Better days!

Wow, that last one was a laugh wasn't it! It's weird here, you notice the ups and downs perhaps more than when you lived at home. Been working away on the 'This Scissor Disaster' EP that I plan to release on Feb 14th. I'll have a launch party/gig to celebrate the release on the 12th Feb and hopefully, fingers crossed, legs crossed and thumbs pressed, Graham is gonna come to Berlin and play an acoustic Voo set to boot! That would be so good and it would make me the happiest little sausage in the whole of East Berlin, and that's saying something because Germany is a place where the sausage is king of the kitchen. Germany's national dish is a giant sausage in ketchup with curry powder on it. Germany! Power-house of Europe! Not in the culinary globe you're not! Anyway, so yeah, that will be great if he can make it over. I've slowly but surely been assembling a band too. Very slowly. When I told people I wanted to get a band together when I first moved over here back in April, nearly everybody said exactly the same thing...'you're in the right place, son.' or 'you'll have no problem finding musicians here, they're EVERYWHERE.' Let me tell you right now...I've been here for 8 months now and I've met 3 to 5 musicians. That's not counting the lunatics doing things like sitting on the floor with a sampler looping their painful wailings whilst having a fit. So it's taken me a bit longer than I anticipated. But I think I've found a bass player who is also a good mate and a I think I might have found a Violinist and a Flute...I've just realied that I don't know what you call somebody who plays the flute...hang on...ok, now I know that a Flautist is somebody who plays an instrument in the flute family, such as a piccolo and loads of other types of flute. So I might have found a flautist. Hopefully, when I get back home from Liverpool after Christmas i can find a drummer and maybe a piano player or an accordian player and we can start rehearsing. Boss!!

Worked a couple of long shifts helping to build the new ikea here this week and I'm djng on Tuesday night at a bar underneath a hostel.

Some more good news...Liquidation Berlin, which I've been trying to get off the ground basically since I came here to no avail now has it's first night booked!! After all the emails that I sent without reply I finally got a call from a club that is dead into the idea and on the 3rd Feb 2011 the very first LIQUIDATION BERLIN will happen. I was so pleased when I got the call I could have started crying but fortunately I didn't as that might have ruined everything. I really can't wait for it, Jules is gonna come over and dj it too.

I finished recording this today, I'm very pleased with it.

http://soundcloud.com/halloiloveyou/you-can-colour-me-in-by-silent-sleep

Blog gone wrong

I've been fairly busy the last couple of weeks or so. Last weekend I went back to Liverpool to play with 28 Costumes at Toria Buzza's birthday party. It was boss to go back and I managed to cram alot into the visit. Drinks with mates, footy on Saturday morning like the good old days of 7 months ago, an acoustic set in a hairdressing salon, the party and the afterparty. I think I pretty much managed to see everyone who I would have liked to have seen in the space of 2 days, which was great. When I left though I realised I'd left my phone in Paul Jones' house which is a massive pain in the dick - it's still not arrived yet and it's been a week since he sent it. This is crap for loads of reasons - Edda left to go to Köln for 4 weeks so without it I'm totally unable to get in touch with her, I can't work without it as the company I work for call me when I'm needed. Also, I was meeting Jules, who came to Berlin for a few days just now, at the airport on the Sunday so I was totally freaking out although I didn't really need to about that. Been really good having Jules over though, we managed to sort a few things out regarding Liquidation Berlin, which is defo going to happen soon, plus have a whole lot of fun too.

I've just decided to not continue writing this blog entry. It's not funny or interesting, although funny and interesting things definitely happened but my head isn't working properly today and it hasn't really been working properly for the last few days. I don't know whether it's because I'm really worried about money (as per usual), or I'm really missing Edda\hate being on my own in the flat or just in general worrying too much about what is I'm supposed to be doing here or in Liverpool or anywhere - just generally. Obviously 28 Costumes and Hallo...I Love You! aren't doing much right now what with me being in another country a thousand miles away and Silent Sleep, my new thing I've just started here is going well but slow and there's not much banter and laughs when it's just you practising. I haven't got a job so to speak, well I have some work occasionally but it's not enough to call a job and the club night, which I'm excited about, has just taken loads longer than I thought. It's difficult to try and always write funny and interesting blogs to let people know what you're up to when it's not always DEAD GOOD and GOING GREAT like most people want their friends to think. I mean, alot of the time it is but obviously there are going to be shit days and today is defo pretty pooey. I miss my family and I miss Edda and I miss how easy it was when I lived in Liverpool but I know this will pass and tomorrow I may feel tonnes better so I'm going to sign off until tomorrow and write something ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS then.

However, I will write this before I go: I spent this morning chasing a Brazilian dancer around Berlin in the pissing down rain! In't life MAD!

Good Week

I just had probably one of the best weeks ever in the history of me. Starting in Trier and playing that gig I was on about in the last blog, then coming home to Berlin and playing again on Saturday night at what was defo the busiest gig for me yet. It's not saying that much really...I normally attract a crowd of approximately 25-30 people but on Saturday night, at Laika, there was probably about FIFTY! YEAH! I'm doing it!! I'm DOING it! I enjoyed the gig so much, although my decision to knock a couple of songs out on the piano was almost certainly not my best ever decision but it was still fun and I enjoyed making loads of mistakes and ruining my own music. It was terrific amounts of fun and I hope to play more like that.

Yesterday, a little bit fuzzy in the head from over celebrating after the show, I went to the Blarney in Kreuzberg to watch Liverpool F.C. demolish Chelsea. I'm proper gay for Torres - sometimes, if you see his face on a flag and you see the flag from behind, it's easy to mistake him for a fit girl so it's not that weird.

On the way home I stopped off at a Vietnamese takeaway place and brought home some tucker for me and Edda and it was just boss! Looked a bit iffy from the outside but I still took a chance and the rewards were delicious.

Just a mega weekend.

I'm cracking on today with recording the first Silent Sleep E.P. which will just be a series of demoes of new songs that I'll record in my flat.

I'm going to Liverpool on Thursday to play a gig for Toria Buzza's birthday party which will be amazing mostly just because I'll be seeing all my best friends all at once in the same place having fun times.

I'm almost halfway through reading 'The Complete Works of Reginald Perrin' which my friend Claire Heaslip gave me as a leaving present and I think, after the Adrian Mole books, it's my favourite ever thing. I've just finished reading 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' which is also excellent but made me feel really uncomfortable and a bit awkward the whole way through and I was relieved when I finished it.

That's it.

a little hiya aus Trier Exhaus

I'm in Trier right now at an internet cafe next door to the Exhaus, which I've just realised, after 6 years of coming here to play, that it's actually called the 'Excellenzhaus'! I'm no german but I reckon that means 'House of Excellence' in English. I got to Trier last night after a delayed flight from Berlin and I realised that since the last Ryanair flight I took, which nearly freakin' crashed upon landing, that I'm now terrified of landing. This one was fine but the last 30 seconds before we hit the ground I was gripped with fear.

My head stinks. I've had my big dear stalker hat on for hours now because I refuse to take it off in public once it's gone on. The hat smells a bit wrong now because of this mad rule I've bestowed upon myself.

I just soundchecked and I think it sounds really good...I'm using Alex's lovely telecaster instead of the usual acoustic and it sounds dead sparkly and crisp and different. Infact it sounds exactly like Billy Bragg's guitar does which is gonna be weird when I cover St. Swithen's day later - I'll have to try and sing it differently. An octave higher maybe? Like a young girl. Or me when I was 7 singing 'We're walking in the air' or whatever it was called off The Snowman. I used to have a brown Fisher-Price tape recorder, probably like most kids my age then, and I captured many a glorious moment on it. From that song, which I remember recording, walking around the house in Hartsbourne Avenue, to a recording of The Clash's 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' which I was obssessed by even at that age due to the fact it was on that Levi's commercial at the time. It consisted of one of the preset drum beats and one finger on the dirtiest sound the keyboard had (probably something like harpsichord) doing the chord bits. Oh yeah and me singing like a posh girl over the top of it. I even hit the '16ths' drum pattern in the should i stay or should i go now bits. I brought it into school on the Monday too and showed everyone.

Marius and Hanso have been cooking up some delicious vegetarian tucker nextdoor so I'm going to go and eat that now and then play the show. I'm really nervous - this is the first gig I've ever done where I haven't got anyone else with me, no band, no girlfriend etc. I'm 29 years old so I know that's totally stupid, but I am all the same.

birthday vizitz

Last week was my birthday and I had some visitors in the form of my family. My mum, Mike and my brother and sister Josh and Chandre came over to Berlin to visit little old me on my birthday. It was dead nice too! I haven't really seen them properly since I came here - when I went home in the summer I mostly spent the time staying at friends' houses and it was especially nice because my mum and Chandre and Josh had never been to Berlin before. We had a super-cool time and did all the usual sightseeing and what have you and then on the evening of my birthday we met up with Rolf, Edda's dad, who came all the way from sleepy Saerbeck to big, crazy Berlin. We had an absolutely delicious meal at a restaurant called Kirk Royal which is just on the bridge over the canal that links Kreuzberg to Neukolln. It's freakin' incredible. You should go. Twice. One of the things I loved most about it was the fact that they didn't force smokers outside to smoke in the freezing cold, au contraire!! You got to go in a dead amazing room downstairs under the restaurant with log fires and leather couches!! It was incredible! I well should have ordered myself a brandy and had a cigar.

It was dead sad when they left and my mum started crying, which is horrible to see. You don't wanna see your mum crying! It's too upsetting. Anyway, I felt really homesick over the next few days and it kind of sent me into a hole al through last week that I just couldn't get out of. At one point I think I lost the ability to speak at all - I just could not think of anything to say whatsoever...I don't know how Edda put up with it sometimes.

We're totally moved into the new flat now, too. It's boss, it really is nice. It's definitely the nicest flat I've ever lived in. Plus, I'm quietly proud of all my DIY achievements and whenever I go past the sink, I actually give it a little shuffle of acknowledgment and sometimes, when I just turn on the light switch, I have a little smug chuckle. That really happpens.

I'm getting into this playing alone lark too. I played at a place in Neukolln the other night and it was maybe the busiest gig I've played so far. I mean, it was still only about 30 people or so in a tiny little cafe (which, I think, used to be a butchers??) in Neukolln. Next week I'm going to fly to Trier to play with Geoff farina in the ex-haus. Feels dead extravagant.

I'm also going to start to record the Silent Sleep album next week. I don't know what it will turn out like, but I just want to get the songs down and out there and move on to either doing this 28 Costumes EP or the Hallo...I Love You! EP/Album. I have 10 Silent Sleep songs that I'm pretty pleased with, so for now I'll crack on with that and hopefully have it out by Jan/Feb.

Things I've been thinking about today.

1. This



2. This, which was my first ever Bicycle. It made mad space noises through a dead hi-tech computer and looked well MEAN.




3. This...if you move the video curser along to 7.33 and press play you'll be able to hear ol' macca making a right bonkers noise not too dissimilar to the noise a horse makes whilst grazing in a pleasant field on a balmy summer evening. With an Owl.



4. And finally this which is what I intend to end all the Liquidation Berlin nights on...

I thought I might D.I.e?

I played another gig seperate to the other one I did here in Berlin! That's 2 whole gigs now in nearly six months! I'm exhausted! I've got some more booked though so I'm really looking forward to them, especially as this last one was mega amounts of fun. I love playing really small places. I always did with 28 Costumes too...I love being able to talk with individual members of the audience and although it's a lot of fun playing in front of loads of people and obviously as a band you want to be playing to more people as opposed to less people, I still love those gigs. I filmed this particular gig just on my macbook and the quality of the footage and the sound is surprisingly swell so have a look below...I cut out the jibber-jabber between the songs as I think I spent more time telling rubbish stories and having banter than I did playing music. There was one song, a 28 Costumes song, that was interrupted by a fire alarm (I think?)...it's called Fraudulent. I'm going to try and get a residency here at this place 'cos it's so freaking ace. I've got another one here on Nov 16th but before that I'm off to Trier (flying, don't you know) to play with Geoff Farina who used to be in Karate. I had the chance to play with him before in Liverpool but I missed it and Graham did it on his own and Paul had to give him a lift to Liverpool airport after the show so it's mad that I'm doing it now.



Edda and I finally found a flat too last week! We're chuffed to bits like, it's really nice too, the communal hallways make it feel like a proper fancy hotel and the flat itself has such a long hallway. Seriously, it's about 9 metres long! It's got its own weather system. I've been doing some 'PROPER MAN D.I.Y.' there too, wiring in light fittings and what have you. I was genuinely scared that I was going to get really badly electrocuted all over the place. I have no experience of electrics (I got a G in my CDT GCSE - wow, that could be a lyric if I was a rapper) so I researched by scouring youtube for clips of people showing you how to do it. The best I could find was this so you might understand why I didn't feel that confident.



I'm full of cold and I feel crap. What did I do to deserve to be sick twice in the space of two weeks.

My mum and Mike and my brother and sister are coming to Berlin next week for my birthday! Hooray!