Aftermath
It is now nearly two in the afternoon on a Tuesday. I would have liked to blog about my gig the moment I got home last night, but I was too tired and full of wine and whisky.
Last night was a complete success! There were even a good four people in the audience I didn’t know from before, and I just about made money. I needed 24 paying customers in order to cover the fee for the sound guy, and I got 30. So, yay! Paid gig! I made enough money for… Half a night out? A decent dinner at a restaurant? Parking? In any case, at least I didn’t lose money, and that’s definitely something.
Given that I didn’t get to promote the thing all that well, what with being ill and all that, I’m certainly not disappointed. My audience seemed to enjoy the show (even if most of them were my friends), and while I played quite a few wrong notes (I’m not used to playing instruments in front of people; this is something I’ll have to work on) there were no catastrophic fuck-ups.
Pic, courtesy of my brother:
Glenruben was there with his camera, so better pics are to come, but he hasn’t uploaded them to the web yet.
I think, in the end, I played 19 songs. Some were covers, but most of them were my own. Robot Fuck went down well, as usual, and my friends have renamed At Least My Friends are More Fucked Up than Me, to The Rooster Song. Don’t ask. You had to be there.
I don’t really know what else to add… I had fun, mu audience had fun, it was generally fun.
Many, many thanks to Morten, for being supportive and driving my piano back and forth, and not drinking, to Sebastian for being my door man and pushing fliers on everyone when they were leaving, to Glenruben for taking photos (both at the gig and for the promo material), to Trond the sound guy who made sure I could hear myself, and of course to everyone who showed up to support me. You guys rock! <3
The next gig will be even more amazing!
GIG!!! Gig, gig, gig!
So, my gig is coming up. TODAY!! Well, tomorrow at the moment, as I haven’t gone to bed yet, but it is already the 20th. I’m sure most of you won’t read this until the morning anyway.
But yes. Gig. I’ll be playing at Skuret from 10 pm. Skuret is located in Christian Kroghs gate 2, in Oslo. That would be here:
Facebook event is here.
If you haven’t yet made up your mind, please do come! It’s gonna be awesome! I’m nervous as hell. I’ve been sick all week, so I’ll basically be winging it, which is a little new to me, but at the same time, I’d like to be more spontaneous and wild, so it’ll be fun either way. I do have tonnes of great tunes I’ve been rehearsing for weeks now.
Surely you have nothing better to do on a Monday night, either… So you might as well come and support me! I plan to be done by midnight, for those of you who have REAL jobs to go to the next day. (You people are crazy.)
Love and all that! See you tonight! <3
Café Press Store Launch and a Few Other Things
So I need to blog more often… It’s been hard to do much of anything lately, as I haven’t been sleeping very well, or very much. I’ve been staying up way too late doing basically nothing but play Skyrim and completely shirking any kind of responsibility. As a result, the kitchen is a mess and I’m getting more and more nervous about my upcoming gig.
I booked this thing thinking it might jump start me. I managed to get a date that was close enough to get me going, yet far enough in the future that I wouldn’t have to stress. The stress part will come anyway, though, given how little I’m getting done. My gig is on the 20th of February, at Skuret in Oslo. Assuming I actually get to practicing at some point, it should be pretty awesome, so if you happen to be in the area, please drop by!
I went to One From the Heart on Monday, for the first time since the first time I was there, which is more than three years ago now. Crowd seems younger than it was then. I played two of my tunes to fairly roaring success, which should motivate me but for some reason doesn’t. It felt good being on stage and singing to people, though. I should get back to those Sunday jam nights at Skuret, too, they tend to get me in a creative mood.
Not that creativity is really the problem… I’m being very creative, actually, and have written lots of new songs in the past couple of weeks. But there’s no real joy in it. Still, it’ll come back, I hope.
While I haven’t been blogging at all, I’ve still been working, though. I’ve made some changes to my website, with the help of a friend. I’ve made this my default blog, turning it into a subdomain and putting the link in the menu of the website. I’ve done the same to my Bandcamp store, so if you click music in my website menu now, you’ll be brought to music.maiamadness.com.
The biggest thing I’ve done is I’ve opened up a Café Press store. There’s not that much there yet, but there are two t-shirt designs (well, the same design but in two colours) on a bunch of different types of shirts that you can get in lots of different colours. You can also buy the cover art for Winter Rose as a poster or print. I don’t expect to get rich from this or anything (haven’t sold anything yet, but then again I haven’t shown anyone the store either), but I figured it was a fun thing to do. So, you know, now you can get a t-shirt and show your support! They’re made on demand, so we literally never run out of any design or size.
I run away to Walsall (where I went to university last year) on Sunday. Only staying for a few days, just to hang out with some of my friends there, but it’s gonna be nice. The weather will be warmer there, too. It’s ridiculously cold here in Oslo at the moment.
My best friend KayKay is home from Japan! Woo! She got home on Tuesday night, and she’s off on holiday with her grandparents to, like, Lanzarote or something tomorrow, but she will be in town on and off until mid-March. Yesterday Morten and I had her over for dinner (I made a weird but really tasty pot roast) and made plans for when we’re going to Japan for Easter. So, we now have hotel bookings and some plans for where to go and what to see. So, yay!
Last but not least, I cut my hair (!!!) (myself, with kitchen scissors) and today I dyed it magenta again, as I’m doing a shoot with a friend tomorrow to get some good pics for gig posters.
So, that’s it for now. Have a good weekend, folks!
