I hate everything and everyone and I have a strong desire to kill.

That's what I was thinking a couple of hours ago.

Ok, from the beginning. I've noticed a couple of bed bugs left unpwnd so I rang the guy and he said he'd come at 5:30. So I thought I'd head into town to have a look around the sales during the day. I left a little after 1pm and spent the next four hours sat in my car in the most outrageous traffic ever seen throughout the history of mankind. I got into a car park but it took so long to get to a space that I knew if I actually parked and went shopping I wouldn't get home in time, so I didn't even get out of my car, just continued moving through the car park and 0.00000001 mph until I got out and went home, slowly.

For a short time I contemplated trying to get everyone to desert their cars like in that R.E.M. video. For and even shorter time I contemplated killing everyone in the building then myself.

But then it started moving.

I got home, the guy sprayed poison in my room, I ate food and I spoke to the Charlie and the Toddly who had a strange but excellent request involving masks.

I need a drink.

Boxing Day

I'm sitting here in my uncle's beautiful house just a few minutes walk away from Hampton Court watching the football with the boys while the girls are out in the Boxing Day sales. We've been for a walk round this giant local park, which was nice even if there was a freezing cold wind.

Yesterday we had pretty much the whole family round, thirteen people between the ages of four and eighty something. We did the obvious things: presents, outrageously enjoyable food, champagne and the oldest, most expensive, most gorgeous red wine my taste buds have had the pleasure of encountering. It was older than me... By about a decade!

The girls are back so I'm gonna cut this blog short. Sorry to everyone who has emailed me in the last week, I've totally lost the replying battle. I will try to get on top of it when I get home.

Bye.

xxx

TECHNICALLY....

I got globally featured.

But not really, because the new youtube front page means most people only see the top three featured and mine is the fifth, so I haven't really seen much difference. But still it's great that the vlogbrothers got to be guest editors to promote the project for awesome, and I'm thrilled that they chose my video to be one of the twelve that are up there representing the project.

I was going to go Chistmas shopping today so I could stop ending my blogs with 'I need to go Christmas shopping.' I didn't.

Victory!

I love the first comment game.

Everyone who thumbs down or replies to 'FIRST!' comments negatively need to think about this, if you were faced with a totally blank whatthebuck video, no views, no comments - wouldn't you type something as fast as you could? If you wouldn't then we are not made of the same stuff!

Project for Awesome

So this years project for awesome is drawing to a close and we went one better than last year when it claimed 19 out of the 20 most discussed videos on youtube, taking the whole of the front page and a lot of the rest of the top 100. I joined in with the mass commenting orchestrated via the vlogbrothers and Alan on blogtv and was fortunate enough to receive two comment attacks on my own video. Unfortunately I wasn't around for either of them, the first one was while I was asleep which put my 'Save Darfur' video as one of the top in the UK lists, then while I was pwning bed bugs an unexpected second wave put it on the first page of the globally most discussed. It was nice to see my video in the company of charlie, whatthebuck, lisanova etc even if it was totally cheating!

I was glad I chose to represent Darfur charities as I was the only one of the top 20 who did, maybe that played a part in why they chose to promote mine more than many of the others, I guess I had a bit of a head start as well having around six hundred comments before they began, which may have helped.

My favourite part was obviously hearing John Green say he thought my video was really good. It was totally out of the blue, nobody was talking - we were all busy commenting and suddenly he came out with that and I was all happy like a little girl who'd just been hugged by a Jonas brother. I think that's an accurate analogy, I'm not so hot on the current teeny-bopper culture.

All in all, although it stressed me out a bit trying (and failing) to upload on time, I'm so glad I took part. It's impossible to measure the good done as it's all for different charities and all donations go directly to them with all their others, but it doesn't really matter, we have done what we can. There was one video that really hit me, it showed some actual results of the sort of thing we are all trying to promote. It was by Shawn of the uncultured project. If you have a P4A video, I ask you to respond it to his, because I think what he does deserves to be seen, and it's a great closing to the project.

In other news I was supposed to upload my RED video 35 minutes ago but it's still rendering with 'about an hour to go'. I was also supposed to have made a second one and sent it to them. I haven't started the second one yet. It's alright though because Johnny Durham hasn't uplooooh NOOOOO! Johnny's video is up! I'm always late.

Could also do with going Christmas shopping at some point...

Bed bugs!

Oh my God, one of the places I stayed at recently, probably with a lot of you, had bed bugs and one or two of the little bastards made their way back to my lovely bed. Had an exterminator around, my room is basically a blood bath... of tiny insects. Hopefully that is them pwnd, but if anyone has stayed at a hostel in the past couple of months be on the lookout for blood on your bedsheets.

I have to make two videos for tomorrow and I haven't started thanks to my unforeseen battle with these bloodsucking fiends... Plus the fact that I still don't know what to do.

And I still haven't started Christmas shopping. Urgh, stress.

Project for Awesome: Darfur

The reason I chose to direct people towards charities for Darfur is that it's so understated. People hardly know about it and it's one of the worst humanitarian crises ever.

I can only imagine that distance is the reason for this, and that's a shit reason. We are a global community now. More than half of the people reading this live in a different country to me. And yet the newspapers, the television channels... the media at large are so focused on their own countries, they fail to see the importance of a real crisis.

A missing child in England could cause headlines for months, the latest British soldiers to die in Iraq or Afghanistan make the news at least a couple of times a week... But I can't remember the last time I saw anything in the mainstream media about Darfur, where around 300,000 people have died since 2003 and 2,500,000 are missing. Imagine if they were British people, or American, or anything that wasn't half a world away. It's unthinkable. But would that be any different to what's actually happening?

So they speak a different language and they live further away from you... Your home is only your home through chance. You were born somewhere, maybe you're still there or maybe opportunities arose that lead you elsewhere, but it's nothing more than chance that you were brought into an easier, more comfortable part of the world. A place where you can watch TV, worry about the economy, read John Green books, get stressed about having the family over for Christmas and turn on a tap to get a drink of water rather than walk seven miles to a source so dirty that you or I wouldn't give it to a pet.

What's happening in Darfur is death. Death on a massive scale. A scale that British history hasn't seen since WW2, and if you consider those missing and that the conflict is ongoing I can't see that number (about 450,000 according to wiki) not being topped.

So that's why I promoted charities for Darfur.

Bloody Hell!

That went well!

I have about four times as much footage as I need so thank you all very much, I still think I can fit everyone in, and if you've already put effort in to it feel free to still send it over and I'll try to get you in there too. I still need to film my part and then edit it all, though I have done a lot of the laborious elements of the editing process tonight in the hope that it won't be uploaded too late. Thankfully I'm five hours ahead of nerdfighter central!

For anyone that doesn't know this is what's happening tomorrow and what I was asking for clips for. I've combined my video with a song, and a collab now! I had to include the song really because I think it'll be the last video I do before Christmas and the song is festive! The collab just came about by me not having thought of an idea for the video to go with the song, and I must say I'm impressed with your collective ability to compensate for my lack of organisational skills!

So yes, basically the idea is go promote all of the Project for Awesome videos and getting them to the top of the most discussed/top rated videos and with them links to a lot of great charities. A rather large group of nerdfighters will be doing this on all of the videos, but if you don't have time for that I'm hoping you will help out with mine, it's quite simple - just rate it and leave a shit load of comments!

One final thought... I have a second channel, which is linked to my partnership - so I can upload the thumbnail without having to double the length of the video. If anyone would like to use it for their P4A video then leave a comment on here. First come first served isn't really fair in this world of time zones so I'll pick one at random... Unless a close friend asks!

Ok then, goodnight!

xxx

SNAP TO ATTENTION!

Collab... Quick!

Send me 10 seconds (ish) of something festive. Decorations, snowball fight, presents... Something like that. No audio required as it'll be going with a song.

16:9 if possible*, oh and within the next 12 hours.

K, THANKS!

Oh and leave a comment if you plan to get involved just so I know, and send files to musicfromblueskies@gmail.com. You can also send any questions there.


*If you can't film in 16:9, normal 4:3 will do but I'll chop a chuck off the top and bottom so don't have important stuff there and also make it as high quality as possible because that will lower it.

It's easy to be nice to your friends...

But that doesn't make you a good person.

You have to be nice to the other people too.

Crazy Charlie Fans

I was just on last.fm and I remembered something I was going to blog about a while back but didn't because it involved YouToon back when it was a secret. Well it's not anymore so...

Basically I sent Charlie the script and he sent me his lines. I listened to them in itunes and because I have a last.fm widget thing it recorded that I had listened to 'Charlie McDonnell - lines.' I noticed that the next time I was on the site and had a little laugh to myself. I also saw that Charlie had an actual page (Everyone seems to have a page on there... I did way before I found out about it, it's great!) I left a little comment that went something (exactly) like this:

lmao - I got charlie to say a few lines for a project, he sent them over and I listened to them in itunes... "Charlie McDonnell - lines" has just been added to my last.fm library! XD

Well the next day I got the following message from a last.fm user,

Hello. ^_^
I know it sounds a bit freakish but could you upload the lines that Charlie said? Our "Charlie is so cool like"-group would be very grateful. :)

Is it just me, or is that mental? Imagine listening to one persons lines from a show totally out of context! I can't remember if I told Charlie this, think I forgot. So Charlie: you have crazy fans. I know this is news to nobody, but still, it made me laugh.

Also if the guy who sent me that message happens to read this, I don't mean to make fun, you seem lovely - but you are a little bit mental. Still, who isn't?


p.s. Did you notice on my page - #1 related artist = The Nunes, and more importantly I am hers too! Epic win.


OH P.P.S! My previous post... That was taken from utubedrama, yes? Not my words. I saw a comment today from someone who seemed to think I was just saying that!

UToonDrama

4. KickThePJ says in his YouTube video titled SECRET PROJECT REVEALED that HE IS PART OF A NEW COLLAB CHANNEL BUT IT IS NOT A COLLAB CHANNEL EVEN THOUGH IT LOOKS LIKE A COLLAB CHANNEL and the COLLAB CHANNEL NAME IS YouTooners which is an animated video channel with YouTubers KickThePJ and OmgmHazzRocks and MusicFromBlueSkies and MyShowbizName and CowInParachute but then he says IF YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THEIR NEW NOT A COLLAB CHANNEL THEN AmazingPhil WILL SAVE A BABY GIRAFFE but IF YOU DO NOT SUBSCRIBE THEN AmazingPhil WILL KILL A BABY GIRAFFE meaning HE IS THREATENING YOUTUBERS TO SUBSCRIBE TO HIS NEW NOT A COLLAB CHANNEL WHICH IS AGAINST THE TERMS OF SERVICE TOS POLICY on YouTube and also AmazingPhil WILL BE SUSPENDED HIMSELF and then he WILL GET THE ELECTRIC CHAIR if he kills just one baby giraffe in England.

Yeah Phil.

YouToon

Some of you will already have seen it, but for those who haven't, over the past few months I've been involved in a project with some friends from YouTube. It's a cartoon based around five youtubers living together. The pilot has just been uploaded and it's gone down really well so far, but I think it could be really big. I'll be making a video to promote it later in the week.

I have a different video going up tonight, I've already uploaded it once and youtube raped the quality so much I deleted it, even though I can't see how I can fix it. Oh well It's 86% uploaded on the second attempt and I'm not doing it again!

Well the main point of this post is just to let you all know about the cartoon, so here it is - please subscribe if you enjoy it as we are planning to make more.

CLICK HERE FOR CARTOONEY GOODNESS!

p.s. as it's a totally new channel any help with promotion is greatly appreciated, anything from tweeting the link, featuring on your channel or just sending it to a friend on msn. Word of mouth advertising for the win!

WHY?!

I was just adding the blog of Minish to my Google reader. I couldn't find the add subscription button for a few seconds, then I realised they had moved it three inches further up the page. Why? Why do websites change things when there is just no need. All the effort of changing the site (granted I have no idea how much effort that is) and all they accomplished was confusing me for a few seconds.

Not even going to bring up the Y****** word because I want to go eat breakfast, and if I started on that we could be here for some time.

Manchester return, please.

The pictures below are of a part of Derby that I am rather taken with, just outside the city centre. I only ever go there if I'm walking between the bus and train stations, but every time I do I remember how much I love it. December doesn't show it in the same light as late spring and I hope I remember to go back with a camera then, but it is still rather beautiful, I think.



I took those on Thursday just before I got the train to Manchester. The decision to go by rail rather than road was made, based partly on the weather forecast which predicted a blizzard over the entire area I would be traveling through. As you can see there was no snow in Derby and the same was true for everywhere I went. But never mind, at least I could drink and be forced to go to Sheffield. More on that later.

I got into Manchester Piccadilly, walked into town and met Joe. Short introduction, I lived with Joe for three years in Liverpool, he's in this band, he's from the place they film League of Gentleman and the first thing he says to me after a good month or two without seeing each other is, 'Drink?' Hell yes.

We found a bar and caught up over a drink, more awesome people started to show up gradually and after a couple of hours we headed down the road to a small venue called The Ruby Lounge to see Ben Kweller. This girl came up to me before the music had started and said something along the lines of 'Hey, are you that guy who did that Fratellis thing on Youtube?' Why yes, I am! So that was fun. Joe pointed out that if you were to go on a Dave from Blue Skies search, a Ben Kweller gig would be a very, very good place to start.

The support act started quite soon after that. I forget his name, he was alright but nothing special. We noticed there was no backline so Ben wasn't going to be playing with a full band, which was a bit disappointing. We've seen him before with his band and they are incredible. But it was still Ben Kweller and he's one of my absolute favourite musicians. He played with one other guy who played slide guitar and was very large. I loved his set even without the band, I honestly don't think he's capable of disappointing me. He got a really full sound with just him on guitar or piano and this guy doing a bit of slide guitar. I won't go into detail and I couldn't pick favourite songs, it was just wonderful to see his energy and pure passion for music on stage again. Though I would say that the first time I saw him, which was at a similarly small venue, but with his band, was the best gig I've been to.

After the gig he stayed for a while signing stuff. I didn't get an autograph but I did give him a CD-R of a bunch of my songs. If I'm not mistaken, the first I've ever given to anyone. I remember he took the CD and put it in his back pocket and he seemed so grateful, I think he hugged me and he definitely said he would listen to it on his way to Glasgow tonight. I'm a little sketchy over what happen during those 30 seconds. It was similar to playing on stage then trying to remember your performance, but you were so into it that it's all just a blur. One thing I do remember is discovering that he signs his name with a star, exactly the same way that I do (not on official things!) This fact made me unreasonably happy, though I didn't mention it to anyone.

I could ramble on and on about how much I love Ben Kweller, from his love for playing music to the way he treats his fans, but I still have today to tell you about so I will restrain myself - we drove back to Joe's and went to sleep.

Today I had only one thing I had to do: get back to Derby. I had arranged to meet Jazza for a little while in Manchester and was planning to meet another friend from uni but she couldn't make it. Not knowing any other people likely to be free and in Manchester I wrote a text that said 'Lunch in Sheffield anyone?' and sent it to everyone I could think of that lives in Sheffield, which turned out to be two people. Fortunately they are two wonderful people and they both replied. So, after searching all of Manchester (three shops) for a tea strainer for Jazza (what - that's normal!) I hopped on a train, took some photos of Sheffield's lovely water features, headed into town and met Johnny Durham.

Here are some of those pictures. I may upload the rest to flickr or something. I have an account there and have never used it, might start.




We had lunch, which went down extremely well considering I'd eaten one bowl of cereal and half a bowl of pub chips in the previous 48 hours. Then Laura (Bubble) joined us after her radio show and we had a few drinks and a lot of talk.

That may be my favourite thing about my life right now, I can be in almost any major British city, send out a text or two and within an hour I'll have someone awesome to eat lunch with.
It's a good feeling.

So then I headed back to the station which looked lovely in the dark as well, just caught a train that had been delayed (unlucky for the people who'd been waiting, lucky for me!) and got back to Derby to find many blogs and videos requiring my attention. I was gone under two days, I don't know how they build up so fast - it's like people know I'm going away so they get productive!

Anyway, I ate food, wrote this blog and then I went to bed.

xxx

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Thinking about hibernation to bypass the cold. Or a house in Australia. Yes, I could go over there during winter and so my seasons would go Spring - Summer - Autumn - Summer! Good times.

I'm off to Manchester for a couple of days, to see friends and Ben Kwellers.

Bye.

xxx

March 28th

I've been watching old brotherhood 2.0 videos tonight as I've not been feeling very well. I've realised it's become the thing I do when I don't feel well, like I used to watch films when I was off school sick. Films like Liar Liar and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'd always meant to go back and watch the beginning as I was a latecomer to the Vlogbrothers channel, but if I remember correctly it took a late night in which I couldn't sleep because I had a cold to get me to start.

Well for some reason March 28th is taking freakishly long to load and I can't just skip it, that would be ridiculous! So I thought I'd write a blog and aim to finish at the same time as the red loading bar finishes. It's about half way so far.

In order to make this blog worth the time you've spent reading it I want to put an idea to you... I discovered that putting stuff on itunes takes a long time so I'm not making a Christmas EP, but I have already written one song and I thought for the video I could use footage of people doing their decorations. First of all I would like to know if people would be interested in sending me footage. I imagine quite a lot of people will because you guys are pretty fucking awesome. However I would like to make the video as soon as I am able to sing well again, which will hopefully be soon, so I would also like to know when you plan to put up your decorations, if you do that.

If you would let me know in the comments that would be lovely.

March 28th has loaded.

Bye. x

Lazy day

I'm trying to think of things I can do that will be productive but wont take up much energy as I'm still really tired, even after an 11 hour sleep.

I got a really good one that I've been meaning to do for a while, upload all the cover songs I've done to a site like mediafire, so people can download them. The Myspace worked well for a while, but now I have so many, and I can only put up 6 on there, that and it's totally fucked and nobody has been able to download anything for ages. So I'll upload them all individually and add links in the video descriptions. That will take quite a while, but it'll be worth doing.

Of course then I'll have that second myspace page with not much point to it. But I think I'll just put some of my older tracks or demos of new stuff on there, there's no point closing it down, with it I can have 12 songs on myspace instead of 6.

Might write a song as well, that can be relaxing. I tried a new tuning the other day that Tom uses - DADAAD, I like new/different tunings, as none of the regular chord shapes work it's really easy to think outside the box, you just start thinking about sounds instead of letters and shapes. So perhaps something in that.

First I'll probably write a blog telling you all the stuff I'm putting off doing by writing said blog.

The Advent Gathering

I am very tired. So I'm going to do this the lazy way; with bullet points. Hooray for bullet points!

This was my weekend...

• Woke up on Saturday at 8:00am for the first time in... Memory.
• Train was packed, had to stand for most of it.
• Got to London. Insane amounts of people, Christmas shopping I guess.
• Happened upon a big group of youtubers 'gathered' in Covent Garden.
• Hung out with them.
• Had enjoyable conversations and hugs.
• Signed a shirt, which reminded me of old school gatherings. That made me happy.
• Went to a Christmas fair thing in Hyde Park.
• Went to Harrods, big mistake - very busy, all got lost and separated.
• Went to the Tate gallery but was not in the mood for looking at art, was in the mood for sitting down and talking to people, which I did.
• Went to Wagamamas for some tasty food.
• Added this man to the rather long list of youtubers I love.
• Went to the pub for a few before everyone went their separate ways.
• Apart from about... 14 (?) of us who went the same way - to a hostel.
• Had a few drinks, talked and played songs in our room until the bar downstairs closed.
• Went down to the closed bar and drank in it while continuing to play songs and chat.
• Realised I was rather drunk.
• Around 4am we were chatting with the guys working there, they asked us to play a gig the next day!
• Unfortunately had to turn them down, because of the fact that none of us would be in London the following evening. Perhaps another time.
• Went to bed around 6:30, waking up everyone in the process.
• Got slapped by Mhazz.
• Slapped Mhazz.
• Fell asleep.
• Got woken up. Did not enjoy.
• Spent all of today trying to sit down and close my eyes, though did enjoy the company of many wonderful people.
• Got a train home, there was a dog on it. I'm not that into animals but it was lovely.

Good times.
But now it's bedtimes.
xxx

Albums

I do believe that any music is successful as long as at least one person likes it, and that people should listen to anything they enjoy and that no one person has better taste in music than another. Having said that reading Alex's top five albums made me want to cry.

So to recover I'm writing mine.

But not really. Because I just couldn't pick five albums and say they were my favourites, if you asked me on two separate days you may well find yourself with 10 different albums. So I'm going to go for it, but you aren't allowed to quote me on it or tell me what I missed.

I'll also leave out Grace by Jeff Buckley because I just told you about that last week.

Ok then, no more stalling... In no particular order:

1) Bright Eyes - Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

For me the easiest band to decide upon, but the hardest to choose one album from because (1) there are many albums to pick from, (2) all of the albums are very different and (3) all of the albums are fantastic. But I've gone with this one because I think it's what made Bright Eyes my favourite band.

It was released at the same time as I'm Wide Awake It's Morning but I only bought that one at first, it was my first Bright Eyes purchase and was based solely on the song First Day of My Life. Then based on that album I bought every other album released they had released. Digital Ash... was the one that took me the longest to get into, probably because it's the most unique stylistically. It's less reliant on guitars and pianos and involves far more electronic sounds and synths, but Oberst's lyrics are what sets the band apart and they are as strong on this album as any other. This album made me realise the potential that can be held within a single person. I've always been in love with many different genres of music, but it wasn't until I heard this that I thought I could make them all. I have a lot to learn (and a lot of equipment to acquire) before I make my own Digital Ash... but I know I will.

2) The Libertines - Up the Bracket

The Libertines were the last British band that I would put in The List. You know The List? The one people reel off when they try to show they are serious about words like 'great' and 'genius'. The List usually starts with The Beatles, involves The Who, Hendrix, Dylan, Led Zep, The Clash, The Smiths, Radiohead... See Scroobius Pip for a more complete List (though he was kind of using it in reverse - saying they were/are all just bands but yeh, it's still The List.)

The Libertines had that excitement that I don't think anyone has had since. The Arctic Monkeys came close with their gigs selling out before they'd release a thing, and every kid knowing every word to every song, they were pretty special times. But The Libertines... Every fan felt like more than a fan - they felt like they were a part of the band. They told people that to be a Libertine all you had to do was announce it; 'I am a Libertine' and it was so. This first album captures that incredible time and though it only lasted a year or two, the spirit of The Libertines was so entrenched in their fans and the influence is so clear in the bands that followed that their mark has been left, and all of us who announced it, we are all still Libertines.

3) Sigur Ros - Takk

Lie down, close your eyes and listen to this album from start to finish. You will fall in love.

4) Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position

You know when people say there's nothing original anymore, everyone is just rehashing older bands, make them listen to Patrick Wolf. I mean obviously everyone has their influences - nobody can pull music out of thin air we hear it pretty much every day of our lives and everything we hear affects us in some way... But I've never heard anything like this before. It's that mixing up of genres that makes me love Conor Oberst, but a bit more crazy and a bit more British.

He's a fascinating person and an incredible artist. I could swap this for Lycanthropy, his first album (this being his third) as that is similarly wonderful, I just went with this one as it's more recognisable what with the title track being released as a single. His second album Wind in the Wires I haven't spent enough time with yet, but I do like it a lot.

I think what makes him special is that a lot of people who make music that is 'different' are not pleasant to listen to, but this is just beautiful.

5) Radiohead - OK Computer

You may remember them from the abridged List earlier, well this is the album that got them on it. After The Bends they were certainly one of the best bands in the country, it was around the time of the big Blur vs Oasis thing... the media couldn't get enough of those two and their 'rivalry' yet in honesty, though I'm a fan of both, musically Radiohead blew them out of the water. As for the albums to follow, Oasis's Be Here Now (which I do think was underrated) effectively ended the Britpop phenomenon, and Blur went fairly quiet too, Radiohead however, released this little masterpiece!


I realise that I haven't chosen any albums released before my birth. There are many that I love and that I came close to including, but I think living through something makes it more special than going back and finding out about bands. I love to do that as well, looking back at The Clash and seeing what a huge impact they made and how incredible it must have been to be a part of that scene. But I wasn't. I was a Libertine. I watched Conor Oberst on stage and I was one of those kids that knew all the words to every Arctic Monkeys song before they had sold a single album. I'll remember those things forever, and as amazing as it is to listen to the ground breaking things The Beatles did, I will never be able to remember them. So that's why they didn't make my top five.

I thought about writing a list of albums that nearly made the list, but I'd still need a cut off point, and I am not writing a list of albums that nearly made the list of albums that nearly made the list! So I'll leave it at five.

What would you say...

If I asked you to name a person? Any person in the world.



Because I said "me" and apparently that makes me, what... Self obsessed?

Pffffffffft.

You know what's bad?

When singers assume they can dance.

You know what's worse?

The reverse.

New Film

Apparently Ridley Scott is making a film based on Monopoly.

What the fuck?

There better be a silver hat/dog/ship/etc flying around London trying to bankrupt each other by forcing them to stay in their hotels just because they are on a particular street. And it better make sense.

New Music

Something that makes me incredibly happy is finding great new music, and sharing it with people. Especially smaller or unsigned bands and double especially bands with friends in them. It's a dream of mine to set up a record company like Saddle Creek. I've been thinking for quite a while about a way in which I could share music on a large scale.

One option is to do a podcast showcasing unsigned bands. I don't think I've heard a podcast with music on before, I'm not sure why. I have only listened to a few, so maybe they do exist. I wonder if the fact you download them means that people could just steal all the music from it. That would be bad. Then there are sites like podbean - you don't download from there, just listen from the site. Anyone know a podcast with music on, or if not why they don't exist?

A slight problem would be that I don't like my voice. I hate hearing myself speak. But I think making videos has put me at ease enough to put up with it. It would also be a much smaller audience than option 2: a video series.

I could use the established audience of my youtube channel and introduce them to a new band in one video each month or so. It's quite a good audience for the bands as my subscribers are likely to be into the kind of music I am. This way would be harder, I'd be doing one band per video and so I would probably have to have them in it rather than just playing a song and telling people about them as I would in the podcast. Indieduction does a similar thing, but since that's aimed at youtube musicians and I would be looking at people I know from the real world mostly, I don't think there would be any clashes there.

I'm torn between the two options and still wondering if there is something I haven't thought of yet.

Forgetting things I haven't thought of yet, (that's an odd clause, think about it. Definitely using that in a song, it's brilliant!) I think the podcast is the easier option and allows me to showcase more bands. The videos would mean having to go meet and interview the bands which, although it would be fun, would also cost money and time and would require organisation. I'm not one for organising.

But the videos would get at least 10,000 views. If I started a podcast I doubt many people would listen, and I would want it to be worth something for the bands taking part.

I just started listing pros and cons of each and then I had a thought... I could do both! The podcast could be the main thing but I could do videos whenever the opportunity arises to be hanging out with a suitable band and it could be promotion for the podcast. I quite like that idea.

Well I've been rambling for a while so I'll spare you anymore. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, ideas on what I could do and also whether you would be interested as a listener/viewer. It would be a bonus if there was a way to make money out of this too!

I have a lot on so whatever I decide it will probably be something for the new year unfortunately. Well I guess it depends how easy or hard whatever I decide on turns out to be.

Anyway, I'm excited.

xxx

Just... Stuff really.

Not going road tripping anymore. It turns out it's my Dad's birthday tomorrow, well today now, and my sister is here for a few days. Who knew all that was going on?! So no time for gallivanting off to wherever. Turns out Ian couldn't do it either so that's good. It's a shame but there will be other opportunities.

I have so many things to be working on but I'm not getting much done. Bad times. Getting over this cold would be a good start.

I did write a nice guitar part tonight, which was actually not on my to-do list... The last thing I need is another song to distract me from all the others! But hey, you can never have too many songs. It's just the guitar at the moment, I was thinking about posting it to davefromblueskies to show people because I really like it, but I might wait until I have lyrics. Actually I might see if I have any lyrics in me right now.

Bye.

xxx

Jeff Buckley

I just found out that today would have been Jeff Buckley's 42nd birthday.

Had I known I might have braved one of his songs! It's a bit late now, so I shall blog.

Buckley has been one of the biggest musical influences that I have found in my life. I was eleven when he died and didn't really find out about him until much later. His version of Hallelujah was all I heard of him for a long time until a friend introduced me to one of the greatest albums ever recorded: Grace.

I don't know why I didn't follow up on hearing Hallelujah immediately because it's a masterpiece. I could never say definitively what my favourite song is, there are far to many and they all mean something different to me, but I remember being asked on Upstaged and with the pressure of being broadcast live to a lot of people I said, with a small disclaimer like the one I just gave you, that it was Buckley's version of Hallelujah. That hauntingly beautiful voice is just so natural, so simple, so real.

I was amazed to find his song writing to be just as beautiful as his singing and guitar playing. I've often thought the truly amazing thing about him was that he had all three: singing, song writing and guitar. If he had just one of those talents he would have been exceptional, but to find all three, to that standard, in one man... Well I can think of nobody else.

I think if I could go back in time to see anyone play, just a one time deal - one gig then the magic ends, then The Beatles, The Clash and Hendrix would all have to make way. I would go and see Jeff Buckley. (Of course, the real test of that theory would be to ask me again on Jimi's birthday!)

If I continue much longer it will pass midnight and this won't be posted on the day I claimed it was. So some simple advice. Listen to Grace. Buy it, borrow it, illegally download it, do what you do, just listen to it, and give it your full attention. Lie down, close your eyes and hear every word and every note. If it does to you what if does to me then go out and find everything else. It's a great shame that he only finished one album, but there is more. Here are a few terms to help you search...

Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk
The rain was falling on that day
Mystery White Boy
Live at Sin-é

Have fun.

Rest in Peace, Jeff.

xxx

Ahhhh!

I know what Blogger is missing... BLOG STATS! I used to like looking at all the stats on WordPress, they were class! View counts and incoming links and clicks on outgoing links... Oh and it tells you what searches brought people to your blog via search engines. I got some hilarious ones. Other than that I'm liking blogger more. Though one thing I would say, WordPress makes me want to use better English, I feel like I should use emoticons and shit on here, going to have to resist that urge.

I could make an amazing blot hosting site if I... could be fucked.
(And knew anything about websites.)

GOODNIGHT.

xxx

Adverts and Ideas

Have you noticed YouTube has gone ad crazy this last week? It seems like every monetised partner video has in-video ads, there used to be very few of those. Even old videos that didn't have them when uploaded have got them. I don't know if this is gonna mean adsense will pay more, unfortunately it takes quite a long time for them to update so I won't find out for a while. I can't afford to turn down the extra money by turning them off, but if there isn't a noticeable rise then I definitely will because there's no doubt they're annoying.

I have so many half written songs and half complete ideas at the moment. I don't know where to start. I also have a cold which means I can't sing. This isn't helping at all. I want to put these tracks on itunes, which means they all have to be ready before I make videos for any of them. I wish I could just do one then release it with a video and move on, but it's more expensive that way. My plan is to put Happy Friday and One Track Mind, both acoustic and electric versions plus a new song I'm working on. I know if I just put up electric versions people would moan, this way they can choose, or even better - buy both! So I'm just gonna pick a song and start doing whatever needs to be done, and I need to tone down the perfectionist thing because I need to get through these.

I think the key to becoming financially dependant on selling music, at least for now, is to write lots of songs, not to spend weeks making each song sound perfect. Most people wouldn't even notice the difference anyway. Of course I want to make stuff that sounds great, but I think I'll always have several things going on at once, that's how I work... So if I always have one of those things that I put a lot of time into and will probably make hard copies of to sell, for example the acoustic EP with Untitled, Don't Go, Alone Again etc... Then the other things I will try to make quicker, get them on itunes, promote them with a few videos and move on.

Oh and the Christmas EP idea, I have written one song but that remains on the possibility list. I'm not sure if I will have time to get it done.

Hope you're well.
xo

ROAD TRIP!

Hey, So I'm talking with Ian and he's gonna drive up here tomorrow. We wanna go on a road trip to some nearby places, especially ones with youtubers we can visit - Sheffield/Birmingham maybe Manchester. We also want to make a video out of this trip but for that we need some sort of target, something to aim for - something to be doing on the way. Unfortunately it's 3am and we can't think of anything. This is all a bit thrown together at the last minute because we were bored but yeh... Any suggestions?

I'm thinking along the lines of Charlie's 'Pig hunt' video where they went looking for those pig sculptures, but obviously... Not that. There are no pig sculptures around here anyway.

SO if you have any ideas for something we could do OR if you live not far from Derby and are free this weekend, leave a comment and we might take your idea/come see you!


EDIT! It's ok! chill out... we're gonna do it next friday/saturday... that way Ian can come up Thursday night and we'll have more time. (He works 9am Sunday you see.) Still send me your thoughts. =)

EDIT2! Ian's locked in his uni computer room hahahahaha... definitely next week then.

Here I am

I have decided to make the switch. I've put the subscribe button at the top, if you click on 'posts' then whatever you use will hopefully be on the list, if not you'll have to add the subscription manually. You can also 'follow this blog' over on the right. I have no idea what this means so if anyone wants to tell me, please do!

I've sorted out my blogroll, anyone nice enough to have my old blog on theirs, I hope you're nice enough to update it for me!

I may have a look for some external themes later, this one is alright but I'd like something more personal. Though Doug says they're confusing!

So I'm feeling quite at home. Sorry if you're bored of all my blog talk, I'm sure nobody cares but me, but it's over now I promise!

x

There's something you should know...

I'm thinking about moving... Here

What do you think?

I've been on wordpress for quite a while but it's annoying how blogspot seems to be... Well better! I'm also getting quite a bit of traffic and you can use adsense over there. Seems a waste not to use it.

The main problems are everyone would have to add the new one to their blog thing, google reader or whatever you all use, and that would inevitably result in losing readers. But to be honest I don't mind how many people read these and the people I care about would follow me, it's not exactly difficult. More importantly I might lose all the old blogs. I like having them all in one place. I'm not sure if it's possible to export it and import the whole thing, comments and all, into blogspot.

So if anyone has any advice, especially people who have used both or who know about importing the old blogs into blogspot, please comment on here.

In other news I'm thinking about writing a Christmas EP. I think that makes six I'm currently planning. Not sure about this one though, all depends on how easily the writing comes.

Change?

I'm thinking of switching to blogger from wordpress. This is a test so I'll end it here.

ORWELL WAS RIGHT!

Five unrelated things:

1. I just went to the shop and spent £19.84.
   The guy behind the till didn't seem to care much for the reference.


2. Last night I got back from spending the weekend down south at Ian's party. It was all kinds of awesome, we saw a numberplate that ended with WTF.


3. I filmed a video with Ed while we were waiting for Ian to pick us up, I'll edit it tonight probably and upload it within the next few days.


4. Thanks for everyone who commented the last blog, the blog itself is only 317 words long and the comment section is over 5000! I'm very glad this is a two way street.


5. Have you seen my new video? It's very good.

Freedom

I just got a comment, don't worry - I know that's how the last one started and then I got angry! But I just got a comment, actually it was on that last blog, this time from a perfectly lovely and intelligent sounding man named James. It began like this;

One thing that makes America great is our freedom of choice. We Americans have the right to support who and what we want. We can decide on our faith, our political views and if we don’t agree with any pre-existing ones we can start our own. This freedom is what defines us.

You hear a lot about freedom from American people, and that's fine - it's a wonderful thing to have, a wonderful thing to build a society on. But the idea that freedom defines them, is also something I've heard in some form or other many times before. And I must confess I'm a little confused. I live in a country where all of those things are also true. In fact it's true in most countries across the world. Certainly there are places it's not true, but surely if there is an established norm, it's for people to have freedom.

In the UK we have freedom, but it's never really spoken of. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand maybe it's wrong to take such an important thing for granted, but perhaps it's good that it's just assumed - it's built into us, we don't need to talk about it, just like we don't need to talk about gravity for it to affect us. The idea of not being free is pretty much unthinkable. I quite like it that way.

So my question is, why has freedom become such a defining feature of the USA? Are people there any more free than others?

That's not rhetorical, I'm curious.

Very angry, you might not want to talk to me for a while.

I posted a bulletin on myspace linking to by last blog about my positive feelings on the election result. I just received a comment on that bulletin from a 17 year old American Christian girl. I don't single these characteristics out, that is everything I know about her. She said this:

its too bad your just like the rest of them. i really liked your music. :/

And she deleted me as a friend.

That is the most outrageous thing I have heard throughout this campaign, and it didn't come from Sarah Palin! How can you let political beliefs stand in the way of music?! MUSIC! They shouldn't even stop you talking about politics, in fact it's better to talk politics with someone who disagrees with you. Disagreements are one of the most important parts of life, whether you decide on one answer, agree to disagree or come to a compromise, it's how we can all coexist in this world with such a beautiful multitude of opinions and beliefs.

That girl found out I supported Obama and that was enough for her to cut me out of her life, and that is the way to a very lonely and unstimulating life. Imagine if I cut out every republican I know. Not even know... just listen to, or watch, or read, or anything - that would be almost half of my life cut away.

That kind of close mindedness is everything I hate about the world right now. The idea that we have to stay within small groups of people with whom we agree is not only impractical, as the more you get to know people, the smaller the groups would be until it's just you, all alone, but it's also incredibly dangerous on a worldwide scale.

So I guess the point, other than to express my anger, is to beg you to look beyond politics, beyond religion, beyond race, beyond sexuality, and appreciate that the world can only be fixed by people who can accept each others differences and work towards the same goals, whatever they think the best way to achieve them is. I think John McCain is as good an example as anyone. Last night he was gracious in defeat and I'm sure he will continue to do what he thinks is right, to argue his case and to accept when the majority of people agree or disagree with him.

Well having got that off my chest I'm still pissed off. I think I'd be over it by now had she spelt you're correctly.

Waking up

It's currently 7:43am, and though I have yet to close my eyes and sleep, I can see many signs of the world waking up around me. My house is making noises, the curtains have a light glow around the edge and any small traces of drunkenness have well and truly worn off.

Tonight, or last night if you'd prefer, I stayed up to watch the US general election. I was willing to see it through alone, but stickam made it a far more exciting night. I've talked to many close friends over the last seven hours and I sensed in them the same feeling of hope that I have been carrying since I began to get into this race. I remember staying up to watch the vice presidential debates, that was the first time I really started thinking about the issues and about how I felt, and of course about what a catastrophe it would be if Sarah Palin were ever to lead the most powerful nation in the world. Since then I spent a lot of time following the election, more than I ever have a British general election to date, and I found myself agreeing with Obama time and again and was wondering if he was too good to be true. Not only were his policies the most sensible, but he is likable, understanding of a new and different generation, and a truly inspirational speaker.

I've had a video playing on my channel today. It's Obama's speech in the Virginia rain, possibly my favourite of his, even over tonight's. I honestly haven't been so impressed and inspired by a politician in my lifetime. When I saw that speech for the first time, though the content, the context and of course the accent are all different, I was reminded of Winston Churchill. Now lets face it, when it comes to speech making there is no higher accolade.

The fear that it was too good to be true, though continually diminishing, didn't disappear until the Californian result came through and Barack Obama was officially the next president of the US. After all, this is a country that decided after four years of George Bush, to have another four.

Of course, all of this has been just to get to the starting blocks. Come January we will begin to see if Obama can be the president we all hope he can. I at least believe he can.

It's 8:05am now, and though I am done for the night, the world is definitely waking up.

To my American friends...

Tomorrow is November 4th, the day of the US general election. Eight years of George Bush have (finally) come to a close and you all get to decide who his successor will be. Unfortunately no matter how much it affects the rest of the world, we can't vote. But you can, and you should because this is the closest thing we have to a fair society, everyone deciding together which is the best course of action.

I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, I just ask you to vote. If you have somehow managed to avoid the election build up and are still clueless, take a quick look at the candidates. It really won't take long for you to grasp the major differences between the two men's policies, and decide which you believe to be the most sensible. I also ask that you remember that we are a global community. However you know me, I doubt it would have been possible ten years ago. That connection we have is new, and it's growing stronger all the time, and I think it's important that the man in charge of the most powerful nation in the world understands what's happening in it.

I'm going to give you my opinion briefly, but I stand by the original point that the most important thing is to vote, and to vote based on what you think is best, not what I or anybody else thinks.

Were I able to cast a vote, it would be for Barack Obama.

Having stayed up for many late nights watching this race unfold, I found myself siding with Obama on almost every policy. The economy, health care, the environment, foreign policy... I haven't got the time to go into detail on each one, but if you have any specific questions leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them. But beyond agreeing with the policies, I have been very impressed with the man behind them. I rarely get into politics. I don't really trust politicians. They always seem at least a couple of generations away from me and totally unapproachable and unable to understand anyone under the age of 30.

But I don't find that with Obama. He manages to be inspirational without being corny, intelligent without being superior, and he is able to connect with a generation that was all but ready to give up on politics before it ever became politicised. I think he is just what the world needs in these unstable times.

But I can't vote so what I think doesn't matter. What you think, does.

I'll leave you with a beautiful quotation from Katrina that pretty much sums everything up;

"Go vote tomorrow or you're not allowed to bitch about what happens."

Numbers

I just passed the 10,000 mark. I never really thought about the numbers much but for some reason this one just hit me. I tried to visualise it in a few different ways and it's scary... In a good way.

I played a gig the other day, there were about 25-30 people there. I'd have to play that gig every day for a year to reach 10,000 people.

To fit 10,000 people in my bedroom you would have to shrink them until they were approximately 1.3cm tall.

If all of my subscribers stood on each others shoulders (with incredible balance) making a human tower they would reach the stratosphere.

Feel free to argue with my maths, but before you do you should know two things. (1) I have a degree in maths and (2) I am the co-creator of 'Jazz Maths', a branch of mathematics whereby any answer you give is correct as long as you say it with confidence and flair. If my degree lets me down, I just say I was using Jazz Maths, it's incontestable.

Happy Halloween

Oh I just heard the first firework of the night.

No trick or treaters yet, I saw a story on the news - the shit local news - that the police hired out a screen at a cinema and are letting kids go watch the new Bond film for free just to get them off the streets. Interesting idea, but what they should really do is host a full Premiership fixture list like they do on the first and last days of the season, plus I think New Years(?) That would take a few more kids off the street than one cinema screen. Though I suppose the police have little sway over the FA. Ah well.

Anyway, I recorded a song today, I wrote it after I finished reading Looking for Alaska. It's not quite finished, I want at least one more verse or something, but I quite like it. I've put a demo on myspace. Would love to hear your opinions as always, especially if you've read the book. But especially (yes I know, both especially) if you haven't read the book because I tried quite hard to make it a good song in it's own right as I think these type of songs rarely are. Oh and if anyone knows John Green, feel free to send him a link! I'll write the lyrics so far at the bottom.

It will be November in a few hours and I'm still not really sure what I'm doing with regards to this nanowrimo thing. I want to use it to motivate me in a way that's helpful to my life, i.e. not write a novel. However my previous idea of writing a song or blog every day, I'm not sure about. Blogs don't really accomplish anything, I write them because I have something to say. And songs can't, or shouldn't, be rushed. So I think I'm going to give up being specific and just set aside an hour or two each day for songwriting. Starting is usually the hardest part so by doing that I should get a fair few new ones this month.

Last thing, by the end of the night I should have reached 10,000 subs. That's a lot of zeros.

Ok lyrics to the song, it's tentatively called 'Alaska' but that may change. Oh and as for spoilers... yeah kinda. So don't read if you're bothered, but it's an old book so I guess most people won't be.

All these last words
But I can't know hers
Don't want to be holding on
Somewhere I don't belong*

One more time
Through my mind
Something I could have said
Signs that I should have read

But she found her way out at last
The crisp blue ink read "Straight & Fast".

Count the days
Till I can get away
From those emerald green eyes
Flying towards the flashing lights

We're more than just
Ashes and dust
More than what's visible
We are invincible.

Don't wait for your time to pass
Before you look for your great perhaps.

*The second half of the first verse are all that remain from the song that this started out as, before I read the book. They may well be changed.

nanowrimo

Stands for National Novel Writing Month and takes place in November.

I like the idea of encouraging people to write, but a 50,000 word novel in a month I think is enough to put most people off this idea, including me.  So personally I'm going to set my own writing challenge. All my writing currently consists of this blog and songs, so that's what I will be attempting. I'll say I have to write either a song or a blog each day. I'll put a minimum word limit of 500 on blogs because sometimes I do short ones, and no; a picture does not count for 1000 words.

I think I might make a video about this, help get people writing. Thoughts?

Youtube message:

Check out our new guitar site!

We are three guitar lovers who just started a new guitar site.

Our new practice routine teaches you to play guitar rather than just a bunch of songs.

Please drop by at http://spytunes.co.uk and check out all our totally free guitar lessons.

Here is our version of I'm Yours by Jason Mraz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eujAKmx3oGw

You can master the guitar in 8 months.
-Spytunes

WHAT YOU SAYING?!

Unintentional fasting.

So a whole load of youtube people met up on Saturday. I didn't go to this one for a few reasons, one of which was I had to be in Nottingham for a gig at 1:30 today so I couldn't have stayed the night without getting up early. Though I was pretty sad and jealous that I missed seeing old friends, I've been out making new ones, which made up for it.

So today was that gig that involved a 40 minute drive each way to play just three songs. I left at 2:00 (I know I was meant to be there at 1:30, shut up) and got back around midnight. Yeh - those were three LONG songs! Well it turned out that I was the last of about 12 people to play three songs so I actually played somewhere around 5:30. I didn't think it went that well but then I haven't played in quite a while and 3 songs doesn't really give you much time to get going. Still it was judged and they gave me third place, which was nice - behind a guy called Ben who I was hanging out with for most of the night and is amazing and a girl whose set I didn't really see much of but is supposedly very good too.

After the gig, a few of us went back to Sarah's (my cousin) for a little after party / music masterclass for her neighbours. We had a bit of a jam and played songs for each other. Along with Sarah and me, Ben was there and two of the judges, one of whom - an old guy named Eric - would have done well if he'd entered the competition, the other would have won it hands down. That's a folk singer called Gren Bartley who you should check out, especially if you live around Nottingham because live he is something else. He taught me to play banjo, and any day you learn to play the banjo is a good day. It's really anti-intuitive for a guitarist, he said he only cracked it when he was ill and did nothing else for a week but lie in bed and practise this strumming pattern that most of his banjo playing style is based on.

During all of this time I haven't eaten, so from breakfast just before 11am until getting home just before midnight I didn't eat a thing. I was not feeling good. I ate a meal for two and was still hungry after it, I think because I ate it so fast that I'd finished before the first mouthful had reached my growling stomach.

Well anyway it was a very good day, got a few more amazing musicians in my phone contacts, and they spoke very kindly about my abilities. The next hater comment I read will have even less affect that usual when I remember people of their talents saying nice things about me. It was also nice to see that the best musicians in the bar that night were also the nicest people. Often you hear that it goes to peoples heads or whatever... But I find usually that great musicians are nice people, it's the ones who think they are great but really aren't, they tend to be pricks.

I'll probably do another blog linking some of the awesomeness I met today but I can't be bothered to go look for them right now. So I'll just leave you with a joke, possibly the best joke ever, I'll let you be the judge.

What's brown and rhymes with snoop? Answer.

Time, Tomorrow and Towns.

As some members of my family (not me) are more organised than others (me), the relatively simple act of walking from my room to the kitchen currently involves changing not only your location in space, but in time as well.

I have yet to change my clocks so I'm still in the future, don't worry nothing much happens.

Actually I quite like this detachment from time and am considering one day changing all the clocks so they say different times for every room. I'm aware this would not really alter anything but the directions certain pieces of plastic or metal or whatever clock hands are made of point in, but unless you have a schedule or appointments to keep that really doesn't matter.

Unfortunately I believe that to be the flaw in my plan. Even I do occasionally have appointments to keep and I'm bad enough at knowing what they are when I exist in one time zone. For example I believe I'm supposed to be going to Nottingham in approximately 12 hours to play a few songs. Wait, scratch that - I have 13 hours. But I'm not sure if this is true so in about 11 hours I'm going to call and check.

The gig is the final of an open mic competition. I have to drive 40 minutes there and back to play 3 songs. That in itself is quite depressing, especially as that last sentence contained the word 'drive' and thus I won't be able to just get drunk in the afternoon which is, I believe, what Sundays are about. However the reason I'm considering, no I think I've decided on doing it, is that approximately half of the people who play will have one of their songs put onto a CD that will be sold and promoted throughout Nottingham, and though there won't be any money in that, hopefully in the long run the promotion will cover the petrol.

I stopped myself from a digression in that last paragraph but now I've begun a new one specifically to follow it. The first day of the week, or last if you look at it that way, Sunday has become something quite different to the other six. I'm not sure there's a good enough reason for this. Sometimes it's nice - the afternoon drinking that I will be missing out on tomorrow is the fault solely of the word 'drive' and not of the day, and that can be a very pleasant side to Sundays, especially in the summertime with a BBQ. For some reason it's acceptable to drink earlier than on other days. But also everything shuts early, if it opens at all. Why? I imagine religion is to blame and that is not a satisfactory explanation for an Atheist who needs a post office. Ah well, I'm sure I'll get over it. And I do like those Sunday BBQs in the summertime.

I'm watching old vlogbrothers videos while I wait for Paper Towns to be delivered. I like their videos very much and I was quite late in discovering them so I've gone back to the beginning. I'm looking forward to reading the book as well, it's been a long time since I read anything, and I love to read when I'm in the swing of it. I never usually buy books new, I either borrow from friends or buy them from charity shops. But I bought Paper Towns (and his previous two since they were pretty cheap) because I felt like it was supporting a fellow youtuber in their beyond-youtube life. Something that I hope a lot of people will be doing for me soon enough. So I have that to look forward to. Of course it won't come tomorrow - it's a Sunday.

Also...

Sean drew me a picture and I love it.

In other news I filmed a vlog while feeding the fish but by the time I got around to editing it most of the information I relayed was no longer true.

OMG It's Dave from Blue Skies

I'm watching John Green's Paper Towns tour on blogtv and he started doing his signing and just left the laptop there for people in the queue to talk to everyone. These girls came over and we all typed 'hello' and similar greetings. Then they spoke the immortal line;

'Oh my God, it's Dave from Blue Skies.'

Epic, epic win.

Need a name

What should I call this song?

Some thoughts:

One track mind
Falling
Fallen
New cliché
Unique cliché
Hurling clichés in a glass house

Or any other suggestions, in the comments please. =)

1990

People born in 1990 are now, mostly, 18 years old.

PEOPLE BORN IN THE 90's ARE NOW ADULTS.

Fuck off.

Songage

Been recording a song the past couple of days, basically just as I teach myself to use logic (the music production software... not the study of the principles governing reliable inference). It's one I've been meaning to put on my channel for the last two months since I sung it on my indieduction video.

I made it electric and I think it has potential, though I'm listening now and can hear a lot I want to work on. I'm thinking of doing an electric version of Happy Friday (and maybe another) and selling them together as a way to get used to itunes or whatever else I may use to sell songs, before my proper EP is ready.

I've uploaded it to myspace, but currently music on myspace is working about as well as the Bush administration's economic policies (Oh yes, this blog now official counts as political/current events) and as such the song has been processing for hours and won't let me do anything, even delete it. SORT IT OUT TOM!

Anyway I uploaded it to lastfm, which is less utterly terrible. So long story short CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE DEMO!

And do let me know what you think. Leave a comment... anywhere. I'll get it.

Gear

Right I get asked all the time what mic/guitar/software etc, etc I use. So I'm gonna write it all here then link people to it. No need for regular blog readers to continue from this point unless you're interested in that.

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Microphones
I use an AKG C414 for most things. I also have an sm58 which I use for gigs and a samson C01U that was given to me by the RNLI... Don't ask. I haven't really used that one for anything other than skype.

Guitars
Fender cutaway acoustic DG 14SCE
Epiphone Sheraton II
Burns Marquee
Yamaha bass stolen from my cousin
Dean acoustic bass also stolen from my cousin

Piano
Upright made by Kemble London. I know nothing more about it apart from it's beautiful.
And a midi controller keyboard, M-Audio: Axiom 61.

Drums
I only have an electric kit - a Yamaha DTXpress. I'd love an acoustic kit but they're quite loud and there's a baby next door.

Mixer
I have a firewire mixer which negates the need for an external sound card, it's an Alesis multimix 12.

Computer
24 inch iMac (2.93GHz core 2 duo, 4GB RAM)

Software
I use Logic Pro now, earlier stuff was done on Cubase.

Extras
AKG K271 headphones
Alesis proliner720 speakers
Plectrums - I like the simple nylon ones about 1mm thick (though I can't find one to check... I lose them so fast it is, at times, unbelievable). Tried hundreds and I always come back to those. Thin enough to strum, think enough to pick. Just right.
Digitech RP50 and Behringer UF100 guitar pedals.
I own approximately seven thousand jack leads.

Video
Camera - JVC Everio
Software - Final Cut Pro. Earlier videos made in iMovieHD

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If you have a question about gear that is not answered leave it as a comment and I will try to update this entry. I'll try to update it as I get new stuff as well.

10/10

That's the date, not a perfect score.

So I got my first money from youtube, I know - it's only been eight months!

Sarcasm aside I didn't expect to get anything from it when I signed up and I'd be making the videos anyway so insert your own cliché saying about me not being such an ungrateful bastard here.

Anyway I spent twice as much as I received on clothes, a haircut and a ticket to London and back this weekend. Did resist buying a nice long overcoat for winter but I still want one because they're awesome.

In town I saw a sign saying 'No pushchairs on the escalator please.' It was placed so you would see it just as you were about to get off the escalator. Very sensible.

Here's something that's nice, of all the blogs I read on google reader, which is over 50, the only people who have more readers than me are John Green, who is a writer, and Amazing Phil, who is amazing. So thank you for caring about the things I write, and for not sending me anthrax letters when I accidentally posted my address on here. In fact! Today I got sent this...

*goes to find camera*

*fails*

well it's a birthday card with the words "with love on your birthday a random day of the week" typed/written, followed by, "HAI DAVE! You just got Nonjanated! ... Nicanated! ... Sent a shit card!" And in compensation for this I was given 2p and a hug made out of post it note. I try to avoid drawing punctuation/alpha-numeric pictures in this blog, but I am allowing an exception to this rule for Nic, just this once... <333333333

Possibly the best start to the day ever, apart from maybe climbing over a fence like a ninja to get to work.

I want to do a video involving sending people letters. I was gonna do it the other day but I did the texts video instead because it was easier! That's doing well, not in views - I never seem to get high views anymore, but it's top rated in all categories for the 'day' which is much longer than 24 hours for some reason.

In totally unrelated news, I am totally in love with Conor Oberst's album. It's all that drags me away from listening to Midnight Hideout lately. Oh downloads are working for me on myspace again, they aren't for everyone but if you want to download Tom's stuff or mine, as I put a bunch of new ones on my second myspace, it's worth a try. But yes, Conor Oberst, I had to record a version of Milk Thistle because it's beautiful. I put it on my second channel. I don't think I've ever mentioned my second youtube channel before, it was for private videos that I didn't care about anyone seeing other than who they were for, then I used it to test uploads sometimes, but I'm thinking of using it a bit more, maybe even linking the partnership. So I feel like blog readers deserve to be told!

Can't be bothered fitting links in so here they are:

Second youtube

Download Tom's stuff

Download my covers

Have a good night.

Bang up to date.

I was just about to go make some dinner when I heard the words 'I'm making paella, do you want some' from downstairs. Fuck yeah.

So I've used what would have been cooking time to update the links on here. I've added a lot of friends blogs that I have found since I last updated it. I like it when I find out people have blogs so if you have any suggestions then feel free to leave a comment, though I don't really read any blogs from people I don't know.

I'm so glad I started this, and I'm glad that a lot of my friends do it too, I think blogging is a great thing to do and especially good for long distance friendships. Nobody can make videos everyday (apart from Barry Aldridge, who can make nine) so it's a good way to stay close to people.

I've found that about twitter as well, I thought it more than likely I would stop using that site after a day, but it's nice to interact with people, even if it is just a line or two back and forth, just that bit of regular conversation - it's what's missing from a lot of online relationships.

So the house party tour idea went down well! I was looking at a map earlier planning a route in my head! I know it won't be for a long time, but I can't wait!

Well that's all for now. I encourage you to have a look at the links to the right of this page for some blogs, and to start one yourself if you haven't already.

xxx

Idea

Possibly the greatest idea of all time. Possibly not, but it's a belter.

The idea is a little bit stolen from Willy Mason, some of you may come to realise, but actually it came from Pav who just said to me,

"If you made a video saying 'come stay at my house, address is...' I guarantee people would come knocking"

That sentence did make more sense in context but that's not important. When I read that for some reason I thought, turn that around... Don't give out my address obviously, but get people to send me theirs and get them to organise house parties at which I will play. TOUR ORGANISED.

Ok, it would be quite a lot of work and there is the possibility of people saying they will organise a big party and then I turn up and there's two people there, But I know people who I trust in most cities in the UK so I could get friends involved. Plus I could bring some people if the hosts were happy with that. Basically I just wanna drive around the country for a few weeks with my guitar meeting various friends along the way and playing gigs in random peoples houses. Will probably wait until next summer so people are on holiday and I have a cd or two to sell, which I reckon would cover the cost.

I could get support acts too! Made up from my friends! Like I could get Tom to do some around here and Ed to play when I'm north of the border... I got loads of musical friends dotted around this beautiful country!

I'm so fucking excited right now.

Thoughts?

This is Tom

In the video I uploaded today I used a bit of a song that a friend of mine recorded and I would like to take the time to introduce you to him, so guys - this is Tom. Well it's his band: Midnight Hideout, which is similar to Blue Skies in that it may as well just be his name, as it's just him. I appreciate that probably nobody reading this will like his songs as much as I do (I doubt even his parents like them as much as I do!) but if someone introduced me to his music I would love them forever. As it happens nobody introduced me to his music so that's a weight lifted off the hypothetical person who might have. We actually met when we both played at some gig at the Vic in Derby, he found me on myspace before hand and that's where we keep in touch, which is basically just me telling him how good his latest song is. I swear sometimes it seems like I only login to myspace to accept friend requests from youtubers and to check to see if either he or Jack has uploaded anything new.

His music is an interesting mix of genres, if I had to settle on two I would go with acoustic and electro. The majority of the more electronic sounding songs (Including the one from my video) have been taken off his myspace to make way for a more recent 4 track EP called 'Too Calm To Crunk' which is the most stripped down acoustic sound I have heard from his recordings, though there's still an element of electronic production, especially on the opening track, 'Too white for funk'.

This was supposed to be a simple recommendation not a review, you don't need me to tell you whether you like it or not - all you need is a link, so I'll try to keep it brief. Actually I can sum up my thoughts by telling you about one of my lists.

I have a lot of lists in my head about my life - things I want to do in the future mostly. I have one that I will attempt to give a title to now: 'People I must either make an album with or go on tour with before I die.'

Ok so it's not going to be hosted by Jimmy Carr on channel 4 any time soon, but it's one of my most important lists (and those shows are shit anyway). There are currently only three people on this list, so I'm not being unrealistic and listing everyone whose music I love... although one of them does live in Australia so I'm also not expecting this list to be completed any time soon - it's a 'before I die' list for a reason.

Anyway, that was a small segue into my mind. Yes, Tom is on the list - that was the point. I may introduce you to the other two at some point, but for now, if you're interested go have a listen to Tom's myspace. The first track is a new one and less accessible than the others, so I wouldn't start there. If you're the sort of person who will decide after one track then listen to either 'Wodka Wodka Wodka' or 'crzy teens...' which I will leave you with the lyrics from.

Yu Crzy Tns Jst Dnt Knw Whr 2 Stp

All the empty houses, how they trusted us not to make a mess. We made a mess of everything.
It's so hard to clear up in the morning.

Well I'm learning to sing what I write and then I'm packing up my bags, making every night a Friday Night. Making every pub the Vic, well you know how we love the toilet circuit because the locals in the corner have got their own shit going on, so I'll never run out of material.

Well it better be a long hot summer because we've got weeks and weeks of long hot summer plans
(like road maps and transit vans).

By the wonder of the internet, clicking on this sentence will take you to Tom's myspace page where you can listen to his songs.

Enjoy.

Twitter

I've been holding off getting a twitter because I have too many sites, but I went on there today to take the name MusicFromBlueSkies so if I did want to use it I could have it, plus so nobody else could get it and be a fake Dave (like the bebo account I just got deleted). Anyway, it turns out the username is too long so I took fromblueskies instead so it kind of looks like 'twitter from blue skies'. I dunno - everything else was taken!

ANYWAY none of that is the point. The point is as soon as I confirmed my email I was taken through to the site and it seems without doing ANYTHING I'm already following Barry Aldridge! Just look at what greeted me...

Remember Worcester?

A three car convoy for a three hour drive. We all met the family we'd never see again. It was the hundredth time we'd seen them play live, but that's not why we were there.
"We're with the band." Holding up a guitar.
"Yeah, come in lads - there's an open bar!"
Food, free rooms and an inflatable slide, which if you're going to break your toe, must be the best way. Each painful step takes you back to the moment you'd say, 'the most sensible thing to do at this point, is for us four to race around this inflatable slide.' And that's a beautiful moment to be remember.

Even outrageous hangovers, early checkouts and a three hour drive the less exciting way couldn't take the smiles from our faces.

Phone conversation between cars (with poor reception):

Which way do we go?
No right turn.
Right? What? Which way?!
NO RIGHT TURN *points to 'no right turn' sign in front*
Straight? There's no fucking road straight! Fuck it, I'll get out and ask them.
...
Ah. No right turn. Left then.

This was a strange and nostalgic post for which I apologise, but I'm in a strange and nostalgic mood tonight.

Ha, Adam always referred to that weekend as 'If Carlsberg made parties.'

Got a bit of a cold

It's barely anything, but I can't sing. As a singer this is quite annoying. I have a cover song all ready apart from the vocals. I really like it an I'm excited about uploading it but now I have to wait and I don't even know how long for.

I had a thought the other day when I was on a lifeboat off the south coast of England. I remembered getting the mystery package, right at the start before I knew who was behind it or even that anyone else had got one, and I thought, I never saw this coming. Who would have thought where the journey that began with a mystery package would have lead to?

Well I was just reading Ian's blog and I had a similar thought. I first met Ian in Bristol during a 6 hour live broadcast from inside a glass box. He drove for a couple of hours to come see us just for the hell of it (I think that's the case, could be wrong!) and now he's a proper friend whose house I stayed at the other day.

I like to think about when I first met people, Mhazz is another one I remember, she found me through my Hot Hot Heat cover and told me she wrote her youtube link on the singer's shopping list.

Remembering how little things start friendships is cool because you start to look at all the little things that happen in your day and wonder what could happen as a result.

In other news I privated a few more old videos. I realised something, hater comments don't get to me on videos that I'm totally (or at least close to) happy with, but they do when a little part of me agrees with what they're saying, even if they are saying it in a manner that can only be described as 'cuntish'. So a few more have gone, now that I have quite a lot of videos I don't think it matters that much. In fact it's quite good to see that none of the ones I want to private were uploaded since I got my new camera, so they are all over five months old, which is at least some indication that my videos are getting better.

Lately I haven't been so happy when going through comments and stuff because I'm always thinking the next thing I see will be someone telling me I can't sing, and usually I'm right. But hopefully that should have changed now because it's only a few videos that I get those comments on and now they're gone. Last time I did this people persuaded me to put reptilia back, I know a lot of people like it and it probably did attract a lot of new people to my page, but the comments do grind me down. So I'm definitely not putting it back for a while. Most people who care that much should have downloaded it by now anyway. Oh speaking of, I changed the songs on my covers myspace, so go have a look, there should be some you don't have.

Goodbye lovely people, if you can't think of what to wish for when you see that first star tonight then I'll take a healthy throat for tomorrow please and thank you.

x

Hi

So I'm sat on my own in a computer room at Winchester university. Didn't see that one coming!

I'm actually with Ian but he's gone to sort some stuff out, should be back in ten minutes or so, and Tom will be joining us later on too. We just decided to extend the little weekend get together a little longer as my train ticket is an open return.

Since I have some time here I may as well start back on Friday.

On Friday I went to Poole at the invitation of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, also known as 'mystery package people'. The weekend was basically one of questions and answers in both directions, but the main aim was to answer the question of 'who are you?' that had been directed at them from so many youtubers. So they sent out train tickets and we used them. Not feeling all that great but happy to be well enough to go, I took a five hour train journey to the south coast. In Southampton my train split in half. This was planned, which is far less problematic than an unplanned split in half, but still it confused me as both halves seemed to be going to Poole. So basically I guessed and guessed wrong, meaning I went the slower way. However at a very similar time Charlie was writing a blog, which perhaps some of you read, that included the line, "I MISSED MY STOP SHIT"and going beyond Poole from the other direction had to go back on himself which meant getting on my train... Of course neither of us knew this until we stepped onto the platform and saw each other just a few carriages apart.

We had a wonder around and found the RNLI college that we were staying at, even though at one point a very large fence almost had us beaten. we walked in and saw three people looking at us and after a few moments of awkward, they decided that yes; we were those people off of the internet.

That night we just relaxed with a few drinks. People kept appearing at irregular intervals and by the end of the night Johnny Durham, Jazza, Mhazz, Ian, Tom and NSG had joined Charlie and myself.

I've just thought, if Ian doesn't come back... What would I do? I have no real idea where I am, no means of transportation and nowhere else to stay. Ah, I think that's his car - emergency over.

That night we all went to ASDA and bough birthday cake because at midnight it was both Johnny and NSG's birthdays, I was glad they both said they had really enjoyed their birthdays as they'd given up their normal plans to be with us.

On Saturday we had to get up ridiculously early (for me) to start doing things. Alex had already arrived by the time I got to breakfast having not slept that night but waited around Waterloo station for the first train. I won't go through everything in detail because this is already getting long and a video will follow but basically they showed us around the place. Oh and NSG "died in theory" but thankfully not in practice.

In the afternoon we went out on one of their lifeboats, which was so good. I haven't been on a boat in... Well I can't remember to be honest, I'm gonna say fifteen years. Living in Derby (pretty much the most central city in England) the opportunity doesn't arise very often. Or ever.

It was annoying having to wear all the gear but worth it when we went out one by one onto one of the smaller boats they have. I loved that part, the driver was jumping over waves and turning sharp corners, it was kind of like riding a horse because your feet were in stirrup style things. In fact, I'm going to put my reputation on the line and say that they were stirrups. But the main difference between the speedboat and the horse was probably the face full of water you got every now and then... But after the first one of those I realised that keeping the mouth firmly shut was sensible and I enjoyed the rest of the ride very much.

There were a few more tasks and talks when we got back, which I got through although I was outrageously tired. Then it was time for dinner and drinks, it was so good to relax again. That night Ian, Tom, Johnny and I stayed up in a totally empty building (apart from one creepy security guard who stuck to the shadows.) We played the piano, scrabble, seeing how much sugar Ian could get in his mouth... It was fun.

Sunday, everyone left at eleven apart from Charlie, Tom and me. We had a wonder around Poole (it's not great) and Tom and I planned with Ian to come here to Winchester. So that's brought me full circle, Ian and Tom are back, we are going to get pizza, so I will leave you there.

Back home tomorrow... Probably.