A quintessentially British blog

As if it were listening to my every thought, the great weatherman in the sky has transcended from the horrible, grey, sludgy excuse for snow when I awoke, into a full, blue-sky-and-all beautiful winter's day.

In the meantime, Frou Frou.

PAIN

I return from a metal night at The Library with an even worse headache than the one I arrived with. Shouty music during the peak of a surprising hangover that appeared over 5 hours after I woke up is not the most pleasant of situtions. Tonight was reasonably good though, despite the fact that someone had taken the PA apart for little or no reason so everything was running around half an hour late. I think I'd have quite enjoyed the bands, even, if I wasn't feeling so rotten.

Afterwards, Benbow comes round with Beth and Adrian and we talk about photography and cinema and offensive jokes and Whiskas and Ali from Dance To The Radio. We admire Beth's latest photoshoot for Ant and Dan's band, then we rave about Danny North's picture of James, and then my head feels like it's eaten a tray of poppers and I have to come to bed and watch Red Dwarf before I lose the will to live through this searing pain.

Tomorrow I need to go to the bank to ask why they've deposited the best part of a grand that I thought was missing into a bank account I didn't even know I had until I received the statement for it, so I'm going to set my alarm for some horrible time in the morning in the hope that there's a reasonable chance I get up more than three minutes before I'm due at a lecture.

L x

Return

Massive long absence from here. Sorry. Lifemess and being busy with various stuff. All back on track now.

Househunting is an absolute arse, and landlords and agencies are evil personified. I wish I were rich so I could buypass the whole renting thing and buy my own place. Don't think that'll happen for a good few years yet, somehow. It's also a bugger with Collette living dahn sahf currently trying to organise viewings and stuff around when she can make it up to Leeds. Hopefully it'll all fall into place soon.

The Jubilee gig was... a gig. A pleasure to share a stage with North and Shuman, certainly, but naturally they cooped themselves away on the tour bus for the majority of it, so we only met them briefly. I was happy to learn that Aaron North is approximately the same height as me. I felt validated by this somehow. Our single's out soon, anyway, and we're playing at Leeds' The Cockpit to launch it. 9th February. Come down if you can.

I need to get my writing head back on, but my creative energy has nosedived since Christmas in particular. Hopefully everything will brighten up soon.

L x

John Trueman RIP

John Trueman has died.

This is a strange one for anyone involved with the music scene in Leeds. He was an arrogant, greedy, selfish man - often embarrassingly so - who messed up a fair few gigs for a fair few bands on account of his attitude. But he had a certain ridiculous charm about him, and seemed omnipresent in Leeds for many, many years. Essentially, no artist who played at The Cockpit or Josephs Well between 2000 and 2005 would have gone without dealing with him at some point.

He died last night in the LGI after his liver packed in. He'd been ill for some time, largely self-inflicted over the years, and a few days ago it became clear he would not live much longer. Andy (Futuresound) and a few others went to visit the other day and said he was already pretty much gone then. It was only a matter of time.

John was an orphan and was always very secretive about his private life. It is known that he had a brother, but the last I heard was that the hospital had not been able to contact him. I truly hope they have managed to do this now.

He was a weird, abbrasive, awkward and uncomfortably selfish man. I'm pretty sure he would have had no idea who I am. But I'll always remember his ridiculous and often strangely endearing ways. He will be missed by everyone who had ever spoken to him or dealt with him in any way, for a variety of bizarre reasons. As John Keenan said over at Leeds Music Forum, I'm sad he's gone, but desparately hope he doesn't haunt me.

RIP John Trueman, the ultimate unscrupulous music promoter.

But in the meantime

...there are a load of people in my living room, locked in. I can hear vaguely who's there, but apparently I'm not allowed in for a few minutes. I have a sneaking suspicion this is something to do with my birthday, but I haven't the foggiest what's going on. Help.

Millions of years have passed

Happy new year, and all that jazz. Usual annual gumph and lists to follow shortly. I need to become alive again after festive death of my brain and liver.