I have been trying to get it right. First of all it got too clogged up with backing vocals, and I started again from scratch. Then I thought up a really jammy bass line, and as soon as I played that on to the track the guitar part sounded out of time. It will one day sound lovely, but I think I'm going to have to start again yet again and build it up from the bass line, which has a super groove. Although a lot of what I'm doing feels like hard work (micro-editing guitar parts and so on), once I've had a few days away from it, I can hear that I've learned a lot about how to record the songs. I've abandoned the idea of working at them all simultaneously to keep a 'sound', because some of the songs just seemed to have completed themselves, whereas others have barely started and sound as though they will be difficult to get off the ground. But those ones seem like intriguing puzzles, rather than impossible tasks.
I keep finding other songs, as well. I don't think albums should have too many songs on them, but I'll record too many so there are a few to choose from.
This morning, I re-started a song from scratch. I'd overloaded it, and didn't know what to take away from it to make it work.
I halved the BPMS (beats per minute) because the metronome was too busy for the picking part on the guitar. The song still seemed slow, but I'd slowed the tempo when I first recorded it to make the lyrics audible. It had speeded up because it's the song I play when I pick my guitar up for fun-playing when I'm waiting for something, and it's become faster and faster as a result.
The guitar is sounding lovely. I did loads of editing and copying-and-pasting. This one is firmly in the 'pop' category and I wanted the sections of song with the best feel and the most accurate playing. I was actually sitting counting 1-2-3-4 out loud because there are gaps that have to be in the right place.
I did a guide vocal that sounded OK, and I decided to abandon the quirky backing vocals of the previous version and just play it straight, although I might try something later today after the ears-rest. I have started to listen to my music differently- as responses to silence rather than as expressions of sound. This is a bit like teaching Derrida at work by drawing a tree without drawing the tree: you just draw all the things around it, and hey presto! There it is!
I will never be able to process sound like Sophie or Nimino but I can be inspired by their approach and I can adjust the way I hear things as a response to their music. This is an interesting track to feel that way about because it includes electronics by Steve Beresford.
I'd clogged up the other one with a bass line that was too powerful. The whole thing needed to be more delicate, like a leaf skeleton. It's about mycelium linking trees together as a communications network. Here is the outdoor version, played too fast of course. There were people walking in the woods and I was scared.
It's probably not so strange: songs written during lockdown triggering all sorts of memories. In writing, you can choose to escape, you can choose to express your feelings, or indeed a lot of other things. I think it was re-doing vocals and feeling the emotions behind the lyrics that unearthed a lot of hidden feelings.
Song writing is therapy for a lot of people, and sometimes has its own answers inscribed into the process. By making a concrete representation of how something felt, you have the chance to control it and to consolidate your own perspective of something that might have disturbed or hurt you. On the other side of things, if you can articulate a joyful feeling you can tap into that every time you sing the song. You can write a funny lyrics and lampoon a pompous person or a ridiculous situation, and position yourself as a commentator rather than a victim of the moment.
Through this I have come to the realisation that although destructive people move on, and perhaps even become less destructive as they mellow with age (or maybe not: who knows?), the things and people they have destroyed are still left with the legacy of their actions. Just as I write a personal history of life through songs, there are other narratives that don't necessarily coincide with mine which obscure dark corners that to me, are in plain sight.
Any sort of creativity illuminates reality, and crystallises out concepts and events with a clarity that is alarming in its strength. An arc light is switched on, and people shade their eyes.
Well actually, in my case it's more like a pencil torch, but you know what I mean. I'm going to record some 'happier' songs today. I think there is a beauty in the sadness of the others, but I don't want that burden on my shoulders this week.
Motivation got me, and I sat down at the kitchen table and started editing some dodgy guitar parts on one of my songs. I think it's in the right place now: I had to chop the bits up and slide them along the grid to the bar lines.
Next thing, I set up the microphone to sing the most difficult song. The vocals on everything I've done so far sound OK, but I have realised that I need to pitch the mood exactly right for each song. So this one, high up in my vocal register, had to be sung really softly. I won't know if it's OK until my ears have had a rest. The next song had to be sung in one take, and I don't think I'm going to put anything like reverb on it because I want it to sound like someone speaking a song: delivering the lyrics to the melody as though it's coming out in a conversation. The third song had to sound really intimate, and I had problem with the open-throated notes being really loud so I had to rein them in.
Finally, I had to just sing a couple of words at the very end of another song, just to make sense of the lyrics.
I wore my voice out, so I swapped to guitar and tried to replace a guitar part. The click track (metronome) is too busy-sounding and threw me every time. That's a song I might have to re-do from scratch.
It's just a passing thought: how many human actions, especially the atrocious ones, boil down to a fear of fairness? Just imagine- you're not more special than anyone else! Maybe if other people had support and chances, and a bit of good luck (alas, luck has a lot to do with everything, including the circumstances you're born into), they might achieve what you thought you'd achieved on your own through 'sheer hard work'.
I'd love to see any member of the Houses of Parliament do a full, honest day's work in a hospital Accident and Emergency Department. Not a special set-up just for them, but the real work that NHS staff do: terrifying, blood-soaked, and humiliating. Being unable to save a person's life must be the worst feeling in the world. Experiencing that first-hand might be bit of a wake-up call, and trigger a little compassion. It might lead to an understanding that we are all human beings, and no single human being is worth more than another. Making sure everyone can afford food and everyone has a roof over their head, and a warm environment, might seem a little more important that squirrelling away millions of empty pounds into offshore bank accounts.
Of course it's entirely possible that instead of feeling compassion, the one-day worker might merely feel relief that they don't have to bother with such things, and that what they consider to be a lower order of person is better suited to jobs like that. In that case, let's toast the time when the psychopaths really do take themselves off to Mars. They will leave us with a big, dirty mess to clear up, but that's what we are used to, aren't we?
At five o'clock this morning, I woke up with a head full of urgent thoughts. I tried to get back to sleep but felt energetic: so here I am, writing at an unfeasibly early hour. It's been an odd few months with little time for reflection, and I suppose this is what's happening now.
Part of it has been stimulated by Jordan Mooney passing away. I barely knew her, although we had a really nice conversation in Manchester at the Louder Than Words weekend last year. She was in a relationship with a journalist friend in Brighton, and he must be feeling a lot of pain right now. I suppose because I knew a lot about her, she seemed like a three-dimensional person, and people like her leave a significant gap when they aren't there any more.
I was lying awake thinking about power, too: how easy it is to underestimate the power you have, and not to realise the impact of things that you say has on people. It is possible to feel entirely powerless, yet to say something that affects someone in a significant way. I have to make a resolution to think very carefully before I speak, always. I have always needed to feel spontaneous as much as possible, because life is so full of traps and prisons, even when things are within your own control. Sometimes, though, this can backfire.
Yet, on the other hand, Jordan's spikiness was inspirational. She wouldn't be folded up and put into a box: at the KISMIF conference in Portugal, she would not be a 'Feminist'. I don't blame her, because a lot of the time in my life I haven't wanted to be a woman, let alone a feminist. I became one of those out of necessity when for the millionth time I was backed into a corner by behaviour that was deemed to be normal (because that's what men do), and that behaviour was clearly utterly wrong. It's always upsetting when people won't join a gang that's formed to fight back, but it's also completely understandable. If you find a way that works for you, use it.
I was also thinking about how your parents dress you in attitudes when you are a child, and how removing these vestments carries on throughout your life. You might suddenly throw them off, causing immense hurt: that's the rebellious teenager deciding to be independent. You might gradually slip out of them and hang them up on the door of a room you are walking out of: that's the young person taking a different social or political journey from their parents. You might finally, wearily, shrug off a particularly heavy overcoat and leave it in a pile on the ground: that's acknowledging control and abuse, and refusing to carry it any more. And small things, attitudinal things. Learning not to tease and scorn; learning that a small step is good enough, for others as well as oneself.
It times in my life, like most people, I have found things very difficult. I have taken professional advice. The best advice anyone gave me was entirely genuine, which is probably why I appreciated it so much. 'Well done for surviving'.
The whole week, I've been tired. I have done three negative lateral flow tests and one ONS test, all negative. Yet I've had a sore throat, fatigue and headaches, and have been napping the the afternoons and sleeping for ten-hour nights. No social life for me- which meant missing the Asbo Derek gig in Brighton last night, not just the great live band side of things but also the social side. They have such a great audience: a real mix of people all drawn together by the weird mix of warmth and smuttiness that the band project. I had a few moments of thinking about their late drummer Brian Blaney yesterday, and his frustrated shouts of 'Get on wi' it!' as Jem rambled down some funny corridor of nonsense. What a gig to miss! The band had got together to commemorate Brian in the best way possible- by playing. I think there is going to be a next time, and I shall be there.
I keep thinking of new ways to teach the song writing students. On Monday, we listened to the actor Richard Burton reciting the John Donne poem Catch a Falling Star, and first of all invented all kinds of backing vocal harmonies to it, and then made melodies for it with different moods. Once we got started, we could probably have gone on all afternoon. There is so much to discover in sound and words. Coming back into a teaching room after being away playing music feels very honest: there are no layers of institutional artifice, and it feels as though the students and me are together on a creative mission. I wonder if they feel like that?
Earlier this week, my fingers were literally itching to play guitar. I had to pick it up and play, and I was hoping to do bit more work on my album, although I was awestruck by the quality of Kenji's new songs and the standard of sound he has achieved. Next week, next week... It's weird having made decisions about the songs I want to record because as soon as that decision is made, I immediately start writing more songs that want to compete with the ones I'm committed to. Unfaithful creatures!
There are all sorts of things in the pipeline, but I've yet to see them emerge. I can hear the rumblings, but not see the shape or form. I suppose you could say that about life in general.
After a day relaxing in Manchester, I caught the train to Westhoughton for the gig at The Beer School. Lovely to see Darren-from-Bolton from Sunday Drawing Club and his partner Becky, and also Phil, the Man-Who-Saws-People-In-Half who I haven't seen for years, and who Lester Square and me know from Edinburgh Fringe shows in the 1980s. Blimey! And he is now a musician, too.
It was a completely informal gig, and we were joined on the decks by Kevin and Linda playing 1980s vinyl treasures, a.k.a. Atomic Pop Disco.
Amy was on fine form, singing some new songs. I particularly liked A Letter to Stephanie. This is another of her songs:
We sang our sets spliced together, two 20 minute slots each. People wandered in and out, ate cakes and drank beer, of course. I do miss Amy- I can understand why she left London and she is much happier in Westhoughton. We all conferred and there will be more gigs afoot at some point, with all of us.
You know what, I was knackered when I got home. More stinky trains, this one 30 minutes late.
I had forgotten how much my identity is linked to travelling around and playing music- those rituals! These journeys were all by train, the vomit-inducing stench of Avanti west coast trains convincing me that I'd succumbed to Covid until I disembarked at Glasgow Central and inhaled the fresh-ish Scottish air.
As soon as Kenji and Till appeared I knew it was all going to be OK. And there was Maria, and Howie, and Joe, and even Allan Dumbreck showed up later.
I asked Saskia and Russ to play because I wanted to see them play live after doing all of those Kevin Younger online nights during lockdown. A huge bunch of us made videos of us playing cover versions around a different monthly theme chosen by Kevin (Mr Unswitchable on Youtube). We became a community of assorted musicians, all held together by Kevin's warmth and wit. Once a month on a Saturday night, you could sit with your laptop, press 'refresh' and see all sorts of people doing their online thing, and you'd stop feeling quite so isolated.
Their cover of Tiger Feet got first prize out of the whole lot, in my estimation:
They were fabulous on Thursday- lo-fi scorching duelling guitars, witty and sometimes moving vocals and a great onstage presence. It was so enjoyable and engaging, and kicked off the night to a great start.
I was unexpectedly nervous, but from what I was told afterwards I think on this occasion it was a good thing. Ritchie the sound engineer needs to take first prize as the best person I've ever worked with for live sound. It was near-on perfect, and he had disinfected everything, even taking the microphone to bits to clean its inside and out. What attention to safety and detail! It's so important to be able to trust the person doing your sound and I absolutely could, and did. I played for an hour which passed in seconds, and I very much hope to be back. Thank you to Kim and everyone else there!
I sneaked a relatively new song in there, but mostly played songs that were comfortable to play, including a couple of singalongs (At The Bathing Pond and The Sea). I could still hear people singing through their masks (they are not 'muzzles': there's even a masked busker at Tottenham Court Road tube station) and it was a warm and lovely evening.
Afterwards we went for chips: huge, huge portions for drunken revellers. We devoured them back at Kenji and Till's even though we were not drunken. These guys were outside the chip shop. Who needs east London hipsters when there are stylers like this roaming the streets in Glasgae?
The next day, Kenji and me went for a long, long walk of more than six miles through the Glasgow streets while Till was at work. It's such an interesting city, full of surprises and beautiful round-the-corners. The evil hand of gentrification has yet to destroy parts of it although the cruel motorway has sliced through swathes of the city like a concrete octopus. Till cooked us a sumptuous dinner when he got back. Thank you guys, and the vegetarian lasagne will be waiting for you when you come to London!
