Blast.

AS A COLD WIND BLOWS UP A LATE SPOT OF WINTER,
MOMO UNVEILS SOME HOT NEWS ABOUT FUN STUFF.

And so there it goes. The toughest month of the year – January. Twenty-twelve is really on, people.

Actually, this first day of February is really where the new year feels like it's starting, here at Momo. An absence of pithy pointlessness on Lingo so far this year is down to one thing: puh-lanning. Which sounds buh-oring and certainly doesn't seem to produce much actual content other than reams of scribbled-on A2 paper. But February is where the planning has put first Actual Things To Do in the diary for us.

Things that stand a half-decent chance of adding up to something rather fun for Momo amigos. Namely, a whole New Tunes-a-rama publicity-ma-bob brand re-boof.

Which is a good thing. Just to be clear.

Because we can finally tell you when you can next see Momo live. And because we'll be unveiling a brand new single on the night.

---

Yep. That's what the schedule tells me. And it should know. It looks like some bloke spent a bit of time badly drawing it on a big layout pad, so it must be sound.

EASTER SATURDAY 7th APRIL 2012,
SIXTY MILLION POSTCARDS, BOURNEMOUTH.
THE RETURN OF THE MOMO:TEMPO ELECTRO-POPS ORCHESTRA.

Better believe it. Featuring the full seven-piece line up, we'll be unveiling the first of the new promo brand gubbins for Momo;tempo, ahead of the forthcoming new album launch – from which we'll be debuting the new single and letting you grab a free mix of it right then and there, if you bring your smart pocket telephone.

We'll be tickling around Momotempo.co.uk in time for the night too, and giving more details about a release date for the new album.

..Looks like I'd better get a shufty on, eh.

---

Ahead of all this, I'll be pre-empting the funny business with a first short series of iPhone flicks on the Momo The You Tube channel – showing behind-the-scenes clips of said new single actually being developed. Really. From first arrangement to different musician sessions, I'll share a little of the unqualified tinkering and posturing that goes into a Momo tune.

I shared the scratch mixes of new material with someone other than the lovely first lady of Momo for the first time a couple of nights ago. Mark The Drum. I wouldn't want to go into the details of a private hour between two chaps, you understand, but we did both emerge from the studio fairly light-headed from a goodly dose of OMG. I now have an ally in the excited stakes.

And so also, I can say that the first session of this brave new year of musical creativity is in the diary too. I believe another enthusiastic professional will be turning up on my door with two massive congas on Monday, expecting to flam them for me. How could a chap wait patiently for that, I ask you. Momo's percussionist, Simon, already sounds as enthusiastic even before he's heard anything. Let's see if he feels the same way afterwards, obviously.

---

My schedule is telling me I have a measurable ton of work and casually brilliant creativity ahead of me. My gut is telling me it's going to be a blast.

More soon.


---

Between the ideas.

Well into December, this end of the year feels eerily still and uneventful. Like being between somethings. Not sure whats. But significants.

December traditionally goes raving tonto as deadlines crawl out of every crack in the floorboards in a scurrying panic before the year crashes into the buffers of Christmas. Which is why I had the new Momo studio floor tiled. 

Now, I still seem to be problem solving and trying to pull brilliance out of the brain in multiple ways every day, of course. Don't get me wrong. And Lord knows, every day seems to want to present a new mini crisis to have to smother with an old tea towel. But I do feel a bit limboid.

Limboid, yes. All the running around seems to be happening at some slightly opaque arms length. I'm not in Limbo – far from it's soporific rest, sadly. But a bit spaced out.

A bit empty of witty punchline-outs.

---

Something I meant to post up weeks back is a debate that was going on last month in advertising circles, and I think of it again now after chewing through a little list of new creative work for Typo's clients. Whenever you're first at the layout pad, this issue should present itself rather pertinently.

What is the idea?

Now, though any proper ad man worth his salt will say: 'You gotta have an idea', I tend to think of it subtly differently. Slightly less scarily. And consequently more boringly. 

What is the message?

Wake up. It may not sound as whizzy and artistic, but it's the more pertinent question for a paying client. Even if they don't realise it. Which they won't or they might not need you. The idea is really just the vehicle for delivering the message. So you'd better have a good idea, for sure. But you'd also better have the right message. Though everyone might take a while to notice you have the wrong message if your idea is really good. 

I can't help feeling that redundancy meetings might go a lot smoother if management delivered them as part of a particularly theatrical standup routine, for example.

But anyway. The key thing there is THE idea. THE message. Singular.

The debate in question that some of us were tittle-tattling around concerned two high profile TV ads running more or less concurrently at the moment. Big budget campaigns by big name agencies for big name brands.

Müller and John Lewis.

You've seen the ads, right? Well, I think they serve to illustrate some principles of how to and how not to make a TV ad. As if you had so little going for you that you cared.

---

Well, if you're in the business of blagging your way through making up stuff for a living and hoping to get paid for it, you might consider caring just a little. Because the job of advertising is, in a general sense, to reach people.

Both words need italicising – a blathering amount of cash being spent on TV time and production and creative thinking is all for the sole purpose of connecting with real individuals. Because a connection means stimulating some sort of response. Hopefully some embryonic version of the Ooh, I Identify With That response that eventually hopefully magically leads to the I Need To Buy Me A Bit Of That response.

The Müller ad is, in my humble and profoundly unqualified opinion a fine example of stimulating the What The Ruddy Hell Was That About response. 

But not in a good way.

What is it saying, do you think? ..No, I didn't have the foggiest either. It was almost like a promisingly cryptic conundrum – guess the link between the car from Knight Rider, Dastardly and Muttley from The Wacky Races, The Mr Men, an anonymous ice cream van that Transformerises into an essentially terrifying and inexplicable giant walking grinning eating football monster, a suspiciously clean urban cityscape and… yogurt.

Now. I know. Hold your protesting. You and I both know. Saying this is like walking into Tate Modern and proclaiming your staggering, bum-faced cultural ignorance with the words: 'CALL THAT ART? MY RUDDY DAUGHTER COULD DRAW BETTER THAN THAT. AND SHE'S NOT OLD ENOUGH TO HOLD A SPORK. ART MY ARSE.' 

I know.

Advertisers are going for Emotional Response. Famously. Apparently. But I ask sincerely, what emotional response are you supposed to give to this random soup of thrown-together things? Surely the obvious one is: What The Ruddy Hell's Just Happened? And possibly: Have I Just Suffered A Stroke? 

I tried forming basic words after the first time I saw it, just to be sure.

And the sonic environment of the whole thing. The score. For it is a score, not a piece of music. A tightly to-picture bit of writing that takes particular clever skill on the part of a composer – sudden drama, quirky humour, suspense, action, happy resolve… all within 30 seconds. At what point am I supposed to care about these random things to 'feel' the sudden drama of a full orchestra? And at what time did ANY of these random items individually exist in the musical space of a bloody Hans Zimmer Pirates Of The Caribbean overture?

What, in short, were they thinking when they asked the composer to do this? Or the 3D animator when they commissioned the terrifying grinning eating football? Or the classic car company when they asked to borrow KITT and the voice-over actor who presumably lives in it? Or the Roger Hargreaves foundation when they asked to borrow the Mr Men? Or Hannah Barberra when they asked to borrow an athsmatic dog that can fly a biplane and NOT Scooby Do? Huh? What?

I mean, what?

---

I gleaned a little when I read ad agency TBWA's briefing notes. "People don't realise how much good stuff goes into making a Müller yogurt" they said. Good brief. Good idea to chase. People will have no freaking better idea after watching this. 

Eating an actual Müller yogurt feels much nicer. Simpler.

I personally think it's an example of a whole team's-worth of fantastic talent being used to do great bits of work for something without a single idea. It's entertaining. But it's something that's weirdly hard to love. It's lots of random things tossed into a yogurt pot in expensive desperation. The kind of thing that a clichéd representation of a telly ad agency's clichéd creative-blind account handlers will rave about.

"Look!" these unrealistic cartoons will crow: "We pulled out all the stops. CG, KITT, BIIIIG music. Everything. That'll be a few squillion by the way. Nice one."

I have not bought any Müller yogurts as such since. Don't know about you. I'm sure lots of people think they love it. I doubt they really do. Or have bought any yogurt.

---

The John Lewis ad. By way of contrast.

Now, the point here is not to suggest you should be crying at an advert for a big shop that sells things for Christmas. I'd save your emotional energies. But it's interesting that a lot of people apparently couldn't.

Never mind that the corrosive fear and endless working hours of recession Britain has worn down most TV-viewing families' nerve to breaking point. This TV ad still connected with a lot of people.

I didn't cry. But the room of kids and parents I was in the first time we saw it did break out into applause and cheers. Slice it how you will, that's an emotional response. And a good bit of creative to prompt it.

Why? Because it is one single great idea. A very simple ad to shoot, but done nicely. Consistently. Blind-siding you into not caring about just another Christmas ad, but also wondering out of the corner of your bored eye what was going to happen – before a very cute swerve.

All, crucially I would suggest, setting up the last thing on screen; something I'd put money on them having written first, before any scribble of an idea for an actual advert. The message. An excellent tagline, delivering the brand's values and the point of the whole campaign beautifully at the very end: 'Gifts you love to give'.

John Lewis is for givers.

And isn't that kid adorable?

Clever. Single-minded. Not caught between the ideas; using what's between the ears to hit an audience right between the eyes.

Food for thought. Unlike a Müller yogurt, apparently.


The Müller ad.


The John Lewis ad.


---

11.11.11, 11:11.

Everyone's seen this number a lot today, but I'm a sucker for symbolism, so here we are.

There is something about collective moments. The liturgical silence of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month may be one of the few times the majority of Britons share a reverential two minutes. Apart from waiting for the final lottery balls, perhaps, dunno.

Challenge the nature of the defense industry, harangue politicians for their strategic double standards, camp outside the doors of dodgy embassies, hate the very idea of violence and destroyed innocence and feel a bit uncomfortable at too much flag-waving jingoism – very please do. But very please do also stand with everyone else nearby in remembering and recognising striking moments of service. Especially if those acts of service helped clear the way for you – you at least, if not everyone yet – to realise the whole point of hard-won freedom – to be able and happy to be yourself. You cool cat.

At times like this, I think of a marvelous moment that great chum Chris shared with me from his uncle. This venerable veteran was apparently in a pub enjoying a quiet pint with a fellow ex-serviceman when in strutted a mohawked punk, stapled and starched to within an inch of his social life – it being the late seventies.

"Good god, man! Did we fight in the war so that young people could do that?" sincerely scowled Chris' uncle's old friend.

"That," replied Chris' uncle, calmly draining his bitter, "is precisely what we fought in the war for young people to be able to do."

..Love it. And may we together continue to reverentially say amen. 

---

In the spirit of this, at eleven minutes past the hour of armistice, I think it might be splendidly appropriate, precisely because it is so inappropriate, to declare the sessions for the uproarous, theatrical, undoubtedly camp, electro cabaret beats-and-melodies fest of Momo:tempo's new LP… officially open. 

I hope I can make it a true celebration of creative freedom.

Watch this space. And start counting. x

---

Momo rambles and ponders and declares something exciting officially open. Or started. Or something.

Adventuring by the book.

I wrote an album in the summer of 1991, just before I got married, called Tropical Thunder. It was called this, I think, because the imprint I 'released' recordings under at that time was called Rainforest.

Rainforest Studios was a shed in my parents' garden. It still just about stands there now, ravaged by an unkind, obviously temperate climate under a decidedly deciduous beech tree. While I continue to muck about with and daydream about making electronic musical epics in another, slightly more robust, shed in my own garden.

The point in mentioning it is not to get thinking about the very very old days or to wonder where my four-track is now or why I still don't seem to own a decent piano or where in the hell twenty years went in the blink of a bleedin' red LED, but merely to say that I have now actually heard tropical thunder. 

And probably that, twenty years on, I'm not sure what practical advice I'd give that young daydreamer in a shed. The plan hasn't, ah, well hasn't much fleshed out from there. Really. Apparently.

Tropical thunder, I should say incidentally, sounds pretty much like thunder anywhere else. Except you're almost certainly sweating more when you hear it.

---

I've been interviewed a couple of times in the last couple of weeks and each time is an opportunity for me to refine Momo's elevator statement – the neat summation of all that you do in an easy, insightful, pithy moment in a lift. ..Should some weirdo ask you when the doors close what you like to do between floors.

When I get to hear or see the two most recent interviews in question, I wonder whether they will sound like the same person? If you ignore the sound of the obvious guffawing hoorayer doing the actual tedious talking, you understand – that idiot turns up everywhere. But the point is that the job description seems to sound different every time it comes out of his yawning great trap.

I think both nice journalists, Lenka and Jen, understood that I was claiming to be a music artist of some kind. Jen even called me out and told me, on mic, to compose a tune on the ruddy spot. I inched up to the keys, hands arthritic-lookingly tentative, played a Cmaj chord with a bum note and promptly ended the composition there, adding that the idea might need tidying up but that we could fix it in post. Or something.

The problem is my mouth. It lets slip anything in order to keep flow or to be funny. Sort of useful in broadcasting in a way, and sort of disastrous. No, I never actually let slip Anglo-Saxon profanities, even when they'd be the most precisely funny thing to say, though I did have to retake the odd 'arse' or 'ruddy'. But the main problem is sticking to story. The bits of it that should sound cohesive if carefully said together.

When Jen said to me something like: "So what have you been working on lately?" I blurted out: "I've just come back from Bali."

She blinked and said: "..Really? Doing what? An exotic musical commission?"

To which I replied: "No, no. >honking chuckle< I always do those from a shed in Southbourne. No, I was running an event for a petrochemical company."

..You see? How do I build a cohesive audience with that?

---

Well, I mean it's all part of Momo's remit, isn't it? Freedom. Or something. The reason I haven't taken on a permanent team and gone hunting for big game – the freedom to take on random creative work, join other people's worlds for a bit, and still be able to come home to a shed in the garden and scribble feverishly in a book of grand musical concepts and make electronic keyboard tunes like a twenty-year-old enthusiast.

Sounds quite good put like that, I guess. And it certainly doesn't sound harsh to say that I have been working in a five-star resort on the Indonesian island paradise of Bali, either. I can see that.

The point is probably something to do with being fully wherever you are needed in any given moment. Would that I was frequently needed to do good work with great mates for a client it feels a little honouring to be working with in an exotic setting. Obviously. I mean, just obviously.

I would point out, though, that this particular creative assignment still illustrated an ignoble truth of my work – namely, that there is no conceivable setting, or hour of the day, or place on earth in which I may not be expected to interact with a rollerbanner. Hashtag: livingthecreativedream. Glamour has never given to me with both hands. If she ever does to anyone, of course.

It's the issue of service that is always the most pertinent one for any creative gunslinger – are you being the practical use your client needs you to be, despite the background notion dawning on you as you look up from your To Do list that you're wearing a suit on a humid beach front resort under palm trees to the sound of gently shushing waves and warmly ringing evening cicadas in the warm glow of a postcard sunset? The challenge is always the same, even if the eventual sunburn – ah – the brief, isn't. Or the cost of drinks.

It is a challenge.

---

I've long felt that Momo, even before it was Momo, may be a little ship – one small enough that breaking out the emergency oars and pulling for all you're worth can still make a difference in a high sea – but that it's with little ships that people travel the world. And found the New World. You can cover a great distance in a little ship, and discover some great things.

Of course, it helps if you have some great mates who are nice enough slash damn-fool enough to invite you on a great gig – and I owe an alarming number of these to the generosity of one of the oldest of friends, Julian. I think I still owe him for room service too.

The point may be, after all, that setting out on an adventure is not about getting from A–B. It's usually about surviving from A–Z. Your little ship will have to put into all sorts of unexpected ports and perhaps even get washed up on some very unexpected beaches. It doesn't necessarily mean that your story has veered off course. Even if chapters of it don't seem to fit the narrative you set out to explore. I'm sure the eponymous Odysseus would have something to say along these lines. 

And so would a bloke called Homer, who compiled / made up most of Odysseus' epic adventures from the equivalent of a shed in Smyrna.

In fact, I think I've always instinctively known that, for many of us, it's the book of daydreams that inspires us to even try getting back in the boat each morning. Attempting to navigate. Hoping to survive. Fooling ourselves into trying to make it somewhere.

---

From behind her little video camera, Lenka asked me: "What are you doing next?"

Feeling a little adventurous twinkle in the corner of my eye, I said: "I'm starting a new album. And I'm SO excited – I've been daydreaming about it for, like, ages – I have this book of scribbles and…"

---

No script.

On the morning of my forty-first birthday, yesterday, I woke up to two things: A gift from the lovely first lady of Momo of a beautifully edited book of script typography and caligraphic design, and the news that co-founder and mentor of Apple, Steve Jobs, had died.

As John Stewart was to put it on that night's edition of The Daily Show, some industry leaders we seemed to wring dry, watching them die old and in increasing irrelevance. But it feels as if Steve had a lot more to share with the world yet. "Like a space alien landed and left us a new piece of technology and an instruction manual before shooting back off into space again, just as we're shouting: NO! WHAT DOES THE GREEN BUTTON DO?"

And you began to accept the idea that the iPhone was actually possible for humans to have developed. You gullible idiot.

---

It is said that he wasn't an easy man to work with. A man with a drive for excellence. All I can say there is that I've always greatly appreciated the excellence and humanity in Steve Jobs' work. And also that I am very easy to work with.

My whole creative career, wildly unremarkable as it's mostly been, has been equipped and enhanced very largely by Apple. I still have no proper idea how to operate a PC; they are clunky tools of a bygone age to me, and have been since they were new. Macs are human, and always have been by comparison somehow.

I feel sure that many tech heads and devotees will be snapping on WWJD wristbands with the Mac start-up icon on them and frequently asking themselves in tricky situations, What Would Jobs Do, but I think the most duh-obvious thing he did always was think like a human. Like a squelchy bag of fluids and hormones and skin and bone that wanders around getting damn-fool notions into its head and responding to any number of often illogical 'impressions' and 'feelings' and lusts and fears. 

Traditionally, engineers and IT designers seem willfully able to leave any such awareness at the door of the germ-vacuumed test lab.

You see, good design, boys and girls, always articulates a perfect equilibrium between form and function. 

An engineer, so tradition goes, will problem-solve a new bit of tech in a brilliant way under the bonnet. But probably won't then be able to close the bonnet. Not without sawing a bit off it, five minutes before the glitzy launch presentation. And never mind finding a place for the driver's seat.

A creative, meanwhile, will design something highly intellectual and possibly beautiful – so long as their own sense of aesthetics isn't too highly intellectual as well – but don't expect it to have an engine in the first place. And don't touch that bit, because it's just for show and it'll come off in your… and now you've ruined it, look. You sap.

A designer, however, is a zen guru of balance. He or she understands that the tool they're designing should be transparent in its function – that it should not get in the way of the job one iota. They will also understand, though, that the simpler and more elegant that design is, the more secretly pleasing it will be for the bag-of-stupid-fluids highly impressionable shaved ape using it. The task may need to be done for objective, spread-sheetable reasons, but if the tool puts some unquantifiable joy into it for the tool wielder, he or she will oddly enjoy his or her work rather more – and so undoubtedly do it rather better. An ultimately bankable end result.

And let's face it, it's hard to think of bits of product design that embody this ideal more than some of Apple's. 

Has any industry giant created more emotional response from its product launches? More devotion in its fans? More sheer wow factor in its innovations? And has any international CEO worth squillions elicited so much respect and reposted quotes from his speeches as Steve Jobs?

Whether you love or resent the Apple story, you'd be pretty churlish and silly to deny he seemed to know his app from his elbow in business.

..And that Apple's influence in changing the way humans do some things is frankly remarkable. Clever ideas are one thing, but in terms of Making An Actual Difference, delivery is everything.

..Though you may have to wait a devil of a time for shipment.

---

Plenty of folk were reposting Steve's Stanford commencement address from 2005. Most of it is quotable, it seems. Stuff about following your heart and other guff you'll dismiss in a cynical mood… except it's coming from someone who's belief in the way everything in life can help you learn more and do better actually lead him to become, well, Steve Jobs. Near legend.

..That being diagnosed with untreatable cancer after espousing a Death Focuses The Mind, Man philosphy for years, actually helped him focus the mind enough to go on and develop the iPhone and the iPad and beat the cancer.

..That being fired from his own company as a success-legend millonaire when he was still only thirty lead him to wander the Earth looking for new ways to follow his heart and rebuild it from being basically broken by the experience and so along the way found Pixar, arguably the world's most original, warm-hearted, intelligent and successful animation company.

..That dropping out of college right back at the beginning of his adult life lead to him 'dropping in' on a calligraphy and typography course which opened his eyes to the beauty of letterform to such a degree that he built the concept strongly into the design of the remarkable little Mac SE that I first sat infront of with my mouth open in 1988. And which essentially set the whole tone for Apple's game-changing cultural attitude.

---

At forty-one now, I may have demonstrated beyond doubt that I am not able to leave the lovely first lady of Momo alone long enough to bother with the sort of drive that will one day change the way humans do things, but Steve Jobs' attitude has helped to change the way I do things. 

I shall look at my wife's inspiring birthday gift and remember him and his inspiring desire to make things better. More effective, because they are more elegantly human.

And I shall try to remain encouraged that when life seems to forever be deviating from the script, it may be writing a better, even a more beautiful, story.

---

Get out of the box.

I was intent on responding to something today that is oddly close to my heart. In that, this issue makes everything close to everything – the tiny state of British housing.

The RIBA has actually come out and criticised the design of new homes in the UK today, and it's surely about ruddy time. We are the only country on God's Earth, it seems, to value our homes on number of rooms rather than floor space, AND to have repealed the minimum standards for human living space in building control.

I've said it before, but the British can be a bloody backwards bunch of banana heads. We seem addicted to making life hard for ourselves. And to helping people make money out of substandard work.

There are at least a couple of essays in there for me, I feel – one about the eternal, instinctive clash of cultures between UK Planning and UK developers, and another about the whole point of design in everyday life. Something to do with human wellbeing or somesuch.

The thing is, much as I can only repeat incessantly that you should sit yourself down for three hours and watch all three episodes of charming metro architecture critic Tom Dyckhoff's wonderful, encouraging, wise series The Secret Life of Buildings, before preparing to rise up and take to the streets in very polite protest at the shocking shiteness of British policy towards the public realm… I'm now thinking about little boxes in general.

We seem to love them. Can't seem to think outside them, in fact. Something I felt again lastnight, at a little event in town.

---

Did you know that there is a small ton of stuff going on in Bournemouth that's creative and forward thinking?

You did? .. No, I don't just mean whatever it is that you're up to. Though that would surely add to the south coast's cultural GDP on its own, I'm sure. No, I mean stuff outside. Out there. Where the others are.

You didn't? Not surprised. I mean, where would you look to find out?

Co-ordinating comms about anything in Bomo does seem a problem at the moment, and I've thought it for ages. But the truth is… well, the truth is two-sided, actually. One: there's a lot more interesting creative stuff starting to happen in Bournemouth these days than most people realise. And, two: most people still can't be arsed to make the most of it. But if there's a third edge, a rim, holding the two sides together, it is that truth about comms. I can't help feeling that if you build up the critical mass of publicity, it eventually fullfills its own prophesy.

But still. There's work to be done to really change the culture down here by the seaside in our comfy town.

---

Lastnight I pottered along to the first of Strawberry Lantern's B:Reel events – a networking event for any creatives interested in film. And to pull together a decent excuse to get together, the chaps behind the initiative had also incorporated the franchise for Future Shorts – the now-international groovy short film screenings nights, of which we've enjoyed a few in Bournemouth over the years. You never know what's going to come on screen next, which is wonderful.

Interestingly, the setting for the night was the now almost-one-year-old Pavilion Dance, overlooking the lower gardens in the belly of the Pavilion Theatre building.

I say interesting, because for me the symbolism of having brand new creative space in the heart of the town is significant. Encouraging. Kind of exciting. And so is the news that Arts University College Bournemouth is taking over the next door unit to do something else interesting; they're refurbing it now. This seems like very good news to me.

Perusing the itinerary for Bournemouth Arts By The Sea fest as I drained a perhaps ill-advised free glass of Merlot on an empty stomach after a frantic circuits class, I was also reminded, as I reached for a chair, that Carol and Kerry and Councilor Lancashire have actually made an arts event happen all over town, with some mighty interesting things all over its schedule. Meant to say this to Carol, who was there, along with many other familiar creative faces and chums who I've been getting to know in a growing myriad of crossing-over arts and business events this year.

Thing is. I had two separate conversations with dynamic local creative forces lastnight, as we waited to wander into the auditorium. And they both made me think the same thing.

Each of them is in the process of bringing in to land a creative media event right in Bournemouth town centre. Both are about to happen at the same sort of time. And each one involves some really significant names in their industries – coming all the way to Bournemouth to share knowledge and insight about what they do. Coming right to us.

That these events are happening here should be big news on the local arts calendar. The crucial, if trivial sounding, credibility of them is a huge thing to add to what individual musicians, film makers, writers, digital creatives and performers are already doing here. 

The problem is, we don't have a cultural calendar here yet. So almost no-one knows these things are happening.

And yet that's not the problem each of these good champions of art and business coincidentally relayed to me. The problem is with so many who DO know. ..They can't see the value in the opportunities.

And this is the real malaise of Bournemouth; the culture it has to overcome: Life here is too comfy for many people. It's sleepy and well fed.

Except it isn't. One of the problems may be an issue of diminished expectations. And Mark Kermode's blog post on the subject, taken from his new book, is as erudite a take on the issue as I have read, discovered only this morning. His passion for the problem of it all over the film industry is exactly the feeling I've had for so long. And I shall probably write about that separately too, crucial as creative conviction is over brainless business.

The point is, that people need to think outside their little box to make a difference. Or a dollar. And Lord knows I understand comfy little boxes; who wants to leave the warmth of the airing cupboard and the cotton wool bedding for the visceral uncertainties of the garden? I mean, it might be raining out there. And all I want to do is play on my wheel.

Maybe we're all safer and happier being hamsters. Or kittens. But I don't know about you, I feel the call of the wild every now and then. And I think most people do.

Shouldn't we want more – more adventure from our lives, more life in our comfy lifestyle town?

If we want to further our experience, our skills, our outlook, our reach as artists, we need get out of the comfortable little boxes we live in. Jeepers, our job as artists is to lead the way in thinking outside the box, in exploring, in taking risks.

But I can't help feeling that while kings and queens of innovation and encouragement feel discouraged by the same-ol' same-ol' of local lazy thinking, they are actually to not give up. There is something about building critical mass about this, I feel. About keeping going yet. About saying we made some shet happen.

I feel it for Momo. I feel it for Bomo: Too soon to give up, somehow. 

Stepping out of things can require extraordinary amounts of faith, but I think we should demonstrate it. We should raise our expectations, and live by them.

Here, grab my hand.

---

Off.

I think I am back. Back on it. The floor. The schedule. The lonely road. Whatever. ..But it took a while.

Because, though this is just a quick check-in and not a comprehensive account with diagrams and video and chalk outlines and holographic charts, I can at least report that Saturday night appeared to go actually, appreciably, right ruddy off. And it caught me off guard.

If you're going on at 11.15pm anywhere, I think it's fair to say that you'll have had a long day by the time you're sauntering into the lights with a finger-pistoling wink; how DJs get up to start sets at three in the morning I'll never know. I guess they are, at least, not expected to say much from behind the turntables or the Ableton screen. I was frankly a bit spaced out after a day of last-minute arrangements, and rehearsals and lugging things about and the general levels of nervous energy needed to be of any use on a live project day. I think we all were.

So I was, in the end, fairly disasterously wrong-footed for a few moments as I finally reached for the trackpad on the Macbook that night. A delirious state of mind is easily giddied further when two frames of reference suddenly jerk out of place around you. Two reasonably fundamental things for a performing musician.

Suddenly-screwy sound levels. And a suddenly-euphoric crowd.

What exactly happens to a sound set-up you leave in buoyingly good shape after a lengthy soundcheck with the very capbable, calm, likeable sound chap for the night, goodness knows. What we ask of a set-up – what we ask of ourselves – when Momo:tempo's Electro Pops Orchestra gets up to blast four-part brass and two-enormous-part percussion over a digital mix with a chap-rapping tit expecting to be heard over it all is not simple. So as we ambled off for a late bite that early evening with the sound sounding pretty great, I was a very happy bunny.

It is then that the pixies come and turn things off and turn things down and pull things out so they can ultimately dangle you in front of people helplessly like a time-filling talentless buffoon.

..And yet. Those pixies were, it seemed – certainly from where I was standing – shooed away rudely by the crowd that night at Sixty Million Postcards.

As the good people of Bournemouth's weekend reveling crowded right in and I was left, once again, struggling in my delirium and my sudden spinning gimbal of reference to not trip over, like, everything, and high-kick over the laptop stand and the keyboard and the monitors and the band… the noise in the joint rose absurdly. As each tune we belted out concluded, the place went, well… beserk.

It was a bit of a wild ride. I'm just not used to a room full of people who appear to be showing all the signs of totally getting what I do. I thought for the first twenty minutes it might be a crowd conspiracy to take the pee. I did.

But you have to admit, that band behind me is pretty ruddy awesome. 

John, Pat and Dave were joined this time by Nick who together kind of blew the house away as the horn department at the back. When they jammed over Momo's new track, revealed on the night, and I impressively lost all frame of reference including my name and which way on my underpants were, they just made the whole thing sound Very Cool Indeed, while I mixed a drink and filled in the Times crossword at the front or something. Amazing.

And when Mark rolled in authoritatively with the live beats on slightly expanded Golden Age micro favourite Up in the party and Simon rocked in with the congas, the place just went wild. They greeted our playing and Momo's tunes and my berking about like old friends. I was hoarse by half midnight. The boys worked their talents and professionalism crowd-pleasingly hard that night.

It must be said too that the chaps at Sixty Million were very nice to us and thanks must go to Alfie for his hard work ensuring we could play and keep playing that night. Props too to Suzy for wearing down The 'Mill to let us in and for giving up the evening to helm the Momo merch stall.

But biggest thanks to you, if you were there and took part. Quite apart from all the lovely Momo amigos who made the effort to come out and stay up just to see us, if you'd not heard of us before that night and chose to encourage us by making very loud appreciative noises throughout our tiny show, you should know I am very grateful.

Ruddy nora, eh?

Still. Momo has me back at the lathe with no time to luxuriate in the success of one seaside bar knees-up, fab as it felt.

Time to get on.

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