CAMS Open Mic Lent 2008

Alex and me played at the CAMS (Clare Alternative Music Society) Open Mic Night on Sunday. We played two tracks, Proof by I am Kloot, a classic that we've played once before, and the more adventurous Lover, You Should Have Come Over, by Jeff Buckley. He's got some really impressive chord progressions, and it was a challenge, but I like to think we made a good stab of it! The open mic nights have been really impressive recently, and it was really satisfying getting such an amazing response from the audience - the cellars were pretty packed. Plus, Alex was mistaken for "Amy Buckley", Jeff's non-existent sister... she must have been singing pretty well to be mistaken for a blood relative of the man himself... and I suppose Buckingham does sound a little like Buckley.

All of the other musicians were fantastic, including Davy, Ruth and Paddy who played some cool Irish ballads, and The Staircase Band who got my blood pumping with their European folk accordion, brass and violin tunes. They sound alot like A Hawk and a Hacksaw, and I seriously suggest that anyone who has ever come in contact with an accordion and thought that it was possibly the sexiest instrument around to check them out (both, though you'll need to look out for the Staircase band in Cambridge). I have added a photo of Alex and me at CAMS, I hope the people responsible won't crucify me for stealing it, but it's an amazing photo. If you are from CAMS and you'd like me to take it down, email me, but I'm linking to your facebook group!

Busybusy

Have somehow not blogged for 2 or 3 days, despite this being exam term. I have been pretty busy the last 2 days with this and that, and trying to cram work into every moment in between doing stuff, eating or drinking tea/coffee. Plus it's been bloody freezing (as mentioned in my previous post) and it's going to be the same all week. How depressing!

Sunday night was Open Mic Night (photos). Alex was pretty nervous all day but calmed down while the guy before us was playing, while I did the complete reverse. Hehe. We played "Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "Proof" by I Am Kloot, and "The Fear" by Travis. It went pretty well, and Sam (who was running the CAMS (Clare Alternative Music Society night) apparently enjoyed CYHSY even though he's a great fan of theirs, and the 1st year medic I met at the Medic's dinner who said "Proof" was her favourite song on the I am Kloot album also seemed to enjoy our rendition. Hurrah! It was good fun!

Yesterday was a pretty full day, so much so that I did no work! OOer. I'll have to have a purge today. Mary came round for coffee in the morning and we sat in the kitchen chatting to her from 10am until gone noon. I then rang Rahul (who was still in bed) at almost 1pm to get him up and out to snooker, and we went to WT's for a few hours. We played 5 games, drank 4 pints (in total, not each) and he pipped me to the post 3-2 on the last black. Nnnrgh. For some reason we got a free pitcher of beer when we got the table, so, not to turn down a bargain, we happily obliged. "It's a little early" I said. "It's never too early" she replied... Fair enough!

We then went to our 1st "Improver's" dancing class in the evening, which was pretty hard. We'd missed last weeks lesson, so we had to catch up the Rumba and the "hestitation" in the quick-step, which was really hard to get our heads around. Still, good fun though, and we got take-away icecream on the way home (at 10pm - hooray for La Margherita). Then, we had coffee in the kitchen with Iona, and I discovered Horlicks... a strange malty concoction that should probably be avoided at all costs, but somehow tasted slightly pleasant. Don't think I'll be drinking it again though. I also somehow got on to the topic of "gene knockouts" and tried to explain the "cre-lox" system for knocking out genes in specific tissues... I wasn't wholly successful, but that was mostly due to my poor explanatory skills. I left in where devils fear to tread... should have gone for something more simple like mRNAi or oligonucleotides. Nevermind!

Adieu,

Tom