James’ Poor Brain

1. Become even more awesome at bass

2. Learn Keyboard (inc. crazy synth stuff like Kaoss pads)

3. Learn Guitar

4. Learn drums

5. Learn trumpet

6. Learn bagpipes

7. Learn Indian Nose-flute

8. Learn singing

Continue in this fashion until I become Swindon’s equivalent of Dave Grohl, then…

9. Have surgery to gain an extra 50 limbs

10. Play all aforementioned instruments at once with extra hands

11. Make a one-man band and write songs

12. Play Wembley with Muse as supports.

I win.

‘Sup fools, we’ve finally finished recording our first ever demo/EP!

Currently without a title, artwork, or actual disks, this will soon be available for you losers to chiggety-check out. The tracklisting is:

1. Each One Served Us Well

2. Kitchen Utensils

3. BTK

The tracks can be heard in digital form at www.myspace.com/hctrband

Peace out, homies!

I won’t talk like that anymore.

ALL HAIL NME. IT IS ALWAYS RIGHT.*

Armed police. For playing too loudly.

I hope there are no residential areas around a certain recently rebuilt football stadium, as if this happens, it could end in tragedy. Or, much more preferably, the Steets being drilled with machine-gun bullets. 

*only it is not, never has, and never will be right

I actually quite like the Klaxons! They’re not actually rubbish! I wouldn’t mind them supporting at Wembley!

Oh, the shame of it! 

Check this out - a big, multi-purpose, all-knowing blog entry that covers almost all aspects of my recent life!

Muse at Wembley is only a month and a half away- this dawned on me whilst I was filling in my calender, and I nearly fell backwards with a double whammy of surprise and excitement. Bring it on.

Chemistry makes me feel like a fish, who has somehow flopped out of the water and is now gasping for non-existant breath on the riverbank. An autistic fish, in fact. Its the only exam I’m REALLy worried about.

We’ve had two applicants for the lead guitar position- one of them is good but can’t start until late June, and the other is pretty good and can start now but none of my friends like him.

Speaking of HCTR, SPREAD THE WORD -  12BAR, 3rd MAY. GO GO GO, TELL TELL TELL!

I’ve been listening to Billy Tallent II. Its good, but somewhat lacking in accessability. 8/10.

 I have a new favourite advert - a footballer falls down, apparently faking some kind of collossal hernia, when a giant tank rolls onto the pitch and points it turret at him. Mr T pops out, calls hima fool and throws a Snickers bar at him. Genius.

Well, we didn’t win BOTB, but with the wealth of impressively talented swindon bands that were they’re I’m not really surprised.

But playing was fun, as was the majority of the other acts. My pedal was being very gay, which was annoying, but people clapped. Pictures were being taken and should be up on www.swindonweb.com at some point. I’ll post them here when they do. Highlights of the evening include a metal version of that song from the lion king about (In The Jungle?), a cover of Agitated by Muse and Rag Doll Girl’s entire set. On a side note, I met Haze and he was a thoroughly nice bloke.

The sudeen improvement that took place between Tuesday and Wednesday in our general performance was huge. Things sounded better; much, much less mistakes were made; the quality of stage presence shot up; if we played like we did last night on Tuesday, we might have had a fighting chance. It was a shame the support band were a bit crappy.

But screw them! :D 

oh dear.

Our fist gig in weeks (and what was supposed to be a warm-up for BOTB) has been cancelled. Why?

Well, firstly, we seem to be at the bottom of the swindon music scene, probably due to our total gig count being in single figures. Anyway, this means we cannot find a support band. And, according to our drummer, its not worth bringing the drumkit just for our set.

The good news is that its next wednesday instead. The bad news is that, well, its a missed gig. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I would say that the person most disappointed by the cancellation is me. I LOVE playing music. Its the only real way of getting me up in front of people of my own free will. On more than one occasion, I’ve even done the whole jumping around/head-bobbing thing because I was so into it, the thought of looking like a prat didn’t enter my mind.

So you can imagine how I felt when Nat declared her intention to “take a break” as of the week after next. Whilst this may be temporary, I need to create music. So I’m going to join another band. I’m thinking something heavier; with more “oomph”; more Kerrang than NME. Maybe with synths!

yours music-mindedly,

James

I’ve made the decision (not entirely impulsively) to learn to play keyboard.

I was going to anyway and take proper lessons afer my exams were finished, but opportunity (ie. Ben) came along so I got hold of an old microsynth (with a bendy thing!)and I’m going to teach myself. 

How I am going to do this does not seem clear, so don’t expect to hear a rousing version of Map of the Problematique just yet. 

In other news, get well soon Abbi xxxxxxx 

In a recently released trailer for the Simpsons Movie, theres a very, very, VERY brief scene where three instrument- wielding men fall off a capsizing boat. Heres a screenshot:

Does that or does that not look exactly like Green Day?

I’ve found my camera cable, thanks to some nifty detective work.

It all started when I found the wire with little coloured jacks, which connected my camera to a TV but not the computer (which is the one I wanted). Out of boredom and my mother wanting to look at some pictures she took, I plugged it in and found a video of my brother playing guitar in front of a bed. On the bed, clearly visible, was the coveted cable! After about 10 seconds of gormless staring, it hit me - it was the last place it was used, so it must still be there. A quick search of the room, and my elusive wire was soon found under a pile of clothes. Success!

So, now that my CSI work is done, have some freshly-uploaded photos of our Riff’s Bar gig on Friday night, t the expense of an actual review. Yay!