“Four Things” by The Blonde Kid, aged 8…
The Blonde Kid: “There’s only four things I want…although they are quite expensive”
Me: “What are they then?”
1. “A Ben 10 decorated bedroom”
2. “An M3P player or an iPod to listen to my music on” (I think he means MP3 player!)
3. “Virgin Media/Sky (Cable TV) in my bedroom”
4. “A Laptop computer to play Club Penguin on”
Not much of an ask then? Suppose we’d better get saving…son of a geek you say?
Gallery Test
I’ve upgraded my blog to Wordpress version 2.5, so I thought I’d test the built in gallery function with a few photos from a recent stag do my brothers and I went on…
-
- Dave ‘Babraham Lincoln’ Hunt – the stag!
-
- The brothers grim!
-
- Me as a Cowboy
-
- Stat as a Sportsfan
-
- Al as a redneck trucker
Manimal
About a month ago we had the big party to celebrate my youngest brother Alex’s 18th Birthday. We hired a venue, invited 100+ people and put on a great night of music, food and drink. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun, all of my close friends and family were there, and it was the best 18th Birthday party I’ve ever attended!For one night only the band ‘Manimal’ was born – this consisted of myself, my brothers (Stat and Al), our cousin Steve, long suffering front-man The Dicko, and as previously mentioned a special guest appearance by my Dad aka ‘Fishman’. We played a 15 song set which included a couple of original tunes from our regular band ‘Scrat‘ and a bunch of party-friendly covers.
Check out the video above of us performing Bryan Adam’s ‘Summer of ‘69′, which ironically was the year my Dad left school…more video can be found on my YouTube Channel here.
Do Not Adjust Your Monitor!
‘The Middle Of Yesterday’ is no more, I’m now blogging under a new domain name; ‘www.jamesdclarke.com’. I’ve decided to switch my blog over to a new domain name – my own name!
I’ve done this for a couple of reasons, firstly because it’s becoming harder and harder to get your hands on good dot com domain name, and secondly in an attempt to build my online profile/brand – something that is becoming more and more important these days (or so I am told), especially when using the internet to make a living as I do. There’s a lot of James Clarkes with an ‘E’ out there – so I decided the time was right to bag my name whilst I still could.
Hopefully my Mom will be pleased about the ‘D’ for Douglas as I was rather ashamed of my middle name as a kid. I remember vividly the only time I got a proper slap around the face from her – I was 10 or 11 years old and we were in the car on the way home from my birthday party at McDonald’s (I was too young to know any better then), my two best mates were in the car and grilling me about my middle name. I was tight lipped, however my Mother (ever the protagonist) told them both, to which I quickly yelled “you bitch!” and SLAP, there it was!
So, I apologise for calling you a bitch Mom, but you shouldn’t have wound me up. I hope you like my new domain name!
In Dad We Trust!
My ‘little’ brother turns 18 at the end of the month and we’ve decided to put on a big party to celebrate. The plan is to hire a venue for late February (so Al is over 18 and can drink legally!) and put on a mixture of live music and food, along with some drinks and some DJ spun tunes.
As part of the live music four fifths of my band ‘Scrat’ will be performing. Myself, both my brothers (Stat & Al), Dicko and Steve will be making up the numbers, however there’s a slight line up change (and a name change) whilst Dave sits it out and prepares for his wedding and we’re going to be joined by a very special guest…..my Dad!
Now, Fishman (as we affectionately call him) has a history steeped in rock ‘n’ roll. He played in several bands when he was in his 20’s back in 1970 something, including the infamous ‘Mantis’ who were once paid by a promoter not to perform the second half of their set during a gig at a bingo hall! In fact, Dad confessed last night that Status Quo were ‘in his psyche’ – so he’s definitely the right man for the job!
Last night was our first rehearsal and I haven’t had so much fun for a long time. Not only was I playing music with both of my younger brothers, but my Dad was playing too! It was awesome! We decided to start off with a few covers and threw in some golden oldies that Fishman would know in the form of ‘Teenage Kicks’ (Undertones) , ‘Rockin’ All Over The World’ (Status Quo), and ‘Summer Of ‘69′ (Bryan Adams) – which we were informed (somewhat ironically) by Dad was the year that he left school – perfect!
To our collective surprise Dad picked things up really quickly considering he’d not played guitar for 20 + years (did I mention he was playing his custom built 70’s Fender Tele copy, fresh from the loft?!) and before long we were rocking! He even began to let rip with some Clapton-esque riffage over the end of ‘Summer Of ‘69′ and at one point had us all in tears after attempting a Pete Townshend style jump mid-song, which ended up with Dicko burst into laughter!
So that was our first rehearsal, it couldn’t have gone any better. I really can’t wait for Dad to get back from his week long holiday so that we can get back to rehearsing for the gig…this is going to be brilliant!
