Better Than The Clash

This evening my best buddy and I formed a band. We currently don’t have a drummer or a singer, and Dina can’t play the bass (yet!), but that’s all right, it just means we’re DIY as fuck. We spent the evening listening to Elastica, The Cribs, Breeders and Le Tigre with me going “Yes! Let’s sound a bit like that!” and then worrying that I was turning into a band control freak (a tendency of mine. Probably why I’m a manager). Dina drew the line when I started trying to push Saves The Day into the equation, which is probably reasonable to be honest. It’s just I love lyrics like “Is it his brown eyes? I know blue eyes get boring but I’ll wear dark glasses all the time”.

Though our band is probably a joke (we’ve decided to be called Better Than The Clash, because I kept on shouting that about Vaseline by Elastica), it did make me come home and start learning loads of Cribs songs on guitar. I haven’t played in ages so that makes me pleased. I’m in the process of trying to get my lip back with the trumpet too, because I enjoy it and, in a vague planning for the future way, the more I play and the more people I know know that I play, the more likely I am to be paid money for it at some point in time. Managing keeps me busy but mainly, I think, because my body does not keep up with what my mind wants it to do – the plan is always getting up seven hours after going to sleep, and it never works like that, I always sleep too much – so if I can start making myself even busier then I am going to force my body to work the way I want it to. Part of me wonders if, because I burnt myself out so utterly and totally in the last year of my A levels (till June 2006 – when I managed GB at the same time), I have been spending the past year attempting to recover from it, and to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised by that. I would love a proper holiday but just can’t afford to take one, timewise. So instead I am going to force my body through the pain of living and make it want to do things like play the trumpet and start club nights.

This weekend was good – I went to Rough Trade and reminded myself inadvertedly of how I do enjoy music really. Bought some Teardrop Explodes, Beirut, Roxy Music (obvs), The Blue Aeroplanes and Magazine. I sort of see what the fuss is about with all this Prince/Mail on Sunday lark, even if it is meant to be good for Prince (ie he makes money) – being given free CDs all the time, whilst wonderful, does mean I end up not listening to a lot of them. I think I undervalue the ones I get for free – there are albums I’ve had for months and not listened to (Death From Above 1979 for one), whereas I’ve done some pretty comprehensive listening of The Teardrop Explodes and The Blue Aeroplanes already. I paid for them and so they seem worth it. Funny how the brain works.

Today: the things I hate mainly involve contracts and diaries, and the things I love are mostly The Cribs.

Technorati: Elastica, The Cribs, formed a band, Better Than The Clash, Prince, Mail on Sunday, Dina Rickman, trumpet