Moi je croix.
What do you take comfort in? I think that most of the things humans take comfort in are – if analysed with that most unfair of scientific tools, honesty – flimsy notions. Impressions. Brands, if you like – ideas of things that fit our view of the world and that we want to buy in to, to reinforce it. Romance, in other words.
Think of places. Caroline and I were contemplating the idea of city brands – every famous place on Earth paints an instant impression in your mind when you say the name – Egypt, Rome, New York, London. And straight away you know how much you identify with that place or not. Have you always been a London type of person? Does Marakech open a door of exotic comfort for you? ..If so, where the hell did that come from – you live in Bournemouth.
Both of us, for example have long taken a strange and well-known comfort in Paris. The idea of Paris. Don't know why, but we do bang on about it. We were each asked once, separately, what our Favourite Place On Earth was – daft parlour game – and we both said the French capital.
Now, to a flimsy dandy like me, a place as ponsed-up as the city of lights is an obvious choice – a perceived lifestyle of loafing in cafés talking lightweight philosophy as a basically-not-veiled-at-all excuse to watch aloof french birds swing up and down the leafy boulevards. All safe in the knowledge that some of the finest creative names in history came here to do and to champion, even, exactly that.
..But Caroline? Perhaps the least pretentious human alive? She chose this place?
Don't get me wrong, I doubt either of us would want to live in a world where you could never actually leave your Favourite Place On Earth – Greek inlets, Swiss Mountains and Scandinavian forests are all worth a visit I hear – but our joint admission just goes to show what a strong impression places create – usually despite the facts.
It makes no dent on my romantic daydreams of the Left Bank, for example, to be all-too aware that most Parisians live outside the Periferique and have a fairly unromantic view of the French police and their identity in Gallic society – that much-photographed Haussman-ploughed city centre still gives off an intoxicating vibe. And I don't mean the dog shite.
But who remembers the city's attempt to publicise itself – 'Paris, c'est la Peche'? And, for that matter, how many people remember that The Big Apple was so christened by an ad campaign? At the beginning of the 21st century, at least, these iconic locations appear in our minds as fully formed brands, without an ad man or a local community influencing us either way. Don't they?
Perhaps. But I'm not sure it's quite so simple. What's your view of Berlin? Black and white Nazi propaganda backdrop – or Lily Von Stüpp in fishnets, drawling 'I'm so tired…' on a back-turned chair? Or maybe you think of the wall and wonder what all that was about. I've not been yet – 'yet', note the brand impression already formed in my mind – but I think of a dynamic place of creativity and regeneration – art galleries and forward-thinking music. How right will I turn out to be when I go?
Places can change their brand then – perhaps when they fall out of the world's consciousness a little and have to make a new statement. But how do they get inspired, these grand new statements? You may be able to – and have to – stump up umpteen million euros to re-imagine the Pottsdammer Platz, or to create La Defence, or Canary Warf, but who inspires creatives to get together and be really inspired somewhere? They probably put the soul, or at least the brand, into a place – but what puts the soul into them when they go there?
I couldn't answer that without really thinking about it, which I can't be arsed to now – it's midnight, for Pete's sake. But it makes me think of another idle notion that I've long taken great comfort in: the idea that British people are united by their use of humour. It's the one thing that Middle Englanders quietly think they're still allowed to be collectively proud to be British about – perhaps the one remaining thing.
On Fi Glover's show last Saturday morning, there was a very nice lady sharing her Inheritance Tracks – pieces of music of personal significance, passed on from parents to children, and children to their children. She was a charmingly unshowy sort, who came out with a pearl I've not been able to forget all week. Because it's something I think I've clung to as a very conscious philosophy for very many years.
The track she felt that her father impressed upon her was by Peter Ustinov – Mock Mozart. The gigantically talented Mr Ustinov is a comfort to many people, I think – a brand he would, I suspect, feel bemused at and unworthy of. But the fact that his enormous-seeming humanity expressed itself so often in sheer sillyness is something to make romantic Britons weep for joy. And Mock Mozart is a prime example. It's what I do in the shower most mornings. On this record, he has basically multi-tracked his own voice as a series of strangely convincing operatic enunciations of random Italian words, to a Mozart-like score. It's a piece of class daftness.
But what this lady, Anna, said it made her think of was her father's strongly-held philosophy – if nothing is sacred, then everything is sacred.
If nothing is sacred, everything is sacred.
That's it. That's why it's so bloody important to be funny. It's defiant. It's victorious even, when you've little other reason to feel so. And it shows what true value every little moment has.
Call me a daft romantic, but this is something I believe. And I find it a great comfort indeed.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Pneu pneu – da-daahh de-dada.
Pneu pneu – da-daahh de-dada.
A whole week has gone by without having a wife around. Given that we're normally both living and working around eachother here in the flat, it's been a strangely un-strange week for me; think we've both just gotten on with things. And I rather think Caroline's week has been more intense than mine, which is a cruel twist of fate given that I've been working and she's been on a sketchbook field trip to Montpelier. Still, I'll have to work up the sympathy a little when she returns, as right now I think she's likely to be in a café in Paris, diverted to the city of lights by the current French rail strike. I've had FIP on round the house all day, listening to a bonkers-eclectic playlist and Parisian traffic reports in solidarity.
Lastnight, it was French music too. Though I've yet to decide if Air's fashion sense is the future or not – it wouldn't be the future of a family, if I did adopt their tight white jeans as my new look du jour.
I'm beginning to wonder if the Opera House has pants acoustics. Can't say lastnight's mix was any better than Pendulum's a week ago – and what a dreary technical way to start a review of one of Pop's most enjoyed left-of-centre groups. But trying to pull off electronic music live is a tricky one, I feel prompted to say again, and though the boys did an admirable job with their band, a combination of fizzy synths, live vocoding and a middle-aged audience did little to create a seething Zion in the mosh pit.
Still, as an inadvertant Air nerd, I enjoyed playing air keyboards along to their back catalogue and it was nice to hear so much from their least commercially successful album, 10,000htz or whatever it's called. It was a likeable, tuneful show with a fabulously over-egged, arpeggiated finish, even if they'd cleared off with a friendly 'bon soir' by quarter to eleven. They obviously figured their demographic would need to get home sharpish to relieve the baby sitter. Never mind.
I did have a bit of a Pavlovian reaction to some of the tunes from Moon Safari though – I've had so many darned dinner parties to that album over the last decade, I was desperate for the main course by the end.
So, to celebrate a night out properly, we turned a joke into an action plan and Andy, Mark, Mike, Emma and myself hotwheeled to the Chick King and ate mushroom burgers in the seafront carpark.
Health kick starts tomorrow, when Caroline is back. I had better get the hoover out; if I still haven't cleared the washing up by the time she walks in later, I won't be humming french lounge music, it'll be something from The Muppets.
A whole week has gone by without having a wife around. Given that we're normally both living and working around eachother here in the flat, it's been a strangely un-strange week for me; think we've both just gotten on with things. And I rather think Caroline's week has been more intense than mine, which is a cruel twist of fate given that I've been working and she's been on a sketchbook field trip to Montpelier. Still, I'll have to work up the sympathy a little when she returns, as right now I think she's likely to be in a café in Paris, diverted to the city of lights by the current French rail strike. I've had FIP on round the house all day, listening to a bonkers-eclectic playlist and Parisian traffic reports in solidarity.
Lastnight, it was French music too. Though I've yet to decide if Air's fashion sense is the future or not – it wouldn't be the future of a family, if I did adopt their tight white jeans as my new look du jour.
I'm beginning to wonder if the Opera House has pants acoustics. Can't say lastnight's mix was any better than Pendulum's a week ago – and what a dreary technical way to start a review of one of Pop's most enjoyed left-of-centre groups. But trying to pull off electronic music live is a tricky one, I feel prompted to say again, and though the boys did an admirable job with their band, a combination of fizzy synths, live vocoding and a middle-aged audience did little to create a seething Zion in the mosh pit.
Still, as an inadvertant Air nerd, I enjoyed playing air keyboards along to their back catalogue and it was nice to hear so much from their least commercially successful album, 10,000htz or whatever it's called. It was a likeable, tuneful show with a fabulously over-egged, arpeggiated finish, even if they'd cleared off with a friendly 'bon soir' by quarter to eleven. They obviously figured their demographic would need to get home sharpish to relieve the baby sitter. Never mind.
I did have a bit of a Pavlovian reaction to some of the tunes from Moon Safari though – I've had so many darned dinner parties to that album over the last decade, I was desperate for the main course by the end.
So, to celebrate a night out properly, we turned a joke into an action plan and Andy, Mark, Mike, Emma and myself hotwheeled to the Chick King and ate mushroom burgers in the seafront carpark.
Health kick starts tomorrow, when Caroline is back. I had better get the hoover out; if I still haven't cleared the washing up by the time she walks in later, I won't be humming french lounge music, it'll be something from The Muppets.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Afrikaans apricots. Sort of.
Afrikaans apricots. Sort of.
Alas, I am left alone. Couple of days in, and Caroline's absence from the home for a whole week is a darn shame on a cold winter's night, but we are both being remarkably grown-up about it. While Caroline is drawing flick-book stick men with berets, while pretending to fill a sketchbook with intelligent elevations of eighteenth century Provence, I've already watched enough Top Gear on Dave to split my head gasket and indulged in splendidly serious World Cinema with Mark.
And that's the interesting thing. Most of my finest chap-mates would furtively turn on Cold War documentaries and The History Channel and BBC Four World Music specials when live-in loved ones are away or not looking. If you are interested in another perspective on the Palestinian debate, for example, watch Sundance-applauded Paradise Now, about two young men from Nablus facing the prospect of becoming suicide bombers. Simply very good and very subtitled.
To be fair, I can't think of much that my lovely wife and I don't enjoy critiquing together. But one Top Gear a week would be enough for her, I think, and I've yet to convince her to snuggle up and watch Downfall, the much-acclaimed cinematic dramatisation of Hitler's last days. I have too, I notice, left Tarkovsky's original epic Solaris lying around conspicuously this week, two years after borrowing it from Jamie. Am I kidding myself?
Interesting thing, sitting here alone in the flat, little nose going blue as I refuse to put on the heating for a day with just me here, in the absence of the loved one, I've made some new friends quickasaflash, thanks to the superficial influence of the internet.
I promised myself I would restrict my Facebooking to real friends – actual people I interact with. However, today I had a friend request from a chap in Capetown that made me bend my rules.
Jaques Maclárn Peach wonders why he's never heard of the name Peach outside his own circle, and why he's an Afrikaans-speaking Boer with Scottish grandparents and a huge family peachtree crest with a mysterious motto in an alien tongue tattooed all over his arm. He pretty much seemed to be asking me: 'any idea how I got here?'
I looked at the ribboned words around the crest on the picture he sent me. Not English. Not anything South African either. With huge communicatio-lingustic instinct, I immediately divined it to mean: 'I abide in hope and abandon fear' – or, as I broke it down knowledgeably for Jaques: 'I live in hope, not fear.' How cool is that?
I then immediately thought of having this crest tattooed all over my arm.
And then I looked into some Scots Gaelic, which I discovered this is likely to be. As poetic and noble as I'd like this hither-to unheard-of Peach family crest vision statement to be, it turns out it could equally mean: 'Keeping myself in beer up in the glen, and enjoying the odd shank of heffer, stops me shatting myself'. And you think I jest.
What the hell was I doing looking this up? I was in the middle of a press production and trying to translate Scottish mottos into South African Dutch!
Thing is, Jaques' story didn't half sound like a story waiting to be unfolded. A series of buried links across the world. Perhaps a sort of Jason Bournemouth. And when I saw how many other Peaches he'd collected from round the globe in his quest to find a family, I felt I could do nothing but welcome him in.
He said: 'it must be nice to have so much family'. I sheepishly replied that I didn't bother with the rellies much – but my friends were as much family for me as anyone.
So make Jaques feel welcome in the UK, especially if you're a Peach. Timewasting so sociably with the snapping social reflexes of the idle fickle is what we do best, so let's keep it in the family. 'Whether on the south coast, the south of France or South Africa, my circle of friends are all Peaches' I assured him warmly.
Alas, I am left alone. Couple of days in, and Caroline's absence from the home for a whole week is a darn shame on a cold winter's night, but we are both being remarkably grown-up about it. While Caroline is drawing flick-book stick men with berets, while pretending to fill a sketchbook with intelligent elevations of eighteenth century Provence, I've already watched enough Top Gear on Dave to split my head gasket and indulged in splendidly serious World Cinema with Mark.
And that's the interesting thing. Most of my finest chap-mates would furtively turn on Cold War documentaries and The History Channel and BBC Four World Music specials when live-in loved ones are away or not looking. If you are interested in another perspective on the Palestinian debate, for example, watch Sundance-applauded Paradise Now, about two young men from Nablus facing the prospect of becoming suicide bombers. Simply very good and very subtitled.
To be fair, I can't think of much that my lovely wife and I don't enjoy critiquing together. But one Top Gear a week would be enough for her, I think, and I've yet to convince her to snuggle up and watch Downfall, the much-acclaimed cinematic dramatisation of Hitler's last days. I have too, I notice, left Tarkovsky's original epic Solaris lying around conspicuously this week, two years after borrowing it from Jamie. Am I kidding myself?
Interesting thing, sitting here alone in the flat, little nose going blue as I refuse to put on the heating for a day with just me here, in the absence of the loved one, I've made some new friends quickasaflash, thanks to the superficial influence of the internet.
I promised myself I would restrict my Facebooking to real friends – actual people I interact with. However, today I had a friend request from a chap in Capetown that made me bend my rules.
Jaques Maclárn Peach wonders why he's never heard of the name Peach outside his own circle, and why he's an Afrikaans-speaking Boer with Scottish grandparents and a huge family peachtree crest with a mysterious motto in an alien tongue tattooed all over his arm. He pretty much seemed to be asking me: 'any idea how I got here?'
I looked at the ribboned words around the crest on the picture he sent me. Not English. Not anything South African either. With huge communicatio-lingustic instinct, I immediately divined it to mean: 'I abide in hope and abandon fear' – or, as I broke it down knowledgeably for Jaques: 'I live in hope, not fear.' How cool is that?
I then immediately thought of having this crest tattooed all over my arm.
And then I looked into some Scots Gaelic, which I discovered this is likely to be. As poetic and noble as I'd like this hither-to unheard-of Peach family crest vision statement to be, it turns out it could equally mean: 'Keeping myself in beer up in the glen, and enjoying the odd shank of heffer, stops me shatting myself'. And you think I jest.
What the hell was I doing looking this up? I was in the middle of a press production and trying to translate Scottish mottos into South African Dutch!
Thing is, Jaques' story didn't half sound like a story waiting to be unfolded. A series of buried links across the world. Perhaps a sort of Jason Bournemouth. And when I saw how many other Peaches he'd collected from round the globe in his quest to find a family, I felt I could do nothing but welcome him in.
He said: 'it must be nice to have so much family'. I sheepishly replied that I didn't bother with the rellies much – but my friends were as much family for me as anyone.
So make Jaques feel welcome in the UK, especially if you're a Peach. Timewasting so sociably with the snapping social reflexes of the idle fickle is what we do best, so let's keep it in the family. 'Whether on the south coast, the south of France or South Africa, my circle of friends are all Peaches' I assured him warmly.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Buff-diff, baby.
Buff-diff, baby.
So, lastnight we went out. Just for fun.
I know – mid-week madness for two hard-working poppets like us. And we were, of course, already sleep-deprived from Caroline's usual Wednesday late-nighter from London – and Mike, who's idea it was, had to be up at five the next morning to do his morning radio show (gratemate), the crazy boy. But when you discover that stadium drum'n'bassers, Pendulum, are doing a live show right in your back yard at the Academy – sorry, the Opera House – it's not so daft to give your slumbers a bit of a dent for such a big beat treat.
The band's debut album, Hold your colour, is as much rocked-up, riff-tastic fun as it is sophisticated style statement. Sort of Apollo 440 for the naughties, if that means anything; all very nicely put together and so hot right now. But I did sort of wonder how they'd make it work live – I know from bitter experience how hard it is to make electronic music mix well in concert. Especially when you're trying to create an atmosphere in a mostly-empty church hall to your mum and a stray dog. It either sounds like a backing tape with you doing karaoke over the top (which it probably is after all) or it just sounds like a clamorous mush. Which is a total cow, because the idea of mega soundscapes filling the night with sonic possibilities is a seductive one – electronic music should be the biggest kind of live music event, to my mind. Never mind, eh, you can always enjoy it properly on your iPod afterwards.
So, as we queued to get into the recently revamped venue and gazed around inside to see how they'd refurbished the Victorian space, I think Mike, Emma, Caroline and I all secretly wondered if everyone else buying tickets thought we were there to drive the youth group minibuses. But we continue to live in faithful Post Rave Nostalgic denial, as dictated by our demographic, and just enjoyed the DJ set – Noisia (I think – who knows what Mr or Mrs Noisia actually looks like, given that no-one ever introduces a DJ set) played some great mixes of electro tunes new and old along with a comfortable blend of lovely drum'n'bass buff-differy. Justice and The Prodigy and all kinds of things I vaguely recognised – all proper electronic music to my mind; groovy and cleverly built. We were all jigging about and grinning a lot as the vaulted old theatre filled and filled.
I looked at Mike and smiled. He and I were swapping musical reference points as usual and I suddenly thought how nice it was to be still doing so after nearly twenty-five years. Then I dropped my smile when it occured to me these reference points hadn't changed much in twenty-five years.
Eventually, the floor below us was a heaving mass of hormonal youth. As the stage finally dimmed and everyone went bonkers, Caroline thought it looked like a renaissance painting of Dante's hell – a dark sea of writhing limbs and red light.
It went off, proper. People were crowd surfing all night and being proudly pulled out of the front by bouncers, while Pendulum's MC did what all MCs do – which was basically: wander around saying 'Are you having a nice time? Sorry, what was that?' loudly, while the musicians who were obviously all too nervous to do any of this themselves, just made a wall of energetic noise.
The two guitarists clearly thought they were simply in a rock band – tight-trousered Mossop & Keenrick ball-stretching oratory stance and all – and the keyboard chap/undoubted production brains of the outfit sheepishly pushed buttons between Axel F-style synth riffery. Meanwhile, the drummer just sucker-punched the 165bpm tempo all night.
It was just very cool. And very ramped. And very enjoyable fun, thanks chaps. It's true, sadly, that you'd have had no idea as a newcomer to Pendulum's oeuvre that they actually made finely-crafted electronic soundscapes of melody and poise, and you'd be hard pushed for some of the tracks to even pick out the face-slapping big fat riffs they're famous for – the mix was mostly a wall of noise. Everyone kind of looked like they were miming in a sea of midrange for much of it, apart from the drummer and the MC who both sounded energetically clear, cool and bang-on. And really, this was all anyone wanted.
Top show; brilliant music hidden in it, with a couple of particularly nice musical moments breaking through the mix. Had a great time.
And best of all, Caroline is finally converted. She finally gets Drum'n'bass. I said: "Yes, darling, the genre's double-time reggae heritage creates an irresistable hip-swinging hypno-saucery that builds the kind of wild-eyed build-ups, break-downs, switches and releases that the rest of Dance music can only aspire to."
She just grinned and said: "Buff diff, baby."
So, lastnight we went out. Just for fun.
I know – mid-week madness for two hard-working poppets like us. And we were, of course, already sleep-deprived from Caroline's usual Wednesday late-nighter from London – and Mike, who's idea it was, had to be up at five the next morning to do his morning radio show (gratemate), the crazy boy. But when you discover that stadium drum'n'bassers, Pendulum, are doing a live show right in your back yard at the Academy – sorry, the Opera House – it's not so daft to give your slumbers a bit of a dent for such a big beat treat.
The band's debut album, Hold your colour, is as much rocked-up, riff-tastic fun as it is sophisticated style statement. Sort of Apollo 440 for the naughties, if that means anything; all very nicely put together and so hot right now. But I did sort of wonder how they'd make it work live – I know from bitter experience how hard it is to make electronic music mix well in concert. Especially when you're trying to create an atmosphere in a mostly-empty church hall to your mum and a stray dog. It either sounds like a backing tape with you doing karaoke over the top (which it probably is after all) or it just sounds like a clamorous mush. Which is a total cow, because the idea of mega soundscapes filling the night with sonic possibilities is a seductive one – electronic music should be the biggest kind of live music event, to my mind. Never mind, eh, you can always enjoy it properly on your iPod afterwards.
So, as we queued to get into the recently revamped venue and gazed around inside to see how they'd refurbished the Victorian space, I think Mike, Emma, Caroline and I all secretly wondered if everyone else buying tickets thought we were there to drive the youth group minibuses. But we continue to live in faithful Post Rave Nostalgic denial, as dictated by our demographic, and just enjoyed the DJ set – Noisia (I think – who knows what Mr or Mrs Noisia actually looks like, given that no-one ever introduces a DJ set) played some great mixes of electro tunes new and old along with a comfortable blend of lovely drum'n'bass buff-differy. Justice and The Prodigy and all kinds of things I vaguely recognised – all proper electronic music to my mind; groovy and cleverly built. We were all jigging about and grinning a lot as the vaulted old theatre filled and filled.
I looked at Mike and smiled. He and I were swapping musical reference points as usual and I suddenly thought how nice it was to be still doing so after nearly twenty-five years. Then I dropped my smile when it occured to me these reference points hadn't changed much in twenty-five years.
Eventually, the floor below us was a heaving mass of hormonal youth. As the stage finally dimmed and everyone went bonkers, Caroline thought it looked like a renaissance painting of Dante's hell – a dark sea of writhing limbs and red light.
It went off, proper. People were crowd surfing all night and being proudly pulled out of the front by bouncers, while Pendulum's MC did what all MCs do – which was basically: wander around saying 'Are you having a nice time? Sorry, what was that?' loudly, while the musicians who were obviously all too nervous to do any of this themselves, just made a wall of energetic noise.
The two guitarists clearly thought they were simply in a rock band – tight-trousered Mossop & Keenrick ball-stretching oratory stance and all – and the keyboard chap/undoubted production brains of the outfit sheepishly pushed buttons between Axel F-style synth riffery. Meanwhile, the drummer just sucker-punched the 165bpm tempo all night.
It was just very cool. And very ramped. And very enjoyable fun, thanks chaps. It's true, sadly, that you'd have had no idea as a newcomer to Pendulum's oeuvre that they actually made finely-crafted electronic soundscapes of melody and poise, and you'd be hard pushed for some of the tracks to even pick out the face-slapping big fat riffs they're famous for – the mix was mostly a wall of noise. Everyone kind of looked like they were miming in a sea of midrange for much of it, apart from the drummer and the MC who both sounded energetically clear, cool and bang-on. And really, this was all anyone wanted.
Top show; brilliant music hidden in it, with a couple of particularly nice musical moments breaking through the mix. Had a great time.
And best of all, Caroline is finally converted. She finally gets Drum'n'bass. I said: "Yes, darling, the genre's double-time reggae heritage creates an irresistable hip-swinging hypno-saucery that builds the kind of wild-eyed build-ups, break-downs, switches and releases that the rest of Dance music can only aspire to."
She just grinned and said: "Buff diff, baby."
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Autumn colours, winter blues.
Autumn colours, winter blues.
Weird. Worrying? Welcome; Momo isn't a frenzy of screams and clamours and phone calls and general jumpings up and down. I don't think I've had such a civilised week in two years.
Of course the studio never has nothing happening in it. I'm still trying to think of a proper ending-in-o suffix for the new branch of the business that Caroline has established – she's annexed half the space, technology, time and effort of the company to studying Urban Design but I'm blowed if I can make it fit the brand properly. I will – have no fear – this kind of creative time-wasting is what I'm clearly best at.
But despite her mad deadlines and my pile of things to do at all times, we took off a whole day on Sunday. Just sort of happened. And what a day to go for a walk in the forest. Just think:
Reasons Why We Live Here
(absence of mountain vistas and a decent music scene not withstanding)
1: People who are prepared to look past our character flaws and invite us in for tea live here.
2: We own a flat here and it makes sense to live in it.
3: The New Forest is cycling distance away and eye-wateringly pretty at this time of year.
Yes, it's true. We went for a walk in the Autumn sunshine from Standing Hat near Brockenhurst and the trees and the colours and the light and the air and the relaxed beauty restoredeth the souls. I just so bloody love living here sometimes. Most times. Been grateful since I was a kid, in fact. Because all this niceness never takes you far from a shop or a rail link to London.
Sad to say that Mum and Dad, however, have been feeling more wintery than back-to-school chirpy. Mum has been badly ill since Dad came back from hospital. Been a cyclical thing all year and the doctors don't yet know what it is. Poor things are so down about everything and I don't at all blame them. They were hoping to get out into the forest themselves this week but I suspect it didn't happen. Shame. They need a little soul-restoring more than many at the moment.
Going round there now, in fact. Because, obviously, they're a pretty big reason why we live here too.
Weird. Worrying? Welcome; Momo isn't a frenzy of screams and clamours and phone calls and general jumpings up and down. I don't think I've had such a civilised week in two years.
Of course the studio never has nothing happening in it. I'm still trying to think of a proper ending-in-o suffix for the new branch of the business that Caroline has established – she's annexed half the space, technology, time and effort of the company to studying Urban Design but I'm blowed if I can make it fit the brand properly. I will – have no fear – this kind of creative time-wasting is what I'm clearly best at.
But despite her mad deadlines and my pile of things to do at all times, we took off a whole day on Sunday. Just sort of happened. And what a day to go for a walk in the forest. Just think:
Reasons Why We Live Here
(absence of mountain vistas and a decent music scene not withstanding)
1: People who are prepared to look past our character flaws and invite us in for tea live here.
2: We own a flat here and it makes sense to live in it.
3: The New Forest is cycling distance away and eye-wateringly pretty at this time of year.
Yes, it's true. We went for a walk in the Autumn sunshine from Standing Hat near Brockenhurst and the trees and the colours and the light and the air and the relaxed beauty restoredeth the souls. I just so bloody love living here sometimes. Most times. Been grateful since I was a kid, in fact. Because all this niceness never takes you far from a shop or a rail link to London.
Sad to say that Mum and Dad, however, have been feeling more wintery than back-to-school chirpy. Mum has been badly ill since Dad came back from hospital. Been a cyclical thing all year and the doctors don't yet know what it is. Poor things are so down about everything and I don't at all blame them. They were hoping to get out into the forest themselves this week but I suspect it didn't happen. Shame. They need a little soul-restoring more than many at the moment.
Going round there now, in fact. Because, obviously, they're a pretty big reason why we live here too.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Musical mirth.
Musical mirth.
(Before I start – what a smug title that is. I mean, it's like something a retired, specialist magazine contributor would come up with; imagines it's clever and wry but is actually a bit up itself in a fairly boring way. I apologise, if you care; it was conveniently lazy.)
ANYway.
Two quick thoughts related to music and maybe worth some mirth. One: saw a fab title for a band at the weekend. Was actually a Daily Echo newsagents' headline hoarding all over town but I'd pay to see this undoubtedly hairy, sullen, noisy outfit if they appeared on the rosta at Mr Kyps – Sex Trade Police Raid. STPR to their fans. Not that I instantly bipass concern at local social problems for amusing myself with words of course.
Two: WHO, I mean WHO thought that the King of Saudi Arabia should be heralded onto British tarmac – as he and forty tons of baggage and entourage streamed across our robustly upholstered diplomatic red carpet all afternoon – WITH DARTH VADER'S THEME FROM THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! Did you HEAR? (I'm running out of typographic enhancements to convey my disbelief.) Jeepers. Is the royal band of the Coldstream Guards trying to make a walloping satirical point before they're hastily dispatched to the Falklands indefinitely? 'Here comes the sinister leader of an evil Empire' music ? I mean ?
I would like to launch into a detailed debate with myself about the rights and wrongs of this visit of course, but I just know I'd never get past the patently fake facial disguise issues that distress the international diplomatic community so. Besides, I need to talk to my wife as she walks the lonely late night streets of London. Poor sausage sounds exhausted.
Perhaps STPR will turn out to have a social conscience and put sarcastic satirical lyrics to an angry indie version of John Williams' tune for Mr Vader.
Crikey, I should just set this up, shouldn't I?
Auditions in a fortnight people. Not being funny.
(Before I start – what a smug title that is. I mean, it's like something a retired, specialist magazine contributor would come up with; imagines it's clever and wry but is actually a bit up itself in a fairly boring way. I apologise, if you care; it was conveniently lazy.)
ANYway.
Two quick thoughts related to music and maybe worth some mirth. One: saw a fab title for a band at the weekend. Was actually a Daily Echo newsagents' headline hoarding all over town but I'd pay to see this undoubtedly hairy, sullen, noisy outfit if they appeared on the rosta at Mr Kyps – Sex Trade Police Raid. STPR to their fans. Not that I instantly bipass concern at local social problems for amusing myself with words of course.
Two: WHO, I mean WHO thought that the King of Saudi Arabia should be heralded onto British tarmac – as he and forty tons of baggage and entourage streamed across our robustly upholstered diplomatic red carpet all afternoon – WITH DARTH VADER'S THEME FROM THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! Did you HEAR? (I'm running out of typographic enhancements to convey my disbelief.) Jeepers. Is the royal band of the Coldstream Guards trying to make a walloping satirical point before they're hastily dispatched to the Falklands indefinitely? 'Here comes the sinister leader of an evil Empire' music ? I mean ?
I would like to launch into a detailed debate with myself about the rights and wrongs of this visit of course, but I just know I'd never get past the patently fake facial disguise issues that distress the international diplomatic community so. Besides, I need to talk to my wife as she walks the lonely late night streets of London. Poor sausage sounds exhausted.
Perhaps STPR will turn out to have a social conscience and put sarcastic satirical lyrics to an angry indie version of John Williams' tune for Mr Vader.
Crikey, I should just set this up, shouldn't I?
Auditions in a fortnight people. Not being funny.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Dad is home.
Dad is home.
Simple headline, to the point – I've just spoken with Dad who has been finally let out of Bournemouth hospital this afternoon. He said to me on Saturday that the rather more walloping meds they'd started him on already seemed to be having an effect, but a chest x-ray this morning apparently confirmed it – he's improving. Slowly.
He's tired, of course. Hospital is all at once a long time in bed and a long time without proper sleep. People all around you are off-puttingly sick it seems. Falling over noisily and re-enacting Sean of the dead in the middle of the night with little consideration for others. And, as far as I can tell, the tea trolley visits the ward on an hourly cycle, morning, noon and night.
Still, the significant answer to many people's prayers appears to be that they've properly diagnosed and prescribed, at last. I'm hoping it will give Mum a little mental rest too. But, of course, Dad is home – so maybe we need to pray for the woman all the more.
Will keep you posted.
x
Simple headline, to the point – I've just spoken with Dad who has been finally let out of Bournemouth hospital this afternoon. He said to me on Saturday that the rather more walloping meds they'd started him on already seemed to be having an effect, but a chest x-ray this morning apparently confirmed it – he's improving. Slowly.
He's tired, of course. Hospital is all at once a long time in bed and a long time without proper sleep. People all around you are off-puttingly sick it seems. Falling over noisily and re-enacting Sean of the dead in the middle of the night with little consideration for others. And, as far as I can tell, the tea trolley visits the ward on an hourly cycle, morning, noon and night.
Still, the significant answer to many people's prayers appears to be that they've properly diagnosed and prescribed, at last. I'm hoping it will give Mum a little mental rest too. But, of course, Dad is home – so maybe we need to pray for the woman all the more.
Will keep you posted.
x
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Late words, old tunes. And the old man.
Late words, old tunes. And the old man.
No, I shouldn't be up. Amazing how hard it can be to knuckle down during daylight hours sometimes, but the late-night glow of the studio jelly lamps has enticed me to keep going with a particular job that needs sending to press tomorrow. Daft. But the wife's away for a second night.
One reason I'm at the Mac late is that I saw Dad again tonight. Yesterday he was looking almost chipper – rested, tested and no, not bare-breasted, a little reassured that the shadows on his lungs were probably not nearly as sinister as the GP's suspicions that had shocked him into hospital. However, today, on the phone, he sounded very down after having had a Funny Turn. One of the nurses had to help him back to his bed from the washroom and I think he was pretty worried by it.
By the time I saw him in the evening, though, he seemed more himself again. Frantic ECG's and blood pressure tests and yet more blood tests showed his heart and system in bizarrely fine fettle.
"You're in good shape, Mr Peach" said the young doctor, staring quizically at the the machines strapped to my pale-looking Dad.
"Good shape?" I can hear him saying, "Good shape? But I feel like I'm about to meet my maker?"
"Yes I know" replied the doctor with a cursory smile, "– odd, isn't it?"
I wasn't there, of course, but this was the gist. What did come out of it though, is that they've ascertained that the shadows on his lungs are likely to be a build up of fluid – and that's what's causing his funny turns. Probably not directly a heart thing. This might be progress.
Mind you, a potentially life-threatening condition is a potentially life-threatening condition, I guess – who cares what they'll end up feeling confident about putting on your coroner's report?
And this does nothing to pin down exactly what is wrong with other issues he's dealing with. One thing I'd like to see really is hospital consultants actually consulting one another…
---
Funny, as a nice diversion, I had a note from Tim Colthup last week telling me he's been listening to an old album of mine – Outrider. What a mate, eh? I mean, what a mate. Made me pull it off a forgotten shelf and listen to it – sat there in bed last night, headphones on in the dark like a teenager. 1995 I recorded that album; a dozen years ago. And, though I've always had a special, vaguely prophetic-feeling affection for that album in particular, it does now seem like another time and mindset, listening to it.
Not to be put off such splendidly distracting whimsy, however, it made me dig out the follow-up album, Worship the system – 1997. And then a couple of live recordings from the same time. And then a couple of old DATs of random stuff from as far back.
I can't help feeling a strange affection for all of it, actually; for the small truckload of tunes and songs I laboured over in the pre-Momo years. The confidence and the creative youth mixed into those pieces; bless me. I had more of a different head on my shoulders then than I had previously realised. Plenty of worthy work along the way I think, but it certainly belongs behind me, paved into the little track I've tromped through the daisies.
You see? Whimsy.
I'm not a big look-backer. Prefer to look forward, generally. But, as I prepare to hit the sack at last, I am distressed to consider that the finest revelation tonight was from a DAT from '98 or so – and the coolest version of the Knight Rider theme I've ever heard. I'd completely forgotten it. I arranged it, I recall, for guitar legend chum Greame – had a funny thing about it at the time it seems.
So there you are. My father is pondering lying in state and I'm wondering if my finest musical hour in the first twelve years of my ignominious recording career was an electro cover of the Knight Rider theme. Goodness, my Dad feels proud for good reason.
Think I'm ready for some new tunes now.
No, I shouldn't be up. Amazing how hard it can be to knuckle down during daylight hours sometimes, but the late-night glow of the studio jelly lamps has enticed me to keep going with a particular job that needs sending to press tomorrow. Daft. But the wife's away for a second night.
One reason I'm at the Mac late is that I saw Dad again tonight. Yesterday he was looking almost chipper – rested, tested and no, not bare-breasted, a little reassured that the shadows on his lungs were probably not nearly as sinister as the GP's suspicions that had shocked him into hospital. However, today, on the phone, he sounded very down after having had a Funny Turn. One of the nurses had to help him back to his bed from the washroom and I think he was pretty worried by it.
By the time I saw him in the evening, though, he seemed more himself again. Frantic ECG's and blood pressure tests and yet more blood tests showed his heart and system in bizarrely fine fettle.
"You're in good shape, Mr Peach" said the young doctor, staring quizically at the the machines strapped to my pale-looking Dad.
"Good shape?" I can hear him saying, "Good shape? But I feel like I'm about to meet my maker?"
"Yes I know" replied the doctor with a cursory smile, "– odd, isn't it?"
I wasn't there, of course, but this was the gist. What did come out of it though, is that they've ascertained that the shadows on his lungs are likely to be a build up of fluid – and that's what's causing his funny turns. Probably not directly a heart thing. This might be progress.
Mind you, a potentially life-threatening condition is a potentially life-threatening condition, I guess – who cares what they'll end up feeling confident about putting on your coroner's report?
And this does nothing to pin down exactly what is wrong with other issues he's dealing with. One thing I'd like to see really is hospital consultants actually consulting one another…
---
Funny, as a nice diversion, I had a note from Tim Colthup last week telling me he's been listening to an old album of mine – Outrider. What a mate, eh? I mean, what a mate. Made me pull it off a forgotten shelf and listen to it – sat there in bed last night, headphones on in the dark like a teenager. 1995 I recorded that album; a dozen years ago. And, though I've always had a special, vaguely prophetic-feeling affection for that album in particular, it does now seem like another time and mindset, listening to it.
Not to be put off such splendidly distracting whimsy, however, it made me dig out the follow-up album, Worship the system – 1997. And then a couple of live recordings from the same time. And then a couple of old DATs of random stuff from as far back.
I can't help feeling a strange affection for all of it, actually; for the small truckload of tunes and songs I laboured over in the pre-Momo years. The confidence and the creative youth mixed into those pieces; bless me. I had more of a different head on my shoulders then than I had previously realised. Plenty of worthy work along the way I think, but it certainly belongs behind me, paved into the little track I've tromped through the daisies.
You see? Whimsy.
I'm not a big look-backer. Prefer to look forward, generally. But, as I prepare to hit the sack at last, I am distressed to consider that the finest revelation tonight was from a DAT from '98 or so – and the coolest version of the Knight Rider theme I've ever heard. I'd completely forgotten it. I arranged it, I recall, for guitar legend chum Greame – had a funny thing about it at the time it seems.
So there you are. My father is pondering lying in state and I'm wondering if my finest musical hour in the first twelve years of my ignominious recording career was an electro cover of the Knight Rider theme. Goodness, my Dad feels proud for good reason.
Think I'm ready for some new tunes now.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Late night cooking.
Late night cooking.
It feels like we're both students. Or both running our own businesses. Whichever, we're drinking so much tea it's a wonder we're not saving for a dialysis machine; our kidneys must be overheating. We neither of us leave our Macs to cook or clean or see the outside world.
So, tonight, I decided to make sure we ate something fresh. Caroline had mused about pizzas so I set-to while she continued doing things I'm normally doing while she entices me with food – PDFing, EPSing, InDesigning and Photoshopping. She said to me tonight: "In the last five weeks I've traded being a planner for being an urban designer, graphic designer, accountant, project manager and some kind of professional traveler." All I know is, we need a cleaner. And a travel agent. And a benefactor.
It's all good. And, having visited Dad this afternoon, I'm happy that he's stable and okay. Tests and more tests and waits and hopes that an ultrasound will prove his lung shadow to be less threatening than his doctor had made it sound on Friday. People are helping him feel loved. I'm hoping Mum can feel some of it too.
So the pizzas looked divine by the time they emerged from the oven at nine tonight – worth the wait. But Caroline is burning the midnight it seems, in a very Momo stylee. And I have much to push on with too, if I could only find the will after so much late night pizza. We're okay. But we both want a cup of tea.
It feels like we're both students. Or both running our own businesses. Whichever, we're drinking so much tea it's a wonder we're not saving for a dialysis machine; our kidneys must be overheating. We neither of us leave our Macs to cook or clean or see the outside world.
So, tonight, I decided to make sure we ate something fresh. Caroline had mused about pizzas so I set-to while she continued doing things I'm normally doing while she entices me with food – PDFing, EPSing, InDesigning and Photoshopping. She said to me tonight: "In the last five weeks I've traded being a planner for being an urban designer, graphic designer, accountant, project manager and some kind of professional traveler." All I know is, we need a cleaner. And a travel agent. And a benefactor.
It's all good. And, having visited Dad this afternoon, I'm happy that he's stable and okay. Tests and more tests and waits and hopes that an ultrasound will prove his lung shadow to be less threatening than his doctor had made it sound on Friday. People are helping him feel loved. I'm hoping Mum can feel some of it too.
So the pizzas looked divine by the time they emerged from the oven at nine tonight – worth the wait. But Caroline is burning the midnight it seems, in a very Momo stylee. And I have much to push on with too, if I could only find the will after so much late night pizza. We're okay. But we both want a cup of tea.
Tolkein and trophies.
Tolkein and trophies.
I've written the first To Do list and I've batted away the first emails but, as I start a new week, I can't help wondering how last week might affect it.
The beginning.
I've mused many times about how strangely Silly tends to rub shoulders with Serious – and this week had them quietly sashaying together for sure. It saw both of my parents called into hospital unexpectedly at either end of it, while Caroline and I found ourselves sitting in a VIP area of an awards ceremony in the middle of it.
Dad called early on Sunday morning sounding uncharacteristically worried.
"We're in trouble," he said quietly. Quietly is always worse. Mum had woken up with some kind of bad reaction to something and was looking very odd; "Can you come over?" he said.
With the industrial cocktail of medication they're on between them, it's impossible to know what might be liable to react with what in their groaning pills cabinet, but this looked like some kind of allergic response; Mum was clearly anxious about what had confronted her in the mirror that morning. As I opened the car door to take her to the out-of-hours GP at the hospital, I could tell, however, that she was almost as anxious about leaving Dad to worry about her.
Dad's health over the last fifteen years has been a complicated folder of doctors' notes. Any one of his deteriorating conditions would be trial enough, but this formally active, kinetic man has been steady tied down with complications and random health discoveries. I won't list them here, but we try to laugh about how ridiculous it sounds when you do.
Thankfully, his sense of humour is one organ that's still functioning, though it's taken a beating.
Caroline stayed with him that morning and was the perfect soothing company, while I tried to distract Mum in the terrible tedium of an unexpected medical waiting room with stories about the casting for the new Star Trek movie and the timeless joy of reading The Lord Of The Rings. Mum is still gutted that she had no idea Tolkein spent the last three years of his life right here in Bouremouth, during the first three years of mine. A literary hero, just across town; I think she'd have forced her way through his front door and had him bless my forehead if she'd known.
Two hours of trivia calmed down her allergic reaction. Her breathing never seemed to be threatened, thankfully, and by the time we saw the doctor she seemed herself again. Turned out to be the antibiotics she'd been taking for something else. A slowly growing relief on a Sunday morning, but it would need more tests for other health matters and these were potentially serious developments for her.
But not for today. We went home. We finished the dinner and relaxed together, all in one piece. Then Dad said to me: "Are you doing anything Friday?"
"I don't know." I said.
"Only, it's the one day next week that your mother and I aren't have hospital tests somewhere, so we're looking for some good ideas to make the most of the time off."
The middle.I looked at the clock and hmmmed. If I was going to go, I'd really have to go now.
I looked at the mobile and wondered about calling Mike again. In the middle of trying to sign off a particularly large print job to be delivered overseas, I'd agreed to pop up into London to catch up with Mike at a little music event thing that he'd been involved with. Doing so, though, would also afford me the chance to have a drink with good chum Julian, who was not only account handling said large print job's client, but who was and is also kindly offering my wife some regular accommodation in the capital; he and Angela have been lovely about looking after her. The idea was that I could show off the shiny new brochures to him, share a little tangential banter without having to explain to to anyone else, and then wander across Milly bridge to meet Mike in Oxford Circus afterwards. Later on, Caroline could join us there after her studies and we could all get a late-night falafel from some Obese By 2050:SIgn Up Here takeaway. Good plan.
Well, it went according to plan but with a bit I hadn't expected. I picked up the mobile that afternoon and called Mike and basically said: "I'm up to my eyeballs, do I really need to meet you tonight?" You know, subtle and friendly like. He paused and said: "Mate, I think you should be at AKA tonight."
London looks at its best at twilight. The river looks almost planned, although as we've long known and as Caroline is learning in detail, we shouldn't be so cavalier with such a silly notion. Still, it's relative calm put me in a good mood as I tubed up to Holborn and wandered in search of this little bar or whatever called AKA. "Two blokes and a dog" I said to myself; "if there's that many people in the audience, we'll up to par, I think."
There was, as I rounded the corner off Drury Lane, a queue of queuers and a small throng of hangers-on outside AKA. People with clip boards on the door; a throb of noise inside. I joined the queue and found myelf at the front of it suddenly.
"Name?" the lady asked.
"Tim Peach" I said, "from, er, Momotimo."
She scanned the sheet and then brightened quickly.
"Oh, right – come on in."
In was a wall of hairy young musos. A typical wall of humanity at the bar; another queue of fancy-dressed hopefuls up the stairs to the VIP area. What was it – could I put my finger on it? – an actual atmosphere of sorts. I checked the phone and scanned for Mike but no contact. So I bought a San Miguel and wandered around wherever I could actually move, feeling a little like someone's dad.
"Welcome!" boofed the PA after a while, dimming the music.
"Welcome to the Glasswerk New Music Awards 2007."
Rumbled cheers.
"We're celebrating all types of music tonight, the brightest and best – with me, some bloke from Fame Academy or somesuch, and him, a bloke from Actual Band, Terravision."
These aren't his words verbatim, you understand, but gist enough.
I found Mike downstairs somewhere, out of signal range. We chatted as the ceremony began overhead. Cheers, bumps of sudden music, then quiet, then applause; someone was evidently receiving something for something.
After a while, we decided to wander upstairs again into the back of the crowd. As I rounded the bar, a sea of backs to me, I saw something odd. My band's name across the large screen at the front. Now, when I say 'band' I don't mean 'band' because I have no band, and when I say 'my band's name' I don't mean that either because they hadn't spelled it right. But I'm pretty sure they meant me in some guise.
"Is he here?" said the PA. "Is Mom Timo here?"
I paused. Then found myself raising my beer bottle and calling forth from the back in my best stentorian tones: "Yes! He's here. Halloo! I'm here…"
The crowd parted. They just moved aside and I found myself down the front all of a sudden, San Miguel in one hand, trophy in the other and a copy of Jerome K Jerome still in my pocket. Camera rolled.
"Say something good" said the bloke from Terravision with a smile. Or was it the other bloke?
I approached the mic. "Er, gosh." I began confidently. "Er, blimey. I don't know – you pop into Town for a little light dinner, maybe take in a show or something, then someone hands you an award for something."
A sea of quiet faces. Rock and roll events –not the place for gentlemanly wit and whimsy.
"Thank you anyway. Can I get this gift-wrapped?" I turned and asked as the Get Off music faded up. I looked at the plaque: 'Best Dance Act – Mom Timo'.
So, by the time Caroline hauled her massive Life In One Bag through the door of the VIP area upstairs, squeezing past back-combed teenagers and surly middle-aged music types, I'd already been cosying on a couch with a shiny lady from Avenue 11 Entertainment TV, trying to explain what this award would do for me. "I'll let you know, just as soon as I discover what this award I'm holding actually is" I tried not to say through a five-minute smile.
Something to do with Momo's place on a music website. Though I suspect my good friend Mike had a fair deal to do with this, the fact remains that Britain's most unpromoted Electro Pop outift now has a gong. Or at least, Momo:timo is looking after it until Mom Timo appears to collect it.
The end – of the week.
Coming back from a printers on Friday, I received a call from Caroline.
"It's Dad. He sounded pretty shaken up. The doctor called him and told him to get to A&E straight away; they think they've found a clot on his lung."
So, what do you do? You make some calls before you can get anywhere and work out what's going on. Back in the studio I spoke with Melly and she said Mum and Dad had already gone to the hospital. Dad was fine really – this was perhaps a precautionary thing by the doctor. She seemed okay.
I wrapped up a few things and, after hearing no news, went down to Casualty to see if I could find them.
Waiting around is the hardest thing in a hospital. It was clearly hard on Mum especially and by the time Dad's blood test results came through, the magical blood test machine had managed to fail the samples – so they'd need to take more. It was obvious that Dad would be in at least over night and that there was nothing to be done there in Acute Admissions. On another day, I might ponder what kind of admission might be desperate/illegal/embarrassing enough to be termed 'acute' – "OkayIadmitit! I'm not really a doctor' for example. And for similar issues of tone and gravitas while my father lies in hospital, I'll not explore the idea of ever visiting the Discharge Lounge just down the corridor.
As things stood, he was tired and unsure but immediately okay. I spoke with the reception nurse and ascertained the procedures lining up ahead of Dad and it was clear he'd be there for a while. She suggested what I'd been thinking – take Mum home.
Saturday rolled round and it sounded as if Dad had slept fine and been finally seen by a few people. That morning they seemed to think he had a small clot on his lung that might be dispelled by drugs. Better than the GP had imagined.
However, I spoke with him on the phone that afternoon and they'd changed their thoughts.
"We, ah. We, er – don't know. Could be a, er, thing. We think." they apparently said. Dad seemed concerned again, but reasonably okay. More waiting.
We went in that evening and he was still reasonably okay. Moved to a bed with a working TV. But it was clear he was finally giving in to the emotional weight of it all. My poor dad just feels like we'd most of us feel – useless. And unsure of what to expect. But we left him looking forward to the rugby final and praising the kindness of the nurses as he always does.
Sunday was more waiting without news. No one working any machines on a Sunday, of course. I found myself asleep on the sofa in front of Star Trek or my layout pad or Jerome K Jerome for most of the day. Caroline continued to work all hours on her college project. Somebody should really come in and do our washing up for us.
Today? Awaiting the news from Dad's tests. I'll be popping in after lunch. Will he be coming home or staying in? Who knows. But I do suspect I'll be re-writing my To Do lists a fair bit this week.
I've written the first To Do list and I've batted away the first emails but, as I start a new week, I can't help wondering how last week might affect it.
The beginning.
I've mused many times about how strangely Silly tends to rub shoulders with Serious – and this week had them quietly sashaying together for sure. It saw both of my parents called into hospital unexpectedly at either end of it, while Caroline and I found ourselves sitting in a VIP area of an awards ceremony in the middle of it.
Dad called early on Sunday morning sounding uncharacteristically worried.
"We're in trouble," he said quietly. Quietly is always worse. Mum had woken up with some kind of bad reaction to something and was looking very odd; "Can you come over?" he said.
With the industrial cocktail of medication they're on between them, it's impossible to know what might be liable to react with what in their groaning pills cabinet, but this looked like some kind of allergic response; Mum was clearly anxious about what had confronted her in the mirror that morning. As I opened the car door to take her to the out-of-hours GP at the hospital, I could tell, however, that she was almost as anxious about leaving Dad to worry about her.
Dad's health over the last fifteen years has been a complicated folder of doctors' notes. Any one of his deteriorating conditions would be trial enough, but this formally active, kinetic man has been steady tied down with complications and random health discoveries. I won't list them here, but we try to laugh about how ridiculous it sounds when you do.
Thankfully, his sense of humour is one organ that's still functioning, though it's taken a beating.
Caroline stayed with him that morning and was the perfect soothing company, while I tried to distract Mum in the terrible tedium of an unexpected medical waiting room with stories about the casting for the new Star Trek movie and the timeless joy of reading The Lord Of The Rings. Mum is still gutted that she had no idea Tolkein spent the last three years of his life right here in Bouremouth, during the first three years of mine. A literary hero, just across town; I think she'd have forced her way through his front door and had him bless my forehead if she'd known.
Two hours of trivia calmed down her allergic reaction. Her breathing never seemed to be threatened, thankfully, and by the time we saw the doctor she seemed herself again. Turned out to be the antibiotics she'd been taking for something else. A slowly growing relief on a Sunday morning, but it would need more tests for other health matters and these were potentially serious developments for her.
But not for today. We went home. We finished the dinner and relaxed together, all in one piece. Then Dad said to me: "Are you doing anything Friday?"
"I don't know." I said.
"Only, it's the one day next week that your mother and I aren't have hospital tests somewhere, so we're looking for some good ideas to make the most of the time off."
The middle.I looked at the clock and hmmmed. If I was going to go, I'd really have to go now.
I looked at the mobile and wondered about calling Mike again. In the middle of trying to sign off a particularly large print job to be delivered overseas, I'd agreed to pop up into London to catch up with Mike at a little music event thing that he'd been involved with. Doing so, though, would also afford me the chance to have a drink with good chum Julian, who was not only account handling said large print job's client, but who was and is also kindly offering my wife some regular accommodation in the capital; he and Angela have been lovely about looking after her. The idea was that I could show off the shiny new brochures to him, share a little tangential banter without having to explain to to anyone else, and then wander across Milly bridge to meet Mike in Oxford Circus afterwards. Later on, Caroline could join us there after her studies and we could all get a late-night falafel from some Obese By 2050:SIgn Up Here takeaway. Good plan.
Well, it went according to plan but with a bit I hadn't expected. I picked up the mobile that afternoon and called Mike and basically said: "I'm up to my eyeballs, do I really need to meet you tonight?" You know, subtle and friendly like. He paused and said: "Mate, I think you should be at AKA tonight."
London looks at its best at twilight. The river looks almost planned, although as we've long known and as Caroline is learning in detail, we shouldn't be so cavalier with such a silly notion. Still, it's relative calm put me in a good mood as I tubed up to Holborn and wandered in search of this little bar or whatever called AKA. "Two blokes and a dog" I said to myself; "if there's that many people in the audience, we'll up to par, I think."
There was, as I rounded the corner off Drury Lane, a queue of queuers and a small throng of hangers-on outside AKA. People with clip boards on the door; a throb of noise inside. I joined the queue and found myelf at the front of it suddenly.
"Name?" the lady asked.
"Tim Peach" I said, "from, er, Momotimo."
She scanned the sheet and then brightened quickly.
"Oh, right – come on in."
In was a wall of hairy young musos. A typical wall of humanity at the bar; another queue of fancy-dressed hopefuls up the stairs to the VIP area. What was it – could I put my finger on it? – an actual atmosphere of sorts. I checked the phone and scanned for Mike but no contact. So I bought a San Miguel and wandered around wherever I could actually move, feeling a little like someone's dad.
"Welcome!" boofed the PA after a while, dimming the music.
"Welcome to the Glasswerk New Music Awards 2007."
Rumbled cheers.
"We're celebrating all types of music tonight, the brightest and best – with me, some bloke from Fame Academy or somesuch, and him, a bloke from Actual Band, Terravision."
These aren't his words verbatim, you understand, but gist enough.
I found Mike downstairs somewhere, out of signal range. We chatted as the ceremony began overhead. Cheers, bumps of sudden music, then quiet, then applause; someone was evidently receiving something for something.
After a while, we decided to wander upstairs again into the back of the crowd. As I rounded the bar, a sea of backs to me, I saw something odd. My band's name across the large screen at the front. Now, when I say 'band' I don't mean 'band' because I have no band, and when I say 'my band's name' I don't mean that either because they hadn't spelled it right. But I'm pretty sure they meant me in some guise.
"Is he here?" said the PA. "Is Mom Timo here?"
I paused. Then found myself raising my beer bottle and calling forth from the back in my best stentorian tones: "Yes! He's here. Halloo! I'm here…"
The crowd parted. They just moved aside and I found myself down the front all of a sudden, San Miguel in one hand, trophy in the other and a copy of Jerome K Jerome still in my pocket. Camera rolled.
"Say something good" said the bloke from Terravision with a smile. Or was it the other bloke?
I approached the mic. "Er, gosh." I began confidently. "Er, blimey. I don't know – you pop into Town for a little light dinner, maybe take in a show or something, then someone hands you an award for something."
A sea of quiet faces. Rock and roll events –not the place for gentlemanly wit and whimsy.
"Thank you anyway. Can I get this gift-wrapped?" I turned and asked as the Get Off music faded up. I looked at the plaque: 'Best Dance Act – Mom Timo'.
So, by the time Caroline hauled her massive Life In One Bag through the door of the VIP area upstairs, squeezing past back-combed teenagers and surly middle-aged music types, I'd already been cosying on a couch with a shiny lady from Avenue 11 Entertainment TV, trying to explain what this award would do for me. "I'll let you know, just as soon as I discover what this award I'm holding actually is" I tried not to say through a five-minute smile.
Something to do with Momo's place on a music website. Though I suspect my good friend Mike had a fair deal to do with this, the fact remains that Britain's most unpromoted Electro Pop outift now has a gong. Or at least, Momo:timo is looking after it until Mom Timo appears to collect it.
The end – of the week.
Coming back from a printers on Friday, I received a call from Caroline.
"It's Dad. He sounded pretty shaken up. The doctor called him and told him to get to A&E straight away; they think they've found a clot on his lung."
So, what do you do? You make some calls before you can get anywhere and work out what's going on. Back in the studio I spoke with Melly and she said Mum and Dad had already gone to the hospital. Dad was fine really – this was perhaps a precautionary thing by the doctor. She seemed okay.
I wrapped up a few things and, after hearing no news, went down to Casualty to see if I could find them.
Waiting around is the hardest thing in a hospital. It was clearly hard on Mum especially and by the time Dad's blood test results came through, the magical blood test machine had managed to fail the samples – so they'd need to take more. It was obvious that Dad would be in at least over night and that there was nothing to be done there in Acute Admissions. On another day, I might ponder what kind of admission might be desperate/illegal/embarrassing enough to be termed 'acute' – "OkayIadmitit! I'm not really a doctor' for example. And for similar issues of tone and gravitas while my father lies in hospital, I'll not explore the idea of ever visiting the Discharge Lounge just down the corridor.
As things stood, he was tired and unsure but immediately okay. I spoke with the reception nurse and ascertained the procedures lining up ahead of Dad and it was clear he'd be there for a while. She suggested what I'd been thinking – take Mum home.
Saturday rolled round and it sounded as if Dad had slept fine and been finally seen by a few people. That morning they seemed to think he had a small clot on his lung that might be dispelled by drugs. Better than the GP had imagined.
However, I spoke with him on the phone that afternoon and they'd changed their thoughts.
"We, ah. We, er – don't know. Could be a, er, thing. We think." they apparently said. Dad seemed concerned again, but reasonably okay. More waiting.
We went in that evening and he was still reasonably okay. Moved to a bed with a working TV. But it was clear he was finally giving in to the emotional weight of it all. My poor dad just feels like we'd most of us feel – useless. And unsure of what to expect. But we left him looking forward to the rugby final and praising the kindness of the nurses as he always does.
Sunday was more waiting without news. No one working any machines on a Sunday, of course. I found myself asleep on the sofa in front of Star Trek or my layout pad or Jerome K Jerome for most of the day. Caroline continued to work all hours on her college project. Somebody should really come in and do our washing up for us.
Today? Awaiting the news from Dad's tests. I'll be popping in after lunch. Will he be coming home or staying in? Who knows. But I do suspect I'll be re-writing my To Do lists a fair bit this week.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Shaving and mixing.
Why this might seem interesting, I don't know. But, around rather larger matters and to take my mind off them, I've found myself thinking about something that men have to (allegedly) do every day they're alive and which I have been attempting half-heartedly since I was about thirteen. I am, of course, referring to shaving.
I say half-heartedly because, being a creative, I don't really have to or want to shave every day – looking slightly unkempt between client meetings makes me feel slightly cooler than I am and this is a comfort – and, like most of the finest comforts, based entirely on self delusion. Perhaps because of this lax approach to facial grooming then, I have never developed much of a shaving regime. No fancy equipment, or foams, or gels, or creams or contraptions to see my pores up close – nothing. I have now, however, finally let my old Gillette GII technology slip from the sponge bag in favour of some flimsy new thing called a Mac 3. I think.
I mean, bleedin' shaving marketing. It's all got to have batteries and decals to make it look like it goes really fast – even though you really don't want to be dragging anything sharp across your face really fast when you're half awake – and it all looks like Transformers or something. All I want to do is reduce my facial rubble without blood and sweat. I was worn out just getting through the packaging. And I'm not altogether sure, but think they might be trying to tell me it's digital rather than analogue. (I'll believe this when I can Undo a nasty nick.)
Which is all very well, but am I supposed to not shave with good old soap any more either? They'll be telling me not to rub sheep fat on my face afterwards next.
Anyway, to add to the dizzying speed of change around here, I also went mad and bought a new mixing desk, Let's hope this one doesn't blow up in my face any time soon. Or I'll have to grow a beard to hide the shrapnel scars.
Why this might seem interesting, I don't know. But, around rather larger matters and to take my mind off them, I've found myself thinking about something that men have to (allegedly) do every day they're alive and which I have been attempting half-heartedly since I was about thirteen. I am, of course, referring to shaving.
I say half-heartedly because, being a creative, I don't really have to or want to shave every day – looking slightly unkempt between client meetings makes me feel slightly cooler than I am and this is a comfort – and, like most of the finest comforts, based entirely on self delusion. Perhaps because of this lax approach to facial grooming then, I have never developed much of a shaving regime. No fancy equipment, or foams, or gels, or creams or contraptions to see my pores up close – nothing. I have now, however, finally let my old Gillette GII technology slip from the sponge bag in favour of some flimsy new thing called a Mac 3. I think.
I mean, bleedin' shaving marketing. It's all got to have batteries and decals to make it look like it goes really fast – even though you really don't want to be dragging anything sharp across your face really fast when you're half awake – and it all looks like Transformers or something. All I want to do is reduce my facial rubble without blood and sweat. I was worn out just getting through the packaging. And I'm not altogether sure, but think they might be trying to tell me it's digital rather than analogue. (I'll believe this when I can Undo a nasty nick.)
Which is all very well, but am I supposed to not shave with good old soap any more either? They'll be telling me not to rub sheep fat on my face afterwards next.
Anyway, to add to the dizzying speed of change around here, I also went mad and bought a new mixing desk, Let's hope this one doesn't blow up in my face any time soon. Or I'll have to grow a beard to hide the shrapnel scars.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Gigging for old people.
Gigging for old people.
So I actually went out of the studio for a bit the other night.
It's been so full-on for so long I forgot that people do this kind of thing. In particular, to go watch music being made live, in front of your eyes. No tricks. Just odd-shaped gizmos called 'instruments' to help the people on stage all make this music at the same time.
Thursday was John Peel day and it coincided with a monthly new music event at our pretty-much-only live music venue in Bournemouth and Poole – Mr Kyps. Three bands entertained: Sancho, The Hats and Acoustic Ladyland. And the joyous thing was that all three were comfortably creative. Or even uncomfortably by the end of AL's set.
Sancho were pleased to wheel in as many people, influences and musical machines as they could think of, creating a playful, carefully erratic performance full of theatrical vocals, medicated posturing by the front chap and gleefully confident tune-making. Fun. Silly-cool.
The Hat seemed every inch a Brighton band; spoken word coolness over creative music scapes, all done very simply with guitar, double bass and one or two xylophones. The sort of thing you appreciated someone creating live, but that you knew you really needed to here in headphones afterwards to get what the hell they were actually on about. Nice stuff.
Acoustic Ladyland, on the other hand, were very immediate. Demonstrating a very singular musical vision, they hit you straight in the face with their energetic stomp which quickly began to convince you they were extremely qualified to show off. A kind of Ska-jazz soundtrack to a Tarantino movie, by the end I felt medically mezmerised, and somehow bitch-slapped intellectually – like they knew most of us were convincing ourselves we enjoyed it to feel clever. Still, I may have been craving an actual melody in a deeply musically-immature way by the end, but enjoy it I did – the frenetic and masterful sax lead and the syncopated but effectively simply keyboard work created a genuinely mature music pallet that gave real qualification to an in-your-unprepared-face energetic show. Genuinely impressed and humbled.
But, at the end of the evening, though there had been a laudable selection of ages mixing amiably around the obvious love of music in the air, I couldn't help feeling that we really need a music venue with sofas and coffee. We may all be getting old, but standing around nodding for three hours isn't what it used to be.
It's been so full-on for so long I forgot that people do this kind of thing. In particular, to go watch music being made live, in front of your eyes. No tricks. Just odd-shaped gizmos called 'instruments' to help the people on stage all make this music at the same time.
Thursday was John Peel day and it coincided with a monthly new music event at our pretty-much-only live music venue in Bournemouth and Poole – Mr Kyps. Three bands entertained: Sancho, The Hats and Acoustic Ladyland. And the joyous thing was that all three were comfortably creative. Or even uncomfortably by the end of AL's set.
Sancho were pleased to wheel in as many people, influences and musical machines as they could think of, creating a playful, carefully erratic performance full of theatrical vocals, medicated posturing by the front chap and gleefully confident tune-making. Fun. Silly-cool.
The Hat seemed every inch a Brighton band; spoken word coolness over creative music scapes, all done very simply with guitar, double bass and one or two xylophones. The sort of thing you appreciated someone creating live, but that you knew you really needed to here in headphones afterwards to get what the hell they were actually on about. Nice stuff.
Acoustic Ladyland, on the other hand, were very immediate. Demonstrating a very singular musical vision, they hit you straight in the face with their energetic stomp which quickly began to convince you they were extremely qualified to show off. A kind of Ska-jazz soundtrack to a Tarantino movie, by the end I felt medically mezmerised, and somehow bitch-slapped intellectually – like they knew most of us were convincing ourselves we enjoyed it to feel clever. Still, I may have been craving an actual melody in a deeply musically-immature way by the end, but enjoy it I did – the frenetic and masterful sax lead and the syncopated but effectively simply keyboard work created a genuinely mature music pallet that gave real qualification to an in-your-unprepared-face energetic show. Genuinely impressed and humbled.
But, at the end of the evening, though there had been a laudable selection of ages mixing amiably around the obvious love of music in the air, I couldn't help feeling that we really need a music venue with sofas and coffee. We may all be getting old, but standing around nodding for three hours isn't what it used to be.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Moving blog.
I think I am going to move blog. You know, move into a new apartment. The old one at MySpace is just so old and studenty. Fun but a bit crap - and some days you just wake up and want a clean apartment.
So why the hell am I doing this at 9.30 on a Saturday night?
Jeepers, Momo knows no sensible working hours.
I think I am going to move blog. You know, move into a new apartment. The old one at MySpace is just so old and studenty. Fun but a bit crap - and some days you just wake up and want a clean apartment.
So why the hell am I doing this at 9.30 on a Saturday night?
Jeepers, Momo knows no sensible working hours.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Un-blissed.
Un-blissed.
So, it's here. One minute it was Spring, the next it's Autumn.
I like the seasons. I respect them enough to give them capital letters but I think the one I usually react most to is Autumn. I embrace it; feel it's backtoschool freshness and have a tidy up in the studio. Iron the blazer, buy a new pencil case.
And all that is definitely on the air here now. But here's my problem: I don't feel ready.
I mean, if you live in the UK, do you? What the hell happened to Summer? It just didn't. The weather we're having now is gorgeous but it's still an Autumn sun beginning to droop in the sky out there. I feel cheated. Un-blissed.
Hey, but here is my problem really. I think I AM ready for it. I think I'm giving in. Look out of the studio window – it's stunning. Beguiling. Telling you to start a new term and do some new stuff.
Okay, I accept it. Doesn't mean I don't wish I'd taken a holiday by now. Doesn't mean I don't wish-oh-wish I'd finished everything I'd hoped to as my fifth year of Momo draws to an end. But I'm getting happy to move on.
Yep, my sixth year of running a funny little creative studio by the sea will start in a couple of weeks. Websites still to complete, an album still to wrap up and accounts still to understand. I wish it was all done so I could wander out there and do what I secretly most look forward to every year – say a hearty hello to the season of change.
I like the seasons. I respect them enough to give them capital letters but I think the one I usually react most to is Autumn. I embrace it; feel it's backtoschool freshness and have a tidy up in the studio. Iron the blazer, buy a new pencil case.
And all that is definitely on the air here now. But here's my problem: I don't feel ready.
I mean, if you live in the UK, do you? What the hell happened to Summer? It just didn't. The weather we're having now is gorgeous but it's still an Autumn sun beginning to droop in the sky out there. I feel cheated. Un-blissed.
Hey, but here is my problem really. I think I AM ready for it. I think I'm giving in. Look out of the studio window – it's stunning. Beguiling. Telling you to start a new term and do some new stuff.
Okay, I accept it. Doesn't mean I don't wish I'd taken a holiday by now. Doesn't mean I don't wish-oh-wish I'd finished everything I'd hoped to as my fifth year of Momo draws to an end. But I'm getting happy to move on.
Yep, my sixth year of running a funny little creative studio by the sea will start in a couple of weeks. Websites still to complete, an album still to wrap up and accounts still to understand. I wish it was all done so I could wander out there and do what I secretly most look forward to every year – say a hearty hello to the season of change.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Fry day.
Fry day.
Have you ever watched Channel Four News?
It's almost a sort of cult to a lot of the middle classes because it actually still seems to care about news. John Snow in particular is a contemporary hero; deserves a large New Year's Honour so he can politely turn it down. Jim Gray, the long-standing editor, should have one too.
But perhaps the least-honoured-but really-should-be person on the C4News team is the bloke or bird who writes the commercial break headlines. Whoever they are, they are a master craftsperson of delightful punnage and most nights, as I get up to take my dinner plate out after John has told me what's happening when we come back, I find myself wondering if they pay this person a full-time wage to think of three good one-liners per show. They must do.
Anyway, I have no examples to hand but I was feeling like this person as I came to write a subject header.
This one is lame, obviously. No news interest or relevance other than it's Friday here and gorgeously sunny. I have a suited meeting this morning after a week that rattled along like a runaway train again and I have loads to try and rope down quickly before the start of next week.
Bloody hell I'm getting dull. But, as Ferris said, life moves pretty fast. I'm trying not to miss it by blogging too much.
In particular, we finished the score to Sign Language. It's cute. Ben's done a nice job with it, so I'll post a link as soon as there is one. And somehow, I managed to persuade him to let me do a big-band-style swing number on the end credits. Yep, with me crooning. What were we thinking?
Anyway, that and any other tracks from the film's EP I'll post on the timo website as soon as they're in shape.
I've run out of interest. Have you? There are more stories to tell here in the Momo studio, but I can't be bothered to think of suitably entertaining words to explain them right now.
I should pay somebody to do it for me.
It's almost a sort of cult to a lot of the middle classes because it actually still seems to care about news. John Snow in particular is a contemporary hero; deserves a large New Year's Honour so he can politely turn it down. Jim Gray, the long-standing editor, should have one too.
But perhaps the least-honoured-but really-should-be person on the C4News team is the bloke or bird who writes the commercial break headlines. Whoever they are, they are a master craftsperson of delightful punnage and most nights, as I get up to take my dinner plate out after John has told me what's happening when we come back, I find myself wondering if they pay this person a full-time wage to think of three good one-liners per show. They must do.
Anyway, I have no examples to hand but I was feeling like this person as I came to write a subject header.
This one is lame, obviously. No news interest or relevance other than it's Friday here and gorgeously sunny. I have a suited meeting this morning after a week that rattled along like a runaway train again and I have loads to try and rope down quickly before the start of next week.
Bloody hell I'm getting dull. But, as Ferris said, life moves pretty fast. I'm trying not to miss it by blogging too much.
In particular, we finished the score to Sign Language. It's cute. Ben's done a nice job with it, so I'll post a link as soon as there is one. And somehow, I managed to persuade him to let me do a big-band-style swing number on the end credits. Yep, with me crooning. What were we thinking?
Anyway, that and any other tracks from the film's EP I'll post on the timo website as soon as they're in shape.
I've run out of interest. Have you? There are more stories to tell here in the Momo studio, but I can't be bothered to think of suitably entertaining words to explain them right now.
I should pay somebody to do it for me.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Cakes, baubles and baps.
Cakes, baubles and baps.
So I've just been into the bakery at the top of my road. It was a wonderland.
I love the local shops. There's a very pleasant parade of them closeby and over the last few years I must have become another of the Local Regulars that I see up there. The Green grocers, the Post Office and the Bakery are my favourite haunts, along with the bank and a couple of the now-soulless supermarkets, one of which used to be delightfully stuck in the 1970s - drab decor, higgledy-piggledy kind of feel, lots of old people in there and just about any food item or obscure household need you could ever dream of. Never obvious, but I never once came out of there without what I'd been looking for. It's now starchly lit like a midnight garage, displayed with zero warmth, and I rarely come out with everything I was looking for. Progress.
But the bakery next door is still the real deal, and this morning I strolled up to the Grove in the December sunshine to look for odd-sized envelopes for the Momo christmas cards but found myself standing in the middle of a sea of cakes, loaves, cream puffs, mince pies, iced finger rolls, oozing jam things, plump, swollen Belgian buns and more dustings of icing sugar and flour and general Christmas garnish than you could eat in a whole holiday season. I bought a humble tin loaf, but mainly because I couldn't decide how best to start over-eating to celebrate the end of the year.
So, yes, Christmas is approaching. And for the first time, I feel ready for the end of the year. Not in that I've Bought All My Presents way - don't be silly - just in terms of workflow. There's plenty for me to be getting on with, but I feel ready for a break. We declared the Bayley's Season officially open on Saturday, and the tree is already up and twinkling. Plus, we seem to have loads of booze in. Must be Christmas.
As the year ends, I'm mainly thinking of the people around me and the different things they'll be dealing with at Christmas. But I'm still of the opinon that the best thing we can often do is take a little trip to the bakery, buy yourself something nice to go with a fresh cafetierre of something Italian and stick on some friendly lounge jazz while you work.
These are the little things that get you through the big things.
Why the hell didn't I buy a Belgian bun?
I love the local shops. There's a very pleasant parade of them closeby and over the last few years I must have become another of the Local Regulars that I see up there. The Green grocers, the Post Office and the Bakery are my favourite haunts, along with the bank and a couple of the now-soulless supermarkets, one of which used to be delightfully stuck in the 1970s - drab decor, higgledy-piggledy kind of feel, lots of old people in there and just about any food item or obscure household need you could ever dream of. Never obvious, but I never once came out of there without what I'd been looking for. It's now starchly lit like a midnight garage, displayed with zero warmth, and I rarely come out with everything I was looking for. Progress.
But the bakery next door is still the real deal, and this morning I strolled up to the Grove in the December sunshine to look for odd-sized envelopes for the Momo christmas cards but found myself standing in the middle of a sea of cakes, loaves, cream puffs, mince pies, iced finger rolls, oozing jam things, plump, swollen Belgian buns and more dustings of icing sugar and flour and general Christmas garnish than you could eat in a whole holiday season. I bought a humble tin loaf, but mainly because I couldn't decide how best to start over-eating to celebrate the end of the year.
So, yes, Christmas is approaching. And for the first time, I feel ready for the end of the year. Not in that I've Bought All My Presents way - don't be silly - just in terms of workflow. There's plenty for me to be getting on with, but I feel ready for a break. We declared the Bayley's Season officially open on Saturday, and the tree is already up and twinkling. Plus, we seem to have loads of booze in. Must be Christmas.
As the year ends, I'm mainly thinking of the people around me and the different things they'll be dealing with at Christmas. But I'm still of the opinon that the best thing we can often do is take a little trip to the bakery, buy yourself something nice to go with a fresh cafetierre of something Italian and stick on some friendly lounge jazz while you work.
These are the little things that get you through the big things.
Why the hell didn't I buy a Belgian bun?
Friday, November 24, 2006
Something old, something new.
Something old, something new.
Technology is great, though, isn't it?
Yeah. Hm. But.
It iiiiis, but it also tends to, well - make you its bitch.
If you've been making music for more than ten years, you'll know what a bottomless pit it was to invest in a home studio not so long ago. At my (still relatively taught-skinned) age, you were in fact not only exactly the right age to have to pay the UK Poll Tax as a student, but also just old enough to have scraped together the money beyond your graduation Poll Tax Debt for a brand new reel-to-reel eight track - about twenty minutes before digital became good enough and cheap enough to take to the bosom of your amateur studio.
There was no Undo in my day. ...And I know, >sigh< it shows.
Yeah. Hm. But.
It iiiiis, but it also tends to, well - make you its bitch.
If you've been making music for more than ten years, you'll know what a bottomless pit it was to invest in a home studio not so long ago. At my (still relatively taught-skinned) age, you were in fact not only exactly the right age to have to pay the UK Poll Tax as a student, but also just old enough to have scraped together the money beyond your graduation Poll Tax Debt for a brand new reel-to-reel eight track - about twenty minutes before digital became good enough and cheap enough to take to the bosom of your amateur studio.
There was no Undo in my day. ...And I know, >sigh< it shows.
Making it aside, listening to it is an even bigger chance for technology to pimp. I swore at the time that I'd never buy any music albums on cassette. (Oh for pete's sake don't laugh; how am I supposed to give this straight faced history lecture if you keep pointing at my sideburns? Cassettes really did exist and yes we managed to live back then.) Yet, as a steeowdent, away from the bulky homliness of my second hand hi-fi cupboard, I had no way of playing LPs... (What now? What about my 'rationing card'? ...No I did not Dig For Victory. Blighter.)
The point I'm making, sounding considerably older than I look – no, really – is that technology makes you buy your own stuff again. And possibly again. There are old gems on LP and even cassette (because it's groovy, okay?) that I may have to purchase again for the modern world.
To this end, I recently rediscovered something. My teenage years were wallpapered sonically with various electronic bleeps and wooshes but for a long while it was dominated by one particular collection of second-hand LPs from the late seventies - Tangerine Dream.
Well, this week, thanks to the good people of Amazon, I have been rediscovering what it felt like to be 17 and driving for hours in a dangerously old car to see some girl or other. A particular girl, in fact. And now it's our car, in fact. And it's a bit better. And we live in the same town these days.
It was inspired by catching a moment or two of Risky Business late one night. We smiled and stayed up a little longer to marvel at Tom Cruise's diminutive youth. But I found myself taking worryingly more notice of the reeeeally cool bit from Force Majeure playing over the top than of the fact that Rebecca Demornay had just slipped her dress off.
The point I'm making, sounding considerably older than I look – no, really – is that technology makes you buy your own stuff again. And possibly again. There are old gems on LP and even cassette (because it's groovy, okay?) that I may have to purchase again for the modern world.
To this end, I recently rediscovered something. My teenage years were wallpapered sonically with various electronic bleeps and wooshes but for a long while it was dominated by one particular collection of second-hand LPs from the late seventies - Tangerine Dream.
Well, this week, thanks to the good people of Amazon, I have been rediscovering what it felt like to be 17 and driving for hours in a dangerously old car to see some girl or other. A particular girl, in fact. And now it's our car, in fact. And it's a bit better. And we live in the same town these days.
It was inspired by catching a moment or two of Risky Business late one night. We smiled and stayed up a little longer to marvel at Tom Cruise's diminutive youth. But I found myself taking worryingly more notice of the reeeeally cool bit from Force Majeure playing over the top than of the fact that Rebecca Demornay had just slipped her dress off.
Just how old am I feeling? I'd like to say this was actually down to moral fibre - but it had more to do with air drums. The point is, I went to bed remembering how The Dream Is Always The Same and Love On A Real Train are classic examples of Tange' at their height - and how much this stuff lit my fire to make music with bleeps in it. I knew the band's albums inside and out (well, as many as any human could collect, anyway) and hearing them again - I started with Dream Sequence - was weirdly nice to hook up with old friends.
But you know what? Creatively, it's not a great idea to look backwards. Not sure there's been a time with more creativity going on around the world of music; I think I want to get back into today. And possibly even tomorrow.
So I took the plunge and bought an iPod. Yes, I know, yeeeeeeeeears later than the rest of humanity. There are people who's governments still can't plumb in a water supply who start the long walk to the municiple tap with a shuffle. Hardly needed one, did I? I'm at home all day or in the car all day - these are things that come with music-making devices built in. But it's shiny and nice and I've mainly just stroked it and rubbed it with a soft cloth to get off the instant fingerprints.
Thing is. Yeah. Will it ever let me out again, or am I condemned in manner of greek mythology to forever be loading my album collection onto the damned thing? And am I supposed to re-buy all my albums, so I can have the album artwork appear on the screen?
Friday, November 03, 2006
Rannygazoo.
Rannygazoo.
Word of the day. Say it with me: "rannygazoo".
Who knew? All these years enjoying the finest radio feature produced by eight decades of BBC output, Swannycazoo, on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, and I'd missed that there was an extra layer to it. Not simply the timeless format of reproducing popular songs and melodies using only a swanny whistle and a cazoo, but a play on words. Silly and cerebral, how marvellous.
Use it today .. rannygazoo. It means a jape. A joke. A prank. In the style of, say, posh edwardian chaps pulling the wool over a chum's eyes for comradely hilarity. It's origins, unsurprisingly then, are in PG Wodehouse or thereabouts.
Not to be confused with Hullaballoo, Runnyaspoo or Fannymcgrew. But try it out for size - as long as you remember health and safety.
Who knew? All these years enjoying the finest radio feature produced by eight decades of BBC output, Swannycazoo, on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, and I'd missed that there was an extra layer to it. Not simply the timeless format of reproducing popular songs and melodies using only a swanny whistle and a cazoo, but a play on words. Silly and cerebral, how marvellous.
Use it today .. rannygazoo. It means a jape. A joke. A prank. In the style of, say, posh edwardian chaps pulling the wool over a chum's eyes for comradely hilarity. It's origins, unsurprisingly then, are in PG Wodehouse or thereabouts.
Not to be confused with Hullaballoo, Runnyaspoo or Fannymcgrew. But try it out for size - as long as you remember health and safety.
Just divine.
Just divine.
Heros, by and large, are just you and me with better luck or makeup. ...Okay, or talent. I'm not being cynical here, it's part of growing up to grasp this terrifying reality - everyone's just someone like you, making it up as they go along, right? Which makes heros all the more important, ironically. (Apologies for spelling out any irony there, it's just that I hate to think of people missing it and thinking I've just lost my way from one end of the sentence to the other. Which, given the much-comma-ed length of many of my sentences would hardly be surprising. ...Where was I?)
Heros. One of mine is Neil Hannon. Not because I've stalked him anything like as much as I should have done to imagine I know much about him, but simply because of who I hear in the songs. The blissful, romantic, slice-your-arm-off-witty wonderful, many-level-lyrical songs of The Divine Comedy. And at last, on Tuesday night, I finally got to see him live.
Say 'The Portsmouth Pyramid Centre' to anyone who lives nearby and they'll snort. Mainly out of derision, but quite possibly to simply clear their synuses - for the Portsmouth Pyramid Centre isn't simply a down-at-heel spare room for live music, it's also a public swimming baths. Neat, huh? An afternoon AND evening out. With showers to go home post-gig clean.
Wandering in, still unsure we'd found the right venue, Caroline and I looked around at the modest hall and hand-made stage at the far end of the carpet and beamed. Really, what could be a better place to see one of your heros perform? We'd almost be on stage with him. The gents were opposite the dressing rooms and for one gloriously delerious moment, as I pushed on the smeery door, I imagined I'd be standing next to Neil before he'd had a chance to dab and do up, asking him enthusiastically if getting the word 'peripetetically' to scan and rhyme successfully into My Imaginary Friend really was responding to a bet by a friend as we've always imagined it must be. Sadly, I relieved myself without the company of stardom. Possibly this was a better outcome.
Neil's music doesn't fit the usual categories that turn me on. It's not beat-driven or production-driven. It's about songwriting. But the key thing to remember is.. well, the three key things to remember are:
1: The songs are shot through with that rare commodity in popular music, wit, whilst also being hopelessly romantic.
2: The melodies are flow-perfect. Gorgeous. Lush. The string arrangements, stop me if I get dull, are just what I would do. Given the talent and the budget.
3: Neil is a baritone, which means I can sing his songs much more easily in the bath.
So, nerd of nerds that I am, I couldn't help myself cheering like a teenage girl when TDC's main man sauntered onto the stage with a wry grin and flung his arms open in perfect time to a huge cymbal crash fanfare in his huge, camp, orchestral Sauntering Onto Stage music. I then proceeded to bellow every last syllable of his songs into Caroline's ear for an hour and a half, adding some nice harmonies and generally enhancing the whole marvellously entertaining experience for her.
He had a sickeningly talented, well-orchestrated team around him; all of them multi-instrumental and making an amazingly effective live arrangement of his album tracks. A violinist, a cellist, a percussionist, lead guitarist, two key board set-ups, plus drummer and bassist - and it sounded just great. He banged them out and we cheered louder every time. And he finished with National Express and the crowd went home grin-ache happy.
Talent. Right there. Everyone in the little audience there was undoubtedly some sort of fan, so that he only had to look at us for long enough and we were poised to laugh. I'd hoped for a sort of Dylan Moran with a guitar and a string section and that's pretty much what we got. And what more do you need?
We first picked up a copy of A Secret History six or seven years ago and embedded it into our memory of driving round Tuscany than summer. Ever since, it's been hard to get the Divine Comedy's words and melodies out of the happy place in our brains. We whooped, we sang along, we imagined ourselves buying him a Guiness one day and being a showbizz chum. Well, only I did the last bit of course. But hurrah for a whole evening of sumptuous Between The Wars Cabaret. I think that's how he describes it.
A little bit of inspiration makes all the difference to a dreary Tuesday evening. They might be making it up as they go along, just like you and me, but it's WHAT they make up as they go along that makes heros heros.
The Divine Comedy's songs don't just put a smile on the face, they work rather like a comedy in the original sense of the word - they make you think everything will one day work out okay.
Cheers for the heavenly noise, Neil. You're a bally hero.
Heros. One of mine is Neil Hannon. Not because I've stalked him anything like as much as I should have done to imagine I know much about him, but simply because of who I hear in the songs. The blissful, romantic, slice-your-arm-off-witty wonderful, many-level-lyrical songs of The Divine Comedy. And at last, on Tuesday night, I finally got to see him live.
Say 'The Portsmouth Pyramid Centre' to anyone who lives nearby and they'll snort. Mainly out of derision, but quite possibly to simply clear their synuses - for the Portsmouth Pyramid Centre isn't simply a down-at-heel spare room for live music, it's also a public swimming baths. Neat, huh? An afternoon AND evening out. With showers to go home post-gig clean.
Wandering in, still unsure we'd found the right venue, Caroline and I looked around at the modest hall and hand-made stage at the far end of the carpet and beamed. Really, what could be a better place to see one of your heros perform? We'd almost be on stage with him. The gents were opposite the dressing rooms and for one gloriously delerious moment, as I pushed on the smeery door, I imagined I'd be standing next to Neil before he'd had a chance to dab and do up, asking him enthusiastically if getting the word 'peripetetically' to scan and rhyme successfully into My Imaginary Friend really was responding to a bet by a friend as we've always imagined it must be. Sadly, I relieved myself without the company of stardom. Possibly this was a better outcome.
Neil's music doesn't fit the usual categories that turn me on. It's not beat-driven or production-driven. It's about songwriting. But the key thing to remember is.. well, the three key things to remember are:
1: The songs are shot through with that rare commodity in popular music, wit, whilst also being hopelessly romantic.
2: The melodies are flow-perfect. Gorgeous. Lush. The string arrangements, stop me if I get dull, are just what I would do. Given the talent and the budget.
3: Neil is a baritone, which means I can sing his songs much more easily in the bath.
So, nerd of nerds that I am, I couldn't help myself cheering like a teenage girl when TDC's main man sauntered onto the stage with a wry grin and flung his arms open in perfect time to a huge cymbal crash fanfare in his huge, camp, orchestral Sauntering Onto Stage music. I then proceeded to bellow every last syllable of his songs into Caroline's ear for an hour and a half, adding some nice harmonies and generally enhancing the whole marvellously entertaining experience for her.
He had a sickeningly talented, well-orchestrated team around him; all of them multi-instrumental and making an amazingly effective live arrangement of his album tracks. A violinist, a cellist, a percussionist, lead guitarist, two key board set-ups, plus drummer and bassist - and it sounded just great. He banged them out and we cheered louder every time. And he finished with National Express and the crowd went home grin-ache happy.
Talent. Right there. Everyone in the little audience there was undoubtedly some sort of fan, so that he only had to look at us for long enough and we were poised to laugh. I'd hoped for a sort of Dylan Moran with a guitar and a string section and that's pretty much what we got. And what more do you need?
We first picked up a copy of A Secret History six or seven years ago and embedded it into our memory of driving round Tuscany than summer. Ever since, it's been hard to get the Divine Comedy's words and melodies out of the happy place in our brains. We whooped, we sang along, we imagined ourselves buying him a Guiness one day and being a showbizz chum. Well, only I did the last bit of course. But hurrah for a whole evening of sumptuous Between The Wars Cabaret. I think that's how he describes it.
A little bit of inspiration makes all the difference to a dreary Tuesday evening. They might be making it up as they go along, just like you and me, but it's WHAT they make up as they go along that makes heros heros.
The Divine Comedy's songs don't just put a smile on the face, they work rather like a comedy in the original sense of the word - they make you think everything will one day work out okay.
Cheers for the heavenly noise, Neil. You're a bally hero.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Sunday work and Wednesday hi-kicks.
Sunday work and Wednesday hi-kicks.
I like Sunday afternoons.
When I was a kid, I think a whole generation of us hated Sundays – a vaguely stupified day, where youngsters the country over were unable to really go anywhere, do anything, or watch anything decent on telly. And all the time knowing it would soon be Sunday night and you’d be told to get your uniform together for - utter depression - Monday morning school.
But now, the world is different. Shops are open. I don’t have to go to school any more. And telly is equally rubbish any day of the week. Is this progress? Feels like it for me.
Sunday afternoons now lead into long Sunday evenings and Sunday evenings tend to be when we feel able to sit down with a decent Brain Film. You know - stuff you have to concentrate on, or bleak French productions with subtitles you basically don’t understand. Refreshes the old cerebellum for Monday. Reminds me I’m not completely brain-dead just yet, despite the endless comfort food of Friends repeats and Radio 2 in the afternoon. Like popping on some mincing Baroque from time to time, it’s encouraging to periodically pretend you’re clever.
Actually, I’ve often treated Saturdays as the day off this year, the time to aim not to work - a proper Sabbath. Sundays can be very peopley and feel more kinetic, which may be why my brain feels strangely more able to cope with Franco-German cinema by tea time. On Saturday tea time what I want is Doctor Who with inane banter and a curry.
This Sunday, Caroline and I wandered past the garden and saw our much-loved neighbour, Mary, sitting on an old bench in the middle of her lawn, nursing a rusty nail hole in her foot. A couple of forlorn planks of splintered shed lay beside her on the grass, next to a claw hammer and a clawed-at packet cigarettes. Her old shed, depite it’s shabby chic, however, looked resiliently standing.
We glanced at eachother with patronising tips of the head, then turned to Mary.
“Do you want a hand?” I asked politely.
“Do you want some savlon?” Caroline asked politely.
“No, no, I’m fine” Mary answered politely. Then added: “God, yes.”
We put the kettle on and put the gardening gloves on and put our comedy-old clothes on and it was all I could do to hold Caroline back, out there in the Sunday autumn sunshine.
“I didn’t realise you could HIT it...” Mary grinned.
“This is in my top five list of favourite things to do ever” Caroline beamed, swinging the hammer with a neighbourhood-shaking smash.
As we demolished the old shack, enjoying ourselves in showers of splinters far more than if we’d been working in our respective gardens separately, I pulled at old nails and reflected on how nice it was to get some dirt under my own nails and do something outside, after a week of intense comings and goings, interspersed with intense sittings-around...
--------------------------
Getting back up to Birmingham on Wednesday morning was straightforward enough, arriving at the stage door of the Alexandra Theatre in midlands drizzle, only twenty minutes or so behind target. David Rann, artist co-ordinator for the Give Back Project, was there at the top of the windy little staircase with a clipboard.
“Hi, mate - you’re in with Mowglee, next floor up” he smiled. Bands of various haircuts were squeezing past eachother on the stairs and vans were double parking up the road outside, but as I carried my solitary keyboard and x-stand up into the spiralling loft of the Alex, everything around me felt pretty chilled.
Maybe it was just me projecting. I’ve spent so long infront of a Mac, either tickling typography or shuffling sound files, it occured to me I’d quite forgotten how at home I feel in a theatre.
As the day stretched out, I’d find myself stalking the corners and rafters of this old showhome as though I owned the place, and it took me some hours to realise this. I think I was standing in the wings just before curtain up, in fact, when it struck me I’d been subtly talking to the other acts as though trying to welcome them into my home - stopping just short of actually offering them a sherry and explaining that they could help themselves to anything in the fridge.
What a cheeky blighter, I thought, watching the stage lights spread across the boards that night; I’m a guest here too. I’ve never been here before.
Ah, but that was what was interesting about the whole day - it was a music event, but it felt much more like a theatre event. And this suited me fine.
Mum and Dad, in case you don’t know (and really, why should you) were professional singers. They met and travelled the world with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, founded by Mr Richard himelf, theatre impressario and mate of Gilbert and Sullivan. Who are not the same thing as Gilbert and George. Not at all. Every time the company rolled into the West Midlands, it set up shop in the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, where my mother would get into her fairy wings and my father would pull on his tights for another prance through Ruddigore, or somesuch. Trust me, the stories. The boys had a telly in the dressing room under the stage on one occation, watching a cip final. Goals were apparently not always timed with orchestral numbers, much to the stage manager’s fury, apparently.
I did wonder if I’d spot any Peach graphiti as I peered around in the shadows.
Momo’s music is probably more about theatre than pop music anyway - and goodness knows I don’t know how to be rockstar cool on stage. But the whole workings of a theatre production make sense to me, and I think it’s useful to keep it in mind when putting on a gig. Professional, I guess. Organised. And most importantly, very Luvvie.
From prowling the wings, to running along the seats up in the gods, to peeping past the dressing rooms under the stage - darlings, I felt at home hanging around the Alex for an afternoon. And as I first walked into the dressing room with my name on it, under the word ‘Mowglee’, I knew it would be a fun, weird day out in Birmingham. The four indie poppers from Brum turned and grinned as I walked in and demanded chocolates.
------------------
I’ve gigged and performed plenty of times before. Enough perhaps to forget how long it’s actually been since I was on a stage or practicing my mike technique infront of an audience. This was just another on-going gig for many of the acts, but as Marcus, Patrick, George and Gabriel opened the lemon slices, these seasoned performers looked a little bemused.
“It’s a big event, but it’s hard to know what’s going to happen out front” Patrick said, dealing some cards and inviting Caroline and I to sit in. Caroline has a thing about cards but I have a thing about exploring old theatres, so I let her play to her competitive instincts while I opened the kettle chips.
“Yeah, I know” I said, grabbing a handful and moving to the door, “I think we have to see this as like a TV show; we can’t really take control of the show or the crowd, we have to turn up get on, play and get off as efficiently as possible. It’s weird, but it’s the thing for this. Watch my wife, she’ll clean you out, by the way.”
And it was the thing for this. The organisation behind getting eighteen bands, many of them inexperienced, on and off smoothly with slick segues was no easy task, and it would demand concentration from everyone.
In the event, it moved through amazingly well, especially considering this was a first event for this combination of people. We all soundchecked through the afternoon, grabbing conversations with eachother and swapping genres as we each took the stage. The acts all had professional potential and one or two voices or acts particularly stood out. But no-one else was making Electro, I realised as I climbed the steps to join the Give Back dancers. I hoped the audience wouldn’t find the opening number misleading.
Because yes, Momo:timo and the Give Back dancers were opening the show. The first thing the bemused public would see of the very first ever Give Back Project event would be some floppy haired tit, dressed vaguely like the owner of the TARDIS, shouting: “Hey you! Yes you, right there in your seat - we just KNOW you’re going to love this. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed; we know you want some, because we know you’re WEAK...” in obscure live homage to the opening sample of Sweetseeker.
Well, although they may have had some adjustments to make to get used to the real stage setting of their performance, on the night the dancers did a great job of making Momo:timo look much more interesting on stage. I nearly took a foot in the teeth a couple of times, but this was only because it can be a bit of a trick trying to engage audience members two storeys above you in the inpenetrable darness beyond the footlights, while avoiding tripping over wires that would send you vaulting smoothly into the orchestra pit, or walking into ten people throwing themselves at your tottering keyboard, or remembering your queues, or your words or your best I Know What I’m Doing expression.
But, in truth, it was the easiest gig I’ve ever done. Really. Caroline commented on it first. All I had to do was turn up with one keyboard, a backing tape and the usual cheeky willingness to be myself infront of people. The hard work was done by the much-drilled dancers, whose dressing room looked like an exciting and theatrical place to have your hair starched to within an inch of its life, every time I popped in. The well-oiled production team made the show happen, while a very nice lady called Nicky, from BBC Birmingham or somewhere, gave me queues to be funny in a little interview after my second number. Then Caroline drove me home to Mike and Emma’s in Worcester.
What effort did I make, exactly?
Afterwards, packing the gear and roaming the Mailbox for an after-show drink that would have me smashed silly in moments, spilled as it was into a stomach lined with a few biscuits, a few crisps and a small slice of lemon sponge, we heard that the theatre had been reasonably filled and the show had been positively received by audience members.
But for me, the best comment of the night - the one to take home and write on a mental post-it note - was from a girl I passed in the foyer as people were leaving. She looked at me as I approached and simply blurted out: “You’re really funny!”
Well quite. Hours of painstaking studio work dims in the light of such a compliment.
-----------------------
We still don’t know why exactly the NIA show, for which this was a kind of rehearsal, has been cancelled. I think the Give Back team are licking their wounds after so much work.
Shame, of course, as so much effort went into the show and it ran through very professionally. All I know is, that apart from anything else, it gave me the chance to make friends with Mowglee, who I fully intend to hang around a theatre with again as soon as possible. We chewed over life and creativity and fascial hair and styling gel in a dressing room for much of the day, when Caroline wasn’t beating them at Rummy, and they played a significant part in making our Funny Day Out In Birmingham so enjoyable.
I also met countless other people, making a lot of new MySpace friends and getting a fair amount of un-asked-for encouragement.
As we slept in on the Thursday, and hung around with Mike for a gloriously well-timed Sick Day (not that I was, literally, thank goodness) in a coffee shop in Worcester, I figured that it couldn’t hurt to have a few enforced days off, even if I did have to work until 2.00am the night before, in order to free up Momo to come prat about in the Midlands. Sharing the experience with Mike and Emma in particular was just the right thing; if there’s one person who’s been made to carry my gear and listen to my demos almost as much as Caroline over the last seventeen years, it would be Mike, poor guy.
So, hey. The unforgivably fab thing about working for Momo is that you’re never quite sure what you’ll be working on next. From property advertising, to website design, to vaudeville karaoke and garden clearance all in one week.
Still, it’ll be Sunday afternoon again soon.
I like Sunday afternoons.
When I was a kid, I think a whole generation of us hated Sundays – a vaguely stupified day, where youngsters the country over were unable to really go anywhere, do anything, or watch anything decent on telly. And all the time knowing it would soon be Sunday night and you’d be told to get your uniform together for - utter depression - Monday morning school.
But now, the world is different. Shops are open. I don’t have to go to school any more. And telly is equally rubbish any day of the week. Is this progress? Feels like it for me.
Sunday afternoons now lead into long Sunday evenings and Sunday evenings tend to be when we feel able to sit down with a decent Brain Film. You know - stuff you have to concentrate on, or bleak French productions with subtitles you basically don’t understand. Refreshes the old cerebellum for Monday. Reminds me I’m not completely brain-dead just yet, despite the endless comfort food of Friends repeats and Radio 2 in the afternoon. Like popping on some mincing Baroque from time to time, it’s encouraging to periodically pretend you’re clever.
Actually, I’ve often treated Saturdays as the day off this year, the time to aim not to work - a proper Sabbath. Sundays can be very peopley and feel more kinetic, which may be why my brain feels strangely more able to cope with Franco-German cinema by tea time. On Saturday tea time what I want is Doctor Who with inane banter and a curry.
This Sunday, Caroline and I wandered past the garden and saw our much-loved neighbour, Mary, sitting on an old bench in the middle of her lawn, nursing a rusty nail hole in her foot. A couple of forlorn planks of splintered shed lay beside her on the grass, next to a claw hammer and a clawed-at packet cigarettes. Her old shed, depite it’s shabby chic, however, looked resiliently standing.
We glanced at eachother with patronising tips of the head, then turned to Mary.
“Do you want a hand?” I asked politely.
“Do you want some savlon?” Caroline asked politely.
“No, no, I’m fine” Mary answered politely. Then added: “God, yes.”
We put the kettle on and put the gardening gloves on and put our comedy-old clothes on and it was all I could do to hold Caroline back, out there in the Sunday autumn sunshine.
“I didn’t realise you could HIT it...” Mary grinned.
“This is in my top five list of favourite things to do ever” Caroline beamed, swinging the hammer with a neighbourhood-shaking smash.
As we demolished the old shack, enjoying ourselves in showers of splinters far more than if we’d been working in our respective gardens separately, I pulled at old nails and reflected on how nice it was to get some dirt under my own nails and do something outside, after a week of intense comings and goings, interspersed with intense sittings-around...
--------------------------
Getting back up to Birmingham on Wednesday morning was straightforward enough, arriving at the stage door of the Alexandra Theatre in midlands drizzle, only twenty minutes or so behind target. David Rann, artist co-ordinator for the Give Back Project, was there at the top of the windy little staircase with a clipboard.
“Hi, mate - you’re in with Mowglee, next floor up” he smiled. Bands of various haircuts were squeezing past eachother on the stairs and vans were double parking up the road outside, but as I carried my solitary keyboard and x-stand up into the spiralling loft of the Alex, everything around me felt pretty chilled.
Maybe it was just me projecting. I’ve spent so long infront of a Mac, either tickling typography or shuffling sound files, it occured to me I’d quite forgotten how at home I feel in a theatre.
As the day stretched out, I’d find myself stalking the corners and rafters of this old showhome as though I owned the place, and it took me some hours to realise this. I think I was standing in the wings just before curtain up, in fact, when it struck me I’d been subtly talking to the other acts as though trying to welcome them into my home - stopping just short of actually offering them a sherry and explaining that they could help themselves to anything in the fridge.
What a cheeky blighter, I thought, watching the stage lights spread across the boards that night; I’m a guest here too. I’ve never been here before.
Ah, but that was what was interesting about the whole day - it was a music event, but it felt much more like a theatre event. And this suited me fine.
Mum and Dad, in case you don’t know (and really, why should you) were professional singers. They met and travelled the world with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, founded by Mr Richard himelf, theatre impressario and mate of Gilbert and Sullivan. Who are not the same thing as Gilbert and George. Not at all. Every time the company rolled into the West Midlands, it set up shop in the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, where my mother would get into her fairy wings and my father would pull on his tights for another prance through Ruddigore, or somesuch. Trust me, the stories. The boys had a telly in the dressing room under the stage on one occation, watching a cip final. Goals were apparently not always timed with orchestral numbers, much to the stage manager’s fury, apparently.
I did wonder if I’d spot any Peach graphiti as I peered around in the shadows.
Momo’s music is probably more about theatre than pop music anyway - and goodness knows I don’t know how to be rockstar cool on stage. But the whole workings of a theatre production make sense to me, and I think it’s useful to keep it in mind when putting on a gig. Professional, I guess. Organised. And most importantly, very Luvvie.
From prowling the wings, to running along the seats up in the gods, to peeping past the dressing rooms under the stage - darlings, I felt at home hanging around the Alex for an afternoon. And as I first walked into the dressing room with my name on it, under the word ‘Mowglee’, I knew it would be a fun, weird day out in Birmingham. The four indie poppers from Brum turned and grinned as I walked in and demanded chocolates.
------------------
I’ve gigged and performed plenty of times before. Enough perhaps to forget how long it’s actually been since I was on a stage or practicing my mike technique infront of an audience. This was just another on-going gig for many of the acts, but as Marcus, Patrick, George and Gabriel opened the lemon slices, these seasoned performers looked a little bemused.
“It’s a big event, but it’s hard to know what’s going to happen out front” Patrick said, dealing some cards and inviting Caroline and I to sit in. Caroline has a thing about cards but I have a thing about exploring old theatres, so I let her play to her competitive instincts while I opened the kettle chips.
“Yeah, I know” I said, grabbing a handful and moving to the door, “I think we have to see this as like a TV show; we can’t really take control of the show or the crowd, we have to turn up get on, play and get off as efficiently as possible. It’s weird, but it’s the thing for this. Watch my wife, she’ll clean you out, by the way.”
And it was the thing for this. The organisation behind getting eighteen bands, many of them inexperienced, on and off smoothly with slick segues was no easy task, and it would demand concentration from everyone.
In the event, it moved through amazingly well, especially considering this was a first event for this combination of people. We all soundchecked through the afternoon, grabbing conversations with eachother and swapping genres as we each took the stage. The acts all had professional potential and one or two voices or acts particularly stood out. But no-one else was making Electro, I realised as I climbed the steps to join the Give Back dancers. I hoped the audience wouldn’t find the opening number misleading.
Because yes, Momo:timo and the Give Back dancers were opening the show. The first thing the bemused public would see of the very first ever Give Back Project event would be some floppy haired tit, dressed vaguely like the owner of the TARDIS, shouting: “Hey you! Yes you, right there in your seat - we just KNOW you’re going to love this. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed; we know you want some, because we know you’re WEAK...” in obscure live homage to the opening sample of Sweetseeker.
Well, although they may have had some adjustments to make to get used to the real stage setting of their performance, on the night the dancers did a great job of making Momo:timo look much more interesting on stage. I nearly took a foot in the teeth a couple of times, but this was only because it can be a bit of a trick trying to engage audience members two storeys above you in the inpenetrable darness beyond the footlights, while avoiding tripping over wires that would send you vaulting smoothly into the orchestra pit, or walking into ten people throwing themselves at your tottering keyboard, or remembering your queues, or your words or your best I Know What I’m Doing expression.
But, in truth, it was the easiest gig I’ve ever done. Really. Caroline commented on it first. All I had to do was turn up with one keyboard, a backing tape and the usual cheeky willingness to be myself infront of people. The hard work was done by the much-drilled dancers, whose dressing room looked like an exciting and theatrical place to have your hair starched to within an inch of its life, every time I popped in. The well-oiled production team made the show happen, while a very nice lady called Nicky, from BBC Birmingham or somewhere, gave me queues to be funny in a little interview after my second number. Then Caroline drove me home to Mike and Emma’s in Worcester.
What effort did I make, exactly?
Afterwards, packing the gear and roaming the Mailbox for an after-show drink that would have me smashed silly in moments, spilled as it was into a stomach lined with a few biscuits, a few crisps and a small slice of lemon sponge, we heard that the theatre had been reasonably filled and the show had been positively received by audience members.
But for me, the best comment of the night - the one to take home and write on a mental post-it note - was from a girl I passed in the foyer as people were leaving. She looked at me as I approached and simply blurted out: “You’re really funny!”
Well quite. Hours of painstaking studio work dims in the light of such a compliment.
-----------------------
We still don’t know why exactly the NIA show, for which this was a kind of rehearsal, has been cancelled. I think the Give Back team are licking their wounds after so much work.
Shame, of course, as so much effort went into the show and it ran through very professionally. All I know is, that apart from anything else, it gave me the chance to make friends with Mowglee, who I fully intend to hang around a theatre with again as soon as possible. We chewed over life and creativity and fascial hair and styling gel in a dressing room for much of the day, when Caroline wasn’t beating them at Rummy, and they played a significant part in making our Funny Day Out In Birmingham so enjoyable.
I also met countless other people, making a lot of new MySpace friends and getting a fair amount of un-asked-for encouragement.
As we slept in on the Thursday, and hung around with Mike for a gloriously well-timed Sick Day (not that I was, literally, thank goodness) in a coffee shop in Worcester, I figured that it couldn’t hurt to have a few enforced days off, even if I did have to work until 2.00am the night before, in order to free up Momo to come prat about in the Midlands. Sharing the experience with Mike and Emma in particular was just the right thing; if there’s one person who’s been made to carry my gear and listen to my demos almost as much as Caroline over the last seventeen years, it would be Mike, poor guy.
So, hey. The unforgivably fab thing about working for Momo is that you’re never quite sure what you’ll be working on next. From property advertising, to website design, to vaudeville karaoke and garden clearance all in one week.
Still, it’ll be Sunday afternoon again soon.
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