Listening with your eyes closed

  One of the more amazing things about music is the work and effort that go into making something that is relatively easy to listen to.  (Seriously, it's one of the easiest things you can do, it's even easier than watching stuff.  Listening you can do with your eyes closed.  I mean wow!  All you have to do is make sure your ears are open and your brain does the rest.  It's brilliant, isn't it?)  For example, this weekend I have bought two Radiohead albums ('Kid A' & 'Hail To The Thief') and Lisa Hannigan's second album, 'Passenger'.  I listened to them yesterday & today, and they made for great listening and exciting inspirational nuggets, and after I'd finished them, I thought about how much work must have gone into making them.  Records like those mentioned, and, well, anything really, if you listen closely enough, are fascinating because as well as the whole sound, you hear every tiny component of what makes it (sometimes, it can be on your 19th listen that you spot an instrument or melody line that you never knew was there, those moments are fun).  You hear them and you wonder whether those parts were planned, or whether during the recording process, someone chucked in a line on a glockenspiel, or keyboard riff, purely on a whim.


  I am in a similar spot myself now, thinking of aspects to throw into my songs, for after several months of telling you all that I want to record new songs for you all to hear, I am on the path to making the first EP.  The first job (making programmed drum sequences as a recording guideline) is a relatively simple one, and yet it has taken me weeks to even start (and I've almost finished it).  I often think that when you have a task or project standing directly in front of you, it's the most daunting thing.  So many variables you won't have planned for, wondering if you've made a mistake in the preliminary stages, not knowing what you're going to do within the framework of the song, and you're committing to a path of action, which is, at times, a scary thing.


  That has been one of the reasons I have taken so long to start, the second being not having a clearly defined route to take with regards what songs to put where.  For many a week, when talking these things over with people, either at gigs or nights out, I have said "I have a list of songs as long as my arm that I'm ready to record," etc etc ad nauseum.  This is true, but I realise now that I had been missing something vital.  Something to string the songs together, like a beaded necklace.  For a long time, I was including songs that now appear on the 'You've Been Lovely' EPs, with the intention of making a handful of EPs, then a full-length record, with some songs appearing on both.  I had, in my mind, made a right mess, and I had pages of notes that resembled a sicked-up dog's breakfast* more than it did a series of recordings.


  I then put the You've Been Lovely' EPs together, which did a good job of clearing them out of my head and allowing me to think in more focused terms about what it was I wanted to be doing.  There then followed a peculiar few weeks, which gave me a lot to sort out, mentally, and produced more songs which I could hear in my head with such clarity that I knew they needed to be included in my big recording project.**  These new songs also connected the dots with several other "new" songs (ie songs that I haven't done anything with yet but date back a year or two), and altogether, they give a good, healthy shape to a potential album, to the point where I can plot out its running order, and then free up other songs for recording on the EP.  I've even found myself writing a new song this week, as one of the EP songs needed to be on the Big Project, and so a song tentatively entitled 'Half As Lucky' has appeared, and should add a touch of jaunt to the proceedings.


  So, in all the procrastinating & dilly-dallying, I feel I can safely say that what I was actually doing was fermenting ideas and waiting for the moment when I had enough songs with the right plotlines, if you will, before committing to a project that wouldn't have made enough sense otherwise.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


  I leave you for now with a performance of a song that can't fail to swell your hearts & souls with joy, and that's what music's been doing to me for the last few weeks.  Enjoy.

Be good,
Love,
John xx


*You have no idea how close this phrase was to being the title of this blog entry.
**Which I will start once I've recorded this here EP. 

"It's never going to happen for you, you know, unless you change a few things..."

  Just a quick post - I listened to a thing this evening that was in turn funny & jaw-dropping.  To me, it's indicative of the way some people see music as a business, and don't understand what music truly is to people.  It's a skill that musicians develop, a form of expression, a part of who we are, and those who are lucky enough to make any kind of living at it at all are pretty aware of how lucky they are to do what they want, they way they want to do it.

  Gemma Hayes is one such musician.  I have been listening to her records since about 2002, when her debut album 'Night On My Side' was released, and since then, when said debut was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize, she has grown over four albums, producing excellent songs and becoming more & more respected and independent as an artist.  Not only that, her live shows are a joy to attend.  Also, I'd give my eye teeth to be in such a position, career-wise.  If you look below, you will see her four album covers.

           

There are a further three EPs and nine singles.  Mark of quite a substantial career, wouldn't you say?

Enter Louis Walsh, stage left (literally), in the words of Gemma Hayes on BBC 6music:

"Louis Walsh - this is such a great story - I actually first met him for the first time, maybe two years ago, three years ago?  He saw me play at a show, and he was at the side of the stage, and once I got off the stage he said "We have to talk," and he said "I would love to work with you, Gemma, I think you've got loads of potential, ahm, but, you know, it's just never gonna happen for you, you know, unless you change a few things."  So I said "Well, give me some pointers," and he said "Well first off, you have to stop writing songs."

And I'm like, "Okay," scratching my head, [thinking] "Well, what's left?"  And he said "You don't need to do it anymore, if you work with me, I'll employ someone to write songs for you, and the second thing you need to do is date a celebrity.  If you're not in the magazines, you don't exist."  So he was like: "Are you in?" and I was like: "I'm out.""

  Can anyone else see why the music business needs taking apart & putting back together again, only without cultural morons in it?

Cheers,

J xx