Snow Business

So this is it. The brand new blog.

Some of you (but not many) will know that for the last 5 years I've had a semi-private Livejournal. Not many people could read it, and for pretty good reason, but I've decided to publically shut up shop over there and move anything I wish to make public over here. I'll still be writing my private thoughts and that kind of thing over there, but I want to keep people away from that place and bring them all here.

So. What's this blog about?

Well, pretty much everything. I'll either be posting reviews of films, cds, gigs, restaurants and the like here, or commenting on news stories and things that have happeneing in my life I wish to share here, or other such stuff. Basically, this is blog writing 101.

So, since it's the new year and all that jazz, I'll start with the new night that Grundy and I are putting on in the Port Mahon every second Thursday starting, well, tomorrow. With a bit of luck we'll have three bands (Dead Jerichos, Serotonin & From Here, We Run) and a large enough crowd but the whole thing looks like it could end up going down the crapper due to snow. Yes, the white stuff has come and rained down its slushy madness like it tends to at least once a year and as a result the entire city stopped. Grundy tells me that only 5 people made it into work today and that HMV was pretty much the only shop open in the Cornmarket.

Buses ran a limited timetable, and by limited I mean about 4 services ran every million years, and everything pretty much stopped.

With that in mind though, I do intend to persevere. After all if there's a small crowd then we can blame it on the weather. There's not a lot I can do about people who can't get to the Port due to snow, and that's fine. At worst it's an extra, public rehersal for the bands outwith their normal schedule. Dead Jerichos are playing about 400 gigs in Oxford in the next couple of months anyway so the extra stage time will do them good. The Serotonin guys are friends of ours from the Witney gig with FLM in October, so it's good to get a chance to see them again, and From Here, We Run go back to uni very soon so it's one of their last chances to get on stage before they have to go their seperate ways for the term. So as long as the pub stays open then everyone still wins (as long as enough people come down for me to be able to pay for the room).

Music promoters get a lot of stick for snobbery, failure to care about the bands playing, not replying to emails and being just in it for the money. I don't really want to start causing trouble and talk too much about that but there's been plenty of threads on the Nighshift forum about some people in the past. Hopefully Grundy and I will try to break this mould. It'll take a few shows for people to notice us, and because it's our first show tomorrow I'm sure there's going to be something we'll have forgotton, but it doesn't matter as long as three bands turn up, play some music and go home having made paying customers happy. After all, Oxford has a strong compliment of up and coming acts and I want to at least try to be a part of it.

Until then though, the snow is my biggest enemy. Hopefully it won't cause so much havoc we're left with an empty hall, but even if it is, it's an experience nonetheless. There's going to be stuff to take on board for the next show in 2 weeks, and hopefully we can make it bigger and better.