Diary - Matt Drake
Back To The Future
27/11/2009
This is the first diary entry I've written, in fact probably the first thing I've written at all, in the time since October. I don't need to go over past events and i don't feel the need to share my inner most thoughts about it with everyone through the interwebs because obviously it's personal, the only thing i could say is that I've spent the past few months pretty isolated from everything, I've buried myself in music and films and have rarely left the house, I have also been monumentally stupid and lost interest in even picking up a guitar as often as I should to practice, same goes for singing, I haven't practised once, which for some reason I've only just come round to realising is ridiculous as I'm only going to have to work harder now to get back where I was so it's time to get back to discipline and realise a complete focus on what I should be doing, because I need to be able to do it well and if I haven't put the time in then I'm not only letting myself down, but also the band and the people who like this band. It's time to pick it up and run with it.
Writing feels healthy, it's a form of expression, and i should be doing it more so I've started doing the diary again, back to writing about nonsense that no one will be even remotely interested in, there hasn't been much band activity other than a search for a new bass player so the writing will most likely be about films, or if I've seen someone fall over.We've decided we need to keep it rolling in the new year so hopefully we should have some good news soon regarding bass player developments, hopefully sooner than you think! Later today we'll also be putting a new part of the website where you can buy old your merch at a cheaper price, it's basically taking up space in the garage so we thought it would be cool for people to be able to get hold of stuff they won't have been able to get because they weren't at the shows.
Let the rambling begin, I'm in the mood for a fish finger sandwich and some potato waffles, nostalgia lunch! I recently got hold of a snow white RR24 Jackson Guitar, it's a nice piece of kit, only has the one bridge pickup, which is all I need because honestly, I'm not sure if I have ever switched to a neck pickup before - spot the rhythm guitarist! First thing I did was rip out the piece of shite EMG 81 that came installed, such a horrible sounding pickup, it's as flat as Holland (which is a bad comparison as Holland is beautiful), ok it's as flat as Keira Knightley. After getting rid of that thing I got hold of a new Seynour Duncan Blackout AHB-2 active pickup, the new ones with the jumper pin on the back, and the best thing is that they've designed it using the same quick connect fittings that EMG use as they KNOW that theirs is far superior so people can just swap out EMG's for the SD's with no fuss whatsoever (genius) and it blew me away when I first tried it, it's much clearer, warmer, rounder, bigger, more headroom, it's just HOTTER, it's like getting rid of Keira Knightley and getting hold of Kelly Brook, far more playable, if you're an EMG user I highly recommend at least trying the Blackouts, you will be surprised how weak and dead the EMG's really are compared to these beauties. Kelly Brook, remember when she was on the Big Breakfast??
TV wise I don't have anything to do with sitting down and watching it, i just pick up full series dvd boxsets and get obsessed with them one at a time, at the moment we're (by we I mean my other half) half way through series 5 of the West Wing and it's absolutely an incredible programme, excellent characters that you actually give a toss about, maybe it is a slightly overly liberal government that's portrayed but it doesn't matter, they have good values and beliefs and they make you believe in doing the right thing, I'm getting excited and anxious wondering how it's going to end, i was saddened yesterday to find out that John Spencer, who plays Leo Magarry, passed away in 2005, so I'm wondering how that will affect the programme, guess I will find out. He plays a damn good character as well, seemed like a very likeable guy from all the films I've seen him in like Wargames, Presumed Innocent, Black Rain, The Rock, RIP John Spencer.
I think my next Series lined up to watch is Mad Men, I'm already going stupid with anticipation for the last series of Lost, It's been an excellent 5 years in the making and it's all been about the journey, but i really can't help but feel like there's no way they can have an ending that will live up to where our imaginations expect it to go, I hope it pays off though, I really do, having Locke going on about his destiny and purpose all this time just to have him be used as a puppet and that be his purpose was such a sucker punch and totally gutting to watch, or maybe that wasn't his purpose and series 6 will give us more, see that's what so good about Lost, you never know what they're going to throw at you. And Juliet got hotter, and Kate in the supermarket? you would.
Just finished Assassins Creed 2, the first one was boring as arse but I stuck with it only for it to end up being another contrived sci-fi game, looked nice though. So I got the 2nd one hearing about all the problems they had fixed and sure enough it was more enjoyable this time around, graphics are stunning, running around venice was excellent, but for every problem they fixed more were created, the side missions are still repetitive, chase this guy, punch this guy a few times, follow that guy somewhere urgghhhh. But it was definitely more fun that the first, running back and forth between your villa constantly to collect your kickbacks from investing in the local area got really old really fast though, nice cheap way to make the game seem longer! Plus the story was really easy to not care about, just another "if we don't do whatever the world will end" with religious overtones thing, meh. If they kept it in the past and did away with the whole present sci-fi parts it would be excellent, and did away with the same side missions over and over again that would also be nice. Another huge problem I had is at the end, all this time you've spent learning to be stealthy and cool, and climb things and use some really interesting disarm moves in fights - it ends with a fucking punch up, a simple boring punch up, bah! Fallout 3 and Dead Space are still my choices of the year.
Also recently I've been going through a phase of watching films I've never seen before, mostly older films that I should have seen and would probably love and I can happily recommend these to you: All the President's Men (Dustin Hoffman is a legend-and spotting all the X-Files bits Chris Carter was inspired by is fun - well, sad, ahem), The Parallax View, the original Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 (just coooool), Catch 22 (love the book), Jacobs Ladder, The Entity....
That's enough for today, more to come in a few days.
Oulu, Finland
04/10/2009
And again I woke up as we pulled into the venue, it was raining really hard, we didn’t hit any moose or anything which is always a bonus. Some people helped us load the gear into the van, by the time I got outside to help it had already been done, fabulous work ethic over here. I wasn’t complaining so I grabbed my bag and came into the venue, and as I think about it, absolutely nothing important happened today so this update might be very short. We did the usual 15 minute sound check before doors opened, grabbed our stuff and changed and ran back to the stage to play.
When we got on stage we were greeted with the strangest noise I’ve ever heard. Clapping. Just clapping, nothing else, it was completely bizarre, I’ve never seen that before and it threw me a bit, I’m assuming it’s a polite way of welcoming a band you have never heard of before. People didn’t get into us as much as the past few nights, a few people did but on the whole I don’t think many people were into the old Evile and seemed quite unimpressed, never mind, can‘t please everyone. When we came off stage and got to the dressing room Mike laid down and said he felt shite, and he looks it as well, he isn’t feeling too good and has no idea why, hopefully he picks up tomorrow, but he seems pretty out of it. That’s it, nothing else has gone on, Entombed and Amon Amarth played well, the sound is good, Lucy our merch girl is doing a fine job as always. Since there’s not much to write about, here is a list of 5 things that I think are great:
1. Winding people up when they’re already pissed off
2. Watching people trip over things
3. Sleeping
4. White Russians
5. The fact that Winston doesn’t contribute ANYTHING to Ghostbusters
Seinajoki, Finland
03/10/2009
Once again I woke when we got the venue, sleeping is brilliant. We got into the venue and I disappeared to re-string my guitar, I should mention that on this tour I am trying out a new guitar, Jackson were good enough to let me try out an RR24 guitar, white with black bevels, the one with one EMG 81 pickup and so far it’s pretty bloody nice, I would rather have a Seymour Duncan Blackout pickup in there instead as I love them and EMGS don’t do it for me, but I didn’t have time before the tour to install one. But the guitar plays really easily, thanks Jackson! It’s a nice venue with plenty of parking for more than one band (other venues take note!!!). We knew the score this time with sound checks so we were prepared for another pre-door opening rush, and sure enough that was the case again so we threw the gear up on stage and rushed through sound check, then disappeared upstairs again to get changed and do some quick warmups, I’m REALLY enjoying playing the new songs live, I bloody love them, they feel more comfortable. Everything went well, we went down well BUT as soon as we started playing I couldn’t help but notice there was a lass stood at the front directly in front of me with awesome boobs and I kept getting distracted by them and forgetting my words, they really were awesome boobs. We didn’t sell much merch though but we still made enough to be able to put petrol in the van and get to the next gig, there weren’t any aftershow shenanigans that I can think of, other than ol running around with a box on his head and some random drunk finnish girl getting into our camper van with Ben and being drunk. I couldn’t be arsed standing up anymore so I departed for my bunk and watched an episode of The Wire, almost got the first series done.
Helsinki, Finland
02/10/2009
I woke up and we had arrived at the venue, me and Ben went in search of a drum shop but we ended finding a comic book shop instead which had a whole wealth of amazingly geeky crap, I was very near tempted by a Kenner alien queen model from 1996 and a the whole Hellsing Manga book collection, but since I can’t read Japanese (but I have sung it!) I passed on them, we went back to the venue and met Amon Amarth and Entombed, I have never seen such an army of laptops, they were everywhere, everyone was on a laptop, maybe laptops are the new drugs of the music business?
The Amon Amarth singer is a bloody massive bloke as well, most likely an actual Viking, he could probably destroy villages single handed. Me and Mike decided to go out wandering and we found a life size C3P0 in a model shop so I got a photo of it and we got talking to guy who worked In the shop who was coming to the gig tonight, apparently his girlfriend was a fan of Evile! We headed abck to the venue. Our dressing room was the laundry room so we got a sneaky chance to wash some clothes, the other bands sound checks ran to 15 minutes before doors opening, I imagine this will happen every night so we’re prepared for the rush if needs be, we threw our gear on stage and sound checked ridiculously fast like we always do, then we legged it off stage and they opened the doors, we ran to our dressing room, got changed, I did 15 minutes of voice warm ups, I usually do an hour, but had no choice and then ran back to the stage in time to go on. For our 1st proper gig in Finland (other than Tuska festival a few months ago) it went down really well, we sold plenty of merch, and then mike got wasted, and I mean wasted, I have very good video footage of this event, which involved him rolling around on the floor with an ironing board on top of him, ah good times. We loaded all our gear out, mike got in the front seat and passed out, then woke up and tried to open the front door but instead of simply getting out he fell out into the road and just laid there, genius. Then Steve (Amon Amarths stage manager/guitar tech) came into our camper van and sat down for an hour telling us all sorts of stories about bands he had worked with. You never truly realise how fucked up some bands are until you hear from people who were there, oh the stories we heard. We then realised it was 4.30am and went to bed.
Day 4
01/10/2009
It’s now 6am and me and Lyall are the only people awake, we’re heading for another small ferry trip which is the 20 minute crossing from Stockholm to Sweden. Lyall has been driving since midnight and I stayed awake with him to keep him company so he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel and kill us all in a massive fireball of camper van carnage and doom. Since everyone went to bed at 4am I was hoping someone would get up and help me take it in shifts to keep Lyall company, but errrrr no one got up until 10am so Lyall and me struggled through, Lyall couldn’t really stop driving as we had to get an overnight ferry at 6.15pm, when we stopped for petrol at 10am Lyall got 2 hours sleep, he badly needed it, and I got a chance for some sleep as well so I went to bed and woke up at 6pm at the ferry port. Lyall did a bloody god job. Now we’re sat on the ferry, me Mike and Ol are sharing a cabin and we’re watching loads of South Park, I’m getting pretty excited about the Amon Amarth shows now and can’t wait to be playing for new crowds, I also had my first shower in 4 days. Bloody amazing.
