(quirk)

Friday
As you may know by now, my class are a difficult bunch. However, today was a good day as it was sports day and each team was made up of 4-5 kids from each year group. Their behaviour, enthusiasm and focus 100x better than my class of late. With our politically neutral country to represent (Canada) we did various small games involving foam javelins, skipping and the obligatory session with a parachute. The afternoon was spent watching the running/egg & spoon/runnning backwards races and celebrating the fact we didn't come last. Result!

The evening kicked off in Angel after a detour through Shoreditch to drop off flyers in Catch. Staff leaving drinks went on a for a few hours in the Glassworks before I headed on to Hester's birthday house party. By 11 the place was buzzing with someone hammering out jazz piano, by 1am it was hitting *that* time when someone pulls out the acoustic guitar and a strained take on Hallelujah gets played twice, by 3am we have entered the hardcore zone where many have bailed but the survivors group in the kitchen and talk rubbish whilst drinking whatever is left on the communal alcohol table. Beware recent graduates with student tendencies, I brought 6 cans of lager and returning to the fridge after the first one revealed none to be left. By 5am its light and someone is trying to make a "cocktail" involving rum, ice and a fistful of mint leaves they found in the garden. Time for bed... Awesome party obviously.

Saturday
1.30pm is a great time to wake up. Not least because the hangover has come and gone before you even open your eyes. Downstairs, Hester's mum played excellent host and it was tea and toast all round. The new day revealed little damage but a lot of empties that needed tidying away. Hester also has the kookiest bathroom I think I've ever been in. More like a spare room with a bath plonked in the corner. If it had legs I'd compare the scene to what you might get in a Victorian town house. The 3D map was a nice touch as well.

A 5pm arrival back in Hackney served little more than refuelling and reclothing stop before meeting up with Hester and a few of her friends for a swing dance evening. Now if anyone has seen me dance you'll know paramedics tend to start circling assuming I'm having some kind of fit. Rhythm I do have, co-ordination less so. My sieve-like short term memory is also a bit of a barrier to learning any dance moves that involve more than 2 steps. So a lot of chatting, one aborted dance class and a lot of watching Hester get flung around the dancefloor by enthusiastic males later (her friends, like me, abandoned all hope of not causing someone a grevious injury with their flailing limbs early on) it was back on a bus sometime after 1am. There's a part of me that wants to be able to dance. There's another part that immediately starts piling chips on my shoulder about being taught a "right" way to do it.

Sunday
Today I am roasting the shit out of some meat. And Quorn for Reuben. One week of term left, can't wait!

Mondays are busy anyway but when you spend most of the day floating on a canal with your class then have to leg it home to grab stuff and go to a soundcheck in South London you know it may well be one of those weeks. As it goes the canal trip was pretty good, lots of relay races with canoes and children leaping into the canal after losing their sense of fear. 

The gig at the Cavendish Arms was also pretty decent. If you haven't been you probably should as the back room is decked out like a mini Cafe De Paris complete with glitter ball and gold painted seats and round tables. The running order was chosen at random on the night and we winced when it turned out we'd be opening at 8.45. We shouldn't have worried though as we ended up playing to the biggest crowd of the night with all the other bands, a load of Lena's friends and a good splattering of randoms watching. Choice quote inbetween two songs has to come from some bloke commenting to his mate, "they're really good". We all clapped each other at the end with the soundman compering like a Tesco Value Jools Holland ("And a big hand for The Hot Beds...!") If you ever want to try out new material or have a new band that need roadtesting I highly recommend it.

Yesterday passed without incident then today my class were going through the end of year production with acts ranging from one boy singing The Snowman to a dance group of the Britain's Got Talent variety who'd come up with the ever so original name, "Ruthless". Like what you've done there boys...

Blur tomorrow. Oh yes!

Friday

It was supposed to be a quiet night in with a few friends and my newly acquired Xbox running Streetfighter 2 through a projector. It descended into a booze fueled night of many computer games and film that ended somewhere around 3am when I went to bed. Stew crashed out a few minutes later leaving Jen and Rebuen to make their way home in the wake of Mel's exit a few hours earlier. This game still rules. I still rule at it. How proud my 14 year old self would be of me...

Saturday

Lunch with my Nan in Wanstead. Local gossipis that a protest group is forming to oppose the newly introduced pie and mash shop on the high street because it's not becoming to the area....indeed. After that it was up to Whetstone for Louisa's bbq houseparty featuring Reuben passed out on the grass, Hester trying to teach me swing dance and Louisa acting perfect host - ever ready with a plate of sausages. Fell asleep at 3am (pattern forming here).

Sunday

An exhausted lunch with my dad in Edgware before he heads off abroad on work for a few weeks followed by a tube journey I nearly fell asleep on. Managing to avoid a mid afternoon nap through mass consumption of cakes Lousia had made I saw the best woman win the The Apprentice and fall asleep soon after. Also had an email from Honey, a friend of mine from uni I haven't heard from in about 5 years. Turns out she moved Australia but is back for two weeks only very soon. That'll be one hell of a catch up...

Monday

This is Lena. We had a jam last night and she is now the singer in Hot Beds. We're playing in Stockwell at the end of the month if you want to find out more.

Tuesday

I have been pond dipping on a Science course. Nice to escape the class for the day! I shall be investigating minibeasts with my science club though. London Zoo tomorrow!

Today should have been the climax to months, in fact over a year, of hard work that culminated in I Smell Burning. Its on iTunes, Napster, Amazon... See Right Through's been picking up airplay on my favourite little web stations and made the Tourdates chart (albeit, limping). I'm expecting press review shortly. And tonight was the grand launch at Cafe De Paris. Okay, so the crowd coming were probably about 80% mates, colleagues and family but the other 20% was a start and at the end of the day 25+ people is still good for any self released band in London.

Today is instead Easter compressed into one day (trial, death, rebirth...!) Last night I was freaking out because Hannah hadn't returned any of my calls or texts from the past 3 days. Finally I got through on her landline to her mum, explained the situation to her and we ended up having a really long chat about how she's changed a lot since returning from South Africa. Less focussed, more flighty. So her mum got on her case ringing around to locate her daughter (should this be necessary? Hannah's 19) and found her at 11:30 last night. At which point Hannah was apparently incensed her mum had been chasing her up and then said in no uncertain terms that the gig was "off" because, amongst other things, I hadn't promoted it properly and had booked too many in close succession.

Given than June was officially album launch month you might expect us to be playing a few gigs. In actual fact I'd only booked Leicester Square, Shoreditch and Stockwell - all with 2 week gaps between them (and many miles). As for the promotion accusation I've worked myself into the ground promoting the album, promo single and gigs over the past 2 months - much of it with no help from her at all.

Recognising that a band is a team and that one person can only do so much I've taken her non-appearance tonight as a resignation. She's out. Not an easy choice as I thought we'd become good friends over the past year and a bit and, of course, she was an excellent front woman.

So now I need a new singer and a few months to work with them to get Hot Beds back on track by August. Know anyone?

I'm currently listening to the latest Waxdolly podcast with See Right Through on it recovering from last nights debut Eargasm night in Hackney Central. This being a second highly musical weekend after appearing on VS:Recharged Radio last Friday with Reuben and Mel to talk Hot Beds, Eargasm and the forthcoming Hits of the Near Future with The Drowners and Johnny Cola and the A Grades. So yes, busy busy.

This was also SATs week, the least anticipated week of the Year Six calendar. They actually did better than I'd predicted so the management can breathe another sigh of relief. Their behaviour after each test though was off the wall to put it mildly. Still, with those pointless and cruel assessment procedures out the way we might now enjoy our final eight weeks together. The Science SAT has already been ditched for 2010 and the NUT along with the main Head Teacher union are ballotting to (illiegally) boycott the Literacy and Maths ones. See you at the picket line.

Eargasm went well for a debut night. Hackney Central is hardly the white heat ('scuse the pun) of East London's nightlife but our ragtag group of friends, indie kids, ravers, lost middle aged men and American students kept things going right 'til close. After a somewhat patchy retro cheese set by Jim and Steve Subliminal Girls/18 Carot Love Affair (Paul Simon? Really?!) Reuben's bangers followed by a DJ battle between Meli and I kept everyone dancing. Along with the free drinks we even made back the money for our flyers and aftershow party goodies. The manager wants to talk about booking a further two nights in the near future already. Good stuff.

What's next:
Wednesday 20th May: Hits of the Near Future @ Catch with Johnny Cola / The Drowners / Remodel / To The Boats
Friday 29th May: Hot Beds album launch at Cafe De Paris

Taken from our debut album, "I Smell Burning", we need you to help us take this slab of cynically bitter alternative disco to number 1 on the Tourdates download chart!

Please download it NOW!

Sometimes its good to wake up on a Sunday and realise you haven't actually planned anything. An empty afternoon leads to useful behaviours such as taking the recycling out and making burgers from scratch. The latter worked out rather well; last time they partially fell apart but this time I got the proportions of mince, onion, chillis, crushed crackers, ketchup and mustard approximately right. Tonight though its all about lamb shanks after a trip to Dalston Iceland yesterday led to their discovery. £5 for two in gravy in bags. For Iceland that's practically caviar.

Friday night was spent drinking in the new trendiest pub in Hackney. Reuben got mashed and scored us a night there. At the moment it's called Eargasm unless anyone can think of anything better. Bear in mind most punters are 19 and look like an explosion in the Blue Peter sticky backed plastic related constructions department. We made American Jen watch Nathan Barley. She didn't get it.

Saturday was pretty good as well. Adie's gig at the Camden Head featured strong sets from Wojtek, Mr Solo, Keith TOTPs, The Indelicates and 18 Carrot Love Affair. By the time the Steve 586/Jim Rhesus supergroup pairing took to the stage everyone had drunk too much. This made Steve in particular thoroughly suggestible and I only had to whisper "Daydreamer" to get an impromptu rendition of it. Still waiting for the Shed 7 cover though...

Chrissy's Burlesque Experience will be happening at the 'Head as well as Foxy confirmed at the end of the night. I don't see enough of this girl, she's constantly busy. We did go to the Freddy Valentine Show on Thursday though. If you were wondering if variety nights had an equivalent to the toilet circuit micro-gig they do. The pensionable close up magic drag queen was good though.

Hot Beds promotion continues apace. 20+ podcasts contacted, several responded with a definite yes to featuring us. CDs have gone out to press. I don't care if we score high or score low. Just so long as some fucker listens to it! See Right Through is on free download at Tourdates from May 4th. Make a note to download it now!

Current Music: All Hope Is Gone

I haven't been on here for ages as my Facebook photo-a-day project has turned out to be a far more useful record of what I've been up to but as I'm on holiday I thought I'd post and catch up on everyone.

As the above photo suggests, I've "soft released" the Hot Beds album through a link on our Myspace site which takes you to a Paypal shop. Though I could have easily knocked out a regular CD its become apparent that most people who like us are young and download everything or listen online. Therefore, making a pseudo 7" sleeve by hand, spray painting it then inserting a CD seemed like a good way to get creative with the unique selling point of a physical product. That collectable "in your hand" feeling that probably isn't appreciated by the majority of under 21s out there. To that end each one is individually numbered as well. The colour of the spray paint will change every 100 copies also. For the downloaders and Spotify converts though the whole thing will be online at every site you can think of within the next month or so as I signed us up to CDBaby. The revolution starts in...Taunton this Friday!

Other news? I have a new girlfriend. I met her at Festival of Sins and she's a part time burlesque performer. This rules.

So my birthday was supposed to involve a few drinks in Shoreditch followed by a meal and then some dancing.

Instead I was diverted en route to the restaurant by the few people who'd turned up at Bar Music Hall to be greeted by streamers, camera flashes and the dawning realisation that the unholy trinity of Meli, Reuben and Stew has organised a surprised 30th birthday party for me! So yes, Catch was the venue and the turnout include unexpected appearances from friends from Weymouth, Guildford and London plus performances from 18 Carat Love Affair, Subliminal Girl and, erm Hot Beds. A little worse for wear the above scene greeted me and Hannah as we took to the stage to play pretty much our entire album. After that the venue opened up to the general public and it was drinks and dancing 'til 2am followed by more at quirk towers. Really fun, totally bewildering and very unexpected. Thankyou everyone!

Yesterday "Leave Everything" entered the Tourdates chart at 11, replacing Frantic entirely. Weird. But not as weird/cool as this...

Hi,
we are a group of young people from munich, Germany, who are working on an art video about gothic and heroin chick, fashion music and lifestyle. I wanted to ask if it is possible to use your song ""Frantic" as background music in this video? The video will be released on DVD and maybe a part of it on our website. We would of course name your name, your website... in the credits and on the cover of the DVD.
Would be really great if you allow us to use your songs in this video..I like your music very much!

Hope to see some of you tomorrow, we're on at 8.20!

From out of nowhere Balcony and Leave Everything are set to join Frantic in the Tourdates Unsigned Top 10 this weekend. Please lend us a hand to make it a 1,2,3. It should be the chart that is then printed in their monthly music paper you can pick up all over London.

http://www.tourdates.co.uk/Hot-Beds/music

They're FREEEEEEEE to download!

Things to be pleased with from 2008:

School
* The best SATs grades yet, very nearly the national average.
* Officially being made Science Co-Ordinator with the management allowance it entails.
* Teaching in Hackney for a third year and not yet wanting to run off to a pretty private school.

Music
* HotBeds No.1 (and 5 and 7) in the Alien Acid Unsigned Chart for 2008
* And No.2 on the Xmas Tourdates.co.uk chart (2 or 3 all December)
* Appearing on vinyl and getting good reviews for Hong Kong Garden.
* Hits of the Near Future having big success over the summer and still surviving during the crunch.

Personal
* Own place, own direction, not fearing 30 as much I thought I would.

Plans for 2009:

* Take HotBeds on tour. Release single. Get album deal.
* Push my underacheiving class as hard as possible to give them a fighting chance at life.
* Leave teaching for a life of rock n' roll. Failing that move down to Year 3 for a fresh perspective.
* Rebuild Hits of the Near Future stronger as a once-a-month venture.
* Stop going to clubs. Start going to bars with late licenses.
* Stop trying to do what's expected and concentrate on what makes me happy.



 

Spent today in fervent band practice and now have 2 half made songs to show for it....a quick check of the charts reveal we are at No.2 on Tourdates for the third week in a row and have songs in the Alien Acid Radio end of year 20 somewhere around No.3. The last link turned out to be broken so here's the new addy, please take a second to vote - we don't need that many to be No.1!

http://www.alienacid.com/vote.php

Should you be near a pc with headphones tomorrow at 4pm look up http://www.vsrecharged.com/ and listen to an hour of new music interspersed with me talking inanely about new music and HotBeds to the DJ.

What a great way to round off a busy weekend. More about that when I'm less tired.

www.tourdates.co.uk/hot-beds

But we made No.2!

http://www.tourdates.co.uk/unsigned-chart/07-Dec-2008

Now for Christmas No.1.....

Tonight is the first in ages I'm actually in. I should have been out but I canceled my plans because I need an early night. A very rare thing for me. However, I am both tired and happy because the week appears to be going pretty well. Firstly because my second date with the indiest girl I've met in a long time went incredibly well and secondly because the Hot Beds gig in Hackney last night appears to have been a great success.

It didn't look good from the off as the other three acts were all acoustic and being free entry most people felt they had every right to pretty much ignore them. We took to the tiny stage at 10.30 though and by the third song had nearly everyone watching us. I'm assured by Reuben that we even had a couple dancing on the balcony area for most of the set. The response to the debut play of Balcony (the full version and not the crappily mastered abomination Filthy Little Angels turned it into on their 7") was the best of the night and we saw our Tourdates download count for Frantic jump from 5 (cheers everyone, sheesh...) last night to 74 this afternoon. No.1 is most definitely still possible!

This weekend I am at the Hackney Beer Festival tomorrow, Stay Beautiful on Saturday and Hot Beds are playing with Keith TOTP and Friends on Sunday night at Underbelly on Hoxton Square. Busy busy...

It's been a very busy week, meals, a date, gigs (running & attending) and practice SATs at school. All this is irrelevant in comparison to project Hot Beds for Christmas No.1 though. We made 21 on Tourdates Unsigned chart last month with no effort at all. This time around we've made a video, re-recorded our track in both electric and acoustic forms and will be plugging the crap out of it online and at our shows this week. The next chart is out on Dec 14th and being a fortnightly thing will carry us through to Christmas No.1 if we hit the top. Hell, a 1-2 with both version would be even better. Will this mean anythng in the long term? Probably not but it would still be cool. Please go forth, download and squint at the very lo-fi vid...

For context, the class watched Newsround and were asked to identify the 5 Ws of one of the news reports...

What happened? Children poor and homeless in Congo because of war.
Where did it happen? Congo.
When did it happen? It started last week.
Who does it involve? Children and soldiers.
Why did it happen? The credit crunch

One: Going to the pub.
Angel was good last night, cool to catch up with everyone without getting too drunk!

Two: My projector works!
I had to send it back twice but third time was lucky. I can now project films on my wall and use it with HotBeds.

Three: HotBeds charted!
Okay, so it was for a week on the Tourdates' download chart but given we did no promo for it that's pretty cool!

Current Mood: accomplished