As you may know from reading my previous posts I'm in a pop-punk band called Six Stories Up. So far we have written a grand total of two of our own songs, and we are also preparing a crap load of covers to perform. At least two of us are taking this seriously, that's me and Nathan, we're not so sure about the third.
Anyway we have been spending a nice amount of time jamming together, and decided just the other day that we should each choose four songs to cover (making twelve covers), those songs have all been chosen and we're now learning how to play them, unfortunately we don't have access to a drum kit at the moment, which is a bit of a pain, especially since we have an area to put it (Nath's garage, which will soon be converted for our band practice).
As I said we have two songs, one of them just needs a few minor adjustments, and the other one we have forgotten how to play, but we still have the lyrics so at least something is on our side. the first song simply just needs the guitar part for it's quieter bridge rewritten.
On to other ventures, I celebrated my 100th YouTube video last Monday and I had a nice little party with my friends, after I had finished celebrating that I started a secondary YouTube channel called G_Man TV! which is essentially me doing the stupidest things I can think of for the sake of it. So far I only have one video, which is me attempting what I call the Mustard Challenge, and failing miserably.
I also went to Hanley the other day, which made a nice change, I spent the day causing chaos with my friends and wishing I had money to buy myself some nice things. I did however visit the new music shop that has opened in The Potteries Center, it didn't have a very good selection of basses which was a shame but there were some damn nice guitars there, more importantly there was a lot of other nice things there, including, and not limited to, a sexy female employee.
Overall my week hasn't been too interesting but I've been enjoying myself nonetheless, and now I have yet another fun day at the House of Zed, unfortunately I wasted all my money whilst at Hanley so I need to ride my bike there.
Monday 28 July 2014
Sunday 20 July 2014
Brohoof!
This week has actually been quite epic for me. I started it off with a pleasant trip to the House of Zed (and I'm going again tomorrow) with my good friend Keely. I also did a few other things during the week that were entertaining. The highlight was my awesome weekend.
The first thing that happened was my trip to the House of Zed, unfortunately Nath and Ash cancelled, but I still had Keely with me. We didn't really do much, I think we just asked each other fun and awkward questions and shared funny stories, none of which I remember. We also talked about getting me a brony friend to keep me happy.
Tuesday was pretty boring, but Wednesday brought with it an amazing surprise. My bro Nath became a brony, giving me the one thing I so desperately wanted on Monday, a brony friend to come to Ponycon 2014 with me. There was a problem though, he already has plans for that weekend, which was more than just a shame. Wednesday also brought another surprise, but I'm not allowed to talk about that one in the off chance that someone reads it who isn't supposed to find out from me.
Friday was when Nath went all out with his broniness (for that is now a word). He popped into my house, just as I was writing my first post for Bronies UK, and started showing off his new loot which he bought from Hanley. The first thing he shown me was a six-inch Applejack plush, then he pulled out a set of My Little Pony Top Trumps (which, as we found out earlier, are not show accurate), and after that he pulled out the My Little Pony comic issue number 21.
After he had finished showing everything off we decided it would be awesome for me to spend the weekend at his so we could have a brony party. We ended up watching most of the first season of the show, and we also did a bit of jamming, he even came up with a nice riff to use in a song.
Earlier today was when the fun was doubled, Ash came around (which he really shouldn't have done since the coward was meant to have gone to the House of Zed). He came bearing the best news, he had also become a brony, he has also said that he might join me in coming to Ponycon, that is of course if I can go, there is a slim chance the army prep course I'll be taking at college next year may prevent me from going.
On a completely unrelated note, I said in my last post that it was approaching my 100th video on Youtube. I would have uploaded it yesterday, but I was at Nathan's house which screwed me over a little bit (I also lost my 21 day streak on Duolingo). Instead I will be working on that video tomorrow, after that I will go to the House of Zed where I'll get to experience the Fall of Ash, which I'll tell you all about next week.
The first thing that happened was my trip to the House of Zed, unfortunately Nath and Ash cancelled, but I still had Keely with me. We didn't really do much, I think we just asked each other fun and awkward questions and shared funny stories, none of which I remember. We also talked about getting me a brony friend to keep me happy.
Tuesday was pretty boring, but Wednesday brought with it an amazing surprise. My bro Nath became a brony, giving me the one thing I so desperately wanted on Monday, a brony friend to come to Ponycon 2014 with me. There was a problem though, he already has plans for that weekend, which was more than just a shame. Wednesday also brought another surprise, but I'm not allowed to talk about that one in the off chance that someone reads it who isn't supposed to find out from me.
Friday was when Nath went all out with his broniness (for that is now a word). He popped into my house, just as I was writing my first post for Bronies UK, and started showing off his new loot which he bought from Hanley. The first thing he shown me was a six-inch Applejack plush, then he pulled out a set of My Little Pony Top Trumps (which, as we found out earlier, are not show accurate), and after that he pulled out the My Little Pony comic issue number 21.
After he had finished showing everything off we decided it would be awesome for me to spend the weekend at his so we could have a brony party. We ended up watching most of the first season of the show, and we also did a bit of jamming, he even came up with a nice riff to use in a song.
Earlier today was when the fun was doubled, Ash came around (which he really shouldn't have done since the coward was meant to have gone to the House of Zed). He came bearing the best news, he had also become a brony, he has also said that he might join me in coming to Ponycon, that is of course if I can go, there is a slim chance the army prep course I'll be taking at college next year may prevent me from going.
On a completely unrelated note, I said in my last post that it was approaching my 100th video on Youtube. I would have uploaded it yesterday, but I was at Nathan's house which screwed me over a little bit (I also lost my 21 day streak on Duolingo). Instead I will be working on that video tomorrow, after that I will go to the House of Zed where I'll get to experience the Fall of Ash, which I'll tell you all about next week.
Sunday 13 July 2014
I Have an Exciting Week Ahead, and I Have No Plans for It!
Well what do you know it's Sunday again and I don't actually have much to say. I am however excited about a few upcoming things. Before I get onto that though I will talk about a few parts of my week.
Well first thing I set about doing this week was designing a band logo, which I needed to get a bit of help for. I ended up calling upon the aid of my eldest brother Chaz, who decided to give me a few lessons on how to use Adobe Illustrator CS6. I definitely need those lessons, my vector drawing skills aren't great. I was even handed a booklet on how to use Adobe Illustrator CS2, which is pretty much the same as CS6, but I actually have CS2 so it was perfect for me, and I ended up creating a decent logo for a punk band, I don't know how well it'll work for pop-punk though, but my band mates haven't complained yet.
After the logo was done I started working on creating a pop-punk version of Eurobeat Brony's song Discord. I did this in the hopes that I could convince the rest of the band to join me in covering it, and thankfully I was able to succeed in such a thing. So now we have one song that we are definitely doing at some point.
Continuing on with the band activity, our lead singer Ash wrote a song for us, which describes all of our relationships without using his horribly inaccurate wrestling theory (don't ask). My initial thoughts on his song was simply "oh no" the least pop-punk person in the band wrote a pop punk song, and surprisingly it's actually not bad, I would say it's better than the one I wrote the other week, but it talks about me, Ash and also Nath instead of just Ash, or just me, or just Nath. Mine at least talks about just me, which focuses the song. Admittedly I screwed up the instrumental side of the song by letting my love of prog take over.
Other than various band related activities my week has been fairly uneventful, which has meant I've had a few bad days in regards to my depression, but overall I am still a mostly happy person. Weirdly I've been suppressing my depression with darker music, and by that I don't mean I've been listening to Cradle of Filth or someone similar, I mean instead of listening to Rush I've been listening to Tool. I suppose this is actually quite normal for a sad person to suppress their sadness with sad music, I just don't understand how it works.
Anyway this next week has at least two events that I'm looking forward to. First off tomorrow I'm going up to the House of Zed and the plan is that the entire Library Crew all turn up. The Library Crew consists of the three friends I've mentioned a lot on this blog recently (Ash, Nath and Zaina) and also another friend of mine, Keely, who is hard to reach now that we don't all go to school anymore. I'd also like to point out, in order to avoid confusion, that Keely is a boy, not a girl, he got the name Keely when Ash misheard what I called him during an intense game of Uno.
So the five of us are all going to have a meet up at the House of Zed, which is Zaina's house in case you didn't know. If all goes to plan Monday should be quite enjoyable, however, I was told by Zaina that she wanted to have a word with me, the way she said it implies that it's not going to be good news. I still can't wait to hear what she has to say, because she wouldn't have said it if it wasn't important and it might help relieve some of the tension within my mind.
The other thing that I'm looking forward to this week is celebrating my 100th video on YouTube, which I believe is on Wednesday or Thursday. I have a few plans for my video, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm actually going to do with it. The only thing I know for definite is that I'm going to need to borrow my dads smartphone, it's the best camcorder in the house.
Well first thing I set about doing this week was designing a band logo, which I needed to get a bit of help for. I ended up calling upon the aid of my eldest brother Chaz, who decided to give me a few lessons on how to use Adobe Illustrator CS6. I definitely need those lessons, my vector drawing skills aren't great. I was even handed a booklet on how to use Adobe Illustrator CS2, which is pretty much the same as CS6, but I actually have CS2 so it was perfect for me, and I ended up creating a decent logo for a punk band, I don't know how well it'll work for pop-punk though, but my band mates haven't complained yet.
After the logo was done I started working on creating a pop-punk version of Eurobeat Brony's song Discord. I did this in the hopes that I could convince the rest of the band to join me in covering it, and thankfully I was able to succeed in such a thing. So now we have one song that we are definitely doing at some point.
Continuing on with the band activity, our lead singer Ash wrote a song for us, which describes all of our relationships without using his horribly inaccurate wrestling theory (don't ask). My initial thoughts on his song was simply "oh no" the least pop-punk person in the band wrote a pop punk song, and surprisingly it's actually not bad, I would say it's better than the one I wrote the other week, but it talks about me, Ash and also Nath instead of just Ash, or just me, or just Nath. Mine at least talks about just me, which focuses the song. Admittedly I screwed up the instrumental side of the song by letting my love of prog take over.
Other than various band related activities my week has been fairly uneventful, which has meant I've had a few bad days in regards to my depression, but overall I am still a mostly happy person. Weirdly I've been suppressing my depression with darker music, and by that I don't mean I've been listening to Cradle of Filth or someone similar, I mean instead of listening to Rush I've been listening to Tool. I suppose this is actually quite normal for a sad person to suppress their sadness with sad music, I just don't understand how it works.
Anyway this next week has at least two events that I'm looking forward to. First off tomorrow I'm going up to the House of Zed and the plan is that the entire Library Crew all turn up. The Library Crew consists of the three friends I've mentioned a lot on this blog recently (Ash, Nath and Zaina) and also another friend of mine, Keely, who is hard to reach now that we don't all go to school anymore. I'd also like to point out, in order to avoid confusion, that Keely is a boy, not a girl, he got the name Keely when Ash misheard what I called him during an intense game of Uno.
So the five of us are all going to have a meet up at the House of Zed, which is Zaina's house in case you didn't know. If all goes to plan Monday should be quite enjoyable, however, I was told by Zaina that she wanted to have a word with me, the way she said it implies that it's not going to be good news. I still can't wait to hear what she has to say, because she wouldn't have said it if it wasn't important and it might help relieve some of the tension within my mind.
The other thing that I'm looking forward to this week is celebrating my 100th video on YouTube, which I believe is on Wednesday or Thursday. I have a few plans for my video, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm actually going to do with it. The only thing I know for definite is that I'm going to need to borrow my dads smartphone, it's the best camcorder in the house.
Sunday 6 July 2014
Yet Another Exciting Week for The G!
I have had an absolutely incredible week! First off I spent a day at college to get to know the students I'll spend next year with, and I even made a friend. After that I had an absolutely incredible Saturday which may have started rough, but it became one of my happiest days. Today has also been pretty darn good too!
I'm going to start with my day at college which was Wednesday. I didn't really expect much out of it in the first place, I went because I wanted to see who I'd be spending the next year with so I had time to mentally prepare myself for it. Most of the lads seemed alright, but they definitely aren't the kind of dudes I'd usually attach myself too, one of the girls wasn't either. The other girl however I did find some connection with, I ended up spending the majority of the day making friends with her, she seemed to be the most like me.
Surprisingly the people I met that day seemed to like me, I usually have people hating me straight from the get-go, but not this time. I'm also not sure how long this will last, but most of the year will be spent team-building so I imagine we all might come to be friends, maybe not good friends but friends nonetheless.
As I said Saturday has been the best day in recent memory for me. Unfortunately though I started it off by talking to my ex-girlfriend (and not the good ex-girlfriend either) so I started the day feeling pretty damn horrible. I'm not going to go into details, it's not very interesting, (for me at least).
That feeling lasted about an hour, it stopped when a little knock at the door signaled the arrival of a package for me. Inside the package was a new headset for me to record my YouTube videos with, and more importantly, a set of bass strings (D'Addario Chromes XL if you must know) so I distracted myself for the next few minutes by listening to Tool and restringing (and polishing) my bass.
Once she was restrung I felt like I could marry my bass guitar, flat wound strings are amazing, they feel so smooth and they flatten out and smooth the tone to really emphasise the fact it's a bass instrument. I don't think I'm ever buying round wound strings for my basses again.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to play her for very long, it was time for my day to start. To jump back a little, Wednesday was Zaina's birthday, but she was unavailable that day due to plans with her family, Saturday was the day where me and Ash were able to celebrate with her. and come one O'clock on Saturday afternoon I set off for Ash's house where I got a lift to Zaina's house (after a brief clothes shopping trip).
The day with Zaina was spent pretty much in the same way as all other days with Zaina. We just sat back and chilled whilst having a great laugh. The highlight of out time there was that she made us a really nice curry, and even supplied us with a nice amount of naan bread and poppadoms, as well as prawn crackers, mango chutney and some weird tasty chicken things. That meal really did kick ass.
That time soon came to an end and it was time for me to face what I was expecting to be the hardest part of the day. To jump back once again, that morning I noticed a post on the Bronies UK Facebook page saying that the blog was going to be opened up to a few new authors and he was looking for applications. Being an aspiring author, and a big fan of the My Little Pony television series, I added him on Skype, thinking I'd have a higher chance if I applied that way instead of by filling in the form. I was told at the time that he couldn't speak to me because he had to go to work, and that he would be able to speak after nine PM.
When I got back home from Zaina's house at about half past nine, the first thing I did was send him a message. No reply, so I waited. While I waited I decided to plug in my new headset and test it out. I thought progressive rock sounded incredible without surround sound, with it it sounds like pure magic being pumped into my brain. It's Heaven.
Half an hour later I received a message and we started talking. He asked me if I'd ever wrote for a blog before and I told him that I have my own blog (this one) and then sent him a link to last weeks post. He was so impressed with it he just accepted me onto the team there and then. I couldn't believe it. Then he started asking me the interview questions just for the sake of it.
I don't think I've been that giddy since just before May Day when I started seeing Lydia. I wanted to celebrate and dance around my house, but unfortunately my brother was asleep and he needed to wake up at stupid O'clock in the morning, (his words), so I couldn't make much noise.
Today was a bit more toned down, I spent the morning trying something new with my YouTube channel, and I spent the best part of two hours editing my video, at least it felt like that long. It was all worth it, I quite like how my video turned out.
After all that was done I went to my friend Nathan's house where we discussed our band and recorded a silly video for his YouTube channel. The majority of that visit was about how our band needed a name change, because the name we had was more horror-punk than pop-punk. We now have a new name, and this next week will be spent on a logo, and also creating a set list that gives us about fifty minutes of play time. Hopefully we can soon get our hands on a drummer and then get around to doing some proper rehearsals.
I'm pleased to be able to end this post by saying that i am most definitely pulling myself out of my depression, I now have a band, I've made a new friend, I also have a new hobby and even a bit of a job. As long as I keep on going like this, I reckon I'll be back to my old self by September at the latest.
I'm going to start with my day at college which was Wednesday. I didn't really expect much out of it in the first place, I went because I wanted to see who I'd be spending the next year with so I had time to mentally prepare myself for it. Most of the lads seemed alright, but they definitely aren't the kind of dudes I'd usually attach myself too, one of the girls wasn't either. The other girl however I did find some connection with, I ended up spending the majority of the day making friends with her, she seemed to be the most like me.
Surprisingly the people I met that day seemed to like me, I usually have people hating me straight from the get-go, but not this time. I'm also not sure how long this will last, but most of the year will be spent team-building so I imagine we all might come to be friends, maybe not good friends but friends nonetheless.
As I said Saturday has been the best day in recent memory for me. Unfortunately though I started it off by talking to my ex-girlfriend (and not the good ex-girlfriend either) so I started the day feeling pretty damn horrible. I'm not going to go into details, it's not very interesting, (for me at least).
That feeling lasted about an hour, it stopped when a little knock at the door signaled the arrival of a package for me. Inside the package was a new headset for me to record my YouTube videos with, and more importantly, a set of bass strings (D'Addario Chromes XL if you must know) so I distracted myself for the next few minutes by listening to Tool and restringing (and polishing) my bass.
Once she was restrung I felt like I could marry my bass guitar, flat wound strings are amazing, they feel so smooth and they flatten out and smooth the tone to really emphasise the fact it's a bass instrument. I don't think I'm ever buying round wound strings for my basses again.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to play her for very long, it was time for my day to start. To jump back a little, Wednesday was Zaina's birthday, but she was unavailable that day due to plans with her family, Saturday was the day where me and Ash were able to celebrate with her. and come one O'clock on Saturday afternoon I set off for Ash's house where I got a lift to Zaina's house (after a brief clothes shopping trip).
The day with Zaina was spent pretty much in the same way as all other days with Zaina. We just sat back and chilled whilst having a great laugh. The highlight of out time there was that she made us a really nice curry, and even supplied us with a nice amount of naan bread and poppadoms, as well as prawn crackers, mango chutney and some weird tasty chicken things. That meal really did kick ass.
That time soon came to an end and it was time for me to face what I was expecting to be the hardest part of the day. To jump back once again, that morning I noticed a post on the Bronies UK Facebook page saying that the blog was going to be opened up to a few new authors and he was looking for applications. Being an aspiring author, and a big fan of the My Little Pony television series, I added him on Skype, thinking I'd have a higher chance if I applied that way instead of by filling in the form. I was told at the time that he couldn't speak to me because he had to go to work, and that he would be able to speak after nine PM.
When I got back home from Zaina's house at about half past nine, the first thing I did was send him a message. No reply, so I waited. While I waited I decided to plug in my new headset and test it out. I thought progressive rock sounded incredible without surround sound, with it it sounds like pure magic being pumped into my brain. It's Heaven.
Half an hour later I received a message and we started talking. He asked me if I'd ever wrote for a blog before and I told him that I have my own blog (this one) and then sent him a link to last weeks post. He was so impressed with it he just accepted me onto the team there and then. I couldn't believe it. Then he started asking me the interview questions just for the sake of it.
I don't think I've been that giddy since just before May Day when I started seeing Lydia. I wanted to celebrate and dance around my house, but unfortunately my brother was asleep and he needed to wake up at stupid O'clock in the morning, (his words), so I couldn't make much noise.
Today was a bit more toned down, I spent the morning trying something new with my YouTube channel, and I spent the best part of two hours editing my video, at least it felt like that long. It was all worth it, I quite like how my video turned out.
After all that was done I went to my friend Nathan's house where we discussed our band and recorded a silly video for his YouTube channel. The majority of that visit was about how our band needed a name change, because the name we had was more horror-punk than pop-punk. We now have a new name, and this next week will be spent on a logo, and also creating a set list that gives us about fifty minutes of play time. Hopefully we can soon get our hands on a drummer and then get around to doing some proper rehearsals.
I'm pleased to be able to end this post by saying that i am most definitely pulling myself out of my depression, I now have a band, I've made a new friend, I also have a new hobby and even a bit of a job. As long as I keep on going like this, I reckon I'll be back to my old self by September at the latest.
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