i'm in a musical frenzy at the moment, both listening to and writing and i'm now convinced that the two feed off each other in some beautiful symbiotic relationship. all of the music, films, creativity i'm absorbing from what i'm watching, reading and listening to recently are lumped together like a giant hump-backed whale that has the little mollusks nibble off the dead skin on its back in return for some food and a free ride. i'm a mollusk. i think the choice is simple, either go a bit loopy or channel the energies / feelings i have into writing music and absorbing everything going on around / within me to drive me to write my own songs. i've chosen the latter, it's probably safer.
i've just recorded three songs as demos with chris and i'm really pleased with how they've turned out.. i watched the great documentary film 'i am trying to break your heart' about wilco when they made yankee hotel foxtrot and i immediately wrote a song once the end credits rolled. last week i wrote two that i'm looking forward to playing through with the others as well. one is called mystery star that i mentioned in my last journal entry, the other is called old friend and feels a bit cinematic to me, kind of john barryesque.
i feel a little crazed just now. maybe it's coz i've got a multipack of minidiscs to record into. who knows. maybe it's also because it's january and as another musician told me in an email recently january is a month for getting on with stuff and hopefully we'll all wake up smiling come the springtime. maybe there's also something hanging over me that's making me escape into music and film and making me write. maybe it's the fantastic fruit smoothees i'm trying to have more of. maybe it's coz there are lots of good deals on red wine right now.
there are no gigs set up at the moment which feels sort of weird. usually there's always a gig in the pipeline. maybe the next gig will be in japan. now that would be exciting. a kind of timescale/framework is going to be happening based around the release date for 'calling out to you') and gigs / events will be worked around that. it's scheduled for april anyway, though the exact date is being discussed at the moment between the distrubution company and the record label.
i wonder if i can make a wine smoothee.
when was the last time you listened to a piece of music and felt tears well up in your eyes? or watched a movie or read a book that really, really got to you. it seems to happen to me alot recently. more than it ever used to. sometimes it can be a kind of feeling of joy or a kind of realisation of something beautiful, or it can be a glimpse of a sad time. it can happen when a chord change and a lyric combine to hit some kind of emotional spot in the brain. a record i'm listening to just now is doing that to me and it's just a great feeling to get lost in the experience....
after the journalist wrote in his review that i'd played a song called 'mystery star' (see the messageboard) i decided i'd pick up the guitar and see if this song could come to me. it did, last night in fact. whether or not it's absolute mince (scottish expression meaning rubbish) or not is yet to be seen. i suspect it might be mince. lean mince at that coz it's pretty short. i scribbled down some lyrics to it too. i'll play it again tonight and see how it's sounding. maybe i'll just keep the chorus coz i think that was the best thing about it.
don't eat a jam doughnut after a big, heavy lunch. indigestion can be so painful :(
this was christmas day, around lunchtime.
i wanted to be on the swings.
apparently we're going to get the worst storms in a decade tonight. it's been wild here recently. global warming is to blame, the climate has changed. it's quite scary actually, knowing that what we've done is irreversible and we have so little control over our environment. when will the media stop calling these occurances 'freak events'. they're not anymore i don't think. they're the new norm. these are uncertain, untested times. it feels like absolutely anything could happen.
i'm about to walk home and i might get blown away. i'm wearing my parka and if a particularly strong gust of wind catches the hood then i'll be flung into the air and i'll start flying. i'd like to fly actually. i'm going to avoid scaffolding whilst walking to my flat, i'm never convinced that it's been erected properly. i mean it just looks so shoddy and then there's that haphazard bit of wood that the entire structure rests on. the west end is full of discarded christmas trees. i've never seen as many just lying around on the pavements outside flats. what do people think is going to happen to them? still, it's better than unwanted, discarded christmas puppies roaming the streets. i didn't have a christmas tree in my flat this year. i've never had one. i figure living on your own there's really no point. maybe next time i'll put a twig up with a single bauble. if i'm feeling festive that is.
the artwork for the uk release of 'calling out to you' is nearly complete. it's being tweaked as i type. a wonderful artist/designer called yasu has lovingly put the whole shebang together. it's also been re-mastered and has a bonus track. i'm hoping to begin rehearsing a bunch of new songs song soon with a view to begin more recordings.
edinburgh on friday night was fantastic. wow, what a brilliant bunch of people to organise a fundraising gig at such short notice, in such a cool venue and have such a great crowd turn up and empty their pockets. i loved everything about that night. sadly i didn't get my act together to have it recorded or photographed, though someone did coz i saw a flash go off a few times. i think i've put enough photos of us doing gigs up for a while though. the gig on sunday was more intimate but it was good to try out new acoustic picky songs, especially the toothbrush song and dislocation which i really enjoy playing. chris's guitar playing is fantastic and james and alan just sound brilliant too, hopefully some more gigs won't be too far in the future coz we're all enjoying playing.
right, better button up and leg it.
all of 'blazing saddles', most of 'the big lebowski' and some of 'delicatessen'. that was how i filled my day yesterday. very self indulgent yet very nice. eating pringle dippers in bed while the world blew a storm was good. deciding to count my blessings and worry only about dribbling sour cream and chive dip on bedsheets is quite a refreshing way to spend an afternoon. i was tuned out. waking up early today was very hard. i needed something good to happen. some happy moments. some unplanned little events to open up in front of me. for someone unexpected to get in touch or for some offer to just pop up out of the blue. to see the sun for more than three minutes would have been a start, but alas it didn't happen.
so imagine my delight when i received 'anchorman' on dvd. i think this is one of my favourite american comedies in a good while. i have to confess, i don't find ben stiller that funny. he's not in this film but i mention him coz it's that kind of slightly daft comedy. but this one is funny. don't you think stiller's over-rated? dodgeball was awful. come on, admit it! i've been thinking alot about comedy recently. i guess it was my first true love. there was a show on a couple of days ago about some of the best loved comedians. some of it i agreed with. some i didn't. john cleese at number two in the "comedian's comedian" list? no way. i've got a great tape peter cook (this show's numero uno) recorded with chris morris. i'm going to play that later, it's great. i've also got woody allen on tape from 1968. i must listen to the shuttleworths again and alan partridge tapes from his early days.
i wrote a comedy once. it was actually before i wrote music. it was before everyone was really using email the way they use it now. well, a few people were, mostly college/uni students who just discovered this covert way of looking busy/industrious (ie being sat in front of a computer) but yet being subversive and screwing the university's resources by sitting and surfing, chatting, emailing. all nonsense. i got into it. a new world opened and i stepped in. anyway, i wrote a thing (i say 'thing' coz it could have been a radio show or a book) that was a series of emails sent and received by different characters which made up for lots of stories/plots etc. the majority of the characters all worked for a fictional greeting card company. it was actually really original. it would seem old hat now i guess. i still have it, somewhere. it's called 'the secret emails of angus minter'. i will write more. i think. i will write a screenplay someday. everyone says that though. i need to be more proactive. i just worry that if i try and do too much then each project will be somehow diluted. but who am i kidding. that's just an easy excuse. there's always time. i just need to quit being so lazy and eating dippers.
speaking of comedy, the CCA here in glasgow is showing a woody allen season. my favourite woody film is 'broadway danny rose'. they're showing that on tue 25th and wed 26th january. that'll wipe away a few of the winter blues. they're also showing annie hall, zelig, the purple rose of cairo. there's more at
www.cca-glasgow.com
so the weekend is near. again. i'm glad. on friday we're going through to edinburgh to hopefully raise a little cash for the awful asian disaster. then on sunday i'm playing an acoustic show with chris. we're supporting green peppers whose album you should really have by now. use that hmv voucher uncle jim gave you. it's really worth getting. beyond that nothing is planned, except to make some plans.
in conclusion, here's a summary of yesterday:
12.30pm. Wake up, walk into front room: brilliant sunshine, blue sky, not a cloud in the sky. feel eurphoric, rub hands in glee and go and shower knowing that a long, healthy walk can be pursued once a full body scrub has occurred.
12.46pm: Open bathroom door only to see that the front room is almost pitch black and the sky looks unbearably dark and angry. it's pouring with rain. Stumble blindly and attempt to turn all the lights on and crank the heating up. Slam the bedroom door shut behind me and seek refuge under the duvet. press play.
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