Gigs, recording, challenges

It's been a fairly busy couple of weeks since I last updated this. The 'releasing a short story every day in July' thing has started well - you can check out all the videos so far here: https://www.youtube.com/JiggeryPokery100

It's odd, you know, releasing a short story every day because you feel like you're hassling people, every day, to watch you. Which is weird. I mean, it's nice if they do, I've put a lot of effort into writing these pieces, but at the same time - well, that's a lot of (continuous) Paul Richards, isn't it? I probably wouldn't watch me every day. Best perhaps to leave it a few days and watch a couple at a time. Or don't watch them at all, I'm not really expecting people to, I'm just happy to be writing new material again and quite chuffed that I've got the ideas for 31 new pieces.

I've been drumming a lot lately, which is obviously a great thing (for me). I've never been a fan of corporate gigs, but apart from that one the other gigs have been great fun - Begfest in Bedford in particular was an absolute treat in front of a brilliant audience.

Alongside my regular Fred's House stuff I've been working closely with The Dowsing Sound Collective; our big two shows at The Apex in Bury St Edmunds are next Sunday and well worth checking out because that choir are sounding awesome (and the band are gelling rather nicely too...). We played a shorter set yesterday at Parker's Piece in Cambridge; although it's always going to be difficult only having a 15 minute changeover from the previous act, especially when there was 90 singers yesterday and the band, we got through it and the crowds seemed to be really excited about what we're doing, which is nice. Ah yes, and last weekend I also laid down the drum parts for the new Prisoner of Mars record, which is sounding great, and very dancey - which is a bit of a departure for POM but it's going to be a decent LP I think, he writes good tunes, that man.

Performing solo comedy stuff really confuses me; some days I love it (Barnstaple, Leeds) other days - such as last night where I performed at an outdoor festival and really wasn't wooing that audience, it feels very lonely indeed up there. I guess theatre/comedy rarely works in a marquee at a music festival, I've never seen it work anyway (although apparently it does great at Latitude). It wasn't a bad show, and I get that people want to go and watch the band on the main stage, but it is demoralising when they leave your tent, you do feel like you haven't done enough to impress them. Still, it's all good practice I guess, and I met Ade Edmondson, who is another one of my heroes, so not all bad. Nearly ended up in Portsmouth on the way home due to a confusing diversion, but at least that gave me the opportunity to shout a bit. I'm doing the show in Camden tomorrow night, that's one that I've been looking forward to for a while...

I've had a couple evenings off (mostly due to gig cancellations) recently and it's been nice to socialise again, does feel like it's the calm before the storm though. I seem to be getting offers daily for new projects (everything from drumming jazz to writing the dialogue for a political comic strip), it's flattering but I need to be careful - this may have been a relatively calm week, but the fringe is alarmingly close all of a sudden, how did this happen?