Bands, bands, bands, choke, bands, bands

This week, I have seen the following acts:

Some guys in the freshers tent at leeds uni, claiming to be on the 'drink milk' tour, and who recognised me as 'the singer from that funny band'.

Brigade, who were good.

This GIRL who were amazing, and you must check them out now. They're four young lads (18-19 years old) from Rotherham, and if you're in leeds on wednesday night, get yourself down to Joseph's Well to watch them in action and have your mind blown by their awesomeness.

Biffy Clyro, who, as usual, were superb, and rocked my world.

Cirrus Fingers, who turned out to be a couple of guys I know rocking the Packhorse in an unexpected trip hop/drum 'n' bass intense live set. Not the greatest band I've ever heard, but they brought a lot of friends in with them, and it's early days yet. They were pretty original, and I think that they will find a certain target audience. It just might not be a pub full of freshers on a saturday night.

Speakeasy. What can I say? Every time I see them, they get better. They're supporting us at the october first gig, they're supporting Dive Dive on their national tour date at the brudenell social club, and tonight they were headlining at the packhorse. More like the packedroom. It was rammed. They were superb. Highlights included the opening track, 'You and Your' which they are currently recording in the studio, and 'Just a Man' which is an older track. You can download the old version from their website, or you can get along to one of their upcoming gigs to see them perform a much more intense, emo driven version, climaxing with Matt playing his guitar with a violin bow. This band rock.

Also this week, I had the pleasure of practising with my band, The Salvator Darlings. We're about to start our slow-moving 'Third Party, Fire and Theft Tour', so we've been rehearsing with new members, Rosie and Simon. It's coming along beautifully, and I'll keep you up to date with where you can catch up with us. You can also get hold of a tour tshirt by getting in touch with me and asking for one. They have a picture of a scally on the front, and they say 'The Salvator Darlings stole my car'. The back says 'Third Party, Fire and Theft Tour 2004'. They're brilliant...

pencil sketches...

Ladies and Gentlemen, if I can please draw your attention to the list of links to other blogs that can be found towards the bottom of my sidebar. There you will find blogs of all sorts; the latest addition to which is this one. I won't give away the blogger's highly secret identity (for americans, this is sarcasm), but I will suggest that you read his site on a regular basis. Highly entertaining...

a difficult one...

I read J Puddy's blog the other day, and tried to follow a link that he published in his post, 'Division' there, but it didn't work. It's up and running now though, so I just had the chance to see what he was on about. For your information, here is his blog article:

Link. "An interesting talk on gays and lesbians and how the church should relate to them, by Tony and Peggy Campolo. Pretty well known dude (Tony) in Christian circles."

And here's the comment that I posted in response:

"I just went to the site, and I checked out an essay written by a guy named Justin, who supports same sex marriages for christians. The main points of interest for me were how we explain away some laws as cultural difference, and others not; and that the greatest commandment of all is to love. Like Andrew, I think that there's no easy answer to this one. One thing that I can easily stand firm on, however, is his conclusion:

"Most of all, pray. Pray every day for God's guidance in your life and for the wisdom and humility to admit when you're wrong. If you find that you disagree with fellow Christians, remember that they are still your brothers and sisters in Christ. And they may yet have something to teach you.

Follow Christ at all costs. Nothing matters more than that."

I highly recommend that you check out the site and read the essays/listen to the presentation. It raises a number of issues that certainly I have never thought about...

highs and lows..

This weekend was fun. I drove to Chelmsford, went to a wedding, played records at the reception, drove through central london (over Tower Bridge and everything!), got interviewed on a radio station about my DJ ministry, and broke down in my car on the M1 three times on the way back up. I went to the hockey (with a lift from my dad), and took a taxi to work yesterday, because my car was at my dad's being mended.

My dad is a star. He fixed my car yesterday, and brought it back up to Leeds for me. My mom is a star. She drove the other car up at the same time, so that they could just drive back to Worksop together. Today, because of them, I went to work in my car today, and saved myself a tenner.

Oh, we won the hockey, by the way...

Last night Jackie Chan came round..

I played pool with him, and we hung out. Mr Miagi and the X-Men called in for a while as well.

Ah, my life may not be quite like that, but it's pretty good fun at the moment. I just finished my first week at work in a school for children who have Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD). In my first week, I have: been swimming; been to Bolton Abbey, taken two pupils to the supermarket; nearly won a quiz in the staffroom; baked a cake; been bitten by a pupil; fortunately had a hepatitis b innoculation; discovered there are at least 4 other Christians on the staff; cleaned up the result of what appeared to be synchronised vomiting in the little kids' class; learned some Makaton; and been trampolining. Amongst other things. It's all in a week's work. This is probably the greatest job in the world. I love it. It's exciting, it's fun, it's rewarding, the hours and the holidays are superb...

In other news, I'm spinning at a friend's wedding reception tomorrow night. Then I'm being interviewed on Premier Radio on Sunday morning about my dj ministry. All this before I head to my parents' house for a late sunday roast, then to the ice hockey match with my dad and my good friend Alice (who I wrote a song about). Just in case you haven't had enough of the links, you can read the lyrics to the song here, on The Salvator Darlings Website. (That's my band, by the way.)

Does anyone find that for ages they don't put any links anywhere on their site, then all of a sudden they get link fever, and have to put about a thousand in one article? No? Just me then...

Old Abe

The thought has recently occurred to me that blogs are incredibly selfish things. I mean, you sit down, and write all about the things that have happened to you, that you want to happen, and that you're thinking about. You express your point of view, and publish songs and poems that you wrote. And you do all of this because you think that people are going to read it and be interested. The funny thing is, they often are. People share our interests, and that's why they read our blogs. Other people sometimes have the same sense of humor as us, so they find the things that we write funny. Sometimes they find the things that we write funny because we are so geeky that we don't realise that we've written something that makes us sound like complete losers, so people read our blogs to laugh at us behind our backs. That's all fine. But wouldn't it be nice if some blogs were a bit less self-oriented?

So, I have come up with the first of many plans to revive and inspire excitement on this blog in particular. Every so often (I'd say every week, but you know how things go...) I will publish a blog about the life of someone else. Perhaps someone I know, perhaps I won't know them at all, but the idea is that instead of you always reading about what I've been getting up to, you can find out about what someone else has been doing. If they have their own blog, I'll include a link to it, so that if you like what you've read, and find that you have similar interests, or find them funny (for whatever reason...), you can read more. If they don't have a blog of their own, and you like it, we can try to get them to start one, and if they won't, then just enjoy the post on this site. Sound good?

Right, so I guess, as Abraham Lincoln said, no act is truly selfless, so I'm hoping that I'll get some more correspondence from this. If you want other people to read your blog, or you have a life, aspect of your life, or story that you think would be well recieved, email me...

That's all for now.

Where we're going, we don't need roads...

Having failed so far to come up with something worthwhile putting on the site, I'll resort to more song lyrics. Matt from Speakeasy came round last night to watch a movie. Since I have recently purchased the Back to the Future boxset, we decided that it would be criminal not to enjoy episode one of this fine trilogy. Oh how we laughed. To be fair, I can probably get most of the way through the script of that movie without having to watch it, so doing something like, for example, writing a song about the movie, wouldn't be a major problem. So that's what we did. The story of Marty Mcfly is retold in glorious musicolor, appearing at a Salvator Darlings gig near you soon. And, if you're interested, here's the lyrics:

My calculations were correct
On that night in 1985
And did I detect
A flux capacitor in overdrive?

I was doing 88
Powered by plutonium.
The doc had just turned late
Terrorists in pandemonium.

(Bridge 1)
With your best friend's life going down the sink
You'd better think, Mcfly, think
Cause you're going

(Chorus)
Back to the future
Back to the future
1.21 gigawatts -
Yes my friend, that's lots of watts.

Arrived in 55
In a barn on the Twin Pines Ranch.
Glad to find that I'm alive,
I see a man clinging to a branch.

(He's a peeping tom!)

Spying on a girl.
Dressed in 1950s lingerie,
She looked kind of like my mom
But in a creepy kind of teenage way.

(Bridge 2)
She was looking kind of hot and tried to ask me out,
then she tried to kiss me - I was freaking out
I had to get

(Chorus)
Yes my friend, your mom was looking hot.

(Middle)
This is where my tale takes its turn,
My father he had to learn
How to fight the local jerk
If my plan was going to work...
I got attacked by a gang of punks
Who locked me up in Marvin's trunk
And I was stuck with no way out
My mom began to scream and shout
As Biff was getting far too fresh
My dad began to clench his fist
Then choking back his greatest fears
Said 'get your damn hands off of her'.

(Chorus)
Yes my friend, Biff deserved exactly what he got.

Back at the tower clock
The time I had was running out.
With cables set up by the doc
We had planned the perfect route.

Four minutes past ten
Lightning struck Hill Valley hall.
To 85 again -
You'll never have a closer call.

(Bridge 3)
Just in time doc Brown was able
To connect the final cable.

(Chorus)
Yes my friend, Emmett's death I had to stop.

(Final Chorus)
Back to the future
Back to the future
He'd taken several bullets to the chest,
But my friend, on my advice, he was wearing a bulletproof vest.


Very, very silly.

If you live in Leeds, I recommend that you make it down to The Vine on the Headrow on Tuesday September 7, where you can see Speakeasy supporting The Bilderberg Group, Farming Incident and Dolores. Check out the link to their website above for more details. Let's support local music...

It's very lonely over here...

Is it just me, or has no one left me a comment for ages? It's definately not just me. I think that perhaps my posts are boring, and therefore will be coming up with ways to remedy the situation. Bear with me while I have a think. Meanwhile, please enjoy this picture of Valerie. And leave me some comments!