Lockdown Weekend

Okay, so this weekend was supposed to be a "lockdown", where we didn't go out, just stayed home and worked on our respective projects.

[cough]

Didn't quite work out that way.

Um...

Never mind, eh?

Things outside of the lockdown included going to the London Art Fair, which was interesting. We're normally comped tickets to the annual Affordable Arts Fair in Battersea Park and, well, we saw lots of pieces from that, supposedly "budget" fair being offered at much higher prices! We also got recognised from our appearance on the BBC's Imagine show. Quite the surprise!

Er. Saw. Um. "It's Complicated". The rom-com with Meryl Streep. Yes, yes, I know. It was actually good, though. A pleasant surprise.

Went to see a friend of ours perform a monologue from a play he's written. Again, surprisingly good... considering he's actually a painter (of the fine-arts variety, not a painter and decorator)!

Add into that my Mum coming and visiting, which was lovely, but she was in a talkative mood.

All in all I didn't get to spend as much time playing and recording as I'd hoped I would. Having said that, what I did do was lower Red's action (finally). When I bought him I lowered it slightly, but not too much. Lately I've been finding it easier to play my faux Les Paul so I took the bold step of bringing the strings way down and adjusting the intonation. Can I just say... Red was rocking after that! Awesome! I went from stumbling through various songs to absolutely screaming through them. Much, much better. I'm actually thinking that perhaps I should take him to a shop to check the truss rod adjustment as I feel like the action's crept a little higher over the two years (two... or three?) I've owned him.

Still, for now, putting the action on the floor (without fret buzz, obviously!) really kicked the ol' axe into high gear. I kind of feel like there's a little bit less sustain on the high E, so I may push that side up a bit. We'll see. It's very subtle... might just be my imagination! I took the precaution of lowering the pup height at the bridge, too, just in case.

Oh, and I may have found a temporary singer for the new band. Seems very keen. Quite the bluesy voice, too. More G Love than Taj Mahal, though...

Long Weekend...

...short post!

Weekend summary:

Friday: Ikea, pub, kebab (but a good one), club

Saturday: Coffee, pub, another kebab (still good), club

Sunday: Coffee, more coffee, pub, internet, bar, club (no kebab)

Monday: Coffee, eggs, pub, pub, bar, back to pub #1, Chinese, DVD.

It's Tuesday today, right? Still waiting for fog to clear... from head. Beautiful ride into the office on the bike. Blue skies all the way.

Time to get serious about stuff again. Music, gym, eating properly. The whole shebang. Not ready to pull a Madonna-eque macrobiotic trip, but it's time to hop back on the rails.

Oh, and the Sunday night clubbin' was the Freemasons dee-jaying at our local. All good, though they did surprise us by playing lots of their old stuff. I suppose they had to get the crowd going somehow. They came on for a 2 hour set, starting at 1:30am. The dancefloor was absolutely heaving. Spent quite some time dancing with a pair of top-notch lesbians, dressed identically in skimpy bikinis and not much else. Had I been straight, I'd have been in heaven! As it was I spent most of the time protecting them from being crushed by all the gyrating shirtless muscleboys. It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it. Mother would be proud.

Musical Stepping Stones

It's Monday. Uncharacteristically for me, I don't have the energy today to post anything too in-depth, so you get snippets. Here goes:

I'm still having difficulty finding people to play with. It doesn't look like the guys I was supposed to be meeting up with for a jam this week are going to come through, unfortunately. They postponed and postponed and the last thing I heard was that it might be today or tomorrow. I've been trying to get hold of them but have had no response. You ever get the feeling you're being ignored? Well, like I've said before, I'm not going to hold out too many hopes or put too much emphasis on any of these contacts until something actually happens.

Okay. The weekend? Erm... coffee at Starbucks (eugh!) Musak version of the theme from Hawaii-Five-O! Totally groovy in a Hank Marvin solo-guitar stylee. Realisation as to what it was crept up on me slowly, a bit like when my favourite cabaret act, Kiki & Herb, mixes "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with "Suicide Is Painless" (theme from M*A*S*H)

Speaking of Teen Spirit, we were at the Shunt Lounge under London Bridge station on Saturday night. Shunt is... well, Shunt. Erm... it's a bar/club/art space/avant garde performance arena. Oh, just go look at their website here. The things that were going on included some mic'ed up 'singing' pendulum sculptures that you could play with, a 3 DJ club room with some performance dance stuff in the background, a simulation where you got to 'escape' from a crashed jet via a massive rope slide... and the reference to Nirvana, there was a dance floor which was having a 70's to 90's night, spinning stuff like Nirvana back to back with Bowie and Guns 'n' Roses! I've never seen a mosh vibe take off so quickly as when the intro to "Welcome To The Jungle" kicked in. Very cool.

Oh, and for the dedicated drinkers amongst you. They free pour Absolut vodka. Whereas normally I can slam overpriced 'club' mixed drinks and feel virtually no effect all evening, two of those and I was well on the way to being smashed. Surely the larger, more well known clubs wouldn't water down their stock? Surely?

On Sunday we headed over to Regent's Park for a bit of an impromptu pic-nic. The sun was out, the sky was blue. All was good with the world. We picked a spot just off the inner circle, parked up our bikes and headed for the nearest grassy knoll. As we did, we were treated to the most surreal sonic experience. It sounded like some kind of native american chant. Very odd. Even more strangely, the chanting kept repeating, slowly building up the tempo and as it did the whispy white clouds turned grey then black. Damn it if it wasn't a freakin' rain dance they were doing AND it was working! Spooky.