Last week was a rush-hour flavoured 8-hour slog to London in the car for Bleep +LDN – the much-publicised allstar do put on by gwEm and me which presented to the UK public the likes of Nullsleep, Minusbaby, Starscream, Failotron and Die Moderne Welt (US, US, US, HU and DE), as well as domestic impressarios Jellica, Tin Foil Hat Brigade, Kezziebeat and the incomparable Steve.

Organisationally, things went a little bit to shit and that’ll sadly be a lot of people’s memory of what went down. In actual fact, gwEm and I managed to save it from going TOTALLY to shit (thanks to a gargantuan error on the part of the venue which, to give them their due, they admitted and compensated us for) and generally provide most of what we promised on the flyer.

The relief of getting finished and out of the venue without things kicking off was palpable until we (Minusbaby, Nullsleep, Damon^Starscream, Ali, Mia and I) got set upon by a fucking street gang. Well, shit happens; we eventually got ourselves out of the situation with not too much blood shed and the others lived to play another day. The next day, as it happens, in Liverpool.

Right now, I’m packing my bags for a flying visit to Sweden for LCP (Little Computer People) – “for all the c64/amiga/atari/spectrum/console/whatever-lovin’ sideborder musicians, stamp fakers, coders, forth lamers, screen dumpers (yes), bbs hangarounds and full screen graphicians”.

It’s gonna be a fucking nice party and I’ll have a chance to catch up with my Up Rough groupmates, musician friends like Nullsleep, zabutom, Random and Goto80, and people I’ve never met but wanna – Crazy Q, maktone, etc. I’ve got three tunes ready for the competitions, some of which are in Up Rough prods, and I know Nullsleep and Random have some exciting stuff on the way.

Then next week, I’m playing in Newcastle with The Turing Test – my mate Guy from work. That’s Wednesday 22nd at The End Bar in Newcastle. Dunno how much it costs, but probably not much. I guess it’s 8pm onwards… Guy’s also a great 3D modeller; I wanna find an excuse to use his skills in a demo as it’s hard to find someone who’s either good or who can be arsed these days.

1st of August is 8bitball II in Blackpool, featuring all sorts of cool acts. It’s a daytime job in Stanley Park, which I’m told contains an oldschool bandstand. Should be a laugh.

Then I’m gonna try to be a bit quiet – quiet enough to concentrate on writing some new music – until I hook up for one night with this year’s Chiptune Alliance Tour as they storm through Newcastle on their way to conquering the world again. I’m too old/tired/busy/bereft of annual leave to join them full-on, but it’ll be nice to make some noise under the CTA banner one more time.

Oh, lest I forget, Sundown ‘09 is on in September in Budleigh Salterton (near Exeter, south coast of the UK). Not much to say, except that it’ll be brilliant as usual. All welcome.

And now to pack for Sweden.

It’s that time of year again: spreading myself wide across the UK (well, just England this year) with a BRAND NEW SET comprising 80% BRAND NEW MATERIAL for your rocking-it-up/jumping-around/spazzing-out pleasure.

First up is this summer’s hottest mini-fest, organised by gwEm and I and featuring some fucking blistering acts (including us :P) – BLEEP +LDN, on Saturday 11th of July: see the flyer here.

Next, it’s Newcastle at The End Bar with The Turing Test on Wednesday 22nd of July.

Then Blackpoool on the 1st of August for 8bitBall.

Get yourselves along to one of them; it’ll be fun!