Good morning all, I say good morning because I’m sat in a coffee shop watching the world go by and preparing for the day. It’s 08:23 and my thoughts are finally starting to become a bit more coherent. I dropped my folks off at Liverpool Airport a couple of hours ago and now I’m killing some time waiting for an appointment. I realise 06:30 isn’t early for most people, many folks work at that time, but for a late-night-loving musician like myself it definitely is. I just put salt in my coffee instead of sugar, that says it all really. I’m testing out my “free” wi-fi allowance with The Cloud. I get access through my O2 mobile contract and I’m just praying it does prove to be free and not £10 a second like most of their deals.
It hasn’t been that long since my last update, certainly not a full week, but I wanted to get back on track. The frequency of blog posts in 2010 was disappointing. A New Year and a new start will hopefully see to that. I’ll start from last Thursday where I left off. I went over to band practice and we had an amazing night, I’m not just saying that. I’d been working on a new song called “Blood On The Windscreen” since before the gig, it’s about many the state of our country and the people running it. We had to prepare for the gig though so I kept the song in my back pocket for a while. I played the main riff and chord progression to Gary and by the time we got to the studio he’d already written a sweet bass line. It didn’t take Ross long to pick up the beat and we were soon jamming it out. It’s hard to describe the tune really. I envisioned it as a Pearl Jam type of affair in my head but it’s gotten more Led Zep or AC/DC as we’ve hammered on the riff. That’s not a bad thing at all. I’m quite proud of the lyrics and I can’t wait till everyone can hear it too. We’ve just booked another gig for Friday February 11th in the Leaf Cafe (Bold St), Liverpool, we can hopefully debut the song there.
My friends are organising Social Media In Liverpool Week, the artist formally known as “Social Media Week Liverpool”. The name changed after a rather threatening email from Crowdcentric Media, who apparently organise corporate events using the “Social Media Week” banner. I don’t see how they could possibly trademark such a generic term but it was easier to change it than fight with them, plus we don’t want our event associated with such people anyway. Ella wrote a great reply on the SMC Liverpool blog. It’s a week of events for the geeks of Liverpool to unite and socialise using all kinds of technology,on and offline. The closing party will be Friday 11th of February at LEAF in Bold Street, right in the middle of town. 20lb Sounds will be playing and I can’t wait to rock that place.
I’m rambling here, so let’s get onto the other events. Friday again involved more flat hunting and some other work, in the evening I decided to make good on my promise of getting more guests for Rathole Radio. I emailed MC Frontalot on the off chance he would join me and he was very cool, we agreed to do an interview the next day in fact. Result! On Saturday I spent most of the day trying to chill out and catch my breath. I then fired up Skype and got Frontalot on the line. We talked for about half an hour and he was a great guest. I didn’t broadcast the interview live though as I had a cunning plan. I’ll be in Brussels for FOSDEM on February 6th when there should be a live RR, I’m going to use this pre-recorded interview for the bulk of it and add music. I’ll cut all that together into a show that a friend can hopefully broadcast for me at the appropriate time. The interview should make a nice treat for everyone and I hope to have more guests in future. A few people have put their hand up and said they’d be willing.
After finishing the interview I edited another episode of Free As In Freedom for Bradley and Karen. Not everyone’s idea of a rip roaring Saturday night but I was glad of a break after a busy week. You can download that show from their website right now. On Sunday I watched the first half of the “Merseyside derby”. For the uninitiated, it’s not a stock car race, it’s the name for the periodic football matches between our two big local teams, Everton and Liverpool. I’m a Liverpool fan but my dad is an Everton supporter, that’s quite common around here and doesn’t cause problems. They call it the “friendly derby” because the fans are all mixed together in the stadium. It’s not too friendly on the pitch though, plenty of hard tackles going in. I could only watch the first half because we had an important Oggcamp conference call booked at 3pm. I left the game at 1-0 to Liverpool and it should have been about 3 or 4 but we seem unable to finish our chances right now. The return of club hero Kenny Dalglish as manager hasn’t made much difference yet but hopefully it will in time. Our Oggcamp call was good and we all seem to be on the same page. I don’t think I’m revealing too much to say that there will be an event over the summer and it’s likely to be down South in the UK, Hampshire probably. I’ll let you know more specific details like dates and venues as soon as I can. It’s gonna be fun! After the call I discovered the final score in the match was 2-2. Honours even, it’s better than a loss I suppose and it’s a start. There was more 20lb noise-making antics in the evening.
Monday involved more appointments, driving around and other such fascinating stuff so I’ll spare you the details. There was no live Linux Outlaws on Monday night because we still have a show to release from last week. It’ll be rescheduled sometime this week so keep an eye on sixgun.status.net for updates. That brings us pretty much up to date and back to this early Tuesday morning. (looks up) Blimey, I’ve been writing for almost an hour. 09:17 now. I really hope that wi-fi is free!!
Upcoming:
I’ll be co-hosting FLOSS Weekly tomorrow (Wed 19th Jan) with Randal again. We’re talking about VoltDB which is not something I know much about, it should be interesting. There’ll also be that rearranged Linux Outlaws at some point and another live Rathole Radio this Sunday Jan 23rd at 9pm UK time. Join us at ratholeradio.org/live. That won’t include the Frontalot interview yet as I’m saving that for Feb 6th. I have more music making and other things to do in the meantime. I’ll report back on all that next week. Till then, take care of yourselves and be lucky 🙂
Dan