Pussy Riot Drawings

Tea with Dubulah

Dubulah has been in town to play some Dub Colossus gigs which have gone very well; I missed them unforchly due to working hell-for-leather but we decided to take tea together at Foyle's Cafe.
Wedged between laptop-wielding trendies and a couple of formally suited businessmen who shone out like lightbulbs with their incongruity, we talked politics and Protools, fretboards and foreign climes, until it was time to go home and beat the rush hour.
When Martin is in town, when Dubulah is in town... what wonderful guitar adventures might happen!
January, perhaps.
This evening I did an interview with Jonathan for his blog, which focuses on Voiceprint artists- here's his blog http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk . We talked about blogging and I told him about the blogs that I read- Frayed-at-the-edge, Circles of Rain, lots of them. When I got to Leaf-pile Jonathan was even more interested, because he collects children's books leaf-pile.blogspot.com
6 a.m. start tomorrow; time for the land of nod!

Song

I have been writing a particular song for about a year and tonight I finally put the finishing touches on it; every word as just right, and I could play it perfectly and sing over the music which it sometimes takes me a while to work out.
Only one problem... When I'd done all that I realised that the song was a load of rubbish
Ho hum..

Club Artyfartle Poster

Short Review of Green Door Store

http://thelatest.co.uk/brighton/2012/10/03/john-peel-night/?fb_action_ids=395285107211467&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Long link though!

Club Artyfartle

I'm sitting here doing a poster for Club Artyfartle, a delightful afternoon planned for Sunday 28th October at the much-feted Hangover Lounge at the Lexington on Pentonville Road.
Acton Bell and myself are running the do, which will feature guest artists Lucie Sieger and Magnetic Paul (all four of us will be playing brand new songs unplugged) and special guest speaker Professor Joan Ashworth from the Royal College of Art who will be demonstrating the art of solargraphs and showing some of them. 
If I have time to finish him I will bring Guy Forks along too.

After a rest from the fumey pen, it's now finished and I'll scan it tomorrow after I've lugged the printer in.
Have I got four new songs? At a pinch although one of them will have temporary lyrics, I think.
The idea of Club Artyfartle is to have people who don't play that often in London airing their new songs to a small and perfectly formed audience with friendly ears and open minds.
There has only been one event before this, at the much-missed Perseverance in Marylebone, where Acton Bell, Viv Albertine and Martin Stephenson joined me in music and Gina Birch did a presentation on Birchbags, felted bags made in a unique and funny style that she later exhibited properly.

It will be free to get in although we will be passing round a hopeful hat.

Life's Little Hiccups

I've been polishing the piano, making new Erik Satie compositions as the duster skims across the keys. For a couple of months I've been wondering whether to sell it, but it's just such a beautiful thing, even though it's officially an ugly piano: modern, mass-produced in Korea. But even being a non-pianist I tried out about fifteen in the piano warehouse and chose one that sounded good, proper notes ringing out top and bottom.
Keep it, keep it...
I was going to moan in this posting (hence the title) but I'm not going to.
I am happy. There are troubles on the horizon but I'm not going to rush there before it's time.
There is a new song to chew on, soup to slurp, a new CD on its way, a slew of autumn weekends to look forward to (favourite time of year), great students to teach, and a DIY plan for draught-proofing the homebox that I've already started in true polyfillafingers fashion.
And Pledge Original furniture polish smells nice.
How's that for a positive posting?

Nothing on Telly Last Night

Oh you know, those panel shows with smug white middle-aged comedian manfaces; nul points for appeal.
So I took to the Internet in search of the Hendrix chord, found it, and began the delicious puzzle of writing a song in unfamiliar territory.
As always happens when I am teaching songwriting to groups of students, even in my rule-free way, I am disobeying my own rule-free rules with gay abandon.
A couple of ideas disturbed my sleep but I actually  put in 12 hours last night. To-beautiful-day, in spite of the sunshine calling me outside with the sound of bright and joyful bells, I feel as though someone has stuffed my head with felt. It's not a hangover as I ceased to touch alcohol more than five years ago, but the feeling is close.
I think of conscientious exercisers I know who run for thousands of miles or swim millions of lengths. Even the thought is exhausting. I think of Martin watching the extreme exercise DVD he bought, sitting on his sofa with a mug of coffee and a chocolate biscuit.
It's peaceful to just sit and be at one with the world, and I am doing exactly that.

Ahhhhh....

Sixteen days of working every day: it's the evening of the sixteenth day, I've paid the paper bill and it's time to put my feet up at last. There is home-made vegetable soup (Offsprog One taught me to roast the vegetables first so it doesn't taste like a compost heap) and no need to do any housework as I rarely have visitors. I am unearthing long-lost CDs and may actually set up the turntable and have a bit of a living room vinyl disco-fest tomorrow afternoon.
Boom-chack, boom-chack, boom-chack, boom-chack.
While commuting this week I've read Sadie Plant's Zeros and Ones and Helen Shapiro's autobiography, Walking Back to Happiness. Plant's book is interesting for the writing on Amy Lovelace who was an important link in the development of computing, but not for the writing about Luce Iragary (I just don't get her at all: is there something wrong with me?). Helen Shapiro's book is interesting as an example of resilience and small insights (they sped up one of the backing tracks to make her sing higher, and she was pals with the Beatles just before they got famous), but not for the phrase 'bits and bobs' which turns up too regularly. Oddly, something about her face reminds me of Donna Summer!
I've got a book about the Beatles to read next week. I have always felt that enough other people read about and listen to the Beatles so I didn't need to bother, but I suppose I probably should as I am teaching songwriting this term.
You see they were my growing-up group. I had a little grey plastic guitar badge with a photo of George in the middle. He was my fave because of the dimples, although I betrayed him later for John Lennon, whose eyes had it. My first single was I Wanna Hold Your Hand which I still have in it's red and white Shephards of Gateshead cardboard cover. 'She loves you, yay, yay, yay', chanted out uncool primary school teacher in between walloping us and grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking our teeth out of our heads.

Thanks Gideon Coe!

Freight Train on Monday.... and Sweetie on Thursday!

BlubbalongaHendrix

Hendrix's music is so beautiful it makes me want to blub.

Playing at the Green Door Store

What an amazing venue. It's totally un-health-and-safety and all the better for it. The longer it resists being ironed and folded the better; the floors are uneven, there's a brick thing in one corner that could be another room that has collapsed, and the warehouse-style doors let in the night light from the street lights outside. Hooray for down-and-out!
Last night's gig was an annual event in tribute to the late John Peel and it was a privilege to be invited to play. I am almost at the end of a solid 16-day workfest (I have some legal bills to pay later this year to keep the roof over my head) and was feeling lumpen on the train on the way there but a quick meal with the Offsprogs coupled with a warm welcome from the promoters soon set me up.
I was taken by the fact that the lead singer from the Flaming Stars was so polite and friendly, too. Sometimes main bands can be stand-offish but he went and shook hands with everyone. They play at the Dirty Water Club in London and I will go to see them there (last night I had to get a train home before they played to be here to work this morning).
I thought I'd be playing to an empty room but people filtered in and in the end there was a goodly crowd. I mixed in some Chefs tracks including a disastrous version of Northbound Train whose walking bassline went all over the place without asking (why? It sounded fine when I rehearsed it) and a version of 24 Hours which I managed to keep bowling along with the help of some vigorous foot-tapping by one of the Chrisp brothers and which got a big cheer at the end. I talked too much to get Freight Train in there which I regretted when I met a Helen and the Horns fan at the bar. Thanks to the sound guy my guitar sounded suitably rocky and I have to say that I really enjoyed playing and pulled in some songs I don't often play as well. I loved playing Let's Make Up from the Chefs, and also My Ambitious Friend; grr here comes Chrissie-Hynde McCookerybook! They are a bit more ruffty-tuffty than some of the more melody-based songs that I normally play and I almost yelled when singing. Almost.
I'd like to play again in Brighton soon and I hope I will, possibly at the Prince Albert; or maybe I'll go and busk in the November winds on the sea front and entertain those grumpy seagulls.

Tuning Up, Brighton

Ears

Distressed by the fact that (as I admired myself in the mirror)  I appeared to have suddenly sprouted additional ears on top of the originals, I realised that I was gazing at my reflection in the bevelled part round the edge.

Green Door Store Tomorrow!