While My Guitar Gently Weeps

...I put the kettle on and let it. Sometimes you just have to face these problems alone.

Welcome to the eleventh weekly Oblog - now slightly more lavender. Isn't it exciting? I would've picked a darker more MANLY purple but it made the green that represents art look JARRINGLY horrible, like it was diving out of the monitor to decimate you to bits. The red that represents life was unaffected by all but one PARTICULARLY MANLY shade of purple - so that was avoided as well. Sad really.

A week that I was meant to be KNUCKLING DOWN and doing some bloody work (as usual) left me sitting, just sitting, and doing nowt. Except I didn't even bother doing that and went out on a few adventures. One particular adventure saw me sitting nearby this adonis of joy -
...and all was well. It was another charity gig for a local farm trust thing and Mr P told some anecdotes and read some bits of out some books and everyone was CHARMED TO DEATH by how bloody lovely he is. A particular highlight of the evening was when a raffle result was announced (the winner had the opportunity to meet Palin after the show) and a woman in the front row launched herself at the stage screeching with wonder. It was quickly reiterated that not only was there a number, but there was a COLOUR too. The woman went deathly quiet, and all the while that she was making a living fiasco of herself - an elderly gentleman had been walking toward the stage with his ticket aloft. Mr P protested that she should at least get a consolation prize for her enthusiasm. The other elderly gentlemen of undeniable charm and humour I saw this week was this fellow -
- who, and I don't want to oversell this, LITERALLY KICKED THE LIVING ARSE. Having never seen a Coop show I'd expected it to be fairly theatrical - but NOTHING could prepare me for just how amazing it was. The lass who went to see it with me had already witnessed the Coop on three separate occasions previously and she was bowled over by the lunacy of it all. For those uneducated I leave this tantalizing image...
Right. On to the other part of the thing. Essay deadline time is when I'm most productive so it's no surprise (although a fair amount of annoyance and shame on my part) that I've produced two whole bloody pictures this week - you can see one below and one right at the end. Go on - skip to the end. Back? Not worth it was it?Additionally I remastered bits and bobs from the superhero EPIC CAPTAIN COSMOS AND THE ATTACK OF THE KILLER ANDROIDS FROM MARS which if you click on that title there you can go and hear. Go on. It's not COMPLETELY TERRIBLE, it's got Keira Knightly in it. Shrewd.Yesterday I did a radio show with special guest Ron Lamp from the band DAN SHANDY AND THE SHAMBLING DANDIES which was fairly beautiful - you can hear it again if you click on this sentence. Right that's enough hyperlinking. I'm done now.
See you on the *shudder* 6th. That'll be 24 hours before DEADLINE DAY. I'm quiverin' like a jellyfish on a... washing machine? Euch.

Art is here
Audio is here
Dan Shandy is here
Radio is here

O - x

Home Tonight

...if I had fifty bloody pounds to spare and no MASSIVE ENORMOUS DEADLINES looming distant ready to crush my sodding head into the ground. However as winter draws in I do long more for the frosty fields of my fatherland - no matter how chav-ridden and comparatively rife with inactivity it has become. Right - you recall the drill - life can be seen in this colour - and art in this one.

This week seems to have disappeared under my feet - although it was infinitely harder on my long-suffering laptop who is, as I write, hooked up to a thousand different life-support machines just to make it go. I shudders and whirs and occasionally shuts down and I ponder a replacement. At this point in time there's no such thing as an affordable purple machine - but THERE IS something equally as gaudy - and I'm pondering it.This is quite a sinister view of it, isn't it? Like I'd come in my room one day and see it at this angle - and it would release a single shrill cry "DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" and I would leave. Quickly.
Laptop perversions aside my week was also graced with the magical strains of Northern Oak who so EASILY could have played a Dan Shandy cover, but they didn't. Heathen devils. Also at that gig was Echofall, who I'd not seen before. Very good powery metal, reminiscent of an early nwobhm band, complete with shrill singer who caused the bar staff to clutch the alcohol cabinets in worry. The first band of the evening were a bothersome 'hardcore' band of little kids whose fashions were so mesmerizingly fucking silly that I can barely remember what they actually played.

This is literally them. 'Twatcore' anyone?

Right - Artwise this week has been a bit of a cop-out. I would absolutely love to blame the death of my laptop but this just ISN'T THE CASE . Did a logo for a metal night that absolutely everybody hated but I don't think it's THAT god awful, surely? To be rejected with embarrassed silence - ? Och well. It's below so judge for yourselves really. Been fixing up and recording my FANTASY EPIC in my spare moments (that's all my awake moments really - although the true 'spare' nature of them is debatable) and it's shaping up to be something rather bloody special. Although it could just be shite. One of the two. Finally, my legendary radio show wasn't on this week. More's the pity - oh well.
WHOEVER DESIGNED THAT MUST BE A BASTARD. Right, off for the day - to pies and essay planning and ritually beating my laptop with a donkey's leg stuffed with cloves in hope that it's spirit will re-enter before I have to sacrifice 400 representations of pounds for a very red thing. See you on the 29th - wherein the deadlines will be close to rearing their hideous heads.

Art is here
Audio is here
Dan Shandy is here

O - x

Do You Wanna

I certainly don't. Yet I've been forced into it, you see. You don't see? That's fine. This will be an ABSURDLY SHORT post - because my entire week was a big massive fat nowt. As usual the line between life and art is seperated by two DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT COLOURS. This one for life - this one for art. Fairly simple isn't it? No? That's fine.

With nary a moment's thought I set to the doctor's on Monday to be told that the reason for agonies was simply that I was AN ENORMOUS PIG, medically speaking. "Tell me something I don't know doc" I yelled. Her response was brief and fairly cruel. Move it or lose it. Or do both. I opt for the neither but agree to watch my intake. Not too closely. Success then.
As stated previously my week was as rotund and useless as myself - did a bit of a bar crawl on Thursday around the old aleries of industrial Sheffield. The greatest was the Kelham Island adjacent Fat Cat -a very tall Victorian affair with different rooms and lots of good ales.

This is a fat cat. Probably not in the Fat Cat.

Last night I went to a gig to see the ASTOUNDING Northern Oak and various other folky-battlemetally type band. As always, the genre ain't my cup of tea - but I love Northern Oak unconditionally - also another act were particularly good - Andraste - who has mandolins and all manner of other agreeable celtic boogies to their sound. Also Alex Sotheran was there being old and crabby and old. His writes a blog that's won him the awards of Iceland and the hearts of many.
It's been a slow damn week for art. I drew a rather elaborate picture that I intend to spent some time over, but you just passsed a preview above. Just to whet yon beaks and faces. Also for the first time PICTURES of the momentous Saturday Owen in Rock nineties show -


look at us. God we're metal. That's Mr Rob Dillon and Adam Page joining me in my posing. Crikey.
Finally - as I've said variously in different places - I'm in the midst of producing AN FANTASY EPIC LOLZ in the medium of audio. THERE'S AN EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW HERE Nice - but it's weeks away from completion. Will update you on it's progress.

That was longer than I thought it was going to be. How time flies by - and the echoed words of a thousand strangers grow fainter and fainter over the howling winds of the void that steadily nears. SEE YOU ON THE 22nd!!!

Art is here
Audio is here
Dan Shandy is here
Radio show is here

O - x

Honeysuckle Love

...is the most twee name for a post ever don't you think? - and possibly the least relevant. That's the power of shuffle for you. What a week - what a HELL OF A WEEK. I'm about to tell you about it now. Are you ready?

How unfortunate. You've forgotten the RULES already. I'll reiterate; life is in this colour, art is in this one. It's quite simple really - I'm not quite sure how you forgot in the first place. CACKMINDEDNESS I'm sure. Let's forget our troubles with a big blog post.

A week of unrelenting laziness - the chipper and exciting baroness of humour Dawn Hadley had marked one of my mid-term essays. Apparently difficult to read. Construct sentences badly apparently. Don't think possible it is. My sentences are perfect. Per

Dawn correcting THE LORD OF ALL CREATION on his sentence construction. In a field.

Fect. My other mid-term I failed to get back because I went out for pie with my visiting brother. He is a gimp - but a fairly lovable one. I'd link you somewhere but I have no idea where he works from these days. Used to have a blog (a bit less exciting than this one) but that's now vanished. He's on twitter I think. Twitter is shite. That is all. The rest of the week was consumed with bizarre and vague pain that is yet to subside. How tiresome. Oh and today I went on AN ADVENTURE - it was BRILLIANT - I went to ALL MANOR* OF EXCITING PLACES.

I was in there. It was fantastic.















*this was a pun. Did you enjoy it?

Artistically this week yielded sparse but enjoyable products. Firstly - last week I recorded a new audio thing for Crazy Fox Machine (there's a link at the end, or if you're a sharp cookie you'll have gone along that thar hyperlink) which is an unfinished thing half written by me and half by my SOULMATE Robert John Phillips Esq - laird of Brightonshire. Also I began working on a FANTASY EPIC that will see the light of day in 2010 or so. Look out for the teaser poster that I probably won't draw.
Something I definetly did draw was a tailpiece to that big 'Stark' montage of the other week - the final design of the character which DOMINATED the top of the post up there. Looking rather funky. ICEFUNKY.
Finally - whether you can call this art or not - Saturday's Owen in Rock radio show is available online at THIS LOCATION which is nice. It was set within the eighties and guest-starred the handsome goth icon and all-round rock soc financial fellow; Mark Jones.

Right. Out of that filthy mosscolour and goodbye with you. I'm going to wrestle with my belly and hope that it'll see sense and SHUT UP. Also sleep - tons of sleep. See you on the 15th - with a more SUNNY OUTLOOK (although it'll still be fucking cold I'll warrant).

Radio Be Here
Art Be Here
Audio Be Here
Dan Shandy and the Shambling Dandies Be Here

O - x

Wrath of God

....................EEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

It's a healthy thing to begin a blog with a metal scream. If there were a single god (and not the pantheon of mighty chaos gods that I believe in) I'm certain the thunderous blustering wind is absolutely sod all to do with him - nor the bubbling stomach acid attacking my insides - nor even the massively disappointing Halloween last night. No, his wrath would most certainly take the form of this blog. Wrathfully dull. OHOHOHO. AS PER USUAL life cloaks itself in this colour, whilst art is more comfortable in this one. On with it then -

As previously alluded to; last night's halloween was a cop out. Local metal club Corp was STUFFED to the brim and I was far too unwilling to pay five bloody pounds to get in so settled for going home with the housemates and watching the evening fizzle out around me. Costume was literally brilliant though. Don't have a good picture, but it was purple. Oh lawdy mamma it was purple. I think I shall take to wearing it around the town. The rest of the week was gloriously unoccupied by work as I SAUNTERED ABOUT not doing much.

Artwise it's been a bit of a blinder - spent almost the ENTIRE WEEK shading this enormous picture (below) which montages the evolution of a character named Stark from something that hasn't happened yet. Oh yeah. Fourth radio show of the term featuring Mr Sean Morley IV went well, and recorded two sketch for it that'll turn up at some point. ...oh Yeah and Dan Shandy and the Shambling Dandies have four new songs about. Pretty wicked. Pretty FUCKING wicked.

That's it then. Brief wasn't it? Like life. Brief and unemotional - but then would you read a blog that was all OH GAWD IT WAS TERRIBLE TODAY [X] DIDN'T TALK TO ME AND SO FORTH? No - you wouldn't. It would be boring - and the person you'd want to read couldn't give a monkey's arse anyway. So why write? It's that ego isn't it - ?! That bloody massive ego. Sod it. See you on the 8th kiddies.

O - x