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May Balling it Up May 20, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, School , add a comment

Yes, last Friday it was indeed that time of the year again. I mentioned it last year although it didn’t get its own shiny post dedicated to it.

Unlike last year, this time round I had a bit more time to prepare myself. Back then I had 3 hours of exams the afternoon before the May Ball and barely had time to put clothes on before friends were turning up to be taken there. I had a much more relaxed time this year and we arrived not early but not late either.

Although our invites told us that we needed to be there for 6.45pm to have the photo taken at 7pm it was much closer to 7.45 when the photo actually got taken. We hung around eating sweets and throwing around innuendo in the entrance bit. Unlike last year the photo was taken inside and thus required a lot of squashing up to fit everyone in it, I assume that the photographer did get everyone in, he seemed to take quite a lot of photos so it will be pot luck whether I look ok in the one that is chosen as the “official” photo.

At this point we all sat down to eat. Being that my sixth form friendship group consists of me and 3 other people it was pretty much guaranteed that we would be sat with another group of people although till we got there we didn’t know who. I was quite pleased to find we were sat on table F (for failure, obviously) and were with a group of people similar to ourselves in terms of popularity. Perfectly nice people so that was all good. Last time around we basically had the table to ourselves as a couple of people on it didn’t show up and the ones that did just left the table and didn’t come back.

When it comes to the food I can’t help but feel I’m on my own with my opinion. The starter was a tomato soup with croûtons and bread rolls which I thought was very nice and the staff checked who was vegetarian (on our table it may have just been me, I’m not entirely sure as I was at the end). Main course I already knew was going to be lasagna and chips (strange combination…) and mine was basically a lasagna with all the meat replaced by vegetables, which works fine for me and I quite enjoyed it. From what people were saying in tutor period this morning however, it didn’t seem to go down well. Maybe the meat version was far inferior or perhaps they are just fussy. I don’t know. Pudding was a profita roll type thing with quite a lot of cream. Nice but for whatever reason I was just too full to get through it all.

Once everyone was close enough to finished they brought on the band whose name I couldn’t really hear properly so I won’t try and tell you who they were. They played last year and have band members ranging through a few years although most do not go to our school anymore.  As expected it was pretty crappy pop-rock with rather boring lead even if it was technically correct.  They also had some quite weird line up changes, with some songs the singer was just singing whilst his younger brother played bass but in others the singer played bass as well and the other guy just sat out.  The drummer also did a small bit of playing guitar and singing whilst they were setting up for their second set which was really quite bad and a very good example of why drummers should never be allowed to play guitar.

I also noticed this time round that they had really quite craptacular amps, I think one of them was a Marshall MG (the first amp I got, they are awful) and the other was some other quite small and uninteresting amp.  No one used any effects and the drum kit was a bit lacking in options, although I’m not sure if they would have been used if they were there.  I think that completes my criticisms, to be fair on them, they weren’t really that bad.  They did what they did perfectly well and although the songs they played weren’t really to my taste they were generally good choices for the audience they had, I don’t expect stuff I like to be played.

On the note of band playing though, it would be good if we could get Opium Toad on for next years May Ball, probably just for a small opening set since we would of course be bringing the metal.  I have a little more faith in the will-be-then-year-12s as I know quite a few of them and there is a bigger rock/metal presence in their year. It wouldn’t really be strange for us to be there either, since 3/5s of the band will probably be going to that sixth form and the rest of us are still about.

That’s a bit of a tangent, back onto the ball.  Once the band had disappeared it was just the DJ, a typical balding, middle aged overweight guy if I remember correctly.  Of course from this point the music was just god awful.  Filled with crappy rap and pop, some of the shit was played more than once and that particularly annoyed me because they could have used that time to play Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.  It never was played, of course, because any requests for it would be fighting against a flood of requests for rubbish.

At this point the night mostly turned into watching drunk people, such as our friend David, get drunker and drunker and do amazing things.  Sights included seeing my tutor (and IT teacher to friends) attempting to do the Macarena (something I tried last year but there wasn’t enough wine for that this time around) and my friend getting a hug and drunken future encouragements from another IT teacher.  It was gold.

The night culminated with a bit of Don’t stop me now by Queen followed by Livin’ on a prayer, which enticed our drunken David to the dance floor, where his swaggerings kept us all raving away.  Once we were shortly into Livin’ on a prayer David bolted off the dance floor without a word.  Of course, without his swaggering we had no hope of staying on the dance floor, dancing is really not our thing, particularly with my blood alcohol level, it just wasn’t going to happen.

Naturally there was confusion as to where he had gone and after a couple of minutes my friend returned from the toilet with some amazing news: Vomit.  Or more specifically: Vomit Explosion.

As it happens, he had headed to the toilet once he realized something was up but the bodily processes were already in motion and things were already well underway before he was in the door to the mini-corridor that lead to the actual men’s bathroom.  To sum up the damage, there was vomit on the carpet before the mini corridor, vomit on the floor and a bit of the wall of the mini corridor and of course all over the floor of the bathroom as well.  Presumably he got some in the toilet as well but I didn’t really want to get that close, the smell was a pretty potent spectacle to behold and as he exited the building (which he did in a great hurry) he left a great trail of smell behind him.  It was amazing.

The few great sights alone made the night worth it really.  I left out a few bits which I can’t remember in enough detail or can’t really write about in a reasonably anonymous way (eg the awards).  Of course David gets left out of the vague anonymity because of his amazing performance.

Still to come, the report from Saturday, which will hopefully be a bit shorter because this has grown to rather an epic length…

Forum seeking posters for friendship or possibly more… May 13, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Internets, Scraps , add a comment

Opium Toad now have a forum!

That is all.

Decisions Decided April 27, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School, Thoughts , add a comment

That 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 far

In 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 comment

So 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 comment

We 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.