Been Out N About - JJ#6
- Ricky Jamaraz
- 5 days ago
- 9 min read
Welcome back everyone!! Before I begin, I'd like to say that this blog is sponsored... by you!! I don't make any money from doing writing these, but you guys can help support it (and me in general) by checking out all the music and content I stick out there on the internet. Here are some highlights from the last month!
My YouTube channel - I've been putting out way more music-related videos recently, so go check them out if you haven't already!
Knutmo Five - The band I drum in. We released our 3rd single 'Photo' recently!
And finally
KiNG HERTZiE - Tell me if it Hz - My latest EP that I released earlier this month. Check it out if you like trippy/psychedelic music.
Advertisement over. Please enjoy the rest ;-)
Let's begin
Firstly, I apologise for the lack of blog posts in the last month or so!! I've been extremely busy over the last few weeks and every time I found a chance to sit down and write this, something else more important came up, so I had to put writing on hold.
But, I'm back, and bloggier than ever. In this issue I will be sharing all the highlights of my life from the end of October (so much happened in one week), and in JJ#7 I will be updating you guys on November :-)
Then hopefully, normal programming shall resume with a new post every 2(ish) weeks.
But enough waffling, let's begin!!!
Dorset Caravan's first gig
Readers of my previous posts here may be familiar with the band Dorset Caravan. Ollie, the guitarist in my live RJ band, has his own band, and D.C. is that band. They're really sick, and I've been working with Ollie to help mix the band's first album! In fact, in this previous post I talk a little bit about how we recorded the vocals for the album in Alfie's dining room and kitchen.
Dorset Caravan recently released their first single "Sometimes", and it's an amazing song!!! Here's a link to it.
Oh yeah anyway the whole point was talk about the gig. So, on Oct 25th I went to see the first ever Dorset Caravan gig, and it was so good!
Perhaps I'm a little bit biased as my friend is the frontman and I've heard all the songs a million times since I've been mixing the album, but I genuinely had a great time, and so did the rest of the crowd too :-)
They were playing at The Dark Horse in Mosely, which is a suburb of Birmingham. It's a really nice pub with a really nice upstairs music venue, and I'd love to play there myself sometime to be fair.
The gig itself was put on by this guy called Arthur, who's something of a legend in the Birmingham indie scene (so I'm told). If you're familiar with the indie/twee/underground scene of the 90s, you may recognise names of bands like Ocean Colour Scene and Heavenly - I think Arthur was basically the guy who put on a lot of their gigs round Birmingham and helped them get off their feet in the early days, so it's great that he's still putting on gigs for great bands in 2025. He seems like a really lovely guy from the 2 minutes I spent with him.
Birmingham hates me and I hate it back
After all was said and done at the gig, I headed home. I had driven there earlier in the day, and had no issues at all getting into Birmingham and going through the centre to get to Moseley. However.
Birmingham's roads are like a deadly whirlpool. They trap you, and make it incredibly difficult to get out of the city. I don't know how! I was following google maps, and I was doing everything fine, following the blue line. Suddenly I saw the map move, and I wasn't on the blue line anymore. Apparently, I should've turned off the road I was on and went on the one directly parallel to it, that looks identical on the map.
My father's words echoed around my head... "Watch out for the roads round Birmingham mate, it's a nightmare"
So I followed the course of the updated route. It took me about 7 miles down the M6 to an intersection, I went round it, and went back up the M6 the way I had just came. At the next intersection, I was instructed to turn off to the left. Did that. It told me to stay in the middle lane. Did that. Then without warning it told me to turn off to the right, but I couldn't because I was in the middle lane.
You know where that left me? Back on the M6 going 7 miles to turn around and go 7 miles back on myself.
What should've been a 50 minute trip turned into around two hours, and I've decided I'm never driving into Birmingham ever again.
Glamping
noun
a form of camping involving accommodation and facilities more luxurious than those associated with traditional camping
For a few days, I went with my friend Alfie and his parents to go glamping in Wirksworth, a small town in the south of the Peak District.
The place we were staying definitely put the glam into glamping... it was VERY lovely. Below are a couple pictures:
This last photo shows you where Alfie and I slept on the top section there... We had to crawl around everywhere it was so funny. Bear in mind, I'm 6'2 and Alfie's 6'5, so we definitely weren't made for a ceiling as low as that...
In Wirksworth, where we were staying, there really wasn't much to do, but Matlock Bath and Matlock (two separate places) were nearby, so we spent a lot of our time there.
The countryside was absolutely beautiful, the weather was amazing and all the trees were the perfect shade of orange. Driving through the valleys round there was really nice and relaxing, and definitely made up for the Birmingham incident.
Man Chest Hair
On the last day of our glamping trip, Alfie and I left in the morning, as we were going to go to Manchester for a day out with some friends. First, we had to collect those friends... Cue the montage!!
We drove from Wirksworth to Ilkeston to pick up Rhys. On the journey we listened to Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen.
With Rhys, we drove from Ilkeston to Derby to pick up Ollie and his girlfriend Hollie. On the journey we listened to Rhys talk.
With Rhys, Ollie and Hollie, we drove from Mickleover to Stoke-on-Trent. It was nice.
I parked us up in Stoke station car park, and from Stoke, we caught a train to Manchester. Rhys and I laughed at the prospect of a town named Congleton.
We arrived in Manchester Piccadilly Station.
Upon arriving we grabbed some food. I purchased my infamous 'Tommy Custom' from Burger King. Essentially, it's a double double cheeseburger. You get a regular double cheeseburger, then in the "customise" menu on the big screen you just add two more patties into the mix, and replace all the burger sauce with pure mayonnaise. So it's a whole pound of beef in a bun essentially. And it's fucking delicious.
In Manchester, the five of us roamed around and looked in all the cool shops. We went into Affleck's Palace, which is this massive shop made up of smaller shops, and that's always fun to go to. It's like a museum; the path you take through the building takes you up and down and round and round, and if you weren't with other people it'd be pretty easy to get lost I imagine!
Later on, we walked to an Irish pub called Mother Mary's, and we got some drinks and played pool for a while, it was a really nice vibe in there. Funnily (not really) enough, I recently heard that Mother Mary's was closing due to financial issues, which is real shame as I definitely would've gone there again.
It was funny actually, the pool table we were on was ever so slightly slanted to one side, so I actually got a couple balls in by just hitting them in the general direction and letting gravity do the rest.
Who you gonna call? ALVINNNN
The time has come. Let's talk about Halloween. (actually this was on the 30th but still)
The day after our little day out in Manchester, Rhys, Alfie and I went back to Stoke and stayed overnight at Alfie's house. Afterwards, I drove the three of us back to Nottingham.
I honestly can't remember a single thing we did during that day. We were just killing time, because in the evening we were going to a Halloween party at a friend's house.
In preparation for the party, Rhys and I walked to a local corner shop to acquire some drinks while Alfie stayed at my house. It was about half past four and it was already getting dark, and we were walking into the rougher side of where I live, so we were weary.
We grabbed what we wanted, and went to the counter to pay. There was some man in his early 30s in the shop with us who was speaking loudly (not quite a shout, but getting there) at this woman who was with her kid. I can't remember what about, but Rhys and I gathered he was an ex-lover of some sort, as he was telling her that he would beat up her new boyfriend.
The poor woman at the counter was telling him to lower his voice but he wasn't really listening. She asked for my ID to get the drinks, and I went to get it out... except it wasn't there.
I looked around and realised that the last place I used it was in Manchester, so I must've dropped it there. Bollocks.
I asked her if she'd leave the drinks behind the counter and told her we'd be back soon for them. Rhys and I walked back to my house, a bit shaken from the loud man in the shop. We came back to Alfie sitting in my room with some headphones on, twiddling some knobs on a little mixer he was hunched over with about 5 wires plugged into it. We just left him as he was.
I told my parents about the whole ID-being-lost issue, and asked them to direct me to my passport, as it was the only other form of legal identification I had at my disposal.
Passport in hand, Rhys and I walked back to the corner shop, the lady at the counter and I had a good laugh about the whole ordeal, and I walked out with the drinks. Thankfully the loud man had gone by then.
A couple hours later, the three of us suited up as Alvin and the Chipmunks, and headed off to the party. Rhys was Alvin, I was Simon, and Alfie was Theodore. I wanted to walk through the woods as it would've been pitch black and spooky, but Alfie wasn't fond of the idea. Then I realised I had forgotten my Simon glasses, so I told them I'd meet them at the party, and ran back to my house.
Glasses in hand, I decided I would run through the woods on my own, because it would be quicker and I'd be able to catch up with them. So I did just that. I basically grew up running around in the forest near my house so I had no trouble navigating in the low light conditions.
I found the whole experience quite exhilarating, like I was running from something and chasing something at the same time. I was probably the scariest thing in that dark woods, with my quick loud stomps and heavy panting likely scaring the fuck out of nearby dog walkers.
After ten or so gruelling moonlit minutes, I found my path to collide exactly with Alfie and Rhys's, who were both strolling leisurely along a path parallel to the woods.
Not long after, we arrived at the party, and made our presence known to everyone there. The a lot of people there were my friends from my old high school, with a large amount of them being friends of mine since primary.
From that point on, we just did party things. My memory of it is a little hazy, but I know there was a shit ton of dancing involved. Here are some pictures from the night:
The End
Like I said at the start, this post is purely just catching up on some of the stuff that's happened in the last month while I haven't been actively posting. More catch-up coming next week hopefully!! See ya later crocodile
RJ