It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything on this blog, and I apologise to myself for that because I’m going to have a fairly considerable gap of time that’s missing in my life due to it not being recorded here.  

- Life’s going well.  I’ve released an album and stuff, obviously, and I’ve been working on taking my music live and other lovely musical things.

- I was sort-of ‘exiled’ from my group of friends for a week because they did some stuff that wasn’t nice, and I exchanged some strong worded comments about a few people that were being cretins.

- I feel free.  I don’t really care for grades, school, what most people think of me, or anything trivial as to speak of.  It’s nice.

But I hope to post here more often, because I like documenting my life, and writing and sharing the - sometimes mundane, sometimes whimsical - stories of my life with the world.

Indeed.

I met a lovely girl called Leah down town for the first time today - we’d spoken previously on facebook quite a lot, and we’d been in each other’s company, but we’d never spoken face-to-face.

I met her in West Orchards, she was slightly late and I text her just as I got there.  I was really nervous waiting for her.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I was shaking, and I text some of my friends questioning whether I’d made the right decision. 

She saw me, and I saw her, and she came over and gave me a hug, then she started walking, and I just followed her.  She told me that she needed to buy something for her granddad’s 60th birthday (which she never did), and that we were going to the park.  I liked her from her first impression.  She seemed nice.  I was worried that she’d be nervous - she said she’d be really shy, but she wasn’t.  She was less shy than me, if I’m honest.

So we got to the park, and I instantly remembered the place from my childhood. I recalled going on these particular swings and falling off them. And I remember walking around the lake as well - though that had been drained. Leah noticed the swings and was excited (as was I) and we went on them.

We obviously didn’t swing back and forth for the two hours we were on them, but we spoke about our opinions, our lives, our feelings towards things - you know. We got on really well. It was like we had known each other for ages, and it was nice to talk to someone intelligent as well - well, she does want to be a barrister or a politician.

So from there, because it was absolutely FREEZING outside, we decided that we were going to get some tea inside - somewhere warm. So we walked into town, and I saw possibly the worst people I could have seen, my best friends. Yeah, they came up and saw I was with a girl, and everyone will know by the time that we’re back at school, but I don’t care really. I love the Jakes, I really do. Then, I ran into Matt with another girl that he liked, and I gave him is girlfriend’s watch. I also love Matt lots - good with the ladies as well.

So we decided on searching around a little shopping centre, that would be mainly inhabited by old people, and we hit the jackpot. A lovely little shop that sells homemade cookies, and tea. We both wanted the same cookie (must be love now), and we both got tea. I paid - to her discontent, well, she wanted to pay but I wouldn’t let her.

From aquiring the tea and cookies, we tried to locate somewhere to sit. We walked up to the second floor of this tiny shopping centre, and found a little deserted area, with a nice view of the town, and a clean floor, so we sat there. It was lovely, I don’t know why the council haven’t put something in that spot. This was a lovely while, we were eating cookies and drinking tea - how could it be bad? So we chatted and talked and what not, and some chavs came along to our spot, and one kept asking me about gay sex, then tried to get me to have sex with him - it was all good natured, I suppose. But I failed to mention that I saw someone I knew earlier, whilst Leah was buying some really cute cat ears. He’s gay and has asked me out in the past and stuff, and I spoke to him and he was well. BUT, whilst in this nice little place, he came up, and the chavs near us insulted him, and I made Leah run with me because I didn’t want him to see us with him.

But we ran, and ended up back in West Orchards. We looked around a few shops that Leah wanted to go in, and I refused to use the “disabled and parent” lift to go to the top floor, and made her go up the escalator, which was fun. We chilled for a little while more - she bought a diary and some pens for her new year resolution, and then got a call. She went home at four (despite having to be back for four) and I said good bye and gave a nice hug.

I called up Matt and Jake to see if they were in town still, but they weren’t. I spoke to Matt breifly about Leah, and how I thought I might like her. I walked home to my nan’s from there, and I noted that despite walking in exactly the same conditions as yesterday, my music sounded so much worse - possibly because of the loudness of the thoughts running though my head.

Noteable things;

- we have a suicide pacts

- she wants to pay next time

- I want to go back to the same spot next time

- I really like her

- i’m definitely coming down with some sort of illness.  you know when you’re boiling hot, but freezing cold at the same time?  yeah.

- one of my bands (my worst one, to be fair) has split up

+ which means i have saturdays to do whatever i want again!

+ going to buy craft material today

+ SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW

+ being a guitar tech for some gig type affair

- freezing my arse off looking for somewhere to scan album artwork

+ my lovely friend Kiah making me free artwork

+ skins the book version

- can’t see my dad because of the snow - he lives half an hour away, he’s not just covered in snow or anything

+ my amazing new guitar pedal, that pulls off all kind of fancy shit

+ you

since july 2009, I have been recording music. it started off at a very questionable quality, and it also contained very questionable content. I had started making YouTube videos in summer 2008, but because it was my first real venture into the Internet, I didn’t really know how to act, or what to do whilst there.

From there, I uploaded lots of primarily guitar songs, which were perfect for what music I was into at the time - instrumental, guitar-as-vocal kind of things. So I went on with those ‘till late in the year.
I’ll be honest, I can’t really remember what I did in terms of recording in early 2009 - I think I was dipping my toe into the cold water of free recording software, and I’d just started to learn to play the drums.

But yes, so skip forward a few months, and I have Sonar. The all out, wonderful recording software that I still use today. It’s lovely. At this point, I’d just moved to Stratford, and had the worst time of my life (seriously) at Stratford High, but by then had moved back to a school in Coventry.

The first thing that I ever recorded, was a cover of Woman by Wolfmother, and it was awful - I must upload it for you one day. But I enjoyed it.
I think that’s what mattered, I had enjoyed making it, and I wanted to make more. At this point, I was neck deep in technical problems so nothing really sounded good.

I was recording every now and then, when I had spare time - i had two “real” bands on the go at this point, and we were churning out songs and covers, and I was playing at various places around the city, gaining some much needed live expierience and some much needed confidence.

So, this went on for a long while. I was still recording now and then, but I was more into just playing instruments and solos, rather than writing songs.
The whole kind of period of this ended around March this year, when one of the two bands - the main one, was on the brink of collapsing. It collapsed, our singer never shown up, and then all the band members left school - great one. So I was left with no other musicians. I started to use a loop pedal more and more, and generally messed around by myself.

I started recording properly this year around May time. I had solved most technical problems, and everything was going rather well, I was writing and recording songs, my technical ability was good, and I could pretty much create whatever I had in my head. Brilliant.
But the ideas I were having were growing harder to create I suppose, and I had to spend a lot of time messing around with software. My need for higher quality audio, and less white noise led me on a journey that’s left me where I am now.

I also got a lot of expierience when recording acoustically with a singer as well - and we know that “getting experience” means something going badly, or in this case - catastrophically. It was awful quality, appalling, but we had some wonderful fun busking.

Busking was a great experience for me, I loved it, it boosted my confidence, and me more willing to accept that not everyone wants to listen to your music, and not everyone will like it.
With people constantly walking past you all the time, it’s something you have to get used to. We made £32 in four hours, which was damn good going to be honest, but my unreliable singer let me down, and our set of twenty to this day, has been buried deep in the ground. We were good though - Indigo Warehouse was the name, if you remember me mentioning it.
But yes.

From there, I started recording lots, once again. I created about 5 pieces in one month - around September time I believe, which I was happy with. I also started posting to Soundcloud around this time, and this year, my music has been listened to/liked much more than any other.

But I kept recording, and then I suddenly realised that I had loads and loads music.
So, about a month ago, I decided that it was about time that I worked towards an album, so I went through tons of ideas, and re-equalised them, re-recorded them, re-mixed them… The whole lot.
I’ve been working at that until tonight, where I finally finished, ordered, and burned my EP/album to disc - to have something to physically show for years of work.

The epum (EP/album) is 24.8 minutes long, and has it’s light, it’s heavy, it’s really fucking heavy, and it’s serene light. Ambient, doom, indie, chill-out, progressive, experimental - all apply. A lot of genres apply, spanning my musical taste over a year and a half.

A lot of work went into the album, and into writing this, so I hope you enjoy this, and enjoy the album, when it’s out.
Thanks, love from Aidan.

- the cold is fucking cold 

+ it’s good for taking weird photos in (photos)

+ my main band is making some good music (video tomorrow)

- one of my other band’s singers is shit and going to be kicked out

+ my winter clothing/coat/scarf 

+ i’m in a band with lovely lewis

+ i’ve been talking to sexy people i like (i made the boy i like “lmfao!!!” yay)

- lack of sleep

- the un-ability to play loads of gigs at the minute

+ my birthday’s soon

+ the phoenix collective jazz/world/rock/blues band is starting again soon, so i’ll get to play live again in not too long

- tumblr was down

+ tumblr’s up

+ my new look website

+ you

• I HAVE JUST RECEIVED A PARKA FROM MY DAD AND OH MY GOD
• IT’S SNOWING - SNOW - I LOVE SNOW SO MUCH
• I FINISHED A GAME ON MY IPOD, I’D PLAYED IT FOR 17 HOURS IN TEN DAYS, AND THERE’S GOING TO BE A SEQUEL TOO

IT’S JUST THE BEST DAY EVER.