How I cheer myself up

I slept in today, not feeling too hot I guess. Couldn’t sleep at all, which is a recurring trend for me. I was feeling a bit down, so I picked up my guitar and sang. Granted the traffic outside is annoying at this sort of time from outside and my voice is a bit shaky today, but I thought why not share. Hopefully it’ll brighten up a few more people’s day, I can be hopeful!

I love this song, and figured sharing it would cheer up a special someone too. I hope you’re all having a good Monday. I hope this helps too, it cheered me up a little on a desire-less Monday.

New song of mine

I realised that I haven’t recorded anything in ages, I keep going through phases of hating shit. So I’m sitting here in about 5 layers freezing my arse off, my fingers are frozen and so is my guitar..So the logical thing to do was to pick it up and play it right? So this was the result, just a one take no re-recording or anything job.

It’s scrappy and imperfect, even by my low standards. But I really like this song that I wrote quite a while back but never really fit it together, much like a lot of my songs. This was my first hash at it, enjoy! Give me all the feedback, tell me how awful it is, what you’d change and so on. Thanks guys.

Saturday Smorgasbord

So I realise I don’t share a lot of music that I listen to, and it ranges all over the place. Check out some of these tracks over the weekend, you might find something new you like!

Watsky – Sloppy Seconds

“Cold pizza, tie die shirts, broken hearts,

give ’em here, give ’em here”

 

Rudimental – “Not Giving In” ft. John Newman & Alex Clare

 

“This time i’m gonna be stronger, I’m not giving in.”

 

Doddleoddle – Roar – Ukulele cover

“You held me down but I got up, already brushing off the dust”

 

All Right With Me – Billy Reid

“When you say, “There’s nothing left to say.”
I hear quite a lot”

 

Ghost Assassin – Maduk ft Veela

“Something dark inside of me, dark familiarity”

 

Franco Un-American – NOFX

“I wanna move north and be a Canadian or hang down low with the nice Australians”

 

Hot Venom – Miniature Tigers 

“Hot venom is mixin’ with my blood
I can feel it on my fingers and taste it on her tongue
It feels so good to fall in love with you”

Family and my weekend

My older brother Jamie is around for the weekend to visit, his girlfriend Leigh is over too. I’ve never met her, she’s lovely. God knows how they ended up together! But I’m happy nonetheless.

In our little 2 bedroom house there are now 6, so it’s crazy cramped and I’ve just sneaked off upstairs for some space. So antisocial. I feel young again around my brother, like when we were younger. It’s funny how some dynamics never really change. We’re not as close as we used to be, but we still have things in common. We both like to read, play guitar and watch football. They’re pretty much our go-to subjects haha. Otherwise it’d be very boring to spend time with Jamie.

He just restrung my guitar for me after I cleaned it up, I’ve never restrung an acoustic guitar before so it was a huge help. It’ll be a pain in the arse playing with new strings going out of tune constantly for the next week, but it sounds great. The strings I’ve been using to record stuff with were old and horrible. I should’ve changed them months ago!

But, I digress. I’m having a lovely weekend with my family, Leigh fits right in with us. Making awful, tasteless jokes about all sorts. It might not be a big family like I’d have preferred, but they’re mine and I love them all dearly.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend from wherever they’re reading this! I’ll be enjoying mine.

My first original song recording

Shit. I totally forgot. Here’s my first original song, just recorded in one take. Written by me, I was nervous to put this up. But I figured, anyone that has commented on my covers or my voice has been really positive and encouraging. So I hope you enjoy!

I’d love to hear what people think, good or bad. I’d just love to know opinions on it.

Late night musings – A new album and rediscovering reading

I’ve just properly committed some time to listening to Feist properly for the first time. Some of her songs I’ve always known and enjoyed but I realise I don’t listen to many albums all the way through lately. It’s great, relaxing, well written, I’m enjoying it so far. Check it out if you haven’t, the first three tracks I love.

Feist – my music for the night

Let it die caught me off guard on this album, I didn’t expect that. I hate when I’m in this sort of weird place and I stumble across a song that just fits a mood. It hits me kinda hard. Music has that ability to just raise me to new highs and more importantly: to kick me when I’m down. Ah well, moving on.

The saddest part of a broken heart,

Isn’t the ending as much as the start

Anyway, totally go off on a tangent forever don’t i? Ugh, Callum. STAHP.

Reading – Rediscovery

I just finished reading the first book that I’ve read from start to finish today. It’s titled: “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” by Philip K Dick.

It was a great read, I actually read it because my older brother (that I have quite a disjointed relationship with lets say) gave me it, as close to a birthday gift that I’ve gotten from him in maybe 5 years or so. I read it while I was travelling and almost finished it on the tube in London. I’m getting used to travelling through London more, I’d normally just be freaking out making sure I didn’t miss my stop. I’m weird like that.

But reading this and finishing it in the space of a couple of days has made me realise that I miss reading. When I was growing up it was always this great escape and I loved to read. I read things way ahead of my age. As I got ill, I struggled with mind fog a lot. I couldn’t read like I used to and would have to take breaks, it made me feel stupid. I’d never felt like that, no matter what I knew I was a smart lad, as weird as that may sound. So to have that taken away from me sucked. I don’t struggle so much as long as I take breaks and stay in a quiet place while I’m concentrating. I still struggle a lot with mind fog on bad days, or if I haven’t slept very well.

But yeah, I’ve got so many things to read. I need more ideas if there are any book lovers that happen to see this. Any suggestions would be great. My dad has read and enjoyed a lot of Clive Barker and gave me a book of is, apparently a character reminds him of me. I still have the Silmarillion that I intended to read a long time ago but it has sat here.

I’m going to join the local library and spend a little time just out of this house in the next few weeks. Whether it’s in a coffee shop or otherwise with a book. I think that’ll be a nice brief escape. I want to find The Clan of the Cave Bear too, I promised that I’d read that. I’m really interested in a book that somebody else has found to be so influential. Maybe I can relate one way or another.

A new song cover

I just sat down and recorded this, the song has been stuck in my head constantly for the last week.

I’m in quite a weird place right now that seems to vary from day to day, sometimes I don’t even really feel like sharing myself to anyone. Nobody needs to hear a lot of my thoughts. I’m still a work in progress, I need to remember that. In every sense. I need to focus on being a happy individual before anyone else is a big part of my life.

My first recording

So after a little kick up the arse in terms on motivation I decided to record a really raw, scrappy version of a song that I love – Christmas TV by Slow Club The sound quality is crappy, but I like that I just recorded one take and posted it. No over thinking or picking my missed notes or dodgy transitions, just as it was. I like it that way. The quality is awful, and I know it’s far from flawless. Sorry not sorry.

I’d absolutely love any and all feedback, even if you’re just saying that it’s nowhere near as good as the original and that I should never do anything else. I really don’t care, I’m happy with it and I’m happy to share it. I love this song so I decided to pick up my guitar and just blast this out, no excuses.

Please give me some feedback. If you have a listen just drop me a comment and let me know what you thought and what you think I can work on. If you want to hear a song or any of my original stuff I’m sure that you can motivate me a lot towards recording more tracks. Whether they’re covers or original tracks.

Daily frustrations

I’ve had three hopes and intentions for this week.

The first being to send a letter to Emily, but as much as I’ve thrown away scraps of paper with my scruffy handwriting..I just can’t find the right words to sum up anything that I want to say. I don’t know.

The second was to get a response (hopefully positive) for the job that I applied for previously and really want. Heard nothing, haven’t had a response to my email. When I called them late last week I was told that interviews would be done early this week and that they’d be in touch. Really shitty not to at least tell me I haven’t got the job, huh.

Last of all was the promise I made to record myself playing a song. I’ve recorded sound a little today and just hate how I sound. Completely. I haven’t got a decent microphone and my inbuilt laptop mic doesn’t pick up my voice clearly at certain tones. That and I just hate the sound of my own voice. I couldn’t find any video recording software on my laptop that I thought I would have, I have video with no audio or vice versa. A little annoying and I’m quite tired of making excuses. But yeah.

This week’s going well, I’m just tired of little everyday things chipping away at me and still feel powerless to make a positive impact on my own life right now. Let alone anyone else’s. It’s probably better than I’m single right now and try to pick up my own pieces, if I can manage that.

Living a lie

 

I really need to rewatch Chuck, I love this. The song too.

I’m a hell of a guy, living a hell of a lie