Ain’t life grand? December 14, 2009
Posted by Sharny in : Essay, Life, School, Thoughts, Work , add a commentSo this is the updatery and depressive post that will explain why I’m posting here again and why I have relaunched durka. It’s not exactly going to be much fun but I kinda want to write some things not addressed to myself and explain the sudden reappearence of posting.
As planned, this year I started higher education at Nottingham University on the 21st of September, after moving in the day before. Things didn’t exactly have the easiest start, you hear tales of university being so much better than school before hand and people really finding themself and such. I didn’t get so lucky. All of it was a massive struggle and it was all a very depressing and downtreading time. As a few weeks went by and routine began to set in things did get better, as they surely do.
Then, something rather unexpected happened. Essentially, in the space of a day I realised that Chemistry was not the course for me. It was a real epiphany moment, and not a moment I wanted to have. There were other doubts around it, including ones about whether being at University was even the right thing for me to be doing. Through talking and thinking and thinking and talking some more I got some plan of what to do.
Decisions Decided April 27, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Life, School, Thoughts , add a commentThat big ol’ decision has now been made.
After speaking with the band it was made quite simple. They are serious about Opium Toad and want to try and get somewhere with it and after presenting my predicament they pretty adamantly told me to stick around, in as many words.
That was it really. Nottingham it is.
More than that, I have now gone through the accepting and declining of offers process, there is no going back now, no way to change my mind. If the band collapses tomorrow I will still have to live with the decision. If they decide they are better off without me during the five or sixth months I’m going to be away then Nottingham will still be where I’m going.
For better or for worse, so long as I get my grades, I won’t be leaving Nottingham (save for sixth months in the US of course).
That’s that then.
The biggest decision so far April 21, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Life, School , 1 comment so farIn the next two weeks I am faced with finally making the decision of what university offers to accept. This is a decision that has an unbelievably massive bearing on my future for at least the next 5 years (gap year + 4 year masters degree).
Ultimately, it looks like this.
I have four offers out of my five applications, Cardiff: BBC, Loughborough: 300 points (BBB but could include AS levels too), Leeds: BBB, Nottingham: BBB.
At this point I have written off Loughborough because of its sport centric vibe and the fact that whilst it is moving away from home it isn’t really going anywhere particularly new as Loughborough is just a small town really not very far from where I live now.
I’m sure that I’m going to pick Cardiff for my insurance because they have given me the lowest offer. It’s a nice university in a nice place but not attractive enough to warrant giving up the other places.
Now comes the indecision. Leeds or Nottingham. Their differences as universities are equal and opposite almost and the major differences in other aspects also put neither in a direct lead in any sense. In terms of the university themselves I think I would have a great time which ever I go to. The main difference comes here and is indeed where the massive difficulty comes.
If I go to Leeds I effectively give up all my friends here. Yes, I would still see them from time to time and of course in going to university I will inadvertently meet a lot of new people and make friends there. It would guarantee the end of my place in Opium Toad, possibly the band entirely but I doubt that. Still, it’s something I’m really beginning to enjoy and not something that I want to let go of lightly by any means.
Of course, university is the first time that a person really has a chance to escape from where they grew up and going to Leeds would mean a whole new city to explore and get to know and everything that comes with it.
So there it is, leave friends for a new city or keep friends and stay in the old one. I mean, it’s not like Nottingham is a bad place, it has areas I don’t really want to visit but overall I feel a lot of affection for it and perhaps unlike some of my peers isn’t somewhere I necessarily want to just run away from. Of course, if I choose Nottingham to stay with my friends and then the band splits up and everyone goes their separate ways then I may be left feeling like I made a bad decision.
I know that, whichever I choose, I’m going to feel bad about it in a sense. There is always going to be a regret, all I can do is to try and minimize it.
I’m going to a Leed’s accommodation open day this Saturday but I really doubt that anything there will change the decision I have to make.
It all comes down to a few questions; do I think Opium Toad can achieve any reasonable level of success? if so, could I be a true part of such a success? How would issues such as our Bassist’s lack of commitment and effort effect the future or possible success of the band? Will I find people at university that I feel more comfortable around, people more special than the ones I have here?
I’m not sure these questions will ever have answers and knowing that I’m making a decision that may well decide the way the rest of my life goes (a basically unchangeable decision) and there really is no obvious choice.
I suppose I will just have to take comfort in the fact that, in some parallel universe, a version of me will take the other choice, so that in some ways, I will know both paths.
Choas in a shack April 19, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Music, Opium Toad, Rants , add a commentSo yeah, first band night style gig last night. We got there at about 5, arriving at a wooden building with Thurgarton village hall written on the side. Things got even better (/sarcasm) when we got inside to see what looked more like a southern American’s house’s veranda as a stage, complete with my first drum kit by Tomy. Seriously. Really. Tiny. Drum kit. 2 toms and two cymbals, with a bass drum that was probably smaller than the size of one of our drummer’s larger toms on his own kit. This was of course the point where we understood why we couldn’t take our amps, there just wasn’t enough space on that stage. There was barely room to move never mind have more amps than the two Marshall half stacks.
I was kind of just in hysterics at this point, the whole thing just seemed so silly. There was essentially no lighting, only a tiny stage complete with tiny drum kit and at this point my amp hadn’t arrived yet. Oh yeah, the “backstage” (really more to the left of the stage) was basically a cramped room filled with stacked chairs. After having dumped our stuff we were essentially just hanging around until we found out some friends were on the bus and were gonna be getting off at the pub so we all headed down there which is also when our singer arrived. We were actually one of the few bands that actually arrived on time in a complete fashion, with one not fully arriving until a while after we had come off.
After waiting around for a while we headed back to the hall leaving a couple of people behind (non band members) to stay lookout. We gave our opinions in the sound check and were told that no one was allowed to change any of the settings on any of the amps. Hooray for every band’s every song sounding the same! With that in mind there was very little point going out and testing things for myself. We had also been informed that anyone wanting to set up their own effects would have time taken out of their set (wtf?) and initially decided to go without them because they weren’t that important.
Then we remembered the killing in the name solo.
Shiiiit.
So our lead guitarist hurried to get his multi effects plugged in. I had been informed that it was starting at 7 but 7 came and went with not much of a crowd built up yet. I think we probably went on about quarter past. We had been told that we had 20minutes for our set, which was fine since our songs average about 4 minutes each and if you chuck in a bit of time for tuning up between our first 2 songs then that’s fine.
We are announced by a maths teacher at our drummer and singer’s school, who we decided when looking from the back looked much like two children standing on each other’s shoulders. It was the long coat that did it, and probably the young looking face. It was a slightly lackluster announcement but we went out fine with some applause and everyone plugged in. So far everything was pretty much fine, we go into our first song, Killing in the Name. I think we played mostly fine, a few small mistakes from me but Tubb (lead guitar) nailed the solo. I quickly whipped the tuner out of my pocket after the song was over and returned to standard tuning whilst the singer was doing a bit of introductory stuff for members of the band (as you do).
Problems arose when I plugged myself back into the amp only to find myself muted. I quickly warned the drummer not to start the song whilst I started jostling with the lead to make sure it was plugged in. I eventually jostled it into a position that worked but it was not a pleasant experience. Anyway, we went into Apple Tree and everything went well, I got into the song more than I did with Killing in the Name with some headbanging at certain parts.
Of course, there were still more surprises to come. After finishing the song we were informed from those offstage that we could only do one more song, despite the fact we had only about half the time we were promised and had a small argument over the song to play last. We chose not to do Ace of Spades simply because Nick (the bassist) is quite bad at remembering the rhythm to the intro (and actually I don’t blame him, it’s quite tricky to remember it even though it’s so recognizable) so we did Cavemen Rejoice instead.
We went into the song fine and played fine up until the bridge where I used my whammy bar on a held chord and of course…my lead cuts out. I’m then left trying to play the bridge and fiddle with my lead to get it to work which eventually succeeds and we finish the song and go off stage.
We were all royally pissed off at being cut short and generally the way we had been treated but our drummer took it one step further (drummers, what are ya gonna do with em eh?) and confronted one of the organizers which lead to a bit of pushing after which our drummer stormed out and punched the wall.
Twice. He left some skin behind too.
He then left with a couple of others to go to a nearby friend’s house to put a plaster on his now bloody knuckles whilst we hung around a bit, eventually choosing to follow their route to try and find them. At this point two random members of the audience shook my hand and congratulated me. Dunno if they were taking the piss but who cares eh.
After eventually finding our drummer and him having a chance to talk over his motivations with the guy he confronted they shook hands and that was pretty much the end of it. I actually think he handled the situation quite well really all in all, we were all annoyed and he articulated our feelings very well.
We basically just hung around for the rest of the evening, which was pretty fun in itself. I actually really enjoy the company of a lot of the people who were there, they are generally very friendly and likable and I had a good time doing that.
We did sort of have the last laugh in a way because the organizers (not particularly popular people it would seem, probably reasonably like us y’know) put themselves last in the running order, behind all the bands filled with popular people. Essentially, after the second to last band finished there was something of a mass exodus outside with only about half the original crowd hanging around to see the final band of which most of them were just milling about chatting anyway. They also played a really really long set, like 40minutes or so, filled with typically bland songs to a rather lackluster audience.
Although some audience members returned everyone was rather apathetic towards the organizers and even with the length of their set they still finished 20 minutes early. Essentially there is no way that our <4 minute song needed to be cut out and that was basically the icing on the cake.
Oh, did I mention, one of our friends was trapped outside almost the whole night because they wouldn’t let him pay on the door. The woman in charge of that also did a terrible job, apparently band members were supposed to have something written on their hand to be let in but she never even informed us of this and she did have a chance to because she came and spoke to us directly at one point. The whole thing was a ridiculous show of how not to run one of these things and that has left us very determined to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
Wow that’s a wall of text. It’s probably riddled with mistakes because its taken so long to write that I really don’t have time to check it over, I need to be getting on with coursework.
In summary: We played well and I’m pleased with that, it was just everything else that badly organized and executed.
Proper Gig Incoming – Eep April 18, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Music, Scraps , add a commentWe have our first proper gig (ie a band night) today. Just to make things a bit more nerve wracking we’re on first and of course the final song we’re playing we started learning last night. Just to add to the calamity we weren’t allowed to bring our own amps due to space issues, annoying for me after the terrible tone/sustain I got last time and that was using the same type of amp as I have at home. As usual I also have very little idea of what’s actually going to happen tonight, I guess I’m just going to have to go along with whatever happens.
I have a few subjects to document soon but this post is just a quickie, I guess I’ll have a report on how well it went in the next few days. One thing I have been doing over the past few days is getting wordpressses online for a few other purposes which will become linked to when ready.
Opium Toad night two April 9, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Music, Opium Toad , add a commentLast night we played our second set, this time at the very beginning of the show. It was nerve wracking mostly because lots more people that we know came last night (parents and friends). Going on first really didn’t help with that either. At least we had our real singer.
The sound check/practice went well and I felt excited about performing our own song, in which I had two solos. After a lot of hanging around (having quite a good laugh with all the people there I might add) it was finally starting.
We were told to set up whilst being introduced, which was a bit weird but we got a nice introduction (and of course we have an awesome name) and we started playing. Everything seem to be going fine up until my solo. I played the first note (a big bend – come on, it’s gotta be done), I played it fine but I didn’t like the amp sound, it was generally lackluster and have enough sustain. Now my guitar doesn’t have much sustain because of the trem but I think a slightly over enthusiastic noise gate was just making things worse. It also meant every time I didn’t hit a note perfectly it really showed. I did my best to keep a straight face through a pretty much uncountable number of errors, which was all I could do really.
Those mistakes really shook me and although I finished the rest of the song fine including the harmonized solo it just left me feeling crap. We then played cavemen rejoice which I think I played flawlessly, I don’t think I made any mistakes but when we went offstage we were all still pissed off with our own mistakes of which we all had a few under our belt in some form or another. It was basically the opposite feeling of yesterday.
We basically just sat around for the rest of the evening moping with some friends/relatives getting annoyed with us because they said it was fine (and that was the general consensus of everyone we spoke to, the musicians and more attentive people noticed the mistakes but still thought it was good) and we really should take solace in that.
It has essentially just made me even more determined, in fact it’s made us all much more determined to get better because that first night was good and we can do it but it’s a matter of practice and in future, using our own equipment as we all felt the borrowed stuff added extra stress and problems that we just didn’t need.
Personally the best part of this experience was to take me out of my comfort zone, which it pretty much has been for the last 3 days going to a whole new place, meeting loads of new people (friendly people as well, which is great) and generally having a pretty good time even if I did fuck up my solos…
