Diary: 17th April - 3rd May 2001

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Tuesday 17th April

    Well, that's Easter gone already!   I eschewed the traditional Bank Holiday, er, ... traditions - you know, setting off in the car with a packed lunch  (so you've got something to eat while you queue down the motorway going at 4 miles an hour for five hours), so you can arrive at an idyllic tranquil seaside/countryside destination, where you can enjoy the fact that any peace and tranquility previously extant has been destroyed by the hordes of similarly bad-tempered Bank Holidaymakers determined to enjoy themselves, having made the effort to get there, in a range of Bank Holiday pursuits.

    Blessed with fine seaside weather (i.e. freezing cold and grey but not actually raining), you can sit determinedly on the beach in your swimming costume on your rug, still shivering despite the cheery and colourful windbreak* erected around you.   If the weather is not so fine, you can still enjoy yourself!   Eat fish and chips in the car, staring rigidly out at the grey sea whipping at the seafront, as the wind howls and the rain lashes down, going, we've come all this way to see the sea, so we're bloody well going to see it now we're here ....   (For the countryside, the same rules apply, just miss out references to the sea, and insert appropriate countryside views:  sewage treatment works, landfill sites, places they burn/bury the animals they've been too negligent to look after properly, i.e. any animals in the modern farming system - ooops! sorry, politics again.)

*Kindly people from warmer climes always feel driven to point out that if you need to have a windbreak up to make sitting half-naked on the beach just about tolerable, then it actually is too cold by far and you shouldn't even be thinking about it.   Of course, They Just Don't Understand that particularly British determination and tenacity that lingers deep within our genes - of course it's cold, it's the seaside!   Idiots!

    So, what of matters related in some way to music? I hear you cry.   Well!   Funny you should mention that, I've actually been doing some recording!!   Oh, yus!!   So in fact, there are what I could describe as the bare bones of three tracks laid down, which One Day Will Become the fabled New Demo I've been promising to do for ... well, too long to seriously contemplate.

    And what are those featured tracks, then?   My, we are interested in the demo this week, aren't we?   Well, the current Top Three tracks (oh, alright then, The Three tracks), in no particular order (other than the one I type them in in, obviously) are:  Over You Soon, For Wot (previously known as "For What It's Worth (Unrequited#74)" but decreed too long of title), and Demons.

    What do you think?

    Ah, actually, some of you have never heard "For Wot", as it's so super-new, so I think what I'll do is I'll post an early sketch of that on the website now, so as you can give it a listen, innit.   Then you can decide what you think of it!   Okay, here it comes ....

Friday 27th April

    Phew!   Busy week, and of course the first all-band gig at the Old Railway, which I think went pretty well on balance - it's all a bit of a blur to be honest.   Slightly odd for the audience, I think, given that they'd either come to see one of the punk bands playing, Eastfield and the quite fabulous Anal Beard, or the first band, Sick Puppy, kind of odd-hardcore, also very good.   So we were a bit different, given that my music's kinda, well, a bit earnest, if you know what I mean, so I think perhaps we were a bit earnest.    Important, that.   But they didn't look too baffled by it, and they made generally positive noises (and refrained from throwing bottles etc. at the stage) so it went pretty well.   We did our best to mould ourselves into the night by playing the songs as fast as possible, and I tried to shout wherever feasible.   But it's such a contrast going from playing on your own with the acoustic guitar to full electric band, that I wasn't really sure what was going on on stage, whether we were playing together or whether I was wandering off in a world of my own, whether I was singing approximately in tune or not.   I'd forgotten about that never-being-able-to-hear-yourself that goes with band gigs!

    But there you go, it's been done, and it shall be done again!   Next Wednesday, in fact, although with a different line-up again - the fabulous Roger Valderama who was playing bass on Tuesday will be in Spain next week, and fair play to him too!   So I'm delighted to welcome the wonderful David Picking into the ensemble next week.

    But this is all part of my vague plan - to play with different combinations of people, see what it's like.   Plus the people I'm keen to work with all have other commitments, so having a fixed band is impractical as well.   It's kinda like - (oh, here we go, I always use relationships as a metaphor for music, but it's so similar it just cries out for it)  - kinda like having been married for three and a half years, i.e. in a band, full commitment thing; and having been single for two years, and still very much enjoying my freedom and autonomy, but now I'm feeling quite into playing with some other people, seeing what works, what's good ...  but I'm not up for getting married again straight away, no way.

    So there you go.   Looking forward to the Jug gig very much, should be an enormous crowd of people, most of whom don't know me from Adam (I'm the taller one), and I'm looking forward to being joined by my two secret special guests too!!   All I need to do is run through the songs with Dave on the bass - oh, decide what songs to play too, first -er, and obviously rehearse one time with everyone there, and hand out fliers and put up posters and ring people up and change my guitar strings and do some washing and clean the kitchen floor and cook my tea and have a bath and ....

    And do some recording.   Ah.   Actually, I was going to try and get Roger to come over today and put some bass down on the recordings I'm doing, but I was talking to him last night, and I was thinking, I feel that I should do this tomorrow, but what I really want to do is go and see a movie and chill out for the afternoon.   So I did!   Which was odd, ringing Roger up and going, can you come and do some bass tomorrow, oh, actually, er, maybe I want to go to a movie instead, er .... dunno now .... so apologies to Roger for being so confused.   But in the end it's done me a lot of good.

    You see, I notice (not for the first time) that I often feel I should be doing certain things, or that I should be doing more, getting more done; but often this doesn't coincide with what I really need to be doing at the time, or even what I want to do, deep down.   It's like I have these ideas that I should do X amount of things in Y amount of time, but that's too rigid, I think.   More to the point, I can tell I've been pushing myself too hard the past few weeks, because I'm really physically tense.   Then again, that tends to happen this time of year, can't think why that should be ....

    So.   New resolution - do what's right at the time and don't always try to be further ahead than I can be - concentrate on enjoying and being in now.   And go the movies more.

    So, for example, having set myself a deadline of mid-May to finish these recording, how about instead I just do them when I have the time and when it feels right, and not put any arbitrary deadlines or unnecessary pressure on myself, and concentrate on getting some really good vibes down?   That seems like a good idea.   So it may take a little longer, but I hopefully will avoid driving myself mad with it.   And get a better result.

    Right, then, let's see how it goes!

Thursday 3rd May

     Just got in from Nick Harper gig, very inspiring, made me want to play guitar!!  Hooray!!  Shame I'm on the computer instead.

    But no, it's my untiring dedication to you, the public, that draws me to the keyboard and the flickering screen.   For indeed 'tis about time I brought you news of recent events.   For example, 'twas the Jug of Ale gig on Wednesday - yesterday in fact, seems like ages ago now! - which went really rather well, given that that incarnation of the band had only rehearsed once!   Well, keep it raw I reckon, indeed.   And I did a couple of acoustic numbers in the middle, upon which I was delighted, not to say honoured to be joined by the fabulous Jo Hamilton on the viola, and the similarly wonderful Lisa Mallet on flute.   I dunno what the audience made of it, they seemed to be having trouble keeping their concentration - well it was pound a pint night and the football had just finished - but I loved it!!   Couldn't really hear what I was playing, but Lisa and Jo sounded fantastic!!

    So, on the whole, it was declared a success!!   Shan't be doing it again for a while, I don't reckon, given the amount of time and money it soaked up.   But, immensely enjoyable playing with a bunch of fab musicians, so I may well do some acoustic ensemble gigs, which would be cheaper to rehearse for (i.e. you can do it round your house, no need for rehearsal rooms and taxis, etc!) and similarly enjoyable.   Apart from having LOUD GUITARS that is.   Actually, I could see my songs filtering into different groups, for different setups - some work better acoustically, for example, whereas a couple I've written do need a full-on electric guitar distortion band sound to really work - like there's a song called Last To Know I wrote two years ago, but I've only played once at a gig because it doesn't really work that well on the acoustic.   Plus I'm trying to write more angry songs, so shouty guitar band format for they, I thinks.

    But now, the focus returns to recording.   Oh!   And after the gig last night a guy came up to me from a small indie label, expressing an interest ... which was great!!  Christ, I'd forgotten all about that until just then, what a slacker!!   So yes, recording.   Recording, recording, recording ....

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