Stratford

Ah Jimlad, I've just managed to wangle some glorious privacy in this house of hysteria!
I've uploaded a new song, Little England, which was recorded in Ross-shire in the studio in the house in the middle of the field.
This nano-oasis of peace has saved the day. I got lost in Stratford this morning, suburb of Hell- I bumped into a friend later in Docklands and was musing on whether it was the grey drizzle that did it, but he said he'd been there on a lovely sunny day and I was still horrible. Two old fellers, residents, advised me to hang on to my bag as they gave me directions to the station. As I walked through the nasty mall, I was followed by two teenage girls who were moaning endlessly about the way people walked. I thought they were talking about me but their complaints became far too elaborate for a simple trotter like me; when they overtook, one of them walked diagonally in front of me, bashing me with her bag, and slowed down- almost exactly the pedo-style she'd been grumping about.
I'm not going there for me hols, that's for sure.

Cedar Hearts

After being at the studio in Wood Green, I went over to London Metropolitan University at Arsenal to talk about my book.
I got there early and popped into the ironmonger's because I saw some cedar hearts in the window and the house is full of moths. I was chatting to the shop man about music because I had my guitar on my back,and he asked me what I played. I told him I was a song writer, and we chatted about Jules Holland (he'd been a customer in his father's shop in Blackheath). Eventually, I got one of my CDs out of my bag to give to him as a present. He asked to pay for it- so he sold me a packet of cedar hearts and I sold him a CD!

Shuffling

It's a restless time, finishing a CD. Yesterday I called Carol and asked her to do a photo- I want to do it in Rare and Vintage Guitars in Denmark Street so I'll have to call them. Carol is one of only three people who I don't mind taking pix of me- Mike Slocombe and Martin Stephenson are the others. Everybody else wants to steal my soul, I know it, and they must keep away.
Today's task is to go into the studio and finalise the master copy.
Oh, it will be a nuisance. I want to edit one song to make it shorter, remix another again and crucially, change the order of songs. I want to put one of the strange ones first. I had been listening and listening and couldn't work out what was wrong, and I realise that although the best song was first, it may well not be the best version of it that I can ever possibly manage. So I moved tracks around and re-listened and re-listened.....
So what's going first is a song that was a reject from the first CD that I have worked on to make it have a lovely atmosphere. And the track starts with a bang.

After that, I'm getting the bus to London Metropolitan University where I'm doing a talk about the book to some students. It's funny, as soon as I had finished the book it seemed as though it was someone else's and not mine, probably because I have never thought of myself as a writer but also possibly because it is a tribute to so many other people. So it feels like I'm going to talk about someone else's project and how they did it!
I've also been distance-mentoring a songwriter from the north east (hi Robson!) and his first song is nearly finished. I've just written the chords out and I'm posting them to him today; then tomorrow I pick up 108 songs written by the students at the University of the West to listen to and give written feedback.

Meanwhile, outside it's birds, birds, birds. I keep wanting to phone people and say 'Listen to the blackbird!'. They are such good tunesmiths- I've written before about how a blackbird wrote most of the solo for 'Freight Train' that I did with Helen and the Horns. Oh, you tar-feathered tunesmen and tunesladies, you are clever buggers and you make me smile, because you just can't stop and such joie-de-vivre is totally infectious.

Jackie

I fell into the Oxfam shop at opening time to buy a cotton dress that looked cool as a cucumber; we'd had to knock hard on the door, the day's volunteer and I, to get the attention of the vaguely pottering chap inside.
Then I hopped on the tube and headed south.
I hadn't seen Jackie for almost 17 years, although I'd had family news about what she was doing, sometimes wildly exaggerated, as happens in extended families.
She has just published a book about her life with her mum in South East London, Pilgrim State; I hadn't known anything much about this life because when Jackie and I first met, she must have been about 13 and I was a couple of years younger. When you are little, your relatives appear to be arranged around you in a pattern that exists just for you; when they go away after visiting you, it's almost as though someone has removed their batteries and put them in a cupboard until next time. It takes a long while to grow out of this illusion, and it is fascinating eventually to get to know and understand them as real people with real life trajectories.
Jackie is one of three of my foster-cousins (see! I'm possessing them already!); my remarkable Auntie Clare fostered them as well as raising her own three children in a big house in Blackheath. We are all part of a rambling family that seems to sprout another flower wherever you look.
We had a lot to catch up on and we sat in the sun and ate raspberries and drank tea, discovering that we have much in common, especially by both becoming accidental authors at this time in our lives.
I will write more about her book when I have read it, this summer.
Later, I travelled to Custom House to visit a student from the University of the East, who has created drama and music clubs in a big primary school as part of her work experience. It was fiendishly hot and humid by then, and I stayed long enough to see that she is confident and authoritative and the children like her, before heading home and deflating in the heat like a punctured ball.

Raunds Music Festival

I played at Raunds Music Festival last night, invited by Martin Stephenson to support him. It's a lovely little town, and the gig was in a sort of mega-village-hall; the stage was decorated with lots of painted and decorated Doc Marten's, to celebrate the fact that one of the very early protest marches, even before the Jarrow march, set off from Raunds. The audience was lovely- they weren't expecting me, I wasn't on the bill, but it was a listening night and they were all sitting at tables smiling with their beer. Some even had teenagers doing their GCSE homework with them. It was one of those nights when you get into the zone as a singer; I wanted to be good because Martin had invited me to play and I didn't want to let him down so I tried to sing my absolute best and play as well as I could.
I watched Martin's set- he played a song I hadn't heard before, about Margaret Thatcher, almost a funky rhythm, and finished with Boat to Bolivia, which he doesn't play much solo but it was brilliant. It was a really friendly night and I am so glad to have played there: it was a proper community venue with everyone out and smiling on a warm day.
Martin told me a very funny story about this guy who was an older musician, Freddie Fingers Lee, I think he was called. He did a gig with The Cure supporting him and he absolutely detested them, especially the one with lipstick all over his face, so when they were on stage he went and got his pea-shooter from his car and some aluminium pellets, and stood there backstage taking pot-shots at them all the way through their show, laughing with glee as Robert Smith looked round to see what had stung him on the back of his neck!
Ho-dark-ho, I couldn't help laughing.
I'd like to go and see The Band of Holy Joy tonight, and Dialect, the Geordie rappers, are supporting them, too, but it's so blooming hot and what if I got there and it was sold out and I just had to go home again. Know what I mean?
So instead I'll sit in my room and write a song to sing to people in the audience whose mobile phones go off while you're playing.
Or to those ones who talk all the way through perhaps.
Revenge songs.
Songweapons.
Someone go an buy me a Magnum Classic, pleeeaaasse!

Are you OK, Rose?

I've been working away from Barnet and not in the toon much doing me shopping, but I haven't seen Rose, the Big Issue seller, for ages.
I know you read this sometimes, Rose.
Are you OK?

Adorno

The writings of Theodor Adorno are all the rage in universities, more so than any other cleverguy, and the other day I realised why.
I bought a book all about Philosophers and Thinkers, turned to the first page, and there he was, number one!
Just like the Abacus School of Driving in the Yellow Pages, the first driving school everyone calls because it's alphabetically advantaged!
Do you think that's why Abba became so mega-famous?

Man

There was this particularly annoying teenage bloke on the tube the other day, braying with all the confidence of one whose mummy washes their clothes for them. He was verbally overpowering his young female friend, mostly volume-wise, as she tried to assert a little female respect.
'AHA', he trumpeted triumphantly,
'BUT IN THE WORD WOMAN IS THE WORD MAN'
I don't suppose anyone had told him about Adam and Eve-olution, had they?
Eh?
Eh?
Eh?

Planet Viva Viva

I hadn't wanted to go, but every time I play there there are loads of stories to tell so I went anyway.
The restaurant was entirely bank-holiday empty: just me, a guitarist from Brazil and a guitarist from Israel. The cook was looking mournful and the waiter was doubling as a soundman. But Montague Montgomery turned up and we decided to play just for him, and for each other. I volunteered to go first and sang my heart out, to the sky, to the street, to Australia,to Mars. As I was singing, who should walk in the door but Sean Mitchell, whom I haven't seen for years. He's a gospel singer who used to be a student at the University of the West; when I'd finished we listened to the Israeli singer, whose songs were dark and unusual. He told us he used to be in a punk band and his songs had that punk feel, but they were also melodically very interesting. And then the Brazilian guy got up, and treated us to some Beatles (nothing works for me since the Youtube Korean Baby singing 'Hey Jude'), but brilliantly, 'Stayin' Alive' by the Bee Gees, which he did a very funny rendition of, and then some Elvis and a couple of his own songs. He took off when a couple of Portugese men walked in, singing them a lovely song in Portugese, absolutely beautiful.
So there we were, in the deserted restuarant, a little group of people entertaining each other. It was odd, but lovely too. The chef came out to listen; the sound guy, Monty and the Israeli guy liked my songs; Sean and me liked the Israeli guy's songs; the chef, me and the Israeli guy liked the Brazilian guy's songs, and then I lent Sean my guitar and we all liked his songs. He hadn't been expecting to play but he sang and played really well.
Afterwards we all swopped Myspace addresses. the Israeli guy's one is Goy-something and he explained that Goy is a way of insulting non-Jews. So I sang 'Sing if you're glad to be Goy'.
We had all bonded on a muggy bank-holiday night in Hornsey. It was worth going after all.

Today, I've been walking in Lauderdale Park with Diana and her dogs. We haven't seen each other since January, because she's been away in India. She was filming the spring blossoms to send to India, and we lay on the grass and talked about life for a while in the sunshine.

Oh! I forgot to say! I'm playing tonight at Viva Viva!

Birds

The window was open and it was dawn; the birds started singing at the tops of their different voices, like a rainfall of individual conversations, a musical dew.
I lay and marvelled at the depth of sound, and the way you could hear the whole soundscape or pick out one individual bird, each with an important message to other birds of its feather. In the sound-sodden air was all the joy of being alive and the celebration of the animal spirit.
I thought about humans and speaking and singing and how we are all doing the same thing, identifying ourselves and each other with our voices and sounds.
Aha, said the other me, what about groany old Leonard Cohen?
Just a different sort of a bird, said the first me, and you can pick him out in the dawn chorus just like all the other birds.

Resolutions d'Ete

Ah, what a good idea: summer resolutions! I think I'll start my new year at the end of May, and this is what I'll do:
1. Learn to play piano- and possibly, accordion
2. Set up a tour for the autumn to promote Polyhymnia, and a fantastic launch party. I wonder where I could do that?
3. Make an embroidery which I will animate and put music to (I have it planned, you just wait and see!)
4. Go to Brighton and see my friends there
5. Spend a weekend in Barcelona to see what it's like
6. Go to Scotland as often as possible
7. Read those big fat philosophy books I bought on Thursday so I feel as clever as everybody else
8. Be outside every day to get a rosy complexion
9. Draw (almost forgotten how)
10. Go out (ditto)

I would like to go to play in New York too, but I'm not sure how I'll manage that.
Ask the tooth fairy, perhaps.

Who am I to argue?

I've been doing the housework and I've had to take a break; one of those plants called Mother-in-laws-tongue stabbed me in the eye with its sharp leaf, and my eye hurt and started watering. The cactuses were laughing at my accident (spiteful things) and so I'm sitting down musing.
I ate some raspberries (Moonintroll's favourite) and that reminded me of once, when I was a little girl, McMum tried to force me to eat stewed figs. Why should I want to eat those greeny-yellow slimy things full of little gritty seeds? I clenched my teeth hard and she tried to prise them apart with the spoon. In the end, I sat there all afternoon until I ate them. Except I didn't; McMum had to just give up.
I feel the same way about eggs- not scrambled or omletted, but the separate white-yolk combo. They make me gag- the mouth just says no, and who am I to argue?

A Secret Brother

Betcha didn't know that a famous old blues guitarist had a vertically challenged brother, Buddy Short-arse

Mon Fio (pic shows creative vapours emanating from band), and The Burning Leaves (pic shows drum)

The Soho Arts Club is a funny little place. It's a bit like a front room in some ways, except a bit grubbier and boozier, but it's a very audience-friendly venue. You even have to almost walk across the stage to attend the Ladies and Gents, and thereby experience 15 seconds of fame.
The crowd last night was peculiar- Mungo Jerry chic seemed to be the order of the day.
I first went to see Mon Fio in Stoke Newington about two years ago. I met someone I knew there- Paul from a band called Daniel Takes a Train, who were around at the same time as Helen and the Horns, and who shared a sax player with us. Paul had heard their sound-check from the street and liked the music so much he'd come in for the gig. So Mon Fio, you do a good sound check!
They started with "I'm in Love with You', which is a song you can sing along to straight away, and which finishes with one of those chords that reminds you of the Beatles. I'm crap at identifying chords as anyone who has ever worked with me will testify, but I'd swear it's the beginning chord of 'Hard Day's Night'.
What a happy band they are! Their lead singer, John, sings about his failed conquests in humorous detail. He has an solemn delivery that is almost spooky when sung over the cocktail pop they play. I'm certain they belong in a parallel universe and have somehow broken through by accident. Last time I saw them I danced so much I threw up, so this time I just sat down to watch, but a little me was still dancing inside.
'Mon Fio', says John, 'We're a band... just like you'. He muses on various things for a while before realising '...we could be playing songs while I'm talking- time is tight!'. Off they go again, hurtling through 'Feeling's Mutual', in which Camberwick Green meets Supertramp. Their songs are like earnest instructions from the Mon Fio Music Book for Grown-Ups, or perhaps something Monsieur Hulot would hum on one of his holidays. The arrangements are actually really sophisticated, and it's lovely to hear a band with vibes. James is a great drummer and Karen ( I think that's what she's called) plays the best sort of bass lines, the sort I would play if I was still a bass player. I do love the band and if I was a millionaire, I'd hire them to play on one of my lawns, perhaps to greet me as I landed my helicopter in the sunshine.
I bought their miniature single. It's in the bottom of my bag and it's dark in there, but I'll find it, play it and tell you what it's like this weekend.

The Burning Leaves were utterly different to Mon Fio. My friend preferred them but I'm such a Fio-fan I couldn't forsake them, although I did really like listening to them. They are not an in-yer-face type of band so you have to listen in to them. Their songs are perfect. The singer has a lovely voice, and the guitarist is really really good- he plays his guitar like a little orchestra, augmented by a tom on the floor with a bass-drum pedal and a tambourine that he does with his feet (the tom has an amazing landscape painted on it, looked like by Poussin- maybe they summoned him up specially). They look like Goths and their songs are ethereal with one foot in the grave and another in a classical pastoral painting, like one by ole pal Poussin, perhaps.
What they did so well was to know exactly how much harmonising to do and how much not to- I was dreading them drifting into Simon-and-Garfunkel type stodge but they deftly avoided it and made an original and fresh sound. They were utterly gracious about the truly dreadful London audience who talked all the way through, although sometimes the music was just so beautiful they had to shut up and listen.