yr4wk11

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my friend (with yr4wk10)

the weather today was very appropriate for my emotions...

these days i can go from feeling really low to feeling great and back again in such a short space of time...

and today's weather was doing exactly that... i left the house to go & do some errands and it started raining, so i put on my waterproof trousers, but took them off again by holloway road because the sun was out again...

my friend GM, the guitarist came round in the evening, he's just left, we had a lovely time, playing music, eating @ lavas, (turkish place near me), playing music, talking...

we're performing together at the core arts gig tomorrow night, just a couple of tunes, walk on by, and one or 2 of mine... one of which is so new it's as yet unwritten...

the main line is written, and i'm fairly sure of where the chords are going, but there's a whole load of lyrics that need writing before tomorrow night, and i'm working all day...

in fact, tomorrow is the beginning of my mental weekend, i'm covering for GM in the morning, running my regular jam in the afternoon (which will be largely taken over by the needs of the evening gig) then gigging in the evening...

tomorrow i'm being picked up around midday, we're driving down to bristol, we're gigging as the spanner jazz punks, stripped down... then i'm being dropped (i hope) in bath where my mum & dad are celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary with all us kids and partners and grandchild...

makes me a little sad, not being with dinah no more, but then dinah would have tried to get out of going anyway, not a huge socialite when it came to my family that woman...

so i'm basking in the family celebration until monday, then limping back to london...

and i haven't done my improvisation this week...

oh - that reminds me, last week's improvisation is here:

yr4wk10, voice & hammond improvisation from longcat on Vimeo.

yr4wk9 piano

yr4wk9 piano from longcat on Vimeo.

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yr4wk8

yr4wk8 moog & overdrive from longcat on Vimeo.

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5 year return

i'd been talking to someone about the 27 year saturn return, when it became clear that i had a kind of 5 year return going on...

a week ago - on the wednesday - i get a text message from josiah marking the 5 year anniversary of grace's naming ceremony...

@ which i played the piano & sang...

a week ago i was on my way to a small gig in brick lane, promotional thing for CM, lovely H was there DJ'ing and he dropped a few choice textures behind my playing...

i was videoing it with the idea of using some of it as my improvisation...

so, two piano playing events in the open air, exactly 5 years apart...

back in 2004, midway through my version of the song for grace (wild is the wind i think...?) some of witchy godmother's kids came and started messing about on the keyboard as i was still playing...

2009 - i had, 1stly a small group of asian kids, playing the odd note on the keyboard, then a small child, playing notes on the keyboard, but this time i'd invited them to play and i was happy with the situation...

in 2004 i was a bit flustered by it...

now please bear in mind that i had no conscious thought of this link while i was doing the gig, although my subconscious could see what was going on i'm fairly sure...

anyway, it was on friday/saturday when it became apparent, i like it, i don't know what it means beyond me moving more towards acceptance, but i like it...

just to say, friday/saturday/sunday i was in brighton and i had an old fashioned weekend, with more than a little bit of indulgence... which i'm still paying for a bit...

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yr4wk7 overdrive heaven

yr3wk7 mopho, hammond & blackstar overdrive from longcat on Vimeo.

thursday... very late, no good... but don't you just love this overdrive?

fixed my puncture yesterday, had a fine day of cycling as a result...

went down to an odd fete in a park in poplar for work, met a few nice kids...

then back to whitechapel (although to be fair this was all taxis' from whitechapel to poplar and back)... a lovely chat with G & H @ CM's office...

then into town to see felinity, no cinema but some food & a few gin & tonics, a lovely night, much laughing... walked her to waterloo, then sat in the royal festival hall for awhile using their wifi for my phone... then a cycle home with herbie hancock in my ears, magnificent, foolish yes, but beautiful... i love that bike..

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sometimes a hero comes along

what is that song?

no, not that song, this song... "i'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me"

anyway...

(unrequited's for losers...)

now, many years ago, i did my 1st ever tax retun, and it scared me, and i rang up a helpline...

a very nice man, very calmly told me what i had to do, what numbers to put in which boxes...

all very easy...

i love that man...

on thursday i was in brighton with grace & her mum & her 2 cousins...

my phone had stepped up it's irritating behaviour and i'd been threatening it for awhile (you're days are numbered, i'm getting a smartphone)...

so on thursday, this entire troop of people, large & small, went into the orange shop in brighton, and a very nice man gave me a new smart phone...

all very straight forward... i love a good bit of customer service...

these people are heroes...

but not only that...

my new smart phone is a hero...

i'm teetering on the brink of the smartphone way of life, just as soon as orange text me that they've enabled my internet...

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nothing for nobody

i'm taking some time off...

i've got 2 weeks off from my work, and i'm also taking a break from all the rehearsing, recording, mixing i'm doing for other people...

off down to brighton on tuesday to see my glorious god daughter & her lovely mum...

dinah's in poland,

my time is my own...

got hold of a BlackStar HT-Drive overdrive pedal this week... i'm just listening to the improvisation i recorded tonight with the hammond & the mopho going through it...

valve distortion... it's a beautiful thing... of course whether anyone else other than me will like it is another matter, but right now i'm in a pretty much - it's all about me - zone anyway...

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yr4wk6 moog & voice

yr4wk6 moog & voice from longcat on Vimeo.

yr4wk5

yr4wk5 rhodes improvisation from longcat on Vimeo.

recorded last saturday night, just as the pub was getting going,

the last bit of recording i did with the rhodes before TC broke it on monday... x

books & notes

but 1stly, just a quick note to say, although those 4 songs do indeed capture some of my emotions... it is not only through their lyrics, it's largely through their music & sound, and where the lyrics are reflecting how i feel it is not that the lyrics reflect how i feel about dinah, necessarily...

i know... quite odd to start with that, but me & dinah are in a note writing phase, and i don't have access to her kitchen work surface to leave my notes on...

she's not sleeping here at all now, it all happened quite quickly, one minute she was here, the next minute she was gone and the only way we communicate is through notes she leaves me when she pops in to pack when i'm not here...

odd... but you've got to do what you've got to do...

anyway books...

i popped into my friendly, neighbourhood bookshop yesterday to buy the next book by mark leyner... this is after a morning spent crying intermittently, something i've been wanting to do for weeks and that i've got a lot more of in the post...

the lovely S, on asking him which book to get next, told me they didn't have it in stock and couldn't get hold of it... so he went home to pick up his copy of this book to lend to me...

he went out of his way to not sell me a book...

this morning i noticed the book tokens that mum & dad had given me for my birthday poking out from my john sinclair book... and i knew the universe was looking out for me...

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peter green

"i can't about help the shape i'm in,
i can't sing, i ain't pretty and my legs are thin,
but don't ask me what i think of you,
i might not give the answer that you want me to..."

so it's difficult, this whole breaking up with dinah thing...

funny that...

anyway, all kinds of different emotions are floating around and popping up to the surface these days...

and a surprising number of them are reflected in 4 songs by peter green from the late 60's...

so of course i'm listening to these songs a fair bit...

oh well,
albatross,
man of the world,
the green manalishi with the two pronged crown,

now, peter green was away from the music scene for long time but as i understand he's back...

and how much would i dearly love to do a weekly improvisation with peter green?

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yr4wk4 mopho & revelation

yr4wk4 mopho & revelation from longcat on Vimeo.

i announce it in this video i made in the early hours of my birthday, so i announce it here & now...

me & dinah are no more... not as a couple... friends still... always will be i hope, and still living together - at least until august...

it's difficult, for both of us... a sad time...

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36

i was reading in bed yesterday afternoon, dinah had brought me tea, toast, berocca & cake in bed and life was good...

i'm currently reading et tu, babe by mark leyner, and it pleased me no end when i read that he was 36 was he wrote it...

the night before i'd done my improvisation @ 2:34 am and i'd opened the card my brother sent me, telling me that 36 was a square number, a triangle number & a 13-gonal number...

sunday night i was in a pub with felinity & dinah & i arranged 36 mini-cheddars into 1st a triangle, then a square, but failed to arrange them in a 13-gonal shape...

this afternoon i took 36 pennies arranged them into a triangle, a square and a 13-gonal shape, although the 13-gonal is a bit rubbish...

yr4wk3 juno 6

yr4wk3 juno 6 from longcat on Vimeo.

just my voice and the juno...

while it was uploading i did this week's improvisation, just hours into my birthday, G out there in the world drinking to her drummers birthday x

yr4wk2

yr4wk2 moog, hammond, voice from longcat on Vimeo.

tuesday night...

i'm gaining...

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Mark Leyner

so i was in my favourite bookshop and lovely S recommended a book to me - even while saying he knew it was dangerous recommending books to me...

the book was - my cousin - my gastroenterologist,

i started reading it late on wednesday night and i finished it late on thursday night...

it was out there, laugh out loud funny (and please note that it wasn't lol funny - it was laugh out loud funny), well written...

a bit of a rollercoaster of a book...

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yr4wk1 hammond

yr4wk1 hammond organ from longcat on Vimeo.

the 1st one of the 4th year... just hammond x

yr3wk52 rhodes & cymbal

yr3wk52 rhodes & cymbal from longcat on Vimeo.

again getting to the wednesday before i've done the improvisation chores... slack...

this working lark really does take it out of one...

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yr3wk51 moog & juno

yr3wk51 moog & juno from longcat on Vimeo.

i really love the canal video that's in this improvisation... it was a lovely sunny day coming home along the regents canal last thursday... my camera sat just on the waters edge, rush hour on the canal, in the 15 minutes i left it filming there were many, many people, walking or cycling past...

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john berger sleeplessness

yesterday (tuesday) was such a long day on so little sleep that today (wednesday) i was very glad to sleep in and do very little...

i watched the 2nd half of the miniseries battlestar galactica... it had a tiny bit of not very good television in it, but largely it was very good...

the 1st series is arriving fairly soon...

i have high hopes of it...

but before i watched the thing i watched today, i made it over to jai shri krishna for the lunch time special, 12 - 2, i arrived @ 1:58...

whilst there i finished the book i've been reading from A to X by john berger - which was beautiful...

around about 2 they put the radio on in jai shri krishna, i think it's to get rid of the customers so they can close...

i finished the book with the radio on and whilst it was great, i felt i had to reread a bit of it... so i did, around 6ish, lying on the sofa with balthazara curled up beside me,

i'm going to lend the book to dinah's mum, i think she'll be interested in some of it, maybe she'll read the whole thing - although she reads an awful lot -

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yr3wk50 bass clarinet & rhodes with Dan Spanner

yr3wk50 with Dan Spanner from longcat on Vimeo.

it really did take just over a day to render... it finished just before i left the house for my mental day of work yesterday - 9:30 - 9 in 2 different places...

so, wednesday, late for an improv but finally it's here x

1 day

woke up this morning (bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom)


and i was half hoping the video would be rendered...

but was not ready for the news that...

it's going to take (current estimate) 1 day...

24 hours...

that's big...

my mum in town... x

brief check in

i've just finished editing my weekly improvisation...

i've set it rendering and i'm going to bed... it'll probably take 10 hours or more to render... then tomorrow i'm going to check it out and re-edit it if necessary...

a little late but not the end of the world...

i'm playing chess online again, as of the 1st of june... it's been a few months without it and i'm enjoying it again...

also i'm watching big brother again... this time all the way from the top... me & dinah watched the 1st eviction today and we were both sad that it was B...

oh well...

also i've started work @ a new place, just 1 & a half days a week but it'll really help my finances...

ok... anyway... just checking in... sleep now x

yr3wk49 rhodes alone

yr3wk49 rhodes alone from longcat on Vimeo.

no words for quite some time...

i guess i'm just not in the habit of it...

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yr3wk48 tonematrix & moog

yr3wk48 moog & tonematrix from longcat on Vimeo.

if you haven't played on this tonematrix i heartily recommend it, (you need the latest flash)...

enjoy x

yr3wk47 rhodes thru mopho

yr3wk47 rhodes thru mopho from longcat on Vimeo.

the music from a week & a half ago on a wednesday, the sky video from last week... monday...

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yr3wk46 mopho juno 6

yr3wk46 mopho juno 6 improvisation from longcat on Vimeo.

i was in such a rush to get ready to "broadcast" by sunday that i forgot to do the last bit, putting it here & on my blog & my webspace...

the blue sky/clouds footage was shot on friday the 8th may, and it was when i was cycling home from there that all the phone calls, assumptions, photographing happened as told in the last post...

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Charlotte Sarah

i spent an idyllic hour or so on the thames... filming footage for last week's improvisation that i'm putting together this weekend...

lowtide getting lower, me on a bank near the side of the thames, with receding water all around...


anyway as i'm getting ready to come home i start thinking about M & D and the impending event...

so i ring their house and they don't answer...


a little later i'm cycling through town and i can't stop myself from ringing D's mobile..

after 2 rings he sends me to the answerphone...


this is significant i say to myself and i start singing to myself about how the 8th of may is going to be my neice/nephew's birthday...

i leave the centre of the city and i can't stop myself from ringing felinity and we speak for 25 minutes or so...


by which time i'm in finsbury park...

i relax as i approach home and a couple of streets away i take these pictures roughly as my brand new baby niece Charlotte Sarah is being born...



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fando e lis

so awhile ago, old friend J who mainly lives in mexico these days (i think) told us about this director whose name i don't know how to spell - jodorouski -

so we put his films on our lovefilm list...

many months later the 1st DVD arrives and we watched the 2 films on it yesterday, the 1st film was great - the cravat - short, very funny, arresting...

the 2nd film was disturbing... it seemed too long, it had lovely, great moving bits but also abusive, nasty bits too...

this scene i present to you is from about midway into the film, just as you're beginning to realise that all is not well...

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