June - July 2008

It's been over a month since I last blogged - during the move I had no setup with which to blog, and even then a working version of photoshop has eluded me - but finally, I have an evening, with my trusty laptop to hand and a ready supply of time to bunce up some key moments - I could write a short volume about the last month, but no one would read it, so I'll keep it brief, one photo - one sentence (well something like that), I hope it's not another month before we meet again.....

Pat's funeral:


It's a strange thing to mourn under the glare of tv cameras, but the tragic circumstances of Pat's death, coupled with the tireless campaigning of her life, meant that such a massive media and community presence were inevitable.....

 My birthday in Durham:


My birthday has been and gone - I celebrated it both here in Leeds and back Home. Dan had a bunch of people round his yard for poker, at the end of the night I ended up with the exact same amount of chips I started with....

Further birthday shenanigans in Durham:


Steve claims my birthday passed him by, even though we sat up round his yard drinking red wine and working on one of his and Miller's tunes whilst I was home for my birthday - Garageband for the Mac is ace, priceless night....

The man, the legend, Ben Folds:


Here is Ben Folds, on top of his piano in Newcastle, conducting the crowd at the academy in three-part harmony, helping to make this one of the most immense birthdays ever....

The great bnizzle cull:


In the weeks leading up to moving house I shredded five such bags of paper, receipts, payslips, bank statements and other such gibberish that I'd always thought it prudent to hoard; sent five, yes five sacks of clothes that I never wear (collected since my early teens) to a charity shop, and carefully and painstakingly culled hundreds of CDs, VHSs and books that I will clearly never listen to, watch or read.... go me....

Moving - Act 1:


Moving is always such a massive task that we moved the piano a day early, on its own, so that we didn't have to worry about it when we were moving everything else. To do this, we stripped everything we could from it, keyboard, mechanism, front legs, took them all separately in the car and then wheeled the main bulk of the instrument through the streets of Hyde Park on a piano trolley. Three hours well spent....

The Fellowship of the Move:


Every year on the first of July round our area thousands of folk come and go on this immense day. Moving was never gonna be easy, and time is always limited, so we thought it'd be prudent to do a Vessels gig in London...

Thankfully our landlord gave us a day's grace and after getting back from London at about 5am Tom and I did the move (including cleaning the old yard top to bottom) the following day, on four hours sleep, from 10am, till 7am the following morning..... Crikey

The new yard is immense.... 

The Jomm:

At some point amongst all of this chaos I gigged in York with Jon Gomm. Me opening with an acoustic set and then Jon playing his bizarre set of virtuosic, percussive, emotionally charged acoustic numbers in front of this medieval backdrop. It was ace. Ma came with Jaffers and Paul and Mida, J and I had roast dinner with live jazz in a pub beforehand. Score.

The uberdesk:

Rachel and I dragged this old shed door out of a skip. Doesn't look much like a desk yet does it....

But an evening of enthusastic sawing with Kenny, an afternoon of frenetic sanding by mesen, and a little bit of help from a small Asian gangster attaching these legs that Shizzer salvaged, and as man becomes sweat, door becomes desk....

The following night Sz came over (on his birthday no less) - we listened to metal, built these uber shelves (with appropriately shaped recesses for Cds, DVDs, videos and my speakers) out of wood I had kept from my shelves in the Royal Park yard three years back, and celebrated appropriately. Notice how my stereo is built into the desk on the bottom right hand corner - aaarrrigght

Final total cost - £3.76 - mega skills.....

Matt and Rachael's Wedding:

Our friends Matt and Rachel got married last weekend on a farm in Ripon, with a pagan ceremony, a mythical/pixie/fairy fancy dress theme, and a three day camping festival/party thrown in for good measure.  Note the mud on Rachaels face, all part of the ceremony..... Traspangaean were the last band of the night, we played for an hour and a half with full-lineup plus percussionist in what was easily my favourite ever Transpangaean set. Fairy dancers a gogo....

The pouring rain did compromise my rather threadbare costume, but I revived my role as 'Pan the spirit of the forest' for our set later that night:

Don't mess with these seemingly innocent looking fairies: They'll have your very soul....You can't see J's wings in this shot, they were immense.....

  Where oh where is Pan the spirit of the forest in this shot - ah yes, having a booner snooze in the van:

Despite the fact that the summer is upon us, I've spent next to no time outdoors in the sun (or the clouds for that matter) and so last weekend was an absolute boon. If we can blag our way onto the guestlist (fingers crossed) I'll be down at the Secret Garden Party in Cambridge, so you won't hear from me for a few days.....

Sorry for the pause, it's been an immense month and these pictures and cursory words don't even scratch the surface of the range of experiences and emotions that are unfolding in my world - but maybe we'd have to hang out in non virtual space to go there.....