My plans for 2011

With 2010 now behind us, I though now would be a good time to share some of my plans, hopes and slightly crazy dreams for 2011 and beyond.

Things I'd like to do and places I'd like to go to in 2011, I'll be very lucky if I manage to check a few of these off my list.

Spend more time with friends and try to be better at keeping in touch.

Have more fun, meet new friends and worry less.

VIsit Japan - This might have to wait until 2012, but I've wanted to go for a long time, I'd really love to spend a month or two touring it, but doubt I'll have the time to do that in the near future. Fingers crossed I can find the time to spend a week or two out there this year or next.

There are plenty of other places I'd love to visit too, one dream of mine is to travel London to Beijing via train, it just sounds like such an interesting journey.  I'd probably go London->Paris, Paris - Moscow via the direct sleeper service, then on to Beijing via Siberia and Mongolia. This is rather ambitious since I've never been to mainland Europe!  :( All of my overseas travel experience has been within the USA so far. It wouldn't be that expensive, but it would require a significant chunk of time to do, so that might have to wait for a bit.

I might take a few short trips to destinations in Europe.

Learn some more Japanese - I only know a few dozen words, but I'd love to be fluent one day, Japanese is a really interesting and complicated but quite logical language.

Glastonbury 2011 - I Loved Glastonbury 2010, one of the best experiences of my life, can't wait to go back this year.

Get out to more gigs - There are so many artists I haven't seen live yet: Theoretical Girl, iMMa, Jamiroquai, Sara Bareilles, Marina and the diamonds, Bomb The Bass are just a few of them.

And there are plenty of artists I hope to see again this year: Nerina Pallot, 6 Day Riot, The Chain, Pearl and the Puppets, She Makes War, Prodigy, Leftfield, Orbital.

Ice Skating - Always wanted to give it a go but I have to find somewhere that has skates for my clown-size (14!) feet first, Somerset House maybe.

Maybe take a few dancing lessons - It looks like great fun but I'm about a graceful as a giraffe on roller skates in that regard so need all the help I can get.

Improve my keyboard and guitar skills -  I can play both, but I'm not good at either, I still struggle with the F barre chord on guitar. Maybe I should find the time to take a few professional lessons.

Improve my fitness level - Working as a software developer means I sit down for hours each day, and my fitness level has suffered as a result,  at one stage I was  nearly 3st overweight.  I've worked hard and have lost well over 2st now, but still need to work on on my fitness.

Improve my objective-c and Perl programming skills - I'm pretty good, but there is always room for improvement

Continue improving my Photography/Video skills - Photography is one of my favourite hobbies, my video skills need a lot of work, my photography skills are pretty good, but I'd like to become more proficient at both.

Get a photo published as an album/EP/single cover or inlay artwork. - unlikely to happen but would be awesome if it did. 

Maybe find a girl by the end of 2011 to share a proper New Year's Kiss with - Not easy as I'm a bit of a geek, but you never know.

Ultimately I'll be very happy if 2011 is a year of good health, shared experiences with friends and family and a few good gigs.

I hope this is a great year for all of us, I know a lot of my friends (both offline and online ones) have had a difficult time of things in 2010, fingers crossed this year will be better and things will work out how you want them to.

My 2010 in review - September and October

Autumn


Oxjam!
You may or may not be aware of Oxjam, it's a month long charity music festival organised by Oxfam, various music events are hosted during the month of october by various members of the public and venues all around the country.  To launch Oxjam, Oxfam convert one of their charity stores in London to be a music venue for 4 nights and invite some great artists to play.  I've been going to the launch gigs since 2009, these gigs are pretty special.

This year it was held at an Oxfam store in Dalston, I went to 3 of the 4 nights.  On the first night Diana Vickers was headlining, with support from Pearl and the Puppets and Liz Lawrence.

Pearl and the Puppets (http://www.myspace.com/pearlandthepuppets) 

I'd never seen Pearl and the Puppets, but was very impressed, Katie Sutherland has a lovely voice, and she has some great songs, you might have heard some of her music already, 'Because I do' was used in the Tamara Drewe trailer.

Liz Lawrence (http://www.myspace.com/lizlawrencelive)

Liz Lawrence was a last minute replacement for Gabriella Cilmi, I was disappointed when I heard Gabriella had pulled out, as I've wanted to see her live for a while, but Liz Lawrence was a great replacement. She seemed a bit shy and didn't talk much, but has a very nice voice and played a great set.

Diana Vickers
You might be surprised to find out that I quite like Diana Vickers, as she's far more mainstream than most of the artists I follow, well you can blame Nerina Pallot for this, Ms Vickers is a fan of Nerina Pallot, and asked if she'd write a song for her, so Nerina gave her an existing unrecorded song called "Put It back Together" which made it on to Diana's first album.

I hadn't really listened to much of Diana Vickers work, but Hearing Put It Back Together performed live for the first time at the Union Chapel made me realise that Diana Vickers actually has a really nice voice.  It's highly variable, as I've seen her live a few times on TV when she's sounded pretty rough, but when she's good, she's very good. I suspect that the slightly unpredictable nature of her voice is down to that she's still very young and has been a bit overworked this last year.

Taking this into account I was a little apprehensive at seeing her live at Oxjam, but she put on a very good performance,  her voice did get a little shaky during her final 2 songs, but the rest sounded great.  I discovered something I didn't know about her: she can play the trumpet!

Annoyingly, although I like her live, most of her album isn't quite as good as it should be, the songs are decent enough, and some of them are very good. but most of them feel a little overproduced, the one exception is Put It Back Together, which does sound better, but that was produced in-house by Nerina Pallot & Andy Chatterley (Nerina Pallot's husband) so it's to be expected, but even this has a little over-level clipping and distortion on Diana's vocal (it's most noticeable during the line "I think we'll be alright" around 45 seconds in), so I suspect someone fiddled with the levels during final mastering. :(

I'm getting a bit tired of hearing pop tracks that have been mastered to -5Db+ and have had the dynamic range compressed out of them, I haven't analysed the album closely enough to verify that it has been mastered to this level, but it feels like it has.

But I digress. Anyway... The first night of Oxjam was a lot of fun, probably one of my gigs of the year.

Oxjam gig 2: Johnny Borrell
I didn't know what to expect, I like Razorlight's music, but have never seen them live, but I was curious to see what Johnny Borrell was like as a solo artist live.

Little Comets (http://www.myspace.com/littlecometsmusic)
First on were Little Comets, never heard them before, but I liked them a lot, reminded me a little of 2 Door Cinema Club, I've heard them played a bit on 6 Music since, so I suspect they are going to go far.
One Night in October is a good song to listen to if you want an idea of what they sound like.

Pope Joan (http://www.myspace.com/popejoan)
I liked them, they sound quite different so a little difficult to categorise, haven't had chance to check out their music since, but might sometime.  I was quite impressed that they used a Novation BassStation live on stage. :)

Johnny Borrell
Very impressed, he played a set of new material and new versions of Razorlight classics, his solo sound has quite a punk vibe to it. He even sang Dalston :)

Night 3: Ikonika and Four Tet

Ikonika (http://www.myspace.com/ikonika)
Ikonika was a last minute replacement for Howie B, I didn't know Ikonika's music, but I'd heard of her within dubstep circles, what followed was a set of quite minimalistic heavy dubstep, now I like dubstep, but not knowing her tracks made it pretty difficult to get into her music at first.  After a while I began to hear some tracks I liked the sound of, and by the end I was quite disappointed she was finishing.

Four Tet (http://www.myspace.com/fourtetkieranhebden)
Four Tet is a remixer who is known for remixing Radiohead and for creating his own tracks,  he mainly played his own tracks, but his set was very good and the crowd loved it.

My only complaint about this evening is that it wasn't as good as last year's DJ lineup, which had the Stereo MCs, Basement Jaxx and Fatboy Slim on the bill, but that set a very high standard to live up to.

Found an official Oxjam launch gig video on youtube:


October

6 Fest

6 Fest was a little festival held at Venue 229 on Great Portland Street in celebration of 6Music being saved, the lineup was a closely guarded secret so until I arrived at the venue I didn't know who'd be playing.

Unfortunately, Grace (a friend of mine who wanted to attend), couldn't go. :( Completely understandable as She was majorly jetlagged and not feeling great, she'd only just returned from Australia after running the Sydney Marathon!  Completed in 5h, 24m. Very well done Grace!

The Lineup was interesting, hadn't heard of many of the acts, Saw too many to go into them all, but a few of the best were:

Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny (http://www.myspace.com/bethjeanshoughton)
I liked them, they have a folk inspired sound, reminded me a little of Theoretical Girl.

Adam Buxton
Utter genius, he even did a live version of Help The Police, this is the original sketch if you haven't seen it:

Total Shambles
The 6 Music house band comprises various DJs and staff from 6 Music, they actually were very entertaining.

The Jim Jones Revue (http://www.myspace.com/thejimjonesrevue)
An absolutely amazing modern Rock and Roll band, I can understand why rock and roll must have sounded so exciting when it first appeared on the scene.

Part 4 coming soon....