3 Scandi Dandies

 

E

I've been making recordings of the songs that I wrote in Newcastle. I got to the third one before I realised that they are all in the key of E. I don't like using a capo, but I need to use open strings; I guess they will all just have to stay in that key. And one of them's less than two minutes long.

It's getting progressively harder to record them because I did the easy ones first. I think I can do a bit more work on tomorrow's song and get it shipshape enough to record, but the last two need more work, particularly on the lyrics. I will have to take them for a walk.

Meanwhile, on a different guitar, I'm rehearsing the set for Valencia. My fingers have given up moaning about it, thank heavens.

Woman Feeding Gulls

 

Hurvin Anderson, Tate Britain

I absolutely loved this exhibition. I thought it would be really full, because it's Good Friday and a Bank Holiday but of course there's an exodus from London at Easter, and it was relatively empty.

Obviously, I am neither a man nor a person of Jamaican heritage, but there was something about the way Anderson 'sees' the things that he paints, first through the lens of a camera, and then through the process of painting, that really chimes with the way that I work. He also has a way of 'feeling' the humans in his paintings that was really recognisable. You could sense his connection with the subjects of his work.

And the colours- the town trees with their cast of greyness, the many different greens, the splashes of unexpectedness that bring a composition to life. It was so inspiring! The rendition of plants, and the way light and shadow catches their leaves, sometimes reminded me of Abel Rodriguez's paintings of the rainforest. I felt excited, and I felt love for these paintings. 

One huge canvas painted especially for the exhibition was almost like a graphic novel: panels next to each other, above and below, made a narrative of colour and juxtaposition of the historical and contemporary experiences of black Jamaicans that was as intriguing as it was well executed. A slave market was juxtaposed next to sportsmen winning a race. Even those two images spoke to each other in myriad different ways and could have been an exhibition in themselves.

There is a lot of repetition of ideas, although the ideas develop and morph. I loved this too- the sense that the project is not finished, and that his process of painting is an external experiment possibly with no end in sight. Painting, painting, until the image in the head materialises in front of you, or not... not quite right yet. The feelings have changed since the last time. Why not paint the same thing again and again? 

Brilliant. I'm going again, soon.

Don't Talk About Epstein!

 

Recording Demos

I have two songs demoed this week. I'm not going to do any more until next week: I need to do a bit of working-out of guitar parts. Also, it's good to let the dust settle on the ones I've done already. 

Eight songs? Is that a ten-inch vinyl record? 

I might write more; who knows. I also began a song for my friend about Freud's white wolf, and re-recorded an oldie to learn for a festival later in the year. And I did a bit of drawing, and darned the green Christmas stocking that McMum knitted when I was a babby. I think I might be all created-out for the week.

I've been reading UK Subs' Charlie Harper's autobiography, because I'll be interviewing him at the John Peel Centre in June. It's a really lively book- what a life he's had! It is such a shame that creativity as an activity has been negatively subverted into entrepreneurship, which is all about capitalising on any shred of invention a person might have. People like Charlie have so much energy and drive that they make a dynamic scene wherever they go and whatever they do. His musicianship spans the fifties onwards, and I didn't realise that he was an accomplished hairdresser too. Maybe I'll come back from Suffolk with chopped hair!

Museum, Newcastle

 

Waiting In

I'm waiting in for 21 giclée prints to be delivered for the exhibition in Valencia. I'm on tenterhooks: did I choose suitable drawings to be printed? In the end, I added an extra one just in case.

Meanwhile, I can't do any recording because I won't hear the door if I have the headphones on. It's frustrating; yesterday I re-arranged an old song for the group of people who will be playing the Eel Pie festival with me, instead of recording a new one, but it was quite good to break in my guitar-playing fingers again.

The combo for the Eel Pie gig with be Ruth, Karina and Tom (Lester Square), which means that we'll have the opportunity to max out the vocal harmonies this time around. At some point this year, I'd love to do another London one with everybody- Jack, Gina, Robert and Terry- but Robert's going to be doing the Vienna Popfest and I decided that a condensed version of the group would be best for this one.

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

HERE THEY ARE!

Pink Tulle Dress, Trans Pride 2025

 

Recording Again

The computer is out on the kitchen table; the guitar is ready, the ideas are in my head.

Let's get started! 

More Unused Drawings

 

Jeff Tweedy

This is the last of twenty drawings of musicians that I'm going to exhibit in La Batisfera bookshop in Valencia from the 15th of April onwards, with a gig on Friday 17th. Most of the musicians are buskers and street musicians, but there are a few famous ones in the mix at the request of the bookshop owner.

Hors D'Hoovers

 

Good Moaning

Most of the blog postings that don't see the light of day are the moany ones. I usually feel that there's enough of that going on already, but this morning for some reason moaning seems funny! Here is my moan.

When I was in Newcastle a couple of weeks ago, I got up very early one sunny morning and went for a walk in the centre of the Toon. On every bench in the big shopping centre (the Eldon Centre), there was a duo or sometimes a trio of elderly men, moaning. Sometimes there was a walking stick, sometimes a flat cap, often a tweedyish jacket. And it wasn't just there: in the old Grainger Market, the same thing was going on. Sitting down together, looking around, and having a bloody good old moan about everything.

In the street walking back on the roadside benches? The same thing.

I talked to someone about it and they reckoned that their wives had probably chucked them out for the day, which is very possible.

What made me think of it was having to change the day and time that I go swimming, because here in the south of England the same thing happens. There was a particular duo of chaps with voices that carried across the peaceful waters of the swimming pool, who carefully positioned themselves halfway down so they could intercept innocent swimmers with their forthright and very Reform-focused opinions. I realised that their aim was to catch your eye and get you to agree with them. The weekly swim stopped being an endorphin-inducing pleasure, and became an exercise in swimming very quickly past them to avoid getting caught in their noxious net of opinions.

Greeting each beautiful morning with grumpiness seems to be an accepted practice at the moment. Perhaps we could reintroduce Morning Assembly, with cheerful singing of All Things Bright And Beautiful, Morning Has Broken or the perhaps the more emotionally stately Wonderful World, plus a short moment of silent and positive reflection to begin the day. 

Yes, let's do that!

Pop Star, Captain Scarlet