Diary: 4th-29th December 2000

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Monday 4th December

    Have been quite busy musically, done a couple of gigs, the Old Railway, Curzon Street, last Tuesday, and the Old Mo Sunday night - probably my two favourite venues.   Both were good, largely because on both occasions I was playing with Jo Hamilton, and it's always a joy to hear her play.   Fantastic.   And Rob (Solarflares) played a few tunes on Tuesday too, excellent as always.   And Chrissy Van Dyke (yet another incredibly talented singer/songwriter) came down the Old Mo and generally blew the room away, so it was a top night.

    Haven't done any recording though.   Sorry.   But I recorded the Tuesday gig, and I think maybe one or two of the tracks sound OK, so I'll probably post one up on the site when I get the chance.   The other reason I've been busy is that I've been doing front-of-house sound for Solarflares, (fantastic band if you're not familiar with them), and they've been gigging recently.

Wednesday 13th December

     Right then!    I've been Captain Industrious (er, well, a bit - Captain Moderately Busy, then) the past couple of days - for a start, I've re-installed absolutely everything on my computer!  And I cleaned the floor.

    Ahem.   So, yes, I've added a "Reviews" page filled with my ... er, two reviews that exist so far.   Maybe I should space them out so they look more impressive.   Or just more.   But, hey, they're GOOD reviews!!   Quality rather than quantity, innit?   Other than that, haven't been gigging in the last week, but I have been making an effort to write some more songs!   And by golly I've done it!

   It's only occurred to me recently that the reason I've written relatively few songs the last couple of years is that I almost never sit down with the explicit intention of writing something - I usually wait until I'm so preoccupied with some issue that it's all I can think about anyway (which could be a big pointer as to why most of  my songs are thematically similar - being preoccupied over some relationship/ex-relationship/putative relationship, etc.) 

   I've only just thought of that, you know!   What a revelation!   ("What an idiot!", you may counter.   "How obvious can something be?")   Well, there you go, a miniature epiphany, coming to you live, as it happens ....   Yea, verily did Steve behold the bleedin' obvious!  And lo! he was amazed, and quoth he, "Doh!"....

Friday 29th December

    Blimey, how time flies, etc.   Here we are, the holiday period.   Walking in a wonter winderland, etc.   (Well, a snowy Birmingham, anyway.)   I must confess to being rather excited by all the snow - I went up to see my folks at Christmas in Yorkshire (aye), and was incredibly excited when it actually snowed on Christmas Day!!   Didn't manage to make many things white for very long, so it was only a very-briefly-White-Christmas, but it was good enough for me!   And of course now it's very snowy, which is even better given that I don't really have to go anywhere, so I can sit in the house with the fire on full, looking out at it!

    These sorts of things are the most important, I think, appreciating all the little details that are so easy to miss; simple pleasures, trees and clouds and stuff, all that.   I don't know whether it's harder in the city or whether you notice it more because there's not so much of it ... I guess it's more a case of where you are inside your head; whether you can manage to stay with yourself enough to remember to look and appreciate all the beauty around you, or whether your mind's always wandering off somewhere ahead, thinking about something else, being somewhere else, or planning or just running around in circles chasing its tail ....

    Er, about music and stuff ... well, I've actually finished a new song entirely, and am in the process of completing one I started almost two years ago, but hadn't got round to finishing;.  But it seems to be completed in a first-draft kind of way - i.e. a couple of phrases will probably get altered, and the arrangement may well be fine-tuned, but there's an initial version of the lyrics and music, which is the main thing.

    So, I plan to record the first song soon (it's a novel topic for me, in the thematic ball-park of unrequited desire ... yeah, okay, I know all my songs are about the same thing), and put that up on the site.   Also, I will post one of the live recordings soon.

Well, until next time - enjoy the midwinter festival period - hopefully if we all party hard enough, the sun'll come back again next year.

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