Shaky Hands

It’s taken me a week but I’ve finally managed to sort through, resize and upload my gig photos from last weekend: Cut Off Your Hands at the Ellen Melville Hall, supported by (in chronological order) Brand New Math, Oh Mercy, Bionic Pixie and Collapsing Cities. I’ve attached some to this post, but the rest are here.

I remember years ago when I used to complain that all decent gigs were R18 – and indeed they were – everytime a band I was keen on was playing, I had to check everywhere to find out whether or not there was an All Ages section separate to the bar at the venue, or if they were going to forgo admitting youngsters altogether. At the time, older friend had said “You’ll be grateful and understand why gigs are R18 once you turn 18”, but I never fully understood until I was at Ellen Melville last Saturday night. Overall the gig was great though – $15 for 5 bands, now that’s seriously impressive. I would’ve paid more than that just to see COYH alone. Kudos to Savvy for making it non-profit, with COYH shirts going at $15 also (I’m currently wearing mine, minus the hems that I tore off).

The real downer for me was more the fact that, for once, I felt quite old at a gig, and felt like I had to be nice to the people around me. Upon arrival at the square on High Street, I had a 16 year old asking if I could buy her cigarettes. I really didn’t like the idea of her approaching anymore strangers, and there were a lot of dodgy men lurking around. Later, whilst hogging my prime position in the front row just in front of the Ampeg bass rig (I want to play through one of those again, they’re truly amazing!), I came across a boy behind me that looked no older than 12 or 13 – I wasn’t even allowed to the movies down at the local mall that late without strict parental guidance to and from the carpark, let alone at a concert in the city when I was that age! The point was, I felt truly bad during every changeover when I’d turn around and sit on the edge of the stage, looking at the rest of the audience behind me. I guess I haven’t changed much in the sense that I’m still the over-enthusiastic girl right at the front in a band shirt, although I’d always hated the taller, older people in front of me, on the occasions where I couldn’t get in the first row; and ironically, I was now one of them. I guess you can’t really win. But I felt bad having to nudge people half my height (and looked half my age) out of my way, so was a lot gentler than usual. Gah.

I was going to do a brief review of the gig, but I seriously can’t be bothered right now, seeing as I have A Level English and History essays to write. On a completely different note, last night I was down at Cassette 9, and I’m thoroughly annoyed at my lack of sleep (and therefore judgement), because I’d chosen the easier route to town – via ferry – which meant that I never got to see Shocking Pinks because I had to catch it back! It didn’t help that 2x teapots and 2x beers didn’t get me tipsy enough to not feel disappointed; and my Long Island Iced Tea was also a denouement: so many people have recommended it to me, but finally I tried one last night, and for some reason I could hardly taste anything that went in it – for some obsurd reason, it tasted like a bourbon and coke. A $15 bourbon and coke at that. Ouch.

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I look like a druggie

I can’t remember what made me want to do a mini shoot today. I think the combination of little sleep and very early winter mornings for the past 3 days in a row, along with a lot of music practise and reading history textbooks resulted in my need for an alternative outlet. I haven’t done any photos in quite a while, let alone self-portraits, so there’s still a lot to be desired. But for now, I’m just happy that I did something today, other than looking and feeling drugged out, running on adrenalin all day. An hour ago when a friend asked me on MSN how training was this morning, I almost said “excuse me, what?” because this morning seems more like a faraway dream. The other thing I managed to achieve today was open a couple of new bank accounts and set up a Visa Debit card at ASB bank. Now all I have to do is give my new account number to my boss, so I won’t be the only person to not receive pay on time!

Anyway, I should be getting some sleep now, I have a long day tomorrow that entails a hockey game. But hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks I’ll have dveloped my black and white films and get them scanned/printed – some are from last year but I’m working on some at the moment.

These aren’t in the right order, but here’s a handful, starting with the one I look most like a druggie in, haha:

In the absence of human touch

The creepiest thing happened to me last night/today – since I’m currently home by myself with the cat for a couple more weeks, I have to clean the kitty litter. He’d usually do more of his business outside, but he’s recently had a UTI, so it’s not been pretty. The cat’s litter box is located in our bathroom, to the right of the toilet, whilst the scooping thing hangs on a hook on the wall to the left of the toilet. What happened was, last night I discovered the poop-scoop in the litter box, which I was surprised about because I never leave it lying in there – I always, always put it back on the hook on the wall. Thus I distinctly recall replacing it in its right place. But then this afternoon I found the poop-scoop back in the litter box, upside down and with cat’s pee on it. I’m not sure if our cat has evolved from opening doors to moving the poop-scoop into the litter box to draw my attention to the fact that it desperately needs emptying… or if I just have terrible memory. I’m not embarrassed to say that I made sure my friends weren’t just playing a prank on me.

And wow, I just realised that I have a huge habit of using songs/lyrics as blog post titles.

Treat me like your mother

(This didn’t post yesterday, not sure why)
I don’t know how to let you go… Or even if I should keep you.

Driving home in the dark at 6am this morning felt bizarre. The streets were mostly empty, with the odd couple in their fluro-reflective clothing going out for an early morning stroll and a few cyclists getting in my way. I love the night. It feels so liberating, like I could do anything I wanted – and often I do. With !!! and then The Kills blasting through my factory speakers in my car, the few kilometres home felt much, much further. If only my hobbies weren’t so expensive, I’d invest in better car speakers – you know, so the bass doesn’t distort? That kills me; being a bass player and all, I can’t even turn it up loud in my car. It was so easy to double the speed limit, especially on the downhill slide home. Luckily it was a Wednesday morning? Though these days the last thing I need is another speeding ticket.

I’m super annoyed that my laptop/usb ports are messed up. Not only do I have to resort to using mum’s computer at the moment, but I also can’t sync my ipod. Which is such a pain because I finally got Horehoud by The Dead Weather. And it’s HOT. Signature Jack White guitar sound, with Alison Mosshart’s snappy attitude in her voice and words… QOTSA’s guitarist pretty much takes a backstage, but his riffy-style does shine through at times. I can’t stop listening to it.

Play dumb, play dead play straight! Time to manipulate.

A million to go

I can’t believe July has already rolled around. This means that my 7th form (year 13), and final year at college is over halfway over. My audition video for Jazz School at University is due October 1st and I’m starting to freak out – extra practise required is a huge euphemism. I made a potentially life-changing purchase today, but I won’t delve into it until a later date – I kind of want to keep it to myself until things start swaying my way. It’s astonishing and rather frustrating how, despite completing one task, there always is a million or more left to go. I miss the youthful days when homework was a worksheet due in a weeks’ time, and 20 minutes’ music practice a day was more than sufficient.

Despite my laptop half dying on me plus refusing to connect to wireless nor internet via ethernet cable, I’ve been sitting online on Mum’s computer a fair bit (such as now) and researching into future plans and destinations for perhaps 3 years’ time when my Bmus degree is completed. Which brings me to this: tertiary education is so ridiculously overpriced – especially in America?! I can’t begin to imagine how a student without scholarships/financial aid would cope in the USA; how does one pay for a degree that will cost $15,000 a term?! Here, student loans are bad enough, despite being interest free; ommitting student allowances (also goes on the loan), based purely on a rough estimate of if I took out a loan for the duration my bachelor’s degree and stayed living at home, my student loan would stack up to $15-20,000 (approx $5k/year for the degree). The “real world” looks like a scary prospect for a future 21-yaer-old me, with a music degree and debt due to the cost of my tertiary education. Then, if I were to complement my degree with an audio engineering diploma or degree… don’t even get me started on number crunching. I simply don’t understand how students in the US cope since, SAE for example, are charging twice as much for (virtually) the same course in New York as in Auckland. Here’s hoping I land a lot of gigs.

Edit: Just found a photo from that gig in June… I really ought to sort my photos earlier. It’s a reflection of Tomas. Hopefully I’ll get some films done soon too.

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