maxmclaren

As most people near & dear to me will know, my intention is to get into the radio industry. Now it may shock you to hear (I hope the irony of that statement is not lost on the page) but there are also thousands of others who – like me – want a similar fate. Those that find the day-to-day office environment rather grinding; those who feel the all-too-similar tasks of a 9 to 5 nibble away at their souls; and those whose desire to do what they actually want to be doing in their life is just a bit too encompassing to ignore!!

So, that’s where I’m at & it is a place from which you need to make yourself STAND OUT from the crowd rather than go down the logical route of work experience applications, grovelling emails & searching high & low for some “way in.” Instead, I have decided to take the leftfield tactic of harassment… Don’t get too worried, I mean that in jest (though with a tad of sincerity perhaps). Who is the victim, I hear you say?! Well, the target of my harassing ways is someone that most of you will know, either from his books, his magazine column, his radio show or indeed the movie he has inspired. I am talking, of course, about Danny Wallace – of ‘Yes Man’, XFM & Shortlist fame.

Since returning from India, I have been tweeting & emailing Danny (and as yet have received no reply from either) telling him of A) the website & our ridiculous adventure & B) my desires to get work experience at XFM. Now, I am a firm believer in twists of fate & things happening for a reason. Thus, when I saw that he would be at The Marquis of Granby pub in Charlotte Street to promote his new book, Charlotte Street, I thought that it was an opportunity not to be missed – an opportunity to STAND OUT!

If you followed the instructions from my last post & clicked on the CV tab at the top of the page, then you will know that I now have a video CV… If you did, I hope you enjoyed it; if you didn’t, suffice to say, I now have a video CV & thought that I should give a copy of it to Danny Wallace at his book signing. Not only that, the book signing also gave me an opportunity to let Danny relate a face to the tweets & emails… Now, since I have been tweeting & emailing about The Dysentery Dodgers, there was only one outfit that I could turn up in!! Yes, you guessed it – the Morphsuit got another outing. You see, on the one hand it helped me STAND OUT visually & at the same time, I was allowing Danny the opportunity to find out about the Dysentery Dodgers, hopefully check out the website, with all its videos, podcasts & blogs aplenty & also the fact that we had raised the tidy sum of £4000 for charity!!

And how did it go down?

Well you’d be surprised to hear that he knew I had been the one who was tweeting him… And when I said, “Danny, I really want to get some work experience with XFM…” He replied, “Well, you’re speaking to the right people then.”

Whether that was just his way of keeping the crazy man in the morphsuit at bay, or whether it was a genuine response, only time will tell. But I handed Danny both my Video CV & a printed version as well. Now, I will just keep pestering him until he looks at the thing!!

Here’s to hoping…

Maxi

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With the help of my good friend James ‘Livo’ Livingstone, we have put together a Video CV that you can see my clicking on the CV tab above…

Hope you like it!!!

Maxi

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The title says it all really… Whilst I was dodging cows, lorries & Indian monsoons with the Dysentery Dodgers, my own blog took a bit of a backseat (for one more time, allow me to plug the Dysentery Dodgers blog, which can be found at www.thedodgers.co.uk). So, now is the time to make amends & let you know what has been going on since I got back from our crazy Indian escapade, what is going on with six65 & what the future has in store…

The latter is quite difficult to predict, so for now allow me to breeze over that point a little & simply tell you – I have a plan!! The earlier 2, however, are easier to answer. Since I’ve been back, I have started working with an Indie music label called Tape Club Records. It’s a pretty small label, but already I have been on a video shoot for the band Peter & Kerry (album to be released in July). The shoot was set in Bloomsbury Lanes & I’ll be sure to get it up on this blog when it’s ready. Another band on the label that are making quite a bit of noise are Laurel Collective…

There are some quite exciting things in the pipeline with Tape Club – a tour in July; another tour in October – so I’m looking forward to working with them & seeing where it takes me. I have also started working with a local radio station in Hammersmith called OnFm. Again, the role is still very much in its infancy, but my intention is to get a presenting slot… That will take a bit of time, but hopefully my persistence will pay off in the end!!

Finally, six65 played at Proud, Camden last Sunday – our first gig since the 229 Club back in March. More importantly though, we have recruited a fourth member, Ben Aldred, to play lead guitar. At present, I’m not sure when our next series of gigs will be (or indeed whether Ben will be ready to play with us live…) but there will undoubtedly a few to come over the summer, so watch this space.

Right, I’m off to The Marquis on Charlotte Street to meet Danny Wallace in a Morphsuit… More on that to follow.

Happy Friday!!

Maxi

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Hello there… It has been a while since I managed to put together a blog post for this site. Apologies for that, but of late my life has been dominated with band practices, getting everything ready for India, leaving my job & running a marathon. Suffice to say, it’s been a rather hectic few weeks but as I’m sitting listening to ‘Bon Iver – Bon Iver‘ (if you haven’t heard the album, check it out… It is ridiiiiiiiiculously good!) I thought it was high time I updated you on what was going on.

So, since I last blogged, six65 have had our third live gig at the 229 Club. The set went well, there was a good(ish) crowd & the evenings shenanigans turned out like something from an American Pie movie! Unfortunately, those involved will not allow me to reveal the intricate details, I will only enlighten you that Miss ‘X’ was on absolutely scintillating form… Maybe broke a few hearts in the process & potentially may not be allowed back into The Cuban for fear of the amount of men she could nibble on next time!

In other news, as I may have mentioned a few times, I am off to India very soon – a week today in fact! The whole campaign has gone really well & I’d like to thank everyone that has donated, everyone that has come to any of the events, anyone who has helped in any way & everyone for making the whole thing such a success… We are having our Send-Off Dinner tomorrow night at Bengal Village in Brick Lane, so if you’re coming down The Dodgers can’t wait to see you & it should be a cracking night. I’ll be Podcasting the whole trip, no doubt writing songs along the way & hopefully keeping everyone up to date with how the whole thing is going. Really really excited about the trip as those of you who have spoken to me recently I’m sure will testify. So to follow all things Dodgers-esque, just visit our website & we’ll hopefully grab your attention somehow, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, JustGiving… Any of the above!!

The marathon in Barcelona was a pretty incredible experience. The weather was incredible, the crowds were enormous, the drummers along the way kept everyone going & I managed to run the thing in 3 hours 26 minutes & 26 seconds, which I was fairly chuffed about to be honest. 5 weeks after a collapsed lung, Rob Edwards also completed it in 4 hours 1 minute & 28 seconds, an unbelievable achievement considering!

Will keep everyone posted on upcoming gigs although as I’m out the country for most of April, there is understandably not a huge amount going on at the minute. six65 are hopefully going to be playing at Beach Break Live (still to be confirmed, but fingers crossed) & we are looking to get involved with some other summer festivals too so watch this space.

Happy Tuesday!

Maxi

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It literally was ‘under’ the bridge… As in, the venue was beneath Stamford Bridge, the home of the currently remarkably average Chelsea FC. And as far as how the venue compared to all the other places that I’ve gigged, this was quite simply the nuts! So, the fact that it was six65′s SECOND live performance (and only the FIFTH time we’ve actually played music together as a 3-piece) meant that the pressure was on…

Fortunately, Sami is one of the most chilled people walking this earth, and Livo’s not too far behind, so we laughed in the face of adversity & got ourselves ready for our 5-song-set. Backstage, the organiser’s of the night asked us how many gigs we’d played together, to which Sami answered, “Including this one… 12!” Lies, lies, and more lies… But that appears to be how six65 roll!!

All things considered, the set went amazingly well, the sound guys were incredible, a lot of people came (even for a 7.30 slot!!) & everyone got to meet my mum… We even managed to fit in a completely improvised number at the end (my song ‘Salvador’ that we have never even attempted to play together as a band) which was ambitious if nothing else!

THANKS EVERYONE FOR COMING… We’ll keep you updated for our upcoming gigs, whether it’s just me strumming my guitar, or whether it’s the whole of six65 rocking it!

Much love,

x

Like it or loathe it, Valentines Day is always an occasion. Whether it be that little spark needed for a healthy long-term relationship, or you’re newly smitten, or even if you’re doing your utmost to be as UN-romantic as possible because you’re single and proud, February 14^th ALWAYS has some sort of story to go with it.

Valentines Day 2012 did it’s best to follow suit…

Much like most young professionals, my friends and I have an email thread at work (nothing like the G4 or anything) and last week, one of the members of the thread, Jean-Luc Bragard, sent an email asking for a bit of healthy advice.

Jean-Luc is a fairly new employee at a top 10 Advertising agency, Beattie McGuinness Bungay. With Cupid’s favourite day looming, everyone in the agency was paired with someone from the opposite sex and had to ‘woo’ them in a creative or uplifting fashion for February 14^th. As a result, the thread was littered with discussions – in varying degrees of sincerity – about walks to Primrose Hill, use of the BT Tower, witty one-liners, crude propositions, popping of champagne corks, ropes & bungy cords (which apparently wouldn’t have worked on members of JP Morgan’s HR department) .

With so many suggestions, it seemed Jean-Luc couldn’t quite make up his mind, and as a result, my phone was ringing at around 9pm on Monday evening (i.e. February 13^th!!)

The conversation ran as follows:

Jean-Luc: Maxi, I’ve got a proposition for you

Maxi: What’s that then mate?

Jean-Luc: How would you feel about dedicating a song to my Valentine on video & sending it me?

Maxi: No worries, write the song and I’ll have a play with it. Slightly short notice mind you…

My use of the term ‘short-notice’ was fairly liberal in this instance, nonetheless, Jean-Luc sent over a re-jigged version of a ‘Flight of the Conchords song’ and hey Presto! his Valentines Day ‘woo’ was taking shape.

During the day, Jean-Luc kept me updated with events. Many in the agency thought he had actually hired me professionally to dedicate the song (his words, not mine!).  Other ‘woo’s’ involved anal-ease, personalised cupcakes, desks covered in rose petals. Suffice to say, the prize for first place – dinner for 2 at the Hawksmoor – kept everyone interested if nothing else.

The whole of Beattie McGuinness Bungay voted and results were as follows:

3^rd place – The lucky ‘woo-ee’ received a lamb’s heart tied to one of the founding partners door (not my idea of romantic… I’m not a seasoned Valentines Day man though!)

2^nd place – A blow-up sex doll was covered in Sushi for the ‘woo-ee’ to eat off (pretty inventive, if a little crude)

1^st place – Dinner at the Hawksmoor for Jean-Luc Bragard and his plus one! That’s right, my video dedication only went and won it. How does the saying go? Something like ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. I think Jean-Luc’s incredible lyrics and my spellbinding performance put paid to that one!!

Harri, the lucky lady, was heard saying “Jean-Luc, that was amazing. I feel completely and utterly wooed!!!”

So whoever said romance is dead should go and learn the guitar, watch Flight of the Conchords and serenade their Valentine. It worked for Jean-Luc and Beattie McGuinness Bungay LOVED IT!

Sadly, my Valentine’s lung collapsed in the morning. So if love’s not blind, it may just like hanging around A&E every now and then…

Hopefully see you at Under The Bridge on Friday.

x

11.02.2012 is a date that may not remain long in the memory for some, but for The Dysentery Dodgers & Maxi’s new band it marked a special special day! It was of course the first official fundraiser for the Dysentery Dodgers at Proud, Camden. Now if The Dodgers hoped that it would rake in the dollar for our 2 fantastic charities – MENCAP & FRANK WATER – we were left a tad disappointed… You see, you may have noticed that in order to get you to part with your MONIES The Dodgers have promised to do the following (sorry to sound like a broken record…):

£10+ – We’ll put your name on the Rickshaw
£25+ – We’ll put your name and a message of your choice on the Rickshaw
£50+ – You’ll receive a generous Indian souvenir from along the route
£75+ – We’ll put your name, any chosen message and an A4 picture of you on our rickshaw
£100+ – We’ll make a short video dedicated to you and post it online
£150+ – Max, our resident guitarist will write you your very own song and post it online
£200+ – We’ll carry a cardboard cutout of you throughout the journey
£300+ – You can re-name our mighty steed (on a first come first serve basis)
£500+ – All of the above and a paid for night out in Brick Lane with The Dodgers on our return

When you gig in Proud, they don’t pay you as such, but there is a ‘whip-around’ for each act after their set. At yesterday’s gig, Maxi, Livo & Sam decided to donate whatever they raised to The Dysentery Dodgers charity fund. Well, suffice to say the entire crowd in Proud yesterday afternoon (we’re talking around 50+ people here?!) wouldn’t have even got their name on the Rickshaw… I.e. it was LESS THAN £10!! To spell it out for you, the entire crowd gave us…. Wait for it…. Wait for it…. £6.65. In actual fact, 2 of those fine English nuggets came from one of our very own Dodgers, Richard ‘Cheval’ Hudson…

Now admittedly it was Maxi, Livo & Sami’s first live gig and – while the audience may or may not have noticed – it was a patchy performance to be fair. But £6.65 for charity… Really?! Yes, we are in the throes of a brutal recession. Yes, we were the fourth band on. Yes, we might not have provided the most polished of performances. But come on…

We can come up with all the excuses under the sun, but one must always look on the positive side of any situation. So try this one for size… Going into the performance, Maxi, Livo & Sami’s band was yet to be named. Yesterday, however, we stumbled across one. As a result of the meager whip-around, we thought it apt that our band should be named after the amount of money we raised. So there we have it, Maxi, Livo & Sami’s band, from this point on, will be known as – six65!

Our next gig is on Friday February 17th @ Under the Bridge. Come along and check us out!

Much love,

Maxi

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It’s 1pm on a Saturday, I’m watching Man Utd vs. Liverpool but my mind is only on playing my first live gig with Livo & Sami at Proud all in aid of the Dysentery Dodgers. If the reference to the Dysentery Dodgers makes no sense to you, then clearly you are not a friend of mine on Facebook, haven’t spoken to me or my housemates in the last few months and hence I’m a little puzzled as to how you have stumbled across this website in the first place…

So I’ll just assume that you do understand what I’m referring when I say the Dysentery Dodgers. Suffice to say, 1. Crazy Indian adventure 2. Charity 3. April 2012 4. Rickshaw Run. The reason that I mention it is that today is the first ‘fundraiser’ for the Dysentery Dodgers, taking place at Proud, with a whole afternoon of live music for your pleasure.. From 2pm-7pm!

My newly formed band (still yet to be named…) is performing at 5pm & then hanging around for a few beers after. So come down, enjoy the show, have a few drinkies & witness the beginning of something special… ALL FOR CHARITY!

I’ve left you with a little taster from our studio session earlier in the week….

Though I normally play my gigs solo, in the past I have played 1 or 2 gigs – namely the Hu Stu Summer Party & The Troubadour – along with a bassist (Sami Roth) and drums. Sami and I tend to find that 30 minutes practice in my bedroom, whether it be my room at University or more recently in my London flat, is ample for an impending performance.

However, with 2 gigs lined up in the next fortnight, at Proud on February 11 & Under the Bridge on February 17, the new line-up of myself, Sami Roth (bass) & James Livingston (drums) felt that seeing as we had never struck a note in anger together, it may be worth hiring out a studio to have our first practice together.

This took us to a dingy little alley at the end of which was Enterprise studios. I came straight back from meetings in Leeds, donning a suit… So needless to say I felt like a right over-dressed pr*ck!! I pretended to be a bit Rock star, you know Plan-B esque and all that, but from the looks I was getting, I think everyone just thought I was a bit posh.

Anywho, enough about my clothing… To say our first practice went swimmingly is a tad of an under-statement!! For 3 hours, we jammed, bounced ideas of each other, and dare I say it, we have the bare bones of a set lined up.

Not to give too much away, but Angel Eyes, How Long, Angry or Relieved, Take It or Leave & The Answers are now all “band ready” if you will…

In fact, Sami & I now feel a bit like we’ve now over-practiced, so if you pop along to Proud on February 11 and/or Under the Bridge on February 17, you may notice a bit of complacency from the ‘band yet to be named’. I jest of course, but on that note if anyone has any ideas of what they think we should be called, drop me a line at maxamclaren@gmail.com or tweet me @maxamclaren…

In a bit….

Welcome to Max McLaren’s website… Here you will find an array of things, from my recent exploits in a Huntenhall recording studio, to YouTube videos from playing on Hammersmith radio and a converted toilet in Sherpherd’s Bush. If you have a proper gander, you will even to able to have a sneak peak at my CV! You’ll also be able to keep up to date with my upcoming gigs, whether it be North, South, East or West London (for some reason, I am playing A LOT in West London at the moment and it’s a trek!).

I’m quite new to this whole building website lark so suffice to say it’s a work in progress… But please feel free to mozy through everything on the site. Future blog posts will be far more exciting, I promise. This is merely an introductory post to get the ball rolling.

As you will see along the right of the page, you can FOLLOW me on TWITTER, LIKE my FACEBOOK PAGE, and sign up to FOLLOW my BLOG. I would love you forever if you did at least one of these things now…

Ta very much,

Maxi