last year/this year:
last year I:
-wrote 56 songs mostly about ------ and ----- and recorded (most of) them with Paul draper and Nitin Sawhney and blue may and some by myself
- sold 500 copies of my ep on pre-order and make my fingers bleed stamping each and everyone by hand. Then had to make 500 more.
- felt a little bit weird about getting reviewed in the daily mirror. felt better when i read the review.
-promised myself i would learn how to play banjo PROPERLY. Failed miserably. spent too much time emailing instead
-got asked to be artist in residence at the southbank centre and got to see Brian Wilson sing "god only knows"
- finally succumbed to the mac and got myself a proper pro tools set-up so i can join in the geeky boy-conversations
- gave the old dark side a chance and fell in love with the shins, didn't fall in love again but carried on torturing myself (mostly) about the same old same old, reinventing the contemporary malcontent
- continued to successfully abstain from drinking until may, then august. fell into a vat of rum in December and drank myself through the entire tom waits back catalogue, watched five movies without actually watching them and made my left eye bleed,
- went deaf in one ear for a day
- played islington academy and drunk so much baileys before i even got on stage that it seemed like the room was swaying in time with each rush of blood
- supported scout niblett in Brighton and tried to stop looking puzzled every time someone called her "Emma"
- visited two aquariums and fell in love with a skate called mister ray.
- got three buses to play a gig in hackney and got accidentally hit in the face with a flying guitar amp
- got lost on hampstead heath
- got lost in little venice
- stood on a train platform in harrow wanting to die
- didn't get invited to your birthday (you know who you are)
- shouted and swore at some guys in the audience for talking only to find out later that they were actually shouting about how much they loved the music...
- danced like a fool to old suede songs at "feeling gloomy" and gave myself whiplash whilst scaring the life out of Tim (probably)
- cried so much i lost my voice but acquired two more tones in my upper range
- played in front of a bazilion people with nitin sawhney at the royal festival hall
- got to take a shower in the rfh dressing rooms before the builders had really finished...
- acquired mysterious bruises but stopped feeling sick every time i ate.
- had a terrible birthday (again)
- played at the bbc electric proms
- got my first national radio play and won the bbc introducing listeners' vote
- felt disappointed in patrick wolf and the dresden dolls but played "videotape" by radiohead on repeat and became addicted to the shins
- bought another piano even though i shouldn't/couldn't/will live to regret it
- lusted after too many guitars and not enough boys
- cried at the rufus wainwright old vic show when he played "the art teacher"
- spent 15 days in hospital waiting rooms, waiting.
- thought about dyeing my hair blonde at least four times then accidentally dyed it blonde by leaving in the highlighting lotion too long the day my dad's father died and it no longer seemed important to wash it off.
- spent around a month of my time travelling on trains, mostly travelling backwards.
- got given an iPod but never used it
- hoped it would be fatal
- thought about starting an emo super-group comprising solely of female musicians
- listened too much and didn't demand enough
- drank too much white wine in the sun at reading and became fixated by trent reznor's leather gloves and enjoyed lost prophets a little bit too much.
- took too many taxis
- spent an amazing and exhausting two weeks writing and rehearsing ten completely original compositions for the re-opening of the royal festival hall. almost learnt to love reggae.
- got asked by Courtney Love to join her band. got scared and turned it down.
- recorded a cover of The Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love" on Christmas Eve and tried not to laugh too much whilst playing sleigh bells and making my friend Duncan sing really low backing vocals.
- read about 250 books whilst finishing my doctorate. Felt old about finally leaving university but kept getting ID'd in the supermarket anyhow.
- didn't get a proper job
- wore fake eyelashes whilst holding imaginary cigarette holders that leave trace a ladder of smoke that leads to the stars...
- nearly broke my guitar whilst wearing ridiculously high heels at the Jazz Cafe. because i could.
- finally impressed my parents by being on the same album as Paul McCartney (out next year)
- got addicted to rum and ginger beer which surpassed the cream soda and martini cocktail of the winter of 2004.
- thought about emigrating to America, Iceland, Poland, Paris, the end of the garden.
- didn't leave the country once
- finally made it to iTunes.
- blagged a comprehensive knowledge of the life and works of Sylvia Plath after being invited to sing and talk about her at the ICA not having read "The Bell Jar" for nearly 10 years because it made me feel so ghastly.
- ran around in the butterfly house at London Zoo
- got terrible skin for 3 months and finally empathized a little too late with all those girls at school...
- started making mixtapes again
this year -
- i want to be in technicolor...
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