#3 What a Mess(e)!

So the last blog established that there were a few rubbish moments over the last few months. HOWEVER! It certainly was not all bad. I'll try and catch up to where I am now so I won't blabber on too much detail about everything that's happened for the constant fear of turning this into a dissertation. :-)

In April I attended Musikmesse in Frankfurt. For those that don't know, Musikmesse is basically a massive music trade fair. And when I say massive I mean MASSIVE. Pretty much every company that makes anything to do with music or musical instruments attends this show. I was lucky enough to play on the Lakewood, Elixir and Logarhythm stands and what an amazing experience it was too.

Yamaha had the entire right hand building to themselves!

Unfortunately the side effects from the medication I was on (see blog 2) had just taken hold whilst I was on the trip so i'll be honest, I did not feel 100%. The gig I played on the Lakewood stand was amazing/petrifying and although I didn't feel like I played anywhere close to my best the Lakewood guys (some of the nicest people you'll ever meet might I add) and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. I even sold some CD's! ;-)
I also got to meet Jonathan Kluth and Wallis Bird whom are fellow Lakewood players. And it's from them that I think I took the biggest influence for my own performances.

When I first started playing guitar I taught myself not to make silly faces or move around too much as I didn't want to look stupid. Now i'm older I don't care. Also I realised that holding that back was also preventing the performance from ever being a just process of playing the correct notes in the correct order, at the correct time. Watching Jonathan and Wallis play with such energy and passion made me take a good look at what I do. Don't get me wrong it's not like i'd play like the guys below but there's always room for improvement eh!? ;-)

The Elixir stand was another amazing experience. My first ever silent gig. The Elixir stand was in the same hall as most of the electric guitars and amps etc so try to imagine hundreds of guitar shops in one place all with people playing.......loud. To avoid joining the volume war Elixir put together a system so that everyone was on headphones. A cunning plan and pretty essential for being heard in such a loud environment. Again I met some lovely people on the stand and I got a chance to hang out with the Elixir guys after the show which was very funny indeed.

I should probably mention that Frankfurt is a beautiful city too! I got a chance to take a little walk down the river and take a few pics. Definitely want to go back and play some gigs there!

That's how for now, next up is Glastonbury, adverts, and the new EP.

Toodles.
:-)

#2 Radio Silence.....

First of all I'd like to apologise in the mahoosive delay in writing this blog. For reasons I'm actually going to tell you, the last few months have been quite chaotic. I don't want to bombard you with a dissertation so I'm going to keep this particular one short.

I work freelance as a Sound Engineer for a "day job" when I'm not trying to make a living as a musician. As such I often find my life swings between having no work where I have plenty of time to gig/write songs etc, but having rod all money or working my toosh off having loads of money but hardly looking at my guitar! The last few months have been the latter. Now don't get me wrong, this has been great in most ways. As a freelancer living in a new city it can be hard to find work so when it starts picking up, the constant worry with regards to paying rent and feeding yourself (temporarily at least) subsides. As such I'm planning to get into a studio and record the next EP very soon (as I can now afford it!).

Writing a blog isn't particularly time consuming so I can imagine you might be wondering how I could have been too busy to write one in 4 months. This brings me to the other 'element' in my life that up until very recently had been preventing me from writing this.

For a few years now I've had an occasional problem with cramping in my hand when I play guitar. Last year I had such a severe occurrence of it that I couldn't finish the gig that I was at and I couldn't play guitar for a week. Needless to say at this point I decided to get it looked at and to cut a long story short, we (and by we I mean a doctor I've seen) think it could be "Musicians Dystonia". There isn't a cure however it can be managed and as such I was prescribed some medication whilst they conducted further tests. To start with everything was great, my hand felt much better whilst I was playing and I dare say I actually improved! About 5/6 weeks in though I started experiencing some alarming side effects. Severe anxiety, paranoia, memory loss, a constant dry mouth, loss of mental alertness and eventually an inability to concentrate that was so bad that I couldn't drive.

Bleurgh!

The knock on effects of this managed to infiltrate every facet of my life. It was the busiest period of work I've had since going freelance and yet I felt like I was incapable of doing my own job because of the anxiety and paranoia. The worst part however was the effect it had on my music and creativity. It erased it entirely. At it's peak I sat in my garden staring at my guitar completely unable to play it. It would take me ages just to type a text let alone a blog! The whole situation has been incredibly sobering and thought provoking for sure. Lots to put into lyrical content make no mistake. :-)

I don't want this to be a 'negative' blog so I'm very pleased to say that I can off the medication and am now much better, hence this even being written.

The last few months haven't been all work, and side effects either, so next week I'll inform you of all the awesome things that have been happening of late.

Till then, laters. :-)