Aaaah, December.

I've been rather lazy lately. Its been a while since I last blogged, at least a good while before Christmas. Um.. Sorry about that.

I went to watch Avatar today.
Well, the CG stuff is mind blowingly beautiful, and the 3D was damn cool, but other than that, lets just say, if you find yourself at a cinema trying to decide what to watch sometime this summer, maybe go for Twilight.
Yeah. That boring.

Other than that, since I've been back in Durban I've been working some crappy jobs, eating a LOT of great Christmas food, reading some interesting stuff, writing songs, playing ping pong and a lot of other things that I might deem interesting enough to tell you about sometime in the week.

But until then I have only this to share:
http://www.myspace.com/hiroshimasunrise



Yesterday (or the day before maybe) I did a little work on my Myspace page. Its really simple with a nice little header, but really, I can't stand flashy Myspace band pages so that's that.

So if you've never heard my songs, or you want to add me as a friend (please?), or whatever, go have a look see.

Just a thought..

I love the name "Club Sandwich".

To me it implies that the Ham, Chicken and Roast Beef all got together one day and formed a club, the sole purpose of which was to celebrate their own deliciousness and satisfy my need for said deliciousness.

They have regular meetings in my stomach to which they drive in their wonderful little Subway busses.

Also, three animals in one sammich! Win.

This is The Sound of Settling:

Bapba. Bapba.


Children under sixteen must be accompanied by an adult. No braais. No coarse language. No washing of clothes. Correct bathing costumes must be worn at all times. No running around the pool screaming.

I miss you.

Kokstad

On my way up to East London, for some reason (I think to look for a pharmacy for aspirin or something) we decided to drive into Kokstad instead of simply stopping at the Ultra City as we usually would. I enjoyed it though, because there are actually some rather lovely old buildings there, including the old town hall and library:




And a couple of others I found quite interesting:



Also, I think this town could win some sort of award for most churches on one street, because there are one heaven of a lot of them! All with their own little charm about them:

New scatch pad. Wiki wiki

With all the craziness of the last couple weeks, I totally forgot about something totally awesome I did before I went to Jo'burg..


A little while ago I watched a rad little band from Amsterdam called Voist play at Burn Nightclub. Apart from being a really great band, the guitarist had a rather beautiful fender Tele' with a scratch pad cut out of a vinyl record. I'm not sure if he did it himself, or had it made, but I thought it was really cool, so since my scratch pad on my guitar was pretty much completely wrecked, I decided to try and make one for myself.

It was a bit harder than I thought it would be. I had trouble tracing any sort of shape onto the records, and after completely destroying one with a jigsaw, I had to cut it out with a blunt little junior hacksaw.


I might do it again when I feel so inclined, but apart from one small crack and a few miss-measured screw holes it came out pretty great..

Raindrops and Sunshowers

Ok, first real post in about two weeks. Here goes:

Bad news first, the good will follow.

I left Jo'burg on Tuesday and got home just in time to pack a bag and get a few hours of sleep before leaving again. This time I drove up to East London with my parents for my Grandad's funeral. He died the previous Saturday morning and the service was last Thursday. As can be expected, it was quite a sad couple of days, but it was a very nice service, my dad gave a very moving eulogy, and I was a pallbearer. He'd been sick for a long time, so at risk of being totally cliched, I can only say he's happier now.

Driving through the Transkei in the rain was quite lovely. A had a bit of a reflective time in the back seat, and if you could take a look at my thoughts that afternoon, they'd probably look a little like this:






and they'd probably sound a little like this.

One of my favourite bands at moment, White Lies, sing a line that goes:

I leave my memoirs in blood on the floor
And my fears with the nurse on the stairs.
I'm only going where you'll be someday,
So don't say rest in peace in your prayers.

See you soon Grandad. Fare thee well.

Miss me?

I've been away for a little while, and a lot's happened since my last post. Right now I'm pretty tired from traveling and not in the greatest of moods so I'm off to have a nap, but details are coming.

For now I thought I'd share something I though quite profound that I saw on my way back from Jo'burg. Maybe its a little cheesy, but here goes:

For non South Africans, vrede means peace, but it also happens to be a little town in Gauteng. And that's my shoe in the front window of the bus I was traveling on.

Since then, I've been to a funeral, seen some pretty old buildings, listened to a lot of sad music, introduced my dad to indie rock 'n roll and started writing a new little song that's turning out to be about as much about Jo'burg as the last one was about Pretoria...

Smile Like You Mean It

 
Tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock I will be stepping onto a bus at Durban station, and sitting on that bus till 4 o'clock when it arrives in Jo'burg, all because by 6 o'clock tomorrow night I'll be at the Coca Cola Dome, waiting with baited breath for Zebra and Giraffe to start playing because when they're finished, the Killers come on.

Stoke face.

I can't express my excitement in words. The Killers are one of my absolute favourite bands. I've loved them from the first time Barney Simon played Mr Brightside on the Night Zoo and even stuck with them when everyone else played it on repeat for months. They truly are a great band.

Suffice to say you're unlikely to hear anything from me for about a week or so. I'll be up in Gauteng with a few friends. I promise to reply to e-mails and everything else when I get back, which will probably be sometime around the 10th.

Sala kahle

  

We have a tradition amoungst my friends of holding Gentlemen's Evenings every few months. Suits. Poker. Whiskey. We had one last night, so I'll put more photos up when I get back, but for now check out the set on Flickr.

Kiss me, Kate

These past two days I've developed a new little guilty pleasure:

Youtube channel of the beautiful and very talented Kate McGill. She has some rather pretty originals, but she's attracted quite some attention for her huge collection of covers by popular artists, such as Kids by MGMT. She also sings a lot of less well known stuff, like a Blood Bank cover by Bon Iver that makes me want to swim across the Atlantic ocean to England for her.

Ahem.

So go check her stuff out, but don't watch too many, and don't look into her eyes, or you'll never leave.

In other news, I watched New Moon yesterday. Its certainly not totally aweful, but you will cringe at some of the CG and you will want to kill Bella. Totally unstable. Also, Robert Pattinson makes it more and more obvious just how much he hates being tween-vampire-romance-fantasy poster boy.

I do think I want to go and buy a few V-necked shirts and a cool blazer though. Seems chicks dig it.