mp3s

I bounced everything down last night to make mp3s of the demos, just to see how they're doing. I wasn't intending to do any recording today but one of the tracks had a few lumbering guitar mistakes which I had to re-record this morning so I can relax over the weekend. I know the next couple of weeks are going to be busy: Robert's coming round to rehearse for the support gig with Jasmine Minks next Saturday, then I'll have to rehearse my own set for the gigs in Edinburgh and Manchester the following weekend. 

I'll have to record the lead vocals at the beginning of May when the hay fever season has calmed down a bit, but I might have a go at tidying up the backing vocals before then. Half the time, I think it's sounding really good, and the other half, I don't. It's funny how the tracks that sound best are often unexpected ones. I've written a song that sounds like A Proper Song. There's another that is possibly too sweet for this record; it's sounding quite energetic! 

I think you can hear in the music that I've left my lecturing job. Working there was like wearing a concrete hat that was compressing everything bouncy and joyful in life, and a mask of insecurity that nibbled at your face all the time because nobody ever said you did anything well, or appeared to notice if something you did outside the university environment was successful. It was all one big downgrade, designed to make you feel like an impostor for not going to a posh university or conservatoire to study music formally. What an upstart I must have seemed! 

In a world of my own, where I'm happy, I can spend 24 hours being creative and another 24 being political if that's the way the cookie crumbles. I will always treasure the relationships that I had with the students, the majority of them. I miss being surrounded by their ideas.

Anyway, I think I have a poster for the gig a week tomorrow. Oh yes, I do.