Hey guys, latest collab is with a Turkish DJ – one talented DJ Mikey.  We chatted over twitter, he sent a track, I came up with lyrics and a melody – and there you have it! 3 weeks after first contact we had our single.  Search Northern Lights ft Abby Holden on youtube!

Big thanks to the team at Hot Minute Mag for the write up for my latest single http://www.hotminutemag.co.uk/2012/11/abby-holdens-hot-track-strange-affection/

Last weekend I had the privilege of playing at a friends wedding in Italy.  I opened the set with my single Strange Affection and by this time I had my guitar back, and was no longer trapped in a car with a jet lagged Australian.  The journey to the wedding was way funnier in retrospect.  Most things are though right?

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!!

You remember those cool toys as a kid – the ones used to catapult and launch things.  Those toys were always better if you used them to launch things at other people, and if you hit another person it was funny as hell. What is that?! Is it just me who finds this funny? Of course I’m not into ACTUALLY hurting others – but if you can get a foam ball to ping off their head it just makes my day.  Even the royals are getting into it:

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

Music video shoot day 1 arrives – sometime in March 2012.  We’re in Peckham, London.  Instantly I get a feeling that I need to hide my belongings when I arrive at the warehouse…just an observation.  There are 4 floors and we are on the 3rd. On the 2nd floor are some people dressed in white chanting to something (the voices in their heads) – on the 1st floor are people still high from the rave the previous evening.

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!