K. asked (about Pipas playing in the Netherlands):

“so.. what skills does one need to organise something like that?”

And I find answering this rather irresistible. Perhaps it is because it brings the excitement of that first gig back. (Or perhaps it is because being able to answer this makes me feel pleased with myself.) Whatever it is, I warn you: don’t take me too seriously. What worked in Athens might not work anywhere else.

The disclaimer out of the way, we can now get on to the interesting stuff! Let’s see.

To start with, one needs:

a) enough craziness

b) a band one really, really, really likes, and

c) someone who shares these qualities

That last one might be a little hard to come by in some places, and even though it is particularly helpful, you shouldn’t worry too much if you don’t have one. You can start out without it; you’ll probably acquire one along the way. Just like with most plans once you jump into it it will take a life of its own and lead you where it wants to go.

The next stage is a little more complicate. You need to make a plan that looks like it could work. For this, you need:

d) a venue

e) a band willing to play (preferably the one from above)

f) a budget

This is the slightly tricky part. You don’t want to lose a lot of money on this. If you do it is all very easy: book the most original venue (my choice: the rooftop of the neighbour upstairs) and a flight for the band, find them a place to stay, give them some nice food, get them a little drunk, and throw a party. If, however, you don’t, you need an amount of money that will cover all the above needs and which you can at least partially make back from the gig. Correctly calculating and balancing those two sums (the one that will cover your needs, and the one that you can make back) is the key to success. And that is, pretty much, it.

You also need to find said sum of course, organise everything, attract people, and pray not too much goes wrong on the last minute, but all these come later.

And to make it a little more concrete for you: we started out with two boys, one girl and the amazing amount of three hundred euros which we split between us. In the worst of cases we would lose a hundred each. Big deal: going to London to see the same gig would cost us a lot more, and this way we got to play our favourite songs to someone other than us as well. It was perfect. We got a cheap easyjet flight from London to Athens for Mark & Lupe and an extra duvet so they could sleep on my sofa bed, and that was it. We had made a deal with a (rather rundown and unpopulal) club whose owner somehow liked us: they’d pay for the (meagre) advertising and for the equipment that had to be rented, issue the tickets, and give us 50% of what they made of those (after tax). I think we needed 60 paying customers to break even.

We got 67. And an extra Sprinkled Pepper boy.

It must be last nights post because now I am missing everything. Chris quoting Lucksmiths song at random moments (he can’t help it); driving home from the club very late at night, Nick explaining at the traffic light that “it’s not that I’ve had too much to drink; it’s that the driver in front hasn’t had any” (it was less dangerous than it sounds, really); Georgie staying over for the night, us listening to Jens sing “we’ll never be as beautiful as the parakeets in Instanbul” and swooning.

Or perhaps I’m not and I should just get a life, eh? That would be nice too. I wish I felt like doing more. There’s so much I would do.

I’ve hardly been missing Athens. No, really: I’m too caught up in day-to-day living to look back. Until tonight, that is.

It could be that I was listening to the new Hit Parade* record earlier on and there was a song that, at first listen at least, sounded like it could be clubnight material, which reminded me of Nick playing “Are you scared to get happy?” at our very first gig — and the wild excitement that came with that moment. Or it could be the email I got from Spiral Scratch, announcing their first gig, which is significantly similar to our first gig.

(That is, my favourite band is playing. And I can’t go. It’s not fair.)

Tonight I realised one thing I’ll miss is DJ-ing. It was one of my favourite toys, even though I don’t think I ever impressed anyone much (not even my best friends) apart from Pipas. I did impress Pipas but then again they’re easily impressed. Which is just another reason to love them.

(Did I say it’s not fair?)

*Do look at this website, by the way. It is a bit of an experience. A minimalistic one.

Why, hello there! I can’t believe you’re still reading this! If you are, that is. You probably aren’t, and I don’t blame you. There hasn’t been much to read, has there? Sigh…

Surprising as it might sound, I am actually alive. Not very well, but alive. And —and this is even more shocking— I am also here. I’m just quiet. It is hard to find something to say that is not what I have on my mind, and hard to find a way to say what I have on my mind, if I want to say it at all that is. But I might just start trying again.

Until then, go and read what I wrote —belatedly— for the last Sprinkled Pepper gig (in Athens, at least!) for Friends of the Heroes. Oh, and also look at my poster.(Well, the design is mine; the drawing is Georgie’s). I’m suppose I’m kind of proud of it, still, even though it’s been a while since I made it, and it’s early-Lucksmiths-inspired.

Four days to go… Four days… And, erm, fourty-eight days since I lasted posted. Where does time go?

So those intense, magical first ten of days of spring are over, and it is April. And I hardly even noticed. This is the time of year when time speeds up for me, and the next time I take the time to look around me it is June. Which I hope won’t happen this year, because I’m supposed to be getting married this June and I would like some time to prepare for it.

But I digress.

April is here and I have a new camera. I bought it rather randomly, without much thought and we’re still in the process of getting to know each other — but I have to say, so far it is great.

But I digress (still).

What I really wanted to say is that just before those ten days ended we went out (to Monastiraki) to try out the new camera. I was trying to take this photo when I heard an old lady who was walking by talking to her friend. She sounded like they were arguing, in a typical old-lady way (restraint, but very insistent, and very sure it’s a well-known fact that she’s right). Her tone of voice didn’t match her words and she didn’t seem like the sort of person who would say such a thing anyway, but it was clear as day. She said:

“If we didn’t have dreams as children, [dreams] to do things, what would we be?”

So. We came back to Athens. I went to sleep for ten hours (after having spent an hour saying hello to my computer – priorities are everything, right?), I dreamed a lot, and I woke up knowing I don’t want to be in Athens. I want to be in Exmouth, which felt like home, or London, which felt like an extension of home and where everyone made us feel very welcome and special. Life here suddenly seems grey, full of things to do and still somehow empty of meaning. Hard, too hard even, without a reason other than to pass the time. The good news is that we will move to Exmouth. The bad news is that it won’t be before July. Eight months to go. I think I’ll make an advent calendar – or just keep a diary.

On other news, a friend I know a little but like a lot is flying over the ocean to be with the girl he loves, and a boy who, for some rather obscure reasons, has a special place in my heart is starting a clubnight tonight. It all makes the day seem sweeter somehow.

Oh – and ‘How will he know (where my house is)’ is a song by the lovely Michaelmas. Well, we saw them play on Sunday evening and I thought they were lovely from the opening notes to the first song. There was something in their sound that instantly put a smile on my face, I’m not sure what it is but it has to do with them seeming to enjoy things – life, being there on stage, playing their instruments, singing their songs, the crowd – the way children would. Spontaneously, simply, without feeling the need to hold it back. The aforementioned boy, on the other hand, (who happened to be present) had seen them on Thursday and wasn’t very excited about the prospect of seeing them again. He made that much clear. Until sometime halfway through the second, or perhaps the third song, when he turned around to tell me “I told you they were good, didn’t I?”. Which probably made me dissolve into giggles. What can I do, that’s what I’m like.

I should get off the computer, and you should listen to ‘Winter starts today’.

Chris took some rather brilliant photos. Here’s an example. I love it because Jens seems to be walking and/or falling over Athens. Click on it for a coloured version – the colours are suberb. He didn’t Photoshop the sky, by the way. That’s how blue it was.

So, if I told you Jens is a sweetie, rather sad and loves telling stories, would I be telling you something you didn’t know already from his songs?