Soldiering on

Dnendna is soldiering on impressively and now has two new leaves, I'm excited to see what he's gonna do next. Sadly his siblings all got destroyed by mold, but this week was time to take the Aloe Polyphylla outa the fridge so he may still get some companions yet. The pot behind has an Aloe seed in it. And behind that is one of my self-portraits-as-a-lion. I've been painting them for years, but recently took a hiatus cuz things got too busy. I'll be picking the project up again soon though so watch this space, [or this one]. Anyway, here, look at Dnendna and friends:

Also, check out my super-cool, Marigolds. My friend Becca gave them to me when they were only wee:
Talking of soldiering on, check this out:

World Cup Crazy

The other week I was in Brighton setting up my exhibition and I saw the following headline out on the street:

Wow! I thought, of all the places for an epidemic of World Cup Craziness to break out, I would not have predicted Sussex. I documented the craziness around us:

Oh look, there's Heather:

Ah man, check out the craziness, the Argus was right! I am sooo glad to be out of Sussex for the rest of the tournament, I don't think I could have hacked all that mayhem... Unfortunately I live in Wimbledon - shit!

Club Not So Fabulous

I chatted to the Club Fabulous promoter during sound check last night, asked about the event did it get much of a crowd... etc? He said that if the bands all brought plenty of people it got pretty full but if they only brought one or two it was pretty empty. I was immediately suspicious; he said he'd been running the night in Camden Rock since last November (2009) so it seemed strange that he didn't yet have a regular audience.

Well, the first four bands played and their friends generally left about one drink after each band finished, but the bands themselves all stuck around, which we were pleased about. Until we got onstage to plug our instruments in. They then busied themselves clearing their gear off the stage for us and promptly left. Four bands at once! Which left Marc and I onstage in front of our girlfriends, pat and his girlfriend, the sound guy, the bar man and three men who were having a conversation at the bar but not paying any attention. So much for the 25 EPs I brought along to give out, nevermind, we still have them for next time...

Anyway, realising that we weren't going to get paid for this one or re-booked whatever happened (we had to bring 15 people with us for those privileges - which is like trying to succeed at Farm Town without pissing off your friends), we decided to have some fun. Our banter was resolutely sarcastic, particularly when I found myself promoting our myspace page to room full of already "friends". Marc did actions to Evangelical Boy, made lion noises in I Can't Save You From Robots, and sang back-up in All The Same Mistakes. It was pointless but great fun - particularly when a crowd of teenagers walked in half way through our last song, we played a couple of extras, especially for them and they danced.

This is the closer - Cedars of Lebanon:

The lessons learned:

1. never play last, particularly at a mid-week gig, and especially if it's not followed by a club-night to retain punters
2. never play gigs for promoters that don't do any promotion
3. research the reputation of a night and promoter before agreeing to play
4. network with the other bands, even if you didn't like what they played, they're more likely to stick around if you show you're interested in them as musicians and can say something enthusiastic about their songs

And here's some photos of the whole debacle, taken by Heather Jones but cropped and adjusted by me because, as you can see, we were mostly unlit - notice the patch of bright light at the back of the stage pointing to where the drummer's left knee would be; very important to light the drummer's knees well!

the Death of Me

So, we're playing a gig in Camden tonight, at "Camden Rock". Should be good, it's the first outing for the new line-up of matthew james kay on mouth & guitar and Marc B (threadbear/TMTWNBBFN) on bass & 2nd mouth:



Come down and drink, dance, sing-along, get off with strangers, pick up a free the Death of Me EP, whatever... you know!?

For the uninitiated among you, it goes like this:

See y'all there!

Dnendna

I spent the last week or so in Brighton setting up my exhibition at a&e Gallery. When I got home I was half expecting Dnendna to have grown into a substantial baby tree, or at least for his brothers to have sprouted... No such luck, although Dnendna does have this little spike thing on top which I think may be new leaves growing:

Exciting huh!

Oh, and the little guy in the back is a well-meaning Coleus. I have a bout ten of them and no idea what I'm gonna do with them all!

botany 1 0... er... 2

On the advice of the guy that sold me my Pachypodium seeds I have removed the seedling from it's polythene bag and am instructed to treat it as a cactus henceforth. As a beginner botanist, I have only a vague notion of what this means: don't water over winter, water in summer but wait until the soil is dry between showers. So that's what I'm doing, it's soil was dry when I took it out, partly due to that fleshy little succulent trunk...:

...so I gave it a little shower. My housemates said I should name it, so now it's called Dnendna. I was reserving that name for my first cat, but, momentous occasion that this was, it felt right to give it to the Pachypodium baby.

In other news, work for my exhibition is almost finished and I am preparing to go and install it next week:

I've been drawing underground stations this week for a new series of works called Negotiating the Tangle the beginnings of which will be on show at a&e, along with sculptures old and new and a couple of animations on nice old tellies. Flat screen is such a commodity!