Long Time, No Blog. Some Updates.

Well, a few things have been happening in WeeWorld and I just haven’t had a chance to blog, suddenly 6 weeks have passed! So here’s a quick roundup.

Jenny completed the London Marathon in 5 hours and 14 minutes – a great achievement and one which also helped to raise over £2300 for HemiHelp.  Well done Jenny!  Last week we went on holiday to St Ives in Cornwall with Jenny and her family. Very relaxing and very welcome!

The Alchemy gig in Telford went well.  The pub was full, although there were a few faces who couldn’t make it.  Our only problem was that even though we’ve reduced the amount of gear we lug around, we still took up a large portion of the pub!  It got very hot and my fingers all but melted.  It was also the first public outing of the DoddCabs, with both Dodd and Harj using them.  They sounded great, although someone did comment that Harj’s sound was a little harsh.  We think that was due to a setting on the back of his amp, but other than this we were very happy with the outcome.  Watch this space for news of further Alchemy gigs.

Talking of gigs, I’ve been playing regularly with Usual Suspects.  I’m a lot happier with the material now and feel that I’m ‘part of the band’ now rather than just the new boy.  Mike (guitar) has written a few few songs which he is demoing.  Our friend, Kev Bartlett, has recorded some drums and Mike’s asked me to do the bass.  I’m currently getting the songs in my head, getting ideas of what I want to play.  Once I’ve got an idea I can do some rough takes for Mike to OK, then I’ll heading down to The Smash Room to record them for him.  So far, one that’s grabbed my attention is a track called Queen Of Pain.  Think I can do plenty with that one.

This week further news came out about Iron Maiden’s new album.  Called The Final Frontier, it will be released on 16 August (just in time for my birthday!) and the first single was released this week as a free download.  El Dorado is up on YouTube:

It’s available from http://www.ironmaiden.com/thebigbang_2.html

To me it sounds like it has the heaviness of their earlier material mixed with Bruce’s solo material, along with the slickness of more recent outings.  I like it and can’t wait for the album.