I'm generally one of those people that moans when I don't have much on, yet when I do pack my schedule with shows I concern myself with the amount of energy drinks I consume to get me through these projects. Generally though, I'm happy enough.
It's been a frantic couple of weeks. Two weekends ago we had the Edinburgh Fringe fundraiser at the Cornerhouse and as usual for such occasions I am flattered at the generosity of people; both those who contribute financially (we made a good few quid that night) and also those who performed for free to make it into a cracker of an evening. I somehow found myself playing in three bands that night, I feared that may have looked like some kind of ego enhancement but it honestly wasn't the case; I play in lots of bands, every now and then a few of them will appear on the same bill as each other. I drummed for the ever faboulous Eureka Stockade, my final show with The Lunar Pilots and my debut show with Rory Bullard (aka me and Kez bashing out a few numbers). Also on the night, Mr. Tom Tilbury opened the show for us with a fine set of original material, my old mucker Lu popped down from London to play some beautiful piano stuff, The Winter Kings confirmed their place as the best band in the region, award winning comic Andy Higson tickled us with his often blue humour, Rob from Eureka Stockade won the auction to have the Edinburgh show performed in his front room and Vicky, Rob from Eureka Stockade's girlfriend, won the auction to have Eureka Stockade perform in her house. All in all, great fun. Must organise a cabaret night soon, I like putting on shows...
Meanwhile, Edinburgh Fringe rehearsals have started, and boy have they started well...cracking cast (including new addition, the mighty Kev Wright who is to be narrator), a director who is in complete control and probably my most commercial script to date, I'm very excited about it all suddenly. Kerry and myself have started recording some Rory Bullard songs with the genius that is Alister Bunclark engineering/producing - Alister played keys in one of my many previous projects, Under The Streetlamp, and it's good to be working with him again, we do have so much fun and the banter makes the complexities of 'studio' recording so much easier. I've also played my final, final show for covers band Joe Public, this one in Ely, nice people, not a bad gig but I don't think I was exactly on fire that night, got through it though, and I've confirmed my place as 'drummer slut' by joining Cambridge pop/rock/soul originals band The Damsuns - I know realistically another band is probably not a good idea especially as I'm trying to cut down on the drumming commitments a little, but the opportunity to play at Secret Garden Party (headlined by Jarvis Cocker) was too good to not accept, and I really like Phil and Christina from the band as people so I think it'll be good to work with them. On the writing side of things I'm very happy that Essex group 'Destiny Of Theatre' want to produce my short comedy, 'Gone Midnight' for a radio production - it's just little things such as this that keep me going, just need to find time to work seriously on new material - 'Clown' is going to be an absolute winner, when I find time to finish it, and I'm also half way through writing more conventional stage plays, 'Honey, I've Been Really Struggling' and 'A Right Fidget.' Next weekend sees the premiere performance of our sketch show that I have co-written with Alan Morgan, 'I'll Drive Tonight, Darling', which, despite my initial reservations, is looking like a real winner, and tonight sees the first performance of my short piece, 'Mega Value Mickey' as part of WriteOn's 'MAD' season - it's the final night of the season today and it has all the hallmarks of a goodun. Ah yes, and I've got myself a new car, which is very expensive and I need to earn more money somehow, either as a writer or a musician - I'm out of my financial comfort zone, I could do with being back there at some point...
Yesterday was the day of Cambridge's most liberal, and biggest, music and arts festival, The Strawberry Fair. As Alan put it, the Strawberry Fair is "full of elderly stoned gypos eating chips" and whilst I can't really argue with those facts, I had a marvelous time. Okay, so there was some drawbacks; like carrying Kerry's fucking heavy organ across a field, twice, and me getting the times wrong for the Rory Bullard set so all of my friends actually arrived an hour after our performance, but our performance itself was one of much understated joy, if I may be so arrogant. Kez himself was in fine voice, the sound quality was brilliant, and those who did wonder in at the early time of 1pm were most complimentary, especially the elderly stoned gypo eating chips who shouted some nice words in our direction. By the time I was back in stage, this time with Eureka Stockade, three hours later, our tent was very busy and it was by far our best performance yet, helped by the fact the audience were just lovely. And I really, really enjoyed Vicky's party in the evening; okay so I drank far too much and accidentally stumbled into the wrong house after I'd walked Juliette back to her car which was a bit awkward, but it was just one of those really nice parties where the conversation is flowing and you just get the feeling that you could have a chat with any random person in the room, which I did with my slightly drunken slur. It's a lovely world, really.
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