That’s kind of how the summer has started for me and I’m also going to use it as my excuse for no blog since May! This is my review of my shows at Brighton Fringe…

So where did I leave off? The video I posted was just before my trip to Brighton to play 3 gigs at its Fringe. These were my first proper performances of my new Edinburgh show. It had been 2008 since I’d done any comedy gigs and so I was nervous for a few reasons.

I grabbed the hire car and we headed for the South coast, checking in to The Hilton when we got there (special offer, bargain) the room was huge and it felt good to have somewhere calm to base ourselves.  By the time that was sorted I only had a couple of hours before the show so we got the equipment to the venue. This would also be my first experience of playing in a free/laughing horse venue so I was interested to see how it differed from playing paying venues (not too different, a bit more rushed, needed to do more of my own tech).

I was worried no one would show up so hit the streets for some flyering – as it happened for a sunny Friday afternoon when most people we’re either still working or on the beach I had a very respectable crowd. The technical set up was a little bit fraught but I got started roughly on time and for a first gig it was a respectable performance, I did however break my projector screen taking it off stage.

We then met friends for a meal in the evening at the wonderful Riddle and Finns which I recommend if you’re looking for a great fish restaurant in Brighton.

We had a fairly early night and after breakfast in the room I set about finding a projector screen in Brighton. In the end I bought some fabric that’s used for photographic backdrops and managed to convince a very nice dress maker up stairs to let me use one of his tables to put eyelets in it so I could hang the screen.

I’m delighted to say this solution just about worked (with a few creases on the screen) and feeling a little more confident in the show I put in a much better performance than the previous night.

Afterwards we headed to the pier with friends for fish and chips with champagne. One of the party wasn’t too keen on the Louis Dornier and so we also had a bottle of Piper Heidsieck – Chaz and Dave played repeatedly in the background and it was generally a fantastic seaside experience. It seemed there would be nothing better to do after eating and drinking for a couple of hours than going on the Waltzer.

This we did with some gusto and many jokes about being sick (assuming no one would be) but sadly one of the group (naming no names) did get somewhat unwell on the waltzer…I’ll leave the visualisations up to you. That brought an end to our Saturday night.

On Sunday we needed to check out, the fantastically hot weather was continuing and with the flyering I’d done the previous day seeming to have little bearing on the crowd size I lazed on the beach with some friends that had come to see the show. This was a big mistake as 3 hours sunshine and chatting directly before going on stage was not a winning combination, I was a bit mentally lethargic on stage and so it wasn’t as good a performance as Saturday.

At the end there was a woman that wanted to talk to me, she’d only walked in half way through the show and so had missed the whole set up of the story. I had a slightly odd exchange where she was offering to invest money in the show/me but at the same time wasn’t exactly saying she loved it. That left me in a slightly weird place mentally and also meant I couldn’t catch up with some friends properly. This affected my thoughts for a while after the show but grabbing some pizza and pasta with friends and family helped keep me occupied.

We then drove back to London, I was shattered, it’s hard to imagine I’ve previously done 27 shows in a row because 3 had left me worn out.

I took plenty to work on from these shows and I’m delighted to say that seeing Snoop Dogg a few weeks later helped me put the slight odd exchange at the end of Sunday’s show to the back of my mind.

Phew! First part of the catch up done…I’ll post the rest separately.

Jim x

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Many thanks to Elena for use of the lightswitch image at the start of this video

Jim

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A massive thanks to everyone that was involved in making this – it wouldn’t have happened if lots of people hadn’t given up what was, the first properly sunny weekend of the year. We all spent it under lights filming while the rest of the world sat in parks drinking beer.

So here it is…

Credits

Music and audio production: Oli Silk with me sticking my nose in and doing vocals, recorded over 2 days at Oli’s studio in Hampshire.

Dancers: Natalie Marie Higgins and Carl Au (massive thanks to them both for working out the routine at such short notice – see Carl in The Fantasticks at the moment).

The band: Alex from Golden Hours on drums, Rich from SixNationState on piano and Jim who is in several bands on double bass.

Starring: Bernard the cat.

Production team: Directed and edited by Pete Middleton. Make-up by Sarah Hamilton. Production Assistant Jim (not me). Runners Ruth and Maddie.

Venue: Jamboree at Cable Street Studios East London, thanks to Alastair and Rena for use of their venue.

It’s now less than a week until the first performances of the show in Brighton, then I’ll do a July preview in London before the 17 night run in Edinburgh in August.

Jim x

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I’ve got George Galloway of the Respect Party touring the area on an open top bus, I can only think of him offering to be ‘the cat’ on Celebrity Big Brother and Jim Fitzpatrick the labour candidate seems to be best known for walking out of a Muslim wedding earlier in the year.

I’ve barely seen any mailshots from the Liberal democrats which suggests maybe they’re not holding out much hope. The same can’t be said for the conservatives who’ve been on a direct mail and billboard frenzy. Ian from Congleton is about 20 ft tall on the Highway, pretty much opposite The Times/Sun offices. Congleton is in Cheshire but I doubt most the people driving toward the Rotherhithe tunnel care that much. I just think, oh I used to live near there.

Some boundary changes mean they’ve got a shout as the nice bits of Wapping and St. Katherine’s dock are now in my area. I shop in that Waitrose, does that mean I’m under some kind of unspoken voting contract?

I had been tracking the direct mail I’d received relating to the election but I have to say it all got too much. So my only comment is this: Neither the Labour or Conservative parties used Royal Mail to send their post, this made me a little bit sad.

That’s probably enough politics and so to some other things from this blog title…

For those of you that knew, cared, loved or hated me for it I now no longer work for a bank…it was interesting and tiring and I bloodly well earned my bonus. That said, I promise it wasn’t me that caused the recession and I also promise my bonus wasn’t that much and that I’m spending it taking my new show to Edinburgh. I will talk a little bit more about what it’s like to have worked for a bank for the last two years in my show. But listen, everyone has been going on about banks for ages and I think most people have had enough so I won’t dwell on it.

In slightly related news it’s now only just over two weeks until Jim Bowes: Obsession gets its first run out at Brighton Fringe Festival to that end here is the flyer that you might see around and about if you’re down there:

I also had an awesome time shooting the music video and new press shots for the show opening – you can hear my jazz cover of Ice Ice Baby on Myspace. Here’s one of the new pictures that Chris Harris took:

The video to Ice Ice Baby (to be known as Jazz Jazz Baby) should be ready soon – I’ll do an extra post when it is along with a full list of credits of everyone that helped out with it.

So I’m going to be spending the next couple of weeks making sure there’s enough of a show to take to Brighton. These will be my first comedy gigs for about 2 years and so the process of putting a show together is being eased greatly by the fact I can NOW EAT CHOCOLATE AGAIN…for some reason I decided to have six months off the stuff (apart from Christmas and Easter), it wasn’t so bad at first but towards the end all I really wanted was a biscuit Boost. I can in no way complain though as I’ll start this new run of shows 2 stone lighter than I started the year. Phew.

Jim x

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Here’s a video of MidiMidis from the night…

You can see other videos from the night on the Berkshire Live Youtube channel.

Releases

On the 5th April we released MidiMidis double A side single “Theres Just Far Too Much Going on Upstairs for Me to Feel Truly Comfortable with Myself/Nothing Means Anything” which has been picking up XFM and Radio 1 airplay as well as press coverage in Q, Metro, Artrocker and more. The band set out on a European tour later this month. You can buy MidiMidis single on Play.com, iTunes and most other download sites.

The 26th April saw the release of Sixty Watt Bayonets new single via Broken Tail you can pick up a copy of I Wish I Was Your Girlfriend on Play.com – it’s already picked up some XFM airplay.

We’re then releasing My Luminaries album Order From The Chaos on the 7th June – just before they play Glastonbury later that month.

We need you

The news editor role on the Josaka website recently became vacant – if you’re interested in gaining some web editing experience and helping out the Berkshire music scene – get in touch. We’re also always looking for reviewers, photographers and people to help out generally.

Jim x

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Eating chocolate at Christmas was allowed – as long as I was socialising with family, I took advantage of that. However there have been a couple of failings:

• Early on I ate a McFlurry and two chocolate chip mini muffins
• On Wednesday night this week I was working over night implementing a new website. At 7am a trolley of tea, coffee and biscuits arrived, sleep deprived and without even thinking I picked up a chocolate biscuit and put it in my mouth. I was literally horrified when I realised what I’d done and seriously considered spitting it out. But as I was in a room of people, at a bank, working, I decided I just had to swallow. I’m sorry I’ve let you down. It won’t happen again.

So, if you can forgive me perhaps we can move past this? On the plus side I did successfully implement the largest web project I’ve done to date (take a look www.barclays.co.uk) and I’ve not eaten a single crisp….

In other news I went to see Amy’s Ghost last night who were sounding fantastic, they were playing with MidiMidis in Kilburn, the latter we’re releasing a double A side single with at the start of April. It’s pure 8-bit hit. I love it.

I can’t believe it’s November since I blogged, disgracefully slack of me. As a catch up, I spent most of December going out and drinking, catching up with people the usual pre-Christmas fun, I must have had a good time – I put on 5lbs in December (which I’ve lost again, thanks January).

I’ve also been starting preparations for my new Edinburgh show which has included finding people to work with on design, music and video. I’m delighted to say I’m now confirmed for the Brighton Fringe Festival – here’s the Fringe programme advert for my show :

Here’s the description as it will be in the programme:

Are you obsessed with something? Did climate change end when the financial crisis started? From collecting stamps to checking doors are locked ten times, is life making us all…obsessed?

I think it still needs some work before Edinburgh so I’ll set to that very soon. Thanks to Will for the advert design. These will be the first performances of the new show so if you fancy catching it while it’s rough around the edges these are the gigs for you.

Christmas was spent running around visiting family eating lots of great food. I was pretty pleased with the presents I’d got for people this year which always makes Christmas feel better. Ruth got me a Segway racing present, which I’m hoping to do pretty soon!

January is always a bit of a hibernation month but we found time to head out to Wales to a little cottage for a weekend of walking and bleakness. Work was very busy so I lost some weekend and evening time to that. I did however manage to organise the Josaka 11th birthday gig which will feature The Circus Sands, Special guests White Sunday, MidiMidis and Quiet Quiet Band tickets are on sale now from any of the Reading Arts venues (no booking fees I think if you do it this way) or on 01189 606060 or you can buy Josaka birthday tickets online.

I’ve also been working with My Luminaries to help them with a little bit of promo for their new album ahead of the release of first single ‘Parasol’, they’ve just won the early bird emerging talent competition to play Glastonbury – it’ll be good to see them playing on the Thursday night of the 40th Glasto.

I think brings things pretty much up to date. High tea with our Mums today. A good way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Jim x

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So here it is…

For 6 months (starting two weeks ago lets call that 25th October) I will refrain from eating crisps and chocolate except for Christmas and Easter when I can eat chocolate.

For the avoidance of doubt Easter includes Holy Saturday until Easter Monday. Christmas includes the period between Christmas and New Year and any time spent with family in the month of December.

Lets call it Lent with a run up, lent starts on Ash Wednesday which, next year is the 17th February. So I know what I’m giving up for lent becasue I’ve already started.

It hasn’t been faultless so far:

• One Smarties McFlurry while very drunk (I should be more worried about the Quarter Pounder with Cheese and 6 nuggets)
• 3 mini-muffins with chocolate chips in, although two people agreed that they didn’t count.

I’ll #tweet to let you knwo how I get on.

End date is 25 April 2010.

Jim x

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It must be said I’m fairly rubbish at updating about what Josaka has been doing which is stupid because it’s lots. The Wookies lovely EP Sparks is released on Monday and has picked up some 6Music play in the last week. Sixty Watt Bayonets got to play Reading and Leeds festival and Ben Marwood has toured !@*# hard  along with Jim Lockey and Oxygen Thief. Josaka put on the Reading tour date – and a thoroughly good time was had by all.

In addition to that it looks like we’ll be doing the distribution for the Circus Sands EP at some point in the next couple of months.

Jim x

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Someone I know recently asked me how they could have two link styles on their website.

Hopefully this tutorial make that a little bit easier. I’ve commented the code throughout so it should make sense.

I’ve made this a text file because the code snippet didn’t display properly. Download this file and rename as a .html and it should work.

CSS-tutorial-1

Save this file to your local machine and read through it. Then resave as a .html file from Notepad and play with the styles to get the link styles you want.

Jim x

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Instead I’ve decided to go back to the less-frequent-but-more-informative blogs actually written in one go by me rather than random 140 character mini-blogs all added together.

Of course I’m still doing those, and infact you can see them on the right hand side of my blog so not-that-much has changed really.

I’ve also given my blog a new theme, I think this theme looks better than the last one and I’ll try and customise it more at some point.

Work (as in day job) has been incredibly busy in the last few weeks. I’ve taken on something new and it has meant some long hours. This has had quite an impact on my progress on my first book…I’ve simply been too tired to make any significant progress. I’m sure Ben Marwood is angry.

Talking of Mr Marwood Broken Tail and Josaka have released two records in the last month one by Sixty Watt Bayonets and a split EP with Ben, Jim Lockey and Oxygen Thief. There have been deservedly great reviews for both.

Plans for doing some comedy shows later this year and having a new show to perform next year are coming together slowly but I’m starting to feel like I’ve got enough material for an hour which is good (as soon as I find time to actually write it down).

The last couple of weeks have been hectic at weekends too – Ben and Jerry’s Festival was great, I ate 7 ice creams in a day and caught up with my cousins (happy birthday alex), I seem to be on a losing run at bowling – much to my dismay (well done Ruth and Colin) good times have been had in Somerset for Philly and Keon’s wedding and today I’m off to see my Dad in Kent.

I hope you’re well.

Speak soon.

Jim x

PS I’m going to come back to this article and add links in. I promise.

PPS I did it.

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