Saturday 26 January 2008

Crud

I always mean to write in here about the times when I feel rubbish and uncreative. But when I feel like that I tend not to feel like writing. I tend not to feel like doing anything, really, but sleeping and waiting until I feel better. When I feel uncreative I usually feel depressed, and vice versa.

Recently I have been feeling pretty uncreative a lot of the time - since Monday at least, and I think probably a lot longer. I have made no progress on any Bumblebees songs, and I have completed abandoned the Rescue Aid Society EP I was working on. I want to start that again because I never get tired with the
idea of putting out music. I just get frustrated with trying to make it. The Bumblebees stuff is quite important, cos we have a gig in a month and we really want new songs. Some of the current ones are just embarrassing. But the only ideas I have are reworkings of old ideas, and I can't even finish them. I feel like I am not creative at all.

Sometimes I think that I am just an assortment of other peoples' personalities, and that I don't have the potential to think up anything new at all. Most of the songs I write just sound like whatever I've been listening to lately. I think some people see the world in a unique way, and I don't think I am one of those people. (Here is the time to say that THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION is a really fantastic book that made me think about lots of things.)

Making music is something, maybe the only thing, that I can get absolutely lost in. I know I have a passion for music. I feel like one of those desperate failures on X-Factor who simply won't believe that they are not god's gift to pop music. Do you think they know, in the back of their minds, that in this instance Simon Cowell is probably in a better position to judge? I feel like if I were on a reality show, families would be shouting "GIVE UP!" in unison at their screens.

I'm sure not all musicians have a consistently inspired worldview. I'm sure some are just grafters; the musical equivalent of, say, Kevin Kilbane. People who wrote really good (and possibly very distinctive) songs by emulating songs they liked. Super Furry Animals or something. But Super Furry Animals never made me want to explode, and they never made me want to cry. Making a career out of decent power-pop is definitely better than filling envelopes, but I don't think I would ever be happy with myself.

I'll probably feel better soon, I usually do.

Tuesday 22 January 2008

Custard Lovely Custard

The Bumblebees did our second gig ever on Monday, and it was alright. I'm getting a bit bored of having nothing very exciting to write about our gigs, which leads me to the possible conclusion that our gigs aren't very exciting. It was quite short notice because The Lauras were meant to be playing but Oli went on holiday instead so Bert said us 'Bees should do it, and Dean (promoter) said that was fine.

We played, lucky for us, with the mighty Jelas, Chipping Sodbury's finest deconstructivist power trio, who are not only brilliant, but really nice. They brought us a keyboard stand! They don't even have a keyboardist! They did a really good set, better than last time I saw them. I was quite jealous. JELA-ous. Yeah?

Despite not exactly setting the place alight, we got through all our songs without dying and I didn't say anything horrendously embarrassing between the tunes. I think I get into singing a bit too much, but I can't really help it. It just seems like it matters a lot.... maybe it doesn't. But it felt like a proper beginning for us, a more 'real' gig than the Oxford one. We're going to do some new songs (because I feel a bit embarrassed by some of them) and then start gigging pretty much anywhere we can.

I've been sleeping quite badly recently.

Monday 21 January 2008

Don't Call It A Comeback

I didn't write here for a bit because I wanted to do other stuff. Mainly I didn't get round to doing anything other than eating, sleeping and talking. So here I am back with my tail between my legs. Christmas was quite fun, New Year's was rather dull, nothing mind-blowingly fantastic to report.

But other than WASTING it, here is what I've been doing with my time:-

APPLYING FOR UNIVERSITY. I decided to apply at the last minute, mainly because I thought I might end up regretting it if I didn't, and decided I want to go in a few months time. But now I've finished applying I'm actually getting quite excited at the thought of it. A new city, new friend(s?), new clothes! I've been waiting to re-invent myself since I was about eleven. I am taking English Language and Literature. I will probably not be at a particularly good university, but that is because I am not very good at learning. Mostly I want to go to Manchester, I think.

PRACTICING FOR THE BUMBLEBEES GIG. We have a gig on Monday at The Croft, at about a week's notice. It was meant to be a Lauras gig but someone (who I won't name but whose name is Oli) booked holiday without knowing or remembering that we were meant to be playing... So Bert suggested the Bumblebees step in and so we are going to. It's not the ideal way to play our first Bristol gig (we wanted to write a few new songs for one thing - a couple of them I am just EMBARRASSED by) but it will help expel nerves and it's better than staying in on a Monday evening. We made a myspace as well, it's
here.

TRYING TO MAKE SONGS. This is the thing that has taken the most time, and the thing I've made the least progress with. I have done about three songs, none of which I am really taken with, but I think I am beyond the stage of wanting to like my songs. I am just going to finish what I told myself I would finish and then 'release' it. I think I am going to release it properly, as in send it to places that will review it and to places that might play it. This means organising myself properly and trying to think, at least slightly, in a business mindset. (Not in the "all very good, but will it SELL?" sense, but just keeping track of how much money I'm losing.) This excites me quite a lot because
as previously mentioned, I have always wanted to start a record label. So that's all been planned a bit, which I will write about another time.

Anyway it seems like all I've done in the last month is let my writing DETERIORATE so I'll leave it here for now. If you happen to be reading this before the Bumblebees gig, please come. Thanks.