Yeah, yeah. I realise I’m late.
New Year’s Eve
I played a gig on New Year’s Eve in the basement of an Italian restaurant in Stoke Newington. It’s been a while since I played in front of big crowd that included people that I didn’t know, which was pretty exciting.
Although it was a private party organised by friends, we could invite other sound people that we knew. The bit of London and the UK rave scene that I inhabit isn’t that large and people are pretty dedicated. It was a nice surprise to see a lot of familiar faces that I didn’t know were coming, including a few that don’t live in London.
You can listen back to the re-recording. Re-recorded only because when I listened back to it some of my mixing was dodgy. Playing at 3am on NYE will do that to you.
It made me realise how much I miss DJing. This year, I’m going to try and do more of it. I’ve already got two more gigs lined up at friends birthday’s.
Countryside
My partner had to go in for some surgery at the end of January, which necessitated self isolating for two weeks in advance. Before that, we went out to a little Airbnb near Thetford Forest with a hot tub which was great, until the hot tub broke on the 1st full day we were there. It was a little shepherd’s hut on a lake inhabited by a few ducks and a very aggro swan.
Some photos from the trip
Misc
I got a new tattoo. It’s a skeleton at a rave. It’s not exactly how I imagined it, but I love it. It’s a fun design that mixes old styles with something new and weird. It’s meant to be two-partner. It’s on the back of my right leg and was super painful near the top, so I might wait a bit for the next one.
Watched
- Glass Onion - like everyone else
- Am I Being Unreasonable? - I love Taskmaster and Daisy Mae Cooper was new to me when she was on it. This is a comedy, but with some hard hitting dramatic stuff and a few twists and turns.
- 10 dollar death trip - a brutal documentary about the fentanyl crisis in Vancouver
- White Lotus S2 - Hard to compare it to the first season, but it stands almost as well by itself. The Sopranos was one of our lockdown watches, so it was nice to see Michael Imperioli show up in something else.
- The Batman - a decent take on Batman’s more detective side and I enjoyed it way more than any of the Marvel stuff that I’ve watched recently.
- Banshees of Inisherrin - Absolutely incredible. The dialogue is pitch perfect for the way Irish people talk to each other.
I’m trying to log all the films I watch on Letterboxd. Follow me if you’re on there.
Read
- After buying the book in September, I finally made an effort to start reading Dune. I listened to the audiobook years ago, but I wanted to try and finish the book before part 2 of the film comes out. There’s some scenes I remember in the book that weren’t in the film that focus in on the scarcity of water, but the film gets that point across in other ways.
- The disappearance of the ashtray is an article about a class of object that took on an artistic look, but is no longer present in modern life. When I was at the British Library in Euston for the first time I saw wall of shelves separated by vertical panels. Only when I walked past them a second time did I realise they were phone booths. I find remnants of previous human behaviour like that really interesting.
Played
- After giving Elden Ring a second chance I’m really enjoying it. I asked some friends for advice on getting good and picked up a new character that I made previously. It turns out when you understand the mechanics for a game that complex it actually becomes fun.