Has it really been so long since I sat here and wrote at you? I seem to remember having a good old waffle about smartphones dominating any meeting place and sucking all of our attention out of our bodies. Since then I have walked into two signposts and a bus shelter whilst looking into the ether, but I have made slightly more effort to not stare at my phone every two seconds. (As I said before, just knowing that everything is right there! to look at and catch up on is far too tempting, isn't it?)
But anyway, that was two months ago, and I've been a busy bee. I have a new guitar, named Lola by Bryony (who is helping with social media duties, and doing a cracking job of it, too), and I now have two beautiful-sounding acoustic guitars, instead of one good one and one naff one. Gigs have taken me hither and yon (mostly the Old Brown Jug, with still another two sets there to come), and have loosened me up - most notably a gig on The Sugarmill's rooftop for Stoke Sounds Sessions 2012. That was a big deal and a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to hearing it back (I am told there is a recording...). I went on holiday, which loosened me up yet further, and shook three workable songs out of my head.
There's a lot to be said for unwinding and getting out of the daily routine, because you don't realise you're in one until you stop, and then for about a day you're completely disoriented, exhausted, and (if it's exceptionally good) spending the first half a day asleep. I went with my family to Center Parcs, and almost everyone had a headache on the first day there because we were shell-shocked.
What else can I rabbit at you about? See, on Twitter the other week, I asked for topic suggestions to blog about, and my friend Phil came up with such a good, involved one that I've not known where to start with it. I could have written it on holiday, but I forgot my computer. Even now I'm mulling it over, knowing that I will have to do some research into aspects of culture from between 200 and 40 years ago (it will all become clear when I've actually written and posted it, but Lord knows when that will be.) I have concluded that this is why I haven't blogged for two months, because if I just sit here and waffle on a load of old nonsense, then I'll be slighting him by not writing writing what he asked me to. However, enough is enough and I'm here now, so there's not a lot we can do about it, is there?
I'm a fool to myself, really, because if there's one thing I'm never short on, it's ideas. If I let myself relax, and idea pops in, then crystallises when I can do nothing about it (ie, navigating busy roads, having a shower, trying to mend my curtain rail, etc), so that it then becomes a frantic race for the pen & paper (stop me if you've heard me go on about this before, oh wait - YOU CAN'T! HAHAHAHAHA etc). The odd thing these last few months has been the influx of ideas concerning music releases. I made yet another list this weekend, of songs that I want to put on recordings and this one looks fairly final and definitive. I've done all the songwriting I feel I can do for now, and it is time to start putting things together. (If you want me to be pernickety, it was time to do that months ago, but I never did.) I have an EP's worth, followed by an LP's worth, and eight songs that haven't made the potential cut. I'd like to record those eight at some point anyway, and see if they end up fitting anywhere, but for now: six for the EP, twelve for the LP.
"It's all well and good being an ideas man," I hear you bellow from your comfy chairs as you read this on your iPads, laptops and mobile phones, presumably spitting Krispy Kreme krumbs crumbs from your indignant mouths, "but how does that relate to actually making stuff to go down my ears and tickle my brain?!" Well, calm down, dab your face with a tissue and wipe the grease from your touchscreens while I tell you.
I have hit a point where there's only so much I can do on my own. (Which is why my aforementioned friend, Bryony, is helping my with thing internetular.) It is time I start collaborating with people to help make things a bit more concrete. I'm preparing to meet folks to discuss things in relation to making recordings of a quality that is above "This is definitely a home demo, innit?" and more akin to something you'd buy from a shop. With assistance. At gunpoint.
This is not to say I am not proud of my demos up to now, but my ideas are getting larger than my capacity to realise them, and sharing the load lightens it, so if I communicate my ideas to someone who can help me turn them into actual sounds for you to digest, then it has to be done, or I'm selling myself short. As I say, there will be more news as it arrives as something more definite, but I hope to have good news for you soon.
To this end, I have spent today practising all the songs that I wish to record (eighteen, not counting the eight cast to limbo, if you were doing your maths right earlier - if not, I advise practise), which was an edifying experience, because I pretty much remember them! With a little extra lyric-learning, I could bore you out of your chairs for about an hour and a half with a show comprising all of them, and that's not taking into account all the talking (then you're probably looking at two hours!). It's just as well that all my sets have time restrictions, otherwise I fear I could become the Ken Dodd of the acoustic scene.
Speaking of which, how does he get away with it? His shows are now renowned for their interminable endlessness. My family, in 2004, took me and someone I was, at the time, working with to see Ken Dodd at the Victoria Hall in Stoke, and do you know, I've been to some horrific theatre events in my time (a production of MacBeth at the Crewe Lyceum springs to mind - you've not lived until you've heard a PA system blurt "MacBeth, MacBe... oh damn!" during the interval, then seen a messenger walk on in the second half and freeze up as he forgets his lines), but this took the biscuit. Ken Dodd's show was interspersed with tributes to variety theatre, including one nightmarish sequence in which about twenty small children danced on stage whilst wearing masks of Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Max Miller etc. TERRIFYING. Aside from that, everything "Doddy" said seemed to bypass us. I have found Ken Dodd hysterical when appearing on television. He's amazing with a crowd, and actually very funny, but his tours are more like feats of endurance, and his delivery was mumbled on this occasion (perhaps because of the PA? Who knows!), and all of us started to look at each other as if we were about to burst into tears (this was by around midnight), at which point my parents mouthed "Shall we go?" And we mouthed "YES!"
The most we laughed that night was when we got out of the theatre and onto the car park, and a sort of "survivor's hysteria" kicked in, and we couldn't stop laughing. (Oddly enough, that night turned out to be my friend's and my first date, of sorts.) We heard later that the show had gone on a further two hours, and there were also stories of people getting taken out of the auditorium by St. John's Ambulance workers. (I believe this is a cunning ploy by people who don't want to be rude and just leave the auditorium - far more dignified to feign a medical emergency - which leads me to wonder how many Ken Dodd-related deaths might occur per annum? Do send me any statistics you can find on the matter.)
I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to write - at punishing length - about Ken Dodd, but I'm not deleting it now because it makes for a healthy word count (or an unhealthy word count, depending on your perspective). I shall sign off, but not before mentioning that this year (and in the last couple of months particularly), I have met some brilliant bands and musicians, so I'm going to be all selfless and nice and point you to some people I've been hearing about for a while, but only now begun hearing them and seeing them.
First, Faux Feet. I have been lucky enough to share a billing with them twice within three days back in August. They are lovely people, with great songs, and you can buy their first three-track EP from Bandcamp here: http://fauxfeet.bandcamp.com/. Make sure you see them live, there are songs in their set that will not leave you.
Second, Marc O'Reilly. A superb guitarist and songwriter. You can check out a stop-motion animation based on his record cover, and buy his debut album (which is also brilliant) here: http://www.marcoreillymusic.com/
Third, and lastly, Aaron Mobberley. I also shared the billing with him at the same gigs as Faux Feet, and he's fantastic. He and Marc O'Reilly co-headlined The Sugarmill last night, as Aaron debuted his new music video and gave his first performance with his new band. You can find him here: https://www.facebook.com/aaronmobberleymusic
And so I leave you. I will not leave it another two months before I blog again, and in the meantime, here is Aaron Mobberley's new music video, 'Unison Harmonies':
Take care, until next we meet, bloglets.
Love,
John xx
