assistant / bloggers

Assistant had a proper rehearsal last night, by which I mean we were all there, all of us, without exception, and we played some songs that we remembered and some songs we forget. It was cool, and the fact that we were so rusty meant that we could play merry with our memories and lark about a bit, rather than be studious, meaningful and intense. Consequently we probably sounded pretty dreadful half the time, but hopefully pretty dreadful in that wonderful way in which it is misinterpreted as heroically slack. For my part this basically meant getting a few chords wrong, mumbling the lyrics, adding a few swear words, and making a nasty ccccrrrrr sound with my guitar at the end of every song.

In some ways I prefer Assistant when we're sounding shambolic, even though we're conventionally 'better' when we're practised and on form. Some of the new songs have a sleepy, churning sound; dropped shoulders, dropped knees, dropped lyrics. They wheeze 'fuck it', but not in a bad way.

Went to the brighton bloggers meet-up afterwards, which was weird because I was tired yet buzzy, that post-andrenelin kick; met up with lovely people I already know (Andrew, Jane and Val) as well as new faces (to me, anyway) like Paul, Gabs and another Paul. Obviously I was far too dysfunctional to actually introduce myself properly to at least a couple of people, so now for a belated, sheepish 'hi'.

Very nice to have a chat with Paul of Free Speed Nation fame, because I've been looking at his blog recently, and he at mine, so we had a nice chat and both tried to mention Sonic Youth and Pavement as many times as we could, which was probably more than necessary. Then I went and ruined it all by enthusing about Steely Dan with Andrew. I'm having a 70s albums week, and have been overdosing on 'Young Americans' by David Bowie and 'Pretzel Logic' by the 'Dan (OK, Regans, you were right...), all of which makes me very uncool, gah!

More brighton bloggers drink-ups please.