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It's amazing my spinal column still works as well as it does, viz, merely grimacing a little on standing up and avoiding bending over things if I remember to.
It all started on Friday. Well, it sort of all started on Thursday, when we went to see some regrettably mediocre bands at the Underworld and got bored and went to a bar in central London instead and then I was late in on the slow train so overslept for uni in the morning, so when I got into the room which is a bit too small to hold all of us I spent the session sitting on the floor. Then after work I carried a large amount of drumming gear up to Debz's and left it there. That gave me a peculiar sense of liberation - no specific target for the next 21 hours other than to be back in New Cross at 5pm to collect it and head for the gig, and in the meantime, at large in London. So I went to meet a bunch of spods in Greenwich, and some of us then headed to B-Movie via the Ghost Train (well, the amusingly jerky DLR, which feels like it ought to have tinny sound effects when it goes careering down the sharper slopes into the dark) and I danced like a fool to the alternative equivalent of Disco Hits. There was a cover, Jon confirms it exists so I wasn't just imagining it, of Metallica's Enter Sandman. By Motorhead. The music part is quite faithful to the original but with it being distinctly Lemmy and not James Hetfield singing; this is a massive improvement and I propose the Lemmy version as the only acceptable one from now on. But I danced to all sorts of trash, and energetically, so the back got a good workout. I got an offer I couldn't refuse from skorpion and dakeyras, that is, a floor to sleep on, so I went back to theirs and did that. That probably wasn't the most recuperative night my back's ever had, anyway.
I got up in the morning and ate a fried breakfast that couldn't be beat and set off to London to make my fortune. Or, well, wander round the Tate Modern for a short while, determine that I'm really rather disappointed with the Rachel Whiteread thingy in the Turbine Hall (it's too.. human scale. For those of us that have ever worked in warehouses, big stacks of boxes like that look too prosaic, just work to be done. Not a good use of the possibilities at all.) and then head over to a bench outside St. Paul's to do some thinking about my design project (fruitful, as it turns out) and get very cold before noticing it. The resulting shivery hunchedness will have done little good.
I went to Debz's and resumed the load, and headed off to Lewisham for the gig. The promoters hadn't realised their gig was on the day of an England match in a pub with a big screen TV. The all-dayer had to have a strange gap in the middle of it, so we'd arrived early enough to see the two bands on before us, who were difficult to describe, really. The Bee Stings in particular gave a sense of coming from a very different musical place to me, and also of being quite pleased with where they'd got to with it. Getting close enough to listen on their terms, I expect it'd be quite good, but from any distance it was not at all what I was looking for.
When they finished they took two thirds of the drum kit with them, in fact leaving only three shells. Me and the soundman ran round finding a full set of stands and pedals and stool and got it all working again pretty quickly but the tallest stool I could find was a small bar stool and still not really big enough. As Punch Judy gigs go it was a bit messy, if still fun, but we can certainly do better than that.
Happily by this time I had a Jon to help me carry things. I really enjoyed drumming that night, the physicality of it was timely but using a stool that low had done little for my back. After a fair walk back to Lewisham we took the Ghost Train again, and I was too fed up of being sober so overrode Jon and left us walking the wrong way to the pub we were going to; when I realised I'd got it wrong he got us back on the right track, but that was still more carrying distance than was necessary. After a brief call at Abi's birthday do, we were off again to a club by the name of Road To Ruin.
It's a late-night drinking club, in effect, with a stoner/doom soundtrack and the occasional live band. This month's were Koresh and were interesting in that the only bands in this genre I normally see are the relatively successful ones. It was interesting to see a half-way sort of band, one with some ideas but not the tightest presentation of them I've ever seen. Made me, predictably, want to do it myself as there was nothing there I couldn't have done off the top of my head excpet the screamo vocals. The rest of the night was an odd one. There's precious little space down there and it was all Very Loud - I'm glad I had I had earplugs - but then most of the DJing was being done by Ben Ward of Orange Goblin. I danced, again, even though there was only room for about five people to do that at once, but if they're going to play Clutch's Soapmakers amongst others I don't see as how I have much choice.
That ended late enough that we had just a comfortable (apart from all the heavy stuff)(incidentally I'm always amused by the way bouncers search my drumming gear if I go into clubs with it; bouncer's searches are always proportional to the size of the lugagge being checked. The 50% they don't check in a small backpack isn't much, but the 50% they don't check in a cymbal bag could contain just about anything.) length of time to get to Victoria for the first train back to Brighton, the 4am. All very well but at Three Bridges it turned into a bus. I kipped for half the train journey and almost all of the bus journey, thanks not least to Jon holding me up, but you can imagine being slumped sideways in a freezing bus wasn't the best thing ever.
So we got to bed at a little after 6 and didn't get out of it again til 5 in the afternoon, that was fun. After a very large curry I put the bag on again and went out to Portslade for another practice... And there was more walking with heavy shite and long waits on freezing platforms and all in all, as I say, I'm quite glad my spinal column still works as well as it does.
It all started on Friday. Well, it sort of all started on Thursday, when we went to see some regrettably mediocre bands at the Underworld and got bored and went to a bar in central London instead and then I was late in on the slow train so overslept for uni in the morning, so when I got into the room which is a bit too small to hold all of us I spent the session sitting on the floor. Then after work I carried a large amount of drumming gear up to Debz's and left it there. That gave me a peculiar sense of liberation - no specific target for the next 21 hours other than to be back in New Cross at 5pm to collect it and head for the gig, and in the meantime, at large in London. So I went to meet a bunch of spods in Greenwich, and some of us then headed to B-Movie via the Ghost Train (well, the amusingly jerky DLR, which feels like it ought to have tinny sound effects when it goes careering down the sharper slopes into the dark) and I danced like a fool to the alternative equivalent of Disco Hits. There was a cover, Jon confirms it exists so I wasn't just imagining it, of Metallica's Enter Sandman. By Motorhead. The music part is quite faithful to the original but with it being distinctly Lemmy and not James Hetfield singing; this is a massive improvement and I propose the Lemmy version as the only acceptable one from now on. But I danced to all sorts of trash, and energetically, so the back got a good workout. I got an offer I couldn't refuse from skorpion and dakeyras, that is, a floor to sleep on, so I went back to theirs and did that. That probably wasn't the most recuperative night my back's ever had, anyway.
I got up in the morning and ate a fried breakfast that couldn't be beat and set off to London to make my fortune. Or, well, wander round the Tate Modern for a short while, determine that I'm really rather disappointed with the Rachel Whiteread thingy in the Turbine Hall (it's too.. human scale. For those of us that have ever worked in warehouses, big stacks of boxes like that look too prosaic, just work to be done. Not a good use of the possibilities at all.) and then head over to a bench outside St. Paul's to do some thinking about my design project (fruitful, as it turns out) and get very cold before noticing it. The resulting shivery hunchedness will have done little good.
I went to Debz's and resumed the load, and headed off to Lewisham for the gig. The promoters hadn't realised their gig was on the day of an England match in a pub with a big screen TV. The all-dayer had to have a strange gap in the middle of it, so we'd arrived early enough to see the two bands on before us, who were difficult to describe, really. The Bee Stings in particular gave a sense of coming from a very different musical place to me, and also of being quite pleased with where they'd got to with it. Getting close enough to listen on their terms, I expect it'd be quite good, but from any distance it was not at all what I was looking for.
When they finished they took two thirds of the drum kit with them, in fact leaving only three shells. Me and the soundman ran round finding a full set of stands and pedals and stool and got it all working again pretty quickly but the tallest stool I could find was a small bar stool and still not really big enough. As Punch Judy gigs go it was a bit messy, if still fun, but we can certainly do better than that.
Happily by this time I had a Jon to help me carry things. I really enjoyed drumming that night, the physicality of it was timely but using a stool that low had done little for my back. After a fair walk back to Lewisham we took the Ghost Train again, and I was too fed up of being sober so overrode Jon and left us walking the wrong way to the pub we were going to; when I realised I'd got it wrong he got us back on the right track, but that was still more carrying distance than was necessary. After a brief call at Abi's birthday do, we were off again to a club by the name of Road To Ruin.
It's a late-night drinking club, in effect, with a stoner/doom soundtrack and the occasional live band. This month's were Koresh and were interesting in that the only bands in this genre I normally see are the relatively successful ones. It was interesting to see a half-way sort of band, one with some ideas but not the tightest presentation of them I've ever seen. Made me, predictably, want to do it myself as there was nothing there I couldn't have done off the top of my head excpet the screamo vocals. The rest of the night was an odd one. There's precious little space down there and it was all Very Loud - I'm glad I had I had earplugs - but then most of the DJing was being done by Ben Ward of Orange Goblin. I danced, again, even though there was only room for about five people to do that at once, but if they're going to play Clutch's Soapmakers amongst others I don't see as how I have much choice.
That ended late enough that we had just a comfortable (apart from all the heavy stuff)(incidentally I'm always amused by the way bouncers search my drumming gear if I go into clubs with it; bouncer's searches are always proportional to the size of the lugagge being checked. The 50% they don't check in a small backpack isn't much, but the 50% they don't check in a cymbal bag could contain just about anything.) length of time to get to Victoria for the first train back to Brighton, the 4am. All very well but at Three Bridges it turned into a bus. I kipped for half the train journey and almost all of the bus journey, thanks not least to Jon holding me up, but you can imagine being slumped sideways in a freezing bus wasn't the best thing ever.
So we got to bed at a little after 6 and didn't get out of it again til 5 in the afternoon, that was fun. After a very large curry I put the bag on again and went out to Portslade for another practice... And there was more walking with heavy shite and long waits on freezing platforms and all in all, as I say, I'm quite glad my spinal column still works as well as it does.