Hello, people-who-follow-what-I-do-on-the-internet (or, as I like to call you, "folks").
I am getting the impression that there might be an extra handful of you this week, owing to a certain glass-bead-making magician lady who gave me a shout-out on the Twitter and turned my weekend from an okay one into a lovely one. I had recently uploaded my new YouTube video which gave her a mention (and if you want to find out who, watch Episode Five of my "Speaks To The Internet" series, shown below. I know - me so crafty...) There was I, food-shopping in a petrol station/miniature supermarket at half past three in the afternoon, when suddenly a barrage of lovely tweets kicked their way onto my phone, from people saying hello & announcing their intention to give me a follow on the say-so of my friend. I am not too proud to say I got a little teary-eyed and had to pretend that I was allergic to microwaveable party food (I was standing next to the freezers) before gathering my wits & buying an extra packet of biscuits.
But I am not here simply to tell you that I cry in miniature supermarkets - that would be folly! I am also here to tell you of my baffling apathy. Well, it's not apathy as such, more lacking in time. I am finding that there are not enough hours in the day, and by the time I have eaten dinner, it is practically too late to start rattling round the house, making loud noises and upsetting the neighbours. For this reason alone, I am looking forward to getting the last "Speaks To The Internet" out of the way, because I will then spend a few weekends getting songs made and experimenting and the like. The only song I have had chance to play with has been Sea Glass, and I'm very pleased with the results there, so the potential for other songs is rather exciting.
And I think the thing I am rather excited about is that I feel ready to tinker with at least a dozen songs! There was a point when I was writing a lot, and didn't feel quite ready, as a result, to record. I don't know how regular this is for any other musicians among you, but I think I am either in a writing frame of mind, or recording. I have very prolific periods when I am writing songs, and then it's as if it turns off in order to tell me to get cracking on recording all of them. This is all well and good, but when time becomes something you don't have a great deal of, that urge to record becomes as much of a curse as it does a blessing, so, as I say, once I get my last YouTube episode done, I will get cracking on my demoes again.
I'll be honest with you, as I know that you're all imagining me with my customary cup of tea whilst typing this at you, I am sans cuppa. I KNOW. It has been a day where I felt myself atrophying in my day-to-day surroundings, and after I had dinner I felt the need to at least play through one or two songs, whereupon the time slipped to 10.30pm and yawns were happening. I am due an early night or two, so here I am typing in bed.
What else is going on? Well, I go on a holiday with my family on Friday. We haven't all been on a family holiday for years, and my 7-month-old nephew is coming too, so it's going to be a lovely week. Also, Friday is the deadline day for entries to the Nerina Pallot support slot competition, so I might be a mess of nerves by then. I have mentioned it a fair bit, I know, and it is funny because directly after uploading my entry for it, I was anxiety personified. I had levelled off a bit in the intervening couple of weeks, but I noticed today that I am once again on tenterhooks, trying not to focus on a) What could happen if I win, and b) What could happen if I lose. I am not expecting to win, I have seen some of the entries and they are superb, but it's fun having submitting something & I can't tell you how much I would love the chance to do this.
The radio appearance I mentioned last time is still on - an interview & three songs at Moorlands Radio, Monday 26th September GMT, 7pm - 10pm. You can tune in on 103.7FM or log onto http://www.moorlandsradio.co.uk/ to listen live, and if you want to find the Facebook page and send them messages or questions for them to ask me, the page is here, so go for it.
That's all the business & waffle dealt with, I think. If you are new to my internet doings, welcome - please don't hesitate to join in & comment, be it here, Twitter, YouTube or Facebook. I welcome interaction so long as you're not impolite or offensive, so if you like what I do, don't be shy in saying. I wouldn't feel able to do any of this if no-one was paying attention or shouting encouragement!
There will be more blog soon, in the meantime - see you when the next YouTube video comes out!
Lots of love,
John,.xxx
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Monday, 5 September 2011
A grudge or a whim
Evening, readers.
Another day, another night, another session in front of my computer, typing out codswallop in the company of a good cup of tea (one step beyond just "showing it the teabag", I like it weak, but not anaemic). Actually, it's a bit lukewarm now. It was too hot, but I think I've spent too long letting it sit.
(I have to type this now as it sounds rather cool and exciting, but I have had to stop writing this blog for a few minutes after receiving a message from a local radio station, asking for any more mp3s in the run-up to my interview and session later this month. I have hunted down the most recent recording I've made & emailed it off. As a consequence, this blog is now ten minutes behind schedule and my cup of tea is now undrinkable, but, in the long-run, it's worth it, isn't it?)
If there's any of you here who stalks me, you will no doubt know that I have been excitedly starting a YouTube series for the past few weeks (what?! Over a MONTH?!!) and have rather excitedly been doing all sorts on it. Now, I don't know if it shows, but I do work rather hard on them. It's taken a few goes to get the format of my weekly series looking right, but I reckon I hit my stride by Episode Three - the look of it & the way it's put together is now possibly the swishest I can manage (and just wait until I get a lead for my camera - it should really hit a new height by then!). Anyway, to keep to the point: I work hard and I do my best to deliver something you may want to watch.
So with this thought in mind, it seems somewhat silly to allow internet trolls with an itchy antisocial trigger-finger to stamp through my page on YouTube and start clicking "dislike" on all my videos, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Now, I know you could write this off with a simple "Oh, look at 'im chucking his toys out the pram just 'cos someone didn't like his wittering on about fish & chips," and I don't even say that I'd deny that, but the thing is, the rating system on YouTube doesn't seem to make a great deal of sense, or at least isn't a reliable way of gauging a good video from a bad video, and it's also apparently based on the assumption that internet trolls don't exist.
I can assure you, they do.
If we take my uploads as an example: As of Sunday morning, no-one had clicked "dislike" on any of the videos I have posted thus far. I posted Episode Four and within half an hour it had been disliked. Then, in the space of five or ten minutes, all my videos were similarly "rated". But what does it mean to click that button? Next to nothing - it just means that your videos are shown to have a negative rating, which looks bad. I didn't slog my guts out to make something that will look bad purely because someone doesn't like my face! Call me old-fashioned, but if you've nothing pleasant to say about something someone's posted on the internet, you just leave it be, surely? Or if you've a constructive gripe, you take the time and effort to order your thoughts and post a comment, maybe? You don't just click a button that effectively says "I think this is shit, and furthermore, I won't tell you why either!"
I suppose, to me, it goes against the kind of community that sites like YouTube strive to encourage. They try to foster a community spirit, where someone may say "Hey, I like your work," or "This is good, but I felt it needed..." and the "dislike" button seems to go against that - it's just a purely negative thing. When I started using Facebook earlier last year, I saw people saying "Why isn't there a "dislike" button on Facebook?", which I at first joined in with, but now I think I know why there isn't one. Which is why I've disabled the function on my videos. You can now either ignore it, or favourite it, or write a constructive comment. I have no time for people I do/don't know just clicking "dislike" due to a grudge or a whim, so the chance shall not be open.
So, stepping off my soapbox and sliding it quietly under the settee, I will tell you how amazed I have been by something today. I am currently wearing trousers that I wore for my graduation ceremony. In 2001. Yes, these suit trousers are ten years old and they still fit. Unless I eat dinner, whereupon I will sit for five hours and wonder if anyone will notice, should I do an ear-splitting guff to release the pressure on the trouser-fastenings. I will not lie, I am not surprised. I grabbed them out of the wardrobe by mistake and was amazed that I could pop them on AND do them up, but the point where I started to get a vaguely achey stomach was something I had half-expected. At least I didn't launch into a protracted coughing escapade and launch a button into anyone's eye. That would have been unfortunate.
"So, amid all this conflab & soapbox-ranting, is there anything you can offer us by way of actual information, you cretinous halfwit?" I hear you ask. The answer is a sort of a "No"-ey "Yes". I can tell you for definite that I will be supporting Dead Radio Society on October 14th, in an evening's celebration of the release of their EP, "Plan Z" (which you will have to fang hold of when it's released, because if it's anything like the work-in-progress preview I heard a few months ago, it will be simply superb). I can also tell you that I will be appearing on Moorlands FM later this month, on Monday 26th September. Now, they are on 103.7 FM in my local area (just), but they DO broadcast on the internet as well, at www.moorlandsradio.co.uk, and the show is on every Monday at 7pm-10pm, so if you have those hours free, I would love for you to tune in and listen. I was on there in January this year, so it's nice to be invited back and to give a progress report on what I've been doing since (writing alot, playing more is the upshot, but I'm sure I can pad it out).
There is nothing else I can yet divulge, apart from I have three songs that I aim to have a boot around on this week, voice prevailing. I had a bit of a sore throat issue last week & it's just starting to clear up, so hopefully I can get a few things done before I go on holiday in a fortnight. Any other information is currently speculation, unconfirmed or merely an idea floating in the ether, so all I can say is stay tuned, and as exciting things happen I will drip feed them to you. If you're not already, I heartily recommend following me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/mrjohnmacleod) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/mrjohnmacleod) to get the up-to-the-minute info I strive so hard to give you.
So with all the information and nonformation with which I have presented you, it seems a perfect moment for me to give you a hug, a peck on the cheek, slip your arms into your coat (for I'm a proper gent, me) and wish you a safe journey. I will see you here again soon, no doubt, and I will talk just as much shit then as I have tonight. I enjoy these trips to Blogland, but bed calls and a long week awaits. I hope we continue to make this week bearable for each other, so do pester me (within reason).
Goodnight, folks!
John.xx
Another day, another night, another session in front of my computer, typing out codswallop in the company of a good cup of tea (one step beyond just "showing it the teabag", I like it weak, but not anaemic). Actually, it's a bit lukewarm now. It was too hot, but I think I've spent too long letting it sit.
(I have to type this now as it sounds rather cool and exciting, but I have had to stop writing this blog for a few minutes after receiving a message from a local radio station, asking for any more mp3s in the run-up to my interview and session later this month. I have hunted down the most recent recording I've made & emailed it off. As a consequence, this blog is now ten minutes behind schedule and my cup of tea is now undrinkable, but, in the long-run, it's worth it, isn't it?)
If there's any of you here who stalks me, you will no doubt know that I have been excitedly starting a YouTube series for the past few weeks (what?! Over a MONTH?!!) and have rather excitedly been doing all sorts on it. Now, I don't know if it shows, but I do work rather hard on them. It's taken a few goes to get the format of my weekly series looking right, but I reckon I hit my stride by Episode Three - the look of it & the way it's put together is now possibly the swishest I can manage (and just wait until I get a lead for my camera - it should really hit a new height by then!). Anyway, to keep to the point: I work hard and I do my best to deliver something you may want to watch.
So with this thought in mind, it seems somewhat silly to allow internet trolls with an itchy antisocial trigger-finger to stamp through my page on YouTube and start clicking "dislike" on all my videos, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Now, I know you could write this off with a simple "Oh, look at 'im chucking his toys out the pram just 'cos someone didn't like his wittering on about fish & chips," and I don't even say that I'd deny that, but the thing is, the rating system on YouTube doesn't seem to make a great deal of sense, or at least isn't a reliable way of gauging a good video from a bad video, and it's also apparently based on the assumption that internet trolls don't exist.
I can assure you, they do.
If we take my uploads as an example: As of Sunday morning, no-one had clicked "dislike" on any of the videos I have posted thus far. I posted Episode Four and within half an hour it had been disliked. Then, in the space of five or ten minutes, all my videos were similarly "rated". But what does it mean to click that button? Next to nothing - it just means that your videos are shown to have a negative rating, which looks bad. I didn't slog my guts out to make something that will look bad purely because someone doesn't like my face! Call me old-fashioned, but if you've nothing pleasant to say about something someone's posted on the internet, you just leave it be, surely? Or if you've a constructive gripe, you take the time and effort to order your thoughts and post a comment, maybe? You don't just click a button that effectively says "I think this is shit, and furthermore, I won't tell you why either!"
I suppose, to me, it goes against the kind of community that sites like YouTube strive to encourage. They try to foster a community spirit, where someone may say "Hey, I like your work," or "This is good, but I felt it needed..." and the "dislike" button seems to go against that - it's just a purely negative thing. When I started using Facebook earlier last year, I saw people saying "Why isn't there a "dislike" button on Facebook?", which I at first joined in with, but now I think I know why there isn't one. Which is why I've disabled the function on my videos. You can now either ignore it, or favourite it, or write a constructive comment. I have no time for people I do/don't know just clicking "dislike" due to a grudge or a whim, so the chance shall not be open.
So, stepping off my soapbox and sliding it quietly under the settee, I will tell you how amazed I have been by something today. I am currently wearing trousers that I wore for my graduation ceremony. In 2001. Yes, these suit trousers are ten years old and they still fit. Unless I eat dinner, whereupon I will sit for five hours and wonder if anyone will notice, should I do an ear-splitting guff to release the pressure on the trouser-fastenings. I will not lie, I am not surprised. I grabbed them out of the wardrobe by mistake and was amazed that I could pop them on AND do them up, but the point where I started to get a vaguely achey stomach was something I had half-expected. At least I didn't launch into a protracted coughing escapade and launch a button into anyone's eye. That would have been unfortunate.
"So, amid all this conflab & soapbox-ranting, is there anything you can offer us by way of actual information, you cretinous halfwit?" I hear you ask. The answer is a sort of a "No"-ey "Yes". I can tell you for definite that I will be supporting Dead Radio Society on October 14th, in an evening's celebration of the release of their EP, "Plan Z" (which you will have to fang hold of when it's released, because if it's anything like the work-in-progress preview I heard a few months ago, it will be simply superb). I can also tell you that I will be appearing on Moorlands FM later this month, on Monday 26th September. Now, they are on 103.7 FM in my local area (just), but they DO broadcast on the internet as well, at www.moorlandsradio.co.uk, and the show is on every Monday at 7pm-10pm, so if you have those hours free, I would love for you to tune in and listen. I was on there in January this year, so it's nice to be invited back and to give a progress report on what I've been doing since (writing alot, playing more is the upshot, but I'm sure I can pad it out).
There is nothing else I can yet divulge, apart from I have three songs that I aim to have a boot around on this week, voice prevailing. I had a bit of a sore throat issue last week & it's just starting to clear up, so hopefully I can get a few things done before I go on holiday in a fortnight. Any other information is currently speculation, unconfirmed or merely an idea floating in the ether, so all I can say is stay tuned, and as exciting things happen I will drip feed them to you. If you're not already, I heartily recommend following me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/mrjohnmacleod) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/mrjohnmacleod) to get the up-to-the-minute info I strive so hard to give you.
So with all the information and nonformation with which I have presented you, it seems a perfect moment for me to give you a hug, a peck on the cheek, slip your arms into your coat (for I'm a proper gent, me) and wish you a safe journey. I will see you here again soon, no doubt, and I will talk just as much shit then as I have tonight. I enjoy these trips to Blogland, but bed calls and a long week awaits. I hope we continue to make this week bearable for each other, so do pester me (within reason).
Goodnight, folks!
John.xx
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Incorporating my neck-size
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
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
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
Thursday, 21 July 2011
A Musical Catherine Wheel
It's raining. Audibly. It has been doing this all day, and it comes with a feeling that pervades my entire consciousness, which is, I suspect, the reason I've been putting off this blog for the whole weekend. Almost like a character that my sister & I came up with recently, The Great Procrastinato, only moodier and wearing less silken robes. You would have to have been following my sister & I on Twitter at the time we thought this nonsense up, and if you looked back for it on our timelines you would have a lot of digging to do. Still, it made us laugh like idiots, and continues to entertain us, so, on the offchance he reoccurrs, follow us on twitter: @mrjohnmacleod & @rachaelsmac - even if the Great Procrastinato is rare (and let's face it, he can't always be bothered to show up), I would dare to say we're worth a follow anyway.
So: The Blog I Could Not Bring Myself To Write. Not for any particular reason, if I'm honest, just malaise. As I write this, I am accompanied by a mug of hot water. "WHHHAAAA...?" I hear you emote, "WHERE'S YOUR CUP OF TEA?" Truth is, I've been plagued by some world-class mouth ulcers. Seriously. They're where I must have bitten my tongue, because there's one on top or it & one underneath. They have been bugging me since just after the gig I did in Stafford last week. I could feel them coming, but they weren't officially mouth ulcers yet. So I've barely sung, my talking has been pained, to say the least, and I haven't been able to record anything because I will sound ridiculous until these have gone. I was able to do open mic this Wednesday gone, but playing onstage is a bit different to doing a recording. When you're at home, the adrenaline isn't really flowing & won't carry you through, so everytime you clearly hear a lisped 's' you know why it sounds off, whereas you won't ever listen back to the three songs you played for a free beer in a pub, and everyone else will be too pissed to notice.
I have just had a long weekend, the primary reason being that I was seeing Bright Eyes at the Manchester Academy, and had travelled down & booked a hotel, and tramped round the city like the Manchester-loving person I am. I had intended to sit down and write up all my excited thoughts & impressions immediately after the concert, but by the time I arrived back at my digs, I had spent approximately four and a half hours walking then a further three hours standing still, and my legs just wanted a lie down (as did the rest of my body, come to think of it).
Right. First things first. The gig.
Usually, what tends to happen when someone writes about a gig they went to is that they'll gush about the things that were great, then absolutely pull the rest of it to pieces. Well, this is what I have found, anyway. I shall attempt to do things in reverse, and talk about what narked me right off before being all effusive.
It only comes down to one thing, really: THE WANKERS. And, to be fair, there were about three. At the front, at least. The entire back half of the room seemed to be a dedicated bunch of self-interested bastards who KEPT. TALKING. In between songs, this chorus of loud conversation just echoed from the back of the room, and had I been onstage I might have tried to launch a few questions their way, or maybe shared a joke with the front half (who were, for the massive majority, attentive) about how rude the back half were being, and how it wouldn't matter me saying so, because they weren't listening anyway.
The three people in our half of the room repeatedly shouted for Bright Eyes songs, regardless of the fact that the band were quite obviously working through a SETLIST. There are acts who are quite obliging when someone calls out for a song (I can be if someone shouts out at the right time), but it has to be the right time to do so. If you continually bellow "PERFECT SONNET!" every ten picoseconds, then it's going to be short shrift for you, Sonny-Jim. And never mind the guy four along from my right, who kept SCREAMING: "CONOR!" Occasionally changing his tack and going for the more involved "CONOR! OBERST! IS THE GREATEST! SONGWRITER! OF OUR GENERATION!"
Oh, give it a fucking rest, mate.
He did mix things up a little by shouting for Bright Eyes songs, then went further leftfield by shouting for Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, because he was so funny.
An award should go, though, for the guy who came and stood right in front of me as Bright Eyes started. Not content with scuffing the toes of my Converse with the heels of his feet (ie; standing on them), he proceeded to freak out throughout the concert, shaking his head violently, leaning backwards suddenly to sing along & point nonsensically at the stage (forcing me to lean back also, lest he bat me in the face with his stupid cranium), and leaning right in my field of vision in order to snog his girlfriend.
So that's the stuff that grated on me. Now for the good stuff.
Um, yes, so Jenny And Johnny were good. The crowd dispersed a little in the interval, and I made my way to near the front. I was still a few 'rows' back, but I was near enough. Eventually the lights dimmed a little & band members made their way onstage, then 'Old Soul Song (For The New World Order)' kicked in. As the set progressed, I didn't know whether I was surprised or not at what a ball of energy Conor Oberst is onstage. I've always been guilty of assuming that Bright Eyes is Oberst writing & recording under that moniker, but the more I've thought about it, people like Nate Walcott and certainly Mike Mogis make the band as much as he does. Granted, Oberst is the centre of it all, they are his songs after all, but everyone brings their production & musical skills to the records and the live shows, and never was it more apparent to me than here.
Oberst wheeled around the stage during instrumental breaks, like a musical catherine wheel, and also during songs, had a catalogue of subtle hand-based mimes to go with certain lyrics, which I'm sure were not just for showmanship, but also a handy mnemonic tool for remembering lyrics. If you have listened to Bright Eyes before, you'll know that he is among the wordiest of contemporary songwriters, so a small gesture for "as the cylinder rolls" as part of a song's routine does not seem out of place.
One of my favourite parts of the night was towards the end, when introducing the band. Conor worked his way around the stage, giving a a few choice facts about each band member, before encouraging everyone to go nuts for that person while the whole band played four or five bars of a riff, culminating in him encouraging us to then go nuts for the stage crew and, finally, ourselves. It was a lovely piece of showmanship. Then there was a rousing rendition of "One For You, One For Me", ending with the same recording that ends 'The People's Key' (the album that they're touring). It was a wonderful show, and as the lights came up, I actually saw, all starry-eyed and pleasantly ringing of ear, the chap I was supposed to be meeting there in the first place!
What else happened on this long weekend, then?
I had arrived in Manchester on graduation day, and it was rather touching & sentimental to see graduating students from all over the world, dressed in their gowns & mortarboards, talking excitedly to their parents, relatives and boyfriends/girlfriends. It's always nice to see life happening - the positive, life-affirming moments, and not just people desperate to keep moving, ignoring things around them, or arguing. Good days happen, life is kind, and I was having two such days right there.
So: The Blog I Could Not Bring Myself To Write. Not for any particular reason, if I'm honest, just malaise. As I write this, I am accompanied by a mug of hot water. "WHHHAAAA...?" I hear you emote, "WHERE'S YOUR CUP OF TEA?" Truth is, I've been plagued by some world-class mouth ulcers. Seriously. They're where I must have bitten my tongue, because there's one on top or it & one underneath. They have been bugging me since just after the gig I did in Stafford last week. I could feel them coming, but they weren't officially mouth ulcers yet. So I've barely sung, my talking has been pained, to say the least, and I haven't been able to record anything because I will sound ridiculous until these have gone. I was able to do open mic this Wednesday gone, but playing onstage is a bit different to doing a recording. When you're at home, the adrenaline isn't really flowing & won't carry you through, so everytime you clearly hear a lisped 's' you know why it sounds off, whereas you won't ever listen back to the three songs you played for a free beer in a pub, and everyone else will be too pissed to notice.
 |
| Messing about at the hotel |
Right. First things first. The gig.
Usually, what tends to happen when someone writes about a gig they went to is that they'll gush about the things that were great, then absolutely pull the rest of it to pieces. Well, this is what I have found, anyway. I shall attempt to do things in reverse, and talk about what narked me right off before being all effusive.
It only comes down to one thing, really: THE WANKERS. And, to be fair, there were about three. At the front, at least. The entire back half of the room seemed to be a dedicated bunch of self-interested bastards who KEPT. TALKING. In between songs, this chorus of loud conversation just echoed from the back of the room, and had I been onstage I might have tried to launch a few questions their way, or maybe shared a joke with the front half (who were, for the massive majority, attentive) about how rude the back half were being, and how it wouldn't matter me saying so, because they weren't listening anyway.
The three people in our half of the room repeatedly shouted for Bright Eyes songs, regardless of the fact that the band were quite obviously working through a SETLIST. There are acts who are quite obliging when someone calls out for a song (I can be if someone shouts out at the right time), but it has to be the right time to do so. If you continually bellow "PERFECT SONNET!" every ten picoseconds, then it's going to be short shrift for you, Sonny-Jim. And never mind the guy four along from my right, who kept SCREAMING: "CONOR!" Occasionally changing his tack and going for the more involved "CONOR! OBERST! IS THE GREATEST! SONGWRITER! OF OUR GENERATION!"
Oh, give it a fucking rest, mate.
He did mix things up a little by shouting for Bright Eyes songs, then went further leftfield by shouting for Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, because he was so funny.
An award should go, though, for the guy who came and stood right in front of me as Bright Eyes started. Not content with scuffing the toes of my Converse with the heels of his feet (ie; standing on them), he proceeded to freak out throughout the concert, shaking his head violently, leaning backwards suddenly to sing along & point nonsensically at the stage (forcing me to lean back also, lest he bat me in the face with his stupid cranium), and leaning right in my field of vision in order to snog his girlfriend.
So that's the stuff that grated on me. Now for the good stuff.
 |
| Jenny and Johnny - excellent support for Bright Eyes |
I arrived at the Academy (Academy 1 - the big one that you don't need to race up three flights of stairs for!) as the support act, Jenny And Johnny, were playing. I don't think I missed too much and they were excellent. Quite a healthy continual swapping of instruments, which is something I always love to see - bass, guitars, keyboards, passed round from one song to the next, and each played with high levels of versatility and skill. And the harmonies - oh, good harmonies are so necessary and can lift a song from good to heart-soaringly majestic. A lot of people will cite Girls Aloud as being good pop, and I sort of see why - yes, the songs are catchy, but stop for two seconds and think - how many people have stopped you and said "What the hell are these songs about? They're NONSENSE!", but the main gripe for me is that there are five of them. Are any of them singing a harmony? No, they're all singing the same melody. Doesn't that seem wasteful to you? Do me a favour, and find a copy of the song 'Sing For Your Supper' by Cathy Davey - by the end of that song you're ready to burst out those harmony lines at the top of your lungs whilst crying at the sheer majesty & beauty of it all. THAT'S what music can do.
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| Bright Eyes take the stage |
Um, yes, so Jenny And Johnny were good. The crowd dispersed a little in the interval, and I made my way to near the front. I was still a few 'rows' back, but I was near enough. Eventually the lights dimmed a little & band members made their way onstage, then 'Old Soul Song (For The New World Order)' kicked in. As the set progressed, I didn't know whether I was surprised or not at what a ball of energy Conor Oberst is onstage. I've always been guilty of assuming that Bright Eyes is Oberst writing & recording under that moniker, but the more I've thought about it, people like Nate Walcott and certainly Mike Mogis make the band as much as he does. Granted, Oberst is the centre of it all, they are his songs after all, but everyone brings their production & musical skills to the records and the live shows, and never was it more apparent to me than here.
Oberst wheeled around the stage during instrumental breaks, like a musical catherine wheel, and also during songs, had a catalogue of subtle hand-based mimes to go with certain lyrics, which I'm sure were not just for showmanship, but also a handy mnemonic tool for remembering lyrics. If you have listened to Bright Eyes before, you'll know that he is among the wordiest of contemporary songwriters, so a small gesture for "as the cylinder rolls" as part of a song's routine does not seem out of place.
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| I didn't take many photos (many people practically watched the concert through their camera screens!) and this was my favourite. |
One of my favourite parts of the night was towards the end, when introducing the band. Conor worked his way around the stage, giving a a few choice facts about each band member, before encouraging everyone to go nuts for that person while the whole band played four or five bars of a riff, culminating in him encouraging us to then go nuts for the stage crew and, finally, ourselves. It was a lovely piece of showmanship. Then there was a rousing rendition of "One For You, One For Me", ending with the same recording that ends 'The People's Key' (the album that they're touring). It was a wonderful show, and as the lights came up, I actually saw, all starry-eyed and pleasantly ringing of ear, the chap I was supposed to be meeting there in the first place!
What else happened on this long weekend, then?
Precious little, in all honesty. The Thursday & the Friday were spent exploring Manchester, and ignoring my complaining limbs as I walked the crap out of them. My arrival in Manchester was, as it has always been, a thrilling stroll out of Piccadilly Station, towards the city centre, and wondering if I'd be able to find my hotel without the usual desperate two-hour walk before giving up & getting a taxi (Sheffield has always been the bane of my life for finding places & things - I have become lost & tearful on every visit). This time, finding my hotel was such a swift & painless affair ("I'll just walk down this street and get my beari...OH! IT'S THERE!"), that the time I'd factored into finding was immediately redundant, and I was an hour early for check-in. The staff at The Britannia kindly looked after my bags in the interim, so I swaggered off & killed an hour by finding my way to the Academy venue & back.
Manchester Metropolitan University is right by the Academy, and is the university from which I graduated. Alas, I did not go to any of the Manchester-based campi (I stayed at home and studied in Alsager at their Arts & Design faculty there), but nevertheless I felt proud to be walking past a university and thinking "Yes, I am an almnus of this place." Had I studied in Manchester itself, doubtless I would be living there by now & alot would be different, but on the other hand, I dodged an inevitable overhanging debt and I wouldn't have had any of the experiences that make me who I am now, so regret, as they say, is a mug's game.
I had arrived in Manchester on graduation day, and it was rather touching & sentimental to see graduating students from all over the world, dressed in their gowns & mortarboards, talking excitedly to their parents, relatives and boyfriends/girlfriends. It's always nice to see life happening - the positive, life-affirming moments, and not just people desperate to keep moving, ignoring things around them, or arguing. Good days happen, life is kind, and I was having two such days right there.
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| My hotel room doorway. The room was lovely, just not the door. |
I got back to the hotel and had a cup of tea and a sit-down, helping myself to the first of two cups of tea. I found a double-bill of Only Fools & Horses on the TV, chuckled a bit, and noted that from the window of my hotel room (which was, incidentally, right by a stairwell and jarred considerably with the lavish reception & hallways), I could see the coach station to which I had walked all those years ago in 1998, after having my wallet stolen before going to the Apollo to see Neil Finn on his first solo tour. There is a blog about that somewhere, which I will repost if it's not here already.
The day after Bright Eyes, I went to the music shop I had failed to find the previous day (well, I did find it in the end, but one whole hour after it had shut, so I returned during opening hours), and nosed around the guitars & acoutrements. I followed this with a meal at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which is on Manchester's riverside, near the new building complex on the edge of Salford. It was a delightful meal, the staff all very friendly (although still with that traditional catering skill of asking how your food is, just as you've taken a big mouthful), and the restaurant's in-house stereo not only played The Cure's 'Friday I'm In Love' (reminder - it was Friday & I was also in love with everything that day), but also played 'It's Only Natural' by Crowded House. There were other magic tunes too, so I loved that restaurant.
From thence, I paid a visit to the People's Museum, which documents the struggle of the working classes to acquire the vote, the prices paid, and the formation of unions, all the way to the present day achievements of shorter working hours, time off and soforth. As is often the case with visits to places like this, my fact retention is always somewhat lacking, but it was both good & interesting to get a feel for the events of over 300 or so years ago. I'm good at understanding the concept of those times, leading up to now, even if I couldn't tell you specifics!
Eventually, the time came to bid farewell to Manchester and head home. The hotel had stowed my bags after I checked out, which gave me license to roam the city unencumbered, and was a relief, as I had imagined all the above-mentioned meals & trips taking place with me lugging bags about, knocking things over, and generally leaving chaos in my wake. I was thankful that this was not the case. As I boarded the train and watched Manchester escape from my clutches, it started raining. It didn't stop raining until fairly recently (it is now Thursday - I have been not finishing this blog for DAYS now), and that rain, as I mentioned at the start, sank into my heart & refused to be expunged from it until today, which is, coincidentally, the first day that the interminable mouth ulcers stopped being a restrictive burden. So all in all, things are getting good.
And with that tale of music & exploration now wrapped up neatly, I shall bid you adieu. It has been love to share these events with you, now exactly a week after they happened, and I hope you enjoyed reading them. In FACT, I hope you read them at all. Until next time,
TARA,
John.xx
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Arborial Labour and Open Mic Etiquette for Beginners
I hate my hedge. And my garden, come to think of it. Well, not hate so much "don't have time for". I don't hate flora & fauna at all, and some of my most favoured memories have occurred in picturesque gardens so peaceful as to make you wonder whether you'd gone deaf, were you to experience them.
No, my trouble is just maintenance. Endless, bloody maintenance that instead of enjoying, I force myself to think of the things I could be doing instead of sweating it out with hedge trimmers, a broom and a bin-bag. Making a cup of tea, listening to the radio, writing or recording a song, strumming my favourite cover of the week (this week: Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac), going for a walk with my mp3 player jammed into my ears, making time zip past at three times its normal pace on Facebook/Twitter/PlayStation 3, sticking a white-hot knitting needle in my ears - all of these hobbies are, to me, infinitely more satisfying than arborial labour.
That said, I have managed to fit an awful lot into this weekend. In fact, the whole week has been jam-packed (if anyone knows the derivation of this phrase, I would love for you to enlighten me - comment/tweet/Facebook/e-mail me with your knowledge or theories!). I went to Birmingham with my Dead Radio Society friend Matt Tyrer to a pub called The Station, meeting up with his bandmate Sam Hayler, and Ania Maxwell, Kate Wilkins, John Bell & Rosemary Pearce (lovely people all) for the open mic night that takes place there every Thursday. It was a great night, the company was superb & the music first rate. There was a peculiar moment during my song "Imagine If We Fell In Love", where I looked down, and just happened to notice the tiniest of money-spiders slip between two floorboards. It's so very odd when you see something so tiny amid a big room full of people. Well, not so much full but populated.
By the way folks, especially the musicians among you, Open Mic Etiquette Tip: DON'T just piss off once you've played your set. I fully appreciate that some people may travel great distances or have to leave for a specific reason, but you know what musicians respect? Respect. Yes, that's right. We love to play to a full room of attentive people, and cannot bear an empty room or a bar full of beered-up gibbons bellowing over the PA. So it was baffling to see someone get up & announce to the assembled throng that he really wanted to become a part of the "Birmingham music scene", then proceed to play his songs, finish his pint and leave without stopping to listen to what the Birmingham music scene had to offer.
(Admittedly, half the Birmingham Music Scene that night came from outside the area, but we'll ignore that.)
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This week I also completed my first home demo of a song called 'Sea Glass', which you can listen to either on my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/mrjohnmacleod) or my actual website (http://www.wix.com/mrjohnmacleod/music - this site is currently flash-only, just so you know). It was great to finally start experimenting with sounds again after a long time with no access to my eight-track recorder, and doing my own drumming on a record was magic & exciting. My previous recordings have had me programming the drums on a machine, which is ok in terms of it being fairly quick, structured and mistake-free, but you hear the difference & it lacks that je ne sais quoi. The kernel of the song was inspired by my friend Chrissy, who collects sea glass (as I may have mentioned before), and the concept of it just resonated with the notion of life in general, how we're all drifting through life & constantly getting refined over & over & over again, and hopefully being collected by someone who loves us for what we've become. Followed by four minutes of fuzz bass & E-bow. [variety club drum-fill]
What else happened this week? I saw Matt, Sam & Ed Moseley (three quarters of Dead Radio Society - Google them!) play a set at an event called Piccadilly Circus (which takes place in Hanley, Stoke-on -Trent). They were immediately after a band daft enough to turn up without cymbal stands, so the whole event got set back forty minutes while the drummer drove back home to get them, necessitating in the following bands getting their sets cut. Still, Dead Radio Society did a lovely set, despite the efforts of local drunks dancing in front of them & attempting to engage them in conversation. During songs.
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I went to a fancy dress party straight afterwards, dressed as the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker, in case any of you were about about jump on Google), which was a bit cheeky seeing as the theme for my friend Sophie's birthday party was computer games, but I did some tenuous research & discovered that a game had been released on the Amiga in 1992 in which the Fourth Doctor was a playable character, so I was ok. I wonder how they animated the scarf? Actually, a better question would be: I wonder if they animated the scarf? Ed made a much better effort than me, making a costume for Mortal Kombat's thunder god, Raiden that was really quite excellent. It was a jolly fun night, although I am surprised that I drank my entire bottle of wine over the course of it. I don't usually drink wine, and when on beer I keep it to a couple of pints if possible, so this morning's headache was an interesting cranial vice experience. Two bacon sarnies, paracetamol & a cup of tea while listening to Dave Gorman was enough to ease it right off though, at which point I had to start to think about cutting the damned hedge.
See, the thing I dislike about this hedge (I know - what kind of digressive skills have I employed to get us back to where we started?!), is its sneakiness. Last time I cut it was sometime around late Summer/early Autumn, and it didn't grow until Spring, but it didn't just grow, it was as if someone underground pulled a lever & it went from "sparse" to "WOAHH!" in under a week, timing so perfectly that whenever I had a window of opportunity to cut it back down, it rained solidly for entire weekends or, even worse, so sporadically that I kept getting caught in it when stepping outside with the shears, thinking it to be safe.
I would love a nice-looking rear area (stop it) that didn't require me to pull weeds out of it (no really, stop) & strategically rearrange pebbles so that fragments of tarpaulin are well-covered, but so far that is not going to happen. For now I will just have to keep an eye on it & force myself to trim regularly.
Well, I have barked madly at you for long enough. My cup of tea is finished & bedtime fast approaches. There are many interesting things afoot that I dearly want to tell you all about, but for now I must keep it to small talk & chatter. In the meantime, I am supporting the band NEMO this Wednesday at The Grapes in Stafford at about 8pm, so get in early to catch me doing some acoustickery & banter, and keep checking on my site & Facebook for any demoes that I post. I do want to do another couple this week in perparation for my gig in Bromsgrove's Artrix Theatre at the end of the month, which I hope you can all come to, on Sunday 31st July. I will be mentioning this gig alot, just so you know. [smiley-face]
In the meantime, goodnight, sleep well, and listen to lots of good music as I have been doing. (Liam Finn's new record FOMO, Cathy Davey's excellent The Nameless, Emmy the Great's sublime Virtue, Nerina Pallot's exceptional Year Of The Wolf and Lykke Li's Wounded Rhymes have all soundtracked my week).
Goodnight all.
John.x
No, my trouble is just maintenance. Endless, bloody maintenance that instead of enjoying, I force myself to think of the things I could be doing instead of sweating it out with hedge trimmers, a broom and a bin-bag. Making a cup of tea, listening to the radio, writing or recording a song, strumming my favourite cover of the week (this week: Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac), going for a walk with my mp3 player jammed into my ears, making time zip past at three times its normal pace on Facebook/Twitter/PlayStation 3, sticking a white-hot knitting needle in my ears - all of these hobbies are, to me, infinitely more satisfying than arborial labour.
That said, I have managed to fit an awful lot into this weekend. In fact, the whole week has been jam-packed (if anyone knows the derivation of this phrase, I would love for you to enlighten me - comment/tweet/Facebook/e-mail me with your knowledge or theories!). I went to Birmingham with my Dead Radio Society friend Matt Tyrer to a pub called The Station, meeting up with his bandmate Sam Hayler, and Ania Maxwell, Kate Wilkins, John Bell & Rosemary Pearce (lovely people all) for the open mic night that takes place there every Thursday. It was a great night, the company was superb & the music first rate. There was a peculiar moment during my song "Imagine If We Fell In Love", where I looked down, and just happened to notice the tiniest of money-spiders slip between two floorboards. It's so very odd when you see something so tiny amid a big room full of people. Well, not so much full but populated.
By the way folks, especially the musicians among you, Open Mic Etiquette Tip: DON'T just piss off once you've played your set. I fully appreciate that some people may travel great distances or have to leave for a specific reason, but you know what musicians respect? Respect. Yes, that's right. We love to play to a full room of attentive people, and cannot bear an empty room or a bar full of beered-up gibbons bellowing over the PA. So it was baffling to see someone get up & announce to the assembled throng that he really wanted to become a part of the "Birmingham music scene", then proceed to play his songs, finish his pint and leave without stopping to listen to what the Birmingham music scene had to offer.
(Admittedly, half the Birmingham Music Scene that night came from outside the area, but we'll ignore that.)
What else happened this week? I saw Matt, Sam & Ed Moseley (three quarters of Dead Radio Society - Google them!) play a set at an event called Piccadilly Circus (which takes place in Hanley, Stoke-on -Trent). They were immediately after a band daft enough to turn up without cymbal stands, so the whole event got set back forty minutes while the drummer drove back home to get them, necessitating in the following bands getting their sets cut. Still, Dead Radio Society did a lovely set, despite the efforts of local drunks dancing in front of them & attempting to engage them in conversation. During songs.
See, the thing I dislike about this hedge (I know - what kind of digressive skills have I employed to get us back to where we started?!), is its sneakiness. Last time I cut it was sometime around late Summer/early Autumn, and it didn't grow until Spring, but it didn't just grow, it was as if someone underground pulled a lever & it went from "sparse" to "WOAHH!" in under a week, timing so perfectly that whenever I had a window of opportunity to cut it back down, it rained solidly for entire weekends or, even worse, so sporadically that I kept getting caught in it when stepping outside with the shears, thinking it to be safe.
I would love a nice-looking rear area (stop it) that didn't require me to pull weeds out of it (no really, stop) & strategically rearrange pebbles so that fragments of tarpaulin are well-covered, but so far that is not going to happen. For now I will just have to keep an eye on it & force myself to trim regularly.
Well, I have barked madly at you for long enough. My cup of tea is finished & bedtime fast approaches. There are many interesting things afoot that I dearly want to tell you all about, but for now I must keep it to small talk & chatter. In the meantime, I am supporting the band NEMO this Wednesday at The Grapes in Stafford at about 8pm, so get in early to catch me doing some acoustickery & banter, and keep checking on my site & Facebook for any demoes that I post. I do want to do another couple this week in perparation for my gig in Bromsgrove's Artrix Theatre at the end of the month, which I hope you can all come to, on Sunday 31st July. I will be mentioning this gig alot, just so you know. [smiley-face]
In the meantime, goodnight, sleep well, and listen to lots of good music as I have been doing. (Liam Finn's new record FOMO, Cathy Davey's excellent The Nameless, Emmy the Great's sublime Virtue, Nerina Pallot's exceptional Year Of The Wolf and Lykke Li's Wounded Rhymes have all soundtracked my week).
Goodnight all.
John.x
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Peeks and troughs
Hello readers,
This week I intend to attempt some small talk. It's that weird sort of non-conversation you have in order to disguise the bigger picture, the deeper 'you', or the issue at hand, if you will. Kind of like a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. Except not as graphic. Or bleedy.
Some of you may be thinking "But isn't that what he does all the time, anyway?", or "Shit the bed, I'm going to navigate off this now and make a cuppa!" but the fact of the matter is that I hate my stupid big fat flapping mouth and yes those words should possibly have a comma between them but I'm trying to emphasise this point without taking a breath, so thanks for ruining that.
My usual blog-writing tools are surrounding me, namely a cup of tea, a chocolate bar, my netbook, and last, but by no means least, my dim-witted, cavernous, empty head. The reason I bring up this topic of small-talk is that I often feel that I can only do big-talk, and I don't know why that is. I can barely get two sentences into an initially light-hearted conversation about, say, getting your trousers caught on a door handle, without going into moon-eyed wistfulness and before you know it;
Urinals. How can people use urinals? I have been a toilet-goer for some 31 years now, and have never liked them. Troughs too, don't get me started on troughs, because, quite frankly, you can't. I have found myself in some of the most desperate toilet predicaments that I could possibly share with you, and been unable to, um, muster the necessary gumption to stand at a trough and wee in the un-barriered vicinity of another man. I think it's a subconscious discomfort at the thought of someone I do/don't know having an uninvited peek at, well, you know, coupled with the shame & embarrassment should I accidentally see, well, you know.
And in any case it just seems uncivilised, and an open invitation to just shake & leave without washing your hands (I have seen several people do this, and I really would campaign vociferously for some kind of clean-hand sensor in pubs & workplaces). What sort of base mentality do the purveyors of public conveniences assume the average man to have?
I have just thought about this question for a moment and recalled my last visit to a bar, so please disregard any answer you might have come up with, I've probably just thought of it.
My best friend Mike has a very strict rule, one with which I agree and that I uphold (bad choice of words?), and his rule is this - NO TALKING IN THE TOILETS. He has always been pretty stringent on this, and it brings to mind an occasion a few years ago. He & I used to work for the same company, in the same shop, no less, for four years. Every Saturday, at the close of play, we would shut up shop and spend a merry evening in a fine drinking establishment, The Old Brown Jug. Sometimes there'd be just the two of us, sometimes a bunch of us from the shop would congregate, and sometimes his good wife would join us. (I remember one such evening when I'd drunk more than my customary share of beer, and realised that Sainsbury's was due to shut in ten minutes - prompting a slightly giggly race round the shop where I inadvertently picked up a gallon of milk and some All-Bran - my mornings were ruined for about a week afterwards).
When we went to the Jug, for a time we used to turn up in our work shirts, with logos & such clearly visible. This practice ended quite swiftly after what can only be described as a bell-end stood next to Mike at the trough and quizzed him on the prices of DVDs and the entertainment market in general. From this point on, we got changed before leaving the premises.
I always imagined I would be free of these sorts of exchanges, but it was not to be. One evening at The Full Moon, my then-favourite haunt, I turned up for the acoustic night on a night that England had lost a football match to France (apparently it was due to be a clear victory for England until a killer series of goals - that's all I remember because it was after this much info that my enthusiasm short-circuited). By the time I headed in, it was like the aftermath of the Somme. World Cup paraphernalia scattered about the bar like discarded rifles, and tubby England-shirt-wearers either supporting themselves on the bar-top or slumped over pub tables, like wounded soldiers, or corpses riddled with trivial despondency. It wasn't a great night. Especially when one poor woman picked that night to try and get up to tell jokes (it would have been even better if they hadn't been about shitting yourself on an aeroplane, a topic which resulted in her pleading with the audience "Oh come on, laugh! ")
I usually enjoy bantering with the audience, but that night I played my three songs and scarpered. I knew deep down that a cajoling "Oh come one, it's only a game!" would have resulted in the sound of a bottle being broken on a chair-leg.
Partway through the evening, I visited the gents, and a sozzled lad was stood at the urinal as I entered a cubicle. As I locked the door, a voice floated over the wall of the cubicle;
"That's a big bag you've got,"
"Er, thanks?" I reply.
"What have you got in there?"
"My wallet & keys." [Are we really having this conversation whilst going about our toilet business?!]
"That's a big bag for just them things, in't it?"
"I haven't got a smaller bag."
"Fair play, mate."
[sound of door opening & shutting, then silence]
So there, in a nutshell, is why I don't like public toilets. Oh, and I also can't stand those ones where the door's knackered so you have to try and use the sodding thing whilst holding the door shut with your foot.
I hope we've all learned something here today.
In the meantime (always remembering to keep an eye on 'shop-talk', me) I have had a busy week which involved playing some music with my folks, for a Photography End-Of-Year Exhibition at Staffordshire University. It's always fun to have a good drum on my electric kit, and I manage to adjust the pads so it fel alot more comfortable to play. The one problem i've always had with it is the bass drum pad moving forward during songs, and we managed to find a fix for that - namely moving one of the cross-bars down so that it blocked the path of the bass pad. Testing this last night showed that this almost halted its progress, but did mostly mean that the whole kit went for a wander instead, so after every song I had to bring the kit back home. New suggestions doing the rounds include tying the whole kit to my drum-stool.
I shall now go back to writing songs, buying washing-up liquid & planning my dinner. Enjoy your weekend, and keep talking small and big, in equal measure.
Love,
John.x
P.S: I did it! I made it through a blog without getting meaningful! Except the first couple of paragraphs, but that was pre-amble. Give a guy a break.
P.P.S: Readers of the previous blog will remember that I had been listening to Gemma Hayes' new album, 'Let It Break', and that i suspected my mp3 player has been playing it in the wrong order. I was right, and this afternoon listened to it in the right order. Odd as it sounds, it all makes much more sense that way, it's easy to forget how much the sequencing of an album can affect your view on a particular song. I can't recommend this album enough.
This week I intend to attempt some small talk. It's that weird sort of non-conversation you have in order to disguise the bigger picture, the deeper 'you', or the issue at hand, if you will. Kind of like a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. Except not as graphic. Or bleedy.
Some of you may be thinking "But isn't that what he does all the time, anyway?", or "Shit the bed, I'm going to navigate off this now and make a cuppa!" but the fact of the matter is that I hate my stupid big fat flapping mouth and yes those words should possibly have a comma between them but I'm trying to emphasise this point without taking a breath, so thanks for ruining that.
My usual blog-writing tools are surrounding me, namely a cup of tea, a chocolate bar, my netbook, and last, but by no means least, my dim-witted, cavernous, empty head. The reason I bring up this topic of small-talk is that I often feel that I can only do big-talk, and I don't know why that is. I can barely get two sentences into an initially light-hearted conversation about, say, getting your trousers caught on a door handle, without going into moon-eyed wistfulness and before you know it;
- The door handle represents the opportunity to start a new life,
- The trousers represent the transcience of our current situation,
- The subsequent A & E trip to reattach your cobblers becomes... um, well, ok I haven't thought that far ahead.
Urinals. How can people use urinals? I have been a toilet-goer for some 31 years now, and have never liked them. Troughs too, don't get me started on troughs, because, quite frankly, you can't. I have found myself in some of the most desperate toilet predicaments that I could possibly share with you, and been unable to, um, muster the necessary gumption to stand at a trough and wee in the un-barriered vicinity of another man. I think it's a subconscious discomfort at the thought of someone I do/don't know having an uninvited peek at, well, you know, coupled with the shame & embarrassment should I accidentally see, well, you know.
And in any case it just seems uncivilised, and an open invitation to just shake & leave without washing your hands (I have seen several people do this, and I really would campaign vociferously for some kind of clean-hand sensor in pubs & workplaces). What sort of base mentality do the purveyors of public conveniences assume the average man to have?
I have just thought about this question for a moment and recalled my last visit to a bar, so please disregard any answer you might have come up with, I've probably just thought of it.
My best friend Mike has a very strict rule, one with which I agree and that I uphold (bad choice of words?), and his rule is this - NO TALKING IN THE TOILETS. He has always been pretty stringent on this, and it brings to mind an occasion a few years ago. He & I used to work for the same company, in the same shop, no less, for four years. Every Saturday, at the close of play, we would shut up shop and spend a merry evening in a fine drinking establishment, The Old Brown Jug. Sometimes there'd be just the two of us, sometimes a bunch of us from the shop would congregate, and sometimes his good wife would join us. (I remember one such evening when I'd drunk more than my customary share of beer, and realised that Sainsbury's was due to shut in ten minutes - prompting a slightly giggly race round the shop where I inadvertently picked up a gallon of milk and some All-Bran - my mornings were ruined for about a week afterwards).
When we went to the Jug, for a time we used to turn up in our work shirts, with logos & such clearly visible. This practice ended quite swiftly after what can only be described as a bell-end stood next to Mike at the trough and quizzed him on the prices of DVDs and the entertainment market in general. From this point on, we got changed before leaving the premises.
I always imagined I would be free of these sorts of exchanges, but it was not to be. One evening at The Full Moon, my then-favourite haunt, I turned up for the acoustic night on a night that England had lost a football match to France (apparently it was due to be a clear victory for England until a killer series of goals - that's all I remember because it was after this much info that my enthusiasm short-circuited). By the time I headed in, it was like the aftermath of the Somme. World Cup paraphernalia scattered about the bar like discarded rifles, and tubby England-shirt-wearers either supporting themselves on the bar-top or slumped over pub tables, like wounded soldiers, or corpses riddled with trivial despondency. It wasn't a great night. Especially when one poor woman picked that night to try and get up to tell jokes (it would have been even better if they hadn't been about shitting yourself on an aeroplane, a topic which resulted in her pleading with the audience "Oh come on, laugh! ")
I usually enjoy bantering with the audience, but that night I played my three songs and scarpered. I knew deep down that a cajoling "Oh come one, it's only a game!" would have resulted in the sound of a bottle being broken on a chair-leg.
Partway through the evening, I visited the gents, and a sozzled lad was stood at the urinal as I entered a cubicle. As I locked the door, a voice floated over the wall of the cubicle;
"That's a big bag you've got,"
"Er, thanks?" I reply.
"What have you got in there?"
"My wallet & keys." [Are we really having this conversation whilst going about our toilet business?!]
"That's a big bag for just them things, in't it?"
"I haven't got a smaller bag."
"Fair play, mate."
[sound of door opening & shutting, then silence]
So there, in a nutshell, is why I don't like public toilets. Oh, and I also can't stand those ones where the door's knackered so you have to try and use the sodding thing whilst holding the door shut with your foot.
I hope we've all learned something here today.
In the meantime (always remembering to keep an eye on 'shop-talk', me) I have had a busy week which involved playing some music with my folks, for a Photography End-Of-Year Exhibition at Staffordshire University. It's always fun to have a good drum on my electric kit, and I manage to adjust the pads so it fel alot more comfortable to play. The one problem i've always had with it is the bass drum pad moving forward during songs, and we managed to find a fix for that - namely moving one of the cross-bars down so that it blocked the path of the bass pad. Testing this last night showed that this almost halted its progress, but did mostly mean that the whole kit went for a wander instead, so after every song I had to bring the kit back home. New suggestions doing the rounds include tying the whole kit to my drum-stool.
I shall now go back to writing songs, buying washing-up liquid & planning my dinner. Enjoy your weekend, and keep talking small and big, in equal measure.
Love,
John.x
P.S: I did it! I made it through a blog without getting meaningful! Except the first couple of paragraphs, but that was pre-amble. Give a guy a break.
P.P.S: Readers of the previous blog will remember that I had been listening to Gemma Hayes' new album, 'Let It Break', and that i suspected my mp3 player has been playing it in the wrong order. I was right, and this afternoon listened to it in the right order. Odd as it sounds, it all makes much more sense that way, it's easy to forget how much the sequencing of an album can affect your view on a particular song. I can't recommend this album enough.
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