I'm sitting here in an internet cafe in London, with a little over fifty minutes left of my one pound per hour time left. I figure I should try and write something in here; I keep meaning to, but for some reason I keep finding something else interesting to do instead: lounging, meeting people, writing, editing, playing guitar, recording. Although, as usual, I'm really not all that sure exactly how I spend my time.
Today I've been walking around London, looking for coffee shops, reading my latest book (The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. something i bought a number of years ago when i felt a kneejerk need to buy anything that appeared reactionary and feminist, even though Doris Lessing refuses that it is a feminist novel in the slightest. it's been left, unread, in my pile of disregarded books since then, wallowing in my slight guilt that i simply don't read enough even though i keep on buying more novels. it almost put me off reading it, too, being a thick black covered, yellow paged, tome with THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK emblazoned authoritatively across the cover. i suppose i've been quite scared of it, worried that maybe i'm a little too dim to read the thing. of course, now i've picked it up i'm *hooked*), and trailing through music shops. I was looking for an amp for Tone and his Udu drum, something that could be recharged and run without mains for busking, and something that could cope well with the high end slaps and pops and the deep rounded bass thumps from the drum. I found something, but it is quite out of our price range at the moment, sadly. I, however, on an impulse ended up spending probably too much on a delay pedal. Well, no, the delay pedal was actually rather cheap, but I spent too much anyway, considering the other day I also bought a bass guitar.
I'm buying too many instruments right now and not playing them enough. It's a shamefully material approach to music, picking up kit just so I can have it there if I need it. Like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. Just hope I'm not hibernating at the same time. Add this latest purchase to the new guitar I bought and the new amp I picked up the other month and, well....... I wonder if I haven't missed the point slightly. Spending too much time on the paraphernalia and not enough on the actual point. The purpose.
I came to a conclusion yesterday that I don't like my songs very much. I'm not a fan of my own voice, or of what I seem to wind up saying (which i don't think is that much). My guitar is okay, but sometimes I feel it boring. The latest tune I'm working on is based around some lyrics that are meant to convey something I've felt deeply for some friends in the past, some terrible sympathy, but it winds up sounding like an accusation. I'm wondering if I should actually try and control this or just let it run it's course. My philosophy has run to the latter in the recent few months, but I can't help wondering if I need to temper that need to see where I end up with a little discipline. Otherwise I'll wind up frustrated and sounding like I'm terribly bitter, at least in my songs. Or, even worse, keep dicking about and never actually work the songs, pull them into life, and just continually end up with chaotic jumbled messes of safe chords and pop patterns. I don't fucking know. I should just keep playing guitar, I guess, and see what colour light comes through the clouds.
I also hate my tendency for sudden hippy metaphors, but I tolerate it. Just like an old friend who has the capacity, once to often, to set your teeth on edge.
Last night I went to see Paradoxical Undressing by Kristin Hersh. It was, as expected, fantastic. If it's not obvious, I'm obsessed with this particular artist. Well, let's not say obsessed, because I come across as a fruitloop, but let's say *passionate*. During the show I felt something quite strongly, which unsettled me to be honest. the whole premise of the show is that she, as such an excruciatingly shy person, still somehow needs to show people who she is; she needs to make herself emotionally naked in front of people. Just like when people, dying of hypothermia, take off all their clothes as their own internal heat overwhelms them. It was her reading from her memoirs, basically, punctuated by shortened versions of her songs, tying into her experiences and life. Here is where my brain threw fits........ I believe in the interplay between artist and appreciator; everytime an artist creates something it is an intensely personal statement that they give out to other people, who in turn interpret it based on their own personal understanding. I've listened to Kristin Hersh a lot, as I do with any musician that I get ~passionate~ about. As a result, her songs mean something to me and I've fit those words and those melodies around my life, interpreting them for my own understanding. Last night, as she read from her diaries, about her life, quite starkly and honestly, emotionally undressing herself, and then played the songs that referred to those periods right after she had read about them, well, my understanding of her songs suddenly became quite naive. Her ownership of them, or their ownership of her, hit me in the centre of my chest and head and I, as an appreciator of her art, felt silently naked, naive and overwhelmed, as the original source of the song became fully apparent. She was emotionally naked, but she owned it all. I've either misinterpreted here, or not explained what I've been feeling about the performance, or you know exactly what I mean. I'm not sure, but let's just say the integrity, honesty, strength and humility, not to mention simple gentle basic truth, of the whole performance, no matter how it touched me personally, scored ten points. I did want to hang about afterwards and say hi and get her autograph (i've got Rob and Bernards from 50 Foot Wave, but the gig i got those at she'd already gone backstage for a shower. Bernard suggested he couldn't maybe get me her signature, but her husband / manager kinda said, exasperatedly 'she's in the (and you could tell he probably should have sworn, but he didn't) *shower*'. Bernard turned round and said, with a smile 'he's closer to her than me'. i remained suitably fangirlish throughout the whole exchange, probably going red. later i read on her blog that she'd been washing her hair in motorway service stations and the tour had generally been From Hell, not to mention that her husband / manager, the estimable Billy O, had gotten wound up with a club employee and told them to shove a veggie burger up their ass.....), but in a way I figured, you know, it's good just to leave as well.
Although, getting back to basics, I'm still looking forward to seeing 50 Foot Wave when they next tour.
Two nights ago I found myself being given an impromptu flamenco guitar technique lesson in a tapas rest in Walthamstow's Village (which is like a twee middle-england hideaway, nestled in the urban flare of north London). The house guitarist had been playing pretty much all night and his last song pricked my ears up. It sounded Arabic and, sure, it turned out to be Danza Mora. I was drunk and riding my usual confidence and outgoing surge I get when I come to London, so I went up to him afterwards and asked him to show me the chords for it, which he did. Unfortunately, I can't do flamenco technique for shit. I'm a hold an E-barre and get 4/4 funky with a plectrum kind of woman, even though that's something that does bore me as I've mentioned above. He taught me how to hold the guitar, pluck the strings, how to tune the guitar, which notes to play, how to play them, and the rhythm. I still couldn't play it for shit, but I was glad that this man had taken the kindness to spend an hour tutoring someone who obviously couldn't fucking play to save her life. I left, figuring I'd learnt something, at least met a new friend, and we left and said our goodbyes. The next day I texted him thanks. He replied, 'find
great passion, play great music. it's like making love with sound'. I'm not always so sure, but I really appreciate the sentiment.
Love xx
