MIDGAR official LiveJournal!

 Rob has comprehensively filled you lot in on what's been going on, so kudos to him for doing so; however whenever he jumps back on the old blogging horse it inspires me to do so - leaving his blog buried under my useless meanderings. Sorry mate.

I've cut all my hair off again (SHOCK, HORROR, ETC) but it's placed me firmly in stronger stead for the trials ahead in the upcoming months. I find whenever I grow my hair really long it tends to be that I'm hiding from something. There's something quite cathartic about baring my auricles and oversized forehead.

My left wrist has been really bad recently, the only reminder I was once a drummer it seems is quite a bad case of RSI/tendonitis and it's left me unable to do a lot really. Playing guitar has been tough at times. So I have it strapped up and fingers crossed it'll be on the mend soon enough. In the mean time, it relinquishes me of almost all carrying duties so maybe I won't be praying for such a speedy recovery...

So big exciting things are going on with EP 2, we might have a name for you soon. I think a process similar to Conclave is necessary; I've got my suggestion so I guess it's up to the others to throw theirs into the fire and see what comes out of it all. It seems all the tracks are named (properly this time, not things like 'Jagerbomb'). My amp is almost fixed so we can get cracking with tracking some whacking slackened six string action.

This week will leave me mostly pondering new lyrics so it's appropriate for me to leave you with a taster.

"Colour us with stars and candle light..."

x

Hello!

 

Firstly, massive apologies about the lack of updates over the last 8 weeks! It’s not a sign of laziness on our part, but rather a sign of being far too busy for our own good! I have tonnes of stuff to update you guys on today, so apologies if this post ends up being longer than a long thing!

 

I guess the best place to start is with our mini stint of shows as a four piece. After Erlin left, we were pretty stuck as to how we should proceed with our commitments, after all, his resignation came out of the blue and left us only two days to find a bass player in time for our Tunbridge Wells show on the 7^th of August.

 

We decided that is was far too little time to bring someone else on board and to learn the songs convincingly for our upcoming show. Mike decided that he’d super valiantly sacrifice himself, and move from his trusty six string dirt monster, to fill the hole left by Erlin’s departure. He set about re-learning the set on bass and at the pre-gig practice, proved just how good he is by rocking out like an absolute demon on the four string! Andy and I shared out some of Mike’s guitar parts to fill in the gaps and we were ready for the upcoming shows!

 

- - - - - - - -

 

7^th August 2009 – Tunbridge Wells – The Forum

 

We left for the show about 2pm to get us to sound check in plenty of time. We were supposed to be taking our musical friend April Amos with us as she was opening this show, but unfortunately she suffered a particularly nasty flu the whole week before and wasn’t well enough to make the journey. Journey was good although when we arrived, a very odd smelling smoke was coming out of the drivers wheel arch! We decided in our combined mechanical knowledge that the best was to proceed would be to ignore that it had happened and hope it doesn’t happen again!

 

The show went well; we were particularly impressed with local boys ‘Chain St & 4^th’ – really exciting sound! Our faith is Mike was fully justified as he stormed the bass parts like a pro! We we’re ready for the fourth coming shows!

Us at The Forum!

 

22^nd August 2009 – Guildford – The Boileroom

 

This show was confirmed pretty last minute and Oli had a previous commitment, so Andy and I decided to keep the booking and play as an acoustic duo. Two other support bands decided to pull out, leaving only us and headliners Spectrum 7! Was a really intimate chilled set, which bizarrely complimented the full Spectrum 7 show! We love those boys – doing our area proud!

 

26^th August 2009 – Leicester – The Shed

 

Leicester... One of our favourite places to play in the UK so far! Really responsive audiences and very friendly atmosphere! We set out about midday to get to the venue in time for sound check. Unfortunately, that wasn’t nearly enough time as the M25 had been closed in both directions, and we had to go through some of the worst traffic we’ve ever encountered. Took nearly 6 hours to get there! We turned up late for sound check, but steamed through as quickly as possible and all was well. Was another well attended show, made some new friends too!

 

30^th August 2009 – Southampton – The Joiners

 

The Joiners is also a favourite on our list for many reasons. Firstly its Mike’s hometown, so we get to play to his crowd, then there’s the fact that the sound in this venue is just epic! This was another well attended show, and we all loved the set! Still not quite the same with Mike being on bass duties rather than his guitar, but we more than made the best of it! Our friend Joe Harding bought his Pro Tools rig with him and recorded our set – hopefully we’ll have some live tracks to send you guys very soon! We were playing this show in support of ‘I Am Forever’ who are good friends of ours. After this set they invited us on a few more shows coming up, which you can find out more about below!

 

31^st August 2009 – Yeovil – The Orange Box

 

So, this date came completely unexpected! We played with ‘I Am Forever’ the night before and they love our set so much, that they invited us on the last few dates of their UK tour! Gooood toimes…

 

It was a really cool venue, and we felt instantly at home. Sound check went well and we were ready for another show. We were a little worried about just how many people would show up considering the size of this venue (Recently played by Inme, Funeral For A Friend etc) but a queue began to develop outside before doors and the room felt pretty busy during our set! We made some new friends that night and it was definitely somewhere we want to visit again.

Us with some new friends at The Orange Box

 

2^nd September 2009 – Plymouth – The White Rabbit

 

This was the last night of the ‘I Am Forever’ tour. We were super excited about this one, as we finally got to play with ‘We The Machines’ – Danny’s band (our Southwest promoter). Was one hell of a long drive to do in one day, but all was good. All three bands played well and it’s another venue ticked off on our checklist!

 

9^th September 2009 – Portsmouth – The Edge Of The Wedge Bar

 

This was to be the last date with Mike filling in on bass – although at this point we weren’t aware of this! We turned up for sound check and squeezed our gear into the venue. We’d been booked by our friends Myke Eales and Alex McGillivray and we’re determined to put on a storming show, even though we were still effectively a man down. We were supporting local favourites ‘Tricorn’. Our set went well and I think we made some new Portsmouth friends that night. Tricorn were also awesome, big sound, big solo’s – goooood toimes all round!!

 

- - - - - - - -

 

That’s what we’ve been up to in a live sense! Hopefully we saw some of you at the shows, and if now – we hope to see you on our upcoming December mini tour which we are finalising right now! More on that later…

We also recently got invited to the Guildford Brit Awards, where after much champagne, we were awarded 'Best Radio Interview' for our appearance on Andy Vale's GU2 radio show at the start of the year... Have a pic!

Gem, Sophie, Me and Andy at the Guildford Brits (The others we're drinking)

 

So, I guess we should tell you our biggest announcement. We have a new bass player! After Erlin left, we decided that we weren’t going to rush into finding a new bass player as this time round we wanted the perfect person for the job and felt that the perfect person would turn up when the time was right. That person turned up at the end of September…

 

His name is Matt Jarman. He has played bass with some awesome local and national acts such as Jelutong, Without Grace, Insofar and more recently Flame To Fire. He’s a solid local musical figure and it’s more than amazing that he’s shown an interest in joining the Midgar collective! Here he is in all his visual glory!

Matt Jarman - Midgar (Bass)

 

After a pretty ruthless couple of days of practice, Matt was completely tour ready! We decided to use a last minute headline show booking at The Boileroom on the 8^th of October to unleash our new man on the world! The line up was fantastic – local favourites ‘Majestix’ were first on, followed by the awesome ‘Get Set Radio’ then us to finish. All our friends, new and old were there – was a great atmosphere and a great taste of things to come!

 

We collectively feel that right now, Midgar is complete. We’re stronger and more creative than we’ve ever been! We’re itching to get out and show you all exactly how powerful our set now is, so please, PLEASE keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming mini-tour dates and our extensive touring in the new year!

 

Future stuff? Well, we’ve got tonnes going on right now! We’re writing a bunch of new songs, and are currently half way through recording EP 2 – as yet untitled. It will be with you by the end of the year, and we think you’re going to love it as much as we are loving recording it!

I've ordered my new amplifier! Am very excited about it - I went for an Orange Rockerverb 100 with matching 4x12 cab - in 2009 ltd edition white... This will only add to the awesome wall of sound for our upcoming mini tour!

 

We’ve got a couple of photo shoots coming up too – one with Tom Barnes (Biffy Clyro, BMTH, Billy Talent) which we’re more than excited about, and another shoot with  Dan Annett (Christian Bale, Val Kilmer, Kirsty Gallacher).

 

We’re still due in to shoot the video for our track Karmic Retribution but as part of EP 2 we’re currently re-recording the track to make it as epic as possible! We’re also still getting lots of radio play from Alex Baker – for which we are eternally grateful! You can request Midgar on The Unsigned Show by Calling 0845 688 1052 or text "K" then your message to 64100.

 

Lastly, thanks for sticking by us guys! It’s been a trying time making things work while a man down, but the show we now have for you will be more than worth the wait!

 

Laters!

 

Rob - Midgar

P.S - Please keep visiting the following links for up to date information.

www.midgarmusic.com
www.myspace.com/midgaruk
www.facebook.com/midgarmusic

Hey all,

There has been a bit of a cloud over Midgar for a while, and now the mist has cleared, we're ready to make an announcememnt on the situation. Firstly, we aren't breaking up - far from it, in fact we've never been more focused! Anyway, I'll let Andy's statement set the story straight...



"We don't post a lot of blogs up here and most of them are usually nonsense but this time, regrettably, we have an important announcement.

Erlin has decided to leave Midgar and persue his other commitments more closely. Obviously we're gutted about this as he was an integral part of the band and more importantly, one of our best mates. The amazing thing about being in a band is the fact that you can create your own little family, and we've been like brothers since we first started. Unfortunately this means it's difficult to look on the bright side when someone doesn't want to be involved anymore.

We'll always support E-Man in whatever he chooses to do musically and wish him all the best for the future. We also feel it's important to thank him for his contributions up until this point.

So what's next for us? We'll continue of course, for the meantime as a 4 piece with Mike on bass. We won't be pulling any shows and trust me when I say, the new material coming your way is our biggest, best, and most exciting music we've created to date. We will be looking to replace Erlin but will only do so when we find the perfect suiter. If you think you're the guy/girl for the job, let us know!

We've made a little leaving video to go with this blog, it'll be on the MySpace page. Don't take it too seriously, we love having a laugh here in Midgar...

It may seem like sad times but the future has never been brighter for us, and we have you lot to thank for that. We won't let you down.

A."

Hey guys!

Just for the minority few who might be interested:

MIDGAR are Alex Bakers 'Featured Artist' of the week on Kerrang! Radio's unsigned show!!

You can here it here: www.whatson.com/kerrang/]Kerrang

Go to the list on the right, head to 'Sundays' and click 'Unsigned' we're an hour in, After an interview with the amazing 'Blakfish'!

He describes the track as reminding him of fond memories of listening to Neon Ballroom by Silverchair when he was younger - thats my favorite freaking album of all time!!  :D   :D   :D

Its also big smile for me, as I engineered, produced and mastered the track he plays!

Anyways...

Yes....

There we go!  :P

New live shots - thought I'd share!  :D

Andy: Boileroom, Guilfest warm up show!

Me: Guilfest warm up show!

Teh band, doing rock... Same show!

Guilfest 2009, Acoustic show!

Guilfest 2009, full band shot.

Me, drunk, next to our burning flagpole!

There we go, just in case you're interested!

Rob

Xx
 

Wow, it’s been a while – thought I’d post a catch up for those that are interested!

 

Firstly, thank you to all those that voted for us in the Ents24 Guilfest competition! You guys really did us proud! From the moment voting started we we’re way out in front. We stayed in the number one slot right up until the last day of the competition, when a certain band came from nowhere and knocked us into second. It turned out that this certain band we’re later disqualified for cheating, leaving us clear to take first position for the entire competition.

 

It was at this point that the top five we’re put to a professional judging panel. After their deliberation, they decided that instead of bolstering the clear public winner (and also most local choice), they’d pick a three piece indie band from up north somewhere.

 

We we’re a little disheartened as we had hoped that the judging panel element was only a safety net to stop some right-wing nutter with a million email addresses being able to win it and cause hell. So yes, we lost the overall competition but we were the clear public favourite, with one of the Ents24 team telling me we had a considerable lead over the rest of the top five. We knew we had a slot on a smaller stage at Guilfest so all was not lost, but that story will be told later! First of all, a catch up on all the other stuff that’s happened recently!

 

Beach Break Live Festival 2009… What a festival, we all had a good time, our set went really well, there are tonnes of pictures and things I could say about it, but it can mostly be summed up in the following ‘Midgar Rocumentary’ video…

 

 

 

 

On a random unrelated, but absolutely essential-to-mention note, I WENT PARAGLIDING! I’ve always wanted to go, and I guess my girlfriend Gemma had heard enough of my pining for it and decided to take me for my first days training on the Isle of Wight for my birthday!

 

It was an amazing day; first of all we did some basic ground training, learning how to crash land safely etc. Then I went on a 45 minute tandem flight with the instructor to learn the flight controls, rising air, and general flight. After this I did a few more hours of ground handling and by the end of it, my instructor said I was ready for my first solo flight! I took off from the southern cliffs of the Isle of Wight, cruised along the cliff edge, made a right turn over the sea and eventually made a perfect in-to-wind landing on the beach a few hundred feet below! Here follows are some pictures of my day!

 

 

Back to Midgar…

 

In June we played Wesfest, a charity event held in Ripley, Surrey in memory and celebration of Andy’s friend Wes. It was a fantastic event. Andy and I turned up there in the AM to take delivery of a stonking great PA. We proceeded to built this mammoth unit and set to work building the stage monitoring systems too. Our friend Tom turned up to build his own epic contribution to the event, a fecking great lighting rig with devastating strobes and full control desk. Everything was coming together nicely. We we’re on the bill with a band called Ferox and Outcry Collective. The night was a massive success with thousands of pounds being raised for the charity CRY. Here follows some pictures from that night…

 

 

On the first of July, we played a show at Harpers nightclub in Guildford – the first of our three hometown shows. The venue was bizarre to say the least, very clearly not being a regular live music venue. The sound - and room was pretty difficult to work with for everyone involved, and the event wasn’t as busy as I think it was hoped to be, but we had fun. Shared the stage with our good buddies ‘Three Seeds In Paris’, they we’re very good as usual!

 

On the third of July we played the Boileroom – first time since the incident where I accidentally walked out of the venue with a guitar on my back which was considered ‘loading out’ and therefore entitled the bouncer to call my girlfriend and I ‘cunts’ and that I should ‘go fuck myself’, then to be followed to my van and be assaulted by said bouncer…. Bad times.

 

This show was main support to local legends Redwood, and we were very excited about having the opportunity to play with them! Also on the bill we’re Flame to Fire – featuring ex members of Radiate and Without Grace, and Natascha Sohl – featuring WG Jon Brooks on bass!

 

The gig went very well; it was packed in the venue too. Redwood took to the stage to prove that they are still one of he best bands to have come out of this area. We all went home with smiles! A very good night indeed!

 

On the same day as the Redwood show, All Midgar members initiated a house move! Andy and I moved out of Woking, with Andy moving to a new shared band house in Aldershot and me moving my things back to my parents in Whitehill and dual living between there and my girlfriends house in Liphook. Mike and Oli moved from their house in Guildford, to the shared house in Aldershot. Erlin moved out of the shared Guilford house to somewhere else in Guildford – I’m not actually sure where at the moment!!

 

And finally, this weekend just gone, Midgar played Guilfest 2009!! Adorned with our VIP passes and crew camping wristbands, we looked the part too! Our set was as 9.45pm on Friday night, second to headline – supporting our buddies Flame to Fire. We played at the same time as You Me At Six and Motorhead – which could have been disastrous for our audience numbers, but it all turned out well – with our crowd topping 150 people, all singing along to Vincent’s Masquerade and the like! I’ll post a video from Tomodo Photography of our Vincent’s Masquerade acoustic version – it’s a little shakey, having only been practiced acoustically a few hours before the show – but it’ll give you an idea!

 

Highlights for us this year included Fei Comodo and Devil Sold His Soul on the Rocksound Cave stage, Redwood on the Ents24 stage, and Redwood again on the Acoustic stage! Can’t wait to get involved again next year!!

 

So, what’s coming up for us? LOADS of writing and demo’ing! Pencilling in dates for the Karmic Retribution video in London, finishing the next EP and getting to play some new towns – if anyone knows any promoters in the Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, Reading, Portsmouth, Brighton, Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham areas – give us a shout!

 

Bubye for now!

 

Rob - Midgar

Good morning friends and esteemed musical collegues! :op
 
It is with a slightly sad face that I announce to you today that Midgar have slipped to second place in the Guilfest competition...
 
All is not lost though! For those that haven't voted - YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TONIGHT to give us the much needed leg-up we need! If you have more than one email address, you can vote with those too! - this could make a massive difference to the result!
 
The link of retribution is: http://www.ents24.com/midgar
 
What's in it for you? Well, you could win weekend VIP tickets to the enet itself, and the chance to watch us thrash Will Young on a main stage! (yes, you read that correctly!)
 
Also, as a present, if you head over to this link: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&friendID=215320383&n=215320383 You can watch the whole band make fools of themselves at this years Beach Break festival - 12 minutes of drunken humiliation for you! Thats how far we go for you guys... be proud! ;o)
 
Thank you for putting up with these voting emails, apart from a final thank you and update tomorrow, this will be the last one on the Guilfest voting subject!
 
If you can think of anyone else who could spare two minutes to vote for us, PLEASE forward this email to them! It'd mean so much to our little band from Guildford! :o)
 
Lots of love, always!
 
Rob & Midgar

Hello again! Just thought Id let you know that we’re still in FIRST POSITION in the Ents24 competition to play the huge 2^nd stage at Guilfest 2009!

Many thanks to those who have voted already! It’s a huge opportunity for us to showcase our set on a much bigger stage, and you’re bringing us closer to it!

If you haven’t voted yet, or have more than one email address and would be extra kind enough to vote for us again, the link is:

http://www.ents24.com/Midgar

If you vote, you’re entered into a prize draw to win a pair of tickets to the event yourself, worth £200!!

Ooh, and if you happen to find yourself bored and want to add to the madness of the voting, you can always join our competition Facebook event and add your friends list too it! Help the guest list grow, be a part of the promotion! The event is:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=93010642114&ref=mf

So, NEW SONG TIME!!!! – Karmic Retribution

We’ve finished the title track for independent film ‘Michaels Resignation’. Its called Karmic Retribution and I’ve decided it’d be only fair to share it with you all! (by the way, the film makers haven’t even heard it yet!) So shimmy along to;

www.myspace.com/midgaruk

Be one of the first to hear it!!!

Let us know what you think; it’s a pretty different side of what we’re doing!!

Many thanks,

Rob and Midgar

Busy busy busy.

We were played on Kerrang Radio the other night, very cool indeed - we had no idea about it until someone messaged us on myspace telling us they'd heard it! So good times on that front. Festivals are looking cool too for the summer.

I've been listening to Sia a lot at the moment, I'd definitely recommend opening your ears to her. First time listeners should check out "Soon We'll Be Found", "Moon", "Breathe Me", and "Don't Bring Me Down". These are my favourites! Perhaps not the sort of music you'd expect a person like me to listen to, but I love it.

I've been writing more again recently, though things have taken a bit of a turn so the light and shade in the songs I've been writing seem to have a different feel. Basically things are going extraordinarily well! It's given me a different perspective altogether.

I think I'm growing my hair again; I quite miss it and I know it would make a certain someone quite happy.

There hasn't been a video diary for a while - this is because I lost the charger for the camera so haven't been able to film anything. Fret not, a new one has been purchased today so the silliness can resume. The moment I choose to be sensible again though. There seems to be a 2 month Andy cycle that happens - I'll choose to be sensible for a bit and give up smoking/drinking/eating wheat/being a stupid fuck and then all of a sudden I've ended up in a bush covered in pizza and cigarettes after a night of binge drinking and whatever else. I'll carry that on for a couple of months, run out of money, and then choose to be sensible again. There will come a point, unfortunately, where I have to draw a line and choose to be sensible for good. I think that time is approaching! So now on to the yoghurt and Oatibix.

x

It's been a hell of a journey up until this point, it's funny how a song coming on from iTunes can suddenly bring everything full circle. The song that began it all.

It's been ages again since I wrote on here but I'm sure you lot have come to expect that of me! Sorry chaps (and chappettes). Life does have a habit of getting busier though it is essentially this process which is keeping me sane at the moment. I'm remarkably grounded it seems. Meandering through or forging a definite path? Either way, I'm heading in the right direction. I had a bit of a funny spell at the beginning of the year and fell into a few traps. More to write about I suppose, though I may have shortened the time I actually have to write! Ho hum. The brightest stars burn out the fastest and all that. Insert cliche here.

My laptop is fixed! Wahoooo. Upgraded to Leopard, and up to 3gb memory. Nice sparkly clean hard disk and OCD ready. The net's been down at mine for the last 3 weeks or so, I've felt distinctly detached from the world while at the same time I've been out there in the capital living it. I've been playing keys and doing electronics for a band signed to Crown management, Coda booking and in the process of signing with Universal records! It's all a bit secret at the moment, but I can tell you if you attend Camden Crawl you might end up seeing us. Or Beach Break, or Bestival, or Glastonbury, or Big Chill! If you see me, come say hello.

That doesn't by any means detract from the hard work in camp Midgar - we're recording Karmic Retribution right NOW and what we have done already sounds fakking unbelievable so prepare yourself for this one. That song was written about people getting exactly what they deserve and understanding how they have made people feel. I believe this is happening currently to the person in question and it tickles me immensely to watch them squirm from a safe distance. Their pathetic, laughable attempts to emulate that which they had previously mocked only serve to perpetuate their misery. It's perfect justice that their wanton disregard for other people's feelings should leave them unable to feel anything at all. For me, life continues on the high road, and I'm having a wonderful time! *bows*

Shirts are coming to the online store soon but we're gonna do a hot steamy photoshoot before that to get the advertising going. A fortunate handful of you already have shirts on your backs which is awesome! I'm probably just stepping on Rob's literary toes here so I'll leave it at that.

Midgar is almost a year old! We'll be celebrating, and there will be tequila. Oh yes, there will be tequila! Oh and I've given up smoking, properly this time. It's been 2 and a half months now and I'm never going back!

Until next time - come chat to me on Facebook/MySpace or something!
Andy
x

Hello LJ,

It’s been a while, so expect a long post from me here! Its April now – last time I posted was January – and so much has happened since then! I’ll try to remember all of it!

First of all, hello to all our new friends on here! We’ve had an adding spree over the last few months are hope you all enjoy reading our journal! Feel free to come say hello and comment/message us! We always reply and are very social creatures!

Suppose I should do a ‘geek’ update based on Andy’s last post… After my successful and much needed upgrade to my PC, it was Andy’s turn to take the plunge. He did so with the bits listed in the last post. Putting it all together was less than a breeze though…

First of all the supplied CPU fan would not mount to the motherboard. Luckily, I had a spare new stock cooler that we fitted instead. Next the ram wouldn’t fit – this was because the computer expert on the shop who sold the parts to Andy, sold him DDR2 ram – and supplied him with a DDR3 motherboard. For those less ‘techy’ people, the simple explanation is that DDR2 memory sticks are a different slot shape to DDR3 memory sticks, and therefore wouldn’t fit in the memory slots on the motherboard.

After some annoying convo’s with the so far unnamed PC supplier, it was concluded that they don’t stock the DDR3 ram that was necessary for the supplied system, so Andy and I began a nationwide hunt for a shop that did! We found one, in Reading. Andy trundled off to the supplier in Reading to collect the ram, came home, fitted it, all seemed well…

Next, and all of a sudden, the system began turning itself off, and then wouldn’t turn on at all… After a few hours of testing, we concluded that the motherboard was now shorting on the PC case. a quick removal, insulation behind the board and refit sorted this issue. Finally, it was time to finish the job and fit the 2 crossfire graphics cards. both cards fitted, now for the crossfire bridge that links the two cards together for double performance and… surprise of the century, said unnamed computer supplier had given us 2 non-crossfire graphics cards, therefore non-linkable and useless for the intended purpose. By this stage Andy has given up hope and settled for having just one card and being done with it. The bright side being, we’ve both learned a thing or two and can now get on with using the bloody things rather than building them.

So, out of geek world…

What have MIDGAR been up to?! Well, it’s probably best we break it down into sections! Let’s start with recording…

I’ve been putting my producer hat on again lately, and thought it was about the right time for me to come out of premature retirement and see what I can do behind the desk so to speak. We wanted to get Terminate Dream Sequence tracked, and with Gem being away - and being snowed in at the house, it seemed like the perfect time to do it.

We got to work on tracking, taking our time over microphone placement and general recording etiquette. It was important for me to make sure that it sounded good. I wanted a production I could be proud of. I knew the band we’re more than capable, and my equipment was up to standard so I had no option of blaming the tools if the job was shoddy! It was down to my choices and actions. I won’t spend hours talking about the process, Andy made a video of it, which you can see below!

 

 

I’m really proud of the finished job, you can hear it on Myspace at www.myspace.com/midgaruk , or you can hear a better quality coded version on our Facebook page by typing MIDGAR into the search box on there and finding our artist page. Terminate Dream Sequence is also available on an exclusive 3 track CD available when you purchase our EP from our web shop at http://midgar.bigcartel.com

Next up we started work on some acoustic recordings, working with ‘Vincent’s Masquerade’, ‘Initiate Dream Sequence’ and ‘Flying A Kite In New Orleans’. We took a different approach with drums on this one with Oli playing some really laid back rhythm using hotrod’s and brushes instead of the usual drumsticks. Was nice to record some new arrangements of the tracks. ‘Vincent’s Masquerade and ‘Flying A Kite In New Orleans’ are both available on the previously mentioned free exclusive CD, and will be up for listening to online soon.

Next on the horizon is the recording on Karmic Retribution and Avalon (Working Title) feat. April Amos. Karmic Retribution is being recorded for an independent film called Michael’s Resignation; we’re shooting a video for it too in Canary Wharf sometime very soon. Production begins on the track tonight! To find out more about to film or to donate/become a shareholder in the movie, please visit www.michaelsresignation.com . A video teaser for the film can be seen below!

 

 

 

That’s recording talked about! Writing wise, we’ve reached a point where all but a few half-written ideas have now been made into working songs, so its time to get writing! We have a few haunting acoustic ideas on the way, and a happy song too! Will update you once there’s news on the new material!

 

MERCH!!! WE HAVE MERCH!! On the anniversary of MIDGAR’s birth, we took delivery of our first ever t-shirts! We’re super proud of them, a few photo’s of which can be seen below! They aren’t available from our online store yet, but will be shortly!

 

 

Our van is still going strong! Needs the occasional squirt of cold start, but that’ll change once we’ve changed the glow plugs! It needs a good clean and an oil change, but I’ll take care of that on the weekend – time to get my hands dirty! We still plan to paint the van black – after checking out some websites, we’ve decided we’re going to roller paint the roof by hand with enamel black metal paint – three coats, each sanded (wet and dried) between coats – then spray lacquered three coats.

I’m confident it is going to look good, far better than it’s faded pink/red it is now! Plus, doing it ourselves is cheaper and good band fun, a video of the renovation will no doubt follow at some point! :o)

Live shows! We’ve played some cracking shows since I last posted on here! First of all, The Met Lounge in Peterborough. This was an important show for me, well, and the others! All our favourite bands have passed through this venue on national tours and we felt that playing a good show at The Met was a stepping stone in becoming a real touring band. The show was great, really busy and loads of new friends made, especially Sari Maydew – Gem’s LJ friend, who took some cracking photos of us! Here’s some for you!

  

Next up was another important one for us, The Joiners, Southampton. Again, all my favourite bands have played here and the venue itself is prestigious! We headed down with mixed expectations, all was fantastic – support bands we’re ‘mostly’ friendly, sound guy was just fantastic and it was rammed full of kids who new all the words to our songs! Really drove us on to play the set of our careers so far! Some photo’s are below!

  

After Southampton was our big hometown show at the YPOD in Woking. Was a knackering day as we arranged our own PA and recording rig. Got to the venue to find the PA wasn’t working properly, so had to use the house system which meant sound checks were cut short. Luckily the other bands were very accommodating and everything from then on fell into place! Was a busy show and people went crazy! A proper video of the set will be online in a few weeks! Until then, have a look at some pictures than my gorgeous lady took!

  

So, that’s us up to date band-wise! We have shows coming up in Leicester, Staines, Exeter, Torquay and Polzeath in the next 2 months and are booking more shows all the time! Please visit our Myspace at www.myspace.com/midgaruk for up to date information on where we’re playing!

Right, I should get back to work – but first a coffee! Two spoons of instant and three sugars! I’m still a bit tired from a gorgeous night out in London last night for Gem’s birthday – Dinner at ASK, followed by the last date of Hundred Reasons UK tour at The Academy, Islington – perfect!

Signing off for now! Come say hello! :o)

Rob – on behalf of the Midgar collective

 

 

 

 

 

 

I sent an e-mail to Rob tonight and thought it might be worth sharing it, so you lot know what we're up to? It's a bit random and I wouldn't normally do this but this should give you an idea about what I'm up to for the bulk of this week. Enjoy.

"Might go and get these from Novatech in Portsmouth tomorrow morning, want to make sure they'll all work together before I do... I've been doing some learning about booting OSX  and it should be a doddle. I'll install Vista afterwards once I've got OSX working I think. Anyway here's the parts:
 
Asus P5Q3 Deluxe Wifi Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
£149.99 
 
Now I know what you're thinking - this is an ATI Crossfire X board not SLI - and here's my logic in this. These Asus P45 boards are tried and tested when it comes to running OSX from a retail disk, basically I just run a bootloader and do a disk swap half way and it goes into the OSX install (see what you think of this http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=113288). I've seen that this motherboard runs OSX 10.5.6 with little/no problems from the Wiki page. Now here's my issue - with the extra money I'm spending on getting this motherboard my budget is cut for a graphics card, and I spotted quite a nice Novatech Radeon HD 4650 1GB for about £60 (here: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-46501). Unfortunately this model has driver issues in OSX so for proper functionality I have to get any of the more expensive 48xx series. And they are EXPENSIVE. Apart from the HD 4850, seems pretty reasonable. I don't know how much of a problem this is anyway, because without drivers the card runs in vesa mode - no acceleration, dualscreen and resolution only changeable via commandline BUT that's fine as I only want to use OSX for apps not gaming? So maybe the 4650 would be fine anyway. Or any card??? Hmpph. As long as I can get a decent image on the screen using OSX and then run Vista for the hardcore graphics stuff then I don't see any problems at all. Basically, help me choose a graphics card, because I know you're well into them! Surely 1GB of graphics power from the 4650 is worth having at that price? Though it's DDR2, not DDR3 - and that may be why it's so cheap... because it's shite!
 
For the purpose of this list, I'll whack this in, the more expensive one, it looks like the one to have actually... I may have ranted for nothing (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-4850):
 
Asus ATI Radeon HD4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI HDMI PCI-Express - Retail
£114.99
 
Intel Quad Core Q8300 4 x 2.50Ghz 4Mb Cache 1333 FSB Quad Core Processor
£152.27
 
Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 16Mb Cache Hard Drive SATAII 300MB/s <8.9ms 7200rpm - OEM
£39.43
 
I assume this is fine, not a lot of brainpower required for this I don't think??
 
Then RAM and PSU, as far as I can figure out this motherboard runs DDR2 1066mhz so 4GB (2x2GB) worth of that should be all right? That leaves me two slots open later if I want to double that.
 
RAM 4GB DDR2 (2x2GB)
about £50??
 
PSU?
about £80??
 
That brings me up to about £590 and then I'm splitting OSX with my mum (then installing it on all 4 macs.. or 3 macs and hack), so all in all I'm spending £650.
 
I guess I need blue fan too? Let me know if I've done anything thick. I think this is a good set up as it leaves me options for upgrading later if I fancy with another graphics card, and more memory, while also being pretty bloody stupid when it comes to power anyway. This should hopefully provide me with a great gaming set up and also the capability of running OSX virtually mod free from the retail disk.
 
Then I need to buy the games! And we will LAN party!
 
Sorry about the fucking essay lolzoorzz.."
 

Well hello chaps and chappettes, I am frightfully sorry it's been such an extraordinarily long time since I last addressed you in this way. I hope you'll forgive me and understand it is only due to the enormous amount of other exciting things I've been doing! So let me tell you about them.

I think last time I posted it was kind of New Year time. Since then I've given up pretty much everything - smoking, drinking, eating shit food and most importantly stopped eating wheat all together. As a result, my voice is the best it's ever been and I plan on keeping it that way.... you'll just have to judge for yourself at the shows we're playing soon - we're still planning on coming to every town in this country, it's just proving really difficult to get people's attention. Promoters are difficult people... So anything any of you guys could do to help PLEASE don't hesitate.

We've been asked to do the title song for an independant film called 'Michael's Resignation' (www.michaelsresignation.co.uk), it's really exciting stuff. It's going to be a super heavy yet terrifyingly melodic track. We might even start putting it in our sets soon. Another song we're putting into our live sets from now in is 'Terminate Dream Sequence'. Seems a lot of people are loving that track, can't wait to play it. And sing it, really.

There's something that happened this week that I wasn't sure I should write about, but I will. Only briefly. On wednesday, I was in the studio at Stakeout with Fightstar - and via a rather long series of events I ended up playing drums on one of their songs. It's one of the B Sides on the Mercury Summer single, coming out on April 6th.

We played an acoustic set last night opening up a show for Deaf Havana and Proceed. Those bands are really really fucking awesome live and it was a pleasure to play with them. We've played with DH a few times but this is the first time we've met Proceed. Honestly, such good bands.

We've been invited to go and do an acoustic session for Kerrang! Radio in the upcoming months, which will be awesome. Can't wait for that... also Beach Break Live Festival is all go, so all you Sou-Westers make sure you come and party with us for 3 days! It's such a good festival and definitely worth the small price of the tickets. The vibe is really good and it's almost guaranteed good weather too. Plus, we're playing... so duh!

Spirits are way higher at the moment than they were before. Sure, some pretty nasty things have happened but it's put huge amounts of things into perspective. I'm living every day of my life like it's my last. I love all the people around me, and things are looking really really fucking amazing for the future. It's a hugely exciting time for all of us!

Tickets for the April 3rd YPod show go on sale pretty soon. Get them early, they're sure to go faster than you can say 'Bort'.

Love to you all.
Andy
x

Hello LJ!

 

And welcome to all our new friends we’ve made since the last post! :o)

 

As prompted by my lady from far away lands, there hasn’t been an update for over a month, which means I now have the pleasure of updating you on what has happened so far in 2009!

 

Where to begin… I guess logically Christmas!

 

I spent mine at home with Gem and our families before her big working adventure in Australia. Was really nice to be able to spend so much quality time together – we’d proved with our trip to Gran Canaria that we more than cope being in each others company 24/7, so Christmas was perfect to me.

 

The 29^th of Dec was the day Gem left, and I moved back into the band house to begin the groundwork for this year. It was a nervous and horrible few hours at the airport and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so dizzy and sick as letting her go at the departures area, but its such a great opportunity for her, I never would have asked her not to go.

 

After the emotional goodbye, I returned to Woking and settled back in with my second family! We pondered over NYE and what we could do, there were a few events on here and there but I think we both needed something different this New Years…

 

We decided ON THE DAY that a trip to our nation’s capital was necessary – and with some old friends of mine it was guaranteed to be a great night of partying in London. We travelled over to Godalming party house (Sian, Tobie and Chop’s place). Us lads went into Godalming to buy some late afternoon drinks – namely champagne and beer. The old weathered checkout lady began to tell us stories about how she likes to get little boys drunk… we collectively said something along the lines of “err, you’re scaring us now” and left.

 

After a few drinks at their house, we got the train to London and headed straight for Covent Garden. Drinks were had in Punch and Judy – a jovial establishment, perfect for beginning the celebrations. We watched the street performers from the balcony until our fingers froze in the cold. Next up we hit Walkabout in Covent Garden. We had to pay to get in here but it was only a fiver. After a few drinks it was decided that the party was going nowhere so we left and headed for Leicester Square. We found the massive Walkabout club on Tottenham Court Road and tried to blag our hand stamps in for free. Unfortunately, the idiot doorman at the other venue had his stamp set to 31/12/2007… so we all had stamps a year out of date. Out come the wallets and tenner to get in here…

 

It was a little quiet to begin with but the place soon warmed up! First drink Tobie got was knocked over in my lap, and his need to laugh at that was met with a whole drink of mine poured in his lap! It was going to be a fairly lively party! Andy and I matched each other for a while on the cocktails until midnight, but after midnight it was clear that he was on a mission that I couldn’t keep up with. The night was really good fun, I ended up dosing at Waterloo station for a couple of hours in the freezing cold with Mitch and Tobie, waiting for our first train back. Somehow Tobie mustered the stamina to buy a half bottle of vodka and clear that on the train home… A mess, he was, oh yes.

 

So with New Year out the way, it was time to focus on band activities! Unfortunately, the first week back at work I was taken very ill with every symptom you can imagine. I was off work for 4 days and pretty much bed ridden. I managed to muster the energy on the last sick day to drive into Guildford to pick up our fantastic new drum kit that Yamaha had sent us. It is a gorgeous oak custom kit in trans-black finish – you will be seeing this kit on tour and its breathtaking. Andy also decided that it was time for a new guitar, so cracking out the new years’ cash; he purchased a stunning trans-white Telecaster.

 

We played a private 18^th party in Egham on Sat 3^rd of Jan. It was a challenge getting the sound right on a small PA in a large boxy room, but I think we pulled it off and played a suitably epic set. I got our new tour van stuck down a VERY tight path and with Andy’s help, managed to turn it around in a tight private drive having only broken an overhead branch and brushing a picket fence! WIN!

 

Next show for us this month was a trip to Tunbridge Wells on the 10^th of Jan to play a headline show at the Forum. We we’re very lucky to be supported by our friends The Chase and Without Thought. Although the venue was below freezing inside (no exaggeration), a great night was had and we made lots of new friends in Tunbridge Wells – which should make our current touring plans easier there!

 

Our friend April Amos came to stay for a few days at this time too. She is a FANTASTIC singer songwriter from Worthing and came for a short getaway/writing trip to the rich lands of Woking. We’re working on a song with her that we want to try and get on a big film soundtrack in 2009 – lips sealed on that though, don’t want to jinx it! On the Friday night we all paid a visit to Schism rock night in Woking – was surprisingly good for a local club night, and through some drunken rambling on my part, may have secured us a live slot there in future! Andy also met a super local photographer who has worked with bands like Paramore. We hope to be working with her soon.

 

Next show on the agenda was the legendary Exeter Cavern is support of OTS on the 19^th of Jan. We turned up for sound check and were told to be quiet at a local drama group were practicing a performance in the bar… umm, what?! So in true Midgar style, we took the piss for a while until they left and then got on with the job we’d driven 200 miles to do. The show was really great, fun was had by all and we cemented our fan base in Exeter. I got to meet up with a good friend Pascal who I hadn’t seen for years. All in all a great night - we went to the after show party we were invited to, but felt suitably uninvited on arrival – and with nowhere to stay, I took the ominous decision to take our sorry arses all the way home. 6.30am we arrived back, good thing I had the next day booked off to recover!

 

That’s it up until now, lots of other behind the scenes stuff going on that we can’t talk about too much but we’re planning a MASSIVE hometown show for the beginning of summer with two huge bands on the bill – Woking has never seen a show like it and we’ll be pulling out the stops to make it a complete winner! We’re alson looking at a very possible late summer tour with a MASSIVE touring band that we can’t mention yet – this would be an extensive UK tour and you’ll be the first to hear about it!

 

We’re also planning a smallish UK tour for March/April. Towns on the hit list are;

 

Tunbridge Wells

Southend

Colchester

Leeds

Birmingham

Peterborough

Reading

Plymouth

Exeter

Southampton – Confirmed – The Joiners, 1^st April 2009

Portsmouth

Brighton

Woking – Confirmed – Headline Show - YPOD, 3^rd April 2009

 

Let us know if you think it’d be viable for us to visit your town and we’ll do the necessary research! :o)

 

Recording is underway for EP2, drums are tracked and we are now arranging tracking of everything else. We’ll also be releasing a Live album soon, and beginning to record out acoustic EP before February too. This time of year is always quiet on the gigging front, so we’re putting a lot of time into writing, recording and converting our van for touring.

 

We have some great plans for a promo video too, currently in the storyboard phase but we’re going to be speaking to our video production friends about the concept very soon.

 

Think I’ve covered everything! Thanks to all of you for your continued support! :o)

 

Please keep visiting and telling all of your friends about the following sites! Without you, we’d be very sad indeed! :o)

 

www.midgarmusic.com

www.myspace.com/midgaruk

www.youtube.com/midgaruk

http://midgar.bigcartel.com

 

You can also find us on Facebook by typing MIDGAR into the search bar!

 

Right, time for Frosties!

 

Love you all!

 

Rob - Midgar

Having posted about "Terminate Dream Sequence" in my last blog, it seems a little strange that I'm listening to it now... I put together a demo acoustic version this evening of the first 3 mins or so (before it gets all heavy). I can safely say it's my best vocal arrangement to date. Listening to it, I can't quite believe that I've actually written it!

My grandma's really sick. It's been a really hard, miserable, lonely Christmas I've spent either entirely on my own or waiting for ambulances to arrive. Probably sufficient explanation for the sudden burst of creativity. It's been a year filled with surprises, good times and wonderful memories - but I wish 2008 would just fuck off completely so I can enter the new chapter entitled 2009. Honestly I'm fed up and don't know what the fuck to do with myself... My grandma's in good hands at the hospital now which means I can actually go out and do something but with nobody around I actually don't have anywhere to go. Seems everyone's fucked off! And I look terrible. Perhaps it's the stress, or the lack of sleep, or both. I look like a fucking useless, pale, sack of boring shit.

Hello?

"Find yourself a victim to an evil
Justify the means to reach the end
Throw yourself to crowds of all the people
Waiting there to catch you when you fall

Temptation aside
Honesty and pride
Virtuous in life
Angels, help me fly

Take me out to open water
Far beneath these cries
In this moment I am weightless
Falling through the skies
It's a vision like no other
Put before my eyes
Take good care of all my loved ones,
This is my goodbye.

Wake me up
Wake me up
Wake me up
Wake me up......"

Heylo LJ,

 

I haven’t posted for a while so being a Monday morning with new week enthusiasm, I thought I’d run an update on me and band stuff!

 

Last week was fairly good – apart from me finally cooking my trusty PC on the Monday. That computer has seen me through all sorts, and recorded all sorts. I was fairly down about the prospect of not having a decent PC but radical decisions toward the end of the week fixed that – more on that later! :o)

 

There were a fair few meetings to sort out my property situation last week. Things have turned fairly nasty which is unfortunate, I had hoped that the whole thing would be resolved amicably but it appears that this isn’t going to be possible. The meeting were productive and I hope that we can now move forward and bring an end to the bitterness – it’s not good for anyone, especially at Christmas.

 

Andy and I decided fairly last minute to play Chancellors Bar on Thursday night. We had more or less decided to do it, but on the Thursday afternoon, I tore my old PC to pieces and fitted all the good bits to Andy’s PC. He is now the proud owner of a super power video editing PC and got straight to work chopping and compiling all the footage that we’ve accumulated over the last couple of months! Some editing got done, and then we decided Chancellors was a good idea, so off we trundled.

 

We played ‘Flying A Kite In New Orleans’, ‘Initiate Dream Sequence’ and ‘Vincent’s Masquerade. I felt on top from and Andy was spot on too. Its nice when we feed off of each other like that, we tend to spur each other on! We sold a few CD’s afterwards, so all was good!

 

The only unfortunate thing about the evening was a certain old friends’ decision to take sides in the whole me and my ex situation. I don’t mind someone taking sides; I’m more than happy to turn my back on those who make assumptions on the rights and wrongs of a situation, without knowing the full story. I have enough genuine friends that I don’t have to bother with the fake ones anymore.

 

It just seems a little odd that said person made such an effort over the last couple of months to personally ‘let me know’ that they staying in partial and considered us both friends and didn’t want me to think that they’d take sides, only to then gossip and bitch about me to my good friends right in front of me, creating a bit of an embarrassing situation for themselves really.

 

I’m not really sure what the aim of said behaviour was, but it served to make me much clearer on the situation and the childish tactics being employed by the parties involved. At least I’m getting a clear picture now on who my real friends are, and who is worth my time. I’d prefer to know the truth rather than a smile to my face and a knife in my back – I guess I’m ‘supposed’ to feel hurt that these individuals dislike me… If I could be arsed to post a picture, you’d see my ‘bothered’ face! :o)

So, on to my geek paragraph! I decided that for all the band based work, it was imperative that my PC was fixed. We have a lot of demo’ing to do, and I want to brush up on my production skills – it has been a while! I opted for the following components:

 

-Socket 775 motherboard, with triple SLI graphics card capability

-Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 – Quad core processor

-4gb of high speed Corsair ram

 

I put the beast together on Friday evening and just about had it finished as Gem arrived for the evening at 8pm. I’m yet to set it up fully, but it is lightening fast and should more than cope with what I have planned for it over the next year. It was important that it could also handle the latest games as when Gem is away, I’m going to need to take my mind off it all with some frantic GTA IV action!

 

Saturday morning, I went Christmas shopping! We got all of it done in record time and fitted in a gorgeous Costa coffee on the rounds too.

 

I spent the rest of the weekend doing mostly horse based stuff with Gem. I am enjoying all this time with her before she goes, I’m hoping it doesn’t have the negative effect and make it harder when she does leave – oh well, its going to be tough anyway, but it isn’t for long. I’ve just got to push band things constantly while she’s away. I want her to have something positive to come back to. :o)

 

XFM uploaded is going very well for us! I started a profile for us on there last week and we made it to the Top 3 most listened to bands within 3 days! Shows how good online promotion can be! As of this morning we hit the number 1 spot! You can all help us along by visiting www.xfmuploaded.co.uk/midgar and listening to our songs, and rating our page on the left! I wanted us to be played on there by Christmas – a tall order, but we might just get there!

 

As mentioned earlier, Andy has been hot on the video production trail. The first of the new fruits of his labour can be seen at www.youtube.com/midgaruk - it features footage from our Underworld show in Camden!

 

We have two gigs left for this year, One being our Christmas show at The Purple Turtle in Camden on Thursday 18^th of Dec and the other being a smaller acoustic show the day after on Friday the 19^th Dec at The Crown And Cushion in Haslemere.  

 

Apart from that Andy and I are writing furiously, and the band it preparing to record EP2…

 

I fear that perhaps my system has run out of energy, and my measure for the deficit can be laid out in front of me and others who choose to keep my company.

Last night was ridiculous. I knew it would be, from the moment Woking was mentioned... The whole thing is just so stupidly predictable that I had to get arse faced to bring back the element of surprise! I've scrambled my brains. All the letters are coming out in the wrong order. I've broken something... the seal perhaps? It may be my time to lose it all, again.

I can't fucking wait.

We're on GU2 Radio tonight, for anyone interested in a listen you can check it out online at www.gu2.co.uk. We're on from 7-9pm, it's all live, so if you have any requests/questions/propositions then e-mail or msn studio@gu2.co.uk! The EP's gonna be played, and we're gonna play a BRAND new track acoustically live in the studio.

Have a nice evening ahead of me, I'm just about to get Rob and then we'll run the track a few times.... before heading off to the studio! Laura and Rosie are coming along today I think, which will be very pleasant indeed. I do love those two. But then, who doesn't? Then after we're all done at the radio studio we're gonna get on with our evening, which will probably involve drinks/food/films or something along those lines.

I was doing some more writing on 'Terminate Dream Sequence' last night, at about 3/4am ish.... it's sounding lush. This one's been in the making for some months now so when it finally takes shape it should be something very special. I'm really excited about it. It's funny, the new EP is almost completely written and 'Of The Ancients' only came out this week! Gives us plenty of time to change things about though, make sure we have the best song arrangements etc. Also, we can start mixing up our live sets soon too.

I found an old love letter I wrote a few years ago, something I'd completely forgotten about. It was so weird, to see this stream of consciousness I'd completely forgotten had actually come from MY brain. I don't even know exactly when I wrote it, or why. It was odd, more of an apology... from what I gather we'd broken up and it'd been that way for some time, then I went and made a prize arse of myself and acted like a fool. Here's some of it anyway, I'm not sure why I'm putting it up - I guess that's what blogs are about.

"this whole thing today is pretty stupid. i didn't handle my words well and i really think you got the wrong idea about a lot of things i was saying. i was upset, i didn't really know how to express myself and i just kinda ranted. so for that, i'm truly sorry. you didn't deserve that at all.

i guess i should try to explain why i was pretty upset in the first place. i'm aware that it's easy to forget things, or just not think about it. where i'm coming from is that, i guess if you were doing anything like that i'd be asking you when it was, and i'd try to send my best to you no matter what. it just really means so much to me what you think about me, and to know that... maybe you do think of me sometimes and want to know how i'm doing. to me, what happened today just said to me that you don't care. i know that's not how you meant it, but i guess it comes across that way.

now i know you're probably thinking, "why didn't he come on my birthday? what a shit.." and fair enough, i can see how it would upset you that i wasn't there, and as i've said to you before i really am.. so sorry i couldn't be. it wasn't meant with any bad feelings at all, it was just waaayy too much for me to handle so soon. maybe you won't understand that, and that's fine. all i can say is that i'm so sorry it upset you, and i feel terrible for letting you down. you know i wouldn't choose to do that if i felt i could do anything else.

i just hated how things were tonight. it's made me think about my feelings a lot and why we're acting the way we are. i say we... really loosely because i can't possibly know what's going on in your head. but.. some of it makes more sense to me now i've thought about it.

i'll try to explain how i'm feeling, and why i'm acting like i am. i'm really trying to come to terms with what's going on in my heart - i know i still love you and i clearly will, probably for the rest of my life. and i have to live with that, knowing we're not going to be together anymore. i've never felt this kind of finality about anything before, it just feels so dead. i think i'm just desperately holding on to the amazing memories i have with you and i know i can move on when i can think of them as memories alone. i mean it's still really raw for me at the moment and i don't know how i'm going to live without you. i shouldn't be saying these things to you, because it'll just make you feel guilty. i know you don't feel the same for me anymore and that's another thing i have to deal with. i'll be okay, with time.

it's just so desperate, so lonely. i know i'm acting pretty irrationally most of the time at the moment and i'm just blurting stuff out for no reason. i can't control it, i'm at a real loose end at the moment, and the saddest thing is i have nobody else to turn to except you, really. nobody else understands at all. it all happened at the worst time, like taking my dad to court, finishing acm for holidays and FUCKING christmas... the nights just go on and on and i wish i could sleep."

Crazy huh?! To think, I don't even know when that was... is absolutely insane! These is more, but it's probably a bit too much for LiveJournal...

Anyway, I'm off to get Rob - more tomorrow :)