Learning new skills in your forties

Happy Substack Day!

How hot are you? I am BOILING and have spent all my Strum dollars on a)sh*t aircon, b)rubbish fans and c)ice (which is basically cold water FYI).

I have been busy though to be fair. First off, apologies that in my last substack I said I was giving you a link to a free download of my version of Benson Boone’s ‘Sorry I’m Here For Someone Else’ and LITERALLY NOTHING ATTACHED. Apart from me talking apparently. So here it is- let me know what you think- is it giving? Is it 10 Benson Boone backflips out of 10?

It seems I am not as IT savvy as I had previously thought which is a shocker seeing as I have spent most of my adult life (aside from the popstar bits) as an IT Project Manager. Oh well, we got there in the end!

Anyways, let’s get into the meaty stuff. This particular Substack is titled, ‘Learning New Skills In Your Forties’ which obviously I know NOTHING about because I am a mere glass-skinned 25 year-old (ahem) but if I WERE in my forties, I am pretty sure I would find learning any new skills pretty challenging…

That’s why I decided to enroll myself in a course to learn how to DJ. It’s something I have always been fascinated by and wanted to explore and after 5 weeks, I am now a proud graduate of DJ school, but can I actually DJ?

Well, the answer is, yes- a bit. I am nowhere near good at it though, which for me is the real challenge. I have only ever pursued things which I am good at. Maybe that is egotistical, maybe it’s normal- I don’t know, but I like being successful. Dancing, crap at it, gave that up. Writing a book- too hard and too difficult to push through known obstacles such as me not being famous enough to write my own memoir (yes that actually happened)- gave that up.

If I’m not 100% brilliant at something on day one, I slow-fade my way out that door, faster than a millenial twat ghosting me on a dating app!

DJ ing has been hard, slow, exciting, frustrating and I am embracing it. I liked being somewhere around the bottom of the class- not quite the bottom but certainly not the top. It gave me somewhere to go. Our teacher, the DJ Hayley Kennedy is fantastic and the best bit about it was that I got this…

How cute is that? Seriously.

So I will keep trying, keep failing forwards with it. I’ve booked a couple of practice sessions at Pirate on my own to see where I get to. I booked the last session on my actual birthday and sat in a teeny booth the size of my thumb sweating my bits off for half an hour with no sound coming out, before I realised I hadn’t turned the mixer on, so I don’t think David Guetta is gonna be quaking in his designer boots anytime soon!

I’m also forcing myself to practice the Glockenspiel more and improve my playing. Not least because this forthcoming album is so full of Glock, I could easily have renamed it, ‘Pocketful of Glock’. Or choose your own pun-laden title. I’m not great, but I’m improving.

I’d love to know what hobbies you’ve taken up later in life. I actually really enjoy hearing from you- putting voices to your email addresses and getting to know you better. BUT, you lot are SO POLITE! A few of you respond on here but most of you email me or DM- please feel free to do so but also feel free to comment OUT LOUD and proud on here- mi casa es su casa- this is your space to share and build this community and make it somewhere where we square pegs can find each other.

You are the community here, my music is just the thing that has brought us all together.

XOXO

So, comment on here by all means- argue with me, tell me what you’re up to, spam the chat with pics of your cat, whatever you want to share- so long as there’s no swearing, seggsy stuff and it’s inclusive and most of all kind to all our members obvs!

And so, back to work I go. But don’t think you got away without me nagging you to pre-save my new single, ‘EVERYBODY’ which is out this Friday wherever you get your music.

It is such a banger- co-written with former Infadels frontman Bnann and Gareth Young and I hope you are enjoying the snippets of it that you may have already heard.

Pre-saving takes seconds for you to do, is free and probably sounds totally meaningless to most people, but for us as artists it is super important as it gives those up at Spotify and iTunes an indication of how popular a song is and therefore, they then boost it accordingly, so even if you hate ‘Everybody’ and think it’s miles worse than ‘Touch My Bum (This Is Life) by The Cheeky Girls, please just click on the picture below and follow the link to pre-save and you will be doing me a huge favour and justifying to my accountant the need for me to keep buying weird popstar sh*t, such as random safes, lace gloves and costumes for my alleged ‘music career’. p.s. my accountant is my also my dad, so you can imagine how mortifying this actually is.

CLICK MY FACE!!!

Thank you,

Love you,

Alexis x

p.s. new album dropping shortly, WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!