Hello All,
So it's central London in the late English summer, as the sun noticeably gets lower in the sky with each day that passes, and the warmth surely and quickly bleeds from the air (to who knows where) as the old girl returns to what feels like her natural state.
The season is moving, the times they are a changing, a constant reminder of the uncertainty of my own situation....
....so as you can see it's the same old rollercoaster....feeling fantastic one day, other stuff the next and a whole jumble more in the meantime......but it's also an intriguingly exciting time too.
Big news of late - I'm going to NYC in September for a week!
It had been a couple of months since Ireland with my dad, and I'd basically gone the rest of the summer without tripping anywhere. I was thinking maybe a region somewhere (southern Italy? Spain?), but then housemate DJ bought his weekend break to the Big Apple and it got me a thinkin'...
So there I was motoring through Hanon chapter 1* wondering about where to go and then it was a big HANG ON!? What about all those distinct separate dreams you had throughout your childhood, visually distinctive dreams, about walking the avenues? What about all that music and the history? What about dodgy hot dogs and lox bagels? C'mon man, there's no choice here, it's five hours across the Atlantic! One of the three places in the globe that you've always wanted to go! The city of your dreams, man!....
And so it was done. I expect the first cuppla days to be partying with housemate, then when he goes I'm thinking of checking out some gigs and hanging with a couple of muso mates over there. When I'm not distracted by the 57 other things on my mind at the moment, I'm literally excited beyond belief....
So, as further procrastination to those of you aching to read of the end of the tour and Paris and Ireland, I shall offer you a piece I often think of at this time of year, probably my favourite poem in all literature.
Until soon, loved ones....
To Autumn
by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
* technical exercises for piano
21 August 2006
04 August 2006
London Calling - A Sunny Day In Camden Town
I don't know how anyone else wakes up, guess I've never thought to ask, but for me it's usually a highly confusing tornado of memories and music and things to do in the day ahead. Here in the nation's capital at the moment it's warm enough to keep the window open, so the noise of the council flats and the street somehow infuses into this morning jumble, waking me into a greater confusion with which to start the day. But it's the sounds of the hood, so I kinda like it....
So, as I've said before, this new flat rocks! I'm feeling totally at home in it, holed up there in a rather grim looking block of old council flats, but it's all right. It's a room to sleep and have my keyboard set up and put stuff. Now I think of it, it kind of reminds me of the old B and G days where I had pretty much the same thing, and how much I enjoyed that. Screw the whole big house thing - as nice as that is, the flat vibe is going great for now.
Now I'm smack bang in the middle of ex-council flats, there seems to be even more people in the general vicinity. Woken into a hungover fug by the BT guy come to connect us, I just ended up hanging around the kitchen and staircase for a while to make sure that no-one came in to rob the place.
Eventually moving to the keyboard, I ended up doing about half an hour on 'I Loves You Porgy', real slow, first only the melody, then harmonizing two parts, then three. To any players out there, it's simple stuff I know but I've been really trying to get the techinque together lately. Age old problems are finally starting to define themselves, and in doing so becoming easier to remedy.
Brushing my teeth before going into the job, I hear the workmen outside through the bathroom laughing and yelling and carrying on as they've been doing all week, taking the scaffolding down from outside our building. This particular morning sees two of them scraping all the paint off the little railings that define the edges of the tiny little courtyards outside each one of the flats. Watching them hunched over with their scrapers, this is one of those days where I feel quite happy and lucky to be a musician.
One of them turns up the radio and it's the new Lily Allen single, 'Smile'. Musical analysis brain goes into overdrive, a reflex action.....faster reggae feel, two chords, melody largely within an octave so everyone can sing along. It's in that miserable, apathetic English talking singing voice that I suppose most people associate with here.
Analysis finishes....well, do I like it?
Well, maybe yeah, kind of....
Every once in a while a dumb pop song comes along and it seems to just fit the mood you're in, and with the summer and holidays and everything it just slotted in, didn't leave! I wasn't listening to the words, no-one does anyway. They didn't mean anything for what I was drawing from the tune, because it provided that bittersweet soundtrack to your day. I think it was Neil Finn that said once that the best pop music is the happiest sounding chords with the saddest sounding lyrics? That's basically what the blues is about, to me anyway, the avoidance of emotional absolutes, the crossover, those feelings when things are happy and sad and other stuff at the same time. And that was all okay....
I now have a bicycle, and London is mine! The Londoner without personal transport any faster than walking tends to navigate around town largely through the stark modernism of the tube map, further disoriented by the fact that it's all underground. On a bike you start to see the bits inbetween the tube stations. The ride to my day job takes me past the craziness of Kings Cross station and down Gray's Inn Road, so for about ten minutes there it spreads out, gets a little quieter and greener.
So this particular day, I suppose a mental image I can leave you with is your humble correspondent, mid morning on a bright hot London summer's day, riding along, grinning, humming a silly song, all edged with the thought that this nice little niche life I've carved out for myself here could all wrap up in six months.....
I get home after an afternoon of no work, don t-shirt and shorts and stroll down to my local pound shop to buy some cleaning supplies. One thing about this part of town is that you can wear anything you bloody well like down there and no-one will bat an eyelid.
I walk back up the street with my domestic haul and a little girl loses a ball across the street....the grimace as it somehow dodges all the cars and ends up on the other side of the road....I look back and she's hugging the fence, all sheepish, so I do my good deed for the day, walk over to the other side of the road and throw it back.
You see, folks, the people of Camden Town, they respect each other. We share the love in this community. On this same stretch of my street only a week before, I was walking home with my Sainsburys curry wondering how I was going to cook it since there's no microwave in the flat....and what do I find sitting under a tree? A microwave! Walked up, made sure there was nothing inside it, picked it up and took it home. The folks on my street are giving as well!....Camden Town, what a place!
So, as I've said before, this new flat rocks! I'm feeling totally at home in it, holed up there in a rather grim looking block of old council flats, but it's all right. It's a room to sleep and have my keyboard set up and put stuff. Now I think of it, it kind of reminds me of the old B and G days where I had pretty much the same thing, and how much I enjoyed that. Screw the whole big house thing - as nice as that is, the flat vibe is going great for now.
Now I'm smack bang in the middle of ex-council flats, there seems to be even more people in the general vicinity. Woken into a hungover fug by the BT guy come to connect us, I just ended up hanging around the kitchen and staircase for a while to make sure that no-one came in to rob the place.
Eventually moving to the keyboard, I ended up doing about half an hour on 'I Loves You Porgy', real slow, first only the melody, then harmonizing two parts, then three. To any players out there, it's simple stuff I know but I've been really trying to get the techinque together lately. Age old problems are finally starting to define themselves, and in doing so becoming easier to remedy.
Brushing my teeth before going into the job, I hear the workmen outside through the bathroom laughing and yelling and carrying on as they've been doing all week, taking the scaffolding down from outside our building. This particular morning sees two of them scraping all the paint off the little railings that define the edges of the tiny little courtyards outside each one of the flats. Watching them hunched over with their scrapers, this is one of those days where I feel quite happy and lucky to be a musician.
One of them turns up the radio and it's the new Lily Allen single, 'Smile'. Musical analysis brain goes into overdrive, a reflex action.....faster reggae feel, two chords, melody largely within an octave so everyone can sing along. It's in that miserable, apathetic English talking singing voice that I suppose most people associate with here.
Analysis finishes....well, do I like it?
Well, maybe yeah, kind of....
Every once in a while a dumb pop song comes along and it seems to just fit the mood you're in, and with the summer and holidays and everything it just slotted in, didn't leave! I wasn't listening to the words, no-one does anyway. They didn't mean anything for what I was drawing from the tune, because it provided that bittersweet soundtrack to your day. I think it was Neil Finn that said once that the best pop music is the happiest sounding chords with the saddest sounding lyrics? That's basically what the blues is about, to me anyway, the avoidance of emotional absolutes, the crossover, those feelings when things are happy and sad and other stuff at the same time. And that was all okay....
I now have a bicycle, and London is mine! The Londoner without personal transport any faster than walking tends to navigate around town largely through the stark modernism of the tube map, further disoriented by the fact that it's all underground. On a bike you start to see the bits inbetween the tube stations. The ride to my day job takes me past the craziness of Kings Cross station and down Gray's Inn Road, so for about ten minutes there it spreads out, gets a little quieter and greener.
So this particular day, I suppose a mental image I can leave you with is your humble correspondent, mid morning on a bright hot London summer's day, riding along, grinning, humming a silly song, all edged with the thought that this nice little niche life I've carved out for myself here could all wrap up in six months.....
I get home after an afternoon of no work, don t-shirt and shorts and stroll down to my local pound shop to buy some cleaning supplies. One thing about this part of town is that you can wear anything you bloody well like down there and no-one will bat an eyelid.
I walk back up the street with my domestic haul and a little girl loses a ball across the street....the grimace as it somehow dodges all the cars and ends up on the other side of the road....I look back and she's hugging the fence, all sheepish, so I do my good deed for the day, walk over to the other side of the road and throw it back.
You see, folks, the people of Camden Town, they respect each other. We share the love in this community. On this same stretch of my street only a week before, I was walking home with my Sainsburys curry wondering how I was going to cook it since there's no microwave in the flat....and what do I find sitting under a tree? A microwave! Walked up, made sure there was nothing inside it, picked it up and took it home. The folks on my street are giving as well!....Camden Town, what a place!
31 July 2006
(quasi)Gig Review - John Abercrombie with Adam Nussbaum
I bade her farewell as I crossed Wardour Street and down the stairs into Pizza Express for my second time there in a week, tonight to see John Abercrombie with Adam Nussbaum. Classic looking band! John's there on the right ( think Buddha meets Shih Tzu meets Confucius meets 70s porn star), with Adam up the back ( think, well, just 70s porn star really) and Gary Versace on B3 to the left. Perched up on some sort of stool with half open eyes and dodgy grin, Abercrombie plays the most beautiful melodies, at a level of the language which speaks to your correspondent wholeheartedly. He quickly turns out to be quite a sharp talker...."Show business is my life; I know I might not look it"....... A dodgy looking character with shoulder length hair and singlet sitting to my immediate right talks continuously through the first set and then between songs offers a ridiculous and request for more bass from the organ. Any awkwardness is immediately dispelled by John who just takes it in his stride...with a bit of back-up from Nussbaum, he immediately smooths it all over with some silly muso comment that brings the house down, a fellow audience member tells this guy to shut up not long after and it's all fine. It was basically just an ordinary jazz gig, but played at the absolute highest level with some of the world's best. The way I have listened to bands and live music has changed significantly over the years. I used to feel like it was me back here in the dark and those gods up there on stage, ten million miles away. Nowadays it's a bit more like I'm sitting with them, or at least the Jazz gigs that I enjoy going to need for me to have that element of invitation to them, like the transcendental secrets of the universe attained through a properly conversing, swinging band are being shared with me. These guys were entirely that.
...well see how it goes....
......So she texted me up for a drink. I knew I wouldn't be able to escape her clutches. And I thought I might be finally ready. So I said sure. .......it was a packed Tuesday night in Soho but I found somewhere big enough with a room out the back to escape the masses. She was late, as she always was, but that was okay. ......the catch up begins....such immediate familiarity! for me anyway, with someone who used to be so close. Figures I guess, but still a little startling considering all the reservations I have had with this particular person.... .......and merriment following the familiarity..... ......the life forces of the earth surround this person, you can literally see them in the air around her, in a flash of those huge eyes or a laugh or that big white smile. She wears her heart on her sleeve, proudly, and despite the history, I still admire that...... .......she lays it all out there, saying how she wants us to be okay, especially since I may not be around for too much longer.... .......and I think I might be okay with that......not to have it forced down my throat like she seemed to be doing, but just easing into it, easing into being friends again, people who hang out, spend time with each other...... .....we'll see how it goes........
20 July 2006
On Tour - Bonn
We were a week in Germany, and some of it's become a bit of a blur, especially the earlier bit, but I'll see what I can fish out. After the kickoff gig in Amsterdam and the French splendour of Brussels and Paris, the word amongst the band on Germany was that things were a little different there in a couple of ways, and my experience would confirm this....
Friday 19th May - Bonn
So I wake up to find that we're in sleepy suburbs. The bus is parked smack bang in the middle of what looks like a free carpark, quite empty of cars, and the usual power line is run from the back of the bus and into the venue. The day rooms were a cab ride away, and the centre of town was further, so as opposed to the day before, there wasn't really a place to go hang as such, so I just ended up mooching around the venue. Sophie, Mosh the sound guy and I walked to a nearby supermarket in a clump of shops - it's Monday morning and the whole place is deserted. Welcome to Germany....
About half way through the day a car pulls up in the empty car park and a large square black haired German guy in a leather jacket strides up into the venue (it may have been the promoter, I can't remember exactly). The word around is that the bus isn't meant to be parked in the carpark, as the venue has had endless noise complaints from the neighbours, but our driver is adamant that the bus isn't moving anywhere. It later emerges that the reason we're even there at all is because of some sort of favour by the venue management to the label during what is usually the venue's closed period of the year.
Wandring past a little later I see him quite clearly flustered and raving to somebody about something. A little later we're watching a video in the back of the bus and the power is cut. It's been cut by the guy. The bus has to move.
Before any further discussion can take place, about half an hour later some other random bloke appears in the car park, standing by the bus. Flustered Guy, in a fit of, well, flusteredness, has dug someone's cousin out of somewhere and paid him 50 euros for the next seven to ten hours as some sort of sound bouncer, to make sure the bus didn't make any noise to disturb the neighbours. We all had a right laugh about that....what's he gonna do if it does make a noise? Walk up to it and tell it to be quiet?!....
The bus was moved. The gig went fine - a sit down audience, a little sedate, but they got into it. As we left, the bus steered out past a couple of cars. Quietly!......
Friday 19th May - Bonn
So I wake up to find that we're in sleepy suburbs. The bus is parked smack bang in the middle of what looks like a free carpark, quite empty of cars, and the usual power line is run from the back of the bus and into the venue. The day rooms were a cab ride away, and the centre of town was further, so as opposed to the day before, there wasn't really a place to go hang as such, so I just ended up mooching around the venue. Sophie, Mosh the sound guy and I walked to a nearby supermarket in a clump of shops - it's Monday morning and the whole place is deserted. Welcome to Germany....
About half way through the day a car pulls up in the empty car park and a large square black haired German guy in a leather jacket strides up into the venue (it may have been the promoter, I can't remember exactly). The word around is that the bus isn't meant to be parked in the carpark, as the venue has had endless noise complaints from the neighbours, but our driver is adamant that the bus isn't moving anywhere. It later emerges that the reason we're even there at all is because of some sort of favour by the venue management to the label during what is usually the venue's closed period of the year.
Wandring past a little later I see him quite clearly flustered and raving to somebody about something. A little later we're watching a video in the back of the bus and the power is cut. It's been cut by the guy. The bus has to move.
Before any further discussion can take place, about half an hour later some other random bloke appears in the car park, standing by the bus. Flustered Guy, in a fit of, well, flusteredness, has dug someone's cousin out of somewhere and paid him 50 euros for the next seven to ten hours as some sort of sound bouncer, to make sure the bus didn't make any noise to disturb the neighbours. We all had a right laugh about that....what's he gonna do if it does make a noise? Walk up to it and tell it to be quiet?!....
The bus was moved. The gig went fine - a sit down audience, a little sedate, but they got into it. As we left, the bus steered out past a couple of cars. Quietly!......
17 July 2006
Meaningless Minutiae
"My best days may be behind me, but I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now."
Samuel Beckett
As a counterbalance to the weight of my most recent entry, round about lunchtime on a sleepy day at my deskjob, I am now to relate to you a series of random unrelated things that will now pop into my mind. A full tour and holiday recount is still on the way, but I've realised with all that that the true nature of blogging is the now, the last 24, and so to get a bit of that vibe back into it, here we are....
* - Getting the old latte and croissant from my local Nero, I've realised that bad coffee actually makes me feel bad. This is quite apart from that other bad coffee phenomenon, like the stuff from a service station where you're so amazed that it tastes so bad but you're still hypnotised into drinking it. No, I'm talking about where you finish it and it's about an hour later and the heightened state of awareness you thought you were going to get from it is now in equal parts to the dehydration and absolute thought jumble that ensues. And I'm realising that just after all that, it actually makes me feel a little depressed. This town is full of bad coffee; served way too hot, way too much froth, never enough actual caffeine (or flavour for that matter). Thus, here is a list of your correspondent's favourite cafes in the city:
1) Flat White, Berwick St, Soho - run by Aussies and New Zealanders (naturally), they actually serve the real thing and do good food. Wood floor, nice interior, quite reminiscent of a certain Brunswick outlet I used to frequent back in Schmelbs. Last time I was there with Mr N, the owner alerted us to the pub just across the street with an astroturf beer garden - hooray!
2) Coffee Plant, Portobello Road, Ladbroke Grove - White exterior, glass front, full of anti-Bush 9/11 conspiracy articles all over the walls, with all the sacks of coffee and grinders up the back. Also run by antipodeans (naturally). When you drink in though they still serve it in paper cups which is a bit lame.
3) Tinderbox, Upper Street, Angel - Wood finish, airline seats up the back (if you're lucky). This is one of the better chains around London, so as it goes there are apparently 0nly about half a dozen others although I've never seen any. You can get a mega coffee which is basically a bowl with two handles. And you're smack bang in the middle of Angel - yeah.
* - Bought a bike a couple of weekends ago from my mate JC out in Clapton for £50. 1957, dual alloy frame, racer, goes like the clappers. I rode back from his place all the way down Victoria Park and back along Regent's Canal. Stopping off at Broadway Market for fish and chips and a ginger ale, I went up to London Fields, found a bench, people watched in the long UK dusk.....it's times like these when I wonder if my best years are still ahead of me.....
Got a chain last weekend, and just on a couple of preliminary rides, London is starting to open up to me, after all this time. It's such a closed off place, but the counter to that is that when you find a cool bit, you feel like it's just yours....
* - Bought Thom Yorke's new solo album, 'The Eraser', on Saturday. It rocks! There is a very small list of artists that your correspondent will buy from without prior investigation, and that's the thing that rocks when I go get that stuff. I know that it's gonna be good, and I wasn't disappointed. Definitely coming from Radiohead but his own thing too...sounded very produced i.e, not too much acoustic instruments going on, which I guess I always associated with his haunting tones. Oh well, go get it if you're keen....
* - Don't you love that Beckett quote? I saw it when I was in Ireland on a bookmark with famous Irish authors and their best quotes. It was below a photo of him looking like an incredibly crusty wrinkly old man. I like it because it feels like it's about making the most of the time you have, whether it be a lot or not much. I guess when you're in your late 20's, the time of your life, being aware of the small time before and the long time coming up, that there's a certain niggling in the back of your head, perhaps a pressure (if you allow it) on whether you're making the most of it. Then again, if you do spend too much time thinking about whether or not you are, then I guess you're not putting enough action into actually doing it!
Oh dear, I got a bit heavy towards the end there...can't bloody help myself.....but there we have it. Lotsa love, more soon....
Samuel Beckett
As a counterbalance to the weight of my most recent entry, round about lunchtime on a sleepy day at my deskjob, I am now to relate to you a series of random unrelated things that will now pop into my mind. A full tour and holiday recount is still on the way, but I've realised with all that that the true nature of blogging is the now, the last 24, and so to get a bit of that vibe back into it, here we are....
* - Getting the old latte and croissant from my local Nero, I've realised that bad coffee actually makes me feel bad. This is quite apart from that other bad coffee phenomenon, like the stuff from a service station where you're so amazed that it tastes so bad but you're still hypnotised into drinking it. No, I'm talking about where you finish it and it's about an hour later and the heightened state of awareness you thought you were going to get from it is now in equal parts to the dehydration and absolute thought jumble that ensues. And I'm realising that just after all that, it actually makes me feel a little depressed. This town is full of bad coffee; served way too hot, way too much froth, never enough actual caffeine (or flavour for that matter). Thus, here is a list of your correspondent's favourite cafes in the city:
1) Flat White, Berwick St, Soho - run by Aussies and New Zealanders (naturally), they actually serve the real thing and do good food. Wood floor, nice interior, quite reminiscent of a certain Brunswick outlet I used to frequent back in Schmelbs. Last time I was there with Mr N, the owner alerted us to the pub just across the street with an astroturf beer garden - hooray!
2) Coffee Plant, Portobello Road, Ladbroke Grove - White exterior, glass front, full of anti-Bush 9/11 conspiracy articles all over the walls, with all the sacks of coffee and grinders up the back. Also run by antipodeans (naturally). When you drink in though they still serve it in paper cups which is a bit lame.
3) Tinderbox, Upper Street, Angel - Wood finish, airline seats up the back (if you're lucky). This is one of the better chains around London, so as it goes there are apparently 0nly about half a dozen others although I've never seen any. You can get a mega coffee which is basically a bowl with two handles. And you're smack bang in the middle of Angel - yeah.
* - Bought a bike a couple of weekends ago from my mate JC out in Clapton for £50. 1957, dual alloy frame, racer, goes like the clappers. I rode back from his place all the way down Victoria Park and back along Regent's Canal. Stopping off at Broadway Market for fish and chips and a ginger ale, I went up to London Fields, found a bench, people watched in the long UK dusk.....it's times like these when I wonder if my best years are still ahead of me.....
Got a chain last weekend, and just on a couple of preliminary rides, London is starting to open up to me, after all this time. It's such a closed off place, but the counter to that is that when you find a cool bit, you feel like it's just yours....
* - Bought Thom Yorke's new solo album, 'The Eraser', on Saturday. It rocks! There is a very small list of artists that your correspondent will buy from without prior investigation, and that's the thing that rocks when I go get that stuff. I know that it's gonna be good, and I wasn't disappointed. Definitely coming from Radiohead but his own thing too...sounded very produced i.e, not too much acoustic instruments going on, which I guess I always associated with his haunting tones. Oh well, go get it if you're keen....
* - Don't you love that Beckett quote? I saw it when I was in Ireland on a bookmark with famous Irish authors and their best quotes. It was below a photo of him looking like an incredibly crusty wrinkly old man. I like it because it feels like it's about making the most of the time you have, whether it be a lot or not much. I guess when you're in your late 20's, the time of your life, being aware of the small time before and the long time coming up, that there's a certain niggling in the back of your head, perhaps a pressure (if you allow it) on whether you're making the most of it. Then again, if you do spend too much time thinking about whether or not you are, then I guess you're not putting enough action into actually doing it!
Oh dear, I got a bit heavy towards the end there...can't bloody help myself.....but there we have it. Lotsa love, more soon....
07 July 2006
July 7 2005
Today
Revelling in the central location of our new flat, it was about a quarter to nine when I staggered out onto Camden Street in search of some sort of public transport to get me to my sleepy day job. Well looky here (in an experience not uncommon to Londoners), there's a bus that goes from the stop just outside of the estate to where else but the tube stop just near my work!
Bus is packed, rush hour, whatever...we wind our way through the new Eurostar terminal, come out on to the main road and I look up to see a floodlight on a raised tower thingy....strange. The bus swings past Kings Cross Station, and it's only when I see the half dozen reporters on the other side of the road, standing in front of more floodlights and cameras pointed at them with the station in the background, that I twigged.
It really was a year ago today, wasn't it.
An eerieness quickly crept in when I realised that the time happened to be a couple of minutes past nine o'clock, almost exactly the time, on this day a year ago, that the station was evacuated and I poured out with the river of black white and grey on to this very street, to search in vain for a bus to the next station.....
A year ago...
As the cliche goes, it started, as any one who was in central London that morning will tell you, like any other day. To an overcast morning, I awoke alone in the one bedroom flat I shared with my ex-girlfriend at the time, donned the white shirt and grey pants (too small) necessary for the full-time temping day gig, and ate my cereal and banana in silence before trudging down St Paul's Road to the melee of my local tube station.
Descending into the bowels of the beast, my journey started that day with the Victoria Line, the light blue one, always fast, always packed in the sleepy angst of a London rush hour. "I'm not one of you, you know," I kept telling myself back in those days, even though I fully realised every day what I had (or hadn't) done to end up in the position I was in. And being determined to make it to work every day of those stupid-ass jobs was my way of getting out of it.
I distinctly remember thinking in the couple of days before that things couldn't get any worse.....
Making the change at Kings Cross station to the Northern line, I was standing there with the swaying masses on the southbound platform at what must have been 8.50 AM, when I happened to be staring up at the lights in the ceiling of the tunnel and saw them flicker, and my mother's voice in the back of my head instantly thought that can't be right.
Already running late for the job, I missed the crush for the oncoming tube...damn I'm gonna be late....turns out it didn't matter that day.
The next tube is halted at the previous station. An automated male voice tells us to leave....the usual hissing from the tube crowd....it was that flicker, wasn't it.....overheard someone mention an electrical fault.....
Pouring out with the sea of black white and grey and into the streets of Kings Cross and the already overflowing bus stops...screw this, I'll walk to the next station.
And so I ended up following various lines and stations, cutting southwards across the city, encountering more and more crowds of confused commuters. The Square Mile was cubically full of law and finance minions as far as the eye could see, but there didn't seem to be any sort of confusion. A random foreign woman came up to me out of the crowd, asked me how to get to a station on the other side of the city. I advised her that pulling up in the nearest cafe was probably the best option.
I never twigged, the whole time. I overheard someone mention a bomb, but despite the crowds, despite the occasional fire truck and helicopter, I never stopped to ask anyone or find out what was going on. It was only my fourth month there, still getting used to the place, and absolutely determined to earn some money that day.
It was only when I pulled up at Tower Bridge, the eleventh or twelfth closed station I came across that day, and read the tube info sign advising to 'get out of central London' that I realised something heavy had gone down. Not long after I saw a panicky looking cop hand signal a bus into a driveway. As I walked along the main road heading east out of town, entirely filled with cars both ways, I noticed that the sound of sirens, which had been building continually all morning, had been non-stop for about half an hour....
After three and a half hours walking, I got to within a block of my job when ex-girlfriend A called me up (on a rare mobile call to make it through that day) and filled me in.
I had to stop on the corner for a second as the weight of the events hit me.
I looked up at the lights on the tube platform. The lights flickered, and people died. Meaninglessly.
I soon found out that the most casualties of the morning were on the Piccadilly line, between Russell Square, the next station along, and where I was standing. It could have been any one. The bus explosion at 9.47AM was at Tavistock Square, about a kilometre from Kings Cross, which was about the time I was wandering around that neighbourhood. The bus was a number 30, one of the routes which went past our flat, a bus that A and her sister C caught all the time. Could have been any one.
The next day was like Day of the Triffids, eerie. Angel station was deserted. I entered the DLR carriage to find about half a dozen people with newspapers who all shot a quick glance as I stepped in.
For the next month the city was in lockdown, everyone was wound up so tight. I was living between friends places at the time - heading to a different job one morning, carrying a large black bag with clothes and a small keyboard amplifier, I got pulled over by a bobby at 8AM for a 'regulatory search'. That was some quota they had to fill.....
It's not a remarkable story. I certainly didn't see any blood stained people staggering down the street, didn't hear any explosions, didn't know anyone affected. It's quite a pedestrian account, considering I now live with someone who emerged from his central Manhattan apartment at about 9AM on the 11th September 2001 to witness, shall we say, something new.
But everyone has that special memory reserved for where they were when certain world events occur; a scratch on the surface of the collective consciousness. So I guess that in the future, whenever anyone mentions July 7, then I can say, quite honestly and wholeheartedly, that I was there.
Revelling in the central location of our new flat, it was about a quarter to nine when I staggered out onto Camden Street in search of some sort of public transport to get me to my sleepy day job. Well looky here (in an experience not uncommon to Londoners), there's a bus that goes from the stop just outside of the estate to where else but the tube stop just near my work!
Bus is packed, rush hour, whatever...we wind our way through the new Eurostar terminal, come out on to the main road and I look up to see a floodlight on a raised tower thingy....strange. The bus swings past Kings Cross Station, and it's only when I see the half dozen reporters on the other side of the road, standing in front of more floodlights and cameras pointed at them with the station in the background, that I twigged.
It really was a year ago today, wasn't it.
An eerieness quickly crept in when I realised that the time happened to be a couple of minutes past nine o'clock, almost exactly the time, on this day a year ago, that the station was evacuated and I poured out with the river of black white and grey on to this very street, to search in vain for a bus to the next station.....
A year ago...
As the cliche goes, it started, as any one who was in central London that morning will tell you, like any other day. To an overcast morning, I awoke alone in the one bedroom flat I shared with my ex-girlfriend at the time, donned the white shirt and grey pants (too small) necessary for the full-time temping day gig, and ate my cereal and banana in silence before trudging down St Paul's Road to the melee of my local tube station.
Descending into the bowels of the beast, my journey started that day with the Victoria Line, the light blue one, always fast, always packed in the sleepy angst of a London rush hour. "I'm not one of you, you know," I kept telling myself back in those days, even though I fully realised every day what I had (or hadn't) done to end up in the position I was in. And being determined to make it to work every day of those stupid-ass jobs was my way of getting out of it.
I distinctly remember thinking in the couple of days before that things couldn't get any worse.....
Making the change at Kings Cross station to the Northern line, I was standing there with the swaying masses on the southbound platform at what must have been 8.50 AM, when I happened to be staring up at the lights in the ceiling of the tunnel and saw them flicker, and my mother's voice in the back of my head instantly thought that can't be right.
Already running late for the job, I missed the crush for the oncoming tube...damn I'm gonna be late....turns out it didn't matter that day.
The next tube is halted at the previous station. An automated male voice tells us to leave....the usual hissing from the tube crowd....it was that flicker, wasn't it.....overheard someone mention an electrical fault.....
Pouring out with the sea of black white and grey and into the streets of Kings Cross and the already overflowing bus stops...screw this, I'll walk to the next station.
And so I ended up following various lines and stations, cutting southwards across the city, encountering more and more crowds of confused commuters. The Square Mile was cubically full of law and finance minions as far as the eye could see, but there didn't seem to be any sort of confusion. A random foreign woman came up to me out of the crowd, asked me how to get to a station on the other side of the city. I advised her that pulling up in the nearest cafe was probably the best option.
I never twigged, the whole time. I overheard someone mention a bomb, but despite the crowds, despite the occasional fire truck and helicopter, I never stopped to ask anyone or find out what was going on. It was only my fourth month there, still getting used to the place, and absolutely determined to earn some money that day.
It was only when I pulled up at Tower Bridge, the eleventh or twelfth closed station I came across that day, and read the tube info sign advising to 'get out of central London' that I realised something heavy had gone down. Not long after I saw a panicky looking cop hand signal a bus into a driveway. As I walked along the main road heading east out of town, entirely filled with cars both ways, I noticed that the sound of sirens, which had been building continually all morning, had been non-stop for about half an hour....
After three and a half hours walking, I got to within a block of my job when ex-girlfriend A called me up (on a rare mobile call to make it through that day) and filled me in.
I had to stop on the corner for a second as the weight of the events hit me.
I looked up at the lights on the tube platform. The lights flickered, and people died. Meaninglessly.
I soon found out that the most casualties of the morning were on the Piccadilly line, between Russell Square, the next station along, and where I was standing. It could have been any one. The bus explosion at 9.47AM was at Tavistock Square, about a kilometre from Kings Cross, which was about the time I was wandering around that neighbourhood. The bus was a number 30, one of the routes which went past our flat, a bus that A and her sister C caught all the time. Could have been any one.
The next day was like Day of the Triffids, eerie. Angel station was deserted. I entered the DLR carriage to find about half a dozen people with newspapers who all shot a quick glance as I stepped in.
For the next month the city was in lockdown, everyone was wound up so tight. I was living between friends places at the time - heading to a different job one morning, carrying a large black bag with clothes and a small keyboard amplifier, I got pulled over by a bobby at 8AM for a 'regulatory search'. That was some quota they had to fill.....
It's not a remarkable story. I certainly didn't see any blood stained people staggering down the street, didn't hear any explosions, didn't know anyone affected. It's quite a pedestrian account, considering I now live with someone who emerged from his central Manhattan apartment at about 9AM on the 11th September 2001 to witness, shall we say, something new.
But everyone has that special memory reserved for where they were when certain world events occur; a scratch on the surface of the collective consciousness. So I guess that in the future, whenever anyone mentions July 7, then I can say, quite honestly and wholeheartedly, that I was there.
That Guy Returns (again)
For anyone who is hospitalised on an IV drip from starving themselves waiting by their computer for my next blog entry.....well, I salute you! For anyone else, the scramble of the last two or three homeless weeks is finally over. We've all moved into probably the tiniest but nicest little ex-council flat in Camden Town in the most amazing location - two minutes walk from Mornington Crescent and five to Camden Town tube itself (for those who are unfamiliar, take my word that that's pretty bloody good!). Quite a turnaround from the last place, but totally welcome....
So now I have somewhere to practice and store things and sleep, and with the onset of teaching holidays, I'll have far more time to pay attention to self-glorifying activities such as the one you're currently reading....tally ho! what what.....
So now I have somewhere to practice and store things and sleep, and with the onset of teaching holidays, I'll have far more time to pay attention to self-glorifying activities such as the one you're currently reading....tally ho! what what.....
03 July 2006
On Tour - Paris
Thursday 18th May - Paris
Sucked up in the twister of alcohol, I rubbed my eyes mid afternoon to peer out the curtained windows upon the eternally inviting boulevards and cane chairs of none other than the City of Lights. This was a trip to the gig like no other. I knew this one would be a highlight, one that would go down in the books, and I sure wasn't disappointed.
As everyone knows, parking in Paris is utterly ridiculous, and so we had to lug everything right there on the street and straight into the venue, after which the bus headed back to somewhere on the Peripherique. During one of those time windows that pop up between sound check and getting ready, I dashed down the street for an Evian. Feeling that warm Parisian glow from all the buildings in their faded yellow glory, caught up in some personal reverie of the momentousness (for me at least) of the afternoon, I couldn't help but spare a brief thought back to that very first paid gig I ever did, back in the Coota Town Hall, eleven years ago...
The venue was ace - La Scene, Rue de Talliandiers, 10th (I think?) Arrondisment, near the Bastille, a medium sized pop venue in quite a hip part of town. The promoters showed up and took us out to dinner in this exquisite restaurant about a block from the gig...the weather was gorgeous.....nothing could wipe the smile off my face!
Housemate X and some friends rocked up with about an hour to do - having friendlies in the audience always makes the gig feel that little bit more worthwhile. As always, we rocked the casbah, then repaired to this bodgy establishment a couple of blocks away with loads of cute American girls but a totally inept mother and son running the bar, before the beige monster suddenly appeared to whisk us away to the east. Ah Paris, it was only my second time there and again, you blew me away!....
Sucked up in the twister of alcohol, I rubbed my eyes mid afternoon to peer out the curtained windows upon the eternally inviting boulevards and cane chairs of none other than the City of Lights. This was a trip to the gig like no other. I knew this one would be a highlight, one that would go down in the books, and I sure wasn't disappointed.
As everyone knows, parking in Paris is utterly ridiculous, and so we had to lug everything right there on the street and straight into the venue, after which the bus headed back to somewhere on the Peripherique. During one of those time windows that pop up between sound check and getting ready, I dashed down the street for an Evian. Feeling that warm Parisian glow from all the buildings in their faded yellow glory, caught up in some personal reverie of the momentousness (for me at least) of the afternoon, I couldn't help but spare a brief thought back to that very first paid gig I ever did, back in the Coota Town Hall, eleven years ago...
The venue was ace - La Scene, Rue de Talliandiers, 10th (I think?) Arrondisment, near the Bastille, a medium sized pop venue in quite a hip part of town. The promoters showed up and took us out to dinner in this exquisite restaurant about a block from the gig...the weather was gorgeous.....nothing could wipe the smile off my face!
Housemate X and some friends rocked up with about an hour to do - having friendlies in the audience always makes the gig feel that little bit more worthwhile. As always, we rocked the casbah, then repaired to this bodgy establishment a couple of blocks away with loads of cute American girls but a totally inept mother and son running the bar, before the beige monster suddenly appeared to whisk us away to the east. Ah Paris, it was only my second time there and again, you blew me away!....
27 June 2006
On Tour - Brussels
Tue 16th May - Brussels
Woke up to find us parked next to some old botanical gardens thingy just on the edge of the city. Our little mobile home was parked on the curb and would be so for the next 48, making us basically the best paid homeless street people in town that week.
The venue was pretty similar to Amsterdam - basement vibe.....ticket count wasn't too sure for early on, but it got much better come gig time. It was more for the people from the label, to see what the show was all about, and they dug it big time. Late night cab to the Turkish kebab street for some ridiculous slabs of meat and bread which are always gluttinously delicious - the late night muso's curse.....
Wed 17th May - Brussels
Strangely enough, our one day off through the whole tour was after the second gig, so we wandered around town for a bit...a nice enough place, very French. Left the crew after a while to scout out some touristy things and take photos I'm sure everyone else has taken. Vietnamese for dinner, drinks after, and then those of us left over, in a vain attempt to find some late night carnage, followed the accordion player round a bunch of gay clubs....on tour, eh!
Woke up to find us parked next to some old botanical gardens thingy just on the edge of the city. Our little mobile home was parked on the curb and would be so for the next 48, making us basically the best paid homeless street people in town that week.
The venue was pretty similar to Amsterdam - basement vibe.....ticket count wasn't too sure for early on, but it got much better come gig time. It was more for the people from the label, to see what the show was all about, and they dug it big time. Late night cab to the Turkish kebab street for some ridiculous slabs of meat and bread which are always gluttinously delicious - the late night muso's curse.....
Wed 17th May - Brussels
Strangely enough, our one day off through the whole tour was after the second gig, so we wandered around town for a bit...a nice enough place, very French. Left the crew after a while to scout out some touristy things and take photos I'm sure everyone else has taken. Vietnamese for dinner, drinks after, and then those of us left over, in a vain attempt to find some late night carnage, followed the accordion player round a bunch of gay clubs....on tour, eh!
N.B.
Apologies for any of you waiting for new entries with baited breath, as it's been kinda nuts lately....just briefly, in a bizarre turn of events to go down in the annals of sharehousing, I've been homeless since Thursday, staying on the floor at Mr N's place, with my few belongings distributed amongst north London, until the new house comes together sometime towards the end of the week. I've got this new girl, but she's taking off, also at the end of the week. I think I'm about to lose some teaching for the new school year, but the gigs are up to about three a week which is good. Oh yeah, and my visa runs out in six months, and so in the face of challenging prospects I'm trying to figure out some way to stay here in this godforsaken maelstrom.....
Bloody hell!
Oh well, on with the show....
Bloody hell!
Oh well, on with the show....
19 June 2006
In My Solitude....
Sometimes you just wanna run away from it all.
It could all be going great guns, or it could all be going insane, or (and I'm seeing the world more and more like this as I get old and wizened) both and other stuff too. But just sometimes, you want to leave it all behind and find a spot in the world where you get to do just want you want to do, responsibility free, with absolutely no-one else around. A fantasy of solitude, if you will.
Mine is living in a hut in the middle of the forest with a nine foot Steinway and a tape player learning to play stride piano. I could happily burn up twelve hour days eating baked beans out of a can and fully absorbing the intricacies of Tatum, Erroll, JJ Johnson and all the others....build up a massive left hand while watching my body waste away.....
So that's mine. What's yours?
Just curious.....
It could all be going great guns, or it could all be going insane, or (and I'm seeing the world more and more like this as I get old and wizened) both and other stuff too. But just sometimes, you want to leave it all behind and find a spot in the world where you get to do just want you want to do, responsibility free, with absolutely no-one else around. A fantasy of solitude, if you will.
Mine is living in a hut in the middle of the forest with a nine foot Steinway and a tape player learning to play stride piano. I could happily burn up twelve hour days eating baked beans out of a can and fully absorbing the intricacies of Tatum, Erroll, JJ Johnson and all the others....build up a massive left hand while watching my body waste away.....
So that's mine. What's yours?
Just curious.....
16 June 2006
On Tour (finally!) - Amsterdam
In a nutshell, my honours year was about six months of hanging out with my girlfriend who lived across the road, and about six months of intense catch-up practice and research. It got so full-on there towards the end that I literally couldn't take a free breath until the night of my graduation recital, in fact, until the very last chord (I remember it being more of a cluster* actually).
And so it was that my last Sunday in the Big Smoke was a bit of an echo of this. After taking Girl out to breakfast and putting her on the Bakerloo line, the next ten hours were madly rushing around, making tons of tedious phonecalls and emails, ridiculous last-minute leavings, and then at about 10PM I realised I still had to PACK! Nevertheless, the cab swung by and I loaded up for the short trip to Sophie's for the coach, leaving midnight Sunday.
And so it was, after two weeks of madness, it wasn't until the bus set off and I cracked open that first beer bottle (of many) that I could breathe easy, sink into the upstairs couch, and talk a little with the seven or so people whose pockets I would be living in for the next two weeks.
Now, sure enough, I could give you a classic rave about each date, but I've decided instead to provide a series of vignettes, if you will, little grabs of each place I seem to remember....
Monday 15th May (bus from Earls Court to Dover, ferry to Calais, drive to Amsterdam)....
Trying to read 'A Clockwork Orange' on the ferry at 5AM, with a beer. Note to self, o my brothers - nadsat is far less tedious and easier to read when you're drunk!
Monday 15th May - Amsterdam
A and I made for the nearest hash bar and then walked off into town. No real reason to stop, so we just kept going, for hours, until we found this place called Westerpark. Think the village where the hobbits live - a moat surrounding a very green park looking place with all these little huts on neat gravel streets, and it went for kilometres. Too curious to resist, Andy and I found one of the few bridges and wandered in, promptly getting lost, wondering if we would be suddenly be sprung upon by murderous Ewok-looking people and chopped up for sellable body parts...
It ended up being a complete Amsterdam experience:
1) Smoked some hash
2) Saw plenty of weirdos in town
3) Visited the little wood people in Westerpark
4) On the way back, saw some prostitution take place in a carpark
....lost in the Jordaan somewhere, we were surfing the old rolling cobblestones as they flowed down the street over tree roots towards one of the many bridges. On the corner was this gorgeous restaurant with people sitting having lunch....in the corner of my eye I picked up the flutter of sycamore leaves in a breeze.....what a beautiful place....
First gig rocked - basement vibe, and old mate Lucky dropped by (got him in for free) so we hung after for a bit.....all engaged and stuff, with his visa about to run out, he was destined for the homeland with his fiancee.....bye to yet another friend, for a while.....
Farewelling him out the side door I was bustled past by fellow band members, their arms full of consumables from the dressing room, destined for the bus. Okay, so I've been doing this for ten years and I finally hit a well-paid engagement, where everything is taken care of, and we're still racking stuff after the show? Nutty....
More soon....
* cluster - a collection of notes played simultaneously but not quite a chord, sometimes played with fist or open hand or perhaps buttocks if you're Frank Zappa....
And so it was that my last Sunday in the Big Smoke was a bit of an echo of this. After taking Girl out to breakfast and putting her on the Bakerloo line, the next ten hours were madly rushing around, making tons of tedious phonecalls and emails, ridiculous last-minute leavings, and then at about 10PM I realised I still had to PACK! Nevertheless, the cab swung by and I loaded up for the short trip to Sophie's for the coach, leaving midnight Sunday.
And so it was, after two weeks of madness, it wasn't until the bus set off and I cracked open that first beer bottle (of many) that I could breathe easy, sink into the upstairs couch, and talk a little with the seven or so people whose pockets I would be living in for the next two weeks.
Now, sure enough, I could give you a classic rave about each date, but I've decided instead to provide a series of vignettes, if you will, little grabs of each place I seem to remember....
Monday 15th May (bus from Earls Court to Dover, ferry to Calais, drive to Amsterdam)....
Trying to read 'A Clockwork Orange' on the ferry at 5AM, with a beer. Note to self, o my brothers - nadsat is far less tedious and easier to read when you're drunk!
Monday 15th May - Amsterdam
A and I made for the nearest hash bar and then walked off into town. No real reason to stop, so we just kept going, for hours, until we found this place called Westerpark. Think the village where the hobbits live - a moat surrounding a very green park looking place with all these little huts on neat gravel streets, and it went for kilometres. Too curious to resist, Andy and I found one of the few bridges and wandered in, promptly getting lost, wondering if we would be suddenly be sprung upon by murderous Ewok-looking people and chopped up for sellable body parts...
It ended up being a complete Amsterdam experience:
1) Smoked some hash
2) Saw plenty of weirdos in town
3) Visited the little wood people in Westerpark
4) On the way back, saw some prostitution take place in a carpark
....lost in the Jordaan somewhere, we were surfing the old rolling cobblestones as they flowed down the street over tree roots towards one of the many bridges. On the corner was this gorgeous restaurant with people sitting having lunch....in the corner of my eye I picked up the flutter of sycamore leaves in a breeze.....what a beautiful place....
First gig rocked - basement vibe, and old mate Lucky dropped by (got him in for free) so we hung after for a bit.....all engaged and stuff, with his visa about to run out, he was destined for the homeland with his fiancee.....bye to yet another friend, for a while.....
Farewelling him out the side door I was bustled past by fellow band members, their arms full of consumables from the dressing room, destined for the bus. Okay, so I've been doing this for ten years and I finally hit a well-paid engagement, where everything is taken care of, and we're still racking stuff after the show? Nutty....
More soon....
* cluster - a collection of notes played simultaneously but not quite a chord, sometimes played with fist or open hand or perhaps buttocks if you're Frank Zappa....
12 June 2006
THE COUNT IN
A Thursday afternoon, long ago.... So I'm battling through my last week in cold London town, madly trying to reorganise my ridiculously busy teaching schedule, but of course I still managed to drop cute Japanese girl an email the next day, not expecting anything at all. Gotta give these things a go, right? And to my ultimate surprise she wrote back the next day with her mobile number! Bloody hell, I thought to myself, this is gonna happen, innit!? Right in the thick of it, at the worst possible time, just before I go away for a month. It's how it's always seemed to happen in the past. Oh well, it's not gonna stop me, right? I took the Thursday afternoon off the day job, funnily enough forgetting to tell anyone, and took my place on the pavement outside Green Park tube, wondering if I'd be able to recognise her on the Sea of Piccadilly. But sure enough, she emerged out of the melee and we took sandwiches and coffee into the park on a gorgeous London afternoon. The nine-month winter was finally over and we made our way to some shaded green. No pint-oversized confidence now, just me, her, and the pallid afternoon sun leaking through the leaves. Her English was a little slow but definite and intelligent, a suitable counterpoint to the native speaker sitting before her, bubbling away off a strange brew of nerves and caffeine high. Eventually I took a couple of deep breaths and levelled out, physically and mentally, and for the first time in I can't remember how long, I started to open up, chill out some, lying on my back on a sunny afternoon in a park (wow, when's the last time I did that?). Just the usual stuff, London, Oz, Japan, travel, all very amicable....she seemed to laugh a lot at my dumb joke-like statements...... We got to a natural pause in the flow and I asked her if she wanted to stroll some more. "No, I would like to sit here," she said slowly but surely, with those dark eyes and enigmatic smile, as the breeze sang softly through the boughs overhead.... She loves Brazilian music! My stars! AND she's going in two months to visit Salvador! Capital of Bahia, the African state of Brazil, home of music divine. I was instantly envious.... ......Well, I thought, there's nothing for it but to wander east to Guanabara, the hippest Brazilian club in town, to listen to some forro and drink cheap caipirinhas.... .....we get lost amongst the Circus and the theatres in the long afternoon.....the cool windowless club quickly melts the eve into night.... .......the music is crap so she knows another place, in the East End, some French Brazilian place...... .........yes you'll have to take me there after this one.........or the next one..... ......tube to Old Street...........tall palms indoors..........a table up the back........ ......dark eyes......smile..... .....lost...... A Friday Morning, long ago...... .......vapour..... .......herbal tea....... ......window in the kitchen....... .......a view across the terraces in the low morning sun....... .......wearing yesterday's clothes......... .......lost among the grim faces of a rush-hour crowd, while trying to hide the occasional smirk upon my own..... .......standing facing the girl in the tan jacket, with those dark, intelligent, humourous eyes and enigmatic smile...... ......"I'll see you soon, yeah?"....... ......"Yes."............ ......a peck on the lips in a crowded tube...... ......and gone.......
The Lead Up....
....and the more that came in, the more it was actually going to happen. The biggest sub of them all, to date at least. G-Man had put my name forward for a short European tour with Sophie Solomon. Eleven shows in twelve days: Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and a week across Germany. From full time office work and no gigs less than a year ago, I was about to do the real thing, on a bus, with a band.
After a bunch of phone calls between G-Man, the manager and Soph, I finally met her for a coffee in Portobello Road where she gave me a copy of the album and some charts. I already had the album at home funnily enough through G-Man, and so shortly thereafter I hooked into learning the material with great gusto. An all day rehersal was scheduled in about two weeks, more than enough time to get the show together.
Sure enough, the day came around, and I was well prepared. It's an amazing thought really - a proper show where I had recordings and charts and ample time in which to learn the material before a direct, time-efficient rehersal where everyone knew their parts and knew what was going on.
You mean like a REAL job!?
After getting the material together, my next thought was a clothing upheaval. If I'm gonna be a touring rockstar, I need to look like one! So for the next available sunday morning, I called up my two most supa-stylin' mates, D-Funk and Mr N, to accompany me upon an excursion through the rambling markets of Camden Town in search of a list of crucial items. A resounding success on all counts, I walked away with a new suede jacket, new hat, not one but two new pairs of shades, and two crevatts (although I forgot how to tie them as soon as I walked out of the shop, but I'm sure I'll remember one day!). Their services were kindly repaid with a free lunch of their choice from the markets, and then Mr N and I took a walk up to Primrose Hill for the usual view and obligatory ales at the local establishments.
The evening saw us retire to D-Funk's apartment, and that's where it all started to go a bit blue and hazy, so by the time the Scorpion Dog requried my alliance on a dodgy venture to the usual East End haunt, the night had taken a far more inebriated turn....
Finally getting to the jam session at Uncle Sam's in Dalston, Mr N and mate were already there amidst a sea of long weekend revellers. It didn't take him long to find a Brazilian photographer sitting near to us, and it took me even less time to find the cute Japanese girl sitting beside her. I'd been drinking for most of the day, so in an uncharacteristically total lack of hesitation whatsoever I just launched in. It must have been like something straight out of Coota RSL - loud drunken Aussie, pure class!
Somehow all the usual questions of how are you finding the place went to can I have your phone number, and I was amazed to find that she was obliging with her email address, which I thought might have been a blow-off, but it ended up in the phone anyway, somehow! I knew that through the oncoming week of life upheaval and teaching reorganisation, it'd be worth dropping a quick note, just to see how it went....
After a bunch of phone calls between G-Man, the manager and Soph, I finally met her for a coffee in Portobello Road where she gave me a copy of the album and some charts. I already had the album at home funnily enough through G-Man, and so shortly thereafter I hooked into learning the material with great gusto. An all day rehersal was scheduled in about two weeks, more than enough time to get the show together.
Sure enough, the day came around, and I was well prepared. It's an amazing thought really - a proper show where I had recordings and charts and ample time in which to learn the material before a direct, time-efficient rehersal where everyone knew their parts and knew what was going on.
You mean like a REAL job!?
After getting the material together, my next thought was a clothing upheaval. If I'm gonna be a touring rockstar, I need to look like one! So for the next available sunday morning, I called up my two most supa-stylin' mates, D-Funk and Mr N, to accompany me upon an excursion through the rambling markets of Camden Town in search of a list of crucial items. A resounding success on all counts, I walked away with a new suede jacket, new hat, not one but two new pairs of shades, and two crevatts (although I forgot how to tie them as soon as I walked out of the shop, but I'm sure I'll remember one day!). Their services were kindly repaid with a free lunch of their choice from the markets, and then Mr N and I took a walk up to Primrose Hill for the usual view and obligatory ales at the local establishments.
The evening saw us retire to D-Funk's apartment, and that's where it all started to go a bit blue and hazy, so by the time the Scorpion Dog requried my alliance on a dodgy venture to the usual East End haunt, the night had taken a far more inebriated turn....
Finally getting to the jam session at Uncle Sam's in Dalston, Mr N and mate were already there amidst a sea of long weekend revellers. It didn't take him long to find a Brazilian photographer sitting near to us, and it took me even less time to find the cute Japanese girl sitting beside her. I'd been drinking for most of the day, so in an uncharacteristically total lack of hesitation whatsoever I just launched in. It must have been like something straight out of Coota RSL - loud drunken Aussie, pure class!
Somehow all the usual questions of how are you finding the place went to can I have your phone number, and I was amazed to find that she was obliging with her email address, which I thought might have been a blow-off, but it ended up in the phone anyway, somehow! I knew that through the oncoming week of life upheaval and teaching reorganisation, it'd be worth dropping a quick note, just to see how it went....
I Just Called....
A Wednesday morning, long ago.....
Great! A free Wednesday morning. No little kiddie keyboard groups to battle with. The better part of two whole hours to go practice piano....
Sidling up to one of my preferred mistresses in room two down at Jaques Samuels, I dumped my stuff, eased onto the stool, started concentrating on breathing and posture, and laid my hands to the black and white....
Phone Call 1: didn't answer....left message....some teaching thing....deal with it later....
Right, back to the breathing....
Phone Call 2: answered strangely.....silly gig up north...said yes, then realised it would be no....handball it to D-Funk....deal with it later....
Okay, back to posture and breathing....hang on, someone tried to call while checking message two....
Phone Call 3: old mate G-Man offering me a European tour.....
Hold on a sec.....that's the kind of call you don't blow off. G-Man had been murmuring to me about this for some time now, but as I've found with most things in the freelance music world, I wasn't gonna start up a mortgage on it.
But this was for real.
Called him back straight away, and as he spoke more, I believed it more. And then I couldn't believe it!...
Great! A free Wednesday morning. No little kiddie keyboard groups to battle with. The better part of two whole hours to go practice piano....
Sidling up to one of my preferred mistresses in room two down at Jaques Samuels, I dumped my stuff, eased onto the stool, started concentrating on breathing and posture, and laid my hands to the black and white....
Phone Call 1: didn't answer....left message....some teaching thing....deal with it later....
Right, back to the breathing....
Phone Call 2: answered strangely.....silly gig up north...said yes, then realised it would be no....handball it to D-Funk....deal with it later....
Okay, back to posture and breathing....hang on, someone tried to call while checking message two....
Phone Call 3: old mate G-Man offering me a European tour.....
Hold on a sec.....that's the kind of call you don't blow off. G-Man had been murmuring to me about this for some time now, but as I've found with most things in the freelance music world, I wasn't gonna start up a mortgage on it.
But this was for real.
Called him back straight away, and as he spoke more, I believed it more. And then I couldn't believe it!...
11 June 2006
Gig Review - Marc Ribot and Ceramic Dog
One Sunday afternoon, long ago...
Your correspondent had the privilege to share an intense hour and a bit with Ceramic Dog, Marc Ribot's new three-part invention, recently on tour through here and the continent. After house reds and a bowl of wedges with J-Sax, my usual concert-going partner-in-crime, we ascended the steps at the Royal Festival Hall to the Purcell Room, one of the best settings for small ensemble music I've seen in this city to date.
Surrounded by a to-be-expected black-shirt die-hard weirdo audience, Senor Ribot and co slinked their way through the one door at the back centre of the stage. A welcome unexpected beginning to the gig was going from customary fiddling and tuning straight into the first free improv. We had the name to the left on guitar with various electronics before him, then centre stage was Chad Smith, this big surfer looking guy who accompanied any athletics on the kit with an unusual slack-jawed sway. Then to the left, by far the most interesting looking player in the room, was (forgotten his name)....this guy somehow missed out on the Weet-Bix at the childhood breakfast table....tiny head, wearing a giant shoulder-padded jacket from which emerged long spindly unnatural looking arms, also fortified with various electronics and an empty water-cooler bottle.
Free improv melted into tune melted into wacky bleep-infested groove and so on....first highlight was 'Todo El Mundo Es Kitch', which I suppose was Ribot's sung/spoken version of Paul Kelly's song about every city feeling the same....'In Paris, we sat at a cafe / we were drinking coffee'....by far the other lyric highlight of the afternoon was 'When We Were Young We Were Freaks.' "This next song," went Ribot's intro, "was written by the leading gay S and M poet in the East Village in the 70s. He was also my accountant at the time......"
Some cubano grooves popped up, well appreciated by your reviewer who originally came to know Ribot's work through the two outstanding albums with Cubanos Postizos (The first, self-titled, and the second "Muy Divertido"). Various instrument swapping went on throughout, as well as using each player to his full extent (J-Sax recalls the Martian-looking bassplayer pulling out some groove with big toe on keyboard on beat 1, one hand on bass and other hand on some electronic thing, I think)....
After the dramas of a forgotten battery, the session came back to earth with a final lyric contribution ("George Bush, fuck you! Tony Blair, fuck you!") before encore. In the obligatory post-gig recount, I agreed with J-Sax's early observation that it sounded pretty much like you would expect it to sound, but this didn't detract from the product one electronic bleep. Original but accessible, unusual but not confronting, highly original. Ribot is definitely one to keep an eye on.....
Your correspondent had the privilege to share an intense hour and a bit with Ceramic Dog, Marc Ribot's new three-part invention, recently on tour through here and the continent. After house reds and a bowl of wedges with J-Sax, my usual concert-going partner-in-crime, we ascended the steps at the Royal Festival Hall to the Purcell Room, one of the best settings for small ensemble music I've seen in this city to date.
Surrounded by a to-be-expected black-shirt die-hard weirdo audience, Senor Ribot and co slinked their way through the one door at the back centre of the stage. A welcome unexpected beginning to the gig was going from customary fiddling and tuning straight into the first free improv. We had the name to the left on guitar with various electronics before him, then centre stage was Chad Smith, this big surfer looking guy who accompanied any athletics on the kit with an unusual slack-jawed sway. Then to the left, by far the most interesting looking player in the room, was (forgotten his name)....this guy somehow missed out on the Weet-Bix at the childhood breakfast table....tiny head, wearing a giant shoulder-padded jacket from which emerged long spindly unnatural looking arms, also fortified with various electronics and an empty water-cooler bottle.
Free improv melted into tune melted into wacky bleep-infested groove and so on....first highlight was 'Todo El Mundo Es Kitch', which I suppose was Ribot's sung/spoken version of Paul Kelly's song about every city feeling the same....'In Paris, we sat at a cafe / we were drinking coffee'....by far the other lyric highlight of the afternoon was 'When We Were Young We Were Freaks.' "This next song," went Ribot's intro, "was written by the leading gay S and M poet in the East Village in the 70s. He was also my accountant at the time......"
Some cubano grooves popped up, well appreciated by your reviewer who originally came to know Ribot's work through the two outstanding albums with Cubanos Postizos (The first, self-titled, and the second "Muy Divertido"). Various instrument swapping went on throughout, as well as using each player to his full extent (J-Sax recalls the Martian-looking bassplayer pulling out some groove with big toe on keyboard on beat 1, one hand on bass and other hand on some electronic thing, I think)....
After the dramas of a forgotten battery, the session came back to earth with a final lyric contribution ("George Bush, fuck you! Tony Blair, fuck you!") before encore. In the obligatory post-gig recount, I agreed with J-Sax's early observation that it sounded pretty much like you would expect it to sound, but this didn't detract from the product one electronic bleep. Original but accessible, unusual but not confronting, highly original. Ribot is definitely one to keep an eye on.....
That Guy Returns
Yes, friends, back from one of the most amazing months of my life....so much to recount I'm not quite sure where to start, so I guess it'll come through in dribbles, here and there.....here's the first one.....
20 May 2006
On The Road
Hez Kids,
It's about 1 o'clock in sunnz Frankfurt, and while I've got this spare fifteen minutes I thought I'd drop a quick note to zou all on this the halfwaz daz of the Sophie Solomon European Tour! It's all going bloodz great as expected, and I reallz can't believe that I'm alreadz halfwaz through it. I'll wait until I get back to London to expand on all the goings on. Germanz's a funnz place, lots of meat and cheese and meat and cheese, and this kezboard has some funnz letter placements on it, one in particular, can zou guess which one?
Lots of love to z'all.....
It's about 1 o'clock in sunnz Frankfurt, and while I've got this spare fifteen minutes I thought I'd drop a quick note to zou all on this the halfwaz daz of the Sophie Solomon European Tour! It's all going bloodz great as expected, and I reallz can't believe that I'm alreadz halfwaz through it. I'll wait until I get back to London to expand on all the goings on. Germanz's a funnz place, lots of meat and cheese and meat and cheese, and this kezboard has some funnz letter placements on it, one in particular, can zou guess which one?
Lots of love to z'all.....
05 May 2006
"Gonna be a bright....sun shiny day"
I opened the front door and took two steps out and it hit me, through my clothes and all over my skin. It wasn't just light in the sky this time but warmth in the air...our first real summers day! Absolutely awestruck, I ditched my big grey coat on the bed and strolled out onto the street.
And as I turned out the little green wooden gate at the end of our yard, it just occured to me that it's been a whole year....
Step
That's right, it was May long weekend, wasn't it....
Steps
That awkward afternoon in London Fields with all the crew, and the drive back in the vet van, knowing full well what was about to happen...
More steps
And the four long months that followed...
Steps
Wow, how about that....I almost forgot!
Steps
I almost forgot? I've always enshrined those kind of personal history dates...how could I have almost forgotten that one?
And where's the rest of it? Where are the attachments? Where's the anger, at self, at her, the frustration, the endless examination of events spiralling out of control, as they did? Where's that tired, aged feeling?
Gone.
WHAT?
Gone. For today, at least, perhaps back another day, but never as intense, and at this moment, they are nowhere to be found.
And I realised, dear friends, as I was pacing up the street in that glorious white light and warmth of the English morning, that at age 26, off to another twelve-hour pound-earning day doing mostly music related stuff, local gigs in the book and a European tour in a couple of weeks....emailing this cute Japanese girl I met at a gig last weekend....striding up that street in my black pin-stripe shirt....I realised that, despite the tone of recent entries, that for single Mike, things aren't so bad after all.
And to top it all off, it's a beautiful day....
And as I turned out the little green wooden gate at the end of our yard, it just occured to me that it's been a whole year....
Step
That's right, it was May long weekend, wasn't it....
Steps
That awkward afternoon in London Fields with all the crew, and the drive back in the vet van, knowing full well what was about to happen...
More steps
And the four long months that followed...
Steps
Wow, how about that....I almost forgot!
Steps
I almost forgot? I've always enshrined those kind of personal history dates...how could I have almost forgotten that one?
And where's the rest of it? Where are the attachments? Where's the anger, at self, at her, the frustration, the endless examination of events spiralling out of control, as they did? Where's that tired, aged feeling?
Gone.
WHAT?
Gone. For today, at least, perhaps back another day, but never as intense, and at this moment, they are nowhere to be found.
And I realised, dear friends, as I was pacing up the street in that glorious white light and warmth of the English morning, that at age 26, off to another twelve-hour pound-earning day doing mostly music related stuff, local gigs in the book and a European tour in a couple of weeks....emailing this cute Japanese girl I met at a gig last weekend....striding up that street in my black pin-stripe shirt....I realised that, despite the tone of recent entries, that for single Mike, things aren't so bad after all.
And to top it all off, it's a beautiful day....
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