The Christmas break has been lovely and extremely relaxing, with nothing too interesting happening. I did lose my locker key somewhere in the swimming pool at the Holborn Grange Hotel, and get extorted out of £15 by the receptionist, who couldn't really speak English, in order to get my clothes back. She pointed to the sign saying that there was a fine if you don't empty your locker by closing time and said "you must have seen it". I resisted pointing out that I hadn't deliberately made the key (which didn't have any kind of safety pin on it) fall out of my pocket, so while I was aware of the sign, it wasn't really a deterrent, and what's the point of the £1 locker deposit (that she tried to not give me back) if that isn't the deposit? But what can you do when you're standing dripping in your swimming trunks without your room key. The sushi in the restaurant on the ground floor is nice though (despite the difficulty in communicating with the non-English speaking staff), and we got upgraded to a king size room after the first one they gave us stank of cigarette smoke, so that was something.
Anyway, it was a pretty good year. I've been to Bournemouth (where I won at blackjack), Amsterdam (Anne Frank's house and the Van Gogh museum were both very moving), Las Vegas (I shot big guns, lost at blackjack and accidentally wandered onto the set of CSI), The Grand Canyon (wow), Barcelona (lots of Gaudi and lots of bands), Chicago, New York (what an amazing place - I had the biggest sandwich ever), New York again (at 18 hours' notice - it changed everything), New York again, Gothenburg, The End of the Road, New York again, and New York again. I did some good solo gigs, in particular the Wish You Were Here thing here, as well as supporting Erland and the Carnival and Chris T-T, and all of the Travis Waltons shows have been fun. The playing side of things seems to have dried up a bit in the last few months, but I've been having a very nice time.
Here's the traditional list of the bands I've seen (81 this year it seems), and whether they were shit or great: Sarah Jaffe, Midlake x2 (great, in particular the first one), Postdata, David Bazan (great), Hot Club de Paris, David Ford, The Pony Collaboration x2 (great), Chris T-T (great), Justin Grounds, National Snack (great), Tommygun (rubbish), Jeffrey Lewis x2 (lovely), Daniel Johnston (sad), The B of the Bang (great), The Dawn Chorus x2 (great), The Momeraths (great), Jesca Hoop, Erland and the Carnival, Jane Taylor, The Wave Pictures (great), The Fall, The XX, Wild Beasts, Broken Social Scene, Pavement x2 (great), Fuck Buttons, The New Pornographers, Scout Niblett (great), Ganglians (not good), Spoon, Here We Go Magic x2, Wilco x2 (GREAT), Marc Almond (quite something), The Pixies, Dr Dog, The Bundles, Built to Spill, Sunny Day Real Estate, Orbital, The Hold Steady x1 1/2 (GREAT), Kid Rock, Bon Jovi (GREAT), Christina Aguilera (for about 30 seconds), Regina Spektor (great, but sad), Wye Oak (great), Mark Kozelek (great), Dawn Landes x2, Justin Townes Earle, Josh Ritter x2 (great), Jens Lekman, Paul Weller (bleurgh), Wu Tang Clan, Local Natives, The National (let me down again), Iggy and The Stooges, LCD Soundsystem (great), Wilderness of Manitoba, Lonely the Brave, Wintersleep, Mumford and Sons (good live), Talib Kweli (great), Marina and the Diamonds (not as bad as you'd think), Daniel Norgren, Shearwater (GREAT), Steve Earle (great), Boo Hewerdine (great), Jake Cogan, Singing Adams x2 (great), John Grant, The Mountain Goats (GREAT), Modest Mouse, Deer Tick, The Unthanks (good), Iron and Wine (great), Yo La Tengo, Smoke Faeries, The Low Anthem, The Frames x2 (GREAT), The Loom, Anais Mitchell, Horse Feathers, Catherine AD, Dar Williams (great).
As far as resolutions go... I'm going to finish off that silly little CD I was on the verge of finishing all of last year as quickly as possible, probably by dropping the number of tracks to 6 due to the effort it'd take to produce the 7th song well enough, and then get on with the next one, which I'm actually a bit excited about. We'll see. I'm not sure how much I'll write here - it seems like as the music side of things peters out, there's less and less point in carrying on. We'll see. I have high hopes for being happy in 2011. Touch wood.