Well, after a couple of months we've finally managed to write/complete a new song! Now you may think that as a band that's generally what we should be doing, but believe me it isn't always the most straightforward process. It is often easy to come up with a riff or a melody or a drum part in isolation, but it is a whole different kettle of fish to turn that spark of an idea into something you feel strongly enough about to share with other people.

Due to an increase in gig frequency over the last couple of months, we've spent a fair amount of time rehearsing existing material for live performance, which has meant there is less time to devote to writing. Don't get me wrong, I do love our current stuff and am always immensely proud to play it live, but even the best song ever written can sometimes wear a tad thin when rehearsed for the 10th time that night, at 11:30pm, after a full day's work. Not only that, whenever rehearsing there is always the allure of a new idea that one of us may be working on that can distract from the job at hand.

So last night we finally dedicated some quality time to something new that we've been kicking around for a while, and managed to turn it into a fully fledged part of the Sleep Room arsenal. And the thing is it really restores your faith in being in a band. The last run through was tight as a gnats chuff and had all four of us grinning like buggery.

It's quite an unnerving feeling when it all comes together like that. Four ordinary people seem to forge something greater than the sum of their parts. You suddenly forget all the hassle you've been through to get to that point, and spend the next week singing the new tune round in your head.

Said tune, which is still as yet untitled, will hopefully be in a suitable state to play on the 31st which we're really looking forward to.

Set lists. It really makes our heads feel like the outside, and the outside like the inside. Like your brain has fallen out, filled the universe, and doesn't like it. Now he's trying to get back in, and it hurts because he has become fat on a diet of stars. And set lists.

We have a moderate collection of complete tunes we could place in the box marked 'confident'. Our tunes tend to last a wee bit longer than the bus ride from my mum's house to Wokingham town centre, just outside the post office. For a 45 minute set, that gives us about 7 songs. The bit that makes our brains escape is chosing which songs to play. Will the audience be into this? Will they want to hear that? Will they be drinking to heavily to care? Will we? Does my drum look big in this?

If you had 7 children and you only had space in the car for 4, then you need to buy a bigger vehicle, possibly one of those mini-bus things. The songs we leave behind have thier faces pressed up against the glass of the window.

What makes our brains expand like the death of a sun is figuring out what order to play the songs we have chosen. Open with the favourite, and the highlight for some is over in the first few minutes of the performance. Open with a difficult number, and play it poorly. Open with a strange song and lose the audeince in the vacuum of alienation. Open with a simple song, and give out the wrong message. Hello, my name is Garmond Sighfunkle, when actually it is something else.

My God it is annoying. Perhaps we should pull songs out of a hat, or perhaps something more complicated like the way they pick the groups for the World Cup. What's up with that?