I left London for Italy – my guitar did not. I then proceeded to ask staff at the airport where it was.  Not with words cos no one spoke English and my Italian is pretty poor.  I used an assortment of mime and dance.  Air guitar with some unco leg moves was enjoyed by many waiting for their bags.  3 hours of mime later and my guitar shows up – taking it’s good old time on a few flights behind mine.  Needless to say, the kiwi, the indian, and some guy from Aussie who were waiting for me weren’t impressed.

We’re supposed to be at our hotel by 10pm (a mere 2 hour drive from the airport).  I guess pulling up at 3am the next day was enjoyable….to the invisible person in the back seat who didn’t travel with us.  Four of us start the journey jammed into a small car in the parking lot. I’m holding my bag, a rice salad, a fork, and a sat nav. The dudes in the back are holding the sat nav cord, a bunch of paper and my guitar.  The driver can’t figure out how to get outta the car park.

Once we’re on the road the boys fight over where we’re going and change the sat nav directions so many times they start to fight. ‘give me your phone’  ’no use your own phone, your directions are crap’ ‘I need a cigarette stop the car’ and other such things which are pertinent to the survival of the human race.  One offers amazing comments to the female driver like “I’m surprised you haven’t stalled the car yet”.  Then he calls his girlfriend and says “we’re up a gravel road somewhere in Tuscany, where are you guys?”.  

We’re been driving for AGES in the dark and eventually come to a toll booth.  The driver pulls up so far away from the ticket dispenser she has to get out of the car to collect it – then she just stands there.  She’s so tired she forgot to get back into the car.  By this time I’m the designated DJ and have to trawl through all the stations trying to find a song in English.  Most of the time I’m hearing “you’re such a bad DJ, oh my god pick a normal song, what is this we’re listening to”.  I DON’T KNOW COS IT’S IN ITALIAN – NOW SHUTUP IN THE BACK.

Finally we find where one of the boys is staying and his mates come to chat with us at the car.  They’re all boozed and think they’re giving us directions to our hotel – but what actually comes out is “oh my god we just totally got told off by the owners. we’re being too loud.”  Thanks, we’ll type that into sat nav.

The wedding was amazing.  Perfect day for the perfect couple.  Congratulations Nils and Leanne!!

I haven’t been blogging for a while so I’ll quickly catch you up.  I’m nearly finished my second studio album – my first end date I had in mind was March 2012…yeah, so it’s taking longer than expected.  Next gig up is 5th July – and one I’m really looking forward to is 9th July at the Half Moon in Putney.  They have fantastic sound and a great sound guy.  Check my facebook page for details, and I will put up an audio snippet of my unreleased second album shortly.

Catch you next time!

Abby

Leigh Keily the videographer, his assistant Dani, and myself somehow get shoved into a manually operated lift with a strange woman and no lighting….with Leigh’s cameras and copious amounts of equipment. The makeup artist Evan calls me while I’m in this scary lift saying he has arrived.  Finally we reach the strange womans floor and are left alone to operate a lift we can’t see anything in.  hilarious.

We’re all excited about starting the shoot until we realise that Evan is actually in a completely different location in London!  How the….  seems he was standing outside Holiday Inn somewhere in the UK when he should’ve been in Peckham.  He found his way to us eventually.  THEN it was big hair, big nails, being attached to some dirty black sheet he’d found in the warehouse and being asked to roll around the floor to music.  I don’t know about you but it’s not the easiest thing to do…roll around the floor in a dirty black sheet in front of others and try to look artistic about it.  Check out the video to see what we got up to. It’s called Everything.  I may even post the outtakes later on.

Thanks so much to Leigh who filmed it, and edited it with me. Also to Evan for fab makeup and sheet attachment. and Dani for all the help on day 1.  Day 2 is another story.

ps – oh yeah, someone was a little bit shot outside the warehouse before we finished for the day. Just a little bit though.  They were ok apparently.   TAXI!

Hey, I love that people get up and bare their soul by singing a song – but 7 people in a row with guitars that aren’t tuned makes me order alcohol.  The lyrics coming out that night were particularly intriguing ‘you get sweet when I act like a dick’.  One man played a song for 8 minutes (which would be fine if his guitar was in tune and his chorus wasn’t ‘f**k it f**k it f**k it’).  oh dear lord I think I was rolling drunk by the end of that number.  I was number 21 on the list, 14 acts had played and 3 hours had passed.  20mins of which had been filled by a comedian from LA who got up to say how much she hated NYC (I’m surprised she got out alive).   

There was one man though – who played the piano, and had a voice like velvet.  Unbelievable – he silenced the room – and made the night (almost) worth it.  The fact that he was blind made me remember that I love that people get up and bare their soul by singing a song. Damn it!

I knew there was a reason he’s been my hairdresser ever since I set foot into his salon a couple of years back.  The people around me that day I couldn’t have done without.  Hannah Kane picked the clothes and smoked cigarettes in a very cool way throughout.  Evan did my makeup while making jokes about NZ employing sheep to run parliament….and Leigh made my photos look good (when in fact I was mostly looking a bit weird with my facial expressions).

Thank you everyone – this journey can not be done alone.

Hi everyone, I’ve sneaked you into ritz studios.  Virtually.  Here’s me in the midst of recording my second album.  Clare Hannan is behind the camera and captured some cool stuff.  We also managed to capture the sound of Clare taking photos on one of the tracks. Whoops!  Note to self,  PRETEND to be recording during photo taking.  Speak to you soon!

I was stopped today and asked “what is going on here?” while my nails were pointed at.  I replied with some ramblings about liking to buck the system…and then realised that painting my nails different colours is hardly bucking the system.  It’s sort of….leaning away from ‘normal’.  My friends would tell you I’m always leaning away from normal.  You know that email that goes around with a photo of two owls?  One is looking straight ahead and the other is on one leg with it’s head on the side looking FAR from normal.  The caption at the bottom says ‘retards, we all know one’.. – well that’s the kind of email my friends send me.  Well I’m starting a new era – MINIMALISTIC REBELLION!  It’s rebelling on a very small scale so people wonder what you’re up to.  Try it.  You might be sent an email with a photo of two owls.   

Thursday night this week I was invited to the magazine launch party for Phoenix Magazine.  ’Jewel’ in Covent Garden saw many stylish and crazy outfits cross the doorway.  I pulled up in a black cab and spotted Leigh Keily (creative director) standing outside looking very sharp indeed.  I made my way inside and upstairs to Heidi (my fabulous PR girl) and into a room humming with excitement.  Heidi was wearing a black strapless dress and VERY high heels (thank goodness I chose to wear my 5 inch heels so I wasn’t the short one in the room).    I was quickly ushered to the bar – perhaps I couldn’t hide the look of being lost – and was given a drink that was clearly formulated to calm the nerves of any 6ft 5 rugby player.  From here I ran into Hannah Kane – the Editor – looking fantastic as always.   Her hair was styled by Evan Huang and she certainly held her own in the room.

Evan was wearing a gaga-like outfit.  Diamantes everywhere, a tailored jacket with shoulder pieces I have never seen on mens clothing before.  This guy Evan was flamboyant and not afraid to embrace it.  I loved that.

So the new edition of Phoenix is out now – first time on the shelves!!!  What a great achievement for the Phoenix team, and I’m thankful they invited me to share this occasion with them.  Now….how do I convince them to put me on a front cover?….  Diamantes – chocolate and a strong drink is perhaps what I should ply them with.  Check them out at http://www.phoenixmag.co.uk