Just Do More, Richards

Two very different but lovely gigs this weekend with Queen Bee. A bit like Fred's House, QB are a band I didn't mean to join as such as I'm rather busy as it is, but I stepped in to play one show a couple years back and kinda, well, just stayed.  See, I'm so grateful for the career I've had as a drummer; it's been incredibly varied, from rough gigs on what is known in the industry as the 'toilet circuit'. - the gigs you start with, where you learn your craft, all the way up to playing a gala night live on Chinese TV whilst being both jet-lagged AND drunk, huge shows to thousands of people with bands, choirs, the odd musical, lots of national radio airplay...it's been alright, but alongside this, I have my 'bread and butter' gigs, which I enjoy just as much. Whilst FH are on a break, and whilst I'm not needed for the choir gigs as they're doing non-band things, most of the gigs in my diary at the moment are those and I'm having a l...

Let's be honest, it's been an expensive year. Unexpected expenses: choosing to fly with Wizz Air which cost us over £700 to get home with a competent airline instead from France, paying over £500 to get my car fixed, paying £5,000 to buy a new car literally two weeks later. Plus, lesson cancellations when I was briefly ill, twice, and when I had to cancel two days work to be a movie star for a bit. And, of course, shows are expensive - it's only costing me £200 per show to bring a production to Brighton (£120 programme entry, £80 venue hire) but, you know, I'm bringing three shows to the festival, so £600. One is solo and I know it well, one (the one with Esther) started rehearsals proper last night, the other (with Alex, Nicole and Paul M) starts rehearsals next week.  I'm so lucky that, when things go wrong, I can just pick up more work. I have an epic student waiting list and what seems to be a thoroughly decent reputation. My finances may have taken a bit of a b...

Now that I have working transport again, I'm back out there with the shows.  I've had a good week, I feel rested and, as a teacher, this has been a good one. I had to take an actual exam the other day, a new requirement for external teachers, which I sailed through (and got myself a little qualification I'd never asked for to boot) and all of the students are all on great form, which tends to happen when the sun comes out. Got offered a swanky new teaching job with lots of hours in a school that's walking distance and politely turned it down. Good to be in demand though, yeah?  Tonight though didn't quite click the way I wanted it to, I was over in Ely where my good friend, Rishi, was hosting. It was my now regular double bill of shows, with an interval, the dark comic drama, 15 minute break, and then the drumming chaos one. I appreciate it's a lot for an audience to sit through, but I'd like to think both shows are so different it almost feels like you'...

So far this year I've played a bunch of band gigs, I've written four new full shows (two of which have gone live, the other two have entered rehearsals), I've performed in France, at the Leicester Comedy Festival, a load of house previews, I've written off a car, I've bought a new one (which seems to enjoy flashing a  'check tyre pressure' light whenever it gets cold, even though the tyres are fine, I've had it for four days...), I've watched my film sellout two screenings at a film festival, I've been cast purely as an actor in another film (more on that soon) and I've taught for literally hundreds of hours.  It's still only March.  But this is exactly what I wanted to happen this year (apart from the car stuff). Fun, projects, adventure, it's all there.  But on Monday night, home from another 8 hours of teaching, I just sat on the sofa and paused for a moment.  I was knackered. Aside from the teaching, this week I've decided to ...

I was really happy with the reading of 'Jim...' the other night. Esther and I have so much work to do, I've written a beast there, I arrogantly think, but it'll only be a beast if we put the hours in. The car stuff is just a distraction. After Wednesday's frankly horrible conclusion, I lost all of Thursday trying to deal with it - it turns out if you have a car that has just been dumped back on your driveway but is totally dead, it's quite tough to get it to the garage. I had a lot of time in on Thursday, I couldn't get anywhere, I should have used it to write. By Friday, a tow truck had got my car to the garage and at midday I had a call saying the car was totally dead...metal trimmings in my oil, my gearbox had died. Three thousand pounds to fix, not worth it, graveyard to a frankly awful car that cost me £12,000 three and a bit years ago and never felt right. There was always something .  I lost two full days of teaching on Thursday/Friday as I couldn...

It's nearly 2am and I'm buzzing. Why? Because my car broke down at 11pm, and I had to wait in a little side street in Cambridge until 1.30am when the cool dude from Manchett's came out (via the AA) to tell me that "this car ain't going anywhere, mate". Yeah, I know, when the warning light came on and I skidded across a road. It was a quiet road, late at night, thankfully, and I managed to drag the car to a cul-de-sac next to a church. Apparently there's an issue with my transmission/gearbox. Could be something as simple as a wire out of place, or it could be mega expensive. Either way, my car ended up on a big truck. In my time waiting, I watched as a homeless man found his nest for the night, as drunks staggered out of the pub, as ambulances flew by, as a young couple argued, as lights went off around the various apartments, as a dodgy man delivered something on a bike to a block of flats. I wrote it all down. But, aware that I needed to stay awake for th...