Dear Old Amsterdam - Saturday

Southbound train from Centraal, 8ish AM

"How do you wrap something up like this?," I thought to myself in my bleary caffienated state. "Okay, so I've got tape and paper handy, no scissors somehow, but it's such an awkward shape, and the books, what do I do with them?"
By Schipol (first stop), I had gotten it all on to the paper, but it took me until about Roosendaal, indeed half the bloody journey, to get it all up and around....I ended up using the whole roll, but it was well worth it. It was a huge one of those soft toy jangly things that you hang up in a cot, plus half a dozen carefully selected Mr Men books, and I got it all in there somehow. It was my present to Simone, newborn daughter of my dear friend B and her new husband M, the first child of any one of my friends that I have ever known.
Goes is about two hours into the south-west corner of the Netherlands, closer to Antwerp, in fact it's on a "three-quarters island" with all the dykes and stuff...Lucky thought it out of the way, and it probably was for a country the size of Tasmania!
I embraced B as she charged in the railway station foyer - she hadn't changed a bit. Out the other side of the station, I was intrigued to meet her new husband, a Dutch sailor that she had met shortly after our two months together on the ship. We had all lived in such close quarters that I figured I'd recognise him, and as soon we shook hands, we almost said at the same time, "Yeah, I know you"!
We drove back to their tiny cottage by the canal and had a great afternoon, catching up on a whole year, and I finally got to meet little Simone, a whole one month old, such a placid little baby. Mum and Dad were okay with me not only holding but feeding her - a strangely electric experience...I never knew how long it took to feed babies - I was there for at least half an hour!
B and I spent two months together working contracts on a cruise ship in the Netherlands, and I have to say that my time on that ship changed some opinions I had about Americans. One thing that I especially learnt about them is how much fun they like to have, and their incredibly infectious enthusiasm. If they decide to party and you happen to be around, then it's fasten your seatbelts! This was definitely the case with the ones I met and hung with - Big Bass Drum (see links) and his gorgeous family were that way, and B was the queen of that.
In this spirit of gusto, we all jumped in the car shortly afterwards, speeding off to a nearby village (totally Legoland!) where we took a place on some street and watched the local carnival parade. A town of no more than a thousand, and there was this huge parade, featuring floats that had taken months to build....a house-sized race car crawls noisily by, follwed by a giant rotating Elvis head two storeys high, complete with army of impersonators....and the highlight? This big stoner hut on the back of a truck, complete with three-metre long joint pouring smoke! With little kids running around in hippie costumes! Wicked! B and I couldn't believe it, with Simone in the kinderwagon and M looking on calmly from the side of the street - a yearly occurence he's obviously grown up with. Got the full driving tour around the local area, did some shopping...a great afternooon melting into a lovely evening back at the house.
Seeing these two great people and their newborn, I couldn't help but let it all put my own bachelor life into perspective....cooking food for ME, earning money for ME, buying clothes for ME, getting up on the weekend whenever I want to, doing whatever I please whenever I please it. It's a charmed life I know, but spending time with this beautiful young family got me thinking about a few things.
B tells me that at the moment, you take a little longer to leave the house, you got to think ahead in a couple of different ways, and other than that it's the same...they're still the same people, plus the fact that they have each other and this amazing little life growing daily before their very eyes. Concerns for the future? Probably - who doesn't? - but they have each other, and will face these concerns together.
Quite a perspective....

Dear Old Amsterdam - Friday

Rocked up to Leidseplein about 11, a little later than hoped, but after inhaling a lox bagel and a cappucino, I proceeded directly to the bike store next door, put down my credit card details and in a second I had two wheels again....
I'd been pretty fired up about this particular adventure - five years of tredley power was my principal method of transport back in the BC, and yet in London I'm still yet to purchase, not having ridden regularly for a whole year! Add to that no sleep for most of the week preceeding, caffeined to the eyeballs, suddenly realising that it was right-hand drive, and with back-pedal brakes (like I'm suddenly eight years old again), I chuckled out loud with delight (getting to be a habit on these little continental jaunts) and set off in earnest.
You have to have a spare set of eyes in the back of your head in this town...everyone drives everywhere! Cars drive where the trams go, scooters go where the bikes go, and pedestrians and bikes go wherever they please. My excitement found me rapidly overtaking the locals for a couple of blocks until I realised I'd lost my map! Regardless, fearless, the spirit of adventure overwhelming, I pressed on....
First stop the Jordaan, the cute little burb just to the west of the city. This is where musos would live if they could afford it. Saw some gorgeous streets with local cafes and restaurants and stuff and dropped into an awesome CD store with the biggest soul collection I think I've ever seen....
Dodging construction sites left right and centre, I moseyed on back into town and down to the Vondelspark, the big rectangular stretch of green a little outside the centre. Even in winter it was beautiful, and I could see that in summer it would be THE place to hang. As I cruised along the eastern side, the houses got bigger and more amazing until I got to the bottom corner and was astonished at these small palaces, set on a canal which came up to the park, with a little stone bridge off in the distance. Intrigued, I came back up the other side of the park, and then down to said bridge to have a look around at probably the plushest part of town.
Working my way back up a big street and one of the canals, I ended up in Museumplein, a truly amazing area....fronting the park are the Rijksmuseum (home of Rembrandt's works), Van Gogh museum, the music conservatory and the Concertgebouw (main classical venue in town)...a real cultural precinct....
After returning the bike I wandered off for another five euro special before finding an electro-acoustic gig...can't remember what the place was called, and the music left something to be desired, but the set-up of the venue was awesome...big restaurant place downstairs, then up some stairs to a bar, then through two sets of doors (i.e, the bar is close but not in the same space as the music) and into the performance room, with full lighting desk and sound system setup. Never seen anything like it!
Back to Lucky's place, out in the 'sticks' apparently (a whole 15 minute tram ride), where we put in a late night drinking session with Lucky's delightful girlfriend....

Dear Old Amsterdam - Thursday

A highway in the Netherlands - 10ishAM

Zooming down the freeway, a freeway like many others I've seen before...looking out the window at factories, houses, apartment buildings, like loads I've seen before. Sure, the odd canal and river pops up, and there's a triangular nature to the houses, but it's all variations on a theme, all seen before....
Wait, I know where....Legoland! That's where I've seen it all - being an avid builder in my kiddie days, suddenly recalling that this is the place where those plastic little bricks (killer if stepped on the wrong way in the dark) come from...
This travelling on your own thing, there's still a bit of a knack to it for me...spending all that money and time on oneself is a little unsettling somehow...just gotta get in the right frame of mind for it and I'll be okay....
Still feels unusual, staring off at the horizon, to have your view interrupted by things like a telecommunications tower, windmill, or block of flats, and not the childhood-programmed golden wheatfields and grazing pastures streching off to beyond....come on Mike, this is Western Europe, not the South West Slopes!
Aussies have no troubles travelling across this continent. The Europeans I speak to are boggle-eyed when I tell them about eight-hour drives from Melbourne to Canberra, or the time I caught the twelve hour overnight train from Melbs to Sydney (let alone the day and a half it takes to get back to Oz) and how us Great South Landers take all that for granted.
As we hurtle along the long, straight, grey freeway towards the city, the peripheral vision is caught by some flocks of birds passing overhead in the soft blue sky...naturally perfect delta wings, their effortless flight path at right angles to our own, the surprising expanse between us lending a striking visual effect. A bookworm friend of mine once paraphrased a Jose Luis Borges passage that talked about animals being immortal, as they have no sense of their own mortality. These small herds of black specks in the sky are confident at least in their purpose, their sense of direction....
Listening to Mos'Def, 'Black on Both Sides' again, MC'ing from the heart about his home town of Brooklyn....indeed, as we pass the 'Hotel Breukerleun' (or some such spelling)...it's all related....and yet through the dialogue about how at home he feels across the East River, the phrase springs up, "It's not where you're from, it's where you're at"...
So I stepped off the bus at Centraal, and do you know what the very first thing I smelt was? There wasn't even a coffeeshop nearby! To be expected I suppose. After a couple of errands I set off in earnest into the heart of town. It all goes in circles with the canals (the primary navigation reference among the locals), but with the streets it's all up down left right as well, making it the perfect town for a wandering tourist. Once I got past all the lame shops and stuff that the traveller is instantly presented with in any major city, the winding lanes turned on their charm.
And so it was quite inadvertently that I wandered into the infamous Red Light District. I later learnt that the Dutch have a proud defiance in leaving the curtains open in their windows, for passers-by to view directly inside their shops and homes. And in this part of town, the working girls were there, mostly naked, sitting, posing, standing in their neon-red-framed windows, for all the world to see...anything you want, keep walking around and you'll find it! Being Thursday lunchtime and all, it was a bit quiet in the hood...a large black woman peels an orange...an Asian woman sits in a chair and chats on the mobile phone...but on occasion you would see some guy in front, usually older, white-haired, go knock on a door to see what he could get for whatever was in his wallet....
I pass a larger window and one is warding off a potential customer with a look of consternation. She is small and thin with long white hair, and all of a sudden I feel sorry for her, for this whole situation...instantly followed at wonderment as to why I should only feel this for her in particular, and not for all of them...
I cross a bridge and a guy in a big jacket carrying a plastic bag suddenly switches a look over his shoulder, darts off down a laneway...DJ clued me up to this breed, to be found especially in this town...."It's like they've taken a bad acid trip in 1985 and haven't done much with their lives since"...an accurate observation, and I start to notice more and more sketchy characters as I stride along the streets...
Moving back into the main part of town, I made my way down through Dam into Rokin, picking up a tourist map, and eventually ended up in the Van Gogh Museum, a pleasant way to kill a couple of hours. A text beckoned me outside to meet up with Lucky, my connection in town. Lucky's an old friend from BC (the Bush Capital), great trombone player, and we've done our time in a couple of bands together. We repair to the nearest bar, catch up, have a laugh, and then he's off again. I keep wandering, ending up at a five-euro pizza place near Leidseplein, tipsy enough by now to ensure that I have an excellent time dining by myself, watching the restaurant cat (?) sitting at the bar with the other punters...
And so I find myself returning to the Red Light District, strangely fascinated, and it's business as usual...more windows are open (whoever's got the contract on neon-red in this town is on a goldmine!). Less old men this time, more packs of three and four guys, shaved heads, jackets and jeans....and straight couples ducking in and out of video stores, arms linked, pointing and giggling...
Passing the windows, I catch some winks, glances, poses, grins, and I grin politely in return....in a neighbourhood teeming with sexual attraction, how does a working girl ensnare her prey simply off a pose, a look?
Another BC mate, L, told me once of his adventures in Thailand, how the girls know what kind of person you are as soon as they see you. And so, in a moment of self-centredness, I am wondering, through that brief moment of the walk-past, in a glance exchanged between total strangers in an extraordinary situation, what these girls would perhaps make of me....
I walk by a row of half a dozen smaller booths, and in that split second, one laughs at me and taps on the window to draw my attention. Chuckling to myself, I am suddenly quite tired of the whole experience, and turn my stride towards the next meeting spot.
I hook up with Lucky in a cosy pub just down from his gig, across from a cute little canal bridge lit up by fairy lights. A day's walking with two bags has me beat, and so we down a couple of pints and then tram off into the suburbs...

Mike's Top Ten Albums - Notable Mentions

Just back from Amsterdam, so full write up on the way! Incidentally, I only just managed to figure out how to put links on the page, so look to the right for some mate's blogs and some I've picked up - more to come.
In the meantime, thanks to all who have enjoyed my previous raves over the music I love...the following was originally going to be part of the second five(ish) but it turned into a bit of a thing itself, so here 'tis:

Notable Mentions:

Joao Bosco

I only own one album, a compliation, but this guy is the real thing - Brazilian singer-songwriter-guitarist, used to write for Elis Regina (?), and then after her passing came into his own light. Some of it is cheesy pop, but there is loads from an early 80s live solo concert, one track of which, 'O Bebado E Equilibrista', is my favourite recorded piece of music in the whole wide world (so there you go!). Compared sometimes to Gilberto Gil, and admittedly their live shows are kind of similar, but it goes without saying that each has their own thing. I used to own a Gilberto Gil compilation, so I'd probably be more into his studio albums - Bosco can definitely leave the super-studio trash at home. Anyhow, the first major gig I went to see when I got here in London was Bosco at Jazz Cafe, and it was by far, once again, one of the best live musical experiences I've ever seen.

Black Eyed Peas - Bridging the Gap

Okay, so we're entering a bit of nostalgia-tripping here....this is Mike's party time album number 1, as it always takes me back to the early sharehousing days with Z back in the lovely easygoingness of Canberra's inner North (pre-yuppiefication, right Z?!). Any bunch of deliberately fashion-consciousless blokes who word their way around classic samples, with some cute chick singing the chorus, has got my thumbs up fur shuuuure!

Vivaldi - 'Four Seasons', Bach - 'Brandenburg Concertos'

Another nostalgia call....my Mum used to play this stuff in the car all the time....those endless harpsichord and violin lines are totally interweaved with memories of family drives through winding country roads....endless fields of yellow wheat stretching to rolling hills on the horizon...cotton wool clouds, porcelain blue sky....

Steely Dan

More nostalgia I'm afraid, but with a twist....this is what my Dad used to play in the car, and it's definitely for that...I seem to remember it mostly on family holidays down the South Coast...originally I dug the 70's rock sounds of the band as a kid, getting into it because my mum and dad were...then, after moving to Melbourne and discovering what the music 'scene' is really about, I came back to it and finally got around to reading (and thereby understanding) the lyrics!
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are the supreme storytellers of a certain brand of people us musicians get to know. After a certain time dealing with the numerous difficulties of plying our trade on the scene, we start to encounter the people surrounding the music, those characters that don't quite fit in with normal society but are totally in their element in that often shadowy nightworld of nightclubs and bars, as it allows them the license and freedom to indulge in whatever pursuits they desire....the fringe-dwellers.
Glowing example of this - selected verses from 'Deacon Blues', second track on 'Aja'. It's essentially about the Beat Generation, but it could also definitely apply to a few people I've come across along the way:

My back to the wall / A victim of laughing chance....Sharing the things we know and love / with those of my kind / Libations, sensations / that stagger the mind...
I crawl like a viper / Through these suburban streets / Make love to these women / languid and bittersweet...
I'll rise when the sun goes down / Cover every game in town / A world of my own / I'll make it my home sweet home....

Gold! And the chorus?:

I learn to work the saxophone / I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long /And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world / I want a name when I lose.....Call me Deacon Blues

'Kid Charlemagne' is about an adventurous drug dealer - 'Everyone's Gone To The Movies' is about a pedophile who shows porn flicks to teenagers - 'Throw Back The Little Ones' is about a guy who's not welcome in a particular neighborhood - 'Home At Last' is a reference to Homer's Odyssey, for goodness sake! Terrific stuff - a highly unique chapter of pop music not to be missed.

Okay, that's enough of that! I'm sure you can find most of this stuff on Amazon for dirt cheap...that's what I've been getting stuck into lately....I've only just discovered that you can actually buy CDs with your credit card on the Net....and how long has it taken me!?...... But in all seriousness, my sincerest hope is that, in whatever musical output I may engage in, whether it be composition or live performance (or even just raving on about stuff I love to listen to), I can somehow honour the great work of people like these, that I can somehow pass on the love, happiness, karma, collective consciousness or whatever, that I have drawn from these recordings.

Nocturne

The kiddies sure worked me out this morning. My first three classes were hell-an hour and a half of over-excited seven year olds yelling and screaming, not even giving me a chance to show them anything....it's not like I'm trying to drill meaningless musical concepts into them. I've actually got fun stuff that I've planned, but they won't have a bar of it! Two of them are almost on the way out (I can do that if I want), but I can't help wondering if it's partly my own fault, like I'm not disciplined enough with them, or I need to be more assertive or something. I feel like I'm turning into the sort of teacher I had on occasion when I was at school...nice guy, knows his stuff, but can't discipline the class. Thing is though, that was at high school - I never played up this bad in my primary school years.
And then of course, when I thought it couldn't get any worse, my last class were gems. I started off with the C major scale, and they all magically did what I said - in an Arvo Part-type moment*, I was suddenly blessed with the sounds of multiple ascending and descending C major scales and arpeggios....and then we moved onto the clapping and singing that I do, to lead them into the cool swingy bass riff I'm showing them, and they got it, and got it good! I couldn't believe it. Most importantly, the kid in my last class that I've been having trouble with, he had a go at C major scale two hands, and for that he was awarded a 'Flying Fingers' certificate - the quiet smile on his face was golden.
Proceeded to St John's Wood to pick up music and CDs from crazy Brazilian woman. In a long and tedious story, I was all set to join a Brazilian dance band (with a troupe of well fit dancing girls), but it didn't happen...and then it was going to happen, and then I thought it wasn't happening again, but turns out they want me that bad, so like the trooper I am I agreed to meet her at the tube just up from Abbey Road studios (apt?) to pick up the material.
It's a bit of a musical neighbourhood there...just down from the station is the aforementioned studios, where people hang out and take photos of the crosswalk which I indeed crossed on my way down to Maida Vale for some lunch while I waited. Passed a couple of those circular blue plates littered around London telling you what famous people previously lived there, and they were classical musicians. Got down to Maida Vale shops, ducked into a nice little cafe (appropriately named 'Intermezzo') and got a reasonable coffee and bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese...honestly, I wish I'd invented that stuff!
Crazy woman is 20 minutes late, which for her is quite early. She pulls up, I get in...she starts her disorganised ranting about how we weren't able to hook up the previous night....this woman is so STUPID and vague and I can literally hear the cogs in her head turning whenever she speaks, but there I am, staring out the windscreen, keeping my mouth shut, nervous of course at the potential of any conflict should I speak my mind and let her know what I'm really thinking....reminds me of one of my favourite songs...you may know it?:

'And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, "Man, what are you doing here?"'

...that is, what am I doing in still subjecting myself to dealing with such airhead people who run these sorts of things? I sit there, put up with it, take the charts...it starts to hail as I open the door, and for an instant I somehow get my foot stuck in between the car and the gutter.
Diving back down into subterranean refuge, I quickly rig up the discman, and from Gonzalo Rubalcaba's remarkably understated introduction, the holes in my battered persona (the kiddies, this woman, the bloody hail!) are filled to overflowing....if anyone owns 'Nocturne' by Charlie Haden, that album is me, right here, right now....
So I've signed up to this band, mostly for the hot dancing girls and hanging with Brazilians, less so for any musical stimulation. The more I deal with people like this woman, the less inclined I am to put up with them and their crap. Let's just say, after a long time, this skin is thickening....
....but not thick enough of course to resist the acupuncture I received later on in the afternoon, on my second visit to a brilliant osteopath near Baker Street. A long-time nerve trouble has sprung up again, but this guy is really working it hard, and it's actually a form of tendonitis....electrodes, massage, four pins and an hour later, I thank him but am feeling a little out of it on my way to my next engagement....forget where the restaurant in, finally find it next to the little pagoda in China Town, an eagerly awaited meet with Dr H and the loverly Fraulein. They are getting married in the summer....we talk of music and the world, inhaling our laksas heartily. You know when a meal transcends the food you actually eat and becomes a spiritual experience? When you can feel the love in your belly? The guys at China Inn have almost got that going.....
So I'm flying to Amsterdam this afternoon! Not really sure what I'm going to do there, but I guess I'll just wander around and get into adventures....until next time, my love to you all, whoever you are!

* 'Cantus In Memory of Benjamin Britten'

Friday On My Mind...

Been getting into this Internet dating agency thing...the site I was part of wasn't doing it for me, so I decided to up the ante and found a more, let us say, romantically-oriented one? (Yes, there is still some nerd in me)....so I'm flicking through photos and stuff and a couple of ladies catch my eye, and so I sent them a 'virtual wink', whatever the hell that is! Like Sherds and GigPig have discovered, it's a hefty price to actually become a member and send them a message, but at the moment it's fun, you know, I'm just taking things nice and easy!
Anyhow, here's four random things I saw about town today:
* - Bounding down Edgware Road this afternoon, I passed two women holding babies, asking random strangers for money....for me that's a new one....
* - On the tube, a dog....kind of strange really....bit of a crap place for a dog to go, and it and the owner kept getting in everyone's way....dunno why it was there, felt a bit sorry for it....
* - Also on the tube, someone reading a book called 'How To Succeed', you know, one of those get rich quick thingys....I had to laugh, as I borrowed a book from housemate B entitled 'The Automatic Millionaire', and we joked about taking it on the tube and making exaggerated facial expressions (big eyes, nodding, smiling) of agreeance with it's (I'm sure) lofty principles...
* - The photo on the back of today's Metro (tube rag) of English skeleton sledder Shelley Rudman winning a silver medal at the Tornio winter olympics....if you skip past the double-page spread of the failure of Kyoto (complete with photos of polar bears and our 'impending 1000 year disaster'), there's Shelley, only been sledding for four years, looking totally ecstatic at being on the podium....in an age where we're used to ginormous sporting egos freely acknowledging how much the world loves them, here's someone who looks incredibly happy just to be there....bit of a treat, and she's kinda cute too....

Ahem, well, it's off to another bachelor friday evening with housemates, beer, last night's curry, maybe going out, maybe even talking to girls...Woo Hoo!

Mike's Top Ten Albums - next five(ish)...

Cheers to all those who enjoyed the first five and let me know about it....and so, here's the next five, once again, in no particular order:

Wanderlust - Wanderlust

Initial release from amazing Australian 'world-jazz' group (I guess you gotta call it something). I read a blurb once that described the band's outlook as something along the lines of embracing the many musical cultures and traditions of the world in order to produce a uniquely Australian musical outlook. And for me it couldn't be more like that - there is one track in particular, 'Dakar', obviously entitled after the African city, but whenever I hear it, I am strangely always reminded of an infinite memory of evenings in the Australian summer - baking hot, rapid dusk, cicadas, crashing waves on the beach in the distance somewhere...ah, the homeland! In the long journey to discover one's own musical and cultural identity, such an outstanding release from an accomplished band with such a strong, forward-moving concept continues to be an source of inspiration. One of the best gigs I ever saw was these guys at the now live-musicless Tilley's, Lyneham, Canberra - the live group interaction was extraordinary, and that wasn't even with the original bass player! Without a doubt, one of the best gigs I've ever seen. M, the band's 'leader', is one of my musical gurus, and also happens to be a good friend of mine. Their first release was one of four so far, all well worth a listen.

Peruchin - Piano con Mona

Ruben Gonzalez describes in his liner notes to 'Introducing...' about the emergence of Cuban piano soloists in the 30s and 40s and mentions beside himself two other names, Lili Martinez and this guy. But unlike 'Introducing...', which captures a handful of the classics in a throw-together session (also taking into account Gonzalez's arthritis, old age, and no piano at home for ten years!), 'Piano con Mona' features a founder of the tradition this incredible album is from the same vein but of a player at the height of his powers, supported by a killer band! The overflowing list of tracks seems to be handpicked from what must have been an enormous band repertoire, and the turbo-charged band energy suggests a seasoned, well-experienced unit with a long history of playing together. Israel 'Cachao' Lopez talks about recording his famous Descarga sessions at 3 o'clock in the morning, that is, directly after everyone's gigs were finished for the night! Listening to this album, I wouldn't be surprised if these guys did the same. The other thing about this album is that whenever I've played it, whoever I've played it to, it always instantly captures people's attention, uncannily, unlike any other album I own.....freaky!

Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On

Motown with a social and political conscience...originally rejected by the management, Marvin Gaye's release of the title track brought them around, after which he recorded the rest of the album. Over the new year, I went through a two week period of listening to this album non-stop everyday, with my first thought each morning being that I was thankful to be alive simply for the reason of being able to listen to this music.

Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage, Headhunters and others...

Where do I start!? The original multi-guy piano-keyboard player - no, simply 'player' is too weak a word to describe this musical giant. The 50s and 60s Blue Note catalogue has always held an almost mystical element for me, and 'Maiden Voyage' ascends even that: it becomes one of those albums that cannot be described as Jazz or modern or post-bop or any other similarly useless terms. It is simply itself, it is simply....music. And Headhunters? How can an album be such a breakthrough, such a statement of the times, and never sound dated (even with all those 70s synth sounds)?

Stevie Wonder - Inner Visions

All about faces on the scene, plus some love songs, plus some socio-political commentary, all with those pumping keyboard basslines, incredible arrangements, advanced 'pop' harmony, and indestructible grooves that only someone like Stevie can do. This was one of a whole bunch of absolute gold cuts he did in the 70s..."couldn't put a foot wrong," I read the period described as once. Apparently most of the instruments on most of the tracks he recorded himself, making him (as far as I know) probably one of the first people ever to do something like that (with Prince and D'Angelo coming to mind). Being a working musician, I could readily associate with some of the characters in the songs, i.e, the girl in 'Too High', and I used to work for a guy who could only be best described as 'Misstra Know-It-All', about whom I'll be writing a little further on down the track...

Radiohead - OK Computer

Introduced to this band through a former girlfriend, definitely that melancholia thing resonated...I started listening with 'The Bends', where they totally had their thing together but the weirdo electronica stuff was already starting to come in. And then, through best mate Z back in Canberra, I was introduced to this...the program of tracks is incredible (even the computer voice one), and the incorporation of electronics in with rockin indie guitar and Thom Yorke's ghostly vocals gets me going whenever I hear it. 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' took it somewhere else with a painful beauty equally as engaging, but this was the first one, the original, the leap-taker. Cheers Z!

Believe it or not, there's more to come on this subject, so stay tuned!...

Here Comes The Sun II

There's way more sun going on here at the moment. Okay, so we had a lunchtime hailstorm, but the sky and clouds are quickly opening up and the breeze is playing along down the street, and that spring is in one's step again. The air is definitely warming up...it's that slightly uncomfortable feeling of realising you have too many clothes on, followed by the immediate excitement of what that means seasonally...
I was talking about it all to bassplayer Steve on our Valentine's Day engagement last Tuesday at Quags....same old scene, financiers and businessmen and their glammed up ladies, so about the most interesting thing going on there WAS our conversation about the weather.
"The sun is too high in the sky for this time of year," he said with furrowed brow.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's definitely five or six degrees higher than usual, ever since the tsunami....I know, I've got a south-facing garden."
"Right...."
So, I'm inferring from this that cataclysmic tidal movements are now somehow the cause or effect of a movement of the earth's position in the solar system? I'm hoping Steve's going to get back to me on that one!
Maybe it's this change in seasons that are making the folks down at my local Pret's even more friendly than they usually are. I can't believe those guys, and it's in every branch - for non-Londoners, Pret-A-Manger is this city-wide fast food sandwhich chain that does bloody good sandwiches (today I had Italian Matured Cheese and Avocado, with Tomatoes and Pine Nuts), and whenever you buy stuff there, all the staff always look really happy - they even talk to you sometimes. Are they just pleased to work there? Or are they all hooked up to cameras and electrodes with a guy upstairs that flicks a switch the moment a frown appears?
Or maybe they're all on special happy drugs - wouldn't be surprised, as apparently the place is owned by McDonalds, which I feel a bit bad about since I buy my lunch from there pretty much every day....I figure Maccas had to do something for the age group I'm currently part of, because whenever you watch the ads, it's all little kids and oldies, i.e, people with no teeth (another one of my mum's skeptically astute observations!)....
Yes, well, back to the seasons...I know it's going to be the pale English comparison to the Aussie skin-cooking variety, but I'm fired up for it in a way like never before...bring on the summer!

Black Hole Sun

I made it in no time, down High Holborn, past Smithfield markets, past (shudder) where I used to work, and to the imposing concrete fortress that is the Barbican. Despite it's gloomy, overbearing appearance, more resembling a castle-like housing estate than Europe's largest cultural centre, already in my year here I've seen some of the best live music there in the concert hall, and tonight was to be no different.
Reaching the other side of the huge yellow rectangular tunnel running underneath the whole thing, I quicken my pace to a Wetherspoon's a few blocks up the road. It's okay for chain pub grub, it's relatively cheap, and I know the menu. Carefully locating a good vantage point, I fold my coat and scarf carefully over the rail nearby, make my order, and when my steak comes out I indulge in a slightly unusual but strangely welcome occasional habit of eating a meal in public, by myself.
Don't get me wrong, food's to be shared with laughter and wine and wild stories and future adventures out there in the night to come, but now, in my single, largely self-serving, not-too-lonely bachelor life here in the big city, the odd dining experience by oneself is to be enjoyed now and then. If I did it every week I'd start to wonder if there was something wrong, but a couple of times a month is not so bad.
Inhaling a satisfactory steak and salad, I rush back down the street and into the queue for returns at the Concert Hall. Thanks to a generous stranger bypassing some strangely inefficient ticketing procedure, I was given a free ticket to the balcony with minutes to spare to see the Brad Mehldau Trio.
Brad's always been a funny one for me. There are times when it's totally my thing and it's forward looking and all that, but there's other work that leaves me a bit cold, and this concert seemed to move in periods between these two states. Some songs just left me for dead, but others, the one's where he did his thing, totally enveloped me in his darkly beautiful world. Evolving counterlines between hands, a harmonic knowledge from another galaxy, and top support from long-time partner Larry Grenadier on bass and (surprise for me) the extraordinary Jeff Ballard on drums, relative newcomer to this group, combined for a subtle and intense evening.
Most of the material was from a new album, so I only recognised a couple, but Radiohead's 'Knives Out' was superb, and the real treat of the evening was 'Black Hole Sun' by Soundgarden. First encore was some glorious country-infused waltz thing which I'm guessing is the title track from the new album - I'm a sucker for those kind of tunes, and I would have been happy to leave on that one, but the crowd wanted more and they sure got it - Brad whips out this insane extended intro into 'Countdown' at Ludicrous Speed (a la Live at Vanguard volume 2), and then they took it into free playing before the out! Too much for me - it's like, "Okay, you want more, so we're gonna give you some Coltrane changes...now GO HOME!"....anyway, terrific stuff, glad I caught it....

Note: for those unfamiliar with the Jazz knowledge I just referred to, 'Coltrane changes' is a certain system of harmony which, well, let's just say it's complex in its simplicity, and for these players to do with it what they did...it's enough to do your bloody head in!

A Time For Love?

Anyway, enough romantic musical musings, now on to something probably far more interesting to y'all....been reading about Sherds and her mate GigPig's various adventures with internet dating....always wondered, but been a bit reluctant...and then totally out of the blue, I get this SMS from a site I joined about six months ago, from some girl in Venezuela, and I figured that it must have been a sign, so on the PC at my day job I looked up the site, updated my profile, put a photo up there and went a-looking....was a little nerve-racking at first, but sure enough, a certain girl popped up who I thought I might like to drop a message or send a text, and there it was, I was into it!
Of course, as I always seem to do, I've approached the whole thing quite earnestly and perhaps a little seriously, but I figure that's only for now....I'm thinking maybe down the track just going nuts and messing up my profile and writing bent stuff, you know, get in some crazy Internet adventures...."but hang on Mike, shouldn't you have some respect here, I mean, look at those photos, these are real people"....or are they?....

Until next time, as always, my love to you all....

I Love A Piano...

Played Gatsby again last Saturday night...there seemed to be twice as many gorgeous waitresses as last week! Either manager Nick's got the eye or it's just another world out there past the M25....was kinda talking to one young girl pulling beers, but it's a tough one with waitresses as they're working, and I had two trains to catch...oh well, I'm sure I'll be back out at Berko sometime down the track!...

Inhaling an early morning cawfee and two bits of half-cooked toast, this morning I bounded out the door, up the street and round the corner to catch the 6 into Edgware Road for a mid morning practice session. In amongst the chain cafes and kebab shops of central London's Lebanese district is a handsome-looking piano store with a whole bunch of practice rooms that G-Man referred me to (more about him later)....

This morning is my first of the mid-term week away from the teaching - any chance I can get away from nailing seven year olds to a chair for more than three minutes at a time is always welcome! Couldn't help but feel some sort of sense of occasion, if only privately, like the morning was yet another small step in a slow but steady process of getting my music back on track, after what has seemed like an interminable period of wandering....

As I got off the bus and looked back up the long, wide, straight road (always a rarity in central London), with it's broad walkways and tall apartment buildings, the long-distance focus thing with one's eyes happens again, and I felt reminiscent of a place I've never been, where the streets have no name, a place I'd very much like to get to someday...also reminiscent of the history of this town two millenia in the making, as this used to be Tyburn Lane, the ancient Roman road leading north-west out of the village...did they know what this place would become?....

I plunge headlong into the showroom, it's gleaming lines of cedar and mahogany always a welcoming sight...led down into the basement, I pass a couple of concert grands, nine-footers you could almost take sailing they were so big! and then into the room.

My mistress this morning was a Kawai (Don't they also build bridges ;-D), and she was not disappointing in any way at all...no rickety honky-tonk upright, no Oxo baby grand where I need a fork on standby to jimmy stuck keys out of the keybed mid-tune! This was the real thing, in every way imaginable...

I placed my hands on the keys, noodling out a few impressionistic chords like I always do, to test the richness of the instrument's tone, and all at once I knew that this one was going to do exactly what I wanted it to, but in that gentle way that only a superior piano can....in fact, it was one of those instruments whose capabilities bring to attention the player's own deficiencies, which of course was part of the reason I was there...

And then, in the excitement of discovery, I hit only the sustain pedal, and there's that electric zing of all the dampeners raising at exactly the same time, the zing you're sometimes lucky enough to hear on the best pianos on the best recordings played by all the best players on all your favourite albums...a gateway to a sea of possibilities, the promise of the musical infinite....

Right away I tucked into the rough practice program I'd laid out for myself the night before, and it was a glorious, soul-enriching two hours, as I knew it would be...I'm back there every morning this week...and then, stepping out onto the street, with the light cloud cover and the light all around, this place, this 'alien glob dropped on an ancient settlement', once again didn't seem so bad after all....

Mike's Top Ten Albums

Some of my entries have been a bit dark and inward-looking lately (probably the bloody weather's got something to do with it), so in an effort to keep it a little more light-hearted and outward-looking, I thought I'd put together a list of my most absolutely favourite music in the world, the stuff that really gets me going. And so, the first five albums are listed below, in no particular order:

D'Angelo - Voodoo

Think hip-hop meets gospel and funk and all the greatest elements of Afro-American popular music from the US and mix it with something amazing from another planet - this album is totally off the scale in so many ways. Vocal harmony overdubbing madness combined with an incredible band that couldn't sit back on the beat any further if they tried (or could they!?)...striking lyrics telling tales of ghetto life and relationships and homage to musical gurus....'Brown Sugar', his first release in '95, is also well worth a listen, but this plus a live at Jazz Cafe makes a total of three albums in six years. I'm not up with the full story, but apparently it's something to do with his extra-curricular activities...come on mate! leave the drugs at home and start pumping out another ten of these! This music is too amazing for there to be so little of it.

Afro Cuban All Stars - A Toda Cuba Le Gusta

In my humble opinion, this spinoff from the Buena Vista Social Club album is a far sight better than the former. Great program of tunes ('Maria Caracoles' never fails to get me dancing), all-star cast of old 'son' singers with new badass young guys...the Cuban thing doesn't get much more real than this. Back in the early days when I was just discovering Latin music, this was a great accompaniment to all the latest Timba stuff, 'Salsa Cubana', coming out of Havana these days...

Bill Evans Trio - Portrait in Jazz

If 'Explorations' was the vibe album, and 'Sunday at Village Vanguard/Waltz For Debby' was the live experience, then this is the demo. This is what this trio could do - young giant Scott La Faro, while playing also at the time with Ornette Coleman, is terrifying, sounding more like a ultra-low guitar on some stuff (check the solo on 'Witchcraft'), and Bill is suitably inspired in melody and line ('What Is This Thing Called Love') as well as harmony ('Spring Is Here'). Sadly, these four albums are all that remain of such a groundbreaking trio, together for a little over two years...one of the many stories of Jazz folklore is the tragic tale of Scott La Faro's untimely death in a car accident on a remote country road, about a week after the abovementioned live recordings were cut. Bill Evans spent the next twenty years (so the story goes) looking for someone comparable, whom he finally found in Marc Johnson, about a year before Bill's own untimely passing in his early 50's.

Vinicius Cantuaria - Tucuma

Intriguing album from self-exiled Brazilian in New York. Cantuaria's playing style is strongly from Joao Gilberto (but then, who in the Brazilian singer-songwriter-guitarist tradition doesn't?), and this is the core of the experience, surrounded by electronics, spoken word, shades of the avant-garde, but still strongly Brazilian and Bahian, and played by a fantastic band including Joey Baron and Bill Frisell. The perfect accompaniment for that overwhelming melancholia of post-relationship blues!

Harry Connick Jr - 20

Back in the early history of it all, when I was just starting to ask the question, "What is this thing called jazz?", Harry was (and in some ways still is) the man - this charming (and similarly terrifying) solo album with guests demonstrates his highly successful and entertaining amalgam of all the styles of the great Stride and Swing pianists, plus a bit of Monk and his own left-field, slightly frenzied musical imagination, and all done barely out of high school! In a lot of ways, I still want to play like this, one day...

More soon....

Song Song

I get funny periods in my day now where I'm just feeling...okay, like I'm just living. I was catching the tube into work the other morning listening to Jeff Buckley (believe it or not), and I guess it was a bit of a cliche, but just standing there in the tube, staring out the window, I felt...okay. No ruthless self-examination, no constant dissection of past events in one's personal history, no bubbling excitement of going to a gig, no...nothing. Just okay. And a bit neutral, like it's all going a bit tooooo well.....hmmm, is there something missing?

London Calling VI - The Bodgy Factor

Tuesday, after midnight - just had a lovely dinner with dear friends....making the late night trip back from Angel to Willesden Green, a bit of a tricky one sometimes as that particular journey doesn't follow the normal transport corridors littered throughout north London. Coming off the bus at Swiss Cottage, I drop out of warp to dive down a dark staircase and into another small, barely noticeable entrance to a tube station. I register the fact that there are two large signs either side of the gate, but the half open gate fails to stop me.
Assuming my quickened stride down the corridor, I get a little further on and suddenly notice piles of construction materials and equipment carefully laid out, taking up the left hand side of the walkway. Great, so what happens if I'm some crazed loon and I decide to take a nose dive into those silver pole thingys over there...instant litigation, court battle with City of London et al....
Passing the glares of three construction workers in hard hats and orange vests, I reach a second closed gate...turning to go back up the corridor with an annoyed but complicit smile, one of the workers goes, "There were signs at the gate, you know...but don't go back, you've come all this way." And so as I turn again to open the second gate, he calls back, "There were signs, you know," and then someone shoots back, "Yeah, but the gate was open, mate." I open the gate, stride on down but the guy calls back, "Shut the gate!?", and before I can fight the impulse I turn and shut the second gate for him (it is the country code I suppose)...
So how is it that between two large signs and three guys in vests and hard hats that a hurried commuter like myself is allowed to walk past potentially dangerous construction equipment?
This place is frayed at the edges - a sense of bodginess pervades throughout the city:

* - Crossing the street at traffic lights, the green man lights up and you walk, and then as soon as he disappears the lights change and traffic starts to come at you....
* - For the country that was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, how is it that the Tube is regularly delayed and breaking down due to things like signal failures and lack of safety measures?
* - And how is it that in one of the financial capitals of the world, on any given day in central London, about half the cashpoints are actually working?

I'm whingeing again I know, but when you live daily amongst all this stuff it just adds up....is this place turning me into a whingeing Pom?

On a much more positive and totally unrelated note, I had an awesome out-of-town gig last Saturday night at a place called Gatsby in Berkhamsted (see photos)...formerly a 30's era cinema with all the Art Deco trimmings, chandelier sprouting from a pressed tin ceiling...extraordinary! The whole place had such a great vibe...cranking bar out the front for the punters, with a few stairs up to a swish dining room up the back, and in the middle of it, a white baby grand (it's been a while!). Three sets, the last one being a little more animated, with applause (!!) at the end of the set...food looked great, friendly management, gorgeous waitresses....what else is there!? Berkhamstead (or 'Berko' as it was referred to by some local ladies who accompanied me on my walk back to the station) is a rich little village on the way to Birmingham, about an hour by train from my place, so it was an easy little jaunt out of the M25, and it was so noticeable that everyone looked a little healthier and happier...the crowd felt a lot more human than some of the central London herds I play for. Put in a good word to the guy who depped it to me (the day before), and it looks like it could happen again. Just gotta line up a couple more of them a week and I'd be home and hosed!

On The Trail...

Thursday night, Oxo Tower, 6.30pm. I'm a little early, and my partner in crime for the evening is still on his way, so in the middle of another busy week, I hit an oasis of calm, a period of inactivity. Hunched behind my second house red of the evening, the brasserie looks a little thin on the floor tonight, bringing the spectacular view even more into focus, in the mind's eye especially....
But wait, there's a little commotion in the perihperal vision. In the corner, a table of seven or eight are closely clustered around themselves, and then I glance across to see a couple both sitting on the same side of their table a few metres away. 'City boy' is sitting parallel to the river, boofed up grey hair, jumper - leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, nonchalant, confident in his economic and social standing. This is his scene, after all.
'City girl' has her back to me and is sitting a little too close to City Boy, facing him, legs spread, and she's rabbiting on in his ear about something or other with great gusto, shrugs of the shoulders and such. From the other side near the register, two of the service staff are looking on with interest and amusement, and I realise that there may actually be something of interest to watch.
One of the staff is now standing with the couple and City Girl is giving her a right serve about something, almost loud enough for me to make out words. The staff member's receptiveness and apologetic nature are not quite in tune with her glazed over eyes; not another rowdy bunch, and it's only 6.30.
I exchange an amused look with the manager who is dining at the table across from me. He's curious, but totally unphased - all part of a night's work.
Another more senior staff member is sent over, this time polite but much firmer and City Girl is still raving on at him. Eventually the compromise is met, the staff member leaves, and City Girl complies with a plastered smile. City Boy hasn't moved or said a thing.
I get rankled when people want to mess with the hardworking men and women of the hospitality industry. The long hours, the hierarchy - they've got enough to deal with before having to put up with arrogant customers trying to throw their weight around. Fair enough if the service is dodgy, but I can personally attest to the crew at Oxo doing a pretty good job.
Regardless, eventually the other player, Colour, a great guitarist, turns up, we polish off the mackerel and have a great time across the four sets of the evening. I've been looking forward to this one for a while, and we talk about the scene and Oz and here and people we know and albums and music and it turns out to be a really great night on the trail....

London Calling V - Blue in E

I'm finding myself a bit more at ease with the place these days....

Just little things....instead of feeling like I have to walk as fast and hard as I possibly can everywhere I go, I find I'm taking my time in little spots here and there, easing into a more comfortable, laid back stroll....walking the streets now, at least in the parts I frequent, I'm a bit less depressed with how the whole place looks, or maybe I still am but it doesn't affect me as much, doesn't affect me in the same way it used to....

Heads up for electronica fans here by the way - been checking out a CD by Eivind Aarset, guitarist for Nils Peter Molvaer - chilled out, wild stuff. My electronic music collection is still quite small, but my housemate X has turned out to be something of a connoseiur, and this one is totally connecting with me (title of the album, funnily enough, is 'Connected'). Electronic music can feel a bit inhuman to me sometimes, so I guess it's that meeting place between the bleeps and bloops and instrumental improvisation that the material starts to take me somewhere. It somehow fits in a whole lot more with here, the constant cloud cover, no sunlight...the alien brown-green glow of night rising above endless terrace house rows. Oz feels a lot more like a place where people would be more likely to play instruments in bands, in between beers in the backyard or down at the beach....

Funny now how used I am to the part of London that I live in...I was briefly down in South London last night, and it almost felt uncomfortable walking down the big open streets they have down there round Oval and Kennington, like I wanted to run back to the winding nonsensical alleys of the North West. How bizarre!

But while perhaps becoming more at ease here in terms of getting to know it all, as well as the great gigs and work situation, the people thing is starting to get to me. Dr A made an astute observation once that wherever you go in this town, you're never more than a couple of metres from a person, even when sitting in your own living room or asleep in your bed. I'm starting to feel kind of negative about this in a big way, particularly with the housemate situation at the moment.

Sunday afternoon was ridiculous! I'm vacumming in the living room and DJ is lying there sprawled on the couch, apparently in some strange indirect effort to keep B out of the living room. And then I go in to clean up in the kitchen and B is sitting there, bitching to me about DJ! Once again, I'm just doing my easygoing thing, you know, reeds in the wind and all that, trying to gently suggest to each person how the other might see things a little differently, when I'm feeling this increasing need to grab'em bowf by da colla an mash veir 'eads togevva, innit!?...tell them to both get over themselves and find some kind of middle ground between their respectively hardened ways...or maybe I'm starting to get too high and mighty about all this. Must keep head down, back to the piano, mind back on the job....ho hum!

Speaking of the music, another audio heads up for all you hip hop fans....beside the house stuff, DJ knows a bit about hip hop here and there, and has hipped me up to Mos'Def, 'Black on Both Sides'! Rocking my world! It's not quite music from another universe like D'Angelo is, but it's pretty much there, and definitely resonates. And so, henceforth, I shall have occasion to end this particular entry with a quote from the first track of said album, strangely relevant to my own musical situation. If you exchange the word 'hip-hop' with maybe other musical genres, then you might know what I'm talking about...

"People talk about hip-hop like it's some giant livin' in the hillside, comin' down to visit the townspeople....we are hip-hop. Me, you, everybody, we are hip-hop, so hip-hop is goin' where we're goin'. So the next time you ask yourself where hip-hop is goin', ask yourself, 'Where am I goin'? How am I doin?' And then you get a clear idea...."

Until next time, my love to you all...

I still call...

Clouds are starting to circle round the current abode....our merry little cottage behind the big hedge, previously referred to me in conversation as 'The House Of Love', will I fear soon be shedding that particular title....

Once again (so tiresome), it's differences in personalities between two housemates, but this time including a third virtual housemate, a romantic involvment of one of said two, which I guess makes this particular situation slightly different territory for me (about the only interesting thing to be gained from the situation). Once again, the active housemate in this particular situation was so bothered by something seeming quite insignificant to myself that this person just HAD to take action, to which I am sure the response from receiving housemate and romantic involvement will be heated, ultimately resulting in vivd displays of emotion, plenty of nonsensicality and, once again, boring but at the same time nerve-racking conflict between people you share your living space with.

It is happening again! Why is it also that I'm okay, everyone still loves me and wants to be my mate, while they all ending up hating each other!? And why this time around did it only take a couple of months?....bloody London! Guess it's just keep head down, concentrate on my stuff, try and offer consoling words and alternative opinions to the ensuing rants and character assasinations from both sides, and make sure it doesn't end up involving money or leases....

Had our little national day yesterday (back in the homeland, I mean), and while it's great to celebrate the most magnificent country on earth, I can't help but use the opportunity to drop in a couple of words on the subject. January 26th is I find an unusual day to celebrate, as it marks the day Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet set up shop in Port Jackson. Aside from obvious historical reference to the ensuing genocide of the local population, it's not actually the date on which the Commonwealth of Australia was created, which as I hope all patriotic Aussies know is January 1st, a much more suitable day to celebrate the place (although as my ever astute and skeptical mother said once, everyone would be too hungover from New Years Eve to care!).

Something else that irks me a little is our flag, something of course which is bandied about with great relish by fellow Aussies here in London, sportspeople, politicians, racist gangs reclaiming Cronulla beach for "Straya" et al, as the foremost symbol of the nation. The Union Jack, while referring to a major part of Australian history, doesn't represent what Australia is any more, certainly not a quarter of what it is. From my recent travels, it's become plainly obvious to me that if we're going to have a flag in the top left hand corner then it might as well be the Stars and Stripes....

While I'm on the topic of history, a common conversational topic when talking about the Great South Land is how 'little' history we have, barely two hundred years. Somehow, the estimated sixty to one hundred thousand previous years of Aboriginal history always seems to be left out of these conversations. Just because it's measured and documented in folklore and stories of the Dreamtime, not battles and treaties and cathedrals, doesn't make it any less relevant. Taking into account various other elements of our national identity (probably the main one being the fact that the Queen of England is the Australian head of state), a sense of confusion can emerge, certainly not as to where we have come from, but as to what Australia is today, and where it is going tomorrow.

And why have I rabbited on about this? Because I am currently living in a place which at times seems to exhibit this same sense of confusion. England certainly seems to know and relish in it's own history, but the classic example is when one visits the voluminous expanse of the British Museum to find no exhibits of British history. We all know the English national faunal symbol is the lion - I haven't checked recently, but are they native to here? I remember being out on St Georges Day, in honour the patron saint of England (who I found out the other day was of "black-Palestinian" descent), and all I seemed to come across was a lone poster out front of a pub. I guess when you live in a city that alone is ten times older than Anglo-Australian history in total, "the nation's capital", surrounded daily by all these national symbols, it just gets you to thinking about these things sometimes...

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Stylistically, I just don't know what direction to go with the music sometimes....

I play Cuban danzones and guarachas and guagancos with Flavio at our duo spots at Oxo and I walk out thinking, "Yeah, I could do this for the rest of my days." Next day, I might be sitting in my kitchen and housemate X puts on an electronica album and I think, "Yeah, I could sit there with a laptop and sequencer and do this for the rest of my days." Then I play Stardust with Uncle Dave and I think, "Yeah, I could play old swingy stuff and stride and standards for the rest of my days." Then I want to do all of them. Then I wonder how I could ever do justice to ANY of them.

But the trick is, you pick one thing. And I have. And I'm working towards this one thing at the moment, and while it may not come entirely to fruition, the fact that I am focused on one thing is the most important thing. Already, another thing is emerging into my stylistic view as a counter to that one thing....I can handle one thing at a time. And like Uncle Dave says, if you want to branch out, if you wanna be one of these multi-guys that can do loads of things at once, it's just gonna take longer. Well, if I'm doing this for the rest of my days, then what's the problem, right?

Dancing In The Dark

After a morning of being yelled at by little kids in keyboard classes, and an afternoon of 'working' at my 'day job', the cool dark evening saw me trundling down Fleet Street, in my spiffy new black shoes purchased on the weekend, then turning right onto Fleet Street, which grows into the Strand. Walking, as I always do, close to the speed of sound, passing all my fellow dayjobbers on the way home, Nelson pops up momentarily above the building in front, and I know I'm going the right way.
Ambling my way past those gigantic lions, I leave the square at it's southernmost corner to enter the Trafalgar, tonight's stop on the gig trail. Nice little duo spot with singer J, easy, chilled Tuesday job.
I enter the establishment. The whole place has a feel not unlike many other places I've seen in this town - schmick at first glance, or if you were walking past it on the street, and there's obviously money invested, but on closer inspection, it's got a strange Truman-Show-esque vibe, like a studio set, like everything was put there five minutes ago, and will be gone in ten. I've been to restaurants like this too, where the appearance of the building is more attactive than the menu.
The laptop DJ has the most random collection of whatever that I've ever seen....Coltrane? Pointer Sisters? Incognito? Doesn't matter! No-one's listening, no-one cares.
The decor has changed slightly tonight - there are pictures and photos up around the place, and some brochures on the bar...perhaps an attempt by management to inject some life and flavour into yet another soulless shopfront, housing the masses of after work suits in here for a quick cocktail, the kind of place they go when they're not working or sleeping or holidaying. I'm expecting the management to come out and say, "Yes, that's right, sorry darling but we've got a function on tonight...didn't anybody tell you?" But no, my fears are allayed when J get's there...
Easy set up - the place has a house keyboard (bit of a rarity) and for once the DJ desk that we're plugged into yields a sound first time! J and I get some house reds on the band tab - a dry little Argentinian number, goes down quite well, and at five quid for the punters it ought to!
I have to say though that J is one of the most delightful musicians I have ever had the pleasure of playing with, and that usually saves this gig for me. We play a couple of sets, all the usual stuff. We get a couple of quickly stifled claps for one song over the two and a half hour program, and after another two house reds it's all over!
Don't get me wrong here - I've never been one to knock back work because I'm not interested. I don't want to stop doing these duo jobs, and after the year I've had I'm still willing to take whatever I can get my hands on. It's just that it's WELL PAST time for me for other stuff to be happening.....along the lines of maybe more band work? Maybe something (gasp) original? To fulfill the creative side, the artistic output of what I do, as a counter to the money gigs, to keep me sane....
Quick packup, a kiss on the cheek, and then it's on to the night bus home, stopping early at Kensal Rise for a three quid fried chicken extravaganza before the chilly stroll home...watch some TV with housemates, go to bed.

Another night on the gig trail...

Everybody's Song But My Own

Saw John Taylor Trio last night with Palle Mikkelborg - beautiful stuff. The combination of John's exquisite tone and daring harmonic experimentation was so inviting - the music is not being forced down my ears, but instead, as a listener I am choosing to listen to it, which always lifts the performance to something so much more powerful.
Compositions of the first set were similarly inviting, quite complex but never obtrusively so....and then when the boys came back on for the second, that was the gold...the tunes took the experience to another level, well appreciated by a totally packed house.
I liked the venue as well, the Vortex in Dalston, a block from the overland station. Large room, upstairs, with big windows looking out onto Kingsland Road. Anything that feels accessible in this town is a blessing.

London Calling IV - Five things I like about it

After my heavenly experience of the other morning, and considering I've slagged the joint off so much, I have decided to list five things that I actually like about this place. Ready?

1. The riverside - refer to previous entry.
2. Riding up the front of the bus. Most of the city is only three stories high at the best of times, so when you're up top and at the window, it feels like you're flying, especially after a couple of pints!
3. The long dusk in summer. In my first warm months here, a welcome respite from days of photocopying and unusual living conditions was the fact that I got home from my day job at 5.30 and still had a good four hours of sunshine left....
4. The park in summer. On the first really bright hot Saturday here, I looked out the window and saw people briskly walking down to the local park. Initially I thought the circus was in town or something, but then when I actually went down to the park, I was astounded...Aussies take their park time for granted, because the weather is never too harsh and the sun is always there, so it's all cool, but here, once there's a skerrick of sunlight, it's time to beeline (as best you can in this town) for the nearest open space....when I got there I couldn't believe it! dogs doing somersaults to catch frisbees, little kids running around....palpable excitement in the air.
5. Golden weathervanes - also near where I used to work (near the Barbican, and in Angel), some of those old grey stone buildings have these turret looking things with golden weathervanes on them, a welcome adornment against summer's dreamy pastel clouds. In a country with such crap weather, it instills in any kind of forecast a sense of optimism...

Anyone notice a common theme here!? Can't wait!!

London Calling III - Here Comes The Sun

Loverly weather we've been having here lately! Apparently we're experiencing the darkest winter in 30 years, with an average of THREE whole hours of sunlight a day. Plus, there's some cloud over the UK or Europe or something that's just staying there - warm air from the ground meets cold air coming down, forming this huge stagnant mass that isn't moving at all!
Couldn't help but muse upon it all as I trudged back from teaching the other day down one of the long residential streets common in this part of London. The endless rows of terraces either side, literally walls of houses, seemed to rise as far as to meet the flat, grey, sunless sky...makes you feel so hemmed in....might as well be back down on the Tube!
Got some respite from the gloom last night on the way to the gig. I decided to walk from Chancery Lane down Fleet St to cross the river at Blackfriars Bridge.
It's always arresting in a way, getting to the river...sure, the water is a shade of brown that makes the Yarra look clean, and I dread to think what could be under that grim, uninviting surface, but when you get down there on a bridge or along Southbank, it's one of the few places in town that your eyes get to focus on objects far away. That and the obvious space between the banks, and you find yourself pausing, slowing down for a second, starting to look around and things and people and buildings.
I have to say, I'm not entirely impressed with the architecture down there. Some of those buildings, with their pallid greys and creams and dark metallics, are a strange visual echo of the faces and suits of the financiers and businessmen that inhabit them.
And then ones eyes are always drawn to St Pauls, which has never failed to impress me, whenever I've seen it. From the eighth floor of the Oxo Tower, on any given evening, it's quite a sight.
This place, the living, the working, the travelling, it absorbs you so much, if you're from somewhere else it can't help but start to alter those memories. I think back to Australia and it feels like some strange, bright, hot dream....did I ever live there?! In a past life maybe?!
But then perhaps not such a dream....walking down Chancery Lane to work this morning, it feels a little too warm on the skin...and then....no, it can't be! I look down the gently sloping narrow street lined with dour legal buildings and suddenly....a blinding shaft of.....a whole wall is blazing in front of my eyes! and I feel my feet skip below me down the pavement, my astonished body too weak to resist. Can't anyone else see it? It's that big glowy red thing in the sky, it's back!
It hits my face and strings and choirs are heard across the land (or maybe just in my head)! and for a minute, this place seems not so bad after all...

Coda

By the way, sports fans, check out miminewyork.blogspot.com....Ms N sent me the link, and I've only just started reading it, but it's well good! Great writing style, and for reasons which become immediately apparent, it's gotten to what may be a next stage for blogs - a widespread, publicly acknowledged following....

This whole blog thing just keeps getting better!

While I'm at it, I also should put in a plug for www.thesituationists.com. During my three years in Melbourne I had the privilege to play with a whole bunch of world class musicians, and one band of particular note was 'The Situationists', a six piece world fusion jazz thing with all-original tunes, run by my good friend Anton. We recorded an album in March 04, due for release sometime this or next month, which includes three compositions by yours truly, and on the website you can hear one and a half of them! ('Dance of the Newcomer', and if you check out the page about the band, there's a latin thing in the background which is a grab from 'Descarga Estrella', one of my own as well). If anyone's keen for a copy, I'll be in touch with Anton and let y'all know....until next time!

Children's Song

Monday afternoon...keyboard class number three....four primary kids to a class....they've all just come in from lunchtime, so they're all animated and bubbly and I'm trying to get them to sit down in chairs for longer than two minutes, to NOT press the big red button that starts the band-in-a-box calypso feel...and I totally understand where they're at, because if I was a bubbly primary school kid who'd had a sausage roll with ketchup for lunch who'd just been kicking a soccerball around, I wouldn't really feel like reading notes on a stave either!
Today it's C and F triads, and try as I might, for most of the lesson I'm not getting anywhere with them...they're yelling and playing other tunes and glissandoing their way through the half hour and I'm trying not to raise my voice with them.....but then one of them, there's a moment of stillness in his eyes and he says, "Oh, it's like this, is it?" And he moves those two top fingers in his left hand up from E and G to F and A...and he's GOT IT! And in my mind I breathe a sigh of relief, because at least one of them has absorbed one kernel of information...and that somehow makes the whole thing worthwhile?

Okay, so that was Monday....then there was Tuesday.....

I teach at another school, a Jewish boys primary school....the place is an old synagogue, so it's tiny, and I teach in the shed outside, where they keep the fruit! so people keep coming in and interrupting every once in a while...my head almost touches the ceiling....can't quite get the door shut because there are workmen out in the bitumen 'yard' drilling away at something....
The kids come out of class and they've got so much energy, it's literally bubbling out of them...and they're taking me for a RIDE! yelling and making silly noises and falling off the chairs and backchatting me and I AM yelling back at them....some information is imparted, some of them get to play some of the time, but after my two hours are endured I trudge back out of the school, across the park to the tube, wondering where it's all going....

Don't get me wrong, teaching's great when they're switched on and they want to listen and stuff is learnt, but when they're not up for it....last week I started a day a week at a high school, and it was so refreshing to actually converse with students, feel some respect from them, and be able to actually show them something....

I know I'm just having a whinge, and there are loads of people out there working longer hours in crapper jobs for less money....I know I'll move on sometime....

(not) Just Friends

As a small (I promise!) addendum to yesterday's mammoth entry, I'd just like to drop a note in to mention the love and generosity I received from certain friends when I first got here - you know who you are! I've always highly valued all my friendships, and earlier this year, at the time (out of all of my life) that I needed them the most, they were totally there for me in every way they could be - in particular, Mr N and Dr A were and continue to be amazing, along with the sadly departed Ms S and D-Funk here in London, Ms N and K in Helsinki, and of course my ever wonderful folks, who I also count among my dear friends!

And yes, M, my ex-girlfriend...despite all that happened, in the grand scheme of things, she helped me too in a whole bunch of different ways, for which I am also truly thankful.

Couldn't have done it without you, guys!

London Calling II

My date asked me the other day what it is that I like about London. I'm always a bit guarded when I answer this question, because I know that a lot of people here and around the world love this city, but after I told her what I thought the place had going for it, I couldn't help but launch into what I DON'T like about the city by the river. And so, since I've already started extolling certain virtues of this godforsaken place, I shall now venture to articulate some (let us say) alternative opinions. For those of you who aren't up for a serve of negative vibes, please stop reading now (go look at the photos of Paris for goodness sake!).

If I had to concentrate these abovementioned feelings into one(ish) word, it would be 'wind-up'. This place gets me so wound up sometimes...I can literally feel it in my stomach some days....and I believe that it's due to the plethora of daily factors, all strangely related to each other, that this place serves up at you that don't have to be that way.

Example no 1 - Indirectness

A sense of this pervades many if not all things here:
* - I teach at a school about two blocks from my house, that is, as the crow flies. Don't get me wrong, it's a cushy deal, but because my suburb is built of big long streets, I have to walk halfway down one and then back up the other to get there...
* - Argos is this great cheap chain place where you can buy every single thing for your house, but because it was originally only a mail order service, when you go into the stores you have to fill out a card with the number of the good you want, then wait in line to pay, THEN go wait somewhere else while they dig it out of the back of the store for you, i.e, you can't just walk in and buy something...
* - When you register with a doctor here as part of the NHS, if it's just a regular appointment or check-up, you can't just get the next available time - you have to book a week in advance...

Example no 2 - Administration

Hopeless! You want anyone in any particular organisation to do something for you, then it's going to require you to fill out a whole bunch of forms, wait three or four times longer than is reasonably necessary for it to be done, and then when it's sent back to you, it's usually wrong, so you have to ring somebody up and figure it out what's actually happened!

* - Earlier in the year, I went to take out £10 from a cashpoint, and somebody had a card copier rigged up in there somehow, so by morning all my money had disappeared. "No worries," says Natwest anti-fraud squad the next afternoon in a phone call, "just fill out some forms and it'll be back in your account in a week or two." TWO MONTHS LATER, after about 15 phonecalls, I finally find the guy one afternoon in the system who I'm presuming clicked a button and bing, there it is back in my account, two hours after I talked to him.
* - Went for an interview with a music service a while ago - they were interviewing in November for place in January - why so early? Because the background criminal check takes THREE MONTHS - they were already hugely backlogged, and you can't work in schools until it comes through....ridiculous!

Like my uncle J says, 'nice guys finish last' - to get stuff done here, sometimes you just gotta yell and get angry, and for some inexplicable reason, people here seem to respond to that?

Example no 3 - Physicality

This is a difficult place to get around in. Sure, the public transport is great and goes everywhere, but it's dealing with a 17th century street system which makes no sense whatsoever.

* - The tube, supposed engineering miracle, on various lines is consistently delayed or breaking down, due to signal failures, lack of staff, employee strikes, lack of safety measures, flying saucers et al. Various lines have various reputations i.e, Jubliee and Victoria lines good, District and Northern lines bad! And if you're lucky enough to be on the tube during rush hour...I can't think of ever being closer to purgatory, especially if you're doing it twice a day, five days a week.
* - One of the great things about my four days in Paris was walking down all those grand boulevards and feeling a sense of open space, standing at the end of the Louvre and being able to look across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower and beyond! Sure, there's Hyde and Regent's Parks (and they are great), but central London feels so closed off sometimes

I think my grievances about this place can best be described by an account of a particular day I had in mid July. At the time I was working 9-6 five days a week at a Real Estate firm as a personal assistant (stapling, photocopying, filing, blah blah). I had no gigs, no teaching, no money (strangely enough), I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with my ex-girlfriend (a whole other saga), any love life I had was absolutely MESSED UP....the tube bombings happened the week before, so police were everywhere (it might have been the next day when that Brazilian guy got shot)...let's just say the tension in the air was high!
So I stumble out of my day job, eyes fixed on the ground, two blocks down to the tube, and what's happened? Station closed - security alert. It's Green Park - three lines go there - central London, it's 10 deep on the pavement, the traffic's nuts, the buses aren't going anywhere.....the only way I was going to get 'home' before the next day was an hour and a half's walk....TOO MUCH!
So I decided to take that walk home, and on the way I did two things, one of which was quite foreign to me personally, but is quite common here - I put on a scowl. Now, for someone who has always endeavoured to be as genuine as possible at all times (if I do say so myself), this was really quite strange for me, it felt like it went against who I am, and yet it came so naturally. I figure somehow that it was London, as a presence of some sort, maybe trying to tell me something......of course the other thing I did was have a drink on that long walk home, something which has always been quite familiar, to myself and the inhabitants of this town especially!
In my long-winded way of telling things (by the way, if you've hung on this far, you're doing great!), what I'm trying to say here is that London really sorts you out. When you first get here, it sucks you along, you play by it's messed up rules only, but then it DOES level out, and that's when you realise that it forces you to seriously ask those big questions of yourself, about what you're doing with your life.
The circumstances surrounding me coming here, in short, were fairly scattered, and the situation I got myself into I thought I'd never get out of, so what did I do? I thought harder, I went faster, I became smarter...London presented me the challenge of itself and I took it and went with it, realising that I actually had the energy, in fact I had LOADS of energy, to deal with this place.
And that, my dear friends, is why at the moment I'm thinking about trying to stay here for longer than my two year visa. That's right! After taking this long to slag the place out, I'm actually considering extending my time here. And I think you might be able to see why. It's when I get past my grievances that I take into account the obvious benefits of living here, combined with the feeling that if I've survived here this long, why not get the most out of it that I can? It's all wrapped up in the same thing, see?
Before coming here I spent four months playing piano on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. A lot of people have asked me how amazing that must have been, and I still have mixed feeling about it, but YES, there were definitely amazing parts about it, and I always seem to recount stories from that time quite eagerly.
And so, as it follows, I was already imagining the other day, ten years down the track, being some place else (probably up the back at a gig, hunched over a house Red!) and some youngster asking me what my years in London were like.
And I suppose I would answer him with a shake of the head, a roll of the eyes, a chuckle....and maybe a wistful smile....

There's a somebody...

Ever the clever friend of mine Sherd has gotten onto this blog thingy and sussed out a couple of things I didn't know about, that is, putting links within an entry, so here's one to hers! - http://sherdieinbrisvegas.blogspot.com. Here's one to my mate Ms N, who I got all h'inspired from to start this whole extravaganza - http://ninalaitala.blogspot.com. And here's another one that I just picked up randomly that gives me a chuckle now and then - http://thecompanybitch.blogspot.com. Ms N has some other cool ones as well, so when she sends me them I'll pass them on.

By the way, Happy New Year to y'all! For the first time in a while I didn't have a gig, and the prospect of central London at midnight didn't thrill me entirely (fighting through a maelstrom of drunken drugged up people to freeze my ass off watching Big Ben...enticing!), so DJ, A and I decided to catch the 52 down to Ladbroke Grove, where we ended up in this great little bar with cool house music (DJ's been turning me around lately) taken over by a party in 70s gear and wigs, and so we got stuck into it, started dancing and talking to girls and stuff....ended up having an awesome night.

The other boys ended up not having much luck, but I ended up dancing with this girl with electric blue hair who told me she was from the Pink Forest! So numbers were indirectly exchanged and I took her out for coffee yesterday in Angel...was just so amazing to feel like that again - the getting there, the meet up, the caffeine rush, shooting the breeze, getting to know each other, watching people walk by....really, what else is there!? Thought I'd like to meet up again sometime, so it's looking like a walk in the park might be coming up...could be tricky this time of year (dreadful weather and all), but we'll see how it goes...

I Love Paris!

This one might take me a while, because I think I'll probably run out of positive adjectives, but I just want to join the millions across the world that have had the pleasure of a few days acquaintance with one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a place that I can't wait to go back to, definitely to visit...and if someone magically granted me the power of speaking French and lined me up with a host of gigs, I'd be there before you could say 'cheese and baguettes'!
Caught the early Saturday morning Eurostar, Christmas Eve...strolled out of Gare Du Nord at about 11AM onto the street, and just started laughing out loud, not really believing where I was! First stop Sacre Coeur, about 20 mins walk away...got picked out in half a second by some Nigerian bracelet makers...."Okay," I thought, "I'll pay my tourist tax," as this guy wound a string thing around my wrist, not realising it would be 10 QUID!
Up the stairs, checked out Sacre Coeur...astounding...met up with J-Sax, Miss J, Noel and S and had a coffee around the corner at La Boheme, checked out Place de la Tertre with all the artists...magical! Left on my own for a couple of hours, I took the Metro into town (even that was great), got off at Hotel de Ville, walked around the Louvre and the Ile...amazing...had dinner with everyone at this great French restaurant...
Next day, one of the best days I think of my life....met up with S at the Louvre and just WALKED and walked and walked, taking in magnificent building after windy street after wide boulevard after....for the whole day I just felt this amazing warm happy glow....everywhere we went, everywhere I looked, was beautiful, and I mean EVERYWHERE! Ended up lunching at Luxembourg Palace, then north to Invalides and an incredible walk up some big open avenue to the Eiffel Tower (pleased to say it was TALLER than I expected)...didn't have to wait too long to get to the top...incredible views....
Came down, crossed the 'street' (seems not word enough) towards the big curved building in front of the tower...caught up in the electricity of the people everywhere....

Other places haunted by our merry crew were:

* - The Latin Quarter, where Mr T and I went twice to the shop that sells the best kebabs in the world (with sour cream and french fries...who would have thought!)

* - Boulevards St Michel and St Germain...somewhere there we found this zany English bookstore, complete with cosy upstairs bit with cats and beds to have a little lie down and read in!

* - Notre Dame, Ile de la Cite, Ile de la St Louis, Hotel De Ville, Opera, Dali Museum, numerous cafes, streetside creperies, patisseries et al...

Was great to see me old mate Mr T and stay in this awesome apartment he borrowed from friends...needless to say, can't wait to get back there...I can't imagine how beautiful the place must be in the warmer months...anyway, check out the photos - but a hint of the charm and romance of an amazing town...

Interlude

While I'm down the road at the local internet cafe, I just wanted to drop a quick note to wish my regular readers the happiest of New Years...won't write long here, as I'm back at my day job on Tuesday, where I'll have LOADS of time to rave on as usual, but I just gotta say that Paris is THE most beautiful city, let alone one of the most beautiful places, I've ever seen. I was totally blown away by the place in the most charming, romantic way, and I can't wait to go back...full report and photos to come.
Still wondering what I'm going to get up to tonight...will probably involve some alcohol along the way....think I'll steer clear of central London, but housemate Phil and I might end up going out into Notting Hill....anyhoo, knuffles (that's hugs in Dutch) and kisses to all my loved ones out there, and I hope to hear from y'all in the new year!

A Fine Romance

After my last rave, I just wanted to drop a quick note to let y'all know how I'm doin'....holidays are going great, and early tomorrow morning I'm catching a train to PARIS, the City of Lights...a train underwater no less....for a cuppla days with J-Sax, his gorgeous girlfriend, Mr T and some random other crew which should be hilarious fun....I'm imagining skipping merrily down treelined avenues, accordion music in the background, arm in arm with mates, red wine in one hand, cheese and baguette in the other!
Anyway, the title of this particular entry refers to a little somethin' that's been going on around the house lately involving a certain housemate and a certain gangster-keyboard playing great mate of mine...moving along quite nicely I'm noticing...funny how people can just so easily slip back into the whole relationship vibe (laughing all the time at each others silly in-jokes), while incredibly single people like myself try and find things to be annoyed about with them (while secretly wishing I was in their position)....
I was just telling a friend the other day about how well everything is going for me at the moment...so why can't there be a little shomethin' on de shide for me? Yes, lucky ladies of London, MIKE IS HERE!....anyway, best not turn the blog into Mike's own on-line dating service for himself! Oh dear, and I've raved so long again!
So from the bottom of my heart, have the Merriest of Christmases, whoever you are reading this, and the Most Swingingest New Years ever!

London Calling...

Now things are all zooming along in an end-of-year type way, I think it's time I wrote about a couple of other things, so I guess the first thing I'd like write of is London, this crazy place that I've somehow ended up in.
People ask me whether I like London and I say to them that I like things about it, things that it has to offer. I guess the one that comes to mind first is the public transport, which is amazing. There's loads of it, it goes everywhere, and if you ever want to get somewhere, there's usually at least two or three ways of getting there. Because the street 'system' is so crazy, plus stuff like the congestion charge (it costs £8 just to drive into the city during business hours), public transport is more of a part of people's lives, as having a car isn't necessarily the best or cheapest or quickest way to get around.
Having said that of course, just recently I've decided that when I have to take my keyboard to gigs, I'm only cabbing it from now on. I was taking the tube and buses, and it ended up being a full military-style operation whenever a gig was on! This one time I got called on the day to do a function, which meant that I had to change tube lines three times....on one train I hit some old lady in the head with my keyboard stand, and getting off another train I got my trolley wheel stuck between the train and the platform! And then when I got to the gig, two and a half hours later, they wouldn't let me in the front door...hotel policy they said....rubbish! Most of my gigs lately have been on pianos in town, which is, needless to say, well good (especially for my back and shoulders).
The other obvious advantage to living here is that it's a great base from which to travel across Europe. Aussies get a great deal here...a two year visa where you can do anything you like, earning the strongest currency in the world, and flying FREE flights to destinations across Europe, where in most countries a lot of people speak English! How could you knock it back, really!?
The circumstances under which I arrived here were, let's just say, a little confused, and I guess that anyone's first six months in any town (particularly this place) are always going to be tough in one way or another, but out of all of this have come some great things, not only with the work I've got now and where I live, but also in meeting up with some amazing people and having some great times, which I expect is only going to get better...

So, anyway, "You Know You're In London When...."
1. The pigeons fly at any height they want
2. It costs more to go on the tube into central London than it does to fly to another country (go Ryanair!)
3. Your local neighbourhood has a name that originates from a year with three digits (DJ and I were looking at this book that said that the first version of the name Willesden dates from 939..."Is that a night bus?!")
4. You ask an English person if they're from London and they say, "No, I'm from England"...people from the country have a funny attitude about this place i.e, they regard it as it's own entity of sorts...
5. You can't find decent coffee to save your life!

What's Goin' On

I would just like to express my disgust and outrage at what has been happening in Cronulla lately. I've only been reading what's been happening on Ninemsn, so I feel as though I don't quite have the whole picture on it, but it sounds pretty ugly, and ridiculous, and closed-minded.
People with no shirts on, draped in the Australian flag with racist slogans painted on them, attacking people who don't LOOK like them? I feel ridiculous just writing this, and knowing that this is going on where I'm from, a place I thought had ascended this, or was at the very least on the way to doing so...and our illustrious PM has said that there ISN'T an undercurrent of racism in Australia...he, the creator of the Pacific 'Solution' in 2001, a totally disproportionate response to an illegal immigrant situation...it's always been there, but to know that there are surprisingly large numbers of people, calling themselves 'Australian', who hide behind and denigrate a national symbol, happily submitting to some sort of mob mentality, that are ACTING upon these feelings?
I've always thought that to call yourself Australian is to EMBRACE multiculturalism, to uphold the belief that someday we might all be able to put aside these prehistoric habits and take the the more difficult path, that is, to love our fellow man, wherever he may come from.
I know I'm saying things that you my dear friends would already agree with, but I just had to get it out for a bit...more hopefully positive entries soon...

A Swingin' Affair

Just a quick note to y'all to keep you posted....it's all swinging along quite nicely at the moment, I have to say...got about three or four gigs in the diary for the rest of the month ('tis the festive season!), some more teaching on the way, and for Xmas I'm heading off to PARIS for a few days! to go hang out with me old mate Mr T and a whole bunch of other people...should be a blast!
No gigs with the Brazilian dancing girls as yet, but that can't be too far off. Haven't seen too many gigs lately, been too busy doing them! Teaching is about to wrap up for the year too, so I've got a couple of weeks holiday coming up which will be well good, just to take it easy for a bit and shed like a demon! That's 'shed' as in to lock oneself in the shed and practice intensely, for those of you unfamiliar with my so very cool Jazz lingo!
Yesssss, anyway....take care, wherever y'all are (WHOever y'all are, don't know who could be reading this drivel!) and I'll write soon with hopefully some more interesting tales...

Ramblin'

So it's all cruising along all right at the moment, as much as it can in a crazy place like London! After a bit of a murky patch at the start of the year, things have levelled out okay, and my week seems to be mostly covered between two or three gigs a week, a couple of days teaching, my walk-in-the-park day job and probably a bit too much partying! I got Europe at the doorstep, no pressing responsibilities, got my health....the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, more or less - well, not much sun round here at the moment, but you get the picture!
But sometimes, on the tube to the job or between clubs (yes, while drinking), it makes me wonder, what's the next bit? How long is it going to go on for like this? I've been living pretty much the same way day-to-day since I left uni, and don't get me wrong, it's been great, I'm well thankful for many things...it's a charmed life in a lot of ways, but there's something else I'm looking for out there. More career satisfaction perhaps? Maybe I'm looking for a couple of things....
A wise old woman told me once about one of the Shakespearian plays that talks about your life moving in periods of roughly seven years, and I've been thinking about this one a bit...if I look at '98, second year of uni, when I really started to get into my studies, and all the things and places and people that have happened between then and around September this year, when I moved into the place I'm at now, then that feels to me like a certain chapter...so I wonder sometimes what the next seven years will bring.
Anyway, enough of all that...I've just stumbled into joining a Brazilian band this week with LOADS of beautiful dancing girls! Apparently we do a gig about every fortnight, and every gig is with them doing their thing...we all went out for dinner last night and everyone got a bit rowdy so we repaired to the bar upstairs where they strutted their stuff...too much, too much! More importantly (ahem), I've done loads of duo stuff since I got here and that's all good, but it'll be great to do some band work again. And after hanging out so much with Latinos over the years, it'll be great to get to know some Brazilians...the guys in the band are cool, so I think it's gonna be good times! And I guess I'll keep wondering about the other stuff as well...