Year: 2006

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Two gigs and a soul-space service…

lots of gig-goings-on this weekend.

Saturday was a two-gig-day, with Theo and I playing twice in the foyer of the National Theatre. It’s a nice little gig, that we’ve done before during the week, but this was the first time we’ve done it on a Saturday. They were also the last gigs of our little tour, and we were recording them for possible inclusion on the forthcoming live album…

…which made it all the more stupid that I forgot to take my foot controller along! Yes, the main midi controller that I do all the Looperlative-loveliness with, was languishing on the floor of my office at home, while my feet wafted around in the empty space where said pedals should have been, feeling decidedly underused.

As it was, the set went fine, not many people would have noticed any change at all, it was just a little more floaty than usual, and we didn’t do the heavily rhythmic tunes like Uncle Bernie.

Between the two sets, I drove home to get the foot controller, and as the Shark was in town for the weekend, and Catster was in for both gigs two, they both came along for the ride, a good chat and a catch up on everything.

Re-inspired by having buttons under my feet to push, the second set was one of the best sets of music that Theo and I have ever played. I haven’t listened to the minidisc yet – I can’t find my minidisc player – but if it’s not peaking and distorting, we’ve got ourselves another very releasable gig. Lots of new directions in the improv, some amazing playing from Theo – his melody playing had me grinning from ear to ear for most of the gig.

After a quick clear-up, I drove home, dropped off the music gear, and headed to St Luke’s for an overnight shift in the night-shelter.

Sunday was a lovely day, with my cute lil God-son, his big sister and mum and dad all coming over for lunch and then a lovely walk in Trent Park.

Sadly, I had to leave mid evening, as I was playing at a Soul Space service at St Luke’s last night – another lovely mellow ambient chilled hour of candles and peace and some marvellous ambient noises courtesy of me. :o)

This week is a week of teaching, mainly, and getting some more new things recorded for the new album…

Soundtrack – Mark Isham, ‘Tibet’.

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Bruford on Improv…

From David Cross’ diary

“I think the best music I’ve been associated with has happened while improvising. And also the worst. A high risk strategy, but pre-arranged music never seems to be able to achieve quite such intensity.” – Bill Bruford.

That just about says it all. I feel very lucky that those ‘worst’ improv moments tend to happen behind closed doors!

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Call off the new year's honour…

OK, the Bus thing on Jez’ blog was a hoax. The evil Jez was clearly just bored and felt like winding people up. It was beautifully written, and given Jez’ very bizarre life thus far, easily believable – if you get the chance, ask him about his part in Mandela’s release… that one isn’t a hoax!

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One More Kiss…

Just been watching the first 20 minutes of a film on BBC1 called ‘One More Kiss’ – of interest because it’s set and filmed in Berwick on Tweed, where I grew up, and where my mum and brother still live.

Our high hopes of seeing a quality film made in a town that I know just about every inch of were dashed within a few minutes as the dreadful dialogue and lifeless acting more than negated the benefits of seeing lovely shots of the beach I spent almost every lunch hour on during high school.

There was one particularly funny moment when the main woman in it and her dad were driving down a road in Berwick – which was a dead-end street about 100 yards from where they are supposed to live (their house is about four doors down from where Giles used to live, and they were driving towards Martin’s house, just in case you’re one of the four people in the world who’d understand what that meant) – no-one from where they live would drive where they were driving.

But, far more shocking and sad that all of this is WHERE ON EARTH ARE THE BERWICK ACCENTS??? Not a single person with a Berwick accent. The main woman meets a 24 year old bloke with a London accent at a Cancer sufferers group – the first question anyone would ask in that setting would be ‘what the hell are you doing in Berwick?’ – no-one of 24 moves to Berwick. It just doesn’t happen. If it did, it’d be conversation point number 1. No, all the main characters have Edinburgh accents, and even the dude running the market stall had some kind of generic accent.

Come to think of it, they might’ve tried it with Berwick locals and struggled to make it understandable to anyone who lives south of Morpeth… it’s a pretty strange accent/dialect, for sure…

The moral of the story is, don’t watch films shot in your home town, it’ll only wind you up.

…however, if you’re a pedant and you fancy a laugh, check out the various online reviews that claim it’s shot in scotland… doh!

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Speed III – the one where the cuddly ginger bloke saves the day…

The everso lovely Jez has gone to study music and theology in Vancouver. So far, so Jez.

He’s got a fab blog too, and today’s post is perhaps the most mental thing I’ve ever read on a blog go there and read about it – if you know Jez it’s all the funnier, the thought of the lovely posh bloke saving all the Canadians, and then getting all blustery when they effusively thank him ‘oh it was nothing, really, no please, it’s what anyone would have done…’ etc.

As founder of the Jez fanclub I’m delighted he’s got a blog. Now the daft bastard just needs to do a solo album, and we’ll be back on track.

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The Cheat is in trouble…

MSN Message from The Cheat earlier today –

“for some reason whitesnake sounds fantastic to me at the moment”

he’s clearly got problems – can anyone in the Berkshire area call in and make sure he’s OK?

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The randomness of the National Insurance system…

The story so far – back in Nov/Dec last year, I get a letter out of the blue from the National Insurance people asking for £900 or they’re going to cut my balls off. Or something like that. I was given 28 days to pay and the letter threatened court action.

I rang them up, said ‘er, what the hell is this?’ to which the girl on the other end of the phone says ‘oh, don’t worry about that, it’s not compulsory to pay it before then, and no there won’t be any court action. Just pay some off when you can.’ me says, ‘so why the hell are you trying to scare me with this letter???’ she says, ‘it’s just a formality’.

What a marvellous euphamism, formality.

Anyway, fast forward to about a week ago and I get another letter saying ‘pay up or we’re sending the heavies round’, with a letter in it explaining about the process of having money taken off you through the county court!! WTF??? This people are mad.

So, methinks, I’ll go and pay some of it off online… er, website? nope. Sorry, no payments online.

This morning I phone the number.

‘hello, I’d like to pay a couple of hundred quid of what I owe’.
‘how about £312.45?’
‘er, no, just £200, thanks’.
‘we can’t do that. Can you pay £312.45 monthly?’
‘of course not.’
‘how much can you pay monthly?’
‘well, like I said, I’m happy to pay £200 now, and then maybe £100 a month til the debt’s gone’.
‘how about £152.31?’
‘well, that’s a fabulously random figure, but I guess that would be OK’
‘right, the first one will be a month from today, I’ll send out about 76 letters before then, confirming everything in writing 9 times, wasting a tree and a half, and ignoring the fact that you’re offering to pay £200 now.’
‘er, OK’.
*click*

So I didn’t get to pay £200. Instead, I have to pay some random amount in about a month’s time, after my postman dies under the weight of spurious letters from the Inland Revenue.

Given that it’s basically the same thing as tax, why the hell can’t I get online and pay it??? Why isn’t there a bank-transfer number or something? Then I’d just pay it off when I’ve got the spare cash…

In case you’re thinking ‘well, you ran up the debt, you should pay it all now’, they hadn’t EVER contacted me about paying this, I’ve ever seen it mentioned on a tax bill, never had a phonecall or a letter about it, until the one asking for £900. So it’s not my fault at all, you hard-nosed bastards.

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More MySpace stuff

I’ve spent the last hour or so sorting out a MySpace page for the Recycle Collective – everything’s in place except the audio, and that’s cos I’m writing all of this from in bed, and the MP3s are on the other computer, so I can’t upload them… :o)

The MySpace thing is just huge now, so it’s mad not to have a page for whatever it is that you do. I’m going to have to set one up for the Stevie/Theo duo… and if anyone wants to do a Stevie-fan-page, feel free (The Cheat, you’ve got some time, have a go! ;o)

and now, it’s time to get up, and get ready for tonight’s gig in Portsmouth – see you there!

Soundtrack – The The, ’45 RPM’.

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