deflea dr john chico buarque

she's sulking somewhere... but it's done...

dr john has come back into my life, much more than before... i'd seen him on jules holland and i think we supported him once at a student ball @ warwick university... not that i saw him then or him us - (i imagine)

anyway, i was @ core on monday for a meeting and a few of us musicians killed some time jamming, a straightforward tune led by me and then a much less straightforward melange which somebody said sounded like gris-gris... dr john's 1st album...

since then i've immersed myself in 3 different albums by dr john: gris-gris, dr john's gumbo & in the right place...

'68, '72, '73,

and then chico buarque's construcao came to mind today after listening to some of the crazy arrangements on gris-gris...

i'm also continuing to write the tune i started last week on the rhodes... some lyrics are floating in...

and the sopranos is getting dark... ralphy in season 3...

oh and i've started my booker book club reading, although C by Tom McCarthy is only on the longlist, the shortlist hasn't been announced... i read an excerpt from C in the "sex" granta... what i read was great and i'm very pleased to have found another writer i like, and for this book to be at least in the longlist for the booker...

if it makes it onto the shortlist i will have begun early for the booker book club challenge of reading all 6 booker shortlisted novels in the 5 weeks between shortlist announcement & winner announcement... (i did it last year)

x

rhodes muse new tune

that beautiful electro acoustic instrument feeds me... i didn't know i was looking for love until i found it... i had forgotten how much it gives me & i am oh so glad to have it back in my life...

yes it would profit from the preamp being looked @ by the nice milton keynes man...

yes... that's true... but in the state it's in right now, which is pretty much the way it's been when it's been working for me in the past...

it is both muse and instrument... it calls forth music from me...

and since it's been working again - roughly the last 24 hours... i've written a new tune... well... i've got 2 sections chordwise and i've written a provisional melody for the chorus which is really nuts chordwise...

it may suit the voice of someone i met last week... it may suit my own voice... lyricly it may well talk about my feelings in relation to oncewassqueeze... it could turn into a spanner tune... it could be a longcat tune... it could be a tune from this identity i'm thinking about which uses my real name...

from me... if you will...

x

rhodes stuff

so i got the amp bit home... asked around and got hold of a soldering iron... soldered in the speaker lead that had gone astray... put the amp bit back in... proceeded to screw back in the 10 huge screws that i remember it taking me an age to unscrew the 1st time i ever did it...

didn't quite finish before the job finished off the screwdriver i was using...

excitedly moved the keyboard part near the amp/speaker part... plugged it all in...

and it didn't sound right... still doesn't... although it did for one moment...

disappointing yes... but i remember it being very reticent when i 1st got it and it finding it's proper voice after 6 months or so... i came to believe that it was being left turned off for long periods of time that it didn't like...

anyway translate that to today and it's clear to me the preamp (on the keyboard part of the suitcase) is having trouble... (the lights aren't coming on properly... so maybe it's not getting it's power quite right...or it's not happy in some way inside...

it's a job for daylight... and a possible phonecall to the nice man i saw today... although a thought has just entered my mind that maybe i didn't push the bits in correctly before screwing it all together again... and my heart breaks at the thought of undoing all those screws again...

so... that's where i'm at x

but just before i close... i'm just had another look at it and pushed the sustain pedal a few times, turning the tremolo on and off...

and it has started behaving like it's old self again...

tomorrow now before i give myself a proper rhodes experience... one can't play one's rhodes at the volume one deserves in the middle of the night... not in this flat anyway...

must also get hold of a new screwdriver and finish screwing down those pesky screws... exaclt half of them are as far down as i intend to get them, the other half and a cm or so off...

tomorrow x

tethered

my 3rd trip to milton keynes of 3... picking up the bit of my rhodes... then home... then some work putting it back together again... then possibly a smoke... then rhodes bliss once more...

blogging from my PC.... tethered to the internet through my phone... something i was looking forward to being able to do with android 2.1 - although it turns out i could have done it anyway...

around about the middle of the 2nd series of the sopranos... it makes me happy... a smile coming to my lips fairly often... such well written and beautifully crafted TV...

ok, that's all i have to say... i'm really just showing off because i can use the internet on this train...

and then i can't... mobile phone networks being oh so fragile while on trains...

x

today... the day before my brothers birthday

worked...

the 1st full day of the new term... although not such a full tuesday as i used to have... the spanners not rehearsing this time, and in the future they won't be rehearsing on a tuesday any more which, no matter which day it eventually falls upon, will make my life easier...

after work i walked over to see C (homerton to broadway market) - guitarist and recording engineer... as well as being many other things... we recorded over @ his place a few weeks ago, in the week where i had no work at all - (except a meeting... nothing's prefect)...

then after leaving his i got onto the canal and walked to angel... even trying to go beyond the bit that's closed off... i got through several fence type obstructions before a security guard stopped me, very reasonably from going the final 20 meters... the concrete had just gone down today apparently and even if he hadn't been there i probably would have turned back anyway...

then into the vue cinema for the loo, finally finding my way into wagamama's for a small meal...

i wrote this down while i was in there:

quite richard fordesque acceptance falling over me


although of course it's also eminently longcatesque & it's one of the things i like about richard ford - & about frank bascombe - that in some ways they are like me -


the rhodes situation casting a lovely bubbling presence behind my mind all day,


slightly timeless quality now - in that i don' know what time it is - only that it was 9 when i got on the canal -


walking also a welcome influence on my mind - the hint of autumn that the low sun coming through the trees @ london fields... not quite - it's more that lovely late summer magic that blesses us a few more times...


trave 39 tomorrow-


frank bascombe being richard ford's main character in the sportswriter, independence day & the lay of the land... the 3rd of which i finished reading today while waiting for students to show for my keyboard class - a risky strategy because it could have been cut off at any time... but it wasn't...

the rhodes situation being that part of my lovely suitcase rhodes piano is currently in milton keynes, under the watchful eye of a very nice silver haired old git who is mending it for me...

i don't know... you wait for a reason to go to milton keynes for decades... and then 3 turn up all at once...

x

magical menagerie & the sopranos

these days i watch way too much average TV... average to below average...

true blood is still good... and probably will remain so... i'm watching the 3rd season gradually as it is on in america... as i am watching warehouse 13's 2nd season... warehouse 13 being not as good but still mostly good... with the odd duff episode thrown in sadly...

also warehouse 13 got me into eureka... which i wish hadn't happened... a character from eureka turned up in warehouse 13 so i got hold of the 1st season of eureka and it's terrible... well... it's mostly half good... with the odd really terrible episode and once in a while there is a good episode... i'm about 3 episodes from the end of this season and... i know... why am i watching it?

some completeness thing i have i think...

anyway, i've decided to go back to the source and i'm currently getting hold of the entire 6 seasons of the sopranos... all of which (except for the last 9 episodes) i watched back when it was on british TV... somehow i missed the last 9 and i was thinking of getting hold of just them but it's been so long that i think i'm ready for the whole thing again...

it'll take awhile to get here... it's on it's way...

and then, just a few pictures of what me & grace got up to on sunday... except that blogger is odd these days with me & pictures... and i don't have the brain right now to go the long way around... so this is the only picture you have... suitably mysterious... the fantastic up down lever on one of the fish... so much fun...

more information another day x

michael franks half of life

a circuitous route brought me to this singer this morning...

i got a phone call confirming that i wouldn't be seeing the person i was hoping i could see this week... and indeed i haven't seen her for a couple of weeks... and i won't see her now for another 2 weeks after this week..

a fact that i was told back when she found me on facebook... (do you want to meet? yes, but it's either this weekend or not for 5 - 6 weeks)... but which i didn't really take in back then...

so i said to myself... as i got out of bed (the phone call had woken me up),,, it's better to know than to not know... which brought the song positive into my mind... the michael franti tune that i had loved all those years ago (around the time she was in my life last time)...

so i fired up spotify and i tried to find the song... and spotify asked me if i meant michael franks... which pleased me immensely... part of the album "the art of tea" was on a cassette tape that my friend luke hedge made for me when were in the sixth form together... half my life ago...

naturally i wanted to hear that album now as well as the michael franti tune...

not that spotify could satisfy me on either score... spotify with it;s random holes...

however i used my other means and i got to hear everything i wanted in the end... except that the 1st time i downloaded the album, whoever i got it from had the wrong version of st elmo's fire... very odd, listening to the 1975 album of lovely wistful jazz (featuring the great joe sample on keys) and then being thrown into the 80's sound of john parr... most distressing... even though that tune was something i was fond of even further back than my liking for michael franks...

oh and... talking about half my life ago... on monday i passed through being exactly half as old as my dad... without realising it...

something i'd been thinking about for ages and which had sometimes been casting a dark shape over my emotions (uneasy comparisons between him then, me now, me being born, his 2nd son, me having no kids and no prospects right now)... and while it was going on i was saying goodbye to grace after 24 hours of her... having my ear syringed & thus ending the ear saga... generally feeling as though i was crossing a line in a few ways, but forgetful of the actual line i was crossing... only tonight, reading richard ford on the tube did i remember...

must ring dad tomorrow...

x