Just Do More, Richards

Upon arriving in Norfolk on Monday evening, with wife, parents-in-law and dog, we settled into a lovely little cottage for the first of four nights and said wife, Aggie, simply said, "right, relax." I looked around the room and everyone else seemed to know what to do. Aggie's mum started cooking, Aggie's dad chilled on the sofa, Aggie checked out the garden, Fred dog had a nap. I...well, I got out my laptop and replied to a few tour emails, looked into a few more festivals to plug some summer gaps, that sort of thing. Now, there's two ways of looking at this: 1) I don't know to how to relax or 2) this is how I relax.  Either way, coupled with delicious food and nice wine, I felt pretty chilled. But I don't think it's ever in me to ever switch off, and I'm very grateful that I've married into a family that accept me for what I am...a workaholic, but my work is rather fun! On Tuesday we went to the seaside, which was beautiful but freezing, on W...

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...