Well, look at this - it's only been a week & I'm writing to you again. One of us is luvky, while the rest are cursed (and I'm going to keep it quiet as to who is who in this scenario). I suppose it seems (to me, at least) as if I have been writing to you in intensely descriptive terms, a sort of "What-I-Did-On-My-Gig-In-A-Theatre" sort of a way, and I'd like very much to hurl seemingly unconnected words at you for half an hour, purely for our own entertainment. I also would like to try and squeeze two blogs into August, just to prove to myself (and, by extension, you) that I still got it.
So, as we speak, there are two chicken & mushroom crispbakes about to go into the oven, alongside three waffles and a saucpanful of baby carrots. Yes, I eat like a prince here at MacLeod Villas, and even as I type these words to you, a handful of different stories come flooding to mind that I could tell you (and flit back out again, such is the flitting quality of my memory). It is also practically night-time, which is a bit upsetting at barely 9 o'clock.
I have been doing something recently that I haven't done properly for quite some time: reading. My friend Matt let me borrow a couple of books by an author called Neal Stephenson ('Snowcrash' and 'Cobweb' - two very different styles of book, but very good), which have lead me inexorably toward looking out for book recommendations - and the first one I saw a couple of weeks ago was for 'One Day' by David Nicholls - now a motion picture, I gather - and I snagged a copy at the start of the week, and finished it soon after. I loved the premise of the book, and something about the way the central characters dance about each other as the years pass made me think of The Time Traveler's Wife (which I have just started re-reading). I don't yet know if I want to go and see the film (I suppose really I should make my mind up sharpish, seeing as it's already out and films currently tend to be in & out of cinemas faster than Usain Bolt, only with less false starts), but I can imagine it being well carried out. For reference, I have not seen the film of The Time Traveler's Wife, and I have no real wish to. I like the way it settles in my imagination.
Everything else has been surprisingly YouTube-oriented these last few weeks. Those of you who watch me like a hawk will have seen that every third tweet has mentioned either an episode of John MacLeod Speaks To The Internet or my acoustic cover of Nerina Pallot's "Turn Me On Again" (which, by the way, has been viewed 109 times - THANK YOU if you've watched it). It had long been a hope that I'd have the wherewithal to start putting things on YouTube, because as online audiences go, it's quite a good one. Taking my cover video as a case in point - that video is parked directly underneath Nerina's own acoustic version of the song, because it is a video response to that song & part of a competition to win a support gig at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. As I say, it's been watched a surprising 109 times, compared to the respectable viewing figures twenty/thirty-odd times of the videos I have uploaded containing my own material. It just goes to show that if you place something where more people are likely to see it, curiosity will lead them to look. People won't always look of their own accord - they need a breadcrumb trail. So in all sorts of ways, it's been rewarding (of course now it's also nervewracking - I want to know who wins!).
The silliest thing was how quickly it went dark. I got in from work, plugged my studio mic into the computer to see if it would work (it did) and then got on with it, making occasional mistakes and refilming. And refilming. And refilming. It wasn't quite nightfall, but if you watch the video, you will notice that there's no daylight either. I was lit by a small lamp and the LED lightstring that decorates my music room and keeps it looking rather neat. This obviously lead to the tracking capabilities of my netbook's webcam being significantly stunted, hence the jerky quality of the video. At least the sound's good & that's the main thing!
In the meantime, I have finished me dinner and am very much of a mind to get a cup of tea going, alongside a choccy bar. I have recently cut down on the crisps (I used to have a bag a day with lunch) in favour of having fruit (in fact, now I think about it, I went food shopping today and completely forgot bananas, and the Vitamin C soluble tablets I was going to get - AND BREAD! - a follow-up trip to Sainsbury's beckons), which means that every couple of weeks, I might buy a tube of Pringles or a bag of Doritos & enjoy them as a rare treat in companion to a DVD or computer game. It's not proved as hard to back away from things crispular as I thought, and I know for a fact that chocolate would have been a far harder proposition. But giving up too much snacking has its roots in a story...
There was a time when I was living in a house, and I wasn't terribly happy (I was almost ecstatic but, to be ecstatic, there's a frustrating period right before it, of utter misery), and the music had faded a bit to the back of my mind after years of open mics, a shattered band & little else. There was not a great deal going on. I was working, and I lived opposite a supermarket. Many an evening would skate by on PS3-shaped wheels, sometimes accompanied by Radio 7, depending on the game I was playing, and often accompanied by snacks. One afternoon was spent gaming, with the toaster plonked on a table in front of me, along with a kettle. Ingenius, you may say, but also perhaps a bit tragic. Of course, trips to the supermarket were almost nightly, and one one jaunt, I noticed that there was a special deal on arctic rolls. Chocolate ones.
I was pretty good to begin with. I'd buy one and cut a slice off after meals. Then into thirds. Then half. Then there'd be the odd night when the only time I cut one was with my fork. For mouthfuls. I am reliably informed that by the time I moved out of the house and in with my folks for a few months, my chin was growing a friend, and my shirts were having trouble incorporating my neck-size. I think I was looked after a bit for a time, and have since got back into better shape, and I am now a lot more cautious of the snacks I hurl into my face of an evening, because I think I do have the tendency to comfort-eat that I didn't realise was there before.
Which isn't to say that living alone doesn't have its plus-points - I have free run of things, I can record a demo at will, and at the drop of a hat - should I so desire - I can leave the milk out and take a bite out of some cheese (I don't do those things EVER), and if I'm having a bad day, I don't have to be unintentionally rude to someone or feel so awkward that I just go out to the pub until I reckon they've gone to bed.
On the other hand, someone being there can make the difference between going to bed cross and going to bed feeling better, and it can bolster you into activity. You can, if you're very lucky, make a friend for life. Ideally it'll be a relationship living arrangement though, which is why books like One Day and The Time Traveler's Wife make me all wistful and emotive - I love representations of people who work so well together, but it does also get the Romantic Ideal Gland pumping into my brains and causing all sorts of mischief.
Speaking of which, that bed's not go to mess itself, so I had better make that cup of tea & get me head down. If you want to start poking around my internets, you can do no worse than to start at:
http://www.wix.com/mrjohnmacleod/music
There's links to all my other nonsenses from there. In the meantime, I hope you are well and I will speak to you soon. On YouTube, no doubt!
Goodnight,
John.xx
Sunday 28 August 2011
Monday 22 August 2011
Buckets Of Optimism
Hello, sit down, pull up a chair and have an Ovaltine. I had rather hoped that I would write these blogs with the frequency of a Guardian columnist, banging out paragraph after paragraph of sarcasm-strewn prose like a sheep-shearer discarding wool, but inspection seems to reveal that I'm a one-blog-a-month kind of chap. That's ok, I suppose, I can live with that.
I have suffered with something of a Monday Blues malaise today, as if everything I have done has sort of taken more force than usual to do. My brain is working on a hundred and one things that I would like to get going & done, whilst my time is taken up with other things that make it impossible to kickstart projects.
I have found that it doesn't take much to have me extremely busy, and in the space of a few weeks I have set up bundles of things that need updating & tweaking. The first one is my YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/mrjohnmacleod, which I am keeping fed with a few demoes every so often & a series entitled, modestly, "John MacLeod Speaks To The Internet", which I intend to keep up on a weekly basis. The intention is for you to ask me a question or two (about anything, music or whimsy) and I will answer it, and at the end, play a song inspired by one or more of your questions. I am sure there will be the odd holiday from it, as one couldn't keep it going for weeks on end, but it's nevertheless something I intend to keep up.
I have also been meddling with my website and made a version of it that is accessible on mobiles. So now, if you go to http://www.wix.com/mrjohnmacleod.music, if you're reading this on a smartphone, that is, you'll be whisked to my page, instead of an error message telling you that Flash is no installed on your phone. Swanky, eh?
So they are my plugs. Take some time to investigate them while I hop downstairs and make myself a cuppa. Back in a mo.
I have returned, with tea! Did you enjoy the links? There will be questions later, so don't think you've gotten away with a mere cursory glance! I'm sure you have questions for me, too - ones that, were you to ask me on my YouTube "show", would sound like "Why have you set these things up?" or "What makes you so relentless in your pursuit of getting us to listen to you?" And the answer, my friends, is optimism.
I was lucky enough, recently, to be asked by my friend Jack to play as support for his band, Our Mutual Friend, at the Artrix Theatre in Bromsgrove. The gig happened on the last Sunday in July, and I should just say that they were brilliant. They filled about an hour and a half's entertainment almost effortlessly, were very entertaining, and were musically excellent and charming. As were the second support act, Lakota Sioux, who should also be checked out.
Now, I have a nasty habit. I don't know whether it's worse than picking your nose, stealing chewing gum or interfering with yourself on Tube station escalators, but it's a nasty habit nontheless, and it's this: I romantically idealise everything. Before I meet someone in town, I imagine how the night will be. When I go to anything, I picture the ideal outcome in my head & am often left slightly jaded when it doesn't pan out exactly that way. It's a silly thing & I'm often pretty good at turning it off these days. However there is one niche aspect of my life where this always happens: concerts. When I'm about to play a gig, I want it to be perfect. Everyone listens, everyone laughs, everyone becomes a part of this intimate half-hour of me & my songs. It is, for the most part, an unrealistic expectation and should, realistically, have a halt called to it, but it happens every time.
Which isn't to say I don't like the unexpected moments that happen when I am behind a microphone. (My subconscious recalls a gig about which I wrote on this very blog, in which I was heckled in Fenton by three drunkards, and also the time I was playing an open mic & whilst playing the outro to "I Didn't Mean To Fall For You" a man stepped right up to me and shouted in my ear: "WHILE YOU'RE PLAYING THAT, CAN YOU TELL EVERYONE ABOUT AN OPEN MIC I RUN ON THE FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH IN MOW COP?!" Bafflingly, I obliged.) But there are times when all a chap wants is for everyone to listen. This is the circumstance I pray for and so very rarely get. I recently played my regular open mic & got so frustrated and the level of noise in the place that I shouted my way through all my songs, I suddenly could not sing them.
And so, in the run-up to the Artrix show, I battled the "Ideal" that my brain was presenting to me, scared stiff of having to face disappointment on a larger scale, but this proved to be the one occasion where the expectations of my demanding head were actually met.
It was delightful - the best day ever. Some of my friends came to see the show too (and drive us there & back, which makes them the Heroes Of The Day), and to have their company for an afternoon made me up something rotten. I went in to soundcheck at half-past five and was greeted by so many personable people. The stage crew, sound technicians, theatre staff, the bands - all were super-polite & friendly. There was much setting up happening for the bands, so while they were busy, I took the opportunity to put flyers on all the seats. I did well, too, and was chatting with Jack as I did my dirty promo work.
"We wondered whether we should put leaflets out, but we figured everyone who's coming knows us, as they'll all be from here," he said, "which isn't an advantage you have when you've come from Stoke."
"True," I said, and then felt a tickle in my head that said there was a point coming, "You know why I do this?" I asked.
"Why?"
"Optimism. For someone to do music like this, either alone or in a band, you need buckets of optimism, and you need to cling onto it despite the disappointments that inevitably happen when you're a musician. If I assume that no one would take a leaflet so as to find me on Twitter or Facebook, and therefore don't bother, no one will ever hear of me. If I plaster the place with flyers and just one person takes a leaflet and gets in touch with me on the internet to say they enjoyed my gig and do I have any recordings, then my day is made. It was worth it." I was starting to feel a bit evangelical at this point, so I clammed up & carried on leafleting.
I did my soundcheck and played some covers in different styles (I do some fingerpicky, some strumming, and one song on my other DADGAD-tuned guitar), and the sound technicians praised my main guitar, agreeing with me that there is very little that one needs to do with it once plugged in (I'm not kidding, you could plug it into an ear trumpet connected by some showertubing and a box of cow manure and it would still sound like it was being played in Heaven by a man with glory for fingers), then retired to a dressing room (THERE WERE DRESSING ROOMS) and popped into the bathroom (THE DRESSING ROOM HAD A BATHROOM) and whilst in there, two things happened:
1. I noticed a shower in there. No cubicle, just a shower and a drain in the floor to collect the water. Fleetwood Mac would have loved it.
2. A voice boomed over the PA that said "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TAKE YOUR SEATS, JOHN MACLEOD WILL BE ONSTAGE IN FIVE MINUTES."
This shit just got real, folks.
My two favourite things about the gig were walking onstage, and walking off, as both were done to applause, which feels completely different in a theatre compared to in a pub. Something about the way the building absorbs the sound, and the silence that usually abides in the auditorium just focusses it to a far greater degree. My first few songs were lively, and the fourth was "Imagine If We Fell In Love", and as it started, the tech guys tweaked the lights so that they went from red to blue, in order to accentuate the atmosphere. At this point, if it would have been possible to put down my guitar, climb to the back of the theatre and hug them, I would have. But it would have ruined their work.
In between songs I told one or two stories (including my amazement at the dressing room shower, and also mentioning the back pocket of chewing gum I had discovered the day before - "You don't often pay to hear someone tell you they're wearing dirty trousers, do you?" to which a voice from the audience cried "Yes!"), and there were plenty of appreciative chuckles in those moments, even the one where I played the opening chord of a song about seventeen times because I kept interrupting my train of thought with something equally silly. As Jack's dad said after the show, "He did say you could talk..."
But I came away from that knowing I had found my ideal style of gig. Theatres are more home to the subtleties and nuances of concerts, the small moments where you bare some of the inner workings of your soul to everyone in a song, then relax the atmosphere again with a dry witticism. In a pub, unless you're very lucky, it is ALL about entertaining, and competing with the games of snooker, the loud conversations, the drinkers - there is little room for subtlety unless you are lucky enough to hold the attention of 75% of the room. In a theatre, the gig becomes a small showcase for you. This does not mean you don't have to entertain, far from it, but you entertain on your own terms - that forty minutes was MY forty minutes to do MY set, as opposed to bending somewhat to the pubs will (or fighting it, some nights), and it was fun, beautiful, exciting and thrilling.
And thoughts of that night, gentle reader, has been carrying me through the last three weeks. I do so very much love playing songs, and I hope I can gether all of you into one place one day & sing at you, not to mention talk utter bobbins with you, as I hope it would be fun for us all. You'd be appreciative, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?
In the meantime, someone in my neighbourhood has been letting off fireworks, and initially I was wondering if it would turn into a fetching display which I could watch from my bedroom window. It never happened, and instead there was a series of staccato bangs and it all went quiet. Ah well.
I will bid you adieu until whatever day of September I next choose to update this lengthy text-portal of nonsense, and I hope you have enjoyed reading it. But before I go, I told you that there would be questions based on my links, didn't I? So find below the questions, and there may be prizes for the first set of correct answers (no cheating, there!)
1. What are the precise contents of the Media Room?
2. To whom do I recommend you in the top right corner of the home page?
3. How long is John Macleod Speaks To The Internet, Episode One?
4. In Episode Two, what colour is my wristband?
5. Which of my influential musicians is 3rd from bottom of the list?
6. On the wix.com site, what is criteria number three on the list of reasons to contact me?
Answer those questions and see what you could win!
Until next time, chaps & chapesses, take care.
John.xx
I have suffered with something of a Monday Blues malaise today, as if everything I have done has sort of taken more force than usual to do. My brain is working on a hundred and one things that I would like to get going & done, whilst my time is taken up with other things that make it impossible to kickstart projects.
I have found that it doesn't take much to have me extremely busy, and in the space of a few weeks I have set up bundles of things that need updating & tweaking. The first one is my YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/mrjohnmacleod, which I am keeping fed with a few demoes every so often & a series entitled, modestly, "John MacLeod Speaks To The Internet", which I intend to keep up on a weekly basis. The intention is for you to ask me a question or two (about anything, music or whimsy) and I will answer it, and at the end, play a song inspired by one or more of your questions. I am sure there will be the odd holiday from it, as one couldn't keep it going for weeks on end, but it's nevertheless something I intend to keep up.
I have also been meddling with my website and made a version of it that is accessible on mobiles. So now, if you go to http://www.wix.com/mrjohnmacleod.music, if you're reading this on a smartphone, that is, you'll be whisked to my page, instead of an error message telling you that Flash is no installed on your phone. Swanky, eh?
So they are my plugs. Take some time to investigate them while I hop downstairs and make myself a cuppa. Back in a mo.
I have returned, with tea! Did you enjoy the links? There will be questions later, so don't think you've gotten away with a mere cursory glance! I'm sure you have questions for me, too - ones that, were you to ask me on my YouTube "show", would sound like "Why have you set these things up?" or "What makes you so relentless in your pursuit of getting us to listen to you?" And the answer, my friends, is optimism.
 |
| The Artrix Theatre, Bromsgrove, http://www.artrix.co.uk/ |
I was lucky enough, recently, to be asked by my friend Jack to play as support for his band, Our Mutual Friend, at the Artrix Theatre in Bromsgrove. The gig happened on the last Sunday in July, and I should just say that they were brilliant. They filled about an hour and a half's entertainment almost effortlessly, were very entertaining, and were musically excellent and charming. As were the second support act, Lakota Sioux, who should also be checked out.
Now, I have a nasty habit. I don't know whether it's worse than picking your nose, stealing chewing gum or interfering with yourself on Tube station escalators, but it's a nasty habit nontheless, and it's this: I romantically idealise everything. Before I meet someone in town, I imagine how the night will be. When I go to anything, I picture the ideal outcome in my head & am often left slightly jaded when it doesn't pan out exactly that way. It's a silly thing & I'm often pretty good at turning it off these days. However there is one niche aspect of my life where this always happens: concerts. When I'm about to play a gig, I want it to be perfect. Everyone listens, everyone laughs, everyone becomes a part of this intimate half-hour of me & my songs. It is, for the most part, an unrealistic expectation and should, realistically, have a halt called to it, but it happens every time.
Which isn't to say I don't like the unexpected moments that happen when I am behind a microphone. (My subconscious recalls a gig about which I wrote on this very blog, in which I was heckled in Fenton by three drunkards, and also the time I was playing an open mic & whilst playing the outro to "I Didn't Mean To Fall For You" a man stepped right up to me and shouted in my ear: "WHILE YOU'RE PLAYING THAT, CAN YOU TELL EVERYONE ABOUT AN OPEN MIC I RUN ON THE FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH IN MOW COP?!" Bafflingly, I obliged.) But there are times when all a chap wants is for everyone to listen. This is the circumstance I pray for and so very rarely get. I recently played my regular open mic & got so frustrated and the level of noise in the place that I shouted my way through all my songs, I suddenly could not sing them.
And so, in the run-up to the Artrix show, I battled the "Ideal" that my brain was presenting to me, scared stiff of having to face disappointment on a larger scale, but this proved to be the one occasion where the expectations of my demanding head were actually met.
It was delightful - the best day ever. Some of my friends came to see the show too (and drive us there & back, which makes them the Heroes Of The Day), and to have their company for an afternoon made me up something rotten. I went in to soundcheck at half-past five and was greeted by so many personable people. The stage crew, sound technicians, theatre staff, the bands - all were super-polite & friendly. There was much setting up happening for the bands, so while they were busy, I took the opportunity to put flyers on all the seats. I did well, too, and was chatting with Jack as I did my dirty promo work.
"We wondered whether we should put leaflets out, but we figured everyone who's coming knows us, as they'll all be from here," he said, "which isn't an advantage you have when you've come from Stoke."
"True," I said, and then felt a tickle in my head that said there was a point coming, "You know why I do this?" I asked.
"Why?"
"Optimism. For someone to do music like this, either alone or in a band, you need buckets of optimism, and you need to cling onto it despite the disappointments that inevitably happen when you're a musician. If I assume that no one would take a leaflet so as to find me on Twitter or Facebook, and therefore don't bother, no one will ever hear of me. If I plaster the place with flyers and just one person takes a leaflet and gets in touch with me on the internet to say they enjoyed my gig and do I have any recordings, then my day is made. It was worth it." I was starting to feel a bit evangelical at this point, so I clammed up & carried on leafleting.
 |
| A selection of my promotional handiwork |
I did my soundcheck and played some covers in different styles (I do some fingerpicky, some strumming, and one song on my other DADGAD-tuned guitar), and the sound technicians praised my main guitar, agreeing with me that there is very little that one needs to do with it once plugged in (I'm not kidding, you could plug it into an ear trumpet connected by some showertubing and a box of cow manure and it would still sound like it was being played in Heaven by a man with glory for fingers), then retired to a dressing room (THERE WERE DRESSING ROOMS) and popped into the bathroom (THE DRESSING ROOM HAD A BATHROOM) and whilst in there, two things happened:
1. I noticed a shower in there. No cubicle, just a shower and a drain in the floor to collect the water. Fleetwood Mac would have loved it.
2. A voice boomed over the PA that said "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TAKE YOUR SEATS, JOHN MACLEOD WILL BE ONSTAGE IN FIVE MINUTES."
This shit just got real, folks.
My two favourite things about the gig were walking onstage, and walking off, as both were done to applause, which feels completely different in a theatre compared to in a pub. Something about the way the building absorbs the sound, and the silence that usually abides in the auditorium just focusses it to a far greater degree. My first few songs were lively, and the fourth was "Imagine If We Fell In Love", and as it started, the tech guys tweaked the lights so that they went from red to blue, in order to accentuate the atmosphere. At this point, if it would have been possible to put down my guitar, climb to the back of the theatre and hug them, I would have. But it would have ruined their work.
In between songs I told one or two stories (including my amazement at the dressing room shower, and also mentioning the back pocket of chewing gum I had discovered the day before - "You don't often pay to hear someone tell you they're wearing dirty trousers, do you?" to which a voice from the audience cried "Yes!"), and there were plenty of appreciative chuckles in those moments, even the one where I played the opening chord of a song about seventeen times because I kept interrupting my train of thought with something equally silly. As Jack's dad said after the show, "He did say you could talk..."
But I came away from that knowing I had found my ideal style of gig. Theatres are more home to the subtleties and nuances of concerts, the small moments where you bare some of the inner workings of your soul to everyone in a song, then relax the atmosphere again with a dry witticism. In a pub, unless you're very lucky, it is ALL about entertaining, and competing with the games of snooker, the loud conversations, the drinkers - there is little room for subtlety unless you are lucky enough to hold the attention of 75% of the room. In a theatre, the gig becomes a small showcase for you. This does not mean you don't have to entertain, far from it, but you entertain on your own terms - that forty minutes was MY forty minutes to do MY set, as opposed to bending somewhat to the pubs will (or fighting it, some nights), and it was fun, beautiful, exciting and thrilling.
And thoughts of that night, gentle reader, has been carrying me through the last three weeks. I do so very much love playing songs, and I hope I can gether all of you into one place one day & sing at you, not to mention talk utter bobbins with you, as I hope it would be fun for us all. You'd be appreciative, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?
In the meantime, someone in my neighbourhood has been letting off fireworks, and initially I was wondering if it would turn into a fetching display which I could watch from my bedroom window. It never happened, and instead there was a series of staccato bangs and it all went quiet. Ah well.
I will bid you adieu until whatever day of September I next choose to update this lengthy text-portal of nonsense, and I hope you have enjoyed reading it. But before I go, I told you that there would be questions based on my links, didn't I? So find below the questions, and there may be prizes for the first set of correct answers (no cheating, there!)
1. What are the precise contents of the Media Room?
2. To whom do I recommend you in the top right corner of the home page?
3. How long is John Macleod Speaks To The Internet, Episode One?
4. In Episode Two, what colour is my wristband?
5. Which of my influential musicians is 3rd from bottom of the list?
6. On the wix.com site, what is criteria number three on the list of reasons to contact me?
Answer those questions and see what you could win!
Until next time, chaps & chapesses, take care.
John.xx
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