Home and Dry from Homegame

By Milo | March 17, 2010

Phew. That was a busy week, in which blogging just hasn’t been near the top of my list of priorities, so sorry about the lack of posts recently. As well as doing some decorating (yawn), I went to see Grizzly Bear/Beach House (which was an excellent excellent gig – see Evil Stu’s review for more details), played my first gig as ‘Famous Drunk’ with my friends Iain, formerly of Private Jackson and Chris, formerly bassist for Arab Strap and currently playing with the Gothenburg Address. It was a total shambles of course,  but I was very grateful to them both for helping me play some of my songs, and I think we’re all keen to do something again in the future but with more than one rehearsal next time, which I am delighted about.

All the other people who performed were brilliant, especially the poet Paul Birtill who possibly has the most bleakly brilliant sense of humour ever (he is John Cooper Clarke’s favourite poet) and a fair bit of cash was raised for the charity Great Little Libraries.

Then it was off to Anstruther in the east neuk of Fife (or Anster as it is known to the locals) for the annual Fence Homegame festival. As with last year, it was a brilliant laugh, with highlights being the Friday and Saturday nights in Legends where Findo Gask and the Silver Columns (as well as DJ sets by On The Fly and John Maclean from the Beta Band/Aliens) got everyone whipped up into a pulsating frenzy of boogying with a little help from the crazy dancing Frenchmen from Francois and the Atlas Mountains. Other stand-outs were a rare and compelling live set by the Lone Pigeon alongside the Pictish Trail, Withered Hand, and a wonderful fireside performance by King Creosote on accordion in the Smuggler’s Inn (as well as witnessing the recording of his 8th bit of strange which was very special indeed).  Anyway I will probably write more on both Homegame and the Grizzly Bear/Beach House gig for the next issue of the zine, if not for the blog in the next wee while.

Worth checking out is this great Homegame slideshow done by Billy and Su of Under The Radar which has a great atmospheric soundtrack too – though steel yourself for the photo of Mel and I watching an impromptu live performance by Men Diamler outside the Anster Town Hall, as we were pretty hungover at that point on Sunday afternoon!

And the dry part..

The empty bottle of whisky pictured at the top of this post was a special blend made for this year’s Homegame, and very nice it was too. But it is also special because it is the last drink I will be having for a while. I’ll be taking it one day at a time, and my first aim is to give up for a month. But ideally (and perhaps over-ambitiously) I’d like to stay off it until next year’s Homegame which will be closely followed by our wedding. That could be extremely tricky though so let’s just see how I get on this month – the most difficult occasion to be sober in the near future is likely to be the Hinterland Festival, but I am determined to at least last the first month out.

I know it may seem an extremely antisocial goal to have, but in actual fact I’m hoping it helps me develop my social skills better, as I have in the past been quite reliant on the booze for socialising. I actually relate to the very first part of this extremely sobering account of being an alcoholic in terms of how drinking brought me out of myself to begin with at school but then led to me basically being a bit of a dick and making some terrible decisions at college, though luckily things have never got as bad as described here.

Anyway, that’s what I meant by Home and Dry. And I will be blogging a bit more regularly again so please subscribe so you don’t miss my blather.

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6 Comments

Evil_Stu on 18/03/2010 at 10:04 am.

I tried the ‘dry’ thing a while back after a few stupid drunken incidents as I tend to get either emotional or violent after a few too many these days (the ‘happy pisshead’ chararcter I was known to be has gone AWOL) and I wanted to less of a liability on a night out.

I lasted about 6 weeks as I realised I was depriving myself of something I loved. There’s few things better than a couple of bottles of beer when you get in from work, a nice lunchtime pint or a glass of wine with a good meal.

What I have learnt is a level of moderation. I haven’t been truly ‘hammered’ since October when some bus sleeping and a lost wallet was not only a final warning from my own subconscious but also an implied one from my unbelievably patient wife.

I don’t mean to try and derail your noble efforts – but you’ll miss it terribly and in moderation it can be a real treat.

Hoping to help you prop up the bar at Homegame next year!

Milo on 18/03/2010 at 4:14 pm.

A good point Stu, I agree that moderation is the best policy and I am actually a fairly moderate drinker most of the time, save for the odd big night out that mostly seem to happen spontaneously, and are generally very good fun. But the hangovers are really starting to get to me in my old age, and with so many things I want to do at the moment it feels pretty crucial at the moment not to waste any more days moping about feeling sorry for myself and eating far too much junk food.
 
having said that, if I only make it to the end of the first month and decide that it is impossible to keep it up, at least I’ll have managed a month without it and saved a bit of cash and time in the process, and I won’t be berating myself for not seeing it through for a whole year. But I do like the idea of rising to the challenge and doing without it for a year, and seeing what effect that has on my life..

Jim on 18/03/2010 at 5:14 pm.

Good luck Milo, if I bump into you at Hinterland I’ll try and remember to offer a soft drink :)

Milo on 18/03/2010 at 7:41 pm.

Cheers Jim! Would be good to have some kind of bloggers meet up on the day if a few of us are going to be in the vicinity..

last year's girl on 18/03/2010 at 7:52 pm.

Good luck Milo… have to say I haven’t even exactly managed my Lenten pledge, but I have plenty of "dry" friends and I certainly don’t see it as something antisocial.

Milo on 18/03/2010 at 8:03 pm.

Thanks for the support Lis. I’ve actually broken my pledge to give up chocolate for Lent once, when I was out for Mel’s birthday and unthinkingly tucked into a big bowl of chocolate ice cream. But that doesn’t count right?