Dark Filip?

Strange how the drive and the inspiration to write comes and goes. Today it is back because I am a self-prescribed phlegm ball. I am an all-coughing, all-spluttering nose blower. Yes, a handkerchief-carrying, Lockets junky.

Ahh well. I deserve it. It’s cold now, so I should be. A man of the seasons.

Last time I was on blogger, I decided not to write a post, but to organise my links. I spent literally tens of minutes doing it, and I put links to a few rough mp3 versions of some music I've written as well as links to most of my friends music, and just as I was about to save my changes, I discovered that through some tiny html oversight, I had made all the links disappear to the bottom of the page. It seems to be ok on Mozilla Firefox, but on Internet Explorer, it disappears.

I'm no html wizkid. I don't even know what html means.

By way of comment, are my links visible?

Busking has been rather good of late. Thanks to my colleagues in the busk, Brendan and Robbie, I discovered that the Newcastle Metro system is a particularly fun and lucrative place to busk.

Yesterday was something of a dream busking day. I had just got started and was feeling a touch unsure of my new spot at Central Station Metro, when an old man came and wafted a tenner towards me and then dropped it in my guitar bag. As he did so, I asked him ‘are you serious?’ And he replied yes and went down the escalator.

When something like that happens, it tends to set the tone.

Two teenage girls came and stuck a post-it note on the wall behind me which read, ‘give this guy money, he’s great’. And then they left a post-it note in my guitar bag with their names and phone numbers.

Oh deary me.

This is not really an ideal time to be feeling ill as I am scheduled to work at the Cumberland Arms tonight and tomorrow night. I will endeavour to keep vitamin C levels at a record high.

Saturday sees the debut performance of the band that is me and Rory. At the Cumberland Arms, of course. We have been working hard to bring together a set of songs and improvised noise/loop pieces. The general structure means that when Rory’s singing and playing guitar, I’m lapping the drums in some free-wig-inspired fashion. When I’m playing and singing, Rory is on drum duty, reliving that formative period when he and Effie The Baron were that impenetrable force of street percussion.

It should certainly be a learning experience if nothing else but we have one rather pressing problem. A band name. Both of us have spent the last few weeks swimming in a dead sea of amusing side-project names. Almost every conversation manages to be halted while there is a pause for thought at some new combination of words,

“…which was quite a menial task.”

Pause.

“Menial Task?”

Pause.

"Another shit name for a band.”

And so on until it becomes a bit hysterical. We are playing on Saturday, our first public outing. It would, obviously, be something of a useful thing to be able to maintain continuity.

The pressure is intense. A band name is impossibly important. Our entire futures and livelihoods rely upon the succinct encapsulation of a mood.

Wait, ‘Succinct Encapsulation.’

Another shit name for a band.

A band name must somehow relate the band’s mood, its setting, its references, its aspirations, its desires. It must trigger images, abstract associations, and just sound cool as fuck. Timeless cool.

So far we have come up with Carlos Towns.

Sigh.

Anyway, I must go, Carlos and his fictional drumkit calls me.