly good bloke called Dave. We did lots of nice activities, including Eyetoy wishywashy, cards-of-comedy, listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast (!? it was like we were listening to the wireless in the 1940s!) and making a video where I was upside down and we drew eyes and a nose on my chin, I wore a shirt on my head and was interviewed for the press. I hope he wasn't too confused by the whole affair.

Today, Sunday, I cooked my first roast Chicken dinner. I've done beef before, but a chicken was a new step for me, and it went well. We had Shawn and Vicki Moye over which was a pleasure! For dinner we had: Roast Chicken, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, cauliflower cheese, yorkshire puddings, peas, sweetcorn, carrots and gravy. It was filling. We played some games and ate and laughed a lot more together before Shawn and Vic had to leave and Chell and I headed to Chelmsford SA for the carol service. We were late - but at least we had a really good excuse this time...

Then after the meeting Garry, Tania, Elliot and Georgia Smith (and Brother Glyn) came back to Mashbury manor for tea and lots of chat. (Actually the kids went upstairs for a spot of eyetoy while us boring adults chatted!) We had a really good time together - it was good to catch up with the Smiths and hear their heart for the SA in Chelmsford; I know we're involved with the right church!

So, that's been the weekend... busy but for good reason, it's great to hang out with friends and have fun together. I love Christmas! All that remains to be said is that if you consider yourself one of our friends we'd love to have you visit someday soon - you might even get to listen to the wireless with us if you're lucky?

Pre-New Years Resolution

2006-12-06T23:16:00.000Z

I realise it’s a bit early for this but I got to thinking about New Years resolutions. Recently I’ve realised I’m rubbish at committing to things. Here’s a few things I’ve tried to commit to in the past year but haven’t managed to keep up:

Sit ups
Getting to bed before 11pm
Press ups
Getting into work on time
Writing a song a week
Being selfless
Keeping my garden tidy
Practising guitar
Learning Italian
Not using the computer after 10:30 at night
Phoning Chell every day – especially when I’m away from home
Putting savings away
Phoning Will regularly to check up on him and be there if he needs any doctor advice

Seriously! Look at that list! And be assured - it goes on and on!

So I want and really genuinely need help in becoming more committed to things. Next year I will make the biggest commitment of my life and whilst that is not in the same scale as doing a few press ups or sit ups I need my wife-to-be to assured of the committed steadfast love I have for her now and for the rest of her life.

Hence I have already started thinking about New Years resolutions. You might hate them – I myself am not a fan, but I think that my bad memory would be aided by the exactness of the ‘start date’. I hold myself accountable much more successfully if I can connect a task to a date when it was set. However, I also figure that if I start trying to get into the swing of being a man of commitment now then who knows what I might achieve by Jan 1st?

I’ll keep thinking about those resolutions and record them on here as soon as I can.

Decorating for the Festive Season

2006-12-05T11:32:00.000Z

Decorating for Christmas presents us with a conundrum of balance. As my design skills do not measure up to the dazzling skill of someone like Lard I find it a testing experience to work out what looks good and what looks… well… nasty.

Over the weekend Roland, Joan, Chell and I went to Bremen in Germany to visit the Christmas markets. There we experienced a true Christmas wonderland – Christmassy stalls tucked away in each and every crevice of the town centre. Sometimes the stalls were a bit off the wall, sometimes a bit clichéd but most of the stalls were nice little shops with nice little Christmas bits and bobs for sale.

So we came home Sunday and last night we decided to decorate - which is really early for me. I grew up in a house where decorations went up on Christmas eve and stayed up ‘til the twelfth night - I have nothing against that either, but this year it felt right to get them up now. We were feeling so Christmassy that we went out and bought some new lights and a tree. When we got home we put a few things up but ran out of time as we had friends coming over. It was a bit of a rush job – and we need to finish it off really soon.

I woke up this morning and had a look at what we had done…I couldn’t work out what I liked and what I didn’t like. Christmas decorations are a matter of personal taste – so what looks nice to me might repulse someone else. Having said that – I couldn’t even work out what I liked myself! However, I do have a few theories on what looks nice at Christmas (whether or not I manage to adhere to these remains to be seen):

1 – Greenery is good. Natural decoration is much better than shiny plastic. Use lots of evergreens and ivy (possibly holly too?)
2 – White lights not coloured lights – and lots of them too
3 – Themed decoration is a good idea – not too many colours
4 – No blow up Santas or ‘Santa - please stop here’ signage

I’d be interested to here your thoughts on this? More importantly I’d love to hear your ideas and tips on how to traditionally decorate your house for Christmas – especially as I have no idea how to make the clever stuff but would really like to!

God bless us, everyone...

Money Stuff

2006-11-29T10:58:00.000Z

After a few recommendations from our friends Villheim, Deborah and Little Katie I have finally got round round to visiting Martin Lewis' Money Saving Expert site. It's really good!

The guy spends all his time finding out good deals that protect consumers from unnecessary costs - like paying too much council tax, or not receiving benefits that you might be entitled to. He is also currently recommending practical stuff like freeware antivirus and spam filters as well as a host of other stuff.

Other bits and bobs I've read that he focuses on are credit cards (how not to get screwed over), bank charges (ditto), free gifts and vouchers (making the most of them), & mortgage stuff.

So, if you're a grown up and you are interested in these kinds of things (sorry that this blog is slightly boring/practical) I can only say that I'm just having a look around the site and it's great - I thought I'd let you know in case you wanted to check it out...

A return and some flowers

2006-11-09T13:38:00.000Z

I have had a brief soiree into the real world hence my lack of blogging for the past 20 days. I wanted to show something by way of an apology so I am giving you, my readership (i.e. myself, when I look at this next week) a lovely bunch of roses.

Well, the truth is I bought these for Chell because I messed up this weekend and didn't call her. There wasn't any excuse for it so I felt I needed to buy her a nice treat - a pretty bunch of flowers did the trick and I was back in the good books (and back into her top 5 - just beneath Ricky Gervais in the rankings - yes, she's that strange).

Anyway, what with everything and nothing to report I think I will sign off. Probably meant to be doing something like rehearsing with Electralyte anyway! Blessings!

Chris Moyles and his Essex based Salvation Army fan club

2006-10-18T19:20:00.000+01:00

The photo above was taken today when Glyn, Matt White and myself went to visit Ottakers book shop in Chelmsford to have our Chris Moyles books signed and get a photo with the man himself. So here we are.... but there are a few things to note about this photo. Chris appears to only like Matt W as he has his arm around him and him alone. Mind you he did try to put his arm around me but I was too tall and it made his shirt come up - as you can see by way of appeasement I put a hand-of-friendship on his shoulder. Glyn is making a bizarre face and, unfortunately though much less intentionally, so am I - I appear to be smirking; "Excitedly smirksome" apparently (copyright Christina W).

Interestingly just before this photo was taken I presented Mr Moyles with a little blue plastic box with an Electralyte cd, t-shirt, poster and a couple of sticks of rock. I do hope he enjoys them! He seemed to like the gesture and put the box on the floor next to where he was sitting.

Today I met a legend.

Goldmember and the trailer

2006-10-12T17:19:00.000+01:00

Today has been an exciting day for today Electralyte got their trailer. We bought it off of our good buddies from the band [dweeb] so it already has a sterling rock and roll heritage. I do hope we don't disappoint it in the future.

You will be pleased to hear that the Goldmember pulls it well - I was very relieved!

I must say that that my automobile looks particularly good in this photo - the sun catches the gold livery beautifully. Long live the Goldmember - may all who travel in her be kept safe.

PS Thank you to everyone who has left nice messages and phoned me in response to Tuesday's post - it's lovely to know I have such great friends! x

My life (and love)

2006-10-10T19:22:00.000+01:00

Whenever I talk to people about my blog I usually tell them that I'm not a consistently deep blogger - I generally go for a 1 in 5 or 6 ratio Depth vs Shallow Ramblings. This is an attempt at the '1 in 5'...

The past few weeks have felt like a lot of hard work. I've felt slightly out of it for a while. I dunno if it's tiredness or stress or what. If I'm really honest it's all affected me quite deeply. My relationship with Chell is affected - nothing really bad but it puts us under even more strain than the distance already gives us. I led worship at Youth Councils on Sunday and simply didn't feel up for it, although I did try. It feels like my faith in God is under strain - maybe I'm trying to be honest with where I'm at. I'm quite untrusting of nearly every friendship I have - and I'm feeling a bit jealous of others, not something I'm proud to admit. It feels like I've 'reached the end of my hoarded resources' as that old army song says...

Went to cell group last night...it was fantastic - we talked about love. Three kinds of love as written about in the original hebrew (in Song of Songs. Raya translated as 'Friend or companion. Someone you hang out with', Ahava translated as 'a love that impacts your will. An emotion that leads to commitment', Dod translated as 'the physical, sexual element to a relationship'). It started me thinking about the kind of love I have in my life - the kind of love I have for Chell, for my family and my friends. And what kind of remedy should I seek when the love I have isn't as pure as it should be?

So I read Galatians 5...

'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.'

I scared myself when I realised just how many elements of that fruit I'm not displaying in my life. Is the life I lead compatible with this? Does stress and tiredness get in the way of a right relationship with God? And each other?

Grape Expectations - Harvest Time! - Part 1

2006-09-23T15:08:00.000+01:00

So after months of growing and waiting and watering and waiting and growing and pruning and waiting and watering and loving and waiting here they are! The finished product! The result of my loves and labours! A prime example of grapes from the Mashbury vineyard.

This photo was taken by the lovely Chell who has helped me and supported me throughout the past months - the joys and the sorrows of growing ones own fruit in a maritime climate as opposed to the Mediterranean climate of the vineyard regions of France and Italy. (I am the one holding the scissors)

I would like to say at this point that if you would like to claim a bunch of Mashbury grapes then please let me know and you can have some. Obviously if I'm seeing you in the next week or so they'll be a lot more tasty and fresh (They're already VERY ripe and quite soft)

Please see below for a couple more parts of the final chapter of the vine saga for 2006...

Grape Expectations - Harvest Time! - Part 2

2006-09-23T15:06:00.000+01:00

Here I am post 'snip' - surprisingly still looking reasonably comfortable and happy!! This is my best 'Mr Gumby' pose modelling the fantastic bunch of grapes as featured in part 1. Don't say I never talk about anything of any depth on my blog eh!?

Grape Expectations - Harvest Time! - Part 3

2006-09-23T15:03:00.000+01:00

And...here I am busily washing the grapes in the sink to get all the bugs and dead leaves off them (yeah there were some bugs - but not too many and they're washed off now :)

So all in all a fantastic grape experience all round - my expectations were most definitely met and exceded by far... I would value your comments on this exciting series on my blog!

The Leeder Birthday Calculator (Patent Pending)

2006-09-18T14:35:00.000+01:00

Without wishing to spin this out some of you will know that I was 27 last week… All of a sudden I feel like I am becoming a man! And as the relentless toll of the years gently yet insistently draws me into my 30s I’m starting to realise I’m not a teenager anymore. And that sucks!

The purpose of this blog is to aid all of those who find themselves in a similar position to me and is particularly relevant to those who were born in 1979 (like me) or 1980. I hereby announce my invention of a valuable tool which will prove to be incredibly useful for people born in one of those two years and, although I have realised this now for many years, I think it is likely that I am the first person ever to blog about it. Ever.

As I said earlier, the years do have a habit of marching onwards and one problem this brings with it is an increased occurrence of the odd ‘Senior Moment’. Now, many of you will I’m sure be thinking “Why the heck is Matt, who is 27 yrs old, blogging about suffering from senior moments” many others will be thinking “What’s a senior moment” and still others will not actually be thinking at all… Well, in answer to the first group of people I promise you I do have the odd moment and even now at my tender age I have a habit of forgetting my age!

So this tool I promise will help those of us born in ’79 and ’80 to remember our age FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES! Awesome eh? Even the inevitable onslaught of senility cannot defeat us with this bad boy under our belt!

Now I have spun this out quite far enough. Here, with no further a due, is my patent pending Birthday Calculator.

My ‘creation’ allows the ‘user’ I take the two digit number at the start of any given ‘year’ and the two digit number at the end of the ‘year’ and add them together. Then for the rest of my life I will know what my age will be on New Years Day of that year. i.e. This year is 2006. Thus 20 + 06 means I was 26 on 01/01/06 hence it is my 27th birthday during that year.

If you were born in 1980 then this works for any year also but the answer it gives you is the age you will be on your birthday that year – some would say this, what I like to call the “birthcalc v 1.2 formulas”, is even better!

So, for you thickies, here’s another example. In 2076 my ears won’t work, my eyes will have fallen out and my brain will be running on 3% power hence I will have a terrible memory and won’t even be able to see my diary. However, I will simply recall my Birthday Calculator formula and hey presto – I will know that on New Years day that year I am 96 (20 + 76)! I will be 97 that year!

So there you go - as you can see it is faultless (unless I live to 120 – I plan not to).

A few short updates...

2006-09-14T10:36:00.000+01:00

After the mega long last post here is some light relief in the form of a few short updates...

Got back from Italy yesterday (hence such a long break in posting) - we travelled home on my birthday and it was a long day of not doing very much - Chell has been really sad about it today... it's funny how she is more protective of me having a lovely birthday than I am. It's so nice to feel loved and cared for by her - especially in her protectiveness. She's just off out buying some stuff for our breakfast (Yeah, I know it's 10:30 - call it brunch!)

Today we're travelling up to see our friends Will and Debbie - we're also going to meet baby Katie for the first time ever. Something that we are both very happy about doing - but most especially Chell!

I am also very happy because I have just downloaded iTunes 7 and they have sorted out the issue with iPods leaving gaps between each song - now you can listen to an entire album with no gap between each track. This has been my biggest bugbear for using my iPod over the past 9 months so well done Apple!

Oh and the grapes are looking great!

A long trip to sow some seeds

2006-09-01T10:13:00.000+01:00

It's taken me a while to get round to blogging about this but at last I have arrived at my keyboard with some time on my hands. I am in fact going to recount a story about an experience I was party to that occurred last Friday. Brace yourself - it's a long one! Long enough even to rival some of Glyn's lengthier efforts! (Ha!) Along with me were Jon and Paul - the other members of the band I'm in* - hereafter referred to as E=...

(*please note that event and person specifics have been changed to partially mask what actually occurred...and make this post less 'searchable' on Google...)

The story in fact begins late on Thursday night...

All along it had been our plan to make a trip over to Northern Ireland to gig at a festival there. The organiser of the festival, called 'Lara' Festival (sic), promised us a decent gig and decent pay so who were we to turn it down? Our flights were booked for 8:25 on Saturday morning to fly from Stansted to Belfast International but on Thursday night we (i.e. Paulo) discovered that due to the current security level of our airports we needed to arrive at check in a whole 3 HOURS before the flight! So we were already looking at 5:25! I ended up getting up at 4:30 (bleugh) and we arrived at the airport at 6 ish - which was fine. In fact, when you weigh this up against the rest of the day - it was perfect!

The flights went without a hitch (relatively - my bag had to have a full cavity search because apparently my guitar pedals and cables look like a 'device'...hmmm....!?) and when we arrived at Belfast we met our man. His name for the purposes of this illustration is Cliff. At this point he didn't seem too detached from reality.

So we chucked our stuff into the back of this big minibus and went to pick up the other band who we were meant to be playing the gig with that night. We met them without a hitch and off we drove in our bus. Us 3 + Cliff + the bus driver + 4 in the other band (hereafter called Freeslave - for that is in fact their name!)

Now, to be fair, until this point nothing out of the ordinary had happened (apart from Levski's hair which I swear I saw moving... it was almost as if his head had been abducted by a colony of long haired fallow rats from the planet Zipplewig). Aside from the long journey (it was by now 12 noon) and lack of food (it was by now 12 noon) things were fairly normal - until we turned into the carpark of a small-ish church in Portadown. This church was actually a Portacabin, which I thought was entertaining given it's address. It was at this point that 'Cliff' uttered those fateful words... "Guys, we'll just swing by here to see if they've got any equipment you might find useful for tonight". At this point small bells started ringing in all of our ears. Equipment? We didn't know what 'equipment' he meant - nor did we know what equipment was already at the venue... so we followed him in...

To be confronted by the smallest guitar amp you ever saw; I think it was a Stagg practise amp. Certainly not one for a stage as the main guitar amp for a rock band. Alongside this were various odds and ends – bits of PA system, a brand new budget drum kit (no cases, factory heads i.e. nasty) and for cymbals a Sabian Solar budget pack consisting of paperweight crash, featherweight ride, and flycatcher hi-hats (that’s all they were good for).

A bit of clarification is probably needed at this point – you see we’re certainly not musical snobs, nor are we arrogant good-for-nothing muppets… our maxim on gigs is that we are always on hand to serve the event, but we also knew how much this guy was paying to have us there hence we wondered why he would think gear like this was appropriate…?

So we picked up a few bits of PA, a keyboard for Freeslave and the ‘drum kit’ but left guitar amp less and bass amp less. Paul and I guessed they must be at the venue already?

On we drive – down the road to Armagh our home for the night and the town of our gig. We arrive and it’s at this point that we start to realise this day is going to get worse before it gets better. The venue is a posh, new-ish bistro situated within the towns art centre. No sign of any more PA, or amps, or anything. We load in the PA, keyboard and drums into the corner of the bistro which is currently hosting lots of smart looking people around well set tables sitting eating, chatting, quietly and smiling even…

“Uh, Cliff, are you sure?” … “Of course, of course, why it’s the best venue in the town…” etc

We’re dropped off at our hotel. It’s nice – 3 star. We find our rooms but not before double taking (and eventually comprehending correctly) the bell boy; speaking to us in thick Irish tones “Arr yoo tha two gays in the double room?”...

In a nutshell (I realise I’m spinning this out – don’t want to miss anything) during the afternoon Jon and I visited the local music shop – the same bell boy said it had a “lethal selection of guitars” which turned out in fact to be 7 guitars, none of them with a price tag exceeding £40. The shop was filled with cardboard and after the bored shopkeeper guessed and announced that we weren’t ‘local’ we turned heel and left ‘Twilight Zone Guitars Inc’. We also visited Armagh City Shopping Centre which consisted of a lingerie boutique, 12 empty shop spaces and a spar shop. Awesome.

The plan for the evening at ‘Lara’ Fest was a film premiere (made by some of the team – apparently with a budget of £250,000 ??? – tried for distribution at the Cannes Film Festival – failed) followed by a DJ set (really nice guy called DJ Barry (sic)) followed by, at 9pm a set from Freeslave and ourselves.

Upon returning back to the venue to tune drums we had half expected a full PA rig and guitar / bass amps to be there especially as it was by now 4:30, the film started in 30 mins (and thus the evening’s programme). Jon, Guinness in hand, is starting the lengthy and awkward process of tuning drums in a posh restaurant...this is bad...very bad...

Now, at this point it's important to mention that throughout the day we had been in contact with our friends from the band Dave (sic) who at this point called up and very kindly offered their PA and their gear! When we mentioned this to Cliff he said it was an “answer to prayer” – I’m sure most major Christian Festivals rely on prayer but in quite a different way to this… I ended up outside on the phone to this guy Paddy Quinn (real name – brilliant!) to chat about PA and stuff. He said he’d arrive at around 9pm (that is the same 9pm that we needed to start the gig) but as it was the best offer we had it would have to do...

When I walked back into the Bistro I found Jon and Paul, who I’d previously left sitting at the bar, sitting at a table looking slightly shell shocked. Apparently since I was outside they had been started on by a drunk Irish bloke at the bar with the immortal line “….Hey, yooow, stop farting in miy prwesence…no, seriously, F*** Off…” - hence their new location away from the unhinged bloke at the bar. (Paul wasn’t sure if he had indeed let one off or not – they though it was best to back down just incase)

Cliff offered to pay for our dinner at the Bistro, dunno where he’s getting all this money from, but first we decide to go outside to the Cathedral gates and pray; for the day, for the gig, and for the unsure sense of fear that was building up in us. So we stood and prayed for 20 mins, said our Amen’s but as we turned to walk back in this drunk guy appears (another one) and shouts after us “…Yeah, Yooou keep walkin’…” What is it with this gig? We decide to skedaddle inside ASAP.

Upon arriving back at the Bistro a bouncer has arrived who, just after we sit down to eat, promptly ejects the drunk bloke who had followed us down the hill from the Cathedral and into the bar. Awesome mini tussle ensues – don’t remember this happening at Spring Harvest, or even the Bull and Gate for that matter…

So to cut a long story slightly shorter the PA finally arrives at 9:45pm – Freeslave go ‘onstage’ at 10:45pm we go onstage at about 11:45 and play til 12:30. Cliff kindly allows us to walk through the high street carrying our guitars and bags – feeling slightly scared but much relieved that the worst of it is nearly over.

It’s funny looking back now that there weren’t any posters for Lara Festival anywhere inside or outside the venue – nor anything with the names of the bands until the venue asked us what our names were so they could put them up on a chalk board outside (nothing to do with Cliff). The punters were primarily normal people who had come in for a drink and just happened to end up watching the bands play – there were about 25 people there – none of them knew they were attending ‘Lara Festival’. No tickets sold. No one coming along. How is this thing still running?

It’s now 1:15am – we’ve been up since 4:30am – we are knackered. We walk into the hotel to discover a blues band in full swing downstairs (under mine and Levski’s room) – they don’t stop playing half-cut bad guitar and drum solos until 2:30am when they finally shut up and we…drift…off…to…sleep…

TO BE WOKEN UP AT 9AM BY A BLUMMIN’ MARCHING BAND GOING PAST OUR WINDOW – FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER – AND ANOTHER! Unbelievable!

It has to be said the rest of the day was fairly normal (breakfast, trip home, much story telling to ensue) apart from one thing… just before we left Cliff took us to one side to chat through payment for the weekend. He explained his side of it (having paid £450 for our flights, £130 for our hotel rooms, £100 for our backline (oh you mean the backline that we organised once we got here Cliff?) but we agreed on a figure quickly and he pulled out the cheque book – and promptly signed and counter signed (i.e. forged!) the cheque in front of us! This guy is unreal! He then went to the hotel desk and did the same again… we had to get away…

So we’re all packed into the bus and Cliff clambers on to give us some final words of wisdom. “Guys, you’ve sowed some seeds. See you later.” And off he goes… Cheers Cliff…

The last few weeks

2006-08-23T15:04:00.000+01:00

The last few weeks have been very busy indeed but the end is in sight – a week from now I will be on holiday and a week and 3 days from now Chell, myself, Matt W and Christina will be in Italy! Horray! It will be molto buono!

The past few weeks have been really tiring – especially with fitting in work for the SA in between the E= gigs. The busy thing has also meant of course that I’ve been lapse on keeping my blog up to date – for which I apologise. However, I have compiled a collection of short anecdotes and updates from the previous few weeks to fill in all the blanks in my life (if only!)

GRAPE UPDATE – the grapes are still growing but I must admit I haven’t been caring for them as perhaps I should have been. However I’m sure they will still do just fine without me!

BACK UPDATE – (see post a few down) My back is still hurting a bit. I guess part of that is because I haven’t really given it a chance to heal very well since damaging it (we keep playing all these gigs and lifting heavy equipment around – not a good plan for a bad back).

SUMMER SCHOOLS – we’ve now finished our rounds of the summer schools. We visited four in total, the last one being last night down in the Vinehall School nr Battle with the Central South division. Though what they were doing in East Sussex remains a mystery!?! The summer season has been really amazing this year. We’ve met so many people and really been blown away by the stuff we’ve experienced and the places we’ve been privileged to visit. Here’s to the next season of E= - which starts when we get back from our holidays in mid September. But there’s three more gigs to do between now and then…

FIANCE UPDATE – Chell is still my fiancé. J

That’s about it really – obviously that last point is the most important one!

Hope to do some proper updating on the blog again really soon…inconsistency frustrates me just as much as the next man or woman!

Public Information Statement

2006-08-07T10:23:00.000+01:00

Many weeks back I was phoned at DHQ by a gentleman who was incharge of booking guests for Territorial Music School - they wanted to book me to come during the week and lead a bit of worship. Remember at this point that I was in the presence of witnesses during this phonecall (i.e. Matt White and others in the office). Here is a paraphrase of the conversation:

TMS rep: "Hi Matt, can you come and visit us on this day...[gives date]
Me: "Oh, wait a sec, I'll just check my diary [checks diary]...oh dear, sorry. I would have loved to have come along but I am actually in France that week so no can do.
TMS rep: "Oh that is a shame. Sorry to hear that. Nevermind, maybe next year?"
Matt: "Sure"
TMS rep: "Ok. Goodbye and God bless"
Matt: "Bye"

So, that was that. All done and dusted... no tentative "maybe", no "oh I'll pencil it in and get back to you", just a straight forward "sorry, no can do"...

So imagine my overwhelming surprise when I start hearing reports from people who attended TMS this year saying that my name was in the program and that people were really disappointed when I didn't turn up? In fact, I also get the impression that no attempt was made to cover my back at all...even though I had said no in the first place and the ERROR WAS NOT MINE!

So, in closing, if you speak to anyone who went to TMS and they bemoan my inefficient diarising please make my side of the story (i.e. the true side) known.

Busy days

2006-08-07T10:12:00.000+01:00

This week is crazy - feeling a bit run down actually. We've been playing at Newday Festival with Paul Oakley a few times over the past 6 days. So I've been up and down the M1 (normally in the rain!) - here is my plan from the last few days.

Drove up last Wed night played on Thurs morning
Drove back Thurs afternoon.
Fri rode around all day with Matt W picking up stuff for the LNE summer school. Stayed at home Fri night.
Went to Summer School Sat morning stayed til the quiz in the evening then left for Uttoxeter again at 9:45.
Yesterday led worship in the morning with Paul, Electralyte gigged in the afternoon, led worship again with Paul in the evening and drove home. Got to bed at 1:30...

Now I'm at home but leaving for Summer School again shortly... and we're at Rocknations in Bradford on Saturday...I'm gonna miss the final day :(

If you get a chance please spare a prayer for myself and the other Electralyte boys as we galivant around.

Jump! Part 1

2006-07-28T21:41:00.000+01:00

I wanted to blog about this as soon as I could. I've just returned home from a week of gigging in the south of France - hence I haven't blogged for a little while (Sorry about that if you've wasted time checking - I know I hate that myself...)

What a fantastic week! I've not really enjoyed France like I did this week - I suppose that's partly due to making some great friends during the week - both English and French people... To be honest we didn't have too intense a week at all - 2 sessions leading worship and a gig one night were the only work commitments we had to fulfill - the rest was leisure time for us!

So we found outselves at a beautiful, clean river in the village nearby (that's how we knew we weren't in Essex anymore) - and promptly started chucking ourselves into it from rocks. See the piccy:

I gradually gained confidence throughout the week - starting off on little jumps on the waters edge. The sheer awe of emerging without any latex sausages on my fingers encouraged me to carry on and up the anti a bit... I progressed to a 3 footer (wooo!) then 10 feet high (woooooo!) then 20 feet high (steady on!)...then we changed venues to a different river where I knew at once that the gauntlet had been placed before me! The picture above is a snap shot of me doing a little jump at the second riverside venue...

If you look really carefully you can see my life flashing before my eyes...

Jump! Part 2

2006-07-28T21:31:00.000+01:00

It's almost possible to get a bit religious about this - things are so different with context afterall... so without further ado here is the bigger picture!

Those cliffs are about 80 feet high and I jumped from about 55 feet, or something like that. It is officially one of the scariest things I have done to myself...

Unfortunately I landed a bit badly and duffed in my back - so I've been grimmacing every time I get up ever since the jump (yesterday afternoon!) but apparently there's nothing too wrong with me and I should be up and at 'em again really soon... and I know I would be disappointed if I hadn't done it at all. I just hope that when I shut my eyes tonight I don't keep seeing a video replay of falling through mid air into the dark blue abyss! It was terrifying and fantastic all at the same time!

Thing is people were jumping from the top as well, the fools! Now I don't feel such a hardman afterall...

Grape Expectations - update

2006-07-28T21:19:00.000+01:00

Ok, so fair enough I've been a bit lapse with the whole vine check thing again. Very sorry - in an effort to redeem myself I have taken this photo this evening on my return from France (see other posts for more info on France...)

Hopefully you will enjoy the picture below - it wasn't actually dark when I took the picture but the flash went off and made the sky look darker than it was...

The grapes are growing nicely - a couple of weeks back I gave them a good prune with Roland and Joan (Chell's Mum and Dad) and it seems to have done the trick. You've got to be cruel to be kind to these bad vino boys and girls! The grapes in the picture are about the size of my middle fingernail - so, those of you who know my fingernails well will have a great idea of scale now.

Sorry I've not blogged in a while peeps - there was no internet connection over in France. However, I've got loads of blog ideas now so I hope I can find time to get them all down!

Bad Night

2006-07-17T12:42:00.000+01:00

I had a nightmare last night; in the old fashioned sense of the word. Can't really remember what it was about in detail but it certainly included some kind of werewolves or big nasty dogs. So, I woke up and laid there wide awake for a little while whilst I got myself back together.

Next a fly woke me up by landing in my ear. So I tried to kill it and missed...so he kept waking me up periodically throughout the rest of the night.

And then I woke up before my alarm because the sun shone through my window and tried to cook me in my quilt.

All in all - it was a bad night.

About music...

2006-07-13T23:07:00.000+01:00

I've decided to conduct an experiment. Normally when I write a blog I am very careful and measured about what I say (and don't say) - but I thought it would be interesting to write a blog as-I-think-it! Thinking out loud so to speak. So I thought I would write it on music - which is one of my greatest loves and favourite talking points...here goes...

Why do I like music? I don't know. I know I like a good groove - well, I like music with a fat beat. Like Chemical Brothers in the olden days - or Propellerheads. But then I also like music with no beat - like, The Planets by Holst and loads of stuff by Tchaikovsky and Bach... to be honest music is really confusing in general. What is the attraction for us?

Have you ever really thought about what music is? Why does it connect with us so well? Why is it so immotive? Isn't it just a string of notes and chords and rhythms? Why is Dm the saddest key? Why does an F maj7 sound so lush? (Well, I think it does) Why does 4/4 keep cropping up again and again?

I love to play guitar - I love turing up my amps and gain and letting it ring and resonate and feedback on forever. Little licks that just have that certain something; it's not about looking good in front of people but just allowing the music to come to life. I suppose that's a defining factor of music...it's art, alive... Music as art needs time for it to make sense - otherwise there's no music; just an overblown orchestra hit of every note coming and spanking you in the face at once. Very uncomfortable!

By the questions still remain - why do I like it? Why do believe in music? I don't know - I'm never going to know. But that doesn't change the fact that music makes my heart race and my hands sweat; music makes me cry on the M25; music makes me furious and inspires me and calls me on.

Life would be monochrome without a soundtrack...

A review...

2006-07-13T02:34:00.000+01:00

Just a quick blog 'cos I really need to go to bed - but if you have five minutes to spare please check this out - and if you have a further 5 minutes please do write a comment (at the bottom of the article) to back us up again!

Obviously it's great to read some positive reviews of the 'E=' album; we need more and more of them, so if you have any ideas on how we can get other decent media streams to review us (CCM or mainstream) that'd be great. Let me know where to chase... or chase for me if you would be so kind as to want to support the band in a practical way!

If you do have time to write a comment it would really benefit us as a band if people (such as CR) know that we have a 'fan base' behind us all the way. It helps us to gain momentum!

Thank you for all your help and support!

Muso Loso

2006-07-06T17:49:00.000+01:00

I hate it when people do things just to try and impress you. Like, when I went I started college to do Music and Theology we had these orientation sessions. We went round the room and introduced ourselves. Thankfully, now I have the gift of hindsight, I KNOW that there were people in that room DESPERATE to impress - reeling off instrument after instrument. One girl said she could play piano, guitar, flute, violin, cello, drums, bass guitar, sax and trumpet. Well, I can say that I did the course with her and she was lying. I knew at the time she was lying...just because you can sit with drum sticks in your hands doesn't mean you can play the things! In fact, she would have been much more accurate to say I 'mainly' play the piano or something...

Lack of punctuation indicates grumpiness whilst typing this blog...

Ben Folds' message to the church

2006-06-29T23:42:00.000+01:00

Although it is in my collection I haven't really listened very much to the newest Ben Folds album 'Songs for Silverman'. When I have listened to it a song entitled 'Jesusland' has caught my attention a couple of times...

Today I discovered an interview with Ben Folds in which he explains a little bit of his thinking behind 'Jesusland':

'...but you see the name 'Jesusland' and you think “wow, this is going to be a heavy song” but it’s just a little bit sad. The crux of it is that if Jesus were around now he wouldn’t have much stuff. And that’s a problem in today’s ‘amusement park’ version of Jesusland; you can’t walk around with no stuff, or you’re homeless, you’re walking around on the street. So he’d be walking around homeless on the street with long hair, and I don’t really think that the people that make lots of money off of his name would do much to help him.'

Ouch!

An article to comment on...

2006-06-29T21:54:00.000+01:00

If you get a chance please check this out; you might find it interesting?

You may or may not remember that I once had a little moan about this magazine - he even mentions it in the interview!

There's opportunity to leave a comment at the bottom of the article too - hint hint! :D

Chris Spring Gig - Leicester Sqr - 29th June

2006-06-28T22:02:00.000+01:00

If you can make it it would be great to see you at the Chris Spring gig tomorrow night. As I've blogged before (Thurs May 11th) Chris Spring is a genius singer / songwriter. If you managed to make it to the engagement party then it's likely you will have Chris perform a few of his songs there.

Well, this is your chance to hear him play his songs with a full band (featuring Electralyte's very own awesome drum meister - big Jon Mitson)

Just print out the ticket below and you'll get in for £5 instead of £6! I look forward to seeing you there...

Spiritual home; where are yooooou?

2006-06-26T09:56:00.000+01:00

Chell and I are asking a lot of questions regarding church at the moment; more specifically which church should we go to?

Yesterday we attended the Oasis church in Chelmsford, part of the New Frontiers church network. We’ve been to Oasis once before and both times we’ve found it to be a really friendly church experience…which was helped on our first visit because we had friends there in the congregation. Yesterday was slightly different because we didn’t know as many people – but still, the reception we received was warm and the church meeting was cool. The speaker (church leader, Phil) spoke on their mission as a church. He referred to Acts 1 where Jesus says ‘you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth’ and related this to local, cross-cultural, and long-distance (missionary type) mission.

We left the meeting happy – but still keen to hear God more; especially with regard to where he wants us to be!?

So, the day continued and we found ourselves at Chelmsford Citadel Salvation Army where we sat down with the corps to watch the football – followed by which Matt (White) led the meeting – with a special focus on the youth of the corps. I know its passé but it really is amazing how much more passionate everyone was about the football! If I was to speak bluntly and impartially I would say that it even appears that nobody really believes that strongly in God at all (obviously I’m sure this isn’t the case – it’s just how it comes across).

After that we packed up and went to Carus. Carus is a tiny little congregation that meets once a month (which you’re welcome to come along to by the way – then it won’t be so tiny) – we sing songs and talk about God. Last night was different because we prayed for each other too! ;-) Ok, so it’s fledgling; and it’s tiny; and it’s designed and run by Matt and myself (so I’d always look for the best in it) but last night was cool – we sang to God, he met with us, we all had a chat, and a drink then we came home.

So that was the day – and we’re still searching. I’ll leave you with a few questions – as well as my up-til-now conclusions; but please feel free to chip in some wisdom…we need it!

Q1: Should we go to Oasis? We could do – it’s a nice place but… we both feel (probably more myself than Chell) that our place is in The Salvation Army; especially when most of the worship leading I do is in an ‘Army’ context. I believe it is my responsibility to stick with it. After all, 90% of the time I still believe that God has a plan for the SA all the time. :-)

Q2: Should we go to Chelmsford Citadel? It will be hard work, I’m sure of that. But it’s local and it’s the Salvation Army, and lots of our friends go there…

Q3: Should we start our own church? Or ask if we can plant a new congregation within Chelmsford Cit? Or move and spend our lives church hopping – trying every week to find the perfect church, and every other week discovering that it doesn’t exist?

Q4: Should we say stuff it all – come out of the church (not God, just the church - it never really works anyway does it?) We’ll both move to Italy where we will renovate dilapidated property and grow olives and grapes for the rest of our lives.

Matt & Chell's Engagement Party - 17th June 06

2006-06-24T22:08:00.000+01:00

I've posted a few photos from the engagement party - thank you to everyone who came along and made the day so much fun. Didn't really mean to take so long to blog about it but unfortunately I kept putting it off. Sorry.

I thought this would be a good starting shot - it is a bit of a taster shot of quite a lot of people all at once...can you spot yourself?

Chef Lard

2006-06-24T22:03:00.000+01:00

Lloyds garnishing secrets revealed

Chell

2006-06-24T22:01:00.000+01:00

Chell looking beautiful

"As long as I gaze on waterloo sunset...do doo doo"

2006-06-24T21:57:00.000+01:00

He you can clearly see Ben Jackson distracting Glyn, Mike and Dave and attempting to start a rival sing along. Dave seems to be catching on but Glyn is clearly much more interested in the camera...

Fight fight fight!

2006-06-24T21:54:00.000+01:00

Here we see a few moments before it all kicked off... Nik has just said a few very unkind remarks about gingers. Obviously Debbie thinks it's all just a big joke but Will knows it's no laughing matter...

Chell and Me

2006-06-24T21:52:00.000+01:00

Having a little word (i.e. snog) with my beautiful fiance

Music on a Summer's Evening

2006-06-24T21:50:00.000+01:00

The audience enjoying the dulcet tones of Chris Spring and The Resonance

Ladies

2006-06-24T21:47:00.000+01:00

Here are some of the lovely female guests all stuck together. Someone mentioned 'Glastonbury' and they brought their favourite tent - complete with sunroof! Lovely!

Music maestro

2006-06-24T21:45:00.000+01:00

The musos: Chris Spring, Jonathan Mitson and, special guest, The Resonance.

Grape Expectations: the Friday (aka Sunday) Vine Check - wk 3

2006-06-18T23:24:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the late Grape Expectations vino fans - Chell and I were busy preparing for our Engagement party (which I'll blog about tomorrow)...so please be assured that these photos were taken on Friday but I've only just got round to actually writing the blog 'bit'.

As you can see the vine is growing up big and strong...in fact it's probably a little too big and stong, and will need pruning in the very near future if I'm going to get grapes of a decent girth! Also, upon close inspection it would seem that the Mashbury phantom rose bush eater has also been taking chunks out of my grape vine - I think it's a herd of deer who hang around these parts - bunch of local yobs! They keep seeing my vine and obviously think it's a tasty, tasty treat...

So all in all the vine is growing from strength to strength but if I ever get my hands on those pesky deer then there'll be a bit more rib for the BBQ!

Remember: Meat is murder... tasty, tasty murder (kudos Lard ;)

flap flap *flap

2006-06-12T18:35:00.000+01:00

I currently have two pigeons trying to mate outside my window - it is very off putting

Dominos Pizza

2006-06-12T17:47:00.000+01:00

So Chell and I decided to have pizza last night. As we were round at hers we decided to go online and visit the Dominos website (a fantastic invention if you ask me)

We ordered our pizza: a medium double decadance Cheese and Tomato, medium Ham and Pineapple and Chicken Strippers side... then we sat down to wait. For all you fans of other Pizza places I would like to state that the reason I like Dominos so much is because of their cool little pots of gak that you dip into - a most excellent addition to any meal!

Now Dominos pizza doesn't normally take much time but this one seemed to take an age. We must have waited a good 45 minutes but when we had nearly given up hope (and our movie was nearly over) there was a sudden ring on the door bell.

I collected my wallet and upon opening the door I met a smiley little Dominos guy with his bag of yummy goodness. I promptly took the bag and handed over the money. At this point I need to say that our pizza came to the grand sum of £23.97 - a meal fit for a king!

Here's the crazy bit - I handed over £30: a £20 and a £10. He handed me back a £5 and a £1 coin, smiled at me and said "I don't have the '3', sorry" then he turned heal and walked off! He didn't even wait for my blessing upon his lack of funds! He just left me standing there! Madness.

My question is this... what if he hadn't of had the £1 or the fiver? Would he have just walked off then? Who draws the line under this kind of cheekiness? When does it stop? How much does he make in these 'special gratuities' each week? How long is it going to be before we have pizza guys turning up on our doorsteps and saying: "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't bring your pizza, but can you pay me double anyway?"

And the funniest thing is - I still like Dominos pizza!

Grape Expectations: the Friday Vine Check - wk 2

2006-06-09T18:22:00.000+01:00

Vine Check week 2.

The vine is still growing well - it seems to be enjoying the sunshine and I watered it a bit the other day.

Something very exciting has started to happen over the past two weeks; tiny little bunches of grapes have start to form all over the vine. It's kind of strange that I'm surprised by this - I guess I just expected the grapes just to appear! How wrong I was! In the photo I have tried to capture a couple of these mini bunches of grapes. Bear in mind that they are very small, about the size of your thumbnail. Just in case it's not very clear there is a bunch in focus in the middle and below and to the right there is another bunch which is slightly out of focus...

Next week on Friday vine check I will check for signs of pests and see if I can catch any of them hard at work...then I shall punish them

Adiemus

2006-06-06T17:20:00.000+01:00

If you haven't already delved into the Adiemus music composed by Karl Jenkins then I suggest you do. I was inspired to post a 'call to Jenkins' whilst listening to the second album (he's done four). It is truely incredible music!

A good place to start is the first album(!): Adiemus I - Songs of Sanctuary. The first track is the original Adiemus composition - quite a famous piece of music. However, the final track is slightly less mainstream. Entitled 'Hymn'; it is possibly one the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Simply lush!