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Vinh, Nghệ An Province, Vietnam
@danbrassington
Member since 2013
CURRENT MISSIONS Gigging, not sure why, perhaps I'm making up for lost time when I lived in Vietnam and its absence on the Global North 'World Tour' circuit - that and the Covid times. PREVIOUS MISSION Took part in a charity fundraising event over the month of July called Blackhall Mill To Bogotá. I cycled a minimum of 10km a day to raise money for the Casa Taller Las Moyas centre in Bogotá, Colombia. In memory of my late friend Sam Ling Gibson, all proceeds went to the community centre that was so dear to him and will help maintain and improve both the centre and the lives of the children who frequent it. Joined by 63 other runners/walkers/cyclists, we travelled the equivalent distance from Sam's hometown of Black Hall Mill in the UK to Bogotá, Colombia and back again, a total of 16,891km (at least). I hit my 310km target mid-July and finished off with 750km cycled and over £8,000 raised collectively, though we're still accepting donations here: https://www.samlinggibsontrust.org/ ABOUT ME Well here's a brief autobiography: I was born in the depths of Stoke-on-Trent in the mid-late eighties. Lots of pottery used to be made there, and now it's not. Two years later the Berlin Wall came down and it was the end of history, only it wasn't Mr Fukuyama. Eventually memories started forming and school happened, the 90s came and went and college arrived. Went to Uni in Bradford to study Creative Writing and ended up staying there about a decade in the aftermath of the great recession, maybe should've left earlier, but there were some fun times. Also visited the Baltic States a lot and formed a band out there. That ended. Visited Europe a lot throughout this period. Went sailing in a tall ships race, realised I was a land lubber and never sailed again. Went to Vietnam to build on my teaching experience as an ESL teacher, stayed for about 3 years and visited a bunch of places in South East Asia and then the pandemic happened, so carved out an existence of living in the same house almost endlessly. I kept myself going with the notion that "one day, like all things, this will come to pass, government incompetence willing". Couchsurfing was on standby but now I'm cranking up the gears on this rusty machine held together with masking tape and WD40. I like to play and record music, both my own and other people's together with a little video editing. Have some links: https://www.youtube.com/@abandonstrings https://soundcloud.com/abandonstrings https://abandonstrings.bandcamp.com/ Also like photography, have some (poorly attended to) links: https://www.flickr.com/photos/danbrassington https://www.behance.net/danbrassington PHILOSOPHY ''I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both.'' - Kierkegaard Generally I live by the golden rule and try to stay consistent with my ethics and morals for its own sake, not a sense of reward, though I can't deny that likely subconsciously comes into the equation somewhere. I live my life because I was born and now exist (I think at least), and in paraphrasing Carl Sagan, I am the universe looking back at itself and so are you!
Interested in Art
Interested in Books & Literature
Fluent in English
Learning Vietnamese
Why I'm on Couchsurfing
HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING By coming to a couch near you! (and/or accepting guests if convenient or if you have your own sleeping bag or something similar.) COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE I used to stay around my band mate's flat in Latvia every half year so we could do band things. We also made food with dill. Our band related things also took us to Estonia twice, on one of those occasions we couchsurfed after playing a gig. Otherwise I've couchsurfed at friends houses in my prior adopted city of Bradford and surrounding lands, sometimes waking to a face of pen scribbles, other times just the beautiful feeling of hangover. I now live in Vietnam, I may have bedsurfed here once. Scratch that, I now live in the UK, again, due to Covid and its cost of living hangover. Fun times!
Music, Movies, and Books
Do you have all day? If so: Music 1-Speed Bike 65 Days of Static 2814 A Burial At Sea Alan Sparhawk And So I Watch You From Afar A Winged Victory for the Sullen Abra Adam Wiltzie Adebisi Shank Adem Adolf Plays The Jazz Aidan Baker Air Aix Em Klemm Ak Dan Gwang Chil (ADG7) Amenra Amiina Amon Tobin Ancestors And So I Watch You From Afar Andrew Weatherall Angelo Badalamenti Animal Collective Anta Aphex Twin Apparat Appolo House Arab Strap Arcade Fire ARP Arvo Part At the Drive-in Atoms for Peace Audioslave Auf Der Maur Autechre Bardo Pond Bark Psychosis Barry Lynn Bat for Lashes Battles Beach House Beck Beggars Opera Belong Ben Folds Ben Folds Five Ben Frost Ben Woods Benga Beth Gibbons Biffy Clyro Big | Brave Bjork Black Doldrums Black Moth Super Rainbow Black Sun Empire Black Van Blanck Mass Bloc Party Blockhead Boards of Canada Bonobo Boris Bowery Electric Boxcutter Bram Meindersma + David O'Reilly Brian Eno Brian McBride Broken Social Scene Burial Calexico Caribou Caspa and Rusko Cast Charli XCX Chelsea Wolfe Childish Gambino Chopin Christina Vantzou Cid Rim Cigarettes After Sex Cliff Martinez Clint Mansell cLOUDDEAD Clown Core Colin Stetson Cornelius Cotoba Crackout Craig Armstrong Crazy P Daft Punk Dale Cooper Quartet and The Dictaphones Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip Dananananaykroyd Datach'i Deadmau5 Death From Above 1979 Death Grips Death in Vegas Debussy Digitalism DIIV DJ Food DJ Format DJ Scotch Bonnet DJ Shadow DJ Vadim Do Make Say Think Doctor Jeep Dolphins Don Caballero Dorian Concept Doves Drive-By Argument Dub Juddah Duster Dustin O'Halloran Dying Suns Earth Easy Star All Stars Easyworld Ed Cox Eels Efrim Manuel Menuch Efterklang Elbow Electrate Electric Wizard Elizabeth Elkupe Eluvium English Teacher Erik Satie Errors Eskmo Esmerine Explosions in the Sky Fabio Orsi Faithless Falconetti Fatboy Slim Fat Dog Father John Misty Feist Fields Final + Fear Falls Burning Five The Hierophant Floating Points Flying Lotus Four Tet Fridge From Monument To Masses Fuck Buttons Fuzz Gay Dad Geordie Greep Goat Godflesh Godspeed You! Black Emperor Gold Panda Goldfrapp Gonjasufi Gnod Grafiti Grails Grouper Guillemots Gurriers Gum Takes Tooth Hailo Halina Rice Hammock Hans Zimmer Hashshasin Hecq Henge Helios Hidden Orchestra Higuma Holly Macve Holst Holy Fuck Holy Sons Home Hot Chip How To Disappear Completely Hudson Mohawke Humanfly Humanist Ian Brown Interpol Isis iTal Tek Jaga Jazzist Jakob Jambinai James James Holden Jamie Woon Jamie xx Jarvis Cocker Jessica Moss Jimi Hendrix Joe Hisaishi Johann Johannsson Jon Brion Jon Hopkins Jonny Greenwood Jonsi Jonsi and Alex Juffage Juliana Barwick Julio Bashmore Juniore Jurassic 5 Justice Kavinsky Kelpe Kendrick Lamar Khun Narin Kiasmos Kim Jung Mi King Creosote and Jon Hopkins Kings of Convenience Kruangbin Kyle Bobby Dunn Kyuss Labradford La Luz Land of Kush Laurie Anderson Lawrence English LCD Soundsystem Led Zeppelin Leenalchi Leftfield Lemon Jelly Les Big Byrd Les Rythmes Digitales Liam Lynch Library Tapes Lilacs and Champagne Lobe Locust Toybox Long Fin Killie Loscil Low Ludovico Einaudi Luke Abbott Luke Vibert M.I.A M83 Manic Street Preachers Martyn Massive Attack Master Musicians of Bukkake Mastodon Max Cooper Max Richter Maximo Park Maybeshewill Mdou Moctar Meatbodies Melt-Banana Metaphi Michael Andrews Midland (UK) Million Dead Mint Royale Moby Moderat Modeselektor Mogwai Moondog Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company Mount Eerie Mount Kimbie Mr Scruff Mr Oizo Mui Zyu Muse μ-Ziq Muslimgauze My Bloody Valentine Nadja Nathan Fake Natural Snow Buildings Neurosis Nick Cave Nils Frams NOFX Noisia Nope Nosaj Thing O. Ocean Colour Scene Oceansize Oceantied Ochre Oiseaux Tempete Olafur Arnalds Omar Souleyman Orkestar Zirkonium Oskar Pajo Pan American Panda Bear Pantha Du Prince Pelican Petrels pg.lost Philip Glass Picore Pink Floyd Plaid Portishead Pram Public Enemy Pulp Purple Traitors Pye Corner Audio Quantic Queens of the Stone Age Rachel's Radiohead Rage Against the Machine Raging Speedhorn Ratatat Raymond Scott Richard Lacy Rimsky Korsakov Rival Schools Rolling Stones Roni Size Royksopp Rudolph Rocker Rueben Run The Jewels Runners Russian Circles Ryuichi Sakamoto Saltland Sam's Backroom Sarah Neufeld and Colin Stetson Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Parry, Rebecca Foon Saul Williams Screaming Trees Se So Neon Sensorama Serge Gainsbourg Set Fire To Flames Shalabi Effect Shield Your Eyes Shitmat Sigur Ros Silver Apples Silver Mt. Zion Simian Simian Mobile Disco Sixto Rodriguez Skream Slamboree Sleepingdog Slift Slint Slowdive Smog Sol Seppy Spiritualized Spurv Squarepusher Stalking Horse Stars of the Lid Steppenwolf Stereolab Steve Gunn and Black Twig Pickers Steve Roach Sungrazer Sunn 0))) Superalgebra Supergrass Swans Symphocat System of a Down Talk Talk That Fucking Tank The Album Leaf The Alps The Appleseed Cast The Beatles The Beta Band The Bug The Chemical Brothers The Cinematic Orchestra The Coral The Cure The Dave Brubeck Quartet The Dead Texan The Desert Sesssions The Divine Comedy The Doors The Dust Brothers The Eternal Dream System The Evpatoria Report The Field The Flaming Lips The Flashbulb The Fugees The Future Sound of London The Haxan Cloak The Joy Formidable The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble The Longcut The Mars Volta The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation The Octopus Project The Orb The Power Of Kangwon Province The Presidents of the United States of America The Prodigy The Propellerheads The Roots The Secret Machines The Streets The Tumbling Sea The Twilight Sad The Velvet Underground The Verve The Who The Winstons This Et Al This Will Destroy You Thom Yorke Thomas Newman Thought Forms Throwing Snow Tim Hecker Tindersticks TNGHT Tobacco Toe Tom Vek Too Many Zoos Tortoise TrapZillas Travis Trentemoller Tricot TrioVD TV on the Radio Ty Segall Tycho Tyler, The Creator Ufomammut Underworld Unkle US Christmas Valley of the Giants Vangelis Venetian Snares Vessels Victoria Vincent Markowski Vitalic Wand We Are Winter's Blue and Radiant Children Weedeater Whitelands Whitey Why? William Basinski Willy Mason Windy and Carl Wisp World's End Girlfriend worriedaboutsatan Yann Tiersen Yasmin Williams yourcodenameis:milo Yppah Movies 10 Cloverfield Lane 28 Days Later 2001: A Space Odyssey A Clockwork Orange A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints A Little Pond A Matter of Life and Death A Room for Romeo Brass A Taxi Driver Adam and Paul Adaptation Amelie American Beauty Annihilation Anomalisa Arrival Babel Back to the Future Trilogy Barking Dogs Never Bite Batman Begins Battle Royale Beasts of the Southern Wild Being John Malcovich Beyond the Black Rainbow BlacKkKlansmen Black Swan Blade Runner Blade Runner 2049 Blame it on Fidel Blue Velvet Bodysong Born on the Fourth of July Buffalo 66 Burning Caramel Cast Away Catfish Children of Men City of Life and Death Climates Close Encounters of the Third Kind Cloverfield Coherence Come and See Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Crash Da 5 Bloods Dances With Wolves Dark City Dawn of the Dead Day of the Dead Dead Man's Shoes Dead Poet's Society District 9 Donnie Darko Downfall Dunkirk Drive East is East Edge of Tomorrow Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Everything Everywhere All at Once Ex Machina Falling Down Fargo Festen Field of Dreams Fight Club Four Lions Four Weddings and a Funeral Furie Galaxy Quest Garden State Get Out Ghost World Good Morning, Vietnam Good Will Hunting Goodfellas Goodnight Mummy Grave of the Fireflies Grizzly Man Groundhog Day Heavenly Creatures Her Hereditary Hidden His House Howl's Moving Castle I Am Mother I am Legend I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK I'm Thinking of Ending Things In Bruges In the Loop Inception Interstellar Invaders from Mars JFK Joker Joint Security Area Jude Koyaanisqatsi Kung Fu Hustle La Haine Labyrinth Lady Vengeance Le Dîner de Cons Leaving Las Vegas Logan's Run Looper Lost in Translation Love Meetings Mandy Manos: The Hands of Fate Melancholia Memento Memories of Murder Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Metropolis Midnight Cowboy Midsommar Milyang (Secret Sunshine) Minority Report Misery Mission: Impossible Mon Oncle Jacques Tati Monsters Moon Mother Mother! Mulholland Drive My Dinner with Andre My Neighbor Totoro My Summer of Love Mysterious Skin Mystic River Napoleon Dynamite Network Never Let Me Go Night of the Living Dead Nineteen Eighty-Four No Country For Old Men Oasis Okja Oldboy Once Upon a Time in the Midlands Overlord Parasite Peppermint Candy Platoon Poetry Powaqqatsi Precious Predestination Princess Mononoke Prisoners Pulp Fiction Rabbit-Proof Fence Rain Man Relic Requiem for a Dream Return to Oz Revolutionary Road Road to Perdition Room Saving Private Ryan Schindler's List Seoul Station Seven Sexy Beast Shawn of the Dead Shooting Dogs Shrek Shutter Island Silver Linings Playbook Snowpiercer Solaris (1972) Son of Babylon Source Code Southern Comfort Spirited Away Star Trek: First Contact Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Submarine Sunshine Super 8 Super Size Me Superbad Sympathy For Mr Vengeance Synecdoche, New York THX 1138 Taxidermia Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War The Babadook The Cabin in the Woods The Century of the Self The Curious Case of Benjamin Button The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises The Day a Pig Fell into a Well The Death of Stalin The Deer Hunter The Endless The Elephant Man The Fisher King The Fly The Front Line The Game The Graduate The Green Mile The Handmaiden The Hobbit The Host The Hours The Hunt for Tony Blair The Lord of the Rings Trilogy The Man Who Fell To Earth The Master The Matrix The Men Who Stare at Goats The Motorcycle Diaries The Pianist The Quiet American The Road The Secret In Their Eyes The Shape of Water The Shawshank Redemption The Shining The Station Agent The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada The Tree of Life The Truman Show The Unbearable Lightness of Being The Virgin Suicides The Visitor The Void The Wicker Man The Wrestler There Will Be Blood Thirst This Is England Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Timecrimes Toy Story Toy Story 2 Toy Story 3 Toy Story 4 Traffic Train to Busan Trainspotting Transsiberian Triangle Triangle of Sadness Us Vivarium Walk on Water Walkabout Welcome to Dongmakgol Winter's Bone XXY Books 1984 - George Orwell A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Catch 22 - Joseph Heller Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury Frankenstein - Mary Shelley In the Penal Colony - Franz Kafka Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck On The Road - Jack Kerouac Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Dafoe Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger The Children of Men - P. D. James The Crucible - Arthur Miller The Curious Tale of a Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien The Judgment - Franz Kafka The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick The Outsider - Albert Camus The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allen Poe Trumpet - Jackie Kay Waiting For Godot - Samuel Beckett We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
One Amazing Thing I've Done
Travelled on and manned an 18th Century sailing ship replica in a tall ships race from Newcastle, UK to Gothenburg, Sweden.
Teach, Learn, Share
I'm good at English and Writing, have a knack for proof-reading and editing. I teach English as a second language, so there's also that. I can play the drums, people could learn the drums up to an intermediate level. I'd like to say professional but I know my place...
What I Can Share With Hosts
My writings and music (only if you're interested, it's not mandatory), views, tastes, knowledge of the local area once unlocked down and back out of the sticks, and prior commitments willing, my free time.
My Interests
Writing Literature Reading Drumming Pianoing Guitaring Glockenspieling Playing music in general Listening to music in general Having a strong interest and opinions in/about music Philosophy Politics Social issues Culture Art Science and Technology Particle Physics Quantum Physics Cosmology Astrophysics Architecture Television Film Buffing Not playing any sports of any kind Scepticism Gaming Secular Humanism Debate Non-Euclidean Art and Design