So, it's been a strange week. Since I started scribbling on my Macbook my blog has been picked up by Unreality TV who have asked me to do a weekly blog for them about my preparations and thoughts leading up to www.itv.com/superstar, I have been invited to two auditions for TV commercials and been to two interviews for UK based teaching positions and I have rediscovered the drive and determination that has gotten The Cureheads booked all over the world for the last 21 years.
Yes, I have decided to take the plunge and get myself into shape and stay permanently in England and pursue www.itv.com/superstar. If I don't win it I will get into the best shape vocally and stagecraft wise than I have ever been in and will be ready to either go on and fight for more performing work or go back to teaching other younger hopefuls what I've learned. We will see what comes out and what I am really capable of.
I've always sneered at reality Tv and I think we've all had the nightmares of being in the big brother house (for some I guess it's a wet dream). I was mortified this week to find myself addicted to the online 24 hr, on iPad, on twitter, on carrier bags in Tesco train wreck which is otherwise known as celebrity Big Brother. maybe it's the Lack of UK TV in Turkey or Saudi that has saved me from my own viewing compulsions for the last five years or so. (it was certainly this which enabled me to finish my album and learn the blues). Maybe it was the fascination of watching people who have had it all at one point or another (or indeed not had enough for them) slowly come apart and unravel. I think the most mind boggling part for me was how the bubbly, funny, needy, love me, Denise morphed into Eddy Izzard at some time before her triumphant exit.
I suppose the hardest part for me to get my head and nerves around is no different to that experienced by actors all over the world. THE AUDITION. Does anyone remember the poor girl who claimed to be a singing teacher and then proceeded to squeeze every style of singing, screeching, whale noises and birth pangs into a 30 second indecipherable menagerie of irrelevant vocal vomit? Simon Cowell and assembled vultures then descended on her and tore out her soul, her passion and her dream and sent her away believing she was totally insane for wanting to follow her demons. If you haven't seen it then I have linked it here. Watch it before you continue.
Did you laugh when you watched it? Did you choke on your eccles cake? Did you think what a freak? If you did then I expect you have never been to an audition. You are also one of the reasons I stopped watching UK TV. I felt so bad for the woman. Yes, she appears to be one loop of the particle accelerator short of finding the Higgs Boson glue.....but...but..... I understood her pain. I understood why she had done this, why she had risked exposing herself on national TV, why she had offered up any tiny part of herself that she thought the money men might want in order to take her through to the next stage, where maybe she might have then had been encouraged to use her own most powerful voice.
I was actually shown this clip a couple of days ago after my first dream/nightmare which featured Andrew LLoyd webber that I can ever recall, by a friend who I told about it.
The dream? I'll write about that later, except to say that it involved the auditions for www.itv.com/superstar and it wasn't a lot different to the video above.
Why did I have the dream? well... It was the day that I decided to begin this blog, I had started to re-run in my mind the words and the movements from the first time I had played Judas in JCS in an amateur dramatic production back in Stevenage. From that very second all the adrenaline came flooding back, all the memories of hanging out at the rehearsals not just to work on my parts but to enjoy the whole process and watch the dancers and the other cast and the local carpenter knocking up the set. It was the first time in my life that I had found something that I didn't mind working on from 6am till 3am with no breaks.
It's impossible to explain to somebody that does not feel the same way how exciting it is to be in a theatre, not just a grand old West End theatre, but any theatre, even the tiny hand build theatre of The Lytton Players in Stevenage which was in an old scout hut. To walk around backstage and under the seats and look in old boxes of costumes, to be in the sound or lighting booth and marvel at the racks of electronics or sliders attached to old dimmer packs that bring the sky and the sun or the moon into the theatre. To go searching through boxes of old scripts or posters is something I love to do as well, but the ultimate thing to do when nobody is around is to just stand centre stage and look out to the rows of uncomfortable threadbare seats and sing 'Woman Your Fine Ointment" at the top of your voice.....then take a sneaky cheeky bow... (this is something I still do when we get into a theatre when we are touring with www.thecureheads.com with & the guys have gone out to get pizza..(one of my strange habits on tour is once we are in the building I don't want to leave till show time)...its something you would get taken away by policemen for doing anywhere else on the planet (and possibly sat in a room with rubber wallpaper)...and if Victor Hugo is to be believed I am merely paying homage to the architect of the theatre. (read the first 2 chapters real Notre Dame De Paris, about buildings killing the print press).
This is my secret thrill, it doesn't matter if we are playing to 500 people or 14000 in a South American basketball stadium, the best part of the day is my secret cheeky bow to the ghost audience that came to see me support Steve Balsamo that night in JCS or Strum my guitar as Roger in RENT on a wonky table or Ask God WHYYYYYYY in Miss Saigon.......this..is my guilty pleasure and as far as I know, until now...my secret, guilty, cheeky pleasure....there will be techies (sound engineers, light engineers etc etc people who lurk and move silently around the stage and FOH fiddling with stuff) who I strongly suspect will tell you that this is what all singers and actors do and have hard disks full of the funnier ones hidden away for techie self-amusement parties. I think you get the picture now, something has been re-awakened my demon is stirring.
So why do I feel for the poor girl in the video? if you have read everything above and really have no clue, then maybe you should go read this blog instead? http://www.fanpop.com/spots/simon-cowell
For those that wish to know my thoughts on it I will write about it next blog.
For now I have some exercises to do :)
Yes, I have decided to take the plunge and get myself into shape and stay permanently in England and pursue www.itv.com/superstar. If I don't win it I will get into the best shape vocally and stagecraft wise than I have ever been in and will be ready to either go on and fight for more performing work or go back to teaching other younger hopefuls what I've learned. We will see what comes out and what I am really capable of.
I've always sneered at reality Tv and I think we've all had the nightmares of being in the big brother house (for some I guess it's a wet dream). I was mortified this week to find myself addicted to the online 24 hr, on iPad, on twitter, on carrier bags in Tesco train wreck which is otherwise known as celebrity Big Brother. maybe it's the Lack of UK TV in Turkey or Saudi that has saved me from my own viewing compulsions for the last five years or so. (it was certainly this which enabled me to finish my album and learn the blues). Maybe it was the fascination of watching people who have had it all at one point or another (or indeed not had enough for them) slowly come apart and unravel. I think the most mind boggling part for me was how the bubbly, funny, needy, love me, Denise morphed into Eddy Izzard at some time before her triumphant exit.
I suppose the hardest part for me to get my head and nerves around is no different to that experienced by actors all over the world. THE AUDITION. Does anyone remember the poor girl who claimed to be a singing teacher and then proceeded to squeeze every style of singing, screeching, whale noises and birth pangs into a 30 second indecipherable menagerie of irrelevant vocal vomit? Simon Cowell and assembled vultures then descended on her and tore out her soul, her passion and her dream and sent her away believing she was totally insane for wanting to follow her demons. If you haven't seen it then I have linked it here. Watch it before you continue.
Did you laugh when you watched it? Did you choke on your eccles cake? Did you think what a freak? If you did then I expect you have never been to an audition. You are also one of the reasons I stopped watching UK TV. I felt so bad for the woman. Yes, she appears to be one loop of the particle accelerator short of finding the Higgs Boson glue.....but...but..... I understood her pain. I understood why she had done this, why she had risked exposing herself on national TV, why she had offered up any tiny part of herself that she thought the money men might want in order to take her through to the next stage, where maybe she might have then had been encouraged to use her own most powerful voice.
I was actually shown this clip a couple of days ago after my first dream/nightmare which featured Andrew LLoyd webber that I can ever recall, by a friend who I told about it.
The dream? I'll write about that later, except to say that it involved the auditions for www.itv.com/superstar and it wasn't a lot different to the video above.
Why did I have the dream? well... It was the day that I decided to begin this blog, I had started to re-run in my mind the words and the movements from the first time I had played Judas in JCS in an amateur dramatic production back in Stevenage. From that very second all the adrenaline came flooding back, all the memories of hanging out at the rehearsals not just to work on my parts but to enjoy the whole process and watch the dancers and the other cast and the local carpenter knocking up the set. It was the first time in my life that I had found something that I didn't mind working on from 6am till 3am with no breaks.
It's impossible to explain to somebody that does not feel the same way how exciting it is to be in a theatre, not just a grand old West End theatre, but any theatre, even the tiny hand build theatre of The Lytton Players in Stevenage which was in an old scout hut. To walk around backstage and under the seats and look in old boxes of costumes, to be in the sound or lighting booth and marvel at the racks of electronics or sliders attached to old dimmer packs that bring the sky and the sun or the moon into the theatre. To go searching through boxes of old scripts or posters is something I love to do as well, but the ultimate thing to do when nobody is around is to just stand centre stage and look out to the rows of uncomfortable threadbare seats and sing 'Woman Your Fine Ointment" at the top of your voice.....then take a sneaky cheeky bow... (this is something I still do when we get into a theatre when we are touring with www.thecureheads.com with & the guys have gone out to get pizza..(one of my strange habits on tour is once we are in the building I don't want to leave till show time)...its something you would get taken away by policemen for doing anywhere else on the planet (and possibly sat in a room with rubber wallpaper)...and if Victor Hugo is to be believed I am merely paying homage to the architect of the theatre. (read the first 2 chapters real Notre Dame De Paris, about buildings killing the print press).
This is my secret thrill, it doesn't matter if we are playing to 500 people or 14000 in a South American basketball stadium, the best part of the day is my secret cheeky bow to the ghost audience that came to see me support Steve Balsamo that night in JCS or Strum my guitar as Roger in RENT on a wonky table or Ask God WHYYYYYYY in Miss Saigon.......this..is my guilty pleasure and as far as I know, until now...my secret, guilty, cheeky pleasure....there will be techies (sound engineers, light engineers etc etc people who lurk and move silently around the stage and FOH fiddling with stuff) who I strongly suspect will tell you that this is what all singers and actors do and have hard disks full of the funnier ones hidden away for techie self-amusement parties. I think you get the picture now, something has been re-awakened my demon is stirring.
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| The Cureheads - Soundcheck Santiago BB Stadium 2009 |
So why do I feel for the poor girl in the video? if you have read everything above and really have no clue, then maybe you should go read this blog instead? http://www.fanpop.com/spots/simon-cowell
For those that wish to know my thoughts on it I will write about it next blog.
For now I have some exercises to do :)
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