We are in Berlin.

After two nights of going out, tonight we seem to be sitting around the flat, though I think we’re going out for a quick drink in a bit. JP and Max are working on a remix, Leo has been on his laptop – I think working on a song, judging by the midi keyboard on his lap – and Chris and I are playing around on Hype Machine. Last night we went out around Friedrichstrasse, and in the day I wandered up through Tiergarten – the biggest park in Berlin, with the Brandenburg Gate at the edge of it where Tiergarten joins with Mitte (the central district).

Chris, JP and I went to the Kennedy Museum earlier today. It’s mainly a photo exhibition and was very very good. Being here I keep on thinking who on earth thought the Wall was a good idea – it’s so weird seeing where it divided the city – but the city’s recovered so well. Leo and I were talking about it last night – there’s a lot of acknowledgement of what went on in the past hundred years here, and it’s not been forgotten, but it’s all moved on.

This is what I’ve been listening to. Oxford Comma on a near enough repeat, lots of Black Kids, and a lot of Hot Chip and their associated remixes. The CSS Streetlife DJs mix is Let’s Make Love over one of my favourite songs, Wordy Rappinghood by Tom Tom Club – so that’s pretty neat too. We heard it out last night and I’ve heard it before in London, so I’m glad I’ve finally bothered to track it down.

Berlin

My merry band of four, also known as GoodBooks, go to Berlin tomorrow. They are there until the 30th, and they are quite excited. The purpose of the trip is mainly I think to get some non-touring/music industry based experience under their belts, and somehow – I can’t think how – Sevenoaks has ceased to fuel their imaginations. They’re taking some gear, renting a flat, and hoping to come back with a shedload of new songs. I have every faith. Seeing them play tonight (corporate shows fund this stuff, ya dig?), including one new song, made me a bit excited weak-at-the-knees Good Lord you’re good, I remember why I didn’t go to university now.

I’m going to Berlin on Thursday, and coming back the following Friday. It’s quite a while, but I’ll get out of their way. I’ve not been anywhere other than London for more than about four days for four or maybe five years – my holidays have merely been long weekends for quite some time. I’m excited about being away from London for a week. I’m excited about hanging out with the boys without any “yes we’ve got a meeting now” or “yeah you’re on stage in 45 minutes, we need to get dinner, kebab?” type pressures. And I’m looking forward to learning Berlin itself. I honestly can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be going – Berlin feels chunky and straightforward. I don’t know why that’s my impression of it, but I feel like I’m going to another place to live for a week, rather than in somewhere like Barcelona or even Paris where it feels like one is visiting. Perhaps that’s due to the nature of the trip. I guess we’ll see. I’m excited, though.

The whole thing makes me want to be in a band. Sitting down yesterday with the boys was fantastic because this trip has come entirely from them, and it feels like they’re putting the fun back into working hard. The past year has been tough on many occasions and felt too much like hard work and no fun a lot of the time. But it feels now like the four young men in GoodBooks are reclaiming this band as their own, forgetting all the “critically acclaimed” “not selling enough” “didn’t work at radio” crap and doing what they want to be doing. I think they’ll be all the better for it – and I suppose it’s what being in a band is really about.

New Year’s Eve in Dalston, Angel and Marylebone

A gap in proceedings, there, while I lived life for a while – clocking up my (separate and unrelated) restaurant and illness scores like there was no tomorrow. All that kerfuffle being over, I hopefully now return to your screens and the forefront of your hearts on a rather more frequent basis.

I’m feeling pretty good about 2008 at the moment. Last night all of my options were kindly taken away from me as soon as Sportsday Megaphone got an offer to play at Club Motherfucker’s New Year’s party at Bardens in Dalston. I think I find the most troublesome thing about NYE is working out who to spend it with and then what to do, and I am not much of a party-planner at the best of times anyway – so being handed “you are working because your artist has a show” on a plate was a bit of a relief. Especially as on the overground eastbound, some of my friends (who were going onwards to the Joyride warehouse party in Hackney Wick) found out that the party they were going to was full. I did not envy them at that moment.

So a successful show – Hugh Sportsday had fun – and at midnight the Sportsday collective high fived, ate grapes (a Spanish tradition, apparently), and shouted “Yes!” quite a lot. Super. An hour and a half later I left to go to another party, forgot the tube was working and waited for a bus forever, caught the tube, and ended up going to bed at 6.30am. A good night with good friends and all rounded off with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and Marmite on toast for breakfast. Mmmm.

This year, then. I’m going to Berlin for a week on January 10th. On the 21st I am going to start doing some work for Radar Maker, my friend’s digital marketing company, which I’m hugely excited about (this also means a move of office, I think – bye bye Wichita – but only round the corner, so it’s not too sad and woeful). And as with last January and I should hope every January from so forth, I am attempting full on sobriety for a month. Last year I got as far as 23 days, and failed at the “we’ve finished our album, let’s get the champagne out!” hurdle. This year I am hoping for a similar occasion with Hugh Sportsday in the coming weeks, but perhaps I’ll stick to orange juice.

One last reminder of 2007, should anyone be interested in looking back, to my Best Of lists. Except I don’t have any of the stamina to make a list, so instead I will say that my favourite album was Let’s Stay Friends by Les Savy Fav, and I have just realised that my favourite single isn’t allowed because it came out in 2006, didn’t it? I wanted Pink Squares by I Was A Cub Scout, you see. So instead, big ups go to All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem, of course, One Of Two by Sky Larkin, Books From Boxes by Maximo Park, and Paris by Friendly Fires. I’m sure there’s some I’ve forgotten, though…