PeteFest

PeteFest is a festival which was created in honour of my friend Pete who died last year. I’ve posted quite a lot on Pete so long-time readers (thanks both of you) will be familiar with this part of my life, and if you’re following me on social media you probably saw me posting bits last weekend.

Pete’s wonderful parents had already told us: no sadness. The weekend was not for mourning, for grieving, for tears and choking up. The weekend was for celebrating, for smiling, for fun. For embracing and for making a lot of noise. For beer, for sunshine, for cake and for getting involved.

Everything there has said repeatedly; it was awesome. The music was diverse and interesting, the sun was shining, the people were friendly, the pints were flowing. The theme was orange; orange bunting, orange shirts, orange and ginger cake, ginger beer, orange balloons, orange ribbons. Even on an aesthetic level it made the whole weekend brighter; my camera got confused by the higher than usual levels of orange and tried to contort everything into being sepia. 

Pete’s family are to be hugely commended for the festival as a whole. Their attitude and determination really dictated the whole festival; I don’t think a single minute passed without seeing smiles and hearing laughter; people dancing, joking, making friends, catching up or sharing a moment. To have a space to meet people we otherwise would not have met without having to outright make a big emotional deal out of it, is amazing. The organisers put in months of work and it really showed.I lost 3 people close to me last year, all unexpectedly and all in their 20’s. Pete’s passing is the only one that has caused people to come together; creating festivals, awards, legacies. I’m not done posting about it or figuring it out (will I ever be?) but that’s not what PeteFest was for. PeteFest was for being happy.

For me, it was a weekend of confronting truths and being surrounded by friends. I intersected with the festival in a lot of ways and it was hard not to see what was happening through those multiple filters: I attended the festival, I played a (small) part in organising it, I performed several times under several guises, I helped promote it, I manned the social media and I made a small attempt to document it with my camera. I was a weak link; I turned in some truly awful performances which I subsequently felt disgusted about, and I also got very drunk. Luckily I had all my friends around. Besides, any festival that ends with the barmen buying you a pint is a success Pete too would have approved of.

I wrote so recently about my wonderful friends and they were all there at PeteFest. I had my closest friends from school days. I had James and Danilo, the remaining pillars of my personal and irreparably broken triumvirate. I had the people I think of as family and I had my actual family, however that goes down. I’m perennially the one with my crap least together, but for my part I fell asleep surrounded by all my oldest and dearest friends; all the people who know me best and care for me most sleeping in the same tent. I remember thinking as I fell asleep; if I don’t feel safe here and now, where and when will I? And that was PeteFest.

Alongside the festival there is also an award set up in Pete’s memory. You can read more about it here. I know a couple of you have written to me in the past that you were so moved by previous blogs that you decided to donate, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. That I have readers I have never met who are so kind and generous and giving is really incredible. Thank you so, so much for your support and for your love.

Pete further discussed in these posts: 1, 2, 3, 4.

I’ve shared mostly photos of my friends and myself on this blog as I thought it would be weird to share photos of people I don’t know on a personal blog; but it’s weirder I feel that way as a) all the photos are mine and b) they’re all publically on the internet anyway. So if you’d like to see more they are all up on this page. If you’re in one of these photos and don’t want to be – please let me know and I shall remove it immediately. 

My Job

Today we’re going to find out what I actually do! Despite having a ‘Career’ category on this blog, “I don’t really understand your job” is a statement I’ve encountered a fair few times in the blog world recently. People never ask me in real life as everyone I know is either in the creative arts themselves or knows me directly through a job. So I thought it was time to be a bit clearer here on the blog – I’m warning you now it’s a wordy post!

I would describe my job as a musician, which is purposefully very broad as I don’t like to label or pin myself down too much. I also rarely use the word freelance as I think with arts it’s a given! I have a very broad skillset thanks to lot of varied training, so to be more specific I would possibly get looked over for certain jobs. Sometimes I include other words like director, writer, researcher, teacher and composer. What it really means is that I do a variety of different jobs at the same time, mostly centred around music. Some jobs last only a couple of weeks, some 3-6 months and some have been constants for years, so my schedule changes weekly.

I rarely post about my current work and jobs on here as it changes so regularly, and also, it’s all covered elsewhere! I maintain a very friendly and informal mailing list (Lailaletter) and also have a page and website. But for the purposes of this post, I’ll tell you about my current jobs and the sorts of things they involve. It’s not a perfect overview but it is current!

 

Teaching – I’ve been doing this since I was in Sixth Form. This job involves regular communication with parents, submitting pupils for exams, lesson planning, dealing with new enquiries and writing report cards, as well as actually teaching the lessons on weekly basis. Unofficially, I also spend a lot of time helping my GCSE, A-Level and University pupils. They’re learning what to do, how to get into the industry, how to survive financially, what their strengths are and much more. Teachers have a special relationship with students and can really offer a lot of guidance and perspective.

 

Quizcats – this is a subdivision of my business WOLF PACK. We run themed pub quizzes which involve a live band and karaoke. I’m on an entrepreneurship scheme with this project and have regular meetings with my mentors. My work at the moment involves promotion, writing arrangements, managing the band, controlling social media, booking shows, maintaining the website and dealing with enquiries – mostly related to our upcoming show in 3 weeks time. I started both of these from scratch and did the concept and logos for both.

TAPE PARADE – not this blog but the songs! This “job” is really me doing what I want with my songs – at the moment I’m writing an albums worth of material that deals with my grief over losing my best friend last year. I’m also preparing a bunch to be recorded. This job earns the least money but is by far the most important to me. At other times this job may involve booking and promoting gigs or communicating with labels and agents.

Depping – on piano, bassoon, voice, clarinet, ukulele and accordion. Depping means I cover for absent players in orchestras, gigs, musical theatre concerts.

So that’s my “job” at the moment. It’s a relatively quiet time at the moment; I chose to take on less work after a heavy couple of months last year. I’ve got at least 3 new projects in the next couple of months so this post will be outdated in about two weeks! I’m quite proud of my body of work; I’ve created a lot of things, worked on some good shows and I’ve been fortunate to get to perform a lot. That’s really when I come to life! If you want to hear or see any of my work, then there are links to everything here, or join my newsletter. It’s basically an e-mail version of the life updates I used to occasionally post. Let me know what you think!

I hope things are a little clearer now! It’s been a fun 7 years of working entirely in music and creative arts and I’m grateful to be doing all the things I always wanted to. I realised whilst writing this that I could branch into various topics; CVs, networking, surviving money wise, time management, etc… let me know if you’re interested. :)

Kate Bush

Last Tuesday I was sat in Hammersmith Apollo watching my favourite living female artist on stage. After a 35 year stage hiatus, Kate is back. Kate Bush represents so many things to me. An artist who isn’t afraid of books, history and academia as song topics. An artist who makes uncompromising visuals to accompany her art. An artist unafraid of seeming a bit weird. An artist who embraces her voice and her instrument, however unorthodox soprano and piano may be. A woman who embraces being a woman in a mans world. A woman who doesn’t get her kit off but instead sings about sex in an intimate, adult way. She just represents so much to me that I’d like to one day represent to somebody else; the music we make is very different but I feel a sense of kinship with her story-telling, her looping vocals, her layered music, her piano-playing and her poetic lyrics.

I’ve long been dancing around my room (and later on stage) to the songs of “Auntie Kate” so naturally snapped up tickets to Before The Dawn – I’m going to a further 2 concerts of the run including the closing night! I took along my two favourite people and wore all my favourite clothes. It was amazing. Thank you Auntie Kate, and see you again soon.

Due to the no video and photo message Kate posted I’m offering you a video of myself performing Kate instead!

Bloglovin / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram

Cardiff

Last week I went to Cardiff with most of the WOLF PACK cast. I’m part Welsh, and every time I’m back in the country it reminds me of the idyllic childhood I spent there. We were only there for a few days but it was lovely to see the familiar road signs with everything written out in both English and Welsh, and seeing the distinctive flag everywhere always makes me feel at home.

.

This is the third time I’ve been to Cardiff (I grew up in the North) and although I’ve not explored as much as I would like to I always find it such a charming city. This particular trip was with all the WOLF PACK lot following our busy week at VAULT. Most of these photos are from around the centre, near where we stayed. Cardiff Castle is one of my favourite castles, entirely because of the animal wall. You all know how much I love animals; what could possibly be better than a giant stone wall with a different animal perched atop each segment?

Sequinned Minnie.

Vest – H&M, £3.99. Jacket – vintage from Fat Faced Cat vintage, £10 (sale). Hot pants – ASOS, £8 (via unwanted gift). Minnie Mouse ears – Mind in Camden (charity shop), 50p.

.I feel like this outfit is textbook Laila. I’m really not into planning outfits and my general “going-out” look (or “going-on-stage” look) is basically put on whatever clothes are nearest, throw on something sparkly, add some novelty headwear and then hope for the best! In these pictures (taken after a show at VAULT) as well as some charity shop ears and my newest sequinned item I’m wearing my trusty studded white boots, and my vest and dance shorts from rehearsals earlier in the day. Add to that my leftover show make-up from that evenings performance (classy) and my black and red camera bag and that’s my whole thrown together after-party vibe!

.These photos are from the week of performances I did at VAULT and I promise this will be my last post on the festival! Essentially every night after our show the whole cast and crew would hang out at the venue (big underground labyrinth of tunnels and rooms) and party, so being easy to spot was a good thing amongst all the other people! I’m aware some people save sequins or vintage for special occasions but I’m not like that at all. I don’t want them to just hang on the wall for fear of damaging them; I want them to get a bit frayed from messy piggyback races and end up smelling of smoke and spilt drinks from too much jumping around on a crowded dance floor. Clothes are for living in and not just looking at after all. :) What does your textbook outfit look like?

.

Facebook/Twitter/Bloglovin/LookBook/Pinterest/Flickr/Soundcloud

Rehearsals

I absolutely love rehearsals. Orchestral rehearsals, where you can go and sit in a room with 30 other people and forget everything outside the room in order to focus purely on the music in front of you. Band rehearsals, where I know James will be able to translate the inarticulate jumble of notes I can already hear in my own brain. WOLF PACK rehearsals, where not only do I get to air all my ideas about staging and music but I get to do it with a group of people who love and understand me and will therefore keep me in check from becoming a tidal wave of confusion. Theatre rehearsals, where I get to learn so much about another art form that so interests me from people whose knowledge of an audience and communication far surpasses my own. Dress rehearsals, the final pitstop before the event where you can start to anticipate how the whole performance will feel once you’ve added an audience and a ton of adrenaline into the mix.

..

I’m lucky that most of the time I’m rehearsing with like-minded people who end up becoming close friends. It makes such a difference to collaborate creatively with people who you know and trust. The saying goes that “life is not a dress rehearsal” but I disagree; you could argue that our whole lives act as a rehearsal for what comes next. We are all constantly learning and progressing: finding out how things work, how things feel, how we react to certain things and how to communicate and present ourselves to the world.

The last three weeks.

The last three weeks of my life have been dominated by a week of concerts at VAULT festival by WOLF PACK. WOLF PACK is a performance and music group I set up two years ago. Initially I set it up as a way to get through my horrific postgraduate degree but it quickly became a creative outlet for the ideas I had in my head and a platform where I could create the kind of performances I wanted to be involved in. My favourite events as a teenager were immersive theatre productions, exhibitions of performance art, small, intimate gigs and surreal plays. WOLF PACK is a combination of all those things.

.

We performed two different shows over the week, BODY and TEXT. For TEXT (above) we all dressed as literary characters (see how many you can guess from the photos) and for BODY (below) we all took on slightly different personas within a gameshow environment; alongside our cheesy gameshow host were two team captains (including me), a doctor, a nurse, a few sports nuts and a naked guy.

.

We had so many wonderful audience responses and many great nights out at the festival during our time performing there. I’m so grateful to VAULT for inviting us to play at their wonderful festival! If you’re interested you can find out more about the project here and VAULT festival is on for another three weeks so get on down there if you haven’t already…

.

Facebook/Twitter/Bloglovin/LookBook/Pinterest/Flickr/Soundcloud

Working Girl

This is what a day in the life of me looks like at the moment. I am currently working incredibly hard on a week of upcoming concerts with WOLF PACK and this is just a random day last week. I started off with a marketing meeting at the Hospital Club in Endell Street with my WP colleagues and we stopped for sandwiches after.The afternoon saw us working at C4CC on our upcoming concerts. We are so lucky to be supported by this amazing centre; it makes such a huge difference having an office space and to be working alongside so many inspiring and creative people and their ingenious projects!

.

 If you have anything to do with theatre and live in London I am sure you’ve heard of VAULT festival as it’s been featured in pretty much every paper going!  We’re performing a week of concerts at VAULT and it’s my job to come up with creative ideas, make sure the actors and musicians sound good, the show is entertaining, the set and props look interesting and that the tech team, cast and crew have everything they need to do everything correctly at the right time. I’m so excited WOLF PACK are taking part and investing huge amounts of time to make the concerts as brilliant as possible; it’s definitely a labour of love. In these photos I’m searching through this amazing old textbook based on the body: looking for costume/prop inspiration for our BODY themed concert. Aren’t the diagrams great?

.

In the evening I went to rehearse with my composer friend. He wrote a piece for WOLF PACK and I’ll be singing in it. By the time I got there it was about 8:30pm and I realised I’d only eaten a sandwich in the whole day so his lovely housemate created this plate of food to keep me going. I got home about 11pm – whenever you get near a show the working days inevitably get longer and longer, but it’s worth it! Tell me about your typical work day – I pretty much only know people working in the arts world so I’d love to hear about what you guys do!

If you’re interested further in my career I was interviewed  a couple of months ago by Youth Arts Online.

Facebook/Twitter/Bloglovin/LookBook/Pinterest