blue sky research
by mikrosopht. photo by mark winkley.
what city is nearest your present location
Manchester, UK. I was born here 26 years ago and I keep on coming back, tried to escape to Bristol a few times but i end up getting really homesick for the grey northern city.
how does it compare to your hometown? if it is your hometown, do you plan to live abroad
Manchester is a pretty incredible city, the people are your 'salt of the earth' northerners but with a very unique take on life. Get drunk with some mancs and you'll know what I mean. I don't know where I'll end up settling down, when I'm in Manchester I get the urge to move down to Bristol because I love the place but when I stay down there I miss Manchester. If I could afford it I'd be forever going from one to the other. I can't see myself living abroad, I love Britain too much.
do you listen to a broad range of musics
Yes, definitely. Some days I wake up and the last thing I want to hear is more abstract beeps and blips. When I'm working at the moment I'll usually listen to some Rachel Portman or Yann Tiersen before I go out I'll stick on some fast noisy stuff. When hungover I'll listen to anything calm and relaxing. It's autumn now so I'll be listening to plenty of the Pogues and enjoying a pint of bitter in a cosy warm pub.
have you ever gotten very sick
A few years ago I suffered from crippling panic attacks. I thought it would be the end of me but luckily I got through it. People who've not suffered from them all seem to think it's quite trivial and a case of just 'pulling yourself together', they have absolutely no frame of reference for what you experience. I had my first attack when I was 19 and it took me about 8 months to recover even a little happiness, after this it took another few years to get some stability. Hopefully it's all behind me now, it cost me a relationship with a special person who I'm not even in contact with anymore so I want to make sure I get it right next time and don't make the same mistakes.
how old do you hope to live to be
As old as possible in a reasonable state of fitness and with my mind intact. I read somewhere that life is like being in a locked room with a hungry animal. there's nothing you can do to escape, it gets you in the end. I'm in no hurry for all this to end. Bit of a morbid question that.
what is/are your favorite food(s)
hmmm. Food. Feta cheese, Parma ham, Cashew nuts with black pepper, my mums onion soup, homemade Scotch pancakes (not the sickly sweet ones you get in the shops), Ocean Spray Cranberry and Orange juice, a nice greek salad.
on average, how long do you sleep at night
Anything from 5 hours to 10. I'm not a good sleeper. Sometimes falling asleep seems impossible, my mind gets very busy and it's hard to quiet it down. If I lived with more of a routine it'd be easier but things are pretty hectic right now.
do you write music in the dark or the day
Both. I have found out recently though that I produce much better music when I'm feeling healthy... not after a big weekend session.
how many days a week do you work
In a job? for money? nothing regular, at the moment I'm getting the odd web job here and there to keep me in beer money. I'd like to have a career but after over four years in a soul destroying office job I'm gonna make sure I put my happiness first from now on.
what is your favorite animal species
I have three goldfish which I love dearly. Two of them are eight years old! The only downside is they're not very cuddly.
tap, bottled, well or rain water
Tap. As far as I'm concerned Manchester has the best water in the world.
who do you respect
My mum. Some of my mates are pretty special too.
how do you feel when you finish a song
Sometimes very chuffed. Often it'll feel like a wasted opportunity to come up with a special track, I'll have a nice seed of a track which could've been really good and I'll ruin it and it'll end up just average. If I had more patience and spent a month on a track instead of a day or two I'm sure I could write some very nice music, we're all getting to the stage now where we have to put more effort in because we're reaching a wider audience and beginning to get more interest.
do you play your music live, dj, vj, ej, etc
If we had more material it'd be good to sort out a proper live set, at the moment I'll re-write tracks specially to play at the gig, usually a lot harder and more percussive then filter it on the day and over-dub some samples. You can get away with longer versions of tracks when you play live as well, I've realised that you can use more wayward stuff when playing out. What works at home on the stereo might not sound too great when pumped through a huge p.a.
airplane, train, car, bike, skateboard or feet
Trains. I love traveling around the UK by train visiting people in different cities; Bristol, York, Edinburgh, Somerset, Cornwall, Wales. I like train stations, just turning up without pre-booking, with the exception of Birmingham New-Street which I'd quite happily avoid until the ends of the earth. Sometimes I don't mind the delays, It's the journey itself which is enjoyable, if you get a delay at a station where you're changing you get an extra couple of hours in an unfamiliar city.
what is/are your favorite activit(y/ies)
I used to enjoy getting munted with my mates in clubs but I'm 26 now and think I should put all that behind me or my health is going to start really suffering. Now I enjoy a nice pub surrounded by nice people. I used to love staying in and watching videos with someone special but it's been a long time, I look forward to when it finally happens again.
who would you make love to in a second
Haha. A couple of my mates spring to mind, and that barmaid at the Thirsty Scholar...
if you could live on the moon, would you ?
No. I'd get freaked out by the immensity of the universe and my own insignificance. I like my cosy safe unenlightened day to day existence surrounded by a safe atmosphere, I get scared when I think of the scale of everything, too much reality is hard to handle so I try and keep it at bay.
has anything weird ever happened to you
Liberty Caps were weird in a very nice way. Philosophers Stone was weird in a weird way. LCD was weird in a not so nice way. Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds were weird in a scary this isn't going well way.
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