Diary: 16th May-3rd June 2001

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Wednesday 16th May

    Well, whaddya know.   Slackness of recently unparallelled proportions seems to abound, re: updating these pages.   I can't even think of anything particularly useful or relevant that I've been doing.   No!   Wait!   I have been doing something of unparallelled importance - nothing!   I did it on Friday, Saturday daytime and Sunday!!!   To be more specific, went to the park, and lay in the sun and drank delicious wine!!   Hooray!!   Now that's what I call relaxing!!

    So, you see, that was very important, I so rarely don't do anything - I mean, I often sit about thinking about stuff, not actually doing anything per se, but that isn't doing nothing in a beneficial way - in fact it's rarely beneficial at all.   Whereas at the weekend I went, right! - I'm on holiday, officially, for as long as the weekend lasts and the sun's out.   Let's face it, in sunny Britain it's a few days of sunshine in May and then sod all until, ooh, maybe July if you're very lucky.   So I was like, right, I'm getting it in while I can!

    Which surely has done me good.   I feel a bit crap at the moment, admittedly, but there you go.   Had a very bad midweek last week, so the sunshine weekend was well-timed too.   Perhaps it takes a crisis sometimes to make you go oops, something wrong here.   It does me, anyway.   In future I will try and have more fun, I will try and have more fun, I will try and have more fun.

    Sorry!   I was taking life seriously!

Sunday 27th May

    Hello and gratings.   Well, lots of exciting tings have happened over the past week or so - I went to see Black Sabbath for a start!!   That was last Tuesday at the Birmingham Academy, which is a medium kinda size venue - I was only vaguely tempted when they played the NEC a coupla years ago, 'cos it's so huge (and horrible!) - but the idea of seeing them in a place where you could actually get pretty close up to the stage was a not-to-be-missed opportunity!   And lo, verily, did they rock!!  Ozzy looked a bit fat, like, but he gave it plenty, bless 'im, and I was a bit worried about Bill Ward, who didn't look that well, but it was a great gig.   And I was like, oh my god, it's Black Sabbath, and they're just over there, about six feet away!!  Aaaaaaaak!

    And they played a good selection of the classics, much jumping up and down was extant!!  Well, from the younger section of the audience - out of which I seemed to be in the older end of, and then there was about a ten year gap, and then there was loads of decidedly mature audience, which was fine, but they didn't seem to get that into it.   In fact most of the balcony was occupied mainly by silently immobile spectators, as opposed to the shouting jumping up and down waving hands in air contingent downstairs in front of the stage.   Which is a bit crap really - if you're going to go and see a band, you want at least to make a bit of noise to show your apprecation, even if you are over 30.   Ozzy did in fact attempt to enthuse the upper areas of the audience, with his usual inimitable shouting-and-swearing approach (actually it's not that hard to imitate), but to little avail.   He seemed a bit frustrated by them.

    Other highlights include, er, sitting in the sun again (!) which was very very nice, and I think I could get used to it; oh, and it was my birthday last week,  was blessed by a contingent of well-wishers in the evening, which made me very happy.   And a bottle of tequila, which also made me very happy.

    And I've done some recording too!   So at present, the three tracks have got guitar and bass - Roberto and Roger came and did some bass each, and I did one too.   Electric guitar next, maybe some percussion, and finally vocals.   Which I'm still dreading.

    So, there you go!   It's Birmingham Pride weekend at the moment, I'm going to head into town later on today to join in the party, so by the end of the evening I'll probably be up and dancing to Bananarama or something.   I hope so anyway!    

Sunday 3rd June

     Well, no dancing to Bananarama was extant last weekend after all, mainly because I lasted about an hour at Pride before going, hang on, this is just loads of people getting drunk.   Which is not really what I'm into.   And a different demographic of sexualities does not a different night out make - it just seemed to me to be like Broad Street (archetypal Birmingham mainstream "townie" destination, smart shirts, fights and lager) with more gay people.   But then again, what did I expect?   But I'm sure when I've been before there's been more of a party atmosphere, or more of something.   I think I was in a bad mood as well, or rather, I got myself into a bad mood by thinking the wrong way, or in an unhelpful way ....

    Okay, I just think too much and that's basically my downfall.   Anyway, after leaving town I went round to my friend Neil's 'cos it was his birthday, and had a great time!   So that was better.   So I've just been trying to decide if the bits already recorded on my new tracks are OK or not, and almost immediately I've run into my usual problem, which is being unable to decide.

   This is mainly because I am unable to differentiate between my drive to make everything as good as possible, in a perfectionist kinda way (which is useful if I know when to leave it), and my tendency to be really critical about my own work (which is NOT useful, as it's got very little to do with what's actually there).   So how do I know whether something's actually "good enough"?   How enough is enough?   I don't want to be really really anal about it, and spend three years recording three songs; but then again I want it to be good!   And to be a representation of what I'm doing at the moment.   And not to be "just a demo", which is my usual fall-back when I'm not happy with something - it gets me out of having to worry (not that I actually have to worry, no-one's forcing me except myself) about whether it's "good enough".

   Having said that, the version of "For Wot" that's up in the Music section I think really has something - it captures something, or there's a feel  to it that really puts across what the song is trying to communicate - and that was definitely conceived as a "demo", but I'm still very happy with is, as it is, for what it is.   'Cos at the end of the day a song is just a medium for transmitting something - whether that's an emotional thing, or a message, or whatever.   Or maybe just telling a story.   But even then, there's a certain elusive something that some narrative songs have got and some haven't.

    This is the irony, too, 'cos I feel that when I'm producing somebody else's music, I'm pretty good at knowing when a take or a bit of performance has got it, or does it, or is it, or has it, or gives it out or takes it in or puts it out or brings it down or shakes it out or shakes it up or breaks it down or gives it that something.   (I need a word for that something.   There probably is one in German.)   But yes, I can tell it, I think, when it's anything else but my stuff, but as soon as I'm trying to judge my own work, it's suddenly an immensely confused and difficult job.   There's so many strands of so much stuff going on that to try and untangle what's what or what's not is a very tricky job.   Lots to ... unpack, lots to unravel.

    And frankly, it's a nightmare.   So I'm going to make a policy of getting somebody else in to help me with production issues until such time as I can separate the wheat from the chaff ... I feel like I owe it someone.

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