Spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon with Madame at Pittenweem, on the last day of their Arts Festival. I was initially a bit gloomy comparing their thriving one with the one we’re struggling to get going in Queensferry, but felt better when I discovered theirs has been going for decades, ours for three years. What a beautiful little town, though.
Today work was going well and I’d finished all I’d planned to do by 3, then at 4:45 hell broke loose as wrong versions of pages were found on the web, colleagues firing emails and zip files all over the place and me trying to establish what exactly had happened and how to restore order. Which I did by 5:30.
Good jujutsu class, followed by a curry and ‘Dinnerladies’ on telly, then guitar practice and back to this.
About to put up a song and a WaveForms instrumental on the site.
Most of the time I feel accepted as a musician and friend in the musical circles in town. The only times I feel out of it is with matters relating to drink and dope where I feel sometimes like a frowning ayatollah in a minority of one. All I have against them is that they tend to make people unreliable and inconsiderate – especially dope in a jamming situation, when people just get into playing and forget about listening. Their conversation is often the verbal equivalent. I know all the arguments about conviviality and social relaxation, and know it makes me sound like an old prune, but give me prohibition any day!
Make that a minority of two…
I’m going to agree with this as well, I don’t partake if I’m going to be operating a guitar. After the demise of the Buddhas I was briefly in a metal band who smoked bong after bong after bong before even picking up a guitar. The result was to turn capable musicians into slow, stoned, boring wankers in search of junk food. A cheeky three skinner after the masters are in the can is another matter. With regards to conversation I’ve never found it’s made me, or others around me particularly over talkative (well apart from a certain Miss Hutchison ;~) though I have to admit talking to stoners when you’re NOT in a similar fug isn’t fantastic conversation.