whenever i have too much to do, i do nothing. it's like i freeze coz i don't know where to start. it's one of those days. there are things i have to do, plenty of things, but i just don't know where to start with it all. my mind's easily distracted today. i should watch a film or immerse myself in some music. last night it was '12 Angry Men' that i watched, really superb film with henry fonda. maybe i need to make a list. but i'm not a list person. i never make lists. i've got post-it notes all over the place, with random sentences written down. i've got little bits of yellow paper with addresses, phrases, song titles, fruit purchases, phone numbers, passwords and tea rings all scattered around. i don't know where to start. so i stop. my mind jumps from one subject to another. joe longthorne live in blackpool, the coach departs august 28th from glasgow or hamilton. £89.95 including one night's accommodation and a chicken dinner. i'll see you there. have you heard brian eno's 'music for airports'. that helps me focus. fopp on byres road has a new stock of classic cds for five miserable pounds, including that eno one. they also have a double cd of ennio morricone film music from 1966-1987 for just five quid. oh, i need to go and buy a 60 watt soft light bulb.
there's a song that i wrote on sunday night that i really like at the moment. i've got a working title for it, a phrase that popped into my head as i was writing it. but i'm not sure if it's quite right. i'm sure i've said before, but all the songs that i've written that i like came about very quickly, in the time it takes to hear the song really. so i'm excited about this one. i'd love to do a set of 10 songs that no one has ever heard. like one night play the album acoustically then the next night do 10 different ones. i'm thinking about posters and flyers for the upcoming gigs at the moment. i gave my friend a photo i'd like to use for the nice 'n sleazy poster and he's put it together, looks cool, i'll stick it up on the messageboard once it's all done. i'm playing at like 11.15pm at this goNORTH festival in aberdeen i think. on last. hopefully people won't have left for their takeaway food and bus by the time me and chris stumble up on stage, though given choice of a sausage supper or hearing me i'm sure the sausage will rule. maybe i can throw out bags of hula-hoops into the audience after each song.
apparently i'm virgin megastores radio's (VMR) unsigned artist of the week which is nice to hear, so if you're shopping in a town in the uk and there's a virgin megastore staring you in the face then pop in around 3pm and you'll hear a track from the album. you won't be able to buy it there at the moment but what the hell, if you're interested then you can always buy it another time on import from this site's online shop. in case you're worrying, well those wasps are now dead, of natural causes i hasten to add. they expired on a copy of the review section of the sunday times. there's worse ways to go i reckon, there's no dignity in passing out on a copy of heat magazine or OK magazine or some crap like that.
there are two bloody wasps in this room as i type. well, they're not bloody at the moment but they might be soon. nah, i shouldn't say that. there's enough violence going on in the world without any more required from me. besides, i always do my best to encourage them to leave this flat. putting a digestive biscuit on the window sill didn't work though, they've got wise to that. if bees and wasps come into your room they should bring you a gift, like bees should bring you honey. wasps could bring.....jaffa cakes, that would make them more appealing guests. someone told me that the ones that regularly visit my flat are bees, but they really do look like wasps. they're not fat enough to be bees. 'oh it's too early for wasps' they say, 'they don't appear until august'. but it's unseasonably warm here just now so maybe that snaps them into life. or maybe their clock radios are broken like mine is. or maybe they're confused. i don't know. i always just sit down and say what's on my mind, i didn't plan the last two blogs to be about suicidal spiders and gift-bearing bees and wasps so i'm sorry. hopefully they'll go soon.
in non-insect related news, i recorded a new track (well, the song is maybe a couple of years old i think) two nights ago with guitarist and all round good guy chris. i'm really pleased with how it sounds. it'll be on a compilation that quince records are putting out soon and it'll maybe be on my next album or an EP or something. it'll definitely be released in some form or another.
a box of cds has arrived from the record label in japan so they'll be getting dropped off in the online shop tomorrow afternoon and should be up for sale pretty much straight away. that probably sounds weird coz an online shop doesn't actually exist but it's a real place i'm dropping them off at and they'll take orders safely through my virtual shop and dispatch them quickly and efficiently. i'm really happy that the record is in shops in japan too. it was nice to see that.
i'm looking forward to the gig tonight, when was the last one? i lose track of time. i want to play about 10 songs tonight and include a couple of new ones too, so hopefully it'll all go well.
my back hurts. i think i need to sleep on the floor coz a hard surface is better for it, but that's where the spiders live and as the temperature rises so they begin to come out of their winter hideaways to dance around warm carpeted floors. it's a well known 'fact' that during the course of your lifetime you'll actually swallow 8 spiders or something like that. but i've been doing my research today and i've discovered it's just not true...
For a spider to get into your mouth while you're sleeping, (a) you must have your mouth OPEN, which is certainly not universal, so there's a big chunk of people who can never swallow anything; (b) there has to be a wandering spider in your immediate vicinity, also something which--for most people in the civilized world, at least--is a fairly rare occurrence; (c) the spider has to either jump or fall into your mouth from a long distance, because they won't go near your mouth otherwise (they're not suicidal), and the odds are pretty astronomical of a spider randomly dropping into your mouth from the ceiling. . i like the idea of a suicidal spider, staggering from a crack in the ceiling, drunk and clutching a bottle of whisky, depressed, wanting to end it all after just being dumped by a lady. he waits till a mouth opens below him and decides to end it all with a spectacular jump. could happen. i'm sure that accounts for at least a couple of spidery deaths a year in the world.
