Day 673

Saturday May 17

We’re in The Corner Lock again tonight with the possibility of playing and maybe opening the first stages to really doing something here. But as with all these things, it’s really one show at a time, especially at the beginning. Do the first one, see if they want you back for a second, and so on. Tonight is the Eurovision final, and as we saw last Sunday, the assistant manager told us that if we came, there could be the possibility of us playing after the show. If not, we’re still totally up for a fun hangout and maybe we’ll be able to arrange to come some other time. We have a really good feeling about this venue and it’s with some optimism that we head out, all stage ready for action.

We get there and there’s no Eurovision on. Well, it is on, but only the vision part of it. The TVs are on silent. There’s also no sign of the assistant manager, while the manager himself is busy. He’s DJing in what appears to be an attempt to turn this cosy corner bar into a nightclub. It’s impossible to talk in here so we just try to get into the spirit of it and dance. But whatever is happening here tonight, it’s clear we’re not going to be a part of anything and it’s impossible to talk to the manager as he’s too busy with DJing and serving at times. And besides, like I said, it’s just too loud to talk. Well, we’re out now, so we decide to continue to be. Let’s just let’s finish our one drink here and see what else is going on around.

Because we’ve come out to see Eurovision, we now have a strange desire to actually see it. We walk the streets not entirely clear what bar, or what type of bar, we want to go to. We don’t have any destination. It’s just a case of coming across each place and deciding whether or not we want to go in. We really um and ah when we get to the Hawley Arms, but no. Let’s keep going. We’re now getting kinda close to Quinns, our nearest bar and possibly the most homely feeling bar in Camden. OK. Why not?

We set ourselves up at the bar and get a cool relaxed vibe going, with the TV and Eurovision sounds gently washing through the atmosphere. Then there’s a little bit of a fun commotion at the door as a whole bunch of red suited of guys walk in. Eight or nine of them. They get their drinks and mill about and are clearly on a great night out. And they’re speaking Spanish. Right at the centre of the bar, we get to talking to one of them, then another.

We soon find out they’re a seven piece band from Mexico on the UK leg of their European tour and have just played in Battersea. They’re staying very close to here, and tomorrow they have their Camden show in The Dublin Castle. Well, now we have to tell them we’re musicians too, and with that of course we show them our book. Maja does this bit and they crowd round with huge interest to have a look. A couple of them want to buy it and ask about that. Well, we also carry a card reader with us. So Maja’s in the process of that when a random person inserts himself into everyone and starts talking in the ear of one of our new friends. We hear a little of what’s being said, and they nod to him and they all kind of back away. Now we hear clearly. Scam is the accusation. He’s seen our card reader and their card in it and has decided to jump in totally heavy handed without knowing anything. Before we know it they’ve all disappeared into the crowd and me and Maja are looking at each other like, what in all kinds of names just happened? I’m up straight away and over to the group. Their new ‘friend’ tries to interject but I get myself between him and them, firmly showing him my back, and assure them it’s all fine. Then I turn to him and tell him sternly, look, we have a product. This is it. We’re selling it. They happily wanted to buy. You are ruining a perfectly legitimate transaction. With that they return to us and we pick up pretty much where we left off. Oh, their name: Los Ekis. From Mexico City.

Now we’ve all been through a bit of an experience together, some kind of bonding has happened and we’re now very much a part of the group. 

We have a great hang out with them, and by the time we’re saying goodbye, Maja has invited them to ours for breakfast the next day.

And the guy who was trying to call scam and ruin the whole thing before it began? He buys a book too.

Day 674

Sunday May 18

A flurry of messages in the morning and I hurriedly get myself out to our nearest shop to stock up on breakfast supplies. Things we can use to put together a breakfast buffet of sorts. By the time I return to our apartment, it’s clear we now have company. Yep. Many voices are happening, and through the hallway and into our living room, it’s as crowded as it’s ever been. There are 10 of us in here now, maybe one or two more. The guys in the band, me and Maja, of course, and I’m introduced to Hortensia, who is promoting them in London and who works on a London Latino radio station. This becomes a whole morning breakfast party, the kind of which I don’t think I’ve ever had. We have their music on our speakers, and after a little of that we introduce them to ours. After that, they ask if we could play something live for them here and now, and of course we do.

Then Hortensia organises us all and we do a voice recording with the guys, with Hortensia introducing it, saying we’re in Camden, bigging up Los Ekis and then getting them to say hi, and then bringing us into it as The Diaries hosting them in our apartment. Less than five minutes later and here it is. Hortensia tunes in her radio and right out of it comes the message we’ve all just made. Afterwhich the presenters talk about Los Ekis and Camden for almost ten minutes, with an occasional reference to The Diaries who are hosting the whole thing. Wow. That was a moment.

Breakfast and coffee all done and it’s time for them to set off to see the central London sights. You know, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, all that stuff. We totally tag along and it’s pretty cool that it all starts right at our front door bus stop which takes us almost up to the steps of Buckingham Palace. Well, figuratively speaking.

A few quick stops around London and it’s time for the guys to go to the venue to soundcheck. We’re off there too, stopping off at their rented Kentish Town apartment on the way to pick up some bits and pieces. Then it’s a walk to The Dublin Castle. Once we’re there it’s just an amazing afternoon of sunshine beers turning into evening beers, a few bands, and then Los Ekis.

Before we get to their stage show, I should say this is a really good chance to hang out and get to know them all a little. I’m able to fall back on my own Spanish with one or two of them who don’t have as much English as some of the others, and through the day we learn more and more little bits about them. One of which is that, although this is a tour around relatively small venues in London, that is because this is their first trip to England. We now get the chance to see some of their videos from Mexico and South America. And oh. At times these guys play stadiums. We did have some chat during our walk around London earlier on and started to get a bit of an idea that they had some level of fame back home, but it’s another level now to see some of the enormous crowds they’ve played to. And when we get to see them live for ourselves, it all makes perfect sense.

Their flavour is undoubtedly and proudly Mexican and they’re all dressed up in wonderful red suits. And within all this they have a really strong pop element showcasing their own originality. And it’s all funky, bouncy, catchy, and very danceable. What an amazing and energetic show this is with a pretty decent attendance. And yes, me and Maja lead the dancing from right in front of the stage. When it’s all over, we’re all back into the front bar for what is now some late night beers as we take the venue all the way to close.

Day 675

Monday May 19

We have our own show tonight and the guys are coming to it. It’s really just a let’s see how we go kind of thing in a bar we’ve never played before. Yeah, I kinda didn’t cover this above, but this venue came through one of our hustle days. The guy wasn’t massively enthused it’s fair to say, but he was up for giving us a shot which is a something, and it means we have somewhere to show our new Mexican friends what we’re about in an actual live setting.

They’ve had a heavy three or four days in London, a big night last night of course, and sightseeing again today. So fair enough, the whole lot of them aren’t up for coming out tonight. But main man Richard and the drummer Alex do come out to say hello, have a drink or two and see us do our thing. It’s a quiet enough evening, but we get some good encouragement from the tables that we speak to and they say they’re up for something original and energetic. We jump right into that space and do our thing for a high three song blast before settling back down again after taking the applause and warm words from the few tables that are in here. As I said, it is a quiet Monday night, but into that quietness we’re able to settle down and finally have some actual chill time with the guys who have come out to see us.

We now discover that Richard, as well as fronting Los Ekis, operates as a band manager in Mexico, looking after a few bands who are bigger than Los Ekis. With that, he says he’d like to put on a few shows there for us to come and play. Are we up for it? Of course we are. Oh wow. This is a whole new turn. I think I’m going to fast forward now and say that when I follow up a few days later, the venue decides we’re not for them. I think they were expecting chilled background singer/songwriter vibes to fit right into their boring no-one-comes-here Mondays. That really isn’t what we are. Check out the videos we sent guys. They clearly hadn’t. The bar actually says they’ve decided live music as a concept isn’t for them anymore. OK, so this place has said no. But at the exact same show we were invited to play shows in Mexico by someone who manages bands that play stadiums. I think we’ll take tonight as a success.

Day 809

Tuesday September 30

Do not adjust your computer. Do not go looking for Diary entries you missed. Yep. We have just gone from Day 675, May 19 all the way to Day 809, September 30. Yes, there’s been a massive lapse in writing and things have got away from us just a little bit in that regard, but also a lot and not a lot has been happening kind of at the same time. So I’m going to cover it all here in a ‘This is what’s been going on,’ kind of way.

First, let’s cover the ‘a lot’ part of what I said above. So as we saw in the last entry, we now have a manager in Mexico; Richard of Los Ekis. As such, he’s arranged something like 10 to 15 shows in Mexico city between October 31 and November 17 with us now having booked our flight there for October 30. Meaning we are now exactly five weeks away from the first show of that adventure. Some radio interview appearances are also part of the package. So I’ve been massively brushing up on my Spanish while Maja has started learning. 

It’s also worth a reminder that all the Mexico stuff happened because of a mix up in The Corner Lock on the night of Eurovision. But even then we could have ended up absolutely anywhere in Camden. Instead, we randomly stumbled along to Quinns and took up our stools at the bar just as Los Ekis were coming in from their gig in Battersea.

I think I can also say in here now that sometime early next year we’re going to have a Japan visit and try to make a bunch of gigs happen there. This will most probably be in April, with more Japan visits planned as the year goes on. I have no idea how this next bit will go, but in preparation for that, I now have a bunch of Japanese textbooks and will be diving into that language, although I have so far prioritised keeping up with my Spanish. I should also remind you here that Maja speaks fluent Japanese and we have done a few live streaming shows on Japanese platforms.

A little on our library activity now. As a result of our efforts there, we seemed to have made a radar blip somewhere when we got an email from The British Library. They requested that we send a copy of the book not only to them, but also to The Library of Trinity College Dublin, The Bodleian Library of Oxford University, Cambridge University Library, The National Library of Scotland, and The National Library of Wales. This now means The Diaries are on the national historic record, kept safe for posterity among the nation’s flagship libraries.

Onto the Consent Hustle thing. It looked like we were starting to get ourselves off the ground with that in The Reliance Bar in Shoreditch with Mario, the boss of the place and someone we have a good feeling about agreeing to give it a go. We tried it for a few weeks and we think he really is into what we’re doing. But the bar’s location in one of London’s most popular night out party spots means its crowd is very much a transient one. Which means it’s mostly people from outside the area meeting up for a quiet drink or two before heading out to explore the bars and clubs of the area. Which means it’s not only just always different people, but also people who aren’t really in the headspace of welcoming live original music suddenly going on around them. So yeah, we all kinda felt it just wasn’t quite landing in this bar and that the very nature of the place meant it was going to be difficult for us to get a fair shake in the place. Mario suggested we come back and maybe try again sometime in the future, but that time hasn’t come around yet. We had some bites from other bars in the Consent Hustle concept, but we were unable to follow up on most of them because managers were just never there when we popped in to say hello. Maybe that was a summer thing and most of them were away, or maybe we just got unlucky in that period. Then all activity of any kind stopped for a while as we both had to take time out at different times. 

Maja went to Sweden for four weeks in June, taking us into July. Then, to help us make some extra money to be able to pursue the Mexico opportunity and to cover some other bits and pieces, I enrolled myself on a medical trial in Leeds lasting three weeks with a two week break before the final follow-up to have the thing completed. Which it was yesterday on Thursday September 25. I’m not going to cover those three weeks in here but I will say that this little venture has seen us pull in over £9000. Which got paid today.

And that time Maja was away, yes I had a few nice nights out and mini adventures, and yes Maja had her own fun things going on over there, but in a catch up like this, we’re happy to leave all those things where they are as well.

Going back in time again a little more here, another thing that took our focus away from bar hustles and potential gigging time was our desire to get ourselves back into the studio and back into recording. Through this, it’s been a long time coming but we now finally have the studio recording of I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) in the can. One day we may tell some of the stories from all this. I know this is The Diaries of The Diaries, but the studio is an animal and experience series all of its own and maybe some things should just stay there. Especially when you’ve had to learn it from scratch like we have, including how to do our own midi drums. And all the technicalities of mixing and mastering, of which I’m sure we’re still only nibbling about at the foothills. And the small matter of Maja, from total scratch, having to become a vocal recording artist. With this, there’s the age old problem and conflict of studio versus live thing. This is being able to perform to the precision required while also somehow retaining the live and A-Live feel. What I do feel able to say is that we’ve gone through quite a few processes of having a song in the can, all ready to release and all proud of it, then listening again and having to admit to ourselves that it all just sounds too safe. Too clean. And I know people say just put your stuff out, but a few times we’ve done exactly that, come to play something to someone, however casually, then suddenly been hit with the thought, I can’t bring myself to play this to them. It just isn’t right. So you start again, with all the baggage that entails while also trying to inject sparkly new energy into something you’ve already been over again and again, and which you thought you had safely in the can. But yeah. Like I said. Too safely. No, it really hasn’t been easy. But hey, four songs actually in and done now, which means a third of the debut album and I think we might start to get some real momentum going with this now. But then as we saw above, momentum stalled again with Maja going to Sweden in a week or so for the better part of a month, and then not long after she got back, me heading onto the trial. So we called time on studio once Naked was done, with the thought that there was no point trying to force another track, getting part of the way through it to whatever point we reached, then trying to pick it up again in a whole month or so. At times when you try something like that, it can feel so much like you’re starting again as you try to remember where you were, what was wrong, what was right and on and on that it’s easier to just delete and start again. So let’s just not start right now.

We’ve said that a few times, but the dawns, while not quite false, did somewhat hide the fact that there were still one or two more dawns to come. We’ve seen our way over a few more of those now too and feel we’ve really got over some other massive bumps and challenges getting this one in. We really think we now have a lot of lessons to take forwards which we think will really accelerate the whole process. Let’s see. But yeah, getting Naked in and having four tracks completed now really feels like a bit of a milestone. In old money, we would now have an EP. And as I type today, with studio sessions we’ve done this week, we have another debut album song practically in the can with just a few details to fix. It really does finally seem that as we peer down the tunnel, we can just about make out this thing actually coming towards us.