Sunday 11 September 2011

Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow Tree

I've decided that I want to become dead into country music for a bit so I can learn how to play country guitar...I really want to - I enjoy playing it loads. I've become obsessed by 'Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow Tree' by The Carted Family, so I'm sticking it into this list. I've also added a few more.


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
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Talking Heads - Pulled Up
Billy Bragg - Sexuality
Hefner - Hello Kitten
Pixies - My Velouria
Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
Radiohead - Black Star
Big STar - Thirteen
Weakerthans - Aside
Otis Redding - These Arms Of Mine
The Carter Family - Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow Tree
The Dears - 22. The Death Of All The Romance
The Notwist - Pick Up The Phone

Sunday 4 September 2011

sluggish entry

Last night was the launch party of Silent Sleep's 2nd EP. I finally got round to finishing it but it was really close to the bone. I'm so disorganised. Actually, no, swerve disorganised and replace it with lazy. I knew for about 2 months that I'd said it was happening on the 3rd September yet I still left it so that until 1 day before I was still recording it and until 1 hour before we were still making the sleeves!! What's the matter with me?? Anyway, it was a boss gig, loads of people came to see us and we had a lot of fun playing it. On the last song I got everybody to play drums on whatever large object was closest and everybody did it so it sounded amazing!

I'm settling into my new place really nicely...the people are both dead sound and sociable and we have a laugh - it feels so much more relaxed than my old place for some reason.

Ermmmm, I'm struggling loads to write anything good here because I'm well hung over and dead tired. I played at the opening of a vintage clothes shop yesterday afternoon too. Maggie, the girl that owns it, is really sound and she gave me a lovely shirt for playing. I had a nightmare on the way up though...well, maybe nightmare's a bit much like. My chain came off my bike. That doesn't sound that bad like but I realised there and then that I haven't put a chain back on a bike for about 20 years or something and it absolutely ruined the afternoon almost! I was already late for the gig so I ended up turning up super, super late, covered in sweat and oil. I was disgusting. The shop was full of absolutely cool looking people too so I felt like a right meff.

I've got quite a big beard at the moment that i'm getting into. I like it. I think I'm going to keep it.

I'm enjoying living in Berlin, you know, it's a fucking brilliant place to be and I've met some really, really good people here. I love Liverpool too, don't get me wrong, and I've got all of my best and closest friends there and obviously my family who I do miss loads, but I just can't see me coming back anytime soon.

It's my 30th birthday next month so I'm having a party and I'm gonna combine it with a few of my friends' birthdays too. Loads of mates from Liverpool are coming over for it so I'm really excite about it.

I can't think of anything else to write because my mind's slowing down really quickly.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Paul Green visits.

It's now the end of July and I've moved out of my place in Huttenroderweg with Paula and Angeline. I've taken on a room in a shared flat not too far away with a guy from Australia and a girl from Austria - both seem like nice people with a similar sense of humour. I don't move into this flat until the 12th August so for the time being I am homeless. I've got places to stay though, James has gone away until the end of the month and Seb and Charlotte have also gone away on holiday for a few weeks and both have very kindly left me the keys to their flats. So I write this from the relative luxury of Seb and Charlotte's brand new massive sofa bed.

One of my best friends ever, Paul Green, has just been to visit me and we had such a good time. It was great to see Paul. Paul suffers from manic depression (I don't think he'll mind me writing this as he was diagnosed a few years ago and also he told a lot of people here that, in his own words, he has mind problems) and at the moment he has just come out of a long spell of depression and is in a manic stage. Paul and I have known each other since I was 19 which is nearly 11 years now and we've been through quite a lot together. We've had some absolutely amazing and magical times and we've also had some really shitty and frightening times together. This trip to Berlin can be counted amongst the amazing and magical times (as are most tbh)...we had such a laugh from the moment he arrived here holding a sick bag with my name on it in the air. He helped me out at Liquidation on Thursday night (which was one of the busiest ever), then we had a great day on Friday drinking and playing pool and giggling and singing and then on Saturday, Pete turned up with his band, 'Pete Bentham and The Dinner Ladies', so we hung out with Pete and co all night and watched them do really great gig.
By Sunday we were both pretty done in so we just hung out at my place and ate some proper food (not kebabs, not pizza, not ale) and then on Monday we pretty much done the same and then I put Paul on the bus to the airport in the afternoon. It was a bit of a whirlwind but it was so, so good to see him and I hope it happens again soon. He's a beautiful person. If you want to see around 600 photographs of Paul's visit, you can go on his facebook and have a look.

Last week I had the responsibility of finding the cast for a video shoot that James was directing for a band called Twin Atlantic. I had to muster up 20 people to fill out a Berlin street. In the weeks/days leading up to the shoot I had gathered up the troops and managed to get 20 of my friends to promise that they will be there at 7am on what could have been a cold and wet July morning. I was so, so worried in the days and hours leading up to the shoot because if the people didn't show up then the whole shoot would have been a disaster and I would have gotten into loads of shit. The night before I didn't sleep at all worrying about it. Anyway, I needn't have feared as on the morning of the shoot there were about 25 or so people that turned out for me and the weather was boss!! I'm hugely grateful to all those who came along and did such a good job!! It was, at times, very boring with lots of waiting around and it was so hot too, but everyone was totally awesome and I think overall, we all had a really good day. The shoot went well and we had a big ol' BBQ afterwards and then went down to the canal for a bit of Kubb.

Right now I'm going to crack on with recording and then I'm going to go on a bit of a bike ride alone. I think I gained about 5 stone in ale whilst paul was over and I've just watched The Fighter so I feel dead motivated.

Friday 8 July 2011

Just information.

Time seems to move super-fast-warp-speed-turbo boost here. I think I'm 54 years old already. No, that's not true. Sometimes I feel like I'm 54 years old though. My liver in particular. A 54 year old tramp. It's impossible to stay sober in Berlin. If you really want to stay sober I've found the best way is to not leave your bedroom. At all. You have to stay in there. Even if you leave, there might be a flat mate with a bottle of wine or some beers. If you actually go outside the house then there's nothing down for you - you're going to be pissed within minutes. It's cheaper to buy a bottle of beer here than it is to buy a bottle of water. Anway, I'm being dramatic and of course you don't have to drink if you don't want to, it's just way easier to find yourself drinking if you are that way inclined.

I've been working with James a little bit the last month on a music video for a norwegian band called Katzenjammer. I've recently seen the final edit and it looks cracking! I'll stick it up here when it's ready. I was mostly preparing the sets for the shoot - drilling and hammering and painting and re-wiring stuff. Good fun though and it was great to work with and meet loads of boss people.

I played a gig a couple of weeks ago at a kindergarten. I was a bit sceptical at first but once the hangover had been shaken off and we started playing it was kind of amazing! The kids all wandered over to us like tiny zombies and we had layed down a load of percussion instruments on the floor for them to grab, which they did...they went mental!! It was boss! We're doing it again tomorrow afternoon and I'm really looking forward to it.

It's been nice playing more with Silent Sleep. We went to Trier last week and played a couple of gigs there. It was so nice to see Alex and Katrin and Marius and all of those guys again - they're some of the best people in the world and I'm glad I can call them friends. The gigs were great and we had about 47 laughs in total. One of the things I like best about playing with Silent Sleep is that we can pretty much turn up anywhere and do our normal set - we've done quite a few gigs in parks recently and it's so much fun. People just turn up with a bottle of wine and some butties or whatever...it's absolutely one of the most civilised things ever. I've been recording the 2nd part of the trilogy too. It's taken me way longer than I expected but only due to me being too easily distracted. I'm looking forward to finishing it and getting it out there. James is going to make a video for the song 'Love Never Lasts' which is going to be great. I think that song is my bleakest ever song. I enjoy playing it to the children in the kindergarten. It's a valuable lesson that needs to be learnt.

I have to move out of the place I've been staying in since March at the end of this month so I'm looking for new places. It's tricky though - I've sent SO many emails replying to ads and out of maybe 40 I've had 1 reply. Not panicking just yet though.

Sunday 29 May 2011

Abandoned theme park

This weekend, Friday in particular, was one of the most fun weekends I've had, which is saying something because I've had quite a few bits of fun recently. But Friday was fun for loads of reasons. I was supposed to be djing in Prenzlauer Berg at 10pm but I met up with James in the afternoon and we had a dead cool time having casual ales in a few different bars around Neukoelln. We met some friends who own a cafe and sat with this dead nice guy who I'd never met before but can't remember his name, then we went to a bar around the corner and sat with this ex professional footy player who James and I met a couple of weeks ago in a turkish betting shop and had a few drinks with him. It was 9pm by this point and I remembered I had to go all the way back to mine to get my records before heading off to DJ (Prenzlauer Berg is about 30 mins by bike). We were both a bit boozy by this stage and James decided to come with me to DJ. We grabbed our bikes and my records and started pegging it towards the train station. We got on a train but it booted us off after 2 stops so we legged it from there to the tram and jumped on a tram. Eventually we arrived at the bar, 45 minutes late, only to find out that I'd been told the wrong date and it was actually the next day I was DJing. I couldn't believe it, I was dripping with sweat and totally out of breath and all flustered and what have you. The guy was sound though and apologised and gave us both a pint and me a packet of fags too. It wasn't that bad though because earlier in the day we were talking about this event that was happening at an old abandoned theme park so now, what with me not having to DJ, we could go. We cycled back from Prenzlauer Berg to Treptower Park singing Roy Orbison songs and Beach Boys songs and Beatles songs dead loud. It was about midnight now. Finally we made it to the park and to get the old amusement park we had to bike through the park in total darkness for about 20 minutes. It was kind of fun but I don't mind admitting that there were times when I was frightened. Anyway, we made it, but we only made it at the very end when it was emptying out and locking up for the night but James knew somebody who worked there and she let us in anyway so we decided to just get a bit lost in there. It was magic. All the old shacks and stands where all still there from when it last opened it's doors 20 years ago. Everywhere was a little bit battered and all the plants and grass and bushes where dead overgrown. There was even a couple of massive plastic dinosaurs left lying on the ground. It looked mad. We went past a pond that we thought had some speakers near it playing animal noises and then we realised that the pond was just full of frogs and the frogs were all croaking their mad little heads off!! We went past a really beautiful black horse (not real) and it was on a track so James and I took turns pushing each other around the track on it. It was completely overgrown with thorn bushes though so we got toally shredded whilst doing it, but it was really good fun and we made it all the way around. We carried on walking, avoiding the security guards and all that and eventually we found a group of people sat around a fire and drinking booze so we went over and sat down with them. Turns out they're all lovely french and german people so we sayed there for an hour or so, chatting and drinking and stuff. We decided to leave them to it and we headed back to our bikes.

Something a bit weird happened on the way home. not totally, totally weird, but defo a bit mad, like. We were biking, again through the dark - actually, just remembered that we both nearly absolutely fell off our bikes when we drove at a good bit of pace into a bit of tree that someone had left lying across the path - anyway, yeah, we were biking to Kreuzberg because we were going to meet some friends, by this point it's probably about 2.30am or something, and we came to this massive stretch of road that was closed to cars so we started pegging it dead fast, racing each other and then this guy who was going the same way started to join in the race and the three of us raced down the road until we came to where the road blocks where and then we slowed down and had a bit of a laugh and introduced ourselves to this guy who was gegging in on the race. Lovely fella, he was, Italian dude from Florence. Anyway, James and I split off and when we got to Kotbusser Tor I saw this girl I know called Lisa. She was just standing there smiling at me as if she was waiting for me or something, but she wasn't, like. So we stopped and said hello and a bit of a chat etc. She was waiting for her friend. Then her friend showed up whilst we were chatting. It was the Italian fella who we'd just met 10 minutes before!! How mad is that?!?! Is it mad or is it just me? That's well mad.

But yeah, it was just a dead nice day, spontaneous boozing, biking round, abandoned theme parks...mega.

I DJ'd in Mokum last night, which is a bar I've started playing in once a month. It's absolutely good fun and I really anjoy playing there but everytime I do it I stagger out at like 7am completely off my head on alcohol. Don't really remember getting home or leaving the bar but I'm here in my bedroom now and I managed to not get my records or my guitar robbed off me. I had my guitar on me because I played a gig at this open-air event in Schoneweide earlier in the day. I feel a bit ropey now though so I'm going to go and watch some more of the american version of the office before heading out later to eat delicious vietnamese food, which is my favourite thing to eat in Berlin.

p.s. can not be bothered to re-read that so probably loads of grammar and spelling mistakes. I always try and start off proper but then the faster I type and it all starts spewing out it just goes to pot.

Tuesday 26 April 2011

This came in the post this morning...

Christopher,

Greetings this fne day. Thanks for getting back to me.
Regarding the questionairre. Please don't fret over the final couple answers. I Will have plenty to go on with the answers you've already finished. It's not supposed too be difficult. Just relax and let go and the answers will come out naturally. Not to worry.
Please send a picture.

Regarding the pricing, let me give you some perspective on your idea that the prices are high. There are some people that think the prices are too low. They understand the spiritual energy that I put into each picture. I've been an artist for most of my 55 years. So when I approach a subject I bring all those years of practice to bare. Each picture usually takes about 4 hours to complete. At $50 per hour that is
$150. I'm worth probably more like $150 per hour with all my experience, so I'm giving people a great deal at $150. And I offered you $50 off. This is considered a fantastic value!

I hope this helps you to see the oppurtunity in front of you.
Right now I have several portraits I'm working on so I'm getting busy. I can offer you this great price of $100 until tomorrow. Then it goes back up to $150. To make it an even better deal we can do a payment plan. $50 now and $50 in a couple weeks from now. We can spread it out for your convenience.

There is one more discount option I can give you. I''ll do it for $75 if you pay me all it up front right now by tomorrow.

So, we have one more day to decide.
Thanks so much Christopher!

Best,

€rial


I'm going to reply tomorrow.

Monday 25 April 2011

More Celesting

Had a great night at Liquidation on Thursday just gone! It was totally busy and the people were dead nice too. Loads of dancing 'til the sun came up and then even more somewhere else! Friday was a write off for me but on Saturday I met up with a few guys and we went to play Boules just down the road from where I live. It was a really warm night and after we played a bit of boules we sat down by the canal and lit some candles and drank a few beers. It was great and it's little beautiful moments like these that remind me why moving to Berlin was definitely the right thing to do. The next day was Easter Sunday and me and James and a few others headed up north to a place outside of Berlin called Liepnitzsee, where there is a huge lake with an island in the middle, surrounded by a dead nice forrest. We lay down on the banks of the lake and had a little picnic and tried to swim a bit but it was dead icy so we only got in for about 16 seconds. Apparently my shorts were really see through so I might have inadvertently showed everyone my willy. I loved that day.

I've been continuing my dialogue with our man who makes celestial soul portraits. Here they are...

This is from Erial, as I didn't reply straight away to his last mail...

C

Just wanted you to know one other person just got in line for a possible portrait.
Since you were first in line I wanted to give you the first chance to get started.
What can you afford my friend? I'll work with you now if your really interested.
It's like a spiritual quest. You need to have a passion for it to work. the energy
is in the air now. Let's use it to ignite your soul portrait into illuminated manifestation!

E


To which I replied...

Hi Erial,

So sorry I've not been in touch recently. I've been spending most of the time thinking about it all, hard. I've gone through your on-line questionnaire and I've answered all of the questions apart from one, which I'm stuck on. It's the one about who I would be if I was sat at the round table. I just can't make up my mind and it's tearing me apart right now!!

I do want to go ahead with this if we can find the right price. I feel you're asking a bit too much if I'm completely honest (and I swear by a policy of truth at all times and I expect the same from others). Could you tell me a little bit more about the process and why it costs so much money??

I'd be so grateful if you could and perhaps it would ease my concerns regarding the money.

I wish you a very happy time.

Chris


I'll let you know when he reaches me.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Celestialisation

So, our celestial artist friend has got back in touch. I'm starting to think that the whole thing is a joke and he's actually some hipster who probably has a blog like this and is posting dead similar entries but obviously with the roles reversed. Or maybe I'm wrong and I'm communicating with a lunatic.

Chris wrote:

Hi Erial,

Thanks so much for getting back to me! I'm really excited about this!

My only problem is with the cost and I hope you don't mind me asking this question but why does it cost so much? Do you think you could come down in price? I would really like so much to begin the transformational process.

Also, my second concern is a little silly but I have to ask it anyway...will the portrait lose any of it's celestial beauty when being sent by email?

Kind regards Erial, look forward to moving along with this hopefully.

Christopher



€rial wrote:

Hi Christopher,

I was just thinking about offering you a discount because of a recent dream I had. So it's funny you should ask. What I could do is take off $50 and make it an even 100. Can you do that? Is this within your budget? Then I will send you an 8.5 x 11 high resolution art file that you can print on your end.

There is no loss of detail or spiritual energy sending you a computer file. The colors are vibrant and alive. The portrait contains celestial energies that will assist you in maintaining a high vibration whenever you look at it.
A great meditation tool for spiritual growth.

So please send me a picture of you to work from so we can get started.

It would be nice to have the full payment amount all at once if you can swing it. If you pay through paypal and say it's a gift then I get to keep the full amount we decide on.
So let me know how this all sounds. I'm excited to begin the process!

Best,

€rial

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Celestial Chris

Just got back home after a the first practise with Aude, a girl I met here. She's from near Paris and she sings like a mad french angel - really beautiful voice! It was a good practise. Seb came too, so slowly but surely we're making forward steps towards being ready for our first show, which is planned to be a show in a park by a pond on June 5th. There should be 8 people in the band I think.

A couple of weeks ago my good friend Andrew Donovan came to visit me and he told him of this great website. It's called Celestial Soul Portraits and it's run by a guy who, for the reasonable price of $250, will take your bog standard portrait photograph, taken here on planet Earth, and turn it into a portrait of you in Unicorn-land, with a staff, pink stars, other-worldy atmospheres and Unicorns. The site is incredible. He demonstrates how he can bring out your higher celestial being with a few before and after shots. One is of him and he basically turns himself from a man standing in a garden with a rake into Jesus fucking Christ.

I was interested in getting one done so I sent him a mail.

This is my mail and the response.

Hi,

My friend told me about your magical portraits and I'd like to know more about this.

What do I need to do to find out more about my higher celestial presence?

Many thanks,

Yours,

Christopher




Hi there Christopher,

Thanks for asking about the celestial soul portraits.

All we need are 3 basic things.

First you decide which size portrait you would like, either 8 x 10 for $150 or 12 x 16 for $250.

Then you send me a high resolution photo to use as the basis of the image.

Second we need you to answer some questions so I can see into your highest spiritual nature.

Finally I need you to send me 50% down for me to begin the transformational process.

The image comes to you as a high resolution file unless we make other arrangements.

I can't wait to begin!

Thanks again,

Erial


I'll continue to stick up our little celestial dialogue. I might actually even get one!

Monday 21 March 2011

What started out as Boo-hoo ends up way-hay!

I haven't been keeping this as up to date as I would have liked recently because there have been so many changes happening. Changes I didn't foresee happening. This and that happened and I've found myself living in a small room in a shared flat in Neukoelln with two girls from New Zealand. The room is ok, it's bright and warm and has a bed and a desk and the two girls I'm sharing with are very friendly.

We've got the 2nd Liquidation party coming up on Thursday night and I so hope it goes well. I'm kind of relying on it going well if I'm honest! I don't know how much longer I can keep myself over here right now. I ran out of money a couple of weeks ago and when I say ran out, I really mean ran out! I've had fuck all for a over a week now! It's definitely the poorest I've ever been. I can't really moan too much though - I mean, it's obviously shit having no money at all and does your head in like but you can't be all boo-hoo when there are people in Japan who've just lost their entire family along with everything they own in one fell swoop.

Things have changed for me here and it's been and it's going to be tough. I don't know what's going to happen but I'm going to stay here for the time being and try and make a few good things happen.

I've just been given a job on a music video project that, providing I do a good job, will be a great start to the new chapter here. After that, I'll be doing the Liquidation nights (hopefully) every week and whilst all this is happening I'll be practising with the new band which, should things go to plan, be ready to gig by the start of summer time.

Sorry if that reads a bit wanky - I think I had to write it all out like that for my own benefit really!

Andy and Lucy came last week and it was so good to see them both. It was real nice to catch up with them properly as the last few times we'd seen each other it had been at parties or at gigs etc, so it was great to spend some time together doing pretty much none stop gabbing at each other. It was weird, when I was waiting with them for their bus to the airport to catch their flight home, I kind of forgot that they were going home. I think I was thinking that they were just going home as in home around the corner and they'll be back later or tomorrow or something and then when the bus did show up, I just said 'ta-ra' as if that was the case, and then realised that of course they were going back to Liverpool and I wouldn't see them again for ages and it made me dead sad.

Jules is coming on Wednesday though and then Graham is coming at the start of April. There're always people coming over to look forward to and in the mean time I've made some fairly decent mates over here too. It's just so easy to get bogged down in your own little world sometimes and over-think things far too much. You end up worrying and retreating instead of getting yourself involved in everything and making things happen.

I thought this blog was going to be dead morbid and depressing but as it's turned out it hasn't at all! I'm glad I wrote it now.

Thursday 3 March 2011

updated list of songs that I would probably call a favourite

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
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Talking Heads - Pulled Up
Billy Bragg - Sexuality
Hefner - Hello Kitten
Pixies - My Velouria
Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
Radiohead - Black Star
Big STar - Thirteen
Weakerthans - Aside
Otis Redding - These Arms Of Mine

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Good eggs.

I'm sat in my living room about to have some eggs which I hope I've boiled perfectly. Just eggs. No bread. Actually, with an orange. Eggs and an orange.

Probably the most stupid first line to a blog entry ever!! Anyway, little update - we had the first Liquidation and it went way better than we expected to really! We had a dance floor until about 5am and then gradually people started drifting home. Me and Jules were both lashed by this point anyway to be honest and were ready for calling it a night, which we did about 5.45 I reckon. But yeah it was boss and the guy who runs it was dead sound and kept bringing us beers and vodkas and tequilas all night! We're doing another one there in April and in May but we need to find another venue for March as he'd already booked it all up. I'm meeting a guy called Pascal at a club called Dazzle at 2pm this afternoon.

I worked with James on Monday, shooting a video involving a Smart Car entirely encrusted with mirrors (most camp thing I've ever seen), and two men dressed in really glittery all-in-one suits (actually, that's the most camp thing I've ever seen). One of the two men was the keyboard player in the band A-Ha. It was nuts. He was nice enough guy though, although I'm sure he nearly knocked me out when one time during lunch I was sat next to him and made a light-hearted quip about his glittery all-in-one outfit (which he was wearing at the time). I think I was only spared his fist (and possibly my job) by the laughter of everybody else who was there, but there was definitely a split second when nobody was sure whether to laugh or not and he shot me a look.
I really enjoyed the day though - started off helping to build a massive kaleidoscope!!

Graham was over for a week too and it was dead nice. Because he was here for a week, it meant there was no mad rush to do everything all at once so we just took it easy and had a slow burning boozy time and loads of fun.

This weekend just gone, the lads from Hot Club came to stay too because they had a gig here on Friday night. It was boss man, I hadn't seen them play in over a year and it was so good watching them. Free the Pterodactyl 3 is, I think, probably their greatest ever song. It's fucking brilliant and beautiful. Very considerate house guests too for future reference.

Here's the video I did too...Matt, who made it, is such a gem and all the people who feature in the video are either friends of ours or kids that Matt babysits. See if you can guess which ones are which. Share it too. Pass it around the whole earth and make it a sensational internet smash hit.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Where did the good times go?

Well it's only 2 days now before the very first Liquidation. I'm nervous and excited and all those usual feelings you get when you just have no idea how something is going to go. There are about 110 people confirmed as guests on the facebook page but that's not really an accurate figure. I think about half of those people live in countries very, very far away from Germany so the likelihood of them actually attending is very slim. Jules is arriving tomorrow night just in time to go watch the Liverpool game somewhere and Liverpool have just sold one my heroes, Fernando Torres, to Chelsea for a record £50million and bought another record signing, Andy Carroll, from Newcastle for £35million. Nuts. So the game against Stoke on Wednesday night is one I really want to watch (not to actually see Andy Carroll play - he's injured at the moment, but to see ANOTHER one of Liverpool's new big signings, Luis Suarez).

On Friday Hendrik started to film his documentary and spent the whole day following me around. It's nowhere near as daunting and as intrusive as I thought it might be. In fact it's the opposite and I very rarely noticed he was there at all. In the morning I went to play football as I always do on a Friday and he filmed the whole game from loads of different places. I normally play an OK game of footy but for some reason, even though I honestly didn't notice him filming so much, I played atrociously!! Every shot was spooned west and...oh man, it was awful. I'm going to have to insist that he comes again when I play better!!

After footy I went to practise with Nick and Mic, the 2 lads who are going to play guitar and bass with me when I do the Silent Sleep EP launch party on the 12th Feb. Again, Hendrik blended into the background and we cracked on without giving him a thought.

The gig later that night was really nice. The venue, Antjes Oekselund, is mad. It takes yo uages to find it because it's in this courtyard with no lights and it's tucked away in a corner, but when you walk in it's kind of like this magic space. The first thing I noticed was this dead creepy manequin child holding a load of helium balloons. Through the back there was a bar and next to the bar was a smoking cubical. A tiny room with an ashtray and a stool in. Royalchord, the band I was supporting where absolutely lovely...2 girls and a load of dead nice old keyboards (including an omnichord, which I want badly) making beautiful and sad songs. One song that stood out was called 'The Good Times'. I'll post it here at the end of this.

A few months ago I spent the morning chasing a Brazilian dancer around Berlin whilst being photographed. It was for the Go! Team's new video for their song 'Rolling Blackouts' which was made by James and Violetta, who are becoming really good mates here. I don't think you can see the video in the U.K. just yet but I'll stick it up here when you can - it's great...all photographs and stop motion and dead stylish.

Here's that video and some photos of the gig from Friday...





Thursday 27 January 2011

doing all the stuff and scoring goals, saving the planet perusing a grandma.

Loads has happened recently which I haven't been writing about mostly because I've been too busy doing those things I just mentioned there. Ermmmmmm...Let me see if I can remember any of them in no particular order. Loads of mates came over from Liverpool as it was Stiffy's birthday so all the hot club lads, grays jones and murray, david spoons, steve carpenter as well as a load of others all came to Berlin for the weekend. That was the 14th to 16th I think and we spent the whole time drinking beer. It was relentless. The day they all left was the day I was shooting the video for 'You Can Colour Me In' (apologies for the poor grammar and punctuation in this blog I've just had too much coffee and i'm just spewing it out). So yeah, the day they left was the day I was making a video and I looked rough as fuck. I looked like I'd been fighting all weekend. more specifically like someone had been punching my face for two whole days. Not the best preparation but maybe because the song is so dainty then it will add a bit of much needed grrrrrr to it. The video is going to be class though. Matt Greyson, a canadian guy who I met here through playing footy directed it and pretty much did everything else but be in it. I was really impressed - I'd not seen anything that Matt had done before so I didn't know what to expect but it was incredible and i think it's gonna be awesome.

This week i've been working on a music video with my friend James. It's for a singer from L.A. and I've been cutting out lots of japanese things.

Tomorrow I'm playing a gig here with a band called Royalchord who sound great from what ive heard and apparently it's in a really cool place too called anjes oekelund or something like that (sorry, im too lazy to open another window and look properly). Hendrik, one of Edda's friends who I've also become friends with is going to be filming a documentary about me over the next 6 months and tomorrow is the first filming day. Well, he filmed the video shoot last week so it's not really the first one. I think he's just going to follow me around for a bit seeing how i go from doing music stuff to doing manual labour and all that...I think so anyway, I'm still not entirely sure.

I played football on tuesday and scored what might have been the best goal i've scored for ages. I was in goal and I noticed the other keeper was way off his line and I thought to myself, 'if the ball comes back to me I'm WELL having a go at that' and right enough one of the lads was under a bit of pressure so he knocked it back to me and I didn't even look, I just side footed it high into the air and sailed over the other keepers head and into the top bin! I couldn't believe it! Even though I meant it I didn't think I'd pull it off but i did! I could definitely hold my own in the premier league*.

Anyway, it's one week to go until we have the first Liquidation party and I'm psyched. I'm psyched and I'm nervous too. Never done a club night here before so I've got no idea how it's going to go. I hope it goes well, obviously.

I'm doing a photo-shoot on wednesday too. It's with James' girlfriend, Violetta, and she is going to take some photos for her project first, which is about getting people as soon as they wake up and then afterwards, when i look normal again she's gonna take some for me too, as silent sleep kinda thing.

I'm off to put posters up in berlin.

*I wouldn't

Saturday 8 January 2011

best night

When Roy Hodgson's name first started getting used in connection with Liverpool I was horrified. Even though he'd just been voted manager of the year he just always struck me as a journeyman, an average manager and certainly not someone who could take Liverpool back to point of competing with Man Utd and Chelsea for the title again. And I was proved right!!!! What a massive pile of balls the last 5 months of been!! I know the season before was dismal but Jesus Christ he made a mockery of two shams of the club!!

Anyway the only reason I'm posting this blog is because Kenny Dalglish is now the manager of Liverpool Football Club once again and I know that these romantic ideas of former heroes and icons of any club coming back to save everyone very rarely work out but let me state this here and in public (well, i've got 8 followers so if it turns out to be wrong I can still just edit it and hardly anyone will notice)...I've got a really strong feeling that this is going to be good. I'm not basin it on any facts or stats or anything, purely just a feeling but I really think that Kenny Dalglish's return is going to be very successful.

I met him once too. In 2008 I managed to blag some wristbands to go backstage (where all the ale was free - me and Edda were drinking PINTS of white wine) at the MTV awards when they were held in Liverpool. One of my mates, Skinny, pointed out that King Kenny was about 2 meters away from us having a chat to Duffy, the awful Welsh singer, so I went over with Rich from Go Faster>> (great Liverpool band, now defunct) and waited for a gap in the conversation. Duffy looked at me and smiled and said 'I'll be with you in a minute'. Rich and I looked at each other dead confused, she's obviously got the wrong idea. Anyhow, their conversation ends and Duffy comes over, all hair and teeth, 'what can I do for you fellas?'. 'Nothing', we reply, marching straight past her to our hero, Kenny Dalglish who greeted us with a big smile and a strong hand shake. His wife said she thought she recognised me from somewhere so I told her I was in The Killers (I had a moustache at the time, it was plausible). We took some photos with the King and left him to it and then got absolutely wankered on pints of fine, white wines. A truly great evening.


Thursday 6 January 2011

Resolutations

Right, I'm going to be well more consistent with this blog this year and perhaps I might even start to make an effort to write it a bit better instead of just vomitting words all over it as fast as they come out of my mind. Actually, I'm definitely not going to be doing that as I think it's impossible for me to because I'm mostly stupid.

These are some things I'd like/like to happen in 2011.

1) Turn Silent Sleep, which at the moment is just me, into a full band playing concerts at music venues not only in Berlin but in places far away too.

2) With above band, record an astonishingly brilliant and beautiful album that will make girls cry.

3) Always make sure I always have some money enough to live (i.e. rent, food, socialising, buying exotic and rare gems)

4) Get a projector so my girlfriend and I can watch movies in a big way.

5) Get Liquidation Berlin going once a week. This will help me fulfill number 3 and be a ton of fun to boot.

6) Be more cool.

7) Get fit not fat.

8) Cover Fleetwood Mac's 'Everywhere'.

9) Visit a dentist

10) Get a 28 Costumes EP done.

Festiving

I've been at home in Liverpool now since the 16th December. I was supposed to leave Berlin on the 15th but I missed my flight because of snow. So I've been here for almost 3 weeks now and in that time I've played a show with 28 Costumes and Voo, DJ'd at Liquidation, caught up with nearly all of my friends and family, got plump, drunk absolutely loads of booze almost continuosly hence getting plump, finally saw my girlfriend in the flesh along with Claudia and Rolf who are some friends that came to visit from Germany, got the ferry across the Mersey, had my i-pod wiped and got more plump.

Hope you had such a good time.
x