Happy New Year, the Big Freeze and Men in Skirts…
9th January 2010
Happy New Year, the Big Freeze and Men in Skirts…
Well Happy New Year to all, wishing everyone a fantastic 2010. We have managed to cram a lot into the final gasps of 2009 and kick off 2010 with a bang.
For those of you not in the UK you may not be aware of the dawn of the ice age so let me be the first to warn you…there is an ice age apparently localised to the UK which is nice for those of you not here. To make sure that we are not merely scaremongering and jumping on the seemingly endless coverage through traditional media routes we felt it was our duty as purveyors of weather (as both my and Damian’s last blogs will attest to) we should travel the length of the country to see this phenomenon for ourselves. This expedition was not taken lightly at Headspace HQ and our fearless drummer Richard Brook thought he should mark the occasion by getting married at the Northern most point of the journey to his lovely lady Jo. We commended the proposal and set off from London early on the 1st day of the year. Yes to be clear that is the day after New Year’s Eve.
To change tack for a moment I thought best to mention my previous travel endeavours over the last few weeks had taken me from driving a 15 passenger van through a snowstorm in Oregon and Washington to catastrophic Euro-star failures (culminating in a 6 hour wait frozen with all the doors open at King’s Cross station) hoping to travel to Paris for Xmas. I thought “3 times a lady” and wanted to make it all right by proving that surely things weren’t that bad on the roads in Britain…
Now back to our meteorological mission Northward, 1st stop on the way was to pick up none other than Mr Damian Wilson, then on further North to the land of the Wakeman’s . With my trusty Mondeo Maude now holding 60% of Headspace we suddenly realised that when we reach the summit of Edinburgh we would meet up with the remaining 2 members and do something that has not been done since Christmas 2007…All be in the same room together at the same time.
Now mother nature was kind enough on the outbound section of our journey, just a little snow on our way into Scotland. At which point Mr and the now Mrs Brook (Hurrah!) felt it the best time to jump into the North Sea. Sounds silly, because well, it is, but true none the less. Around 9 hours after I set off that morning we arrived in the frost bitten Edinburgh, I’m sure Rich’s 2nd and 3rd Adams apple had not yet retreated further south to more familiar territory, but under the serenity of chainsaw sleep breathing and the opulence of room share we settled into our accommodation for the night. Well until I had enough of the snoring and got another room (thanks kindly to the understanding staff at the hotel).
We awoke the next morning to heavy snow and the inimitable Lee “Pimmy” Pomeroy who took us out for a lovely breakfast where a young local lass cooked us eggs which we found out were the first she ever made, amazing. We thought at this stage best to secure a gift for Rich and his lovely bride and head off to the Caledonian. Only to get a lovely glimpse of Rich and his pride (or shame) in a kilt, not the drummers first choice of attire but it was his big day so we let it slide, actually I say let it slide but we did just tease him about it all night.
Let me offer a huge congratulations to Mr and Mrs Brook. Jo looked amazing and even Rich scrubbed up nicely (if you like that sort of thing). Have a great time in Hong Kong, look forward to seeing you when you get back.
Now at this stage of the journey drinking had ensued and I feel it best to point you in the direction of our youtube channel to see the celebrations in first person
http://www.youtube.com/headspacetheband
Director extraordinaire Adam Wakeman on the trusty iphone cam there, lovely stuff.
To cut a long story long, we had a brilliant night even managed to butcher some cover tunes all playing together for the first time in ages. A suspension-less cab ride back to the hotel and it was up nice and early to brave the ice drive through Scotland back to the balmy arctic temperatures of England. 12 hours later I arrived home after managing to drive through just about every dangerous driving condition known to man other than a plague of locusts or fire. One particularly hairy moment involved a brilliant sow motion slide of about 50 yards only to pull up 1 foot shy of another car.
Much was learned on this trip…
1) Rich and Jo are now married
2) Maude the Ford Mondeo kicks arse
3) West Morland Tebay services on the M6 is the best of Britain.
4) Adam loves his Iphone
5) Headspace have nearly completed writing their debut concept album.
6) Its very cold in the UK at the moment
7) Watch out for Adam’s feature in the new Metal Cookbook this year…seriously.
Never sit opposite another man who is wearing a kilt…I am still having nightmares.
We are very much looking forward to releasing our album this year, although its been tough for us to get together all at the same time we have really been busy getting this together and are very proud of how it is sounding. I am just finishing some guitar parts on the final track and then we can sort arrangements and begin tracking in the next week or so. Look forward to some more music related video (or not) in the coming weeks.
Happy New Year