July

Well July has popped up a bit quick, hasn't it? I kind of wish it hadn't, ideally we'd still be in early June by now and I can pause for breath, but instead I'm looking at a to-do list for the week and quickly realising that a lot of the things on there take more than a week to actually do. Such as, 'write solo show' - it opens a month today in sunny Edinburgh. No, actually - it opens 3 days before that in an 'invite only' Cambridge show. Not written a word of it yet, but in my head it's pretty clear - and in my scrawling notes I have enough content to write two shows. Now there's a thought...no, stop it. And that's my problem, see, I just get a bit carried away.

Anyway, July is an important month for me - it's the month before the Edinburgh Fringe and there's still so much to do - I've got 3 shows going up there as you know ('Some Plays By Paul Richards' with Hind - that one is tried and tested and will work, 'Redundancy Club' with Izzy - which is the best script I've written in years, rehearsals are perhaps a tad behind schedule at the moment but at least we are actually rehearsing it, and the solo show - which excites and scares the shit out of me in equal measures), flyers need to be designed and printed, press releases need to be written, preview dates need to be publicised - thank god our accommodation is sorted, and that's purely down to the fact that I wasn't left to deal with it and Izzy took charge.

Edinburgh shows aside, this Saturday it's probably the biggest gig of my career as a drummer. The latest Dowsing event will see The Dowsing Sound Collective perform at Ely Cathedral. There's now 110 singers in the choir, I was a bit slack in one or two of the rehearsals recently and really had to raise my game to get back up to scratch, but the dress rehearsal was superb. The set is also superb. It's a complex mix, it's in a huge cathedral - in terms of size this is perhaps not my biggest gig, but in terms of importance I feel like it is. Every Dowsing gig feels like a cup final, this could be my last cup final, we'll see - I've got a lot on my mind at the moment about what I want to do and where I want to be, but this gig on Saturday is - in simple terms, fucking huge.

I've not long got back from rehearsing with a band called Fred's House, I've been recording with them recently and on Monday I'm playing live with them for the first time. More learning then - learning my lines for the fringe show, continually learning my parts for Dowsing...but with Fred's House I can't stress how much pleasure I've been having in learning these songs - I was sent the mp3's and sat at my little desk all day listening to them...it's a bit of a treat. The rehearsal tonight was great, they're lovely people but also incredibly hard working, intense infact, and I like this a lot.

I've also got gigs with Flaming June, The British IBM and Eureka Stockade this month, a fine selection of festival dates included in those, most of which are around the time all three fringe shows preview. And I'm also moving house at the end of the month, days before the Edinburgh Fringe. July feels like an important month - if I do everything right - if I get everything right on Saturday night, if I write the best solo show ever and nail the other two, the rest of my year should see me leap forwards with confidence and swagger. And if I don't? Well, I'll be sure to blog about it, at least.