Well that was nice. A couple days ago, that is. After all the manic running around of trying to keep my various projects up to scratch and feeling frustrated along the way (life at the moment seems to be endless rehearsals and admin, when I really need to be playing more gigs and actually sitting down and writing properly, not grabbing the odd half an hour here and there to try and bash out a 'masterpiece') I took my girlfriend, Juliette, away for her birthday. There were several reasons why I felt like making an extra effort this time round; for starters it was her 25th birthday, which as a number looks important, another being that she's been pretty down recently, and another being that I'm probably pretty difficult to go out with - let's be honest, I barely see her, let alone have the chance to show any kind of romantic side. So, with a bit of Google action, I planned a short tour of Pride & Prejudice film locations, because she loves that film/story/TV show, she does. First destination was Burleigh House in Stamford, before the long trip up to Derbyshire to see the gardens of Chatsworth House. Now, I'm not a connoisseur of these places normally, but those gardens were, simply, out of this world, the kind of place where you physically struggle to believe you are not in some kind of film set or some vivid dream where the world is just a bit nicer. After that we stayed in the Peak District, and the next day made the very long trip to Wiltshire to see Stourhead Gardens, which to be frank wasn't as good as Chatsworth, but as I say, I'm no connoisseur and the chances is are I could have just been knackered because, as much as I love my little Ford Fiesta, I'm not convinced the leg room sufficed for what was eventually over 15 hours worth of driving that weekend. Juliette seemed over the moon with every second of it, I thoroughly enjoyed myself too - and let's be honest, it was a treat for my loved one, I wasn't actually expecting to have fun myself. But I did - simply because it got me away. Away from staring at a screen, away from a dingy dark rehearsal room. We travelled across Great Britain, seeing the bits of our glorious country that are often ignored by the media purely because of their sheer beauty. England is a beautiful country, I had a reminder of that this weekend. Every country has it's lesser impressive areas but that could be said about anything (I live in a lovely little flat but Christ, my bathroom is disgusting sometimes), I feel fortunate to have breathed some of the good air that is often overlooked. I also have my Sat Nav to thank for this, for taking us on the occasional less than obvious route. On the way home we listened to radio recordings of Galton & Simpsons Playhouse, the short play of theirs, Impasse, is simply the greatest radio play I've heard in years, even though it was written in the 1960's.
Anyway, back down to the cracking on with attempting to achieve stuff. Got 2 play ideas out of the weekend, need to start finding the time to have nights in to work on them, or else this blog could purely end up being a series of rants from a writer who barely has the time to actually write. One of them is for this year's Christmas show - as previously mentioned last year's show was a creative highlight for me. As much as I said to Colin (Woodham, actor) on Friday night I think I've written enough for the characters of Alex & Buddy (Colin plays Alex), I've had a u-turn, now I've actually thought of a lovely plot for Alex. This Christmas, the character of Alex will be killed off, on stage, but not before there's a bit of a singalong and some nice festive touches. There's also the panto to work on, and of course the Christmas album which I'm working on with Alister Bunclark - the deadline for that (if we are to make a Christmas release date) is getting stupidly close and we're nowhere near done yet, but it's a challenge, I think we'll get there, even if it takes 24 hours in Half Ton Studios with a bottle of whiskey to help us along our way.
Meanwhile, I've signed London singer-songwriter Lu to my Cracking Tunes label, she's very good, do check her stuff out: www.myspace.com/luofficial - she can belt out a tune or two, and looking forward to releasing her Christmas single, at least she's got it recorded in time. At the end of the month we'll be recording the background music for my 'Clowns' audio musical around Kerry's pad, pretty much in the same way we recorded the Matt Corrall Band album, although with a bit more direction. I'm also going to be busy in the studio recording the Eureka Stockade album at the end of the month (well, my bits are being done then, the album will be ready about February time) as well as recording drum parts for Bryan Shore's album - Bryan's a great musician and friend who has been in lots of decent bands over the years (notably The Shivers) and will be interesting to see what we can do with this. Still a little lacking in the gig department though, although The Damsons have been rehearsing a fair bit lately (with our new smaller line-up, having lost a guitarist to artistic disagreements during the summer) so hopefully we'll be out there soonish...
Ah yes, and our Cabaret night, Jiggery Pokery Cabaret, has now been confirmed for a five week run, starting on Wednesday 11th November, expect all manner of messy craziness wrapped up in a heap known as entertainment. Personally, I can't wait.
Currently listening to: Okkervil River (yep, still), Julian Velard, Elvis Costello
Currently watching: This Life box set, Maid Marian and her Merry Men DVD, Peep Show
Currently reading: Tony Hancock: The Definitive Biography
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