1 post from October 2008

It has been a long few weeks. My friend Jamie who I write / produce with is playing at the lyric theatre in a flamenco and tango musical. While he was rehearsing for the show we were also writing a sweet little power ballad with Amy Dickson (one very special Sax player) for a job in OZ. His rehearsals ran all day for two weeks, so we would turn up in his studio in the evenings after he finished and start writing / recording at 7.... This meant some very late nights. At the same time I've been working on my own stuff for my next release and also been doing a bit of jamming and writing with my mate Eliza in the run up to our gig on October 24th (it's gonna be a goodie!). So between days and nights writing / producing / mixing I've been a busy, sleep lacking music bee. And all this was in the run up to ITC Manchester. It's a yearly music biz conference and I went to play a couple of gigs and attend as a delegate / member of the Music Managers Forum. Usually I would recommend serious PE training and yoga meditation just to prepare for the 3 days of ITC. 

We wrapped up the power ballad and sent a nice little demo over the pond which went down well, we'll see how that goes. I finally managed a few nights out and saw Jamie's musical, and also went to my mate Pete's birthday. It was a gig at The Bull And Gate and his band Rogue Satellites played a great set. Pete has been a musical bro to me for a long time and it's great to see his new band hitting form, it's an exciting thing and they have played some great live shows recently. They make a big, lush, loud, melodic indie pop guitar sound, right up my street.

Sadly I couldn't stay around for more than one pint of Guiness as I was on a train to Manchester the next day and had a lot to do. Got to Manchester Saturday eve and it was freezing cold and soooooo wet. Horrible spiritual crash. Physical too and I had several panic attacks. ITC 2008 kicked off the next morning and was one long run of fun, interest and no sleep. Basically I had meetings every morning, then went to panels which started at 12 and ran through till seven, and then came the evening's adventures. First night was a free michelin star dinner in a Teepee tent (bizarre, but cool and we got the table near the nice and warm stone fire helped) with other members from the MMF (hi Chris, Doug, Deborah, Jackie and Liza!) Then it was all about the hotel bars. The Midland where I was staying was one big drunk social noise and afterwards I went over the road to join some friends who were up for ITC and staying in a different hotel. Gigs around the city would end at around 2am and then there would be another huge influx of people to the hotel bar so things didn't really ever end! I took myself back to the Midland for an early night (3am) and managed to get drawn back to the bar instead of my hotel room...

Next morning I had a meeting with Tony and Denise from my PR (Manilla) over breakfast and entertainingly for them I was not quite sober (at all)... Thankfully it took me all day to sober up and it happened just after my instore set at Vinyl Exchange, if the crash had come before the set it would have been a disaster.... After the gig I went back to have a sleep in one of the panels. Second night was basically hotel to hotel again with a cheeky escape inbetween back to my room for a meal at 10pm and (bizarrely) watching a film on tele (Lucky Number Slevin was on). Then headed out over the road to see my friends again and the same routine with late night influx to the bar. I had to restrain the drink and took an early night ('early' at 3am again) as I had one eye on my gig showcase the next day as Part of Manilla's roster. Somehow made it through Tuesday with a cheeky AWOL moment when I ran away to find lunch at Gourmet Burger Kitchen Manx and went off tour for a few hours. Final panels and goodbyes to new friends and I headed over to Opus for my set and to begin my career as a tv presenter interviewing the other bands. It was good fun, although me and the sound engineer very narrowly avoided a punch up, and I blame Manilla PR squarely for my huge hangover the next morning (not helped by our storming of the Travelodge bar @ 2am)..... It's been emotional, watch this space for the vid diary and interviews....

Peace,

K

PS proud to announce I have two new nicknames : 'King Karim' and 'Curveball Fanous' . I couldn't possible explain why.....

PPS So many people have told me I was born in the wrong decade recently it's starting to freak me out. It used to apply to my music and the fact that I should have been born in the 70's as a folk artist/rock god, but now it is starting to spread to remarks about my looks etc... I'm freaked. Anyone got a time machine???