Friends

Today I saw for myself what various people had been telling me. Two episodes in and Hits of the the Near Future is now "new and noteworthy" according to the gods at iTunes. So why am I struggling to find enough quality in all the submissions I'm getting?

On a music/download theme listen in to tourdates.co.uk or rechargedradio.com tomorrow from 5pm. I have it on good authority "Christmas Started In October" is UK unsigned Christmas No.1!

Newsletter 118: 11-19 December is now up at anomaly_news

Does anyone have a YouTube link where Cutter said that the anamolies prove the past is real? I would like to quote it in a paper I am writing. Also, if someone can provide the timestamp in the episode... thanks!

Seeing as several other people I know on here have done this I thought I'd remind myself as how old I am with one of these...

2000: I was living in Haywards Heath up to August on work placement in Crawley for First Choice Holidays. I spent many weekends and some weeknights up in London watching bands made up of lunatic teenagers. I was also promoting Club Ego then Club Grrr Upstairs @ The Garage with my uni friend Kev. I returned to uni in Guildford in September and became Production Editor on the uni paper and co-hosted a lunchtime student radio show with Honey. I also holidayed in Ibiza all expenses paid courtesy of my employers and their 2wentys brand.

2001: I finished my degree and fronted disco-grunge "sensations" Aphasiac this year. We had a promo photo taken in front of my halls of residence which I still have on my hard disk. On reflection we were less than great and my vocals weren't exactly lead singer material. On the plus side I have recently re-used the better riffs and chord sequences in Hot Beds. Tom and Julia will forever sing Girls Don't Say Stop over Stop Forgiving. With a 2:1 in Psychology I spent an infamous 2 weeks doing work experience with Jonathan King at The Tip Sheet whilst he was on trial for touching teenage boys. Like all good graduates I then applied for lots of dream jobs and ended up temping all over Watford. I also started promoting Indiecent Exposure at The Verge. I was dating Meli at this point having met her at Reading Festival and hit on her with the unusual move of turning her upside down. Life was clearly simpler then. The last ever copy of (quirk) fanzine was printed, though there had been six month gaps between the last few issues. Its heyday was definitely 1996-98.

2002: I lived for a whole year in Watford working longer temp placements at the Redundancy Payments Office in Watford, then a finance company in Old Street. I got my "big break" with a placement with Warner Music this year and worked for virtually no money for six months. I got one interview out of it and I may have blown my chances by telling the MD of EastWest that my marketing strategy for the new Morcheeba album would be to put sample tracks on a cover CD for "...the Daily Mail or some other paper older people read who want music for their car or dinner party". I was commuting 4 hours a day for a travelcard and gig tickets. I didn't like many of Warner's bands and decided the industry was going to collapse in the face of MP3s anyway so we parted company that Christmas. Mel and I split up shortly after Christmas for many reasons.

2003: Back in the world of temping I was arranging for garage roofs to be fixed on behalf of Europcar and managing Japanese pop duo Yumi Yumi. I moved to Basildon in the summer to start a teaching course and struggled with behaviour management for the entire time. I turned out to be quite good at everything else however. Basildon, or Pitsea to be precise, was a dump with its best features being an enormous Tesco and a train station. I went into London a lot.

2004: I finished my course and took the first job offered to me with a primary school in Witham. I lived in Chelmsford for ease of travel into London and drove to and from work every day in my Fiesta and then a Micra. Mel and I reconnected after a long period of separation and set up Come Out 2nite! at the Purple Turtle. It started rockily and was only a live night this year with Electric Dreams inexplicably tagged on after 11.

2005: Despite having reservations about my location, my school and my general situation I stayed in Chelmsford for a second academic year and went into London every weekend for clubs and gigs. Come Out 2nite! got full nights and we made £1400 clear profit with Apartment on one of them. Something I doubt I'll ever better. I met Carla through the wonders of the internet and had my first proper girlfriend since Meli. I formed Want Take Have with Mira (vocals), Tom (guitar) and Meli (keyboard, castanets and cowbell). Our first recordings are shocking.

2006: I finally moved to London and into what was charmingly referred to by everyone as "The Bail Hostel" and started teaching the Hackney youth. Want Take Have changed singers when Mira left to join The Duloks, first to the belting vocals of JoJo then to the Americanised twang of Jackie. Come Out 2nite! moved to Bar Monsta in November, not for being unprofitable but just not as profitable as the other weekend nights. I temporarily split with Carla and salvaged the relationship at the end of the year by getting drunk and proposing to her in a pub. In retrospect, possibly a bad move.

2007: I moved to a much better flat in Hackney and Carla moved in. Things slowly went sour, culminating in what will forever be known as "the night of the wrong" in October. I followed in my brother's footsteps of a failed engagement. Want Take Have split up when Jackie had to move to Dorset. Both these events inspired me to stop writing geeky britpop/nerdrock and start work on what ended up being the beginnings of Hot Beds. School continued to be a mix of psychotic year six children and the occasional good time. I was promoted to Science Co-ordinator. Come Out 2nite! imploded but I was soon back as Andy quirk presents, then Hits of the Near Future, at Catch and also Lark In The Park.

2008: Hits of the Near Future dropped Lark in the Park and ran two nights a month most of the year, with Catch partnered first with Bar Monsta (bad) and then Undersolo (really bad). I recruited Hannah through Myspace Music and formed Hot Beds. By the end of the year we'd had a Christmas No.2 with Frantic and been voted one podcast's track of the year. I went on a lot of dates but didn't actually go out with anyone. Work continued as in 2007.

2009: School improved markedly with my move to year five. Hits of the Near Future became a podcast. Hot Beds lost Hannah 24 hours before the album launch at Cafe De Paris in August and Lena joined a week later. We played a gig two weeks after that. A UK Unsigned No.1 followed the next month. I had brief but real relationships with both a burlesque dancer and a high ranking civil servant. I turned 30 and was thrown an amazing surprise party. I have been busy!

The lineup this time was smaller than usual, with only seven people due to various reasons, weddings, being on tour, being at festivals.

This gig got of an excellent start due to me breaking a string during the first song.

This was bound to happen eventually as I hadn't changed them since I bought the guitar two or three years ago.

The reason for not changing them is because the guitar has a thing on it called a "Bigsby Wobble Bar" which looks very cool, but I never use, and it makes changing strings a fiddly nightmare.

The other thing about guitars with "Bigsby Wobble Bars" is that as soon as one string breaks, all the others go MASSIVELY out of tune.

After attempting the second song with the guitar out of tune, it was wisely suggested that I swap guitar with Dave, one of the lead guitar players, as you can play lead on a massively out of tune quite easily just by bending strings and playing notes in the wrong place.

After swapping, things got much better.

Johnny, who was playing drums, had never heard any of the songs before, which led to me playing "Two Of The Beatles" at double speed, and one of the others at half speed, but really I think he did an amazing job, even the bits where he forgot to play were good :-)

There was a lot of swirly bending guitar solos ( I think I couldn't really hear anything on stage) and even some sort of fancy bass playing from David which was great even if it went against my long held belief that all bass guitars should only have two strings and five frets :-)

Because it was the Guided Missile Christmas Party, I decided to do Lonely This Christmas by Mud, as it's the only Christmas song I know how to play.

I simplified the chords to make it easier for the rest of the band, and even managed to remember most of the speech in the middle :-)

Also because it was a christmas song, I got to wear my black santa hat with Bah Humbug written on the front :-)

There's a video somewhere, filmed by pro film maker Aug Stone, which I'm told has some spinning camera shots involved. But until then, have a photo.



Afterwards, when I was asking people how it sounded, the most popular answer was "Very loud" :-)

Quite a lot of people came up to me to say they enjoyed it, which is always good :-)

All in all, an excellent night, even if I did manage to come home with a ladies red coat instead of my crushed velvet jacket, but it's still at the Buffalo Bar, so that's ok :-)

Line Up
---------------
Me - Guitar and Singing
Simon Indelicate - Guitar
David NRF - Bass Guitar
Dave Fade - Guitar and Singing
Micky Ciccone - Guitar
Julia Indelicate - Clarinet
Johnny MeMyHead - Making up drum beats.

Newsletter 117: 5 - 11 December is now up at anomaly_news.
Sorry it's early, I'm not going to have computer access tomorrow morning.

I came home to find my flat had been burgled, pretty fucking horrible. Goodbye wii, dvd player and laptop - hello upside down bed and ransacked bedroom. Everyone has been amazing offering me places to stay but weirdly the last thing I want to do is leave the house.

yes, Severus Snape. i think he would tell me to quit whining and being pathetic and just suck it up and shut up about it. he can live in emotional pain for decades, why should a year of shit make me wallow like a pathetic little bitch?

ah, Severus. i do love you so. and that actually made me feel better, go figure!

also, i seem to be totally rooting for Elena/Stefan, despite my earlier postulations about insta-romances and my general dislike of hetero love on television/in movies. how progressive and adult of me! i would, however, still like to see Stefan with someone more MALE. but not Damon. have come to the conclusion that they have about zero chemistry, Damon is obviously fucked up and not even in a fun way, and Stefan needs a human counterpart. ALSO, Jeremy and Tyler would make a cute couple.

as always, new entries up at my blog.

summering in our crack den back yard.






i got my lip tattooed again since it came out twice. you can see it on my twittaz


www.twitter.com/lizbebz

dirty three
@ <sub>queen elizabeth hall, london



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In the absence of actual content (or tiresome self-despairing emo), have a list! These are where I'd do all my Wobsmas shopping if I weren't actually likely to spend all my money on books for myself. Er, like I did the other weekend.

They're practically all within walking distance of my office. So don't get me wrong, local bookshops are great, and I'd generally prefer them if I were living near one (Review in Peckham is my closest, and it's nice, but tiny). Pages in Lower Clapton, or Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, or Joseph's in Temple Fortune, or Owl Bookshop in Kilburn, or the one in Stoke Newington &c &c &c, but the ones listed below are all ones which are somewhat more comprehensive.

My Favourite London Bookshops (not second-hand)

1. John Sandoe Books (10 Blacklands Terrace, SW3 2SP, website). Okay, this place is lovely and is exactly the kind of thing I'd want as my local bookshop. Sadly it is only a local bookshop for incredibly rich people what can afford to live in Chelsea, and you will overhear quite a few of them with their plummy accents pop by and have a natter with the shop assistants at any given time you might visit. But this is lovely because it is what a bookshop should be. There are piles of books everywhere. The fiction upstairs is on shelves, but in front of them are two more layers of shelves on little rails which you have to heft aside to get to the books behind. Then there are further piles on every surface. The stairs are so narrow I'd be surprised there weren't serious accidents on a regular basis (esp going down to the children's section; poetry is also downstairs, of which they have a huge amount), but they've still managed to cram piles of books along the side of them. And they don't stock any marketing or business books whatsofvckingever.

2. London Review Bookshop (14 Bury Place, WC1A 2JL, website). If you want to find a novel by a slightly obscure writer who just isn't stocked anywhere else, this is the first place to look, generally. If you want to come across something random that's cool, come here too. If you want coffee and a cake, also v good. If you don't want to spend all your money, don't come here.

3. Daunt Books (83 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QW, website). There are a few branches of this one, but the one on Marylebone High St is the one to go to. Aside from the extensive selection, they also have a huge multi-level space out the back where fiction, non-fiction, travel and maps are organised by country. It's great. Also friendly.

4. Foyle's (113-119 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0EB, website). Oh, you all know Foyle's, come on. Their smaller branches are kinda beside the point, though the one on the South Bank can be useful since there's very little else to do there except eat food, but they stock a lot.

5. Stanford's (12-14 Long Acre, WC2E 9LP, website). My interest in this one is not really technically the books, it's the maps. Obviously. The many many many lovely maps. Maps. Mmmm, maps. Especially the ones in the basement (London).

Feel free to hit me up with your own favourites.