Tag: cds

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Count Down to La La Land

Another very busy teaching day today, which was very good.

What wasn’t so good was that my CDs didn’t end up on the Ashdown pallette going to LA, so I’ve got to sort out alternative shipping for them. Fortunately, Ashdown are helping me out with that, via DHL, but with all the teaching I’ve got booked in tomorrow, last minute shopping, packing, picking up my car from the garage where it’s just had it’s MOT done and snipping my new bonsai tree (photos soon), I’m gonna be rushed off my feet!

And what’s more, I need to get some practice in, so as not to look a fool in LA…

Looks like Gibson may be able to lend me a couple of Echoplexes while I’m there, which would be very nice, not having to fly with mine. I did buy a bigger suitcase anyway yesterday… I’m there for four weeks, after all!

Anyway, time for bed now.

Soundtrack – ‘autocity ep’ by Calamateur – this is BRILLIANT!! It’s a mini CD, for a fiver, by one half of Scottish alt-noise-ambient-geniuses Old Solar. Lots of weird speech samples, and fantastic atmospherics. You have to check this out. go to www.calamateur.co.uk to find out more, and buy the CD; it’s a very limited edition, and will become a collectors item very soon. Lots of other good stuff on the site (no MP3s yet though, so you’ll just have to take my word for it and order it. And while you’re there, look out for the Old Solar album, cos that’s magic as well – it’s called ‘Many Visitors Have Been Gored By Buffalo’)

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Cold Cold Ground

Bleedin’ heck, it’s COLD!!!!! Freezin’, even!!

Our central heating still isn’t fixed, so we’ve got the electric heaters and the gas fire on full, trying to defrost our frozen tootsies… and my new slippers are helping too! See, I’m 30 now, so slippers are de riguer…

It’s ages since I last blogged, what have I been up to? Well lots of teaching – this week is, in fact, my busiest ever private teaching week (as in, I’ve done more teaching than this, but only when private stuff was combined with college teaching) – it all comes in very handy for going to the US…

Saturday evening was fun – first off went to ‘Up’ – a mellow and ambient alternative worship thingie in Thame, Oxfordshire – lots of candles, guided meditation things, mellow music, strange sensory things to ponder. All very chilled out, and a fine way to start the new year. Went straight from there to St Luke’s, where I was on duty overnight at the Homeless night shelter we have there for three months a year… all very uneventful, though it was great getting to talk to Becky, who was on duty with me, who I’d seen at church but not really had much of a chance to chat to.

Got one hour’s sleep overnight, so not surprisingly, I went straight to bed when I got home at 7am…

Watched a very interesting TV program last night called ‘without prejudice’ – basically a game show with no game, where instead of answering inane questions to win the prize, a panel of ‘normal’ people get to choose who they want to have the prize money (50 grand) based on a range of information, and their first impressions… the bizarre thing was that I found myself thinking that non of the people deserved the money… which is odd when contrasted with quiz shows, where apparently guessing the catch-phrase, keeping ‘out of the black and into the red’ or not being the weakest link are perfectly valid ways for people to receive silly amounts of money. Odd one, but worth watching.

Today I finally got round to buying a Bonsai tree – something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I bought a part-grown one, and if this works out, I may have a go at growing some from seed. What I do need though, is a name for my tree! so I need suggestions, and the winning suggestion will receive a CDR of ‘Beauty and The Beast’ and the new version of Highway 1 that are in MP3 form on my site – proper CD quality versions of them! So, name that bonzai – email me with your suggestions, please! I’ll try to post a picture of it as soon as I can, to help inspire you…

Soundtrack – just now been listening to Prefab Sprout, ‘From Langley Park To Memphis’, which is great and of curio value as my sister used to live in Langley Park… :o) Also been listening to Thelonius Monk, ‘Monk’s Greatest Hits’, which is fantastic – the writing and his melodic phrasing are out of the world; Duke Ellington and Ray Brown, ‘This One’s For Blanton’, Metheny/Haden, ‘Beyond The Missouri Sky’, Anita Baker, ‘Rapture’.

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Talking 'bout a Resolution

(sounds like a whisper)

It’s that time of year again, when we realise that we kept very few of our resolutions from last year (though I did set myself one goal of doing 30 solo gigs, and I did over 60, so that was good… :o)

anyway for this year, here’s a few muddled up ideas for what I’m planning/aiming for/wishing for/etc.

  • read more (and therefor, travel more on the tube, as that’s where I get most of my reading done
  • eat more vegan food (should be easy as the small person is on a dairy free diet at the moment anyway…)
  • cook more (I’m on a roll at the moment, so need to keep it up)
  • keep office tidy (yeah, right – need to get it tidy in the first place. Having said that, made a start today on my desk… it’s getting there)
  • practice more (bass that is, not medicine or law or anything – at the end of the two tours with Level 42 and the Schizoid band, my playing was probably the best it’s ever been, need to work on maintaining that…)
  • spend less time just mucking about on line (opening the chat room at thedudepit.com hasn’t helped…)
  • get my tax sorted out, and then stay on top of it (fairly short term aim, but it needs to be done in the next few days!)
  • do at least 50 solo gigs (with 20 or so already booked, this one shouldn’t be too tricky to acheive…)
  • release another duo CD (plans are already afoot)
  • start work on at least one book (either method, theory, looping concepts or general musical-based musings… still haven’t decided – suggestions to the usual address…)

So there you go – that’s my year mapped out… a bit.

what are yours?

The Small Person and I had a lovely quiet new year – watched ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ yesterday, and ‘Monsters Inc’ today – both highly recommended, fine fine films. Went for a drive up to Crews Hill today – lots of garden centres there – but the whole world was aparently under about three feet of water – blocked roads ‘n’ everything…

Soundtrack – I’ve spent a lot of time these last couple of days listening to a couple of improv sessions that I did with keyboardist Patrick Wood during the first half of 2002 – one extract from that is now up on the site, as the new version of Highway 1, though I’m not sure it was even called Highway 1 back then… It’s an interesting comparison to listen to it alongside the version on ‘Not Dancing For Chicken’ (which of course, you have already?), and the live version from the Bartok gig that’s also on the MP3 page. Go on, you know you want to…

Other than that, I’ve been listening to ‘Free’ by Peter Chilvers, which is, as it says on the tin a ‘free’ album – you burn a copy, and your only commitment is to make sure you burn two more copies and pass it on! It’s a fascinating experiment in the pure power of exposure – loads of people will have the CD, and hopefully lots of them will go and buy other CDs by Peter (his first solo album ‘He Wrote This’ is excellent, and available from burningshed.com) – there’s been a lot of discussion of late on the whole merits of ‘free’ music, whether it be CDR copying or MP3 downloading. Singer/Songwriter Janis Ian wrote this article for Performing Songwriter magazine last year, and it’s brilliant – she’s my new hero! Read the article and her follow up – both very good. Then, download the MP3s, and if you like what she’s doing, buy the CDs, and prove it works…

Anyway, what else have I been listening to? oh, Anita Baker ‘Rapture’ – often when I get something out to play to a student during a lesson, it stays in the play for a few days, and this did.

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30 somehow…

So here I am, 30 years and two days old. And feeling every bit of those two days over 30…

Anyway, the rest of my birthday was fine – went to a party at Hoda’s in the evening (Hoda = lovely chap who works for Ashdown, throws good parties, and is a top chum), which was great fun, especially as Oroh was there (Oroh = fab bass-playing talkathon, and top chum). I hadn’t seen Oroh in ages, so it was great to be able to catch up.

The rest of the last few days at home has been split between sleeping (I’m heading towards an almost aged-felinesque sleep pattern – today, got up at 1!!), watching episodes of ‘Phoenix Nights’ on video, and sitting up very late watching the current late night trinity of The Office, Buzzcocks and I Love The 80s – all fine viewing, though it does mean we’ve been going to be after 2 each night, and The Small Person is working today… it’s fine for me sleeping in til 1pm, but not when she has to be up at 8…

Anyway, the office tidying has begun, finally – so far that means I’ve put away some CDs, and thrown out a couple of boxes of old flyers from past gigs. Oh, and taken lots of cups to be washed into the kitchen (next jobs – tidy kitchen and check cat tray).

The California gig list is just about complete – promoter-Dan has done the most amazing job on getting all these gigs, in such varied places and with varied lineups. It’s going to be so much fun!

So what’s on for the rest of the week? Some teaching, more tidying, sort out my tax return thingie, arranging the specifics of my trip to the states (accomodation, travel in and around CA, getting money changed up, etc…), and sending out more copies of ‘Not Dancing’ for review and radio – it’s been kind of slow, due to the CD coming out in the middle of the Level 42 tour, but I need to kick it into gear now…

right, off to do some tidying!

Soundtrack – lots more ‘Bright Sized Life’, India Arie ‘Acoustic Soul’, some unreleased Andre LaFosse MP3s (very good indeed), and ‘Southern Hummingbird’ by Tweet (Missy Elliott protege who’s quite good, if a little rude at times!)

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Christmas time, no mistletoe, no wine

…just a very relaxed day, watching TV and videos, cooking and eating nice food and not doing very much at all!!

Went to church in the morning, which was fun and chaotic in the usual style of Christmas day services, came home and started our now traditional pattern of eating one course every three hours throughout the day. Started off with soup and garlic bread. That was after opening the pressies – I got a couple of books (Rich Hall’s autobiography, and Vanishing Footprints, subtitled ‘native voices speak’ it’s a book of gorgeous photos of indigenous people from around the world, telling their own story. Beautiful), the new Eddie Izzard video , Circle, which is very good, especially the hour and half of his Paris show, in French. The set from New York is very funny, but he comes across as slightly out of practice with standup, having spent so long in hollywood… and some other bits ‘n’ bobs.

Dinner was nut roast with a homemade spicey tomato, red pepper, mushroom and onion sauce, steamed veg and jacket potato (mmmm, delish!!), followed by watching the Izzard vid…

Oh, we watched Christmas top of the pops – was it worse than usual or am I just nearly 30??? 80% of the stuff on there seemed to be teenage girls dressed as hollywood hookers, singing out of tune. What on earth has happened to the record buying public??? On ‘I love 1984’ last night, there was a bit about the soul/jazz revival of ’84, with some talking head or other mentioning that it was a backlash to the rubbishness of pop at the time. Here’s hoping that something similar happens to end the reality TV horse-shit that seems to be taking over the charts. for the two biggest selling singles of the year to be Will Young and Gareth Gates is just nonsense. It’s not even like they sold because they were lowest-common-denominator catchy pop tunes – I’d rather see some PWL pre-fab crap there – they are there purely because of the exposure and media manipulation of the Pop Idol TV show. The songs themselves are sub-Barry Manilow bland MOR holiday camp bollocks. Grrrrrr.

Here I am listening to Theo Travis – outstanding saxophonist, playing original, moving, music, beautifully written and played and selling a few thousand copies, as opposed to the millions shifted by the losers. No, I’m not expecting Theo to start selling millions (he’d have to bland-out for that to happen), but it’d be nice if radio in particular, and TV programmers started to give some air time to quality music regardless of formatting and dull stylistic constraints…

Right, rant over.

I’m knackered at the moment, thanks to having taken the small persons car out of the drive with the intention of getting it valeted as an extra christmas pressie, only to have it stall on the road, and then have to try and push it back onto the drive, failing miserably but pulling lots of muscles in the process, then having to tow it back up with my car (which didn’t like that at all – I’m lucky I didn’t wreck the chassis!!). My muscles are aching like anything, and my shoulder is bruised from trying to push it.

Now it sounds like I’ve had a pain-filled misery-christmas, complaining about pop-nonsense. Not true. I’ve had a marvellous time, very relaxing. The Office is being repeated nightly at the moment, and is outstanding – Ricky Gervais is one of the most talented comics to emmerge in this country for quite a while…

Soundtrack – currently Theo’s album (see above), I’ve also been playing the MINIDISC of Theo and I playing together from Monday a lotl; I bought ‘Acoustic Soul’ by India.Arie for the Small Person for Christmas, and that’s excellent, really enjoying that, and I finally bought ‘Steve McQueen’ by Prefab Sprout on CD (very cheap from www.101cd.com ) – one of my all time faves…

BTW, Evil Harv can now be reached at evilharv@evilharv.com should you have any questions about all things eville… his evil blog will no doubt emmerge soon… :o)

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Curry, Theatre and the run up to Christmas

The Deep 2 Deep curry was great fun – organised by Wulf (and yes, he has brothers called Magnus and Leofrick…), 6 of us went out for curry. a fine time. Is having curry ever not a fine time? Wulf also had a CD of his bootleg of the Bass Centre clinic that I did with Michael Manring last month – not bad quality, so I’ll see if I can clean it up in Soundforge and put some of it on the website… We’ll see…

Anyway, Saturday was a great day too – not-at-all-evil-Dann proved his not-at-all-evilness by inviting me to the theatre to see The Play Wot I Wrote, at the Wyndhams theatre near Leicester Square (has evil harv ever taken me to the theatre? I think not… proving his evility) Anyway, the play was brilliant – lots of marvellous physical comedy, top gags, Morcambe and Wise routines (that’s the major theme of the play)… all great stuff. Why don’t I go to the theatre more often? It’s great! I really ought to… there’s new year’s resolution number 3 (the rest will be revealed at new year…)

Anyway, theatre followed by dinner with Dann and his not-at-all-evil family. Then home.

Also started reading Further Along The Road Less Travelled again – what a great book – a fantastic followup to ‘The Road Less Travelled’, sort of a bringing together of thinking on physcology and religion… fascinating stuff. I do like the way Scott Peck’s mind works, and will have to work my way through the rest of his stuff in the next year (Resolution #4?)

Found another cool 80s computer game on line – this time it’s Bomb Jack – not as addictive as the Helicopter Game (I’ve now got about 1760 on it, and the addictiveness of it is testified to by the thread that has been going on in the Miscillaneous forum at www.activebass.com about it!!

Today was the St Luke’s Nativity at church – always a pretty anarchic affair (particularly a couple of years ago when it was re-written to reference psycho half way through, Norman Bates having become the inn keeper!!!!) – the kiddies were on top form, and a fine time was had by all.

Then home to do the Christmas Food Shop. Asda was packed (shouldn’t have gone there…)

Soundtrack – a bit more of Gary Peacock/Ralph Towner, then the new Joni Mitchell CD, ‘Travelogue’ which is a series of orchestra + voice versions of her back catalogue. Her last album was her doing a load of standards with a couple of her own tunes thrown in which were the best tunes on the CD, heralding the way for this. It’s gorgeous, lush, sumptuous and a slight shame that there’s no new material on it at all. Very lovely indeed, and beautifully packaged, with lots of Joni’s paintings on the sleeve. And now I’m listening to Beauty And The Beast by Jez and me, which is also very good – you can download it from the MP3s page on the site, if you like, as a christmas pressie from Jez and I. It’s not available anywhere else…

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Clocks go winding down…

Is it just me, or does everything just slow down in the run up to Christmas (or ‘holidays’ as most americans seem to have euphamistically rechristened it)? I’ve got lots that I really ought to be getting on with, but can’t get motivated at all… I really need to get working on my tax self-assessment (oh yeah, Steve, they really want to read about that, you loser…), and could do some other admin stuff, tidy my office, practice, learn more about the Echoplex (and there’s much to learn), but instead I cuddle the cat (OK, that’s worthwhile, I’ll give you that), surf the net (the usual suspects – talkbass.com, activebass.com, thedudepit.com, level42webdigest.com, ashdownmusic.co.uk, modulusguitars.com, krimson-news.com and other stuff from my links page…)

then I play the helicopter game (got 1768 today), followed by Chuckie Egg, followed by something to eat, followed by more cuddles with the cat, followed by some washing up (to assuage the guilt… hang on, harv, I’m I making up words again??), and here I am…

Tonight is the Deep 2 Deep Christmas curry – lots of cuddly bassists and some of their partners having curry and talking nonsense. What fun, I’m very much looking forward to it.

Before then I need to get to the vets to buy more cat food (of the renal variety), and maybe pick up a jar of coffee as well somewhere along the way (which means a trip to Asda as none of the little shops near us stock cafe-direct or clipper… question, is it worse to buy fair trade coffee from a multinational, or multinational coffee from a corner shop???? Oh, the moral maze in which we find ourselves!!!!)

Anywa, I guess even in writing this, I’ve convinced myself to get off my sorry ass and do SOMETHING – probably visit the vets, as that’s the most pressing thing…

BTW, a tip for last minute pressies – www.sendacow.com – an infinitely better idea that piling yet more crap that nobody needs into your relatives ‘presents to give away again next year’ cupboard…

Soundtrack – an interesting musical day. Started with Prince, ‘Sign Of The Times’, both discs (good stuff), followed by a CD by a group called Pocket, featuring a student of mine on bass. Interesting stuff – the guitarists are usually ‘free’ players in the LMC sense of the term, but this is their ‘tunes’ album – got a bizarre nursery rhyme quality to it that I’m not sure if I like or not, but Chris’ bass playing is very good… And now I’m listening to ‘Oracle’ by Gary Peacock/Ralph Towner; this is the first of their duo CDs, and I know the second one much better (A Closer View), but just about everyone I speak to prefers this one, so I’ll give it a few spins and see what occurs… :o)

feel free to send chivvying messages to me throughout the day, encouraging me in a polite and friendly way to do some f-ing work!!!!

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What a day for a daydream…

Started the day taking The Aged Feline to the vets. No easy task when the Small Person’s car wouldn’t start… Anyway, got there, Aged Feline is just fine, brought him home, and discovered that he loves beef flavoured cat food more than chicken… obviously tackling whole cows has previously precluded him indulging this little love of his…

After that, was teaching, all fine, and doing some more sorting out of gigs in for California in Jan (or rather, Dan was doing all the work, emailing me to say ‘is that OK’ and I emailed back saying ‘yes, that’s fine, you’re fab’ or words to that effect. (lots more CA dates on the gigs page…)

After that, set about posting info about those dates all over the place, taking time to play the Helicopter game for 10 minutes in between…

Posted off today’s orders, cooked dinner (veggie fajitas – ingredients – 3 onions, one leek, one courgette, one green pepper, large handful of mushrooms, 4 large tomatoes, two fresh chillies, handful of fresh coriander, tumeric, cumin, mild chilli, cayenne pepper, thai spice, tomato puree and quorn pieces. Serve with salsa and plain yoghurt in a flour tortilla… :o) practiced a bit, then found a downloadable version of chuckie egg and had 10 mins playing that… It’s amazing how no matter how good computer game animation gets, Chuckie Egg or Manic Miner, or Horace Goes Skiing will always capture my imagination in a way that Lara Croft or Mortal Kombat never will… I’m so not into computer games, except for nostalgia… :o)

anyway, time for bed

Soundtrack – three CDs today, Moby ’18’ (first time I heard this I thought it was a bag of poo. Giving it a second listen, it’s much better. Played it three times today), Nirvana ‘Nevermind’ – fished this out to do a couple of the tunes with a student yesterday – recently voted best album of all time in Q. Well, that’s bollocks, but it is rather good. And finally, Lewis Taylor’s first album – a much more realistic proposition for the title of greatest album of all time. Outstanding, marvellous, cantsayenoughgoodthingsaboutit. Get it, if you haven’t already. It’s a masterpiece. He’s got a new one out, I’ve not got yet. Must investigate.

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Link 182

First up, a couple of sites you might want to have a look at, if you’re wanting to kill some time before doing all those things you really ought to be getting on with…

Fly The Copter – is a java game, and is rather addictive…

world’s dullest blog – you thought you were already reading it. Think again.

While we’re on the subject of ‘blogs, check out George and Gemini’s cat-blog at catchat.org – marvellous stuff!

Pacman – Ben Castle’s website, aside from having all the musical info you need about the man (which you really ought to check out), also has a java version of PacMan on it…!

What’s been happening? Well, The Aged Feline had another fit/seizure at 2.30 this morning. It’s really really traumatic to watch, as he seems to be in such pain – we’ve got a vets appt. for tomorrow, and I spoke to the vet yesterday, who said that it’s probably either blood pressure related, or to do with oxygen startvation… either way, it’s pretty worrying, and really distressing to watch, knowing that all you can do is cuddle him until it goes away (following him being sick and crapping everywhere)… weird thing is, he seems fine about an hour later… Still, I’ll be keeping a close eye on him today, checking in on him during the day… I’m hoping he’ll come and sleep down here in the office, in front of a toasty warm fire… we’ll see… I’ll have to tempt him with some quorn or red pepper (fave aged feline snacks…)

Last night was the Last Orders Christmas Curry – which was great, and all the more remarkable as Last Orders doesn’t really exist any more, and I haven’t really been involved since August 2001… It was, in its heyday, the rather groovy late night cabaret/music/comedy/nonsense show at Greenbelt, headed up by top comedy writer James Cary (Jam). Last night was me, evil harv, Jam, Jude and Andy Turner. A fine evening was had by all…

Latest news seems to be that the PPP/PFI/Part privatisation of the tube is going to cost a heck of a lot more than leaving it in the public sector… no shit, sherlock! really? what a surpirse, considering all the other PPP schemes have ended costing the government shedloads of cash for shoddy end results. Good lord, has it taken them this long to realise what a total balls up the whole PPP thing is???? Just visit any PPP hospital, and see the fine wallpaper in rooms with too few beds, and lifts that won’t fit a bed in… Why did we vote for these fools??? New Labour, Old Tory… Go on, give the Lib-Dems a go next time, I dare you…

US tour dates for January are coming along nicely – another one confirmed for San Luis Obispo this morning… I have fairly unfavourable memories of SLO from my last visit there, namely because I went through it on my way from Sacramento to Big Sur!!!! (a detour of about 250 miles!!) having been told to head down 5 to Highway 1, but not realising that I was looking for a road to connect the two, not actually the point where they met (over a hundred miles south of where I needed to me..) – I was very late for the gig, which turned out to be fine after all, but did leave me with a bit of a stigma attached to the name ‘San Luis Obispo’… :o)

Soundtrack – yesterday, was listening to Squarepusher ‘Go Plastic’, crazy drum ‘n’ bass insanity – Tom Jenkinson AKA Squarepusher is a fab bassist, although there’s no live bass on this album at all… great stuff. Since then, been listening to Drastic Measures by Michael Manring – his first ‘great’ album (his first two albums have got some fine music on them, but this is where his ‘voice’ emmerged, beautifully produced by Steve Rodby) – a very very inspiring album, which I spent some time last night playing along with…

In the car last night I put on ‘Steve McQueen’ by Prefab Sprout – which is always a bad move, as it means nothing else will get a look-in for weeks. What an unbelieveably perfect album in every way imagineable!!! Great songs, great lyrics, fantastic production (Thomas Dolby), remarkable sounds and arrangements. All round magic. I’m planning on doing a coupe of solo arrangements of tunes from the CD… who knows it they’ll work… Maybe I should do an all-covers CD… :o) Any suggestions for things I should do? feel free to email them, or post them to the website guestbook (Evil Harv, control yourself…)

The rest of today? some playing, some accounting, meeting Simon Jones for lunch (nice man), and er, that’s it.

Oh, nasty news from this morning – a woman tripped over outside the house and broke her nose!! Blood everywhere, I got a knock on the door asking for frozen peas, which I fetched, along with a chair for the woman to sit on before the ambulance arrived. Poor thing, hope she’s OK…

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Poorly Aged Feline/Remember James/NASA and The Great Glass Elevator…

Buna has an injured foot, poor thing… :o( Neither the small person or I
are sure how he did it, or what exactly is wrong but he’s limping quite a
lot, as though putting pressure on his front left paw is painful… it’s tragic
to watch cos we can’t fix it… a very helpless feeling. He’s not yowling or
showing any other signs of distress, so we’re not rushing him to the vets
straight away, but if he’s not noticeably better by Saturday, we’ll take him
then…

Took the small person to the doctors very early this morning, then came
home and fell asleep on the floor with our ill-of-foot eldery furry family
member for an hour or so!

Was teaching today – it’s been a moderately busy teaching week – lots of
people take some time out at Christmas (largely, I guess, due to
increased spending options around this time…), which is no bad thing for
me, as I’m still a bit knackered after the tour, and am still sorting out stuff
for the US dates – lots more dates are currently 80% there, and will be
added the the site early next week.

Haven’t yet encoded the new Steve/Jez duo track, but will do so ASAP, as
it’s very good indeed….

On an entirely more serious note, today is the anniversary of the death of
my friend James Holland – James was killed in a car accident two years ago.
I’m not sure if anyone still knows how it happened. Came off a straight
road and his the base of an old bridge… I still really struggle to get my
head round the randomness of that one. I guess it’s just ‘shit happens’ taken
to it’s earth shattering conclusion. Weird things happen all the time, it’s just
that most of them don’t end in fatalities. The track ‘Jimmy James’ was written
for James (for some unknown reason, if I rang him he’d go ‘Stevie Steve!’
and I’d go ‘Jimmy James!’ – there was probably some bit of Hendrix trivia
in there too at some point. Lots of things remind me of James. Whenever
I listen to any of the CD that he brought back from the States for me
(including three Jonatha Brooke albums…), Whenever I hear rubbish
heavy metal from the late 80s (both of us had grown out of listening to
Cinderella and Ratt by the time we met, but the memory lives on… :o),
any news item relating to Boris Becker (James looked remarkably similar to
the tennis star – we once hitched to Greenbelt, and after waiting for an hour,
I shouted at him ‘I knew you should have worn tennis gear, we’d have been
there by now!!!’ And most of all, the song that was played at his
funeral ‘Shining Star’ by Gabriel. Occasionally it comes on the radio and
really takes me by surprise. It came on during dinner on the L42 tour one
night… very strange one, that… Anyway, today is the anniversary, so have
a toast to James, and pray nothing like that ever happens to anyone you
know…

Back on more mundane and trivial blog-related thoughts, I must remember
to switch off comments section on here, Evil Harv has proved once again
why having them switch on would be a very bad idea… Though, to his
credit, he did sort me out with a ticket to see Buddy Miller tonight, which
I had to turn down in the end, sadly…

Listened to very bizarre radio thing this afternoon (on my new best friend,
radio 4), about building an elevator into space… hello? have I missed
something? a 38,000 mile long lift???? WTF???? Has someone been spiking
the water at NASA? It was very surreal listening, hearing academics
talking about stuff that Arthur C Clarke would dismiss as too implausible…
There you go, academics, failing to stop and ask ‘…er, why?’

Soundtrack – Listened to a bit of Fripp/Sylvian, ‘The First Day’
earlier on, but mainly just had the radio on… :o)

Plans for the rest of the evening involve tidying and cuddling the cat… a
taxing one, for sure…

Tomorrow is the gig in Norwich, which looks to be a
fascinating event. I’m really looking forward to that one.

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