my life from 6 to 26 years ago

in 1999 my dad took on some more treasuring for various different organisations and took over my bedroom as his office, i'd moved out 5 years or so before this so i barely noticed... he & my mum bagged up my belongings still in the cupboard in there and put them in the loft...

earlier this year my sister K went home for a week to help mum & dad clear out the loft and they cleared up roughly half of it...

i didn't expect to be doing it today but i found myself listening to scott walker and then gillian welch on my shuffle as i went through boxes of my old stuff, i'd lived in that room until i went to university in 1991, returning for almost a year around '96 i think... there were photo's from my student days, posters of the rock'n'roll band i set up in the sixth form, countless notebooks from my late teenage confused mind... my cuddly stegosaurus that my gran made me, a photo of me winning the decorate your bicycle competition at age 5 (i think) - mum had spent awhile making my bicycle look like an aeroplane, i doubt i had anything to do with it, my brother D also won in his age range, his bike was a fish... also largely the work of our mum...

my trombone was up there, i gave it a few tentative notes, i really should sell it on ebay, or let mum sell it, i'm not about to take it up again...

i gleaned afew books, quite afew pieces of paper with musical fragments on them, photo's, i threw out an enormous amount of cassette tapes, 3 bibles, (well actually i did in the end keep the one that i got @ sunday school when i was 8), many posters, quite afew books... which was particularly wierd, but necessary...

mum has given me some dresses that her mum made for K when she was grace's age...

and i've played the piano...

not nearly as much as i intend to, i found myself really thinking about when i have a place to myself and i can move it... although i could concievably put it in my room now...?

beautiful, beautiful thing, just the touch i love...

x

kafka on the shore sleep

i'm in blewbury, where i grew up, at my mum & dads house... well, bungalow, i don't know if i've ever spelt that word, meaning a house with only one floor... no stairs...

i just finished kafka on the shore by murakami, was great, sad to have finished it, so nice to be reading him again, maybe i'll go back and read the others again, the wind up bird chronicles was the first one i read, i met someone on the tube who was reading that recently, his 2nd time...

i'm sleepy, which is good, my sleep patterns have been creeping later and later... lending an hour to summer hasn't helped, but of course i'm glad to lend summer that hour, & summer is pretty puntual about giving it back, once it's done with it, 6 months or so i think...

i finished the recording of harbour walls, fender rhodes instead of piano, sounded really nice i think, written for loads of people but sung this time for K, P & myself, emailed it to K, i'll have to go round to P's with it on my shuffle to get it to her, and of course it's on my shuffle already for myself...

dixie & honey (blewbury cats) had a little fight just before i finished the book, slightly unnerved me although i guess it's normal...

x

recording

a few years back i met someone from my past who i'd written a song for as a 15/16 year old... i really wanted to sing it to her, but it just didn't happen in the end, so i recorded it and sent it to her...

the act of recording it gave my other music making a kick up the arse... within 6 months i had an album half finished, made up of all kinds of tunes from the years before that... it's still unfinished, needs pruning and producing...

so now here i am recording harbour walls for someone - although i actually sang it to her a few weeks back so it's not the same exactly, (and i'm glad it's not the same, that other situation didn't quite work out how i planned it..)... and i can feel a similar kick being delivered to other tunes, to my music in general, once this is recorded it will go to her, and to P, and onto my shuffle, but it will also go to the bass, cello & drums in my nascent band...

recording voice into SX turning out to be so straight forward... what a joy that will be... writing with my voice as well as my fingers...

x

scott walker

for awhile now i've had it's raining today by scott walker which i love, but today i got the whole album, scott 3, which i transfered to my shuffle today while i washed my floor...

A came round today, lovely to see her, we walked up to crouch end, her 1st time there strangely, you'd think to look at her that she's spent her whole life in crouch end... one more walk up and down the disused...

now i'm going to record harbour walls for someone... foolish undertaking... but then i'm full of them...

x

carnival of souls unsteady path

again today i left the house for an aimless wander, this time i headed west, ipod playing lakshmi shankar, who i'd assumed was L. shankar, the wonderful violinist of shakti, but actually is a fantastic female singer, sister-in-law to ravi, L. not related to the great sitar player at all...

i headed up mitford street where i'd met balthazara's younger look-a-like on friday night, no sightings today, turning left down kingsdown then crossing the holloway road i strayed as far as tuffnel park, the lakshmi album finished just before i caught sight of the boston arms, where me & spski have seen billy childish a couple of times... (in fact i see he's playing there on friday april 8th... must tell pbug)...

i also washed my floor today, joyful activity it was too... then downstairs waiting for it to dry spski & his friend had returned from margate (off-season) which reminded me that awhile ago i'd bought carnival of souls on DVD in a pound shop, film based around an abandoned funfair... so we watched it... eerie, and striking, a little slow, but fantastic none-the-less... reminded me that i'd made a tune out of some voacl samples from that film years ago.. must track that track down...

audioscrobbler grace & josiah gone

we lost an hour, but it's alright, time means not so much in this current phase of holiday...

grace & josiah stayed again last night, we had a lovely time, chilling out, popping out to the swimmer for a g & t, rolling over to jai for our customary feed... me & grace danced this morning to caetano veloso, my christmas cd from P (3 months late)... much piano playing also... posted some pictures to my flickr, for some reason i'm happy to show my face there, just not here - maybe that will change...

also found audioscrobbler courtesy of j_s, kookie things the internet gives us sometimes...

x

shuffling pounding the streets moonlit cat

so i went down to brighton on thursday to get grace & josiah, beautiful day. stooged around town for awhile, bought heaps of things, including a beard trimmer, swimming earplugs & an ipod shuffle - lowest of the shuffles @ £70, 512M...

i'm sat here now on friday night, having had my first day of ipodness, josiah & grace went off to another godparents today - they're back here tomorrow night (saturday) - after they left i plugged my ipod into my PC - put my old napster folder into itunes and randomly filled up it's little half a gig drive with tunes...

i left the house on the way to waitrose and the very first tune i heard on it was mmm skyscraper, i love you.. by underworld, killer track, followed by:
stand by sly and the family stone,
numbers by smoke city,
hidden camera by photek,
wierd al yankovic's my name is, my name is, my name is... Darth Vader,
killing me softly by roberta flack,
i didn't know i was looking for love until i found you by everything but the girl...

fantastic track after fantastic track...

hello random... the god of good radio who makes every tune just right for you on certain days was shining down love upon my first ever experience with the apple corporation...

my second trip out was via howl by allen ginsberg, 20 minutes of poetry... followed by some wayne shorter... i let my feet lead me through streets north of my house, eventually linking up with the disused railway and following that up to highgate, too dark by then to come back down, i phoned up P and popped round for a cup of tea... tried to get my ipod to talk to her mac which was only partially successful...

on my home from seeing her - which extended into a trip to the pub, i was walking down a street i hardly ever walk down - mitford street - and directly in my path, under the full moon, a beautiful cat just like my balthazara was waiting for me... timid at first but friendly in that reserved way that cats have...

x

godma G, josiah & grace by the sea (saturday) 

from the same steps into the river with a little more of the skies colour in the water... i so love london sometimes x 

down by the thames 

haruki egg balancing godma G gone by now freedom

i get in around 5:30 - 6 am, sunday, put my clothes in the washing machine without turning it on, meaning to wake up in around 3 hours to set it going, then i crawl into bed and sleep that unpleasant non-sleep that i get every now and then, self-inflicted...

i rise @ 11:30 - do the laundry thing... get back into bed...

at 12:25 i get up again, i find cedric playing mandolin downstairs and invite him to join me trying to balance an egg on it's thin end in celebration of the equinox - an idea suggested to me as i trawled through hippy site after hippy site finding out about the 13moon calender, my hands are shaking after so little sleep but i somehow manage it, perhaps more to do with the pitted surface of our kitchen table than the forces of light and darkness in balance but pleasing none-the-less...

i get myself together and go out to see the faaamly... old friends galore meeting up for the first time in awhile, some of whom i see more than others, although even these ones i have been a little distant from more recently, there were some there i hadn't seen for 2 years... at one point i was sat in a line with the entire household of the kensal rise house we lived in for a few years about 5 years ago...

i skipped out early to pop into godma G's for a cup of tea, she who was only with us for this weekend and will be travelling back to amsterdam about now and who i had already seen the day before, as in fact i'd seen quite a few of the faaaamly...

being saturday... we had our first ever open day at college, went smoothly enough... beautiful day to be stuck inside, still wearing the huge coat P gave me... not so appropriate at midday, but oh so appropriate after work when i decided on a whim to skip down to brighton to see godma G with our mutual goddaughter grace, grace being her 2nd name - i'm cautious with people's names here in this blog - but godma G calls her grace anyway, her 2nd name too... a bit nippy wandering by the sea, glad of the coat, and G glad of my scarf (got it back on sunday from her), lovely to see josiah, really nice to have us all together - seeing josiah & grace on thursday as well this week...

me & G travelled back to london together and went to meet D before she went off to see the chemical brothers... only D was a little late so he directed us to a bar where we found E, bo, faaamly galore... all off to a party that i somehow found myself going to... really hadn't meant to be up all night...

all of us who had been at that party and were at the faamly gathering the next day were shadows really, most of them got really drunk, i stayed off the alcohol, as i already i left before them, off to hackney...

now on the way to the gathering on sunday i'd finished the philip k dick novel i'd been reading and on the way to hackney i found myself in a bookshop buying the new haruki murakami novel i've been holding off, i kind of intended to wait for the paperback but there was nothing for it on sunday... maybe because i'd found the book of disquiet so hard going, really refreshing to have the narrative drive of first philip k dick and then the wonderful murakami... having read everything i could of him a few years ago, this is a real treat, to have a new book by him now...

which i've had my nose in since then, reading it on the tube, in bed, whilst walking down the street... had my last day of work today and i was reading it when i came home, a distressing scene which i won't divulge, i was lying on my bed and i dropped off for a nap after reading this rather grim bit, then i woke up from one of my walking around dreams, not as bad as the dead of night ones that happen sometimes but pretty out there, the same menace as the scene in the book, part of the price i pay for partying like that on the weekend, these disturbing dreams almost always come within a week of a night out like that..

heaven by the river peace camp

another beautiful day... i left work and wandered by the river for awhile, took some pictures, which maybe will start reappearing here - been a little while since i've had my picture blogging head on -

the way the dying light shines on the water close to the sunset...

absolute heaven...

i cruised over to trafalgar square to check the peace camp saw C, friend of D's who i've met a few times, lovely guy, hectic life organising for those folks, in the midst of it had some laughs to share about the life of trafalgar square and living in it...

he told me berlusconi's pulling italian troops out of iraq which is astounding and fantastic news... the strength of the anti-war movement in italy must be immense to sway the furthest right wing leader in europe...

the camp itself surprisingly big, the people prepared to sleep on that hard pavement, unlike george galloway - whom i like alot as a political force, demanding a bed and a dressing room... then bailing out...

i'm working tomorrow so i won't be marching with them, but i'm there in spirit, (fat lot of good that'll do them)..

x

beeeeautiful day

so i made my way to south london for my last schools visit this year, the school turned out to be at the end of a street that i lived on once upon a few years back, half moon lane, back when i lived above a hat shop, so i wandered down this road, saw with some gratification that the hat shop was no more, (probably my worst landlord that hat maker), then went and sat for awhile in brockwell park...

sat, no, lay down, yes,

lay down in the sun and read my philip k dick novel the man in the high castle, really enjoying it... and the weather...

such a qualitatively different experience when the day is nice like today... spring is so sprung...

x

spring is here

somehow i can imagine a summers day in my head, how beautiful that's going to be.. and i think that this is because something has begun in the air, spring truly is here, even though it's still wintry..

really long day of work today, good vibrations in my notation lesson, began my other lesson with blue skies not grey skies, (at the start of the lesson the sky was grey, by the end it was blue), and then the modes of the major scale, (ever confusing to each new generation of students... a real head expander), then finally the (unpaid) open mic/jam session, very early days thereof, the first one was two weeks ago, two people attended, tonight there were three of us, at one point an idyllic sound over some chords i'd written earlier in the afternoon... two J's, one largely on guitar, the other largely on melodica... nice...

and pessoa's gone, even though there is still a section of the book unread, i'll dip into that in the future, glad to be free of it, although it's been fantastic, immensely rich...

x

pessoa nearing completion work swamped

that school still with no heating so i was looking forward to a day off today, sort out a few things, rest my voice...

a text from a friend @ work reminding me of something i'd said i'd do, followed by a phonecall from another colleague asking if i could cover for tomorrow afternoon & evening, and suddenly i'm booked up for the whole of monday and the whole of tuesday...?

lost my voice momentarily during my teaching today, surprising how upsetting beneath the surface that was, really can't wait to be out of these woods and back to where i was...

the end is in sight for fernando pessoa, i'm on something like fragment 439 of 480ish.. odd to be so looking forward to the end while really enjoying the richness of it, normally i'm reluctant to let a book go, but this one has been such an odd experience, also maybe P is wrapped up in it somewhere...

i'm hosting the open mic @ work tomorrow night and my voice might be in some kind of state to sing... lets hope so, sure have some songs to sing right now..

x

fractal time honesty

whew...

that was a long time coming,

just had a long awaited conversation with K, my housemate and sometime musical collaborator, about my band, that he was involved in, and how i want to move forward with it without him...

i explained why, and he took it in a marvellous way, saw the truth in what i was saying, came back with something else to think about and was understanding all round...

this partly through another housemate S talking to me about something he didn't like last weekend, the fact that he'd brought it up with me really impressed me and in the end i bit the bullet and spoke to K...

honesty always the way forward.

and then just a small note to say that i've been experimenting with the timewave, a theory of novelty put forward by terence mckenna, using a piece of software called fractal time, i don't know if it has any implications for history or indeed for the future (including the 21st of december 2012) but i am enjoying checking out the fractal, finding the shape of it, the different orders of magnitude that it looks similar on...

x

wild is the wind

sat down @ T's piano and played a few bits, this new thing i started @ christmas, some new chords today for some whole newer thing...

then i found myself singing the thrill is gone, a little more pain in that song post-P than when i first started singing it afew years back...

anyway, cedric was vaguely within earshot and i think he yelled out a thanks for it... then abit later as i was stooging around the net, wandering whether today would be about tears, i heard cedric singing wild is the wind, another song i do, so after awhile i got back on the piano, hoping he hadn't left the house yet, and started that one... he popped his head round the door fairly soon... my voice still not all there and it was a little croaky, but it was there... i sang it to cedric.. beautiful moment...

and very glad i was of it too, i wouldn't have thought of that song if it hadn't been for cedric and those two songs are really linked for me, particularly today, the thrill is gone speaking of a blues feeling i have today, & wild is the wind reminding me of a beautiful balance to that which somehow looks forward...

x

thoughts... being given

an old friend of cedric's round for the night, i've met her before, really nice, she's just spent quite a sum on an accordion, a little more than i spent last year on the suit... so i found myself recounting the story of the accordion gig i found myself doing last summer, a story i'm fond of and which was appreciated, the fact that i had to do the gig, the fact that i was clumsy on the accordion... i realise now, rereading that post from july that i didn't include a part i told tonight in our kitchen... that later on, after doing the accordion gig, going out and getting mushroomed up again in the beautiful festival night... i stumbled back into the small world stage and saw a really great accordion player... and i felt shame, that on that same stage i'd presumed to just pick up an accordion and play it badly... there she was, notes flowing out... all that i wasn't...

anyway, it's funny that i should tell that story tonight as i've been thinking on a similar theme today as the bulk of that july post, about losing piano's, feeling voiceless, but the voice bubbling up like an underwater spring, forcing it's way through another channel... which is what that july time was all about for me...

today i got to work and once again i was given a gift, this time in the shapeof my students not turningup to my first lesson, which meant that i could just sit and play that piano which i chose for my work and which i love...

and i thought about being voiceless, as i'm still pretty voiceless, still feel that frustration of wanting to sing but not having the voice for it... and the same thing was happening as back in july, this time my physical voice failing me, but my voice surging forth from my fingers, that piano - slightly in need of a tune, resonating and singing for me this morning...

also because harbour walls is done now, it's like my creativity has been let loose, a tune i started back @ christmas on my mum & dad's piano, came out again, i wrote some lyrics for it after a shaky night with P awhile back, layer upon layer of ecstatic melodies coming out today... played through all my recent tunes, from midnight, love is lies, on my mind to harbour walls, ... to get a module that could approach the experience of a good, real piano... the audition that i did last week that i probably didn't get has put me in a strange place about my lovely module...

how lucky have i been this week, to balance out how odd it has been to have ny voice taken, but to be given this much in terms of chance freedoms...

just wanted to say that i appreciate it, thankyou universe...

x

another gift

so here i am in the deserted school once again, just like monday, the heating still not fixed... perfect for me, my health not altogether better, don't have to teach, still get paid... i can do both the things that i was choosing between to do after work today...

niiiiiiiice

x

dals i have known

which proved to not be the name for cedric nash's brand new blog, finally i persuaded him, while enjoying his most recent dal experiment - lovely - to create a dal blog, radio dal is how i was thinking of it a few weeks ago... as with these things i don't know if he'll keep it up, but i hope he does, i miss cedric when he's away, and he's away almost all of the time these days...

lost my voice midway through a lesson yesterday, and i could have really used longer in bed this morning, not to be as i ran off to a posh girls school to observe the teaching of one or our students, he asked me to be there for 9:30, he actually started teaching @ 11:40.... not his fault, but those couple of hours in bed this morning could have made all the difference...

i went to that school last year when i was involved in this process, amazing the difference that throwing lots of money at a school can do...

it was also my second visit to the primary school i went to - for exactly the same reason, i remember the walk from canada water tube to the school, along a wierd, really shallow waterway, past a huge man made hill, through a lovely park... the weather was nicer when i did it last year, a bit grey today, but still really nice..

my voice is still not really here, which is killing me slightly because i've finally finished harbour walls (after almost a year) and i really want to hear it, but i can't sing it...

anyway, sleep is so what i'm getting in the next 15 minutes - then i don't have to be @ work until 1:30 tomorrow so i could stay in bed for a ridiculous amount of time if i wanted to (and i sometimes do want to)..

x

tidal tetris jamming

still honing in on that last line or two of harbour walls... i've put another link in, this one to a java game of tetris that my brother D made ages ago, it has my music in it...

and then because tides are in my brain i wanted to recount sunday...

when i met with D (not the book about cars), @ the south bank, (also saw the pigs on their way to see solaris), a lovely time, i'd seen him last saturday @ spanna's party but hadn't really spoken, much to discuss as ever...

we left the NFT and browsed a little in the bookstall that is right there under waterloo bridge and for the first time i took in the beauty of that view, from directly outside the NFT, looking under the bridge, so symmetrical, such a gift of perspective.. took a picture that might do it justice which i'll post when i get my dongle in again (ooer missus)...

also there were some young musicians - a sax player and two hang players, i'll let the link tell you about the hang... developed only recently by the swiss.. (those crafty swiss)... lovely sound, D getting their details - maybe recording them...?

then me & him descended to the beach, the water receding, a lovely stroll in the crisp air, talking about the world - as ever...

we walked as far as london bridge where we parted company and i headed to brick lane for a jam session - the same people as this jam session back in june, amazing that it's been that long since i played with them, didn't take my keyboard this time, synth madness, although A, the guy who owns the studio found me a rhodes sound for some of the tracks...

E rapping and singing in danish by the end of the night, crazy, crazy french drummer (sorry, merci, sorry, sorry, merci, sorry so many words coming from that man's mouth)- nice bass playing from another frenchman (A also french) - with ramjac providing insane synth / drumming / percussioning...

some nice stuff came out i think, also found out that on listening to the jam session i was involved with back in june they've selected a couple of tracks - not that i've heard them yet... i'm a little unclear about what the destination is for the tracks they select...?

hmmm..

ramjac drove me home, listening to some stuff he's working on with dr das, after bagels and soup on brick lane...

had not quite enough sleep and then headed off to school for my pleasant surprise... (see the other post today)

x

a gift, a kettle & the tide

so i was walking towards the school i teach in on monday mornings, short of cash and hungry, knowing it would be a few hours before i could get to a cashpoint and purchase some nourishment... it was just after 9 am, moments to go before i had to be there... all the students should have been in their class answering the register...

i turn the corner and there is a crowd of kids outside, just like the image which i see at the end of the school day... but this is 9 am?

i see one of my students and ask him... the heatings broken, school is cancelled for the day...

i remember what this felt like as a child, and i feel pretty damn good as an adult, knowing i don't have to work this morning... a gift...

so i pop in to my college, pick up some essays i have to mark, then i walk to the tate modern and spend awhile there writing lyrics... i almost have harbour walls done now, just the end of the second verse eluding me...

and when i get home there is our brand new, sparkling kettle awaiting me, not that i've really minded the last few days of boiling water in pans, but i looove this new kettle...

hmmmmm..

& lastly, just because i'm thinking of tides in relation to the tune i've put up a link to the tide at london bridge, which i'm actually really pleased about because there is a place i'd love to explore down on the waters edge that you can only get to at low tide... resources for future adventures...

x

the sun

spent perhaps too many hours reading interesting stuff on the web yesterday, after taking grace & josiah out to the cafe, grace having been really good with me on my own proceeded to be a complete nightmare in public, a tricky shift from having her mum to not having her mum and then back again... much as i understand it i have to say that really pushed past my threshold with the amount of sleep i got, and once home i found myself surfing obscure facts and myths online for longer than i meant to...

but information is always good, when it's going in, and this stuff was going in...

deoxy as ever providing some mind-opening stuff, this time on sabbats, the 8 dates in the year when pagan festivals take place... (actually i bet pagan festivals happen on way more than eight days a year...), the next (less important one) being the vernal equinox, when the hours of daylight and of night are equal... small moment of curiousity about whether the author i was reading, one mike nichols, was the director of the same name, (fairly sure he's not)...

one of his points was that these dates are as old as this planet, being based on astrological events...

then a little later found myself gazing at the sun, courtesy of NASA and ESA (the european space agency), i love these images of ultra-violet light coloured so that we can see them....

hmmmm...

audition tomorrow for a scottish singer... send me love at around 18:30 GMT...

x

grace watching

asleep in my bed... her mum out with an old friend of hers, some necessary time spent both for me & grace, and josiah and her friend..

had my teaching observed today, went well, good lesson, taking my students through some odd relationships on the keyboard... one of the points raised was that a couple of times i was asked a question by a student and i looked away from them, to the rest of the group, to answer... an interesting thing to have pointed out...

there is a link between preforming and teaching here for me, i teach performance but i am an insular performer myself, when i'm singing my stuff my eyes are usually closed.. i'm not connecting with the audience in that way...

so eye contact....?

a question there for me..

in the next few days i'm beginning the observation of ten or so students who are doing their teaching practise in both primary & secondary schools... interesting to have been observed and then to go out and observe...

x

perhaps a gig

i hope to take advantage of my friend C’s stay here, he will be staying in this house for another month and he cooks fantastic food, i’ve done three gigs in my landlord’s front room with C cooking a soup… jan 2003, july 2003, july 2004, so i’m hoping to get something together for easter sunday or there abouts.. x

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