I´'m in Berlin

So, I finally arrived in Berlin after going on about it for so long. I think it was about 5 years ago that I first stated I was going to move here. That's generally how long it takes me to do things. The last weekend in Liverpool was dead special. The highlight being the 28 Costumes show in Le Bateau on Saturday night. It blew my mind to have pretty much everyone I consider a friend there. Plus my family came along too which is always nice, especially my younger brother who has only recently turned 18 meaning he didn't get to see me playing much over the last few years. Also, my Aunty, Karen, was there...I only met Karen for the very first time about 6 months ago so it was amazing that she and her partner, Phil, came along too.

Almost everybody came back to my place afterwards for party times. I don't remember too much but several incidents stick out in my brain - Tony Keenan and Carney having a press-up competition, Tony Keenan trying to fit himself into my laundry basket, having a big sing along to do you realise that nearly reduced me to a blubbering pulp, and Philipp and Carney falling asleep and getting gaffer taped up.

I had a couple of really nice days with Edda before she had to leave for three works to go on location somewhere miles away. The first night I spent alone I watched the season 1 of Arrested Development in its entirity(Graham, Claire and Paul got me the whole thing as a leaving gift!). It's awesome! I can't believe I hadn't gotten into it before!

Graeme Murray, class A footy lad, put me onto a website that had a message board which people use to arrange things like games of football so I went on and straight away found a game of real life football happening in a field by me so I went along and played with these guys! It was boss too, there were lads from Ireland, Scotland, France, Argentina, Germany and Canada so I really learnt alot about different training techniques and mad skillz. After the footy I met up with them again and had a boss bbq with delicious home made burgers and mashed spuds. We then went on to the Canadian lad's girlfriend's improvised comedy thing which was at times quite funny. Nice guys though and good to get out and meet some people.

Actually, I went out the night before too just to watch the Liverpool game in an Irish Bar. I got talking to the people who ran the bar and they were dead nice and invited me down to play in the session they have there so I might do that I think.

Anyway, last night I went out with Sophie and my new boss and we went to watch the band for whom I'll be working for as of next week, The Bosshoss. Not really my particular cup of tea but they put on a decent show and stuff and the harmonica player is from Manchester and he's dead sound so we talked alot and drunk more.

Hmmm, what else did I do...

Oh aye, on Saturda last Edda and I went to this photo exhibition in a friends gallery space in Kreuzberg. It was good. The photos looked nice. I don't know too much about all that though, I mean, I looked at them and thought 'That looks ok, that' so I suppose that'll have to do. The music was quite pretentious though. Not offensively pretentious but enough. Two guys sat on the floor with a load of pedals and keyboards and s drum machine that he was playing manually and then wailing into the mic and looping it and stuff. Actually, when I read it back like that I suppose it was quite offensive.

I'm going to try and watch the Liverpool game somewhere tonight and then tomorrow I'm travelling to Tubingen to visit Edda which I'm absolutely looking forward to.

Big one, eh!

More additions

Low - Over The Ocean

Elliot Smith - Waltz no.2 (xo)

The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?

Elbow - Powder Blue

The Wedding Present - Spangle

Cinerama - Wow

Alton Ellis - I'm Still in love with you

GOD WEEKEND! YEAH!

I was my last night DJing on Saturday night - it was really nice, actually. Had a good few laughs with my friend Jules and then afterwards we went back to his house and stayed up til 10am drinking cocktails of Vodka, Pimms, Jaegermeister, lemonade, raw egg, carrot and black pepper! Yumbo scrumbo stick that up your bumbo! I then went straight to my mum's house to spend Easter Sunday with my mum and sister and aunty and uncle and children. We went to the cinema to watch Nanny McPhee. I managed to stay awake during the trailers but I think I was gone by the time the film started and then I caught the very ending which was absolutely dead sad and although I hadn't seen the build up to it at all it still nearly made me cry.

Ate food, didn't drink, listened to the 28 Costumes interview on the radio and tried to count how many ermmmms I managed to squeeze in to my bumblings (47?) then played a game called articulate, won and then retired to bed. I slept for approx. 13 hours, went for a walk in the countryside with the dog and ate an ice cream. All in all it's been truly nice to spend some time with my family for a bit and it's nice to be back home, even if it was just for a day.

I'm heading back to mine now as some of my friends are going to the Penny Lane Wine Bar to celebrate me leaving. I expect I'll cry. Not really!

I can see a really bright moon from my bed right now. It's really bright and it's there just in the gap in my curtains and it looks ace. I've drunk a fair amount of vodka and I'm wondering why I didn't drink Vodka all night as opposed to drinking about 7/8 pints of beer prior to it. Beer makes me feel so fat and bloated so I think if I'm going to make it a regular thing I should probably drink vodka, otherwise I'll end up being huge and fat. Instead I'll just be thin and drunk.

Anyway, that's not why I'm here right now. Right now I'm here to start my top 20 list. I'm sure it's going to change but I'm going to try and put my favourite 20 song in order for no apparent reason. In no order I'll have

Low - Over The Ocean

Elliot Smith - Waltz no.2 (xo)

The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?

Elbow - Powder Blue

That's 4 for now...

Good night, I've made myself a pint of water with some vitamin C, B and some ecinacea (Spelling?? As if I know how to spell that).

Good weekend

Hello! I've had a well busy weekend just there...I say just there but it's already Thursday so I suppose it wasn't just there at all. Anyhow, on Friday night Hallo...I Love You! supported New Young Pony Club in Korova in Liverpool and I really loved playing the show. It's a shame that I'm moving now because I think that after a long time trying different ways of presenting the songs live, we've finally found a format that works! Had some banter with the audience which was nice...I love having some banter. Banter. Some banter. Yes.

Then on Saturday I played footy in the morning with the footy lads although my knees were killing me. I scored a goal that I think is one of my all time bestest ever goals. Then I went to Babylon with Sam and Simon and Nick and Matt to eat delicous chicken kebabs. I got a shower at the gym so I was clean when I did this. The Kebab was really tasty although I had to take some of it home as I was too full and too slow at eating - everybody else had WELL finished there's before I'd got anywhere near finishing mine. I went home on my bicycle and then Tony and Paul from 28 Costumes came round to mine at 2.30pm to practise making music. We're doing a gig in Le Bateau on the 10th April and Paul and Nick are gonna do it with us too, so we need to practice as it's been ages since we'd played together. Paul was great though and he's picked it all up again as if he never left off ever. Then after practicing a little bit Rob and Andy from Hallo...I Love You! came round and picked me up to go to Blackburn to play a show with Diana Vickers who is that girl from the xfactor last year who was going out with the little irish boy called Eog. We turned up and I walked in on her in the dressing room by accident and she was shovelling a load of sausage rolls into her tiny little mouth - there must have been abut 4 sausage rolls in there at that moment but I'm sure she chewed them all properly and stuff because I saw her soundcheck half an hour later and she was singing fine. We waited for the venue rep who was called graham but we didn't know what he looked like so we asked someone and they said to look out for someone with a limp, so we did and there were a few candidates but then he walked in and we nearly killed ourselves laughing because he didn't have a limp he had a PROPER LIMP...like, it was so obviously him so we asked him and he said 'Yeah' so he showed us where to go and what to do and he gave us 8 bottles of Becks and 4 bottles of water. Then we played and when we walked onto the stage the big crowd did cheer for us and for a second i felt like magic, then I felt a bit scared and then finally I relaxed and our songs quite well and I think they all liked it. I took a photo of the crowd to show the folks back home (facebook) what it was like...Then we had to go straight away back to Liverpool to DJ in Low on Lark Lane. This was good fun because Paul form 28 Costumes who came with us to Blackburn also came with me to Low and we played some good music and had about 19 laughs.

The next day was Sunday and Tony and Andy and Paul and I went to Leeds to practice the 28 Costume songs with our old friend nick Hoare. Nick is a special, special man and a good friend and he played the drums spookiluy exactly how it used to be and it all fell into place nicely and we had such fun doing and we were all smiles and laughs and coughs and stretches. On the way home we ate KFC for £4 each and then we got back to Liverpool we all (along with Toria and Lucy) went to play pool and then after we played pool we played Wii at my house. I really enjoyed the weekend. It was good spending it making music with really good friends who I'm defo going to miss once I move but then I guess they'll all just have to come visit and that will be exciting too.

On monday through til yesterday I was really ill though with a nasty chest infection that made me cough up loads of vile nonesense from below. Feeling better now though - last night me and Tony from 28 Costumes went to Radio Merseyside to talk about some music we like and we picked 3 songs. The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet, Pavement - Shady Lane and Elliot Smith - Waltz no.2 (xo). Then I met up with Jules for a pint. Today I'm going to carry on packing my things and then I'm gonna go out on my bike for an hour then I'm gonna go to the fish shop and possibly buy some vietnamese river cobbler for my tea and then im gonna play football depending on how much my knees hurt me and then im gonna come home and watch the 2nd half of the football match and then im gonna watch last nights madmen in bed then fall asleep.

Bye x