Last day of my ‘music time’ holiday. After tending to the shopping and house-tidying, I watched a bit of the Concert for George Harrison – strange to think it’s three years ago since the concert and four since his death. Watching bands on TV is like watching them live – I find it very difficult after a while to just sit and watch. I want to be doing, and get more and more disturbed by the amount of my music that I’m not recording and not performing. Usually with this discomfort there’s nothing I can do but thole it, but tonight I was able to rush up to my studio, where all my equipment was already set up (saving ten minutes connecting cables and wondering why things aren’t working) and dashed off another ‘back catalogue’ song called The Dizzying Heights. A couple of hours and I had three acoustic guitars, bass, a simple drum loop, lead voice and two harmonies. Just like that. Of course it’ll need lots of editing and many parts will need replaying but it’s started whereas earlier today it was just a sound in my head. That’s what this week has been good for.
Last night I was invited by Innocent Mary’s boyfriend Alex to his new
flat; he wanted to record a jam with him on flamenco guitar, me on
Turkish saz and Stuart Clark on percussion (the box he was sitting on).
We were joined by Lyns and by two Serbian girls, one of them evidently
Stuart’s girlfriend, who broke into melancholic Serbian folk songs from
time to time, some of which Alex recorded. As a parting shot Alex gave
me a beautiful Samick guitar to look after for a while; he’s concerned
it doesn’t get played enough at his place!
Now I’m just filling in time until I drive to Glasgow to pick up Madame
and Pestilence at the airport at 1.30. I’m back at work tomorrow but
wont’ be at my most alert, I’m afraid.
All in all, a pretty successful week for my musical life – three recordings started, one almost finished, two gigs with the H Box, and three sessions with other groups of musicians. A film one night and a meal out by myself another. And time with friends. Luxury.