Orpheum @ The Fiddler's Elbow (Voices Of Vixens)

Today was the day that Orpheum put on the Voices Of Vixens event at The Fiddler's Elbow in Camden. This was the first gig that we had even put on ourselves but the venue were good and there were no hitches in getting everything prepared and we actually had a decent soundcheck for a change which was a real novelty. Sadly Toni didn't make it due to being unwell :o(

The entrance with our poster on the door, at least the venue actually put some up unlike some we've played at!

ORPHEUM

The set went well and was well received by the crowd. New song Way Through went almost without a hitch and I think I nailed my backing vocals even though I couldn't hear myself through the monitors. For me this was definitely the best Orpheum gig so far. (big thanks to Mars' brother Andy for taking these pics)

CONTROL THE STORM
Although we hadn't realised it when we booked them this was Control The Storm's first gig in London so we were quite please to have given them the opportunity to play. They delivered a good hard set of what they call Post Apocalyptic Power Metal. They had a good sound with clear influences from Nightwish and After Forever but with plenty of original idea to make it sound fresh and new.

THE MARIANA HOLLOW
This band were my wow factor of the night.
Although all the bands playing had a lot in common The Mariana Hollow stood out for me as they had a very unique sound which I really enjoyed.

TRAINING ICARUS
Orpheum and Training Icarus are no strangers as we've played together before, one of the reasons we asked them to play at this gig with us. Once again they delivered a strong hard set

It was a fantastic night. Four great bands, a good sized crowd and because we put the night on ourselves all the bands actually made some money from the door takings. A resounding success with nothing but positive feedback has left us wanting to not only work with all these bands again but also to put on another Voices Of Vixens event in the future!

I should also give an honourable mention to Jasmine and Paul who I was talking to all night who were a great laugh, gave good feedback on Orpheum's performance as well as some constructive criticism and also kept me flowing with Jack Daniels, great to meet you both!

CSI Sidcup: I guess that makes it official then

Following on from the fun and games last night this leaflet was just dropped through our letterbox!
I guess that makes it official and it WAS a gun we heard and not a firework!

.. and this used to be such a nice neighbourhood!

Blog Supplemental: CSI Sidcup !!!

We were just about to go to bed when we looked out of the bedroom window and saw that the end of the road had been cordoned off and there was a police car with flashing lights and couple of officers lurking about. There didn't seem to be much activity so intrigue and speculation started to run wild. We had heard a loud bang earlier in the evening which we had put down as a firework as there was no other noise or activity afterwards.

We saw the local Indian restaurant waiters all get turned back as they left to go home which further fuelled the feeling that something was definitely amiss. Saying that we could see people walking past at the other side of the cordon and traffic was flowing freely so it appeared to be localised whatever it was.

After about 20 minutes we notice a policewoman come through the cordon and then go and knock on a few doors on the opposite side of the road. She then crossed over and headed back on our side. Seeing us in the window she signalled that she was coming to our house. She asked if we had heard anything tonight and we mentioned the loud bang. Turns out that they didn't think that it was a firework, they suspected a gunshot and were awaiting the forensic team to appear.

The end of our road has been cordoned off as it is now a forensic "potential" crime scene! Quite cool. Bizarrely though it was fascinating and yet boring as nothing was happening at all. A bit later on there was more flashing as someone appeared who was taking photographs of the area. More activity started to happen as they took photographs and a group of people were grouped together within the cordon but on our side of the road so we couldn't see clearly what was going on.

I guess the sobering thing is that IF this was a gunshot that they were investigating it was only 3 doors up the road where it happened and we were walking up that part of road about 60 minutes before it happened.

Wonder if we'll hear any more on exactly what happened?

Meredith the besom, goodbye Orange, National Geographic documentaries

This is Meredith the besom. There is a story behind this but you aren't going to hear it yet, sorry! She will be displayed on our living room wall this weekend :o)

Today was a good day as I got to bid farewell to Orange (well hopefully anyway)! I rang to confirm that my account with them will be cancelled if I used my PAC code today. I rushed round to the nearest O2 shop, bought a PAYG SIM card and called up O2 customer services and asked them to apply my PAC code to get the number transferred from Orange so that my account terminates! It's been a real struggle to do something very simple and various people at Orange just seemed unable to tell the truth throughout my last few calls with them. Thankfully the guy today was polite and helpful and answered all my questions and filled me in on a few facts which highlighted how shockingly bad past calls had been and how I had been supplied with false information. It's very sad that a company can be like that but thankfully my days with them are done. I shall be double checking tomorrow that all has gone to plan!

I've recently watched a couple of National Geographic documentaries that were part of their Taboo series. One was on Witchcraft and the other on Voodoo. I have to say I was VERY disappointed! National Geographic might have fantastic publications but these two TV pieces were not great. They seem to have not done a lot of research but instead relied on a cliched desire to shock and resort to sensationalism. Both shows could have been made so much better and given a well researched and balanced view but sadly they both came up woefully short which was a real shame. Time to try and dig up the old Arthur C Clarke TV shows instead as they were really good!

Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top tracks:


Overall top artists:

Orpheum rehearsal preparing for Voices Of Vixens

Tonight was the final Orpheum rehearsal before the Voices Of Vixens gig on Friday at The Fiddler's Elbow in Camden. All went well and the new song is finally polished off and ready for it's debut. Epic is probably he best way to describe the song and I am very much looking forward to playing it.

If you haven't worked it out yet, there is an Orpheum gig on Friday 30th November at The Fiddler's Elbow in Camden. Four bands on, Orpheum, Control The Storm, The Mariana Hollow and Training Icarus all for the very reasonable entry fee of £5

The venue is here:
The Fiddler's Elbow
1 Malden Road
London
NW5 3HS

Nearest Tube is Chalk Farm

...and a Google Maps link

Wedding photographs and a new look blog

Today was a day for getting up early and a quick tidy up as we had Ernie Savarese, our wedding photographer, coming round to show us all the photos. It was SO worth the wait. He created a marvellous slide show with two of the songs we had played for our dances:
1) The Last Steampunk Waltz by Ghostfire
2) Origin Of Love by Stephen Trask (from Hedwig & The Angry Inch)

You can view this wonderful creation here:



Here's a couple of choice pics from the collection that he gave us.

Ernie did a fantastic job in capturing our special day and there is no doubt in our mind that he was the perfect choice for us.

If you want to see more of this great collection of photographs then please visit Ernie Savarese's website here: www.savarese.co.uk/keith-toni-wedding-handfasting/


Having decided that this was going to be a joint blog Toni and I decided on a new look for the blog template. Pink was never going to work for Toni and as I am past the girl rebellion stage we opted on a softer look. We hope you like it.

Change of plans, Lurgeys and Pizza Badness!

Today was a day of changed plans. We had planned on trekking into the wilds of Kent to go see some sacred stones and have some chill time before heading back to reality. Very wet weather and an increasing case of the lurgeys for KT soon put paid to that idea.

We started the morning with some photos from our bedroom window (of course - who doesn't?) followed by some hasty dressing as we realised it wasn't quite as early as we'd thought, then heading down the stairs to the restaurant for a full English breakfast before checking out of our lovely room and saying goodbye to the peace and serenity of Rowhill Grange.

KT had woken with a slight temperature, which seemed to increase throughout the morning. Nothing to do with the wine and the champagne, honest guv!! We decided to delay our plans for pottering around old stones with the promise to ourselves that we will do that next weekend and drove off home to dose him up with paracetamol and lounge on the sofa for a bit.

Aaron had spent the night at his girlfriend's house and Sam eventually joined us an hour and a half after we got home, having only just realised we were back. The day was spent watching Merlin and Never Mind the Buzzcocks and the evening stealthily caught up with us before we realised. The decision was taken not to cook as we'd taken nothing out of the freezer and none of us could be bothered anyway. With the inspiration of a 2 for 1 Pizza Hut voucher, the three of us headed into Eltham to sample some more gluten-free badness, before heading home, watching the rest of series 2 of Dead Like Me and planning on what tidying up to do tomorrow.

Aaron came back later in the evening complaining of lurgeys, dosed himself up and went to bed. Typical teenager. He really is turning into the lodger. We don't see a whole lot of him these days! (Aaron who? - ed)

A far more relaxed day than originally planned but enjoyable nonetheless.

Our "Honeynight"!

Today was a Work From Home day for both of us. Busy, busy, busy... lots of things planned. Tonight we were off to Rowhill Grange Hotel & Utopia Spa for a relaxing overnight getaway; a rather wonderful wedding present from Bob, Toni's Step-dad.

The plan was to start and finish work early, head off to the hotel at about 4, grab some dinner then race off to Blackheath Concert Halls to see our friend Ed and his band play at Tedd-Fest, before coming back to relax at the hotel for the night.

We arrived at Rowhill Grange just as it was starting to get dark. The hotel is set quite far back off the main road amongst beautiful gardens and some quite striking trees. We couldn't resist taking some pictures of the moon through the branches of a large spruce.

On arrival at reception the concierge asked if we were the musicians for that evening's charity event. Do we look like musicians? Oh, apparently we do. Easy mistake then! After assuring him we weren't, we checked in to find that Bob had not only paid for a night in the luxury suite but he had also paid for a meal for two, which he had booked for 8pm.

Sadly, the best laid plans and all that, the booking time for the meal meant that we weren't able to make it back to Blackheath in time for the gig but we will definitely go to his next one.

Our suite was on the second floor, up some winding stairs and en route, the concierge gave us a little history. The original building was built as a Summer House for Alice Alexander for her 18th birthday in 1868 and the rooms we were staying in were her original living quarters. He did assure us it had been redecorated since then though.

When we arrived at the room we found an ice bucket with champagne and a beautiful bunch of flowers from Bob. The room itself was lovely; all the mod-cons, comfy chairs and a TV. Now that our plans had changed and driving was no longer required, we elected to open the champagne, kick off our shoes and relax until dinner. The TV in the room appeared to only have one channel working, which just happened to be one of the Sky Sports channels and it just happened to be showing a repeat of Monday Night's RAW, which we hadn't watched. Oh what a shame. Comfy seats, champagne and a couple of hours watching wrestling and chatting. Bliss!

Just before 8, we pulled our shoes back on and headed down to the dining room for an incredible meal.

They even had gluten-free bread! We cracked open a bottle of Pinot Grigio Blush (a very nice rosé) had a starter of wood pigeon and fig, followed by quite possibly the biggest and most filling steak either of us has ever eaten. A 12oz Sirloin, which given that we both like it very rare, was still 12oz when it arrived along with a stack of chips and a tomato stuffed with mushroom purée.

Two hours later, full of very good food, wine and champagne, we hauled ourselves up the few flights of stairs to our suite on the second floor, removed our shoes and plonked ourselves on the extremely comfy bed to relax while our food went down. Before we knew it, it was morning and time to get up! It really was a relaxing getaway.

All change please!

Slight change to the blog going on at the moment. As it pretty much covers what both Toni and I do I have decided to add her as an author. If an entry is relevant to either Toni or myself then it will be prefaced with Toni: or KT: in the subject so it is clear that it isn't a joint post. We'll probably forget to do this at the start but that's the plan anyway LOL

I assume that this won't be an issue for any of you but if it is I would just like to say thank you for reading over the years.

Lurgs, WFH, PC trouble and Facebook purge

We have a house full of lurgs at the moment. Sam has been really ill all week, Toni has come down with something and I've got a variant of it as well. We had been hoping that it was a quick one but it seems not :o(

I ended up working from home which made things a bit easier as I really wasn't up for trying to travel in to the office.

My day took a turn for the worse when we PC started freezing up again. I did have this trouble once before but it seemed to resolve itself. Not this time though. I started off with a replacement graphics card which made no difference. Fortunately I had bought a new power supply when the problem happened before which I didn't up using so the next step was to rip out the old one and install the new. Thankfully that did the trick and I was up and running once again!

After resurrecting the PC it was time to have a purge on Facebook and start removing lots of people that I have as friends that I never communicate with and also drop a load of the pages that I like but don't visit (or even care about). It's a long slow process but I did have a good first run. Still lots more to go though!

Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top tracks:


Overall top artists: