Saturday was largely a day of shopping with Madame for her father’s birthday. I was still getting used to the kidea that presented itself on Thursday night of reducing the never-ending Romantic Fiction CD to its original idea – a three-track single – and following it up with others in quick succession – the image of it, the debate about which tracks, the debate about whether the tracks were ready for public release – still swirled around in my relaxed moments.
Yesterday, Sunday, the Innocents reconvened for the first rehearsal in many months. It was short due to having been inadvertently scheduled to coincide with the exodus of Hibs and Rangers fans from the adjacent Easter Road stadium. I reached the area in time for the rehearsal, but was directed by the police several streets away and had to sit it out while the stadium was emptied. This was my first opportunity to savour the ‘random play’ feature of my new mp3 player, and a thoroughly enjoyable thing it was – songs I wouldn’t have picked from an album, presented out of context, often delightfully. It helps to have quite a few magazine compilations on there so there are songs I’ve never or rarely heard alongside old favourites and often-shunned familiars.
The rehearsal, with Karen from the Decibelles in attendance, was quite good. As usual we are strong on the familiar songs, but new stuff takes some work.
After that it was straight to Dave Watson’s to attempt to write hit songs for a far Eastern singer to whom Dave’s been invited to submit songs. I’ve never really co-written, neither has Dave, so it was quite interesting, if strange. We spent half the time building up and imagining the groove for one song, and half the time scribbling lyrics for another song for five minutes, then comparing notes and scribbling for another five minutes. It takes time to stop being precious or embarrassed about what you’ve written and to accept another’s rejection. Now Dave is left to see what he can pull together from our efforts.