Tea, Laundry, And The Need To Be Heard

Good evening, folk.  Mugs of tea and inflatable piles-cushions at the ready?  Excellent.


  You know when you are pottering around the house, ticking little things off your jobs-list, unable to bend down and pick up a pair of soon-to-be-laundered pair of underpants without it issuing a sigh from your body that you initially think is a sign that you're tired but, when you think about it, it's one of those emotionally-charged sighs that tell you you're feeling a bit drained in some aspects of your life?  No?  Just me?  Well, in any case, I am in that ball-park. (Wait though, that's a bit of an Americanism that has drifted Englandwards, isn't it?  Should I say something more Britishy?  Currently, the only thing I can think of is car-park, but that lends an entirely unwelcome aesthetic to what I'm saying.  I think I shall stick with ball-park.)  I suddenly needed a chat, an ear, and a shoulder upon which to rest, and so here I am chatting at with you.


  I have exercised a little discipline this evening, and done things like laundry and washing-up, and I have also written a list of the songs I wish to play on a regular basis, seeing as there are a few concerts coming up in the next few weeks, and if my sets were exactly the same for every one of them (and bear in mind that one gig will see me playing two half-hour-or-so sets), then it would get a bit boring.  So, I thinks to myself, I will practice all the songs I don't play very often, so that I am au fait with them again.  I have done that tonight, and will continue so to do until I don't need the lyric book in front of me, then I will plan out a rotation of setlists, so that they all get an airing at some point or another.


  I just went downstairs to make a cup of tea (well, I went downstairs to make up my mind whether or not I fancied a cup of tea or a glass of Baileys, and decided on the tea), then I came back upstairs, drank the tea, read some old blogs (not mine, I hasten to add), and thought of nothing else to write on here.


  My mind's a little bit away with the fairies if I'm honest (and I just know I've got to trudge back downstairs in a minute to empty the washing machine), because I am in that post-gig nostalgia you get after attending two nights of concerts from one of your favourite musicians.  In case you don't follow my tweets, haunt my Facebook page or stare, unrelentingly, hour after hour, at my Instagram page in the hope it updates, I went to London last week to spend some quality time with my sister and her family (my, how my nephew is growing - he is a cheeky little sir and has taken to walking hither and yon with his hands held behind his back like a little statesman, it's adorable, and were it not an ill-advised sort of message to give to a youngster, I'd almost want to buy him a bubble-pipe).  At the end of that week, I went to see Nerina Pallot play her entire oeuvre over two nights at St. James' Church.


  I loved those two evenings.  I saw my friend Jenny whom I've not seen since October, I made two new friends, one of which is a chap called Michael, and the other is a writer also called Michael. Michael Linford, for those of you crazy about details (you may find out more about him at www.michaellinford.co.uk, and for Heaven's sake send him a list of the 20 songs you'd like to hear as the world ends - you can find out more about that on his website - and go to his facebook pages, 'like' them, and get to know the man, he's a proper gent).  I also saw Nerina & her husband Andy, and was able to say hello and thank you for two lovely evenings without (and here I keep my fingers so tightly crossed that I might have just heard something snap) making an out-and-out arse of myself.  Somewhere in the annals of my internet scribblings, there is a blog about the time I met Neil Finn and decided that would be a great moment to mention me getting my wallet stolen.


  (I still have not emptied the washing machine.)


  I can tell you this, my head still has idiocy swimming around it.  The kind of self-doubt you can only get at nearly half-midnight after a cup of tea and a sing-song.  Those little nagging thoughts that ask "What do you want from life?" or "Aren't you just howling into the void by now?" and "That shirt's going to smell funny if you don't hang it out soon."  I know.  My brain is a fun place to be, some nights.


  More than anything, I want to be heard.  I want to sing my songs to as many people as will listen.  Playing those songs through earlier on (some for the first time in months) has brought home how much work I have to do, and how much I wanted to have it done in 2012, and we're in May already.  Assuming there's going to be an apocalypse, I am going to be seriously shafted if I want to finish this piece of work I've got floating in my brain.  And how does one balance an EP & LP's worth of material with gigs and a personal life (an occasionally lonely personal life) and a full time job without going crackers?


  I suppose (no, I hope) I am going to find out.


J xx


P.S:  Speaking of finding my music everywhere, you couldn't be a swell & become a fan of my page on http://mrjohnmacleod.amazingtunes.com could you?  I'd be awfully grateful.  Thank you.  Be good, and, more importantly, be nice. [trudges downstairs to retrieve an armful of wet underwear and shirts]


P.P.S:  It is now 7:15am the following morning, and I am finally able to post this blog, after the signal went on both my internet AND mobile phone, in what I can only guess to be some sort of transmitter failure on behalf of my mobile network.  I'd like to say I was calm and sanguine about not being able to tweet, text or call anyone concerning my being incommunicado, but I was terrified.  It seemed like the beginnings of a film, and that any second, men in balaclavas (an inappropriate form of headgear for May, or even any month, and only acceptable for nefarious doings) would burst through my door, cudgel me into unconsciousnessness, and leave me to wake up strapped to a chair in a spider-filled dungeon.  I actually had that thought process, and am now really rather glad to have woken up without a trace of gaffer tape applied to my person.