coxy's blog

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxy/2747403900/

This Saturday I picked up two rolls of film up from Advanced Photo in Manchester; one was a black & white film that had been in my camera since June 08 and the second was an expired roll of cheap colour stuff that I used to rattle off a load of Tellison / Tubelord shots. One of the first things I did when I got home was post the black & white shots to Flickr.

You can see all the shots that I've uploaded from the black & white film by clicking the link below. Gig photos to follow shortly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxy/archives/date-posted/2008/08/09/

I'm out in the garden, in the (really hot!) sun with Vikki and Hannah. Opera Mini ftw! My mum and dad are back from Ireland for the week, so they're milling around too.

Later on tonight, Luke Leighfield is playing my hometown with Tim and Sam's Tim and Sam Band with Tim and Sam, so we'll probably trott along to that.

Today is my summer.

Birthday's of the 21st variety rarely pass without some sort of celebration or 'shin-dig' – yet for my own I've elected to delight and entertain the masses by putting on a live music show – of which I invite you to attend.

The 29th April will see some Scousers and some random Southerners make their way to Font Bar, Manchester, followed by crowds from all across the globe (true fact; we have members of one of Holland's hottest rock band's The Heaven's Devils and super cool geeks from Norway in the way of Opera Web Browser attending and sponsoring the event).

Bands performing will be known under the following names:

MR KAMIKAZE AND HIS MECHANICAL ANIMALS (myspace) has been formed from the smoking remains of other reputable bands such as Blame It On Edd, Pickled Dick and The JB Conspiracy. With influences such as Gang of Four, They Might Be Giants and Weezer, this is one band not to be missed as they perform one of their first (well, their second, actually) live gig ever!

ENCYCLOPEDIA (myspace) hail from Yeovil and are two very sweet and lovely boys who (if you could only but imagine such a thing) sound a bit like you're listening to Thin Lizzy whilst playing Nintendo – they have a very unique indie pop electronic rock vibe going on, to coin many genres. If that's not tempting you to pop-on-by, may I also reiterate that they're two lovely boys who are so good looking they might turn you gay.

goFASTER>> (myspace) are the Scousers that I mentioned before, and also Hot Club de Paris' best buddies and name-dropping flavour of the month. They generally sing witty retorts about their life experiences; shit jobs, daytime television and STDs. I nearly forgot to mention, they sound awesome too.

Entrance to the venue will be FREE and the usual array of drinks will be on offer at Font; which usually amounts to 'two for one' on Peroni, Cocktails for two pounds and a variety of other bargains.

Hope to see you there.

This event is listed on Upcoming.org, Last.fm and Facebook.

Well, after the shambles that was me feeling sick, I am now feeling much better. I think we all learnt from the situation; but I'm not quite sure what. Maybe that "feeling better" or "moving onto better things" is the theme for today.

Tonight will see my move off my ass, out of my house and into town to see the one and only Pickled Dick play Manchester's Retro Bar (upcoming) with a bunch of other thugs and lugs (Grown at Home, Random Hand... if they ring any bells?) If anyone reading my blog happens to be in the area, or wants to make the effort to be in the area; come say hello.

I'm unsure of taking my camera. I haven't taken photos at a gig in ages. I guess the last one I did was the Virgin in-store by Little Man Tate. I was kinda hoping that I would meet Pickled Dick earlier on, before the gig, and I could've taken a few promo shots around Manchester for them. But then, they're not psychic and I didn't ask them about it.

On the wonderful world of the web I've also today stopped using Yahoo! MyWeb bookmarking service in favour of the ever flourishing Ma.gnolia bookmarking service who offer a few interesting features over MyWeb and looks prettier. Moving between the services means a change in RSS feed, and you can all subscribe to my picks of the internet if you see fit. Plus, if anyone has an account at Ma.gnolia, let me know and I'll add you as a friend.

(vikki always tells me that when i speak about the intenet, it makes for a boring blog post. that wasn't so painful now, was it?)

Job hunting isn't quite going as well as I'd hoped; and we've come to the conclusion that I'm setting my sights too high. I'm used to seeing all these fab web-based companies that don't seem to exist within the walls of Manchester (or England, if you don't count Last.fm), and that I should focus on some crapper company and help make them better.

I wouldn't mind going into a smaller company if I was confident in that they'd trust my judgement. There seems to be a lot of quite mediocre companies out there that seem to maybe know how to code and create a website, for example, but then have no clue what to do in terms of selling themselves to the client or indeed winning good jobs / clients. Or of course the other way around; companies that are full of poncey designers who think that making a website look good and talking the talk is all that's needed in making a good website / end product.

Yesterday I came across REFORM Creative; they have a nice looking site and some nice work in their portfolio. But, as the more savvy amongst you may discover, their website is a bit shit and they don't exploit the field of web design. However, I wasn't too sure of this, so dropped them an email.

I didn't disclose too much information, and it sounds like they thought I was a potential client. They mentioned that they can design for web / new media based material, but their primarily print based. They will then out-source the coding side of things when it comes to producing a project. I've seen one or two pieces of their print-based work in the flesh (without actually knowing it was by them) and was quite impressed.

I wonder whether hiring someone like myself would be advantageous to them? I mean, I could design and create a whole range of new media / web based material for their clients. Okay, I don't quite know Flash or aren't a programmer; but I can do websites and other new media-based work... and I'm sure that with what I know alone they could keep not only more of the work 'in-house' instead of out-sourcing, but actually take on more / pitch for more web work.

Anyway, I'm going to get ready to go out.