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So I clearly don't do this blog anymore I suppose, but where you should read your words instead is at the NUMBER ONE MUSIC DIGEST

Game Salad

I'm actually making a real life computer game! I'm using a program called Gamesalad, which is just the right difficulty for me - it's not very difficult. The game is like a sort of Pong variation, but you're in the middle of the screen and you have to bat the dots back to the right colour, red, blue, green or yellow.

I'll put it up on here soon, or I'll make a special game website where I can rake the cash in. Seriously, it's gonna be stunning. I want to call it Space Apartheid, but it's not called that.

I need to decide what my dissertation is about. I think it's going to be about music, probably pop music because it's the best type.

In 2010 I am going to be....

1. In the Bumblebees
2. Doing alright at Uni
3. A football writer
4. A game designer
5. Better at roller-skating

Media Saturation

I've been going a bit weird, cos I'm home alone. I came to Oxford on Friday, and am on my own here til Thursday. For some reason I find that I need to be really surrounded, drowned in media - TV, internet, radio, books, games, audiobooks, usually all at once, or as many as possible. Mainly I have been playing the Wii whilst listening to a Carl Sagan audiobook, but I have also been on the internet whilst watching The Thick Of It, or reading a book with the TV on mute showing the World Indoor Bowls Championship.

It's actually not going so bad. I am just a bit scared that if there is a power cut I will go completely mental and hang myself with a power cord.

Plugged In

We've been recording at the Fire Station with Michal for the last three days. We got some stuff that hopefully sounds really good. Having Dan in the band makes everything a million times better. I feel like we're just right.

I think what was gonna be a single or EP will be an album now, and that feels just right. We re-recorded two from the old EP, but they're pretty different. Everything's more live with the drums now.

Being in band mode for a few days straight makes me really think it's all that matters, and it's had a good effect. It makes me wanna quit uni. And being on Local Kid makes it feel very real, like being in a proper band, and that is cool. Because Michal is a proper producer. There's a thing Nick Hornby says in Fever Pitch about being at big games and feeling like the world is waiting outside, listening to hear the final score. Which is kinda....weird to say in relation to us recording a few songs, but it's the same feeling of something exciting being created.

Astounding Poetry

Hi, I've got a new job at Holland & Barrett. It's something to do between stressing about real work, by which I mean uni, and being in a hotly-tipped indie band. It's good because I get discount off of food that I'd probably buy anyway. It's mainly friendly ladies that go in there. It makes me sad when they buy homeopathic stuff. Can I get sacked for saying that?

I've made a limerick:

There once was a man named Joyce
Who gave the city of Dublin a voice
He made it seem full
And sometimes dull
I like all his books they are nice

Admission

Oh, here's the thing, I didn't do my charity run that I was meant to in October. My mum drove me and Roz and Lib down to Portsmouth on the Saturday morning, we had to get up at 6. We got there just before ten, and the race started at half ten. On Sunday. I was twenty-four and a half hours early. We had a gig in Bristol Saturday night so we came back, and then I couldn't by any method get back to Portsmouth, not by train or coach or being driven by someone. It was shit

I have said that I'll do another one instead and this is true, but I have so much uni work that I think it will probably be next summer, which is really lame.

I got called a mong in the library the other day.

We played a gig yesterday in Birmingham and it was ace.

Currently reading Manhattan Transfer. S'alright, s'pretty good even

Working at well-known health food chain (Holland & Barrett)

Recording Bumblebees in January hopefully, it's taking us forever to get organised but itll be so incredibly worth it.

Go on

http://www.bmycharity.com/ellisrunsforpeta

Loads of Old Songs

I can see how people find this blog, like I mean what links people click to get here. Usually it's only read by my three or four friends but recently people having been coming here looking for new music. Which is weird cos I never ever really write about that.

Anyway here are five really great songs that I think are great and that readers here should check out by listening to.

Jennifer by RESCUE AID SOCIETY is cute powerpop that changes key a few times. I'm not very good at doing that normally so it makes me proud. I wrote it with The Lauras in mind, but Bert's songs were about a million times better.

The Stupidest Boy Alive by RESCUE AID SOCIETY is, or was, my attempt at a Timbaland production. I think it comes close in some ways, the fizzy synths, the kind of rollicking drums, massive overcompression, but far too twee and I don't shout "ey!" at any point.

Real Life by RESCUE AID SOCIETY is the best thing I have ever done, by a mile, and pretty much got me into uni. Dai, who I think is head of Arts at Brookes, said I sounded like Pete Burns. I couldn't convince him otherwise. God this song is so good. Where did those verse chords come from - heaven?

Right Right Now Now by RESCUE AID SOCIETY uses a Beastie Boys acapella and makes it amazing by putting my music underneath it. I did it probably a couple of months after the first Go! Team album came out, and then stuck the acapella on a bit later. I really think I could probably do this for a living...if I wanted to.

So When You Said by RESCUE AID SOCIETY is when me and Bert had this idea of getting loads of people to write songs every month and make it into some kind of club....or something. The first one was going to be about ghosts, so I did this one.

That's it. Oh and Don't Call It A Comeback by RESCUE AID SOCIETY is also great. With a guitar solo when you least expect it. It shocked me, anyway.

Every song by my favourite new band Rescue Aid Society is available here. They are all more than a year old because I don't have any ideas anymore. And I'm in a real band.

Football is Art

I had to do a composition in music yesterday. I did it based on the movements of the Argentinian football team during the build-up to their second goal against Serbia in the 2006 World Cup. I think it went down really well. Football is pretty much the best type of art. It's like jazz but doesn't make me feel sick.

My piece was partly inspired by Harrison Birtwistle, Morton Feldman, and Steve Reich, but mainly by this:



I'm really enjoying my second year so far. Mostly when I'm not studying I'm playing Mario Kart. But mostly I'm studying.

Mind And Senses Purified

There is a new ruling which might force manufacturers to limit the maximum volume on mp3 players. That is about time. Now I would like a similar law to limit volume at gigs and clubs. It's so annoying that like 90% of gigs (and 100% of clubs) are way too loud to be properly enjoyed, or even properly experienced. You miss basically all the stuff that isn't drums and bass. So drum'n'bass is safe.

Had my first day back at Brookes today and it turns out there is quite a bit of work to be getting on with. I think I have convinced myself that I want to get a first. Is that stupid? I think it might be. Maybe I should partially give up now. Roz is doing a Japanese module, and it is kinda making me want to learn it as well. Or it was until I found out they have three different alphabets.

Went to an 'I Heart 90's' night on Saturday.

Golden Egg

One more reason to download music illegally - James Blunt might lose his career.

Marking

Hrrm. The Pitchfork reviews of the Beatles re-issues didn't really do anything other than prove that rating music out of 10 is entirely pointless, and becomes even more arbritrary when give pretty much all of them a 10.0 - it's such a big statement thing, designed to attract attention. Numbers are for idiots. And they give Let It Be 9.1, despite them slagging it off all through the review. It's a crap album, that doesn't need/deserve deifying. It makes me annoyed a bit.

(And then they gave the Stone Roses album a 10! What a flippin joke.)

I went to Bestival on the weekend. It was pretty good. The best band I saw was Kraftwerk. They were phenomenal. The next best was Dirty Projectors. The did a couple of new ones (I think) and the rest were from Bitte Orca. The harmonies are so incredible. It's like a different type of music. Wave Machine were also good.

Supermarche

I've had some really great experiences in supermarkets the last two days. It all began in ASDA. I was heading to the broccoli and I noticed there was a guy already there. He was the saddest, most forlorn-looking man I've ever seen. I wondered what could have brought such misery to this man. He seemed to be dressed okay, and was clean-shaven. I looked at the broccoli and it was all a bit mank. I picked some up and it wobbled and flopped. The man sighed.

"It doesn't look very good, does it?" he said. I think he meant the broccoli, but he could have been talking about the future of mankind, for all the despair in his eyes.

"No. I guess I'll leave it," I replied, and I walked away, leaving him there wimpering for all eternity.

---

Last night Jon and I were in Tesco Metro on a date, and a middle-aged guy with an army coat and a bad moustache somehow got inbetween us in the queue. We got talking somehow, I think it was because Jon had a Coke Zero, and the old guy was saying how it was all the same shit, just more expensive. Anyway I paid for my stuff, and as this guy was bagging his stuff he realised he forgot something.

"Crap! I forgot the biscuits! Aw, damn," he muttered.

"Would you like me to get them for you?" I offered.

"Oh, yeah, great. Just own-brand digestives, the big pack." And he pointed me towards where they were, right at the other end of the shop. So I ran to get them. And I ran back, and gave them to him.

"No!" he yelled, "not that kind! The big pack!"

"That's all they have!"

"No, go back and get the big ones." So I had to run back again, and check they didn't have the big type. And they didn't, cos I'm not stupid. But anyway this guy wouldn't believe me, and was really annoyed, and thought I was a complete retard, but wouldn't actually go and check for himself, and so it ended up with me basically shouting at him "I bet you any money they aren't there."

---

And then today I saw this incredible carrot:

Hunting: Against The Law But Not A Crime

I guess the only reason the BBC even mention this case is cos there's a quarter-celebrity involved (aging posh TV chef Clarissa Dickson-Wright) but it's pretty typical of how this stuff goes whenever it is brought to court. Hunting is kind of hard to prove in the first place, and what with the sad reputation that sabbers have the police, if they are even in attendance, are more concerned with keeping the peace than catching people breaking the law. It is pretty much only private prosecutions by animal welfare groups that actually get to court. In this case the hunters plead guilty, and were let off.

I dunno, to me the fact that these people were 'trying to stay within the law' is pretty irrelevant, but maybe that's because I am a bit into animal rights and think the whole thing is pretty barbaric regardless of whether it was technically illegal. My main point is that basically there's a big conspiracy because all judges are spoilt brats and all hunters are spoilt brats and they all go to a big Spoilt Brats Club and make sure that spoilt brats get to do whatever they want. But you already knew that. What other crime could you promote on a car sticker, like the 'I'm Still Fox Hunting' type ones you see around Oxfordshire? How many other crimes don't go on your criminal record? What other crimes can you openly, actively participate in, and not be convicted? Not flippin many, that's what! (the Crown Prosecution Service has said that only Hunt Masters can be convicted of hunting illegally, as members of the field are technically onlookers, while Nigel Yeo of the Association Of Chief Police Officers has said people with hunting convictions will not get a criminal record.)

Oh and check out the list of convicted foxhunters, and what they've actually been found guilty of. Nasty bunch...

Swung-By

We played Oxford on Wednesday, and London on Saturday. London was a really great alldayer. Trash Kit are my favourite band at the moment. We played a sort of mixed set with Michal and Lisa, playing two Corey O's songs (the closest I've come to seeing them live so far, sadly) and five or six of ours. Lisa played a drum pad thing [pictured], and I think it really suited us. We're gonna try it as a permanent thing, with our friend from Oxford playing it (but it's not really for sure yet so I can't say his/her name out loud).

Husbands were really good, Drunk Granny were great. It made me feel great about being on Local Kid. I wear my sticker with pride. Sometimes I think we don't fit in, because we aren't really very rocking, at all, but then most of the time I think that doesn't really matter, because we have other things in common. The best thing about our set was when Michal forgot his bit in My Kaleidoscope, and we stopped and looked at him. And then everyone clapped. And then Roz said "that's not the end", and then Michal played his bit and we finished the song.

Gross Overs

Anyway we played a gig on Sunday and it was okay. It was our first gig with just Roz and me, not including living room gigs and things. We played:

My Kaleidoscope
The Way
Internal World
Cool Science
Mysterious Guitar
Fluffy Clouds Of Joy

We played with this band Trash Kit and they were really good, their myspace doesn't do them justice right now. We spoke to the bassist and she was really nice, Michal said she used to be in Electrelane, which is cool, cos she seemed pretty much like a normal person. Some of our songs don't really work well with just the two of us, like Cool Science for one. It means I have to play guitar and sing for ages on my own, which is cringey. We have some new songs and hopefully in Oxford (Wheatsheaf, Wed 26th Aug) we'll be able to chop and change a bit.

In other news we had a practice with a drummer but nothing will come of it cos she is really busy. It was fun though, and we are looking to maybe try with some other people and see how it goes. If you know anyone....

In other news I've been listening to Perfect Fit by Clues a lot. Clues are a new band with Alden from The Unicorns in. I can't wait to have money to get the album.

In other news OH PLEASE DONT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8212110.stm

Jobsworth

Here are the things I have thought that I might be able to do for a living in my life:

1. Footballer
2. Musicker
3. Skateboarder
4. BMXer
5. Online Gambler/Poker Player
6. Some sort of vague online presence (I don't know, maybe writing a blog so good that people who don't know me will read it and click adverts)
7. Lecturer
8. Author
9. Game Designer
10. eBay Trader
11. Journalist/Critic
12. Chef/Restauranteur/Food Inventor (I have this idea for a vegan egg)
13. DJ (the radio type, not the Ibiza type)
14. T-Shirt Designer
15. Athlete (middle or long-distance running)
16. Gamer (I am pretty good at games that don't involve shooting or solving mysteries)
17. Charity Worker (the good kind, not the practically-molest-you-on-the-street kind)
18. Stand-up Comedian
19. Guitar Teacher
20. Some combination of all these things

Right now I am whittling it down to numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18 or 19. Or 20.

Practicing

Practicing is what we've been doing. I think until recently we had a ratio of about 1 practice:1 gig, but we are quite keen to be better than we have been. And it's actually fun now. I'm a big stupid loser for a million reasons and The Bumblebees is one thing I really think I have done in my life. There isn't really a thrill from playing old songs, like the ones on the EP, but doing new ones is amazing fun, and always worth the depression and stuff.