Here is my new line up, wandering around in the woods...
Make up and style by Alberto Banana and photos by Barry MacDonald.
New songs to come soon, recording sessions are in order in September. We'll do new versions of Shallow and Sick of You with two new ones as well.
Our album is looking pretty good. Unless my mind turns into a complete blank.
Some people that didn't go on my blog for a while were so surprised to come back on it the other day. They said to me how incredible it was to see how much I promote my own things now, rather than promoting other bands like I used to do.
It might seem quite egocentric but that's what happening at the moment in my life. Music, more than ever, it's consuming me and my flesh and bones, it never stops, it sometimes goes wild.
We all wish that it's not going to a dead end.
That's the fear of all musicians.
But with a bit of DIY (Do It Yourself for those who don't know), everything seem reachable.
We have quite a lot of gigs coming up, we're trying to book the Purple Turtle for our E.P launch that will take place in November as a double launch with HiroshAmour that will promote their album.
Doing it in November leaves us plenty of time ahead.
I would like to have Bubblegum Screw, Burma Guns and Noxshi playing with us on the bill, that'd be just ideal...
We'll also have some work to do on the charity gigs at The Spice of Life and The Dublin Castle which are two venues in London I've always wanted to play. A bit like La Cigale in Paris. Very excited and very pleased with it.
I really liked that gig we did at The World's End with the two Parisian bands, Enosense and Haboob. Sandie Trash really don't know what they missed !
The place was packed, we had great feedback and following from it, and that was fun to be on the same bill than Matmet, six years later. They did a great version of Diana, english people loved them.
And six years later I can also say that my novel-book The Mirror Tales or Les contes du Miroir (for french version) is finally ready.
My one and only book.
Don't think I will have the patience to write another one.
Actually maybe I will. I already have an idea to exploit. I just wish I'd have enough time to spend on it. I mean I hardly have time to write on this blog any more so that'd be surprising to find some more for a book.
But that's something I should do, even for myself, without having it published this time because literature isn't really my speciality and I couldn't devote that much time in it. But I'm sure one day instead of writting about teenage cliches I will invent a really raw and mature story.
I've seen a lot of movies lately. The Reader with Kate Winslet. I didn't even know what the movie was about but I wanted to see it just because Kate won the oscar for her performance, a bit of a shallow reason really. So I was quite surprise when those sex scenes started to dominate the movie. I liked it. Kate was very convincing in this ex SS woman who's got plenty of issues with young lads and books.
I've seen Dead Man and The Brave with Johnny Deep. I've never seen them before, how uncultivated is that ?
Both great, specially Dead Man.
And more recently I've seen Milk with Sean Penn. That was brillant, very kind of old school movie, specially when they're in the first years of trying to win the elections. That was a part of the gay history in America that I never came accross before. Quite touching.
I've also seen the new Harry Potter and I was disappointed, the book was so much better, they missed a lot of things as usual, they focused more on the psychology of the characters rather than the action. That's something good in a way, but still disappointed. It's hard to compete with the books themselves.
I've just finished to read The force of Age by Simone de Beauvoir, there are four books of her that are autobiographic, that's the second one. I love it, the way she writes is just so precise. She can translate every emotions and feelings she wants exactly the way it seems to happen in her mind, she's probably one of my favourite writer. Before that I read a book by Anais Nin who tells about her affair with Henry Miller, naughty stuffs but so vibrant.
Next books I'm going to read are On the road by Kerouac and a punk book that Vince gave me for my birthday, with a very original concept, tell punk novels from songs that already exists. So there is one for Gimme Danger by The Stooges and a lot more...
I think that's it for now, until my next blog in three years... ;)
Not very interesting for my readers to hear about my band the whole fucking time. But that's my life.
Healthy Junkies are doing quite well too on a creative level. We even have a potential bass player interested in playing with us in the future, when we get the band all together for lives.
I actually enjoy the home studio recording process, more than I ever thought I would. It gives you a lot of skills on the production side and gave me some ideas for a technical asset in Altercation, that you will see in a few months.
Can't wait to play with Rick Blaze and Bubblegum Screw as backing vocalist again, it's like being on holidays, less pressure than being a lead singer obviously.
Oh yes I almost forgot, one more year has been added to my ''not so young any more'' age. So what is it like to be 24 people ask, not that much different from my 23, and still waiting for the first wrinkles to appear ah ah... It's been four years I am a londonner now, that's crazy how time goes.
I guess I know a bit more about myself now. And I also like what I'm hearing when I listen to the Dress Up E.P, comparing it with our last demo of June 2008 at The Enterprise. I can say I've learned a lot during my 23's, in term of drugs (no more), singing by doing stuffs with Phil Honey Jones in the Healthy Junkies project, sound and production, also thanks to HJ but also thanks to Richard Bignell who's been an amazing productor and guided us all along.
I've learned a lot on my stage presence too.
Et voila...
