Day 146

I have had a pretty cool last few days.

Sunday - Carousel at the Black Box. Excellent gig, loads of lovely people, both performing onstage and in the audience! I got to lead two songs and felt my contribution was really appreciated. There's nothing better than performing with musicians, especially in that relaxed, friendly environment. It's one of the few times where I forget all my nerves of performing in front of people, because I'm so engrossed in enjoying what other people are doing, listening to them and focusing on my response. A real pleasure.

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but basically Carousel is an improvisation gig, with a large group of musicians positioned around the audience. A musician is chosen to start off a piece, which is usually one of their own songs, or some sort of spare of the moment musical idea, and the others join in. When the song finds some sort of ending, another musician is chosen to lead and so on.

Monday - Some good progress made on ideas for the new monthly night Niall and I are organising in the city centre. Followed by the comedy night at the Pavilion. Ummm...
...Well it got me out of the house for a couple of hours.

Tuesday - Awesome fun at La Boca's open mic night, with Kaoss Pad vocal shenanigans and collaborating on totally improvised stuff with the very cool Rachel Austin.

Wednesday - QUBe practice, with some fun and games. Followed by a quite pleasing (and enriching) concert of original compositions by the students of Queen's School of Music. Some lovely pieces. The odd one or two seemed a bit shy or restrained and there was a piece that was badly out of tune, but overall I really enjoyed it. Plus it was free.

This was followed by some damn fine riffage and song writing with my good buddy Sean (from Lotion). Another band on the way? That'll make it about 6, I think.

Thursday - Another quite enriching day of hanging out, being very chilled, yet incredibly creative, making many interesting vocal recordings with the awesome Caroline Pugh at the Platform Art Gallery (very reverby), taking full advantage of our boxes of tricks and of course the space itself.

Then some nice burgers, fruit and general chilledness with another great friend.

Friday - Fragile Human Organs practice. A hard slog today, but good to get back on the ball with the live set up. Lots of dismantled stands, clamps and old drum kits(!)

Meanwhile all week I've been getting back into working on the sound for the animation series "Haven" by Crucible Pictures, with the new niceness of working from Paul's (the writer / director) office in the city centre. This is absolutely great and it is helping me get more structure in my week! Also, all week I thought I had lost my wee broadband dongle thing, but got it back again this evening, so that means I can start sending emails and apply for jobs from Paul's place too.

So more FHO practice tomorrow (when I get up after this night shift I'm doing right now of course) and then Hexxed practice on Sunday!

Said it before, but even moreso this week, it feels really good to be busy and to feel there is structure in my days and time to do the things my soul is crying out for.

Life is good.