Sunday 8 May 2011

Know Thy Foe

It seems its been months yet again since I have updated anything on here. I guess for the last ten months or so I haven't felt the need to verbalise mythoughts and ideas. I was at a stage in my life where for the first time in a long while I knew what I wanted and the process that kept my thoughts so active and drenched in self exsposition were for a time, at rest.

In the last month or so I have been making my best attempts to bring my life to some sense of order and routine, Its a different approach to things and at times its a welcome change from the ever unpredictability and instablity that I always found myself in. Needless to say at points I do find myself crawling up the walls and asking if the routine way of living is really for me, It would seem that I found my own brand of stability and content in my orginal unpredictable way of living.Im finding a shit storm of anxiety and discontent pouring down over what I thought would help clear old discomforts and aches. This Leads me to ask the question, do I just enjoy living in this storm ive created?

I feel now as if the last 10 months of my life have been a huge blur, The thing that made me see the good in my surroundings and in a similair sense the good in myself, have since departed.Its a frustrating feeling that has left me ever the cynic I have been for years, unable to trust in the unknown. I was living as if I was in a key moment in my life, the moment where everything changes, problems resolve and negativity subsides for good. Looking back it would seem I was just infact apart of someone elses moment, a stop gap for someone in which they would learn more about themselves and how to better their own life and I guess in turn learn how to fix the troubles they had with people in their life when they met me. I was playing a supporting roles in a film I thought was my own. The special things that I held so dear cant help but seem tainted now. I always thought it might all end like this, but never wanted to believe it would.




The band have just about finished recording our brand new ep that we have been spending a long time on purely just to make sure we are totally happy with the final outcome, I'm finding myself itching to dive into band work and enjoying the inspiration that negativuty seems to bring out in me. This is just the beggining for Amy Can Flyy and I have never been more exited. Above is the video from our recent run of shows with the lovely dutch boys Only Seven Left. Enjoy.

Thursday 6 January 2011

About Falling

With Christmas and New Year feeling like a distant bloated memory behind me, I have no choice but to uncomfortably absorb myself in the seasonal need for change and improvement. I can't say I thought about resolutions in any real depth this year, its been six years since my brother was sadly taken from me and the rest of my family on New Years Eve 2004 and in two days I will be 21, an age my brother was only months off hitting before he was killed. Its because of this awkwardly somber tone that I feel the need to evaluate what I have been doing with my life for the last few years.

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I have always taken risks and ignored all dissenting opinion on my lifestyle choice.I guess I have always lived my life in a certain respect, I know what I want from life and I'm going to make my best attempt at getting what I want out of it, enjoying every single moment on the way like it was the last. Never the less, Ive been left asking myself If I am really still cut out for everything.Am I going to make those I have lost proud of me? Is the hectic run of whats been apart of me for as long as I want to remember finally started becoming the vocation I never wanted to be stuck with. I honestly cannot say for sure, my head is in a state of composed pandemonium that I am yet to take time to work out.

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Maybe its just the January blues setting in, perhaps I haven't stuffed myself with enough festive cheer this year, I really don't know.As January floods In, I find my feelings on particular friendships fading to a dull aversion and general lack of respect, It has me left with a awkward taste on my tongue that has me wanting to scream home truths at those who painfully need to hear them. I appear to have lost what I gained in 2010 already and I guess the untimely exit of these things has left me with a slightly cynical and confused outlook on things. Hello 2011.

Monday 13 December 2010

Panic Attacks Are Normal

Its seven minutes past midnight on my first full night at home since I have returned from the Amy Can Flyy headline tour. I feel the same old familiar feelings creeping in as it really starts to set in that I wont be living out of a suitcase anymore, for now at least. I was going to document the detailed events of the last few weeks on the road but once again I feel as if my ability to put events and feelings into texts would not convey my time to a degree in which I could be happy with.

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The night before I left for tour I found myself stood at a standstill yet again saying goodbye to someone I care about, for the last few years I have always been frightened of goodbyes, it is a trait in my personality that I am yet to control, I find in many ways it causes me to purposely isolate myself with irrational and insensitive behaviour, I would sometimes destroy every chance of getting close to someone simply for the fear of ever having to bid farewell to perhaps a potentially fruitful relationship that may occur if more time were to pass. All of this aside certain factors in my life as of the last few months have been screaming at me, that for once I don't want to ruin whats good in my life by my letting own self absorbed ignorance get the better of me.

Tour was amazing, I take no reservations in saying how hard me and the rest of my band have worked in the last few years and to play the shows we did was incredible for us.I would like to personally thank everyone who came down to any of the shows or to anyone who was apart of the making the tour happen the way it did. I learnt a lot while I was away, about myself and others in turn. As the winter months really appear be in motion now I can only thank mother nature and the amazing time I had away from for distracting my mind from the ever appearing calamities I seem to face within myself when December roles around. I can also say it sickens me to see the same old crave for attention and lack of compassion by some parties around me, its difficult to see something in black and white right in front of you, even when you've known all along that things have always been that way. I only hope for the sake of some people that those parties claim to hold dear, see the light and get as far away from you as possible.





It is just over a week until Christmas day, I'm left swimming in a cocktail of post tour blues and the growing excitement of seeing that someone I hold close. The last seven years of my life have been building up to the end of this year, now its upon me, I'm frightened yet uncontrollably curious of how things are going to pan out from now.I Hope everyone has a good Christmas.

Thursday 30 September 2010

The Puzzle

Yet again it seems I find myself arriving back home, brought southbound, to what these days seem less and less like home comforts. The last few months I've been chasing down the days until all of my time was occupied my writing and recording, It wasn't going to occupy my time forever however I knew atleast once that was finally done, I had the promise of tour to look forward. For now its all over.I'm back at home , away from the real things that alleviate the going on's I commit my self so passionately to avoiding all the time.

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I spent the first five days before we headed out on tour locked up in the studio with the rest of Amy Can Flyy, piecing together the final parts of the demos for our new Ep, We have been working on these songs for what seems like forever and It was definitely a relief to be able to listen back to the closest thing to completed songs that we've heard since we started writing them at the start of the year. I am genuinely so exited to start working on the songs in more depth, drums are tracked now and we will be heading back into the studio to finish the rest of it very soon, look forward to it.


We headed straight from the studio out onto the Ourzone Found Tour for five days of Academy shows up and around the country. The shows really made me appreciate the last few years of Amy Can Flyy and what we have all been through together, they made me realise how important all of the years of playing run down venues to nobody with my friends was, driving hours and hours around the country to sleep in cars and build on what you all love doing more than anything in the world. All the stuff that I learnt from bands that I listented to when I first got into music. You cannot teach that over night and it makes me happy to know my band experienced it all together first hand. The shows were insane for us, It was amazing to meet a load of new people, fans, bands and crew alike, big thanks to everyone involved for making it what it was. Highlight for me, shows aside, was probably re visiting the Falls of Clyde, a world heritage site we found in Scotland two years ago on tour, this place makes us all happy, this much I know.

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So I now find myself sat around bored and unsettled in a empty house carrying thoughts and feelings on my back from my travels. I don't know what else to say right now, I am desperate to get away again but for the first time ever, I am so scared at what I may actually accidentally find when I leave home behind.

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Sunday 8 August 2010

Some Things Just Dont Wash Out

I feel that this time round I can only blame my absence from writing on the fact that in my own head I had nothing worth writing about, a true yet somewhat un settling fact that has got got me chasing the days down until I can occupy all of my time . In the last month or so it seems that I have been staring change in the face and coming into contact with the inevitable in so many ways. Last weekend the band headed up to Newcastle for the first of two shows that were to occupy our weekend.

The shows were great way for us to step back into the band role again after our small departure from gigging that took place in the earlier summer months. We have just recently confirmed our place on the Ourzone magazine tour at the end of September. My compulsion to get as far away from the norm right now is taking me over in a frenzy of late nights and purposeful social subversion. As a result I think a week of shows to see out the summer should do me the world of good. Below is a video of our time away from the coast.



I'm looking forward to the end of August, Amy Can Flyy have a busy September ahead of us, one that I am in desperate need of throwing myself into head first. It seems that in my own inability to truly address a problem , I'm left with no other option but to deliberate the thoughts I have with myself, over thinking notions that I have been dwelling on for years, almost as if they were fresh to my thought pattern. Looking for conclusions to questions that I know I already have the answers to. As a result of this I'm not quite feeling myself and the usual discrepancies I've always had with myself are taking a bigger shot at me. In short I cannot wait to get back on tour.

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Stay tuned for more Amy Can Flyy tour dates.

Friday 18 June 2010

The Ones That Fall Apart

It seems that I would be revisiting the keyboard sooner than I would of first anticipated when I wrote my last entry on here. I find myself drawn back just to try and gain some sort of grasp of the tyrant of a shit storm brewing in my head right now, it has been some what of a hectic few days.

Last night saw Amy Can Flyy back playing in our hometown for what will be the last time this year, we wanted to raise the bar with this gig for our own personal reasons but it does have to be said that even with a sell out on advance tickets, I was still racked with nerves about the eventual turn out of the evening.I felt like it went down well and was the perfect way for the four of us to run out the last few summer dates the band are doing before we have the long gap of shows before tour in December. I say it alot and I think the people close to me know that I love playing music more than anything in my world and its the shows like that which really remind me why I have always put the band first in so many aspects of my life.

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In the last week I have seen many aspects of my life collapse from the inside out, it would seem that so many things that I thought I knew, I don't. Its a strange feeling when you feel like your life is moving at a million miles an hour yet still your going nowhere,your just stuck in one spot watching everything change around you. I find myself stuck with the same old draw backs in my personality, holding a somewhat negative yet content disposition with the things I have done in my life. Ive found myself resenting people I was once very close with simply for the pure fact that too much of my recent life has been occupied with feeling down or agitated as result of there actions and decisions and in addition it now seems that I'm being forced to watch that person destroy themselves in the most painful and idiotic way possible. I find myself locking words with a now insensate stranger, who at one time very recently I cared about and seemed to share a lot with. It seems this despondent refinement in my life is all apart of growing up recently.


I'm heading into the studio with Ben tomorrow to work on the demos for the new record, I need the space for a day to gather my thoughts and accept the fact that I need to stop caring about the people who only care about themselves, no matter how hard it is to watch there own ignorant self absorbed destruction. I don't know what has been the catalyst for me this week,the pinical point that has made me see all the discrepancies in my current lifestyle. Watching the last two years of my life slowly amount to nothing or looking into the eyes of the one thing that over those two years meant everything. Time will only tell.

Monday 14 June 2010

It Had To Be You

It seems that summer has some what arrived. Ive spent most of my days recently basking in the ever so unpredictable English sunshine, its in that sunshine that I cant help but be reminded of the previous summers of the last few years of my life. I think my close friends have all now become aware that I am someone who struggles to let go of the past and the people from my past that aren't around so much anymore. I am yet to work out whether this mechanism in me is just my unhealthy obsession with never wanting to be complacent, I sometimes feel the fault in me that never lets me settle down is what keeps me going, it's been so much apart of who I am for so many years previous that I'm afraid without that, I will simple stop working. On the other hand It may just be my utter discontent with making myself stable and happy knowing that I threw away the most genuine chance of happiness that Ive had, a few years back. Either way I can't help but miss that first summer I will never have again.

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The week just gone saw me and the rest of Amy Can Flyy head up to London to play the Lava TV Launch Party. I can't thank everyone enough who voted for us on the channel and have kept us at number one most requested artist for quite some time. Its literally amazing and we would never of expected the video to get such a good response from everyone when we went to shoot it so thanks very much. We had a bit of time to kill before we were suppose to load in at the show and had been invited by the kind people at Reebok to come into the Reebok Lounge in Shore ditch and hang out before we went to the show. The traffic in central London was at its usual worst so we actually made it a bit late with only half an hour to kill instead. Traffic or no traffic I have to say Sinead from Reebok was awesome and extremely helpful,she also didn't mind that I had left my socks in the van and was about to try on lots of nice shoes, I have to appreciate her big time for that one. I want to be honest about the whole experience and say I never really feel particularly "cool" from being in a band, its not why I have ever done it however getting invited by Reebok to pick out some free shoes is the one time for thirty minutes where I felt close to "cool" I have no doubt I will not feel this for a long time after.We all picked out some lovely shoes and headed over to the venue for load in and sound check.

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In short the show was what we expected, we have always been a band that feed off the energy of the kids watching us so its difficult to re adjust sometimes when your in a different situation to that. After we had played we all utilised the wonders of the open bar and proceeded in having a good time. I got to see my friend Alex which was ace, she moved back to London after doing university in Bournemouth for a bit so the rare chance I get to see her is always pleasant and leaves me with a smile on my face. This week has been an eye opener, I get dragged down by people who don't matter to easily, some apparent friends have exposed the real them this week and knowing the truth and actual intentions behind the pretentious verbal vomit that they spew half the time has done me good. I'm really exited for the week to come, Local show this Thursday is going to be mad. Stay tuned.