Sunday, December 25, 2005
Ho Ho Ho! Merry Everyone! (This is a long, long Christmas message)
Hi everyone,
Well, usually Christmas messages are messages for reflection, or just random stuff. However, the reflection over the past year has been sorted just a few days ago, so this post is gonna be what this blog has been dying for for ages - an update on things my end. However, bear in mind that I've just had (a very nice & chilled) bottle of Fosters Ice (my first Fosters Ice as well) and even that does have a fair bit of an effect, so please bear with my ultra lightweightedness.
I've mentioned gigging in my past post, and over these past few months I have been to a fair few.
The first out of work was Kaiser Chiefs, with Maximo Park & The Cribs in support. Now this gig was in sad circumstances because even offering tickets for free couldn't lure anyone to come with me - it was really sad, and near the entrance of the Brixton Academy I was pretty much in tears contemplating whether or not to actually go in, bearing in mind the social disaster that was my birthday less than a week before. In the end, I did what I knew I'd be saying would be the sensible thing by going in with just the one ticket of the pair (not selling to a tout either - however, if only I knew about this website where you can sell tickets at the price they should be sold - face value). Anyways, I came in to see The Cribs already on - good band with an interesting drummer, who kept climbing onto his drumkit whilst playing! I was still feeling somewhat blue until the Maximo Park set, which was really good & deffo cheered me up a fair bit. To finish it off was the band I once saw as a support act at King's College London, Kaiser Chiefs - I'd say they were deffo quality, but actually not as good as the Park.
A few weeks later I was faced with a decision - a band I had been plugging for ages as you all now know (because I put two of their videos up on my blog) called The Upper Room were playing in London in early November. Now if your'e sick of me going on and on about this quality act, skip this paragraph because I'm gonna go on here. My choice was to go to the gig on the Monday at Water Rats, or on Wednesday at Metro Club - now I knew even if I was alone, I'd want to go whatever because they're probs my favourite band of 2005. On the Monday I ended up feeling a tad depressed and not really up for it, and I knew I was regretting it when I was signing Kill Kill Kill on the bus home (and it was a tad late to go up to King's Cross). As soon as I got home, I decided to go on Ticketweb (that's the best website for gig tickets, lets face it) and buy a ticket for the gig two days later. This gig also had Lowgold supporting, a band whose first single (called In Amber) I have on vinyl. Now I know its very very easy to say this, but The Upper Room were quality - what I particularly found good is that it was such a small venue, and I was right up at the front, and its quite an experience seeing a favourite band like that. Equally an experience was (after asking someone about when the T Shirt will be released) speaking to Alex's (lead singer) bro - he was a top bloke, and gave me a promotional mini CD which I'm keeping right here as a prized thingey. Jimmy (guitarist) also came up to me offerring one as well, but I was honest & told him I already had one, & also took the opportunity to say they were quality live. Two of the three other bands were also very good, with Ray putting on a suprisingly good set as openers and Lowgold being very good and also amusing on stage (lets say the lead singer was playing about with not only fellow bandmembers, but also a few audience members), even though most of their stuff was their less familiar stuff (despite the roar for In Amber, they didn't play that). They did play the quality that was Beauty Dies Young.
(Another Upper Room paragraph - skip this if you wish) Of course, I knew that I'd want to see The Upper Room again, particularly since I missed a quality Water Rats gig (so forum members say - apparently that was like a private performance!). The band were offerring free tickets to a gig in a few weeks time via email, an opportunity I so couldn't turn down, so before I went off to Metro, I emailed for tickets, and what do you know I managed to get not one but two! Now I had a challenge on my hands, find someone willing to come - once again, this proved to be a real challenge, but this time I was more successful in that the lovely Jasmine was more than happy to come along. After getting lost on the very cold November evening, trying to find the venue, we arrived towards the end of Motion Picture Soundtack's set - they sounded very good and I regretted not scouting to find the venue before I met Jas. After that was Gliss - a friend of Jas's told her they're very good. Well, this group are a 3 piece from America (California, I think) and what was very unique about them was they all played all the instruments & sang, and kept swapping around. The frontman seemed like a bit of a weirdo, and the other bloke in the band looked very much like my friend Greg from uni, but there was a girl in the band too - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - yummy - she looked really fit - rock chique mmmmm. Anyways, the healiners were of course The Upper Room and once again they were quality, and once again I was right at the front by the stage. What made this gig special was not seeing a stagedive by someone for a setlist (& knocking over a few amps in the process), but the fact I got to meet a number of fellow fans from the messageboard (after asking one of them what the crossed out track on the setlist was). They seemed like top people, and some even offerred me to join them on a trip to some clubs - I had a very long day though, what with struggling to get some discrtete maths coursework done on time. However, as soon as I got home I joined the messageboard. Some tracks from this gig are online to view here, along with an interview. On the third and final Upper Room gig, I met some more fellow fans, danced with Nikky (she's a fellow fan BTW) during Combination, and had a bit of a chat with bandmembers (& I was the only person who's met another Beau previously - oh yeah & Beau's the bassist of the band). Oh and Jimmy recgnised me from the Metro gig as well - what a dude! Anyways, Nikky gave me a setlist for this gig, which (to finish this bit on The Upper Room) was:
However, Matty did a much better job with organising this than the union did (dark piccy I know - no - not my monitor - the poster by the side of it):
Kids Will Be Skeletons was a new concept of having an indie club night at the union, along with 3 live bands. It was also very popular, with final year people saying it was probs the best indie night at the union, and really I'd have to agree with that given my experiences there. The first band was Broken Colossus, who were just very very weird. Futurecorpses were also unusual, but this time not in a torturing way - they were good (& this isn't just me sucking up to Matty either). The final band, Captain Black, had a very good cheer about them and many of us were dancing to them. The songs played were unusual as well, but also quality and none of them I've ever heard. I think we all know the words - there should be more Kids Will Be Skeletons events to come, and hopefully the union won't live up its own arse. This night even beat a similar Christmas event held over at LSE, which was largely filled with a set of iPod based bands (& a group of Diana Ross & Suprememes dressups).
(Digressing from the live music bit here) I do have a slight thing against the union of Imperial College at the moment - whilst yeah they did successful campaign againt the ridiculous security measures in the college, my thing against it is that they didn't train me for my position of treasurer - I came in mid August to find out about just that, & they scared me over two forms that needed filling. However, they failed to tell me that there were training sessions being held throughout the summer holiday, and when I found that out I really was furious, and made me think "no wonder Gimperial's union is so whimpish". I did get training in the end from Media Group Treasurer, Pavlos, and I'm very grateful to him for that. Generally, I'm a tad pissed off at things around Imperial, with the exception of AMS and possibly IC Radio. And I'm hardly the happiest bunny about things on my course, what with the disaster that was the group project that I could moan so much about but won't.
Thank goodness for ULU thats all I can say. Sadly Imperial are now to leave the University of London, in a move where there was very little student consultation. I still feel that interuniversity cooperation is still vitally important, as quite frankly I still very much want to be associated with students from the likes of UCL, KCL, SOAS and LSE, and I believe this is a role that ULU should continue to play, and quite frankly I feel Imperial must remain a part of that at all costs, and I don't just say that because I work there.
Of course, working at ULU has to be a highlight of the term. The quality friends I've made there - I've just made so many who I'd've otherwise never met. And not all of them I work alongside, what with meeting UCL's juggling club, Balls, through work, and quite a few Mondays I go up to the Gower Street campus to join them & throw my balls about a bit. After that we usually go off to have a drink - once I did get too drunk after 2 buds in ULU, and one other time they took me to a very big, but nice, union bar at UCL's union. Oh & that evening I met a dude from Imperial who (like me) believes the place can be very boring. Balls also encouraged me to start balloon making, and I made my first balloon dog:
That wasn't all the fun though of working at ULU - on the last Tuesday of term (conveniently after the Italian test) was the ULU staff party, which was loads of fun - although I had to move from ops to ents during the games to make them all fair (well, I did work for ents once), only for the ents manager to join in & make it all unfair again (so much for fair play). However, ents did win one of the games, and as a result we got prizes - I won one of these:
Now needless to say I did get drunk that evening, and even spilled a bit of food on my jumper. However, I did meet some people from departments I haven't really spoken to (particularly Energy Base, ULU's gym). A few photos from the evening (including at least one featuring yours truely) can be found here.
That was originally going to be my only Christmas party, except that fellow steward Isis gave me an invite to a joint birthday party on the Saturday. How could I possibly refuse, what with not having anything going on that evening. There was a bit of disgusting behaviour around the start of the party, however the shithead causing trouble was chucked out, and the party from then on was total quality, and I met some seemingly very nice people.
Of course, I'm not going to leave out the friends whose gigs I went to. I'm talking about Big Dance in particular, whose three gigs I went to were all quality, and they seem very promising with their performances so far - just a shame I missed them when they played at Finnegans Wake, Ealing (former home of West London Calling) because I was very ill that weekend. On Thursday I went to see The Regulars, whose gig lacked the usual ex Dulwich following, but were still great on the night. Next term I look forward to seeing July July, who Lucas is also drumming for and sound very good (a bit Morning Runner like), and also I need to find out from fellow Upper Room fan Martina about a band she told me about called Morton Valence (who sound very unique, but also very good).
Anyways, this all leaves me to say have a quality rest of Christmas, and a quality new year (2006 it will be - blimey don't the year come & go).
Posted by Simon at 6:32 PM
Hi everyone,
Well, usually Christmas messages are messages for reflection, or just random stuff. However, the reflection over the past year has been sorted just a few days ago, so this post is gonna be what this blog has been dying for for ages - an update on things my end. However, bear in mind that I've just had (a very nice & chilled) bottle of Fosters Ice (my first Fosters Ice as well) and even that does have a fair bit of an effect, so please bear with my ultra lightweightedness.
I've mentioned gigging in my past post, and over these past few months I have been to a fair few.
The first out of work was Kaiser Chiefs, with Maximo Park & The Cribs in support. Now this gig was in sad circumstances because even offering tickets for free couldn't lure anyone to come with me - it was really sad, and near the entrance of the Brixton Academy I was pretty much in tears contemplating whether or not to actually go in, bearing in mind the social disaster that was my birthday less than a week before. In the end, I did what I knew I'd be saying would be the sensible thing by going in with just the one ticket of the pair (not selling to a tout either - however, if only I knew about this website where you can sell tickets at the price they should be sold - face value). Anyways, I came in to see The Cribs already on - good band with an interesting drummer, who kept climbing onto his drumkit whilst playing! I was still feeling somewhat blue until the Maximo Park set, which was really good & deffo cheered me up a fair bit. To finish it off was the band I once saw as a support act at King's College London, Kaiser Chiefs - I'd say they were deffo quality, but actually not as good as the Park.
A few weeks later I was faced with a decision - a band I had been plugging for ages as you all now know (because I put two of their videos up on my blog) called The Upper Room were playing in London in early November. Now if your'e sick of me going on and on about this quality act, skip this paragraph because I'm gonna go on here. My choice was to go to the gig on the Monday at Water Rats, or on Wednesday at Metro Club - now I knew even if I was alone, I'd want to go whatever because they're probs my favourite band of 2005. On the Monday I ended up feeling a tad depressed and not really up for it, and I knew I was regretting it when I was signing Kill Kill Kill on the bus home (and it was a tad late to go up to King's Cross). As soon as I got home, I decided to go on Ticketweb (that's the best website for gig tickets, lets face it) and buy a ticket for the gig two days later. This gig also had Lowgold supporting, a band whose first single (called In Amber) I have on vinyl. Now I know its very very easy to say this, but The Upper Room were quality - what I particularly found good is that it was such a small venue, and I was right up at the front, and its quite an experience seeing a favourite band like that. Equally an experience was (after asking someone about when the T Shirt will be released) speaking to Alex's (lead singer) bro - he was a top bloke, and gave me a promotional mini CD which I'm keeping right here as a prized thingey. Jimmy (guitarist) also came up to me offerring one as well, but I was honest & told him I already had one, & also took the opportunity to say they were quality live. Two of the three other bands were also very good, with Ray putting on a suprisingly good set as openers and Lowgold being very good and also amusing on stage (lets say the lead singer was playing about with not only fellow bandmembers, but also a few audience members), even though most of their stuff was their less familiar stuff (despite the roar for In Amber, they didn't play that). They did play the quality that was Beauty Dies Young.
(Another Upper Room paragraph - skip this if you wish) Of course, I knew that I'd want to see The Upper Room again, particularly since I missed a quality Water Rats gig (so forum members say - apparently that was like a private performance!). The band were offerring free tickets to a gig in a few weeks time via email, an opportunity I so couldn't turn down, so before I went off to Metro, I emailed for tickets, and what do you know I managed to get not one but two! Now I had a challenge on my hands, find someone willing to come - once again, this proved to be a real challenge, but this time I was more successful in that the lovely Jasmine was more than happy to come along. After getting lost on the very cold November evening, trying to find the venue, we arrived towards the end of Motion Picture Soundtack's set - they sounded very good and I regretted not scouting to find the venue before I met Jas. After that was Gliss - a friend of Jas's told her they're very good. Well, this group are a 3 piece from America (California, I think) and what was very unique about them was they all played all the instruments & sang, and kept swapping around. The frontman seemed like a bit of a weirdo, and the other bloke in the band looked very much like my friend Greg from uni, but there was a girl in the band too - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - yummy - she looked really fit - rock chique mmmmm. Anyways, the healiners were of course The Upper Room and once again they were quality, and once again I was right at the front by the stage. What made this gig special was not seeing a stagedive by someone for a setlist (& knocking over a few amps in the process), but the fact I got to meet a number of fellow fans from the messageboard (after asking one of them what the crossed out track on the setlist was). They seemed like top people, and some even offerred me to join them on a trip to some clubs - I had a very long day though, what with struggling to get some discrtete maths coursework done on time. However, as soon as I got home I joined the messageboard. Some tracks from this gig are online to view here, along with an interview. On the third and final Upper Room gig, I met some more fellow fans, danced with Nikky (she's a fellow fan BTW) during Combination, and had a bit of a chat with bandmembers (& I was the only person who's met another Beau previously - oh yeah & Beau's the bassist of the band). Oh and Jimmy recgnised me from the Metro gig as well - what a dude! Anyways, Nikky gave me a setlist for this gig, which (to finish this bit on The Upper Room) was:
- Combination
- Your Body
- All Over This Town
- Kill Kill Kill
- Leave Me Alone
- Once For Me
- Black & White
However, Matty did a much better job with organising this than the union did (dark piccy I know - no - not my monitor - the poster by the side of it):
Kids Will Be Skeletons was a new concept of having an indie club night at the union, along with 3 live bands. It was also very popular, with final year people saying it was probs the best indie night at the union, and really I'd have to agree with that given my experiences there. The first band was Broken Colossus, who were just very very weird. Futurecorpses were also unusual, but this time not in a torturing way - they were good (& this isn't just me sucking up to Matty either). The final band, Captain Black, had a very good cheer about them and many of us were dancing to them. The songs played were unusual as well, but also quality and none of them I've ever heard. I think we all know the words - there should be more Kids Will Be Skeletons events to come, and hopefully the union won't live up its own arse. This night even beat a similar Christmas event held over at LSE, which was largely filled with a set of iPod based bands (& a group of Diana Ross & Suprememes dressups).
(Digressing from the live music bit here) I do have a slight thing against the union of Imperial College at the moment - whilst yeah they did successful campaign againt the ridiculous security measures in the college, my thing against it is that they didn't train me for my position of treasurer - I came in mid August to find out about just that, & they scared me over two forms that needed filling. However, they failed to tell me that there were training sessions being held throughout the summer holiday, and when I found that out I really was furious, and made me think "no wonder Gimperial's union is so whimpish". I did get training in the end from Media Group Treasurer, Pavlos, and I'm very grateful to him for that. Generally, I'm a tad pissed off at things around Imperial, with the exception of AMS and possibly IC Radio. And I'm hardly the happiest bunny about things on my course, what with the disaster that was the group project that I could moan so much about but won't.
Thank goodness for ULU thats all I can say. Sadly Imperial are now to leave the University of London, in a move where there was very little student consultation. I still feel that interuniversity cooperation is still vitally important, as quite frankly I still very much want to be associated with students from the likes of UCL, KCL, SOAS and LSE, and I believe this is a role that ULU should continue to play, and quite frankly I feel Imperial must remain a part of that at all costs, and I don't just say that because I work there.
Of course, working at ULU has to be a highlight of the term. The quality friends I've made there - I've just made so many who I'd've otherwise never met. And not all of them I work alongside, what with meeting UCL's juggling club, Balls, through work, and quite a few Mondays I go up to the Gower Street campus to join them & throw my balls about a bit. After that we usually go off to have a drink - once I did get too drunk after 2 buds in ULU, and one other time they took me to a very big, but nice, union bar at UCL's union. Oh & that evening I met a dude from Imperial who (like me) believes the place can be very boring. Balls also encouraged me to start balloon making, and I made my first balloon dog:
That wasn't all the fun though of working at ULU - on the last Tuesday of term (conveniently after the Italian test) was the ULU staff party, which was loads of fun - although I had to move from ops to ents during the games to make them all fair (well, I did work for ents once), only for the ents manager to join in & make it all unfair again (so much for fair play). However, ents did win one of the games, and as a result we got prizes - I won one of these:
Now needless to say I did get drunk that evening, and even spilled a bit of food on my jumper. However, I did meet some people from departments I haven't really spoken to (particularly Energy Base, ULU's gym). A few photos from the evening (including at least one featuring yours truely) can be found here.
That was originally going to be my only Christmas party, except that fellow steward Isis gave me an invite to a joint birthday party on the Saturday. How could I possibly refuse, what with not having anything going on that evening. There was a bit of disgusting behaviour around the start of the party, however the shithead causing trouble was chucked out, and the party from then on was total quality, and I met some seemingly very nice people.
Of course, I'm not going to leave out the friends whose gigs I went to. I'm talking about Big Dance in particular, whose three gigs I went to were all quality, and they seem very promising with their performances so far - just a shame I missed them when they played at Finnegans Wake, Ealing (former home of West London Calling) because I was very ill that weekend. On Thursday I went to see The Regulars, whose gig lacked the usual ex Dulwich following, but were still great on the night. Next term I look forward to seeing July July, who Lucas is also drumming for and sound very good (a bit Morning Runner like), and also I need to find out from fellow Upper Room fan Martina about a band she told me about called Morton Valence (who sound very unique, but also very good).
Anyways, this all leaves me to say have a quality rest of Christmas, and a quality new year (2006 it will be - blimey don't the year come & go).
Posted by Simon at 6:32 PM
