Monday 29th October, 2001

The band is going to be called Falling with Superman. This was decided after we spent a couple of hours on a website that generates random words and puts them together with the express intention of picking band names. We were going to be called 4.14 but decided that another local band 3.33 might be a bit miffed if we stole their name but just used a different time. We also considered The Unsung Heroes which I liked until we discovered there is already a punk band called The Unsung Zeros. After listening to two songs by The Unsung Zeroes on Myspace, I can confirm they aren’t very good.

We’ve checked online and there are no apparent copyright issues with Falling with Superman. I am concerned that it may be a bit longwinded but we can always abbreviate to FWS, can’t we? Will that catch on? Unlikely.

Song writing sessions have hit a dead end of late. Jacko started writing one called “Orange Room,” which was inspired by the fact that we were in his bedroom, which has orange wallpaper. We already have a track called “Best Friend’s Room.” Two songs about band members’ bedrooms is at least one too many, I fear.

During the last session, Rick passed out on the bed while Henry, Joe and me looked up song lyrics by the band, Poison, and tried to alter them enough that we could pass them off as our own. After deciding that “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” could not have realistically been penned by teenagers from Leeds, we gave up with this charade.

We went to Sponge Studios for three hours on Sunday. This was too long to practice four songs — our own three and “All The Small Things,” by Blink 182 — and we grew restless. For the final hour, Jacko and I were playing a game of 1 vs 1 football using a crumpled can of Dr Pepper as the ball, and Henry and Joe were ordering cup after cup of hot chocolate from a hi-tech vending machine because it spoke to you to tell you that your drink was on its way. If we want to get a gig at Joseph’s Well we need to improve our focus. And write at least three more songs.

We had a good night a couple of Fridays ago. I’m not sure how it came about but we arranged to meet up with some girls from Lawnswood who I’d known at primary school and some of their friends. Rick got served at Safeway, which is by no means a sure thing since the regular cashier left, and we met the girls with four bottles of Lambrini and six large bottles of blue WKD.

I think the girls were impressed that we were in a band and, as we overplayed how good we were to a criminal degree, I felt famous. By 9 pm, we were all drunk and I found myself stood in a ginnel around the corner from the group with a brown-haired girl I hadn’t met before. I could hear Henry and Joe singing “Thong Song” by Sisco in the background. They had been working on a dance routine for this and I imagined they were doing it now because girls were giggling. I wish Henry and Joe would invest that kind of effort into writing punk rock music.

“So, what’s your favourite Blink 182 song?” the girl asked me.

Within days she was my girlfriend.

The following Friday night we sat on some steps by a community centre and I started to tickle her knee in circular motions because I had read in a book called Hot Sex by Tracey Cox that women like this. I part-own the book with Michael and Joe and we take it in turns to keep it for a week at a time. After a few minutes, my girlfriend looked at me and asked what the heck I was doing. I’m not convinced the tips in Hot Sex are worthwhile so I’m not too disappointed to have given the book back to Michael. Michael doesn’t currently have a girlfriend but I have fed back my response to the knee tickling.

Despite this mishap, my new girlfriend and I are getting along well. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be a starting midfielder for Kirkstall Crusaders, the lead guitarist in a band and have a girlfriend, I would have been astounded. It seems that Year 10 is a purple patch. I hope it’s not the purple patch and I am currently at my life’s peak.

We went to watch 3.33 — the band whose name we considered stealing — at Joseph’s Well on Tuesday and they were excellent. I must admit that their frontman is a better guitarist than me. During the last track, he put his Fender Stratocaster behind his head and played a dazzling solo. For the rest of the week I spent every evening sitting on my bed trying to play a solo from one of our songs behind my head.

I invited my girlfriend to watch our band practice a couple of days ago and she duly obliged, coming along for the last few minutes with a couple of friends. It hadn’t been a great practice — Rick was struggling to master a bass solo and we still hadn’t written any new songs — but I was desperate to impress my new girlfriend.

When we saw the girls arrive, I signalled to Jacko to start playing “Spring Break,” our catchiest number which happens to include a long guitar solo by me. It was going fine and the girls were smiling politely when it got to my bit. With a steely focus, I thought back to my hours of practice, whipped the guitar behind my head and began playing. This was it. My moment of glory!

Or so I’d hoped.

I started on the wrong note and, as I couldn’t see the fret board (because it was behind my head), never found the right note. Unwilling to give up I played a horrendous out-of-tune mess for twenty seconds while my bandmates scowled at me. As I tried to swing the guitar back around to my front, the strap came off and the guitar clattered to the floor. Oh, and I was dropped from the Kirkstall Crusaders starting line-up yesterday.

The purple patch didn’t last long.

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