Synoiz Music Blog

Posted 21st November 2011

Had a sleepless night yesterday, I've been trying to get myself into a more sensible and regimented daily routine lately and my body seems to be rejecting it. Rather than the odd bed at 3am/4am, get up at 7am that I've somehow been managing over the last few months, I've been aiming for bed at 10pm and up at 6am, it's just proving harder than I thought.

I just seem to wake up sometimes, in the peaceful but deathly silence of like 2am and I'm not sure what I should do. Do I close my eyes, push all thoughts out my mind and try to get to sleep for another 30 mins or do I get up, read or work till I feel tired again?

I've always held the belief that whenever I can't sleep that there's a reason, either a worry that needs more thought, an errand that needs to be added to tomorrow's list, or even a lavatory visit or phone that needs plugging in. Lately I can't seem to find out what that "secret concern" is. So I wonder if it's a physical thing and I'm just supposed to be weathering this until my body finally gets used to nights with more than 3 hours sleep at a time.

I suppose I have a fair few worries at the moment, my first ever live performance on Saturday is looming (1st World Problems eh?). While I'm being realistic and know that I've almost got it in hand and either way people should enjoy it, there's still that nagging doubt that Gollum-like studio dwellers like me seem to have with being "up there" and watched by people. There seems to be a few Synoiz fans in the area planning to come along as well as a few of my other friends, it should be a good time once the irrational dread and "everything will go wrong" fear fades away.

Here's hoping we all get a good night's sleep tonight! Syn.

UPDATE: Argh! Turns out I lay awake from 2am to 4am and then my alarm didn't go off so I woke up at 8am. You have to wonder sometimes...

Posted 15th March 2009

Finally, another blog! And yeah I know I said I'd do one on Thursday night the day after the video shoot but I failed. I can't believe how hectic things have been this past week, I barely got any music done even though I was working on Synoiz stuff all week. Does that make sense? :D

Well basically Wednesday was the day from hell. I got up at 9am (not too bad) and had to go to town to pick up things like razor blades (to get a good shave for the video), to pay my rent and to get additional costumes from Primark for the extras. Sadly for whatever reason I have a £300 withdrawl limit on my account so had to go to the bank specifically and get them to give me money over the counter without my chequebook!

All that went quite well until I tried to drop it all off at Ian's where we were meeting later and he wouldn't get out of bed! So I had to carry 4 heavy bags literally across the city to go home get bathed and shaved and then dash through to Newcastle for hairdressing appointment.

This is where it got worst cos during the train journey all I got was txts or calls with bad news, being told that we had lost one of the cars and so I had to organise some other way to get the extras to the set on time, then being told that the lighting rig and second camera weren't actually working and that it was impossible to get new parts for them that day. I ended up getting quite angry about it all (I mean, there's been two months to just plug the stuff in and go "oh it doesn't work, I'll order some parts in before we have to do the shoot..." rather than checking it on the day of shooting).

Then I got off in Newcastle to find that my order of prop masks had not actually
come in on time and that we had to make do with the masks we had. Finally got to the hairdressers and after 40 minutes walked out with exactly the same haircut (and problems) as I walked in with albeit slightly shinier.

There's a lot more I could rant about as much more stuff went wrong but essentially I think that gives off just how stressful the day was for me.

However, when we finally got to the shoot and I met up with the extras and nattered on with them everything kinda fell away and I started enjoying myself again. Here's a video I took on the set:



Ian Lawlor (director) and Mark Liddle (co-directing) really took the reigns well and just fell into their roles and did a wonderful job (Also kudos to Mark Junkin and my mum for providing lifts at the last minute and for being wonderful).

Sadly we didn't manage to get all the extras scenes done in the one night as we'd hoped so we explained to the guy who owns the location and he has mercifully said he'll give us another few days with the location. All the extras had fun and are going to return back and hopefully we'll have it in the can.

The next bit of shooting is actually tonight, and ironically the electricity and gas have gone off in my house so I am unable to bathe or work on music or anything so am staying at a mate's house until I can get in touch with the landlord... Grrrr. In fact I'm typing this on Mr Macbook while lying on a mattress in their spare room. God it's a classy life lol. Let's hope it goes well again today and we get things sorted. Once again thank you to everyone involved, especially the extras for being so wonderful and patient!

(I have loads more to say but this blog has been long enough, I might try and d =o a VBlog in the future if these get any longer!)

See you all later! :D