transference of audio worlds protection

soundchecked today already, i was there for at least an hour before i got to set up but this was cool, slept long and well last night, good feeling that that gives me, in contrast with the corrosive nature of sleeplessness,

on my way in (to cargo, where the gig is tonight) i was listening to gorecki's 3rd symphony on my minidisk. part of this renaissance of minidisk listening i'm experiencing. all disks from when i used to minidisk more, several years ago. as i came into the house now, (double locked so i thought i was alone but spski appeared, would have been locked in had he tried to leave), i took the lead i've got plugged into my keyboard in the front room, for just this purpose, and took it to the basement, so i could continue listening to the minidisk, transference of my audio world,

after gorecki had run his course i'd put on protection by massive attack, and following that solid air by john martin, both just the tunes not the albums,... which is similar to the time recently when i was traversing london, dropping keys off to work, stooging about the tate modern, which i wrote about in my letter to cedric nash and hence didn't feel the need to blog particularly. i was listening to a minidisk (aaah, someone who'll watch over me - frank sinatra) made for me by A, (frank interrupted, did i do that when i made the disk? no, my minidisk player is messing with me..)

anyway, this disk A made for me was labeled the hissing of summer lawns, the name of a joni mitchell album, so i assumed it was the album, but it was just the tune, and that about the 4th tune in, originally i thought she'd just intro'd the album with a few other tunes, but no, (ok, my one and and only love, killer opening melody), compilation... i remember walking onto the kingscross thameslink southbound platform as i don't deserve to be lonely by sinead o'connor came on, huge emotions, the disk made for me in that brief period when me & A were happy together, but several of the tunes relating to the dark time that came later,....

and strangely now it's frank singing my funny valentine, which came to me earlier today, sat reading about greg dyke in the observer, waiting to soundcheck, something in the jazz tune that was playing in the restaurant, a turn of phrase that spoke to me of my funny valentine, which i then sang to myself (and slightly to the attractive girl sat across the way from me), one of those nice harmonic things that work even though i'm singing in a different key than the jazz tune in the background. but we know the key is related because i heard the phrase that brought on the song within the jazz tune... i also sang it for my vocal soundcheck a little later, started too high so i was stuck when the tune goes up, had to drop an octave, started singing an improvised mad melody to the words of how i was feeling about singing, pitching. after my soundcheck, briefly running to the loo before the whole band soundchecked, i carried on this song in the acoustic space of the loo, (which i love, the doors open outwards!), something about knowing my own voice, my range,... my mindisk player really messing me up now, massive long pauses for no reason, maybe a head cleaning deal, do minidisk players have heads? laser cleaning? (actually this time it was me interrupting the end of the song with the end of the minidisk)

approaching the end of vertigo, perfect accompaniment to gorecki and vise versa. my world, walking the streets listening to gorecki, resonating wonderfully with sebald's, walking through valleys and gorges to his home village, back for the first time in 30 years. when i got drunk with cedric and edge the other night, really nice to be reading that book again, quoting bits to cedric, about train journeys. cedric talking about taking an old style train up through serbia, stopping for awhile in slovonia? a part of the former yugoslavia where the serbs had been ethnically cleansed by...? i get lost in the politics of that area, but cedric could see this marshland from his train window, where he knew many people had been killed only a few years before... i related this to beyle (stendhal i think) in vertigo, standing in the terrain of the battle of marengo, a few years after the battle. (on cedrics birthday actually 27th september, albeit over 150 years earlier, 1801).

Now, however, he gazed upon the plain, noted the few stark trees, and saw, scattered over a vast area, the bones of perhaps 16,000 men and 4,000 horses that had lost their lives there, already bleached and shining with dew.