From The Inside Out

I remember talking about doing this on leap year day 2008 and it will all commence tomorrow.

I feel that no matter what people say and where their allegiances lie, something very exciting has been happening on the London music scene in the last couple of years. I feel that being a musician in a few bands right now is exciting even though the main crippling fact about it is the lack of dough on offer...However every interview/article that I read on the London music scene doesn't satisfy me and people still get it wrong despite you spelling things out in black and white. Hence I've decided to do a film documentary on it - From The Inside Out.

I haven't scripted or planned anything. I don't think that's the way I want to do it. I just want to be an observer but probe those who I feel can shed more light on everything. It's just going to be me, my camera and London's music. That's all there needs to be really. No flashy sets or staged antics. Just life, the way I have seen and lived it over the past year.

Filming commences tomorrow on my return to London.
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Uncle BoB's Podcast #2 - Cover versions

This week Uncle BoB takes you on a journey of some people doing other people's songs.

Yes. Otherwise known as laziness.....

UNCLE BoB's Podcast #2:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Diamond Sea
An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump - 100%
Nirvana - Seasons In The Sun
Sisters Of Mercy - Jolene
Ciccone Youth - Addicted to Love
Hole - Hungry Like A Wolf
Dinosaur Jnr - Just Like Heaven
The Pixies - In Heaven
Sonic Youth - Superstar

Listen to all the music - no words - right here:
Uncle BoB's Podcast #2

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The Truth Behind Beauty

I often contemplate what my life would be like if I woke up every morning and looked like this...A hell of a lot easier and happier I think....

Living where I do and doing what I do puts me and others I know glaringly into the focus of style, fashion, beauty. I hate it. I hate every minute of it. Would we have graced the cover of a magazine by now if we looked more 'conventional'? I believe so. Would we be the IT girls to hang around with if we were slender and blonder? I believe so.

Perhaps this is just a manifestation of my inner insecurities but I believe that how easy your life is and how far you go in it depends a little on intellect and chance and a whole damn way on how you look. It hurts but that's the truth.

I'm going to get the skinny model girl who dates guys in bands to DJ at my night because she is hot. FACT. She knows nothing about music and hasn't the slightest passion for it but she is fit. FACT.

Genetics, intuition, nature...you just can't fight this.

Lydia Lunch recently said this about us:

'I'm a fan of any women making noise who refuse to comply with an outdated beauty ethic and instead flaunt the power of their female charms with sass, spit and vinegar.'

Of course I was flattered as I've been a massive fan of hers for years. However I sat back and thought about it and it hurt that we're not considered beautiful, just people who don't comply with what girls in bands should look like. That's not quite the same thing.

At the end of the day, the last couple months have made me realise so much about this industry and myself. I've taken a huge leap away from it all. It's just the way things go and nothing's going to change. No sir. You just have to express your creativity for yourself and the rest can go to hell......

My ears just popped

Thank God. I was really worried during the walk home that my tinnitus had come back again. I lost 80% of the hearing in my right ear in 2006 and could just hear the worst feedback in my ear non-stop, 24/7 for 8 solid months. I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and one day I woke up and I heard silence. I have never been so happy in my life. So yeah. I constantly worry about my ears and I'm usually good with wearing my ear plugs but took them out a bit tonight.

I enjoyed the Offset party tonight. I've been a bit of a recluse lately and was dreading facing the real world today but I really enjoyed it - great venue, mix of people and eclectic music.

I split my set with Christina so didn't get to play the whole 5 songs. I'd actually planned on playing a pretty predictable set of:
Selfish Cunt - England Made Me
Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia
PJ Harvey - Missed
Pavement - Grounded
Chemical Bros with Hope Sandoval - Asleep From Day

I really enjoyed Anthony Chalmers set as he just played stuff from new bands - Male Bonding, Graffiti Island, Rayographs etc.

I'm really exhausted now. I wish I could just sleep for 100 years. I need to disappear - get the hell out of London. Hitch a ride out of thie damn city and head to some next town. I really want to get a car, some books, some tapes and just drive across America. Meeting weird folk, spinning yarns and having time to think. Pure, deep thoughts that aren't tainted by pointless meetings about this band, getting the tube, going to crap gigs and clubs, worrying about scraping money together for bills, my rent and I'm not even going to start on my student loan...i just want to be rid of all these thoughts and plant new, raw, pure, otherworldly thoughts in their place. Whilst driving across a desert listening to The Pixies.

I want life. I don't feel my life is here, doing this, now.

2mins 6 seconds in is what I'm talking about....

Little Victories Part 2

Ugggh I can hear strange knockings from outside or next door..it's almost 4am and it's freaking me out. There was also some weirdo man whose been appearing in the early hours of the last few nights pretending to be a dog and barking outside my window. Yeah it's pretty hilarious but it pissed me off as I was trying to record some drums and had to compete with him. And also now everything has been recorded and put away and as I sit in the dark typing away, my mind suddenly decides it's time to freak out about it. Bloody typical.

Anyway the reason I'm writing is because I feel I have accomplished a minor personal milestone today. I wrote, recorded, sang and played all the instruments - bass, drums and guitar - on a new track called Three AM for Blue On Blue. I wrote somewhere recently (perhaps on the Bird blog) that this was an ambition of mine. Yep, Dave Grohl first Foo Fighters album style. It all went downhill musically for Foo Fighters first album onwards but I totally respect what he did - it still stands as a pretty outstanding achievment for any artist even nowadays. My man Dave rocks!

Ok so this is only 1 song, not an album and all the demos up I have mostly recorded myself but till now it's been just me singing with either a bass or guitar.

I'm going to put the song on the Myspace shortly. http://www.myspace.com/blueonbluepop

I'm going to stop posting out stuff on Facebook about it as it's a little embarassing. It's weird as you have great friends on there you want to share things with and then there's people you don't know as well and I think it could all come across as just inane self-promotion and big-headed. The thing is, the dawn of the internet is a life-saver for people like me. I was the most socially awkward, insecure and troubled youth I have ever known. Sometimes it's hard to surpress these innate sides of me but mostly people don't realise I'm like that. The internet for me is such a great form of communication and way of combating my demons...I started promoting and doing clubs and bands via the net which keeps what I do alive but without too much interaction with people. It actually gives off the impression I have some kind of life. Weird that.

Anyway this was meant to be a short post so it ends.
HERE.

Can't work out

if this is a fan video or the real thing. Either way, I love it and think it fits this song perfectly.



It kind of marks how I feel at the moment. There was a wide tunnel of light and as each day passes it gets narrower, more obscured and there are less people in it. I opened Pandora's Box recently and the light burst through. But only for a day. Just for a small, pathetic few hours. But it was so beautiful and I think that in years to come I will always remember it.

It's better to have loved than to never have loved at all?

It hurts me to say it, but I think I agree....

Top 5

Been asked to play my top 5 songs at the ECC/Offset party on Thursday.

Here's what I'm thinking:
1. Roy Orbison - In Dreams
2. The Velvet Undergound - What's Going On?
3. Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia
4. Nirvana - Scentless Apprentice
5. Selfish Cunt - England Made Me