but she was beautiful

manolis enjoys saying something vaguely dirty to me - should he leave his cafe soon, which is pretty likely - if not definate - i will miss his laugh & his conspiratorial beckoning & whispering...

i told him i was writing something for my G and it brought on a host of allusions, old stories, notions...

in my young days...

... but she was beautiful...

so that i could include it in my song he said of himself:

mad as he is he can be very inspirational

semble played for the last time last night and they broke my heart, i went with producer G, he picked me up from brixton, drove me to his for a meal and to check out his new keyboard (and meet his new cat), then we drove over to kingston...

when we arrived we were told that there were aout 16 bands playing and we'd missed 6 of them... pretty soon it became clear that each act was only doing one song, except for semble whose goodbye night it was & and who played a whole set...

it's a sign of how loved they are that so many great musicians (and some not so great musicians) were prepared to just do one tune for them...

G managed to find us two seats in the crowded venue and we saw almost the entire set, leaving just before the last tune in order to drive back into town for my last tube home...

they did many of the tunes off their current album as well as others, a tune called remind me that i remember from the first time i saw them years ago @ the turaya gathering, they've played it every time i've seen them and it's a killer... i'd love to sing it, but they do it so beautifully...

this journey i've been on in the last month with them, seeing them @ bush hall & buying the album, going down to brighton to see them and then last night, my relationship to some of the songs was a little like my relationship to spski's bicycle route that i now know... the repeated experience of them, without really thinking about it, and then the crystalisation of recognition the third or so time...

beautiful mental process...

producer G & me hatching possible plans to play together, he wielding an MPC, perhaps for the gig @ the vibe bar that i'm now doing on april 24th... very up in the air now but possible...

the other thing about semble was the relentless experimentation of it.. they've been playing for 10 years and they're still pushing boundaries and presenting new things, for almost every song last night each member of the band swapped instruments in a way that served the music rather than their ego's...

mad as semble are they can be very inspirational...

but they were beautiful...

x