Several shakes of a spoonful of mayonnaise

  Lummy, it's as if I'm giving you all my thoughts in one dollop, isn't it?  Or, if I am to make this simile more accurate, several shakes of a spoonful of mayonnaise.  As is nearly always the case with these blog entries, I am sitting on a train, after having played my last show of 2012, at The Sun On The Hill in Birmingham.  There is a couple sitting in the seats behind me, necking quite audibly, and the only thing I can think, instead of your usual "that sort of thing shouldn't be be done in public," is that I'd sort of forgotten what that sounds like.

  I ought to admit that I'm not really much of a prude when it comes to Public Displays Of Affection.  If two people kiss in the street, I'm actually happy that they've found each other amid this sea of bastards and cretins, and that they are not so self-conscious that they feel they have to hide it.  Obviously, if they're on the verge of copulating in the street, then they need to get themselves home sharpish.

  Even all that business with my previous neighbours this year - I didn't begrudge them their bedroom hi-jinx, it was just uncanny that they managed to get it on whenever I was reading, or going to sleep.  I wonder where they are living now?  I do hope it's a detached house, or, at the very least, an end terrace.

  It is funny how things can shape your year.  Up until October, as soon as the headboard started rattling, it would set off an agony of longing, as if someone who you fancy was stroking your neck, and would continue so to do, on the proviso that you didn't react to it.  There were times when the sound of them having a funny conversation (the walls really are that thin in this house) was like being forced to experience old memories, ones you hadn't yet reconciled as being part of your past, and ones that, if nudged gently enough, would suddenly feel like part of the present.

  (The kissing woman has left the train at Wolverhampton, she's very pretty.  Her partner in lip-lock, still on the train, looks like a cross between one of those long-handled retractable brushes you can get to sweep the corner of your ceiling, and an anally-traumatised ferret.  Opposites do attract...)

  Anyway, the strange thing was when they moved out, it was as if they took my past with them. , and that "agony of longing" went too (but not before I'd written a some reasonably intense songs on the subject).  Ever since then, the music got a better foothold on the scheme of things, and I decided that the only way I would ever be happy would be if I kept moving forwards and doing what I love, as closely as possible to how I want to do it (which in itself, now that I think about it, is another "agony of longing").

  This makes me think of the piece I wrote yesterday, and also of something I wanted to include in it, but never managed to wrangle the words in that direction...

  Last weekend, as I mentioned previously in this blog, I went to Nerina Pallot's Christmas show, and my good friend Michael Linford, whom I have not seen since May (but have kept in digital contact), was there.  He has just written a book, 'Music For The End Of The World', and part of his mission, as well as writing the book, getting it published, and into the world, is to stand up for the little-known, independent writers, artists and musicians that don't get heard much outside their own hometown circles. (I have just seen a train platform guard wearing a Santa hat.)

  Mike and I were shooting the breeze at The Tabernacle, as we waited for Samuel Taylor to start his support set, and talk turned to Sports Personality Of The Year, and the sporting year that 2012 had been for the UK, generally.  He said (and here I wish harder than anything for an eidetic memory, because the amount of detail I could give about this conversation would be very useful) that all the money that gets pumped into achieving 'sporting excellence', and finding Britain's highest-achieving sportspeople (this year's Olympics being a prime example) could, and should, also be directed towards finding Britain's most deserving creative people.  I don't think people like Michael & I should be given special treatment, but imagine if, instead of creative pursuits being regarded as a hobby, or something you do in the background to "a proper job", they were more widely recognised as a trade, the creation of a thing.  Imagine if people looked as earnestly to find a good band as they did to find the best runner, or swimmer, or cyclist.

  I'm not for one minute saying those searches are unworthy, but the thing I find upsetting is that when you say, in my example, that you're a singer-songwriter, the first reaction is "Why don't you go on X-Factor?"  I have lost count how many times I have politely rebuffed the notion of this in conversation.  Not to knock the good intention behind it, but there is something about these talent shows that I do not trust.  With one or two exceptions, it is not the stepping stone to a productive, and creative career.  It is a marvellous vehicle for a certain record label, and no doubt a very useful boost to the coffers come Christmas time when the winner's single is released, but is it really celebrating the nation's musical talent?  There is so much to this format that could be a positive reinforcement to people for whom music really is the driving force behind their every breath, but until it lays down the foundations of an artist's development, so that they produce interesting work as they get older, and gives the prospect of a career, I could never give the programme a second glance.

  That's not to say that if there were something worth trying, I wouldn't enter it, though...

  Anyway.  I've gone on for ages now, and have even stopped writing this by hand, as I am back home.  The last two paragraphs happened on my computer.  What started off as questionable handwriting has become normal-sized Hevetica in a text-box on my screen.  I feel a little bad that my notebook contains an unfinished blog entry, maybe I will copy the last three paragraphs longhand into it, for closure's sake.

  2012 (I may have said this somewhere before) has been quite an exciting year.  I've gigged regularly, I've written songs that I really love playing, and I've made new friends, and some of them (combined with old friends) enjoy playing songs with me and launching them into the stratosphere.  All in all, it's been quite magical.  If you want to read Michael Linford's book, you can order it here or here.  Just be sure, once you've finished it, to leave a review on the site where you bought it.  I can't wait to do precisely that.

  I will sod, as they say, off now, but given all my talk of writing songs, published authors and suchlike, will leave you with this paragraph from a book of essays/a recipe/short stories by the aforementioned Nerina Pallot, which sums things up about creativity rather nicely:

  Of course a book, or song, or crocheted bed-jacket, or film, or painting - literally any result of creativity - is like a child.  You might help it into being, you might recognise the odd brushstroke or familiar melodic motif as your own, but really, it's as if you had nothing to do with it.  It was always there, just waiting for everybody to notice it.  Any song is just the sound of 'life's longing for itself'.  (Yes.  Even the 'Macarena'.)  Creativity is a constant quest for true connection, because words are only ever signifiers in the end; and when it's done right, it is the thing itself, the agency of love in action.  And it belongs to everybody, but it means only what it means to you.  Isn't that wonderful?  Doesn't it make you feel less alone?  I don't know about you, but creativity keeps me warm at night, and it stops my heart from breaking at five o'clock in the afternoon.

If curious, you can find this book here - It really is a wonderful read.

We shall see if another blog entry appears before 2013 - It's about right that I don't blog for weeks on end, then pour out about four or five within a week.  Peaks and troughs, always.  In the meantime, goodnight, and sleep well.

Merry Christmas,
Love,
John xx

P.S:  My gig tonight was fun, and I enjoyed it.

Moderation isn't as bad as you think it is, in moderation

  I am not the sort of drunk you would want at your party.  I am more fun to you sober.  Back when I was a naive teenager (all the way through to being a naive twenty-something, as opposed to now, where I am a naive thirty-something), people I went to college/university/work with wondered what I would be like if they got me blotto.  The answer is reasonably straightforward, but for the fact it's me giving the answer, ergo it might go around the houses a bit.

  I was barely 17, and was invited to a birthday party the day before the day before New Year's Eve - it was 1997, I think.  I mingled with my college chums, drank a can or two of beer, and elected to leave it at that.  I parked myself on a settee during a bout of karaoke.  Being the naive, trusting sort, any time I was offered a glass of orange juice, or lemonade was a welcome refreshment, not a cue to suspiciously sniff each glass for traces of spirits (not least because I didn't have a clue what spirits smelled like - naif barely covers it).  Until I stood up, and realised I had little to no coordination of my eyes or limbs, I felt fine.  Then it became evident that something was up, and one by one, my classmates all admitted they'd poured "a few other drinks" into my orange juice.  I stood in the kitchen, evening ruined, knocking back glasses of water and apologising for having been spiked by everyone else.  And then everyone found out what happens when you get me drunk.

  I decorate your bathroom with sick.

  Oh, the shame.  I can still remember being slightly too late getting upstairs, and just launching my guts at walls, the floor, you name it, everywhere except the loo.  I can remember the poor birthday girl's parents, mopping up the mess.  I can remember the echo of my voice as it apologised from the bowl of the sink.  (Porcelain is very cooling, isn't it?)  I can remember saying sorry to Dad, as the back of my head really took in the texture of the passenger seat's headrest while he drove me back home.  I can remember hearing Mum say to Rachael, my sister, "Just stay in your room for a few minutes," as I staggered upstairs, cleaned my teeth, and went to bed.

  All of this happened before 10:45pm.

  I know exactly what my alumni were hoping for.  You know how there's the sort of person who, with a few sniffs of the barmaid's apron, becomes the life and soul of the party, dancing on your coffee table, ringing taxi companies for a laugh and trying to tie a washing line to next door's pitbull terrier before setting a firework off from the roof of your shed and legging it home?  I am not that kind of drunk.  I am no fun, unless your favourite kind of inebriate is the one who sits at the table, staring at the grain in the wood, and thinking about things past.  There is also the point where I just fall asleep (such is my introspection that I kind of crumble in on myself), and that becomes fun for people, for a bit.  There is that hi-larious five minutes when we next meet up, and all my friends show me the photo of myself, sideways on a settee, face buried in the cushions, after everyone had coated me in toilet paper.  I'm that drunk.  I have seen photos of me passed out on a settee during a work's cocktail night (of which, sadly, I am not in possession).  I also took this photo of myself the morning after said cocktail night, as a reminder:

2004, post cocktail-night.  Note the greenish tinge to my face.  For the rest of that day I ran a shop from the back room with my head in my hands.

  I prefer to be in control of myself.  Always have done.  This, even now, baffles me as to why I have chosen to plod a path with, in so many ways, little control.  Far less control than you might think.  I believe that when music chooses you to communicate through it (and I do think, faintly, that music does choose you, after a fashion), that very process affords you very little decision-making, in terms of "career path".

  (At this point, we skirt around the very tricky issue of how much choice anything in life gives you, and how all our lives appear to be spent reacting to whatever circumstance throws at us, be it love, death, children, disease, cardigans, accidents, food poisoning, eviction, or finding out that you're responsible for the welfare of seventeen children after a set of freak paternity cases proves you to be the legitimate guardian of all of them bar one, who, it transpires, belongs to an estranged uncle.  We can only skirt around this, as it is rather late and I have been out bowling, and if I carry on, my nose will be touching the keyboard.)

  (It is now the next day, I have slept, made a cup of tea to drink in bed - which I just about stomached, although the milk was, I believe, "on the turn" - and found my hastily-discarded work shirt from yesterday draped on the toilet seat before I shaved and left the house to go bowling.)

  So, where was I?  Control!  I decided quite early on, after having one or two tipsy gigs, and seeing some quite severely drunk people playing music at muted audiences, that music was no fun if you were completely out of it, and the self-conscious quality I own when under the influence came to the fore yet further when on stage and slightly steaming.  The one thing music deserves is dedication and focus.  You can have the best ideas in the world (or at least in your hometown, or at the very least in your own house), but if you aren't compos mentis enough to physically and mentally interpret and broadcast them, you won't be able to achieve much, positively speaking.  In this interview with Zane Lowe on Radio 1, celebrating 2002's 'Songs For The Deaf' record, Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme rather nicely articulates what I'm getting at:

Zane Lowe: At the time, you guys were also known for enjoying yourselves when you were on the road, and I think it's safe to say - without sending the wrong message to anyone listening who's impressionable - that you were considered a drinking band, and possibly even considered a drug band, and considered a band that enjoyed a good time, and lived your life freely.  'Songs For The Deaf' sounds so focused, does that feel like it captures that time for you as well, or were you completely focused on the record when you were making it?

Josh Homme:  "Well, I mean, we always had the philosophy that you can be who you want to be in 'Queens...', you know, and so I think in a lot of ways we got that notoriety because we were a sanctuary for a lot of people that just wanted to be themselves.  We never sort of judged, or told you what you needed to do.  But one thing that we always had was you could do whatever you wanted, as long as you work first, and if you're going to be a 'party person', you party after.  And that's still the ethic that the band has, that, you know, you should be yourself, but you owe it to everyone else to work first, and I think that's what always makes a difference, that you work hard first."

  I suppose this is why I don't drink much, and have never been tempted to "dabble".  I enjoy the way my brain sifts through the world, and reconciles it to day-to-day life, and aside from the fear of addiction, there is the fear that I could irrevocably damage the way I see the world, and the way I look at things.  The way I perceive my personality to work is that I am fairly excitable, and have a rather crooked slant on the world, which either produces very silly jokes, or songs that I am particularly proud of.  Imagine if I took something that interfered with my brain chemistry in such a way that I never looked at anything that way again.  Ever.  I am terrified of that ever happening.

  And so we get to the reason that control is the theme of this little diatribe.  As I said earlier, there is less control than one might think when pursuing music (and I am pursuing it), or at least, to do it the way you truly want to, unless you're massively lucky.  This is not to say gigs aren't fun and exciting, but we all dream of that gig in a theatre, and a rapt, attentive crowd (nay, audience), and we dream of going on a tour, of being able to make records and of getting as many people as possible to hear our music.  This makes the gig where you're playing one of your more lilting ballads, and battling against the pub drunk for volume, so heartbreaking.  You come off stage, knowing that you had a good time, but that one guy's "BEHHHHAHAHAHAHHAHEEERGH!" laugh really knackered your flow, and were it not such bad grace to do so, you would have stamped your little feet and demanded that the world stop and acknowledge how hard you were working, because this, after all, was supposed to be your moment.

  It wasn't your moment.  Not to the world at least, only to you.  And in all honesty, every moment is your moment, you just have to know how to play it.  But the best way to play it is with clarity and positivity.  I have played some lovely gigs this year, and some great moments have come out of them, and that control over my music has been strengthened by sharing it with three wonderful musicians.  I hope that 2013 allows some more options, and more magical adventures which I can share with you via the medium of technology (although mostly, not to mention preferably, via the even more magical medium of you being in the room with us as we play).

  Control comes from taking the music in your head, arranging it into a good song, and doing what you can with it.  It takes the love of music, and harnessing the enthusiasm that your band has for it (I am very lucky that my band get behind my songs as much as they do - we get it right in practice, right down to the mood of the song, and we're all mentally hugging each other, not physically though, because you can't properly hug someone over, say a drum-kit, a synth, or an accordion).

  Enjoy riding this year out and travelling into the next, and please don't associate bits of this blog post as a cry for Prohibition, more as a cry for clarity and positivity.  The darker your times, the less good drinking will be to you.  You don't make problems go away, they just come back stronger.  The more you deal with life head on, the more having a drink actually feels like a nice thing to do.

  In the meantime, here is the free-to-download podcast I made with Paul Hancock and Angela Lazenby from my band.  Merry Christmas!



Lots of Festive Love,
John xx

"How many of you have ever had to put your hand up a hot goose?"

  My train is leaving London.  Sadly, it's too dark to watch it properly, so I get brief glimpses of train platforms, and lights floating past the window at varying speeds, depending on how far away they are from us.

  I have had a few conversations over the last couple of years, about what living in the capital would be like.  My position has changed considerably over this time, initially having been "No, never, I'd be too lonely, and too intimidated."  I have since decided that the way you deal with your surroundings and similar situations comes from within, and that you are only as lonely as you allow yourself to be.  My state of mind these days is such that I wouldn't be feeling that way for long, and that big city fear has gone away slightly.

  That's not to say my feelings on things London are not still with a degree of reticence, but it is now purely on the basis of that concept - 'London Prices.'  The fact that that is the prime factor of resistance really rankles, because the thing I find fascinating about London (or the idea of London) is the potential to discover pockets of artistic (specifically, in my case, musical) communities, and networks of creative folk, and finding things that are happening in these sorts of fields.  For example, my sister has lived in London for a couple of years (hence the conversations I've been having), and has made friends on her university course.  In a short space of time, she has gone to a screening of a documentary by Mark Gatiss (with Mr. Gatiss sitting directly behind her during said screening), been to a test run-through of material for Radio 4's 'Cabin Pressure' with John Finnemore, and also attended a recording of the same programme!  So, I can only imagine what adventures I could get myself into, were I a Londoner, with a little perseverance!

  This is why my feelings on big city living have softened, and the thing that will no doubt always remain is "What if I suddenly couldn't afford to live there?" or worse, never being able to afford to live there whilst living there.

  As mentioned earlier, I am writing this on a moving train, with the intention of typing it up later.  What is making this really difficult is that there is no flip-down tray on the back of the seats, and as such, there's nowhere to rest my notebook so I'm resting it on my coat, which is, in turn, on my lap.  Only now am I looking back at my scribbling  and praying that by the time I sit at my computer to put it on Blogger, I will be able to decipher this mess of pen-strewn pages.  It's not too bad for the most part, but every so often we go over a bumpy bit of track, and my e's often look enough like c's as it is.

  (Also, I've just peered down the train and it looked as if someone was sleeping on the luggage rack!  Panic over, it's a coat with a fur hood & a pink scarf draped over it.  Look!)

Coat and scarf, thrown on the luggage rack.  It looks like a woman with her hand draped over the edge.  I nearly messed myself...

  Here's something I was considering the other week, regarding dreams and the workings of the subconscious.  A couple of weekends ago, I had a dream that I was visiting a bunch of friends (during this visit, Sam asked me why I kissed his girlfriend - a detail he found endlessly entertaining when I told him the following day), and as we were walking along a road, one of my party clambered up on top of a wall, lay down and just rolled off it.  The landing he made resulted in a loud "WHAM!" noise, and he bounced away down the road, whamming merrily away.

  I woke up, and the sound of my friend's repeated impact on the tarmac continued, which is the sort of thing that will always be quite unnerving.  Being not entirely awake, I dashed to the window to see if the poor sod was bouncing down my street, then realised the sound was coming from my new neighbours,* and that it was actually the sound of a man shoulder-barging a door.  At three in the morning.  It went on for about two hours, with no other sounds - no shouting, no speaking, just "WHAM!  WHAM!  WHAM!"** and I'm still not sure why it happened. He could have been doing that in his sleep (you'd have to be if you're doing that for two hours), as it had never happened before (and it's not happened since).

  But here's the weirdy bit:  We've all had dreams where our radio alarm has filtered a song into our heads, but this was the first time that a loud noise from next door had insinuated itself in a perfectly logical way (despite the actual content of the dream being utter nonsense).  This lead me to think about how the subconscious processes external stimuli depending on whether we're awake or asleep.

  For example, when you're awake, you process sights, sounds and smells immediately (or seemingly so), but in this instance my ears physically received the sound, and my subconscious created a context in which the loud barging of the door would make sense to my dreaming brain.  It's as if there's a satellite delay in the reception of the noise (ear to consciousness), while my brain processes it into something that won't jar me awake.  Or something.  Maybe.

  So, while you're all thinking about that (and please do offer me your thoughts on that if you like - I'd be curious to know what you think!), now seems like a good time to tell you what a great weekend I've just had (after the sort of week that really made me feel as if I was incapable of doing anything without getting stumped at every hurdle).  I have been to The Tabernacle in Islington, for Nerina Pallot's Christmas Extravaganza.  It was a great gig, the music was fantastic, as always, and lots of fun was had as we enjoyed the sets by Samuel Taylor and Nerina & her band.  I also loved meeting friends I haven't seen for seven months, and it had better not be as long again when I see them next!

  Nerina and her husband Andy work so bloody hard, and they do so much for the people who love her music, be it webcasts, EPs, special gigs, you name it (Nerina made about 150 mince pies for yesterday's shindig), and so much time is made to try and talk to everybody in attendance, it's just untrue.  There is so much goodwill in the room for her gigs, I have never seen anything quite like it.  For all those things, and add to that her songwriting and quality of performance, she will always be a shining role model of how a good musician should be, with one of the best attitudes in the business.  I salute the Chatterleys, they are an absolute delight.

  Plus, how many gigs do you go to where you are asked "How many of you have ever had to put your hand up a hot goose?"

  None.  That's how many.

  Back to the train home.  A large man has sat next to me, and is scribbling in and reading a book entitled 'The Big Book Of Brewing'.  I really don't know what to make of this.  Wow, this bit of track's quite bumpy!  I shall sign off, with a cramping hand and readiness for a cup of tea in my own house.

[Which, now that I've finished typing this up, I shall make!]
John xxx

*I have new, non-sexing neighbours.  There is barely a sound from there now, except for their plumbing, which seems to be horrifically loud, all of a sudden.  Every flush of the toilet produces an odd clanking sound, I can only assume that they've had the cistern moved upstairs, while the toilet remains on the ground floor.  Bit too nervous to knock on and ask, in all honesty.
**Please keep any jokes about George Michael & Andrew Ridgeley finding a third band member to yourself.  Thank you.

Conversations You Will Never Have

Bob:  Alright Terry, where of you been?
Terry:  I of just been to the shop for a bottle of milk and some luminous key-straighteners.
Bob:  Did they of what you were looking for?
Terry:  Nah, I'll of to get the bus into town and try there.
Bob:  Terry?
Terry:  Yes, Bob?
Bob:  Could you get a dictionary while you're out?  I of got a sneaking suspicion that the word "of" served no relevant purpose in our chat.
Terry:  Apart from when I said "bottle of milk"?
Bob:  Apart from that, Aye.
Terry:  I'll ask them if they of one in stock.
Bob:  Champion.