I've been really quite on here so will probably keep this one brief so I can publish some catch-up posts pinned to more accurate dates. There's so much that has happened this year that I still haven't really blogged about and it doesn't seem right to only just mention things properly now... So, I'll get back to that. I have a list of topics I want to write individual posts about over the next few weeks to fill in the gaps and keep my mind active. Here's the list:
University Of Derby
Graduation
Spain
More Illness
Guitar Lessons
Music Production
NIAHAS
Kill The Moon
Open Mics
It's not a huge list, but it's still a big gap to cover.
This year has been a challenging one. At the start of the year, I don't think I quite had the right mindset. It was a bit strange going back to what still felt like a new environment. I new my way around the UoD campuses but I still hadn't quite settled in and the lack of new friends yet influx of many new faces made me feel overwhelmed during my final year. It was the one thing I was worried about, "fitting in" and it was just so difficult since social groups had already been formed long before I had got there and it was a hard thing to break into. Those that I did work with, I massively appreciated. To say how big their music department is, I felt like I only came away with a handful of friends. It's a strange thing. Nevertheless, it went fast. The course was over by early May and Graduation followed a couple of months after. This takes us to July. I had not long recovered from a throat infection and was still feeling the stress of University even after Graduation. I finished my degree with a high 2:1 and still feel like if I had made extra efforts in places, (mainly my double module which really messed me up) I could have scraped the first class degree that I wanted but at least I know by the calculations, I wasn't far off the mark.
With studying over, it was time to put focus on the band, Kill The Moon. We reformed in April this year and performed a handful of gigs this year with a few different drummers along the way, Michael Ives now being our new drummer. I'll speak more about this in another post but I'm proud of the direction that we're going and we're now focusing on getting some recordings down.
July sparked the plan to go back to Spain with Will Giddings. This was probably on the biggest things of the year. possibly topping graduation since I'm still a bit salty about my results. We planned to go in August for a few days over a week. We had two hotels booked and a rental car, no real idea what we were doing once we got there except that one day we may have had the chance to see our friends, which we did. We found lots to do once we settled. We eat out a few nights, found a bike rental place, saw some flamingos, watched people cover themselves in mud. Ha. We were really close to the beach for the first few nights. At our second hotel, we were more inland. We found a local pool to visit, a McDonalds and one day went into the city of Murcia where I found a guitar that I brought home with me, after running around like a manic trying to find a flight case for it! It was an incredible holiday. Stressful but well worth it.
When we returned, I was ill again within a few days. I remember being called in for a night shift then when I turned up my ear went a bit weird. Little did I know that this was the continuation of an illness saga. I had an ear infection/ Weeks passed and there were still things wrong. A few more weeks passed, I passed out at home from a high temperature. I went to the doctors the next day to be told I now have a kidney infection. More antibiotics were given and eventually it passed as a bigger-picture-problem but my hearing hasn't yet still fully returned. My ear still feels blocked and I feel like fainting/blacking out from being to hot my still be a problem every month or so. I blacked out in public a couple of months ago, it wasn't fun.
These last few months of the year have been focused on recovery, band and music production. I'm still proud of the recording that me and Jake threw together in a week in October. It's nice to finally have something to show even if I know it's not perfect yet. These studio recording will be what we really need, I think I just wanted to make use of what I had. It's been nice that some friends have supported us by buying some of our merch, it helps spread word more than anything as I don't really make much back on it, but any sale goes back in towards more. It's like a cycle, except it's business. I've been working with a friend to make tracks for him and record his vocal, I'm essentially his producer at the moment. His artist name is Jem The Ruff Diamond and he aims to launch his own record label, Boombox Entertainment in the new year. This has been one of my focus points, allowing me to start earning from my craft. I did teach a few guitar lessons this year too but I need to get back into promoting that locally and see where it takes me. I just don't want to end up making myself too busy!!
December has been nice, the early part I managed to catch up with friends on a night out, we had quite a big crowd. As Christmas drew closer the days seemed to be going to fast. It's always over too soon. Now, it's new years eve and we're counting down the hours left to 2020. I don't have any new year resolutions this year but I am going to try to remain focused more. I have a few of tracks to finish in January which when completed will help me save up. That's one goal I have for this year, just to save a little, but it's hard to do whilst working part-time so a combination of this and the small hours work keep tipping on me will help. There's always going to be car insurance that pulls my income down and I'm not looking forward to paying that this year, will definitely have to shop around. There is a gig I'm eyeing up in the Netherlands. I might be able to justify it since it's not as far as a holiday to Spain but I'll have to see nearer the time, that isn't until July anyway. Will need to see what happens with Brexit!
