We’re nearly at the end of the year and I feel that I’ve achieved practically nothing. After the positive 2007 (getting things published, finding Lex, recording the new album, etc.) this year has been pretty much a constant bummer. There have been some highlights, like trips to other continents, walks on beaches, eating a lot of houmous, but I’m hoping next year will be more exciting, challenging and inspiring. Note to self: write more songs. Note to self #2: write more songs that don’t sound like other bands or other songs you’ve already written.

Shit.

My friend Jen from work is leaving on January 9th. She brought the following ridiculous thing into my life: Fail Blog. The best thing I saw on it was MARRIAGE PROPOSAL FAIL. Absolutely horrendous, and featured my new bestest pal, Consolation Bear. God bless ‘im, and her.

Amy Blue played one of three(ish) shows this year. Here’s a video from the last show of Simon’s song Amy Dates Destiny. It’s the fifth track on the album.. a reasonably upbeat song for us, melodic, intriguing lyrics, and of course any excuse for us to put loads of fuzz and feedback on the end. God forbid we become formulaic!

Good news though. The album is finally (yes!) finished and we’re just waiting on Rich (Random Colours) to send over the final mixed down wav files. In the last trip to the studio, we belted through six tracks, doing a bit of top and tailing.. fixing the odd blip and click, and then mixed two tracks from scratch that were bothersome. It’s come out better than I expected – very powerful, very loud, and it should make for a good listening experience if you dare attempt to. Pop in places, dark, distorted as all hell, and featuring a song about Ipswich prostitute murderer Steven Wright. It’s a Xmas stocking filler for 2009.

The final task is to finish putting all the artwork together, cropping and photoshopping the hell out of everything and maybe even doing 90s things like TYPE LYRICS OVER THE TOPS OF DEM. Or maybe that’s so played, and we need to paint the words on in our own juices. Maybe it doesn’t matter, as most of the cunts we send these to will probably not even use them as a coaster. I dread to think how many live out their days in a bin in some wanker’s office. Hopefully not SPIN magazine’s either.

Thank you to you if you came to the shows this year. You poor bastards. Though I think they were the best yet. Well done Lex on producing a wonderful little child. Thank you band for working so hard. See you all in 2009.