Resurfacing

[crispygoth]

I have, for the past couple of years or so, actually paid attention to what all my friends have been posting on Livejournal (the select few of you who actually still post, of course). However, I'm still being slightly crap at posting myself - which I really should fix, starting now.

Having spent a couple of evenings recently going back through my old entries (ironically, when I was adding past events to my Facebook Timeline), I realised it was actually quite enjoyable to go back and remember things I got up to 5 - 10 years ago. Quite a few cringeworthy moments as well, of course (god, I was a whiny bastard at times when I was younger!), but on the whole it was fun to reminisce. I don't quite think that Facebook (even with Timeline) can deliver the same level of nostalgic amusement, so for the benefit of future me (and present friends), I will endeavour to start updating this thing regularly again.

1. Work: Not much to say about work really. I like my job, and it keeps me in food and shiny toys. I really only put this in so it doesn't look like I spend all my time drinking and going out...
2. Life in general: I won't go into details right now, but fair to say life has been full of ups and downs over the past year or so. On the positive side, I've met a whole load of new friends, built my self-confidence up a hell of a lot, and made some efforts towards being healthy. Negatives? The usual slew of missed chances and "what if?"s - thankfully, I'm dealing with these a lot better than I used to.
3. Festivals: I've been to no less than four festivals so far this year, and have another two lined up: Resistanz (Sheffield, UK - April), Blackfield (Gelsenkirchen, DE - June), Amphi (Cologne, DE - July), Infest (Bradford, UK - last weekend), and coming up: Whitby Goth Weekend (Whitby, UK - November), Gothic Meets Klassik (Leipzig, DE - also November). I was originally going to go into detail about these in this post, but it ended up far too long, so that'll be a post of its own!
4. Other gigs: (mostly at Corp) The Gothsicles (much fun, and supported by the excellent Cyferdyne), Professor Elemental (jolly fine), Pre/Verse and last minute stand-ins Uberbyte (for Adam's 40th, was also followed by the semi-regular 90's night Raveolution - a great night out), Tenacious D in Manchester (rawk), and Combichrist at Rock City (at which point I realised I was wrong to hate them).
5. Club nights: Two years ago, I spent most of my weekends hermitting at home. These days, it's rare for me to spend a Saturday night in. I now regularly go to Revolution at Corp each month, I also usually go to Wendyhouse every month (mostly for the Mutate room). Other Saturdays I normally end up at Corp for MODE (which is a very random mixture of goth, 80s, EBM and industrial). I've also been to some other nights around the country including AnalogueTrash in Manchester, and Batronic in Nottingham.
6. DJing: I'm now definitely out of retirement, and although it's still taking a while for gigs to pick up again, there are a few things in the pipeline (also, see next bullet point).
7. Batfink! Yes, you read that right. Because it's my 30th birthday this year, I decided to do something slightly bigger than the typical trip to the pub and/or Corp. I decided I wanted to bring Batfink back for a one-off to celebrate (I didn't realise until later on that it's also 10 years since our first 'fink!), so I roped in my old partners in cheese, jozafeen and gwengothelf, and booked out our old home for the night. So on Friday 12th October from 9pm til 2am, we will be once again filling the Raynor Lounge with goths and making them dance by playing tunes at them. I honestly can't wait, it's going to be one hell of a birthday party ;)

Well that's pretty much the state of the Crispy right now. Stay tuned for further updates :)