Weird Day

What a weird day. On one side of it, so much stress has landed in my life that it's seemingly impossible to be able to move forward. On the other, the stress has resulted in an afternoon of dogged editing (removing the sound 'K' from numerous vocal takes in order to tidy up a song, and re-doing a guitar groove in tiny fragments in order to fit it into the drift from the metronome that gives the song a lovely feel). 

I have also put down a demo for a new song, which I forced myself to finish just because of the medicinal effect of making music. The song is about a Little Egret I saw down in Dollis Valley one morning early when no-one was about. It was a chilly and rather hostile morning in the summer: the dog walkers were obviously having a second cup of tea, and the cocaine-buying joggers were probably shuddering under the covers, and giving it a miss for the day. 

The treatment worked, but I'm very tired, having been pulled between these two poles, the creative north and the cruel south.

A long time ago, Lester Square told me about an Army musician he knew who had a mental breakdown because he couldn't cope with the schizophrenic act of being a creator and a killer rolled into one person's psyche. I'm not in the Army, obviously,  but sometimes I do fail to understand the license granted to those who are allowed to pontificate about one thing, while practicing an entirely different scheme.

I need to get over myself. I have just found out that Pat Fish (the Jazz Butcher) has died. Pat was a total gentleman, and had just completed an album with Dave Morgan and Ruth Tidmarsh. He was in the middle of gigging, due to play in Bristol this week. This is terribly sad news.