I hope it does'nt rain this weekend though, becuase I'm off to SHAMBALA FESTIVAL and tents are one thing, tents and wellies are another thing, tents, wellies and mud can fuck right off. Tents, wellies, mud, and drunk/drugged up hedonstic kids can...anyway I'm looking foreward to it, belive it or not. It's my second year and I'll be performng on Friday and Sunday night with the NATURAL BORN STORY TELLERS. I like these lot, it's a whole different circle to the normal spoken word type gigs that I do, it's just stright real life stories, some of the guys on their rosta are brilliant. Check this video of Martha McBrier, met her last year, she's wicked.
Yesterday, I was back down at my parents house sorting through some old stuff, making excuses to keep things that I probabaly have no use for, when I got a tweet through from Sabotage Reviews with a link to their review of the 90 Sick E.P launch back at Roundhouse in May. I was pretty chuffed with it, big up Lettie McKie. Have a look HERE. They gave me 4 stars, which I'm chuffed about, even though I don't really understand the whole stars system.
'Paul has written an articulate series of personal stories that are very
easy to relate to. The poems are nostalgic, laughing at but also
relishing the silliness of being young, showing great affection for the
characters who are struggling against inexperience and a tide of
insecurities'
Back at the end of July I lead a week long series of workshops as part of the UNICORN THEATRE'S URBAN ARTS WEEK - looking at spoken word and rap (with a bit of singing and beatboxing). I was blessed to have a great group, really talented and indiviudally all really interesting, and as a whole, sick. As with all the other courses in that week, they all came togethor on the Friday and performed in a showcase. I've said this many times before, and I mean it, I actually prefer watching these youth showcases, more often than not, I think they're better, more engagaing and enjoyable to watch than their professional adult equivialnts. Here's a video of Darcy, Cee Cee and Jamal perfomring SOUTH SIDE, which they wrote themselvs during one of the sessions. (and which stayed in my head for days after!)
In other news, had a bit of time over the last few weeks to take stock of things, hence all of the old peoms I've been putting up. These last 2 / 3 years I've certianly learnt a lot and I'm hopefully going to be putting some of that into practise. Think I know where I want to go over the next few months, writing wise, don't want to say too much now but I'm pretty excited..
Have a banging last few weeks of summer.
