Look East

Published on Thu 6 Sep 2007

You can tell it's nearly "back to school" time. At any given moment there are at least 3 TV channels showing adverts for head louse cures.

I seem to have virtually no spare time at the moment. I shouldn't really be writing this now, because I could kind of do with some sleep, but I'm going to be on the go all the way through until at least Monday night and I have things to record for posterity.

So... I was working pretty much every waking moment last week until I finally took the day off on Sunday. It says a lot about my life at the minute that I got quite excited when I realised that Tesco have started separating out the reduced meat from the rest of the reduced produce. Anyway, Dan came over on Sunday to do a bit more recording and have a Mario Super Strikers and Pizza Hut (why would they put it so, so close to my house?) marathon, and to point out how much less good Bryan Adams is than he even used to be. On Monday night Mike and I had a Mario Super Strikers marathon, and flew his remote control plane round the living room for a bit. I want to post a video of that, but I've not made it happen yet. I will. On Tuesday I went to watch United send Grays Athletic and their referee back to Essex with their tails between their legs and then went home for a Mario Super Strikers marathon. 

It's been 48 hours cold turkey on the Mario Super Strikers front now, because I went to Norwich yesterday to play at The Winelight Club. The evening didn't start off too auspiciously as I was accosted by a particularly cheeky beggar right outside the station, who guilted me into giving him a couple of quid (why is it always the highest value coin that comes out of your pocket when you're trying to make a show of only having small change?) and then, rather than being grateful, got angry that I wasn't about to give him more so I ended up having to shout at him. It still makes me a bit angry thinking about it. Then it transpired that rather than printing out a Google map with the venue marked on it, I'd printed out a google map with what Google regards as the centre of Norwich marked on it. On a road called Tombland. That is a good name for a road. Luckily I eventually found someone who knew vaguely where the place was, though I would still never have found it if someone else hadn't taken pity on me as I wandered folornly round the market square being too proud to ask again. It's funny how all the best gigs seem to start off with things going a bit wrong, and so it proved yesterday. The club has a slightly unusual format of 4 acts each doing 2 short sets (like the Kashmir Klub used to), which I think is a great idea because it means that even if the audience has only come to see one act, they have to sit through at least a bit of everybody. I suppose the audience might not think it's such a great idea. Tony who runs the club, and all the other acts were ever so friendly, and I really enjoyed watching them all too (which is pretty rare). And to top it all off I think I broke my (admittedly, not excatly stellar) CD selling record. I certainly had a pleasing amount of money in my pocket this morning. Good times. I meant to take some photos of the venue, but all I have are a load of a surprisngly convincing plastic palm tree that I think I may have got  bit obsessed with.

Set list: Edinburgh Alabaster, Watertight, Ball and Chain (I broke a string so curtailed it slightly). So Finally a Love Song, A Folly or a Fortress, The Easy Way Out, Soaked to the Skin.

Tony was good enough to let me stay over at his and we stayed up fairly late listening to music I'd not heard before (Tina Dico and someone Hayes stood out - I wish I could remember his first name) and trying to get his DVD player to play a "Thunder Live" DVD, and then trying to get it to eject a "Thunder Live" DVD, with no real success on either count. He has the world's most comfy sofa. It was like sleeping on air.

Tonight Hannah came over to do a bit of singing on 'Closure' and 'Losing Out to Bullethead'. They sound good to me now, and hopefully will still sound good tomorrow. My headphones, which have lasted much, much longer than any other headphones I've ever owned in terms of still playing music, have got a bit broken in terms of being an adjustable size, so we had to pad Hannah's head out with a rolled up wollen hat:

I'm supporting Tom Conway at The Portland tomorrow. A whole month without playing and then 2 gigs in 3 days. They're like buses. Or wasps. I really hope enough people come to make it worth his while.