oh, we did three songs in fact on HOT STUFF. the one i neglected to mention was 'and all the stars above us will remember'. i don't think i've ever sung at 10.45am. ever, in my life. well maybe once or twice when i was at school and we used to sing 'michelle' by the beatles. i think that's one of my very earliest musical memories. i'm not a morning person at all, talking or even grunting at that time in the morning is hard enough, never mind singing and being filmed. i was half asleep and i couldn't hear my voice over my guitar. hmmmmm. maybe we can stick the interview on the website, it depends if we can get the footage okay. i'm still waiting to receive the footage from the universal gig wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back in october. i've been assured it's on its way but the quality might not be so good. but i do want the site to have more sounds/vids etc.
me and chris were HOT STUFF on friday morning. we were doing a pre-record for a show on a local tv station called HOT STUFF which was fun. we played two songs (midst of the storm and calling out to you) and had a chat with the presenter in parkinson style blue seats. i'll write more about it soon. i'm not sure when it'll be aired yet, but it was good experience for us both. we've done radio, but not tv. i'm up to my eyes in it just now. i shouldn't be on here. it's snowing outside. i just wanted to check it and say hello. we're rehearsing tonight, i'm looking forward to that. full band too! i'm drowning in a sea of dates. not the fruity kind but the kind that are used to plan our lives. it's proving pretty complicated but hopefully some spring/summer gigs will be revealed in due course. i've got some great people helping organise these things. right, i'd better finish what i'm doing then leg it back to the flat. i might make a snowball on the way home and throw it at an old aged pensioner.
i won't really. i'm not mean.
i'll push them onto the road instead.
nah, i won't really. i'll help them across the road. as chris says, "it's nice to be nice".
i meant to talk about something else in my last entry but i kind of got sidetracked. anyway, on wednesday night me and chris were around at alan's place going through some new songs i'd written. i'm always quite anxious with new songs. will the others like playing them? i'd hate them to be strumming along if they don't like what they're hearing. but then i guess there will be some that aren't to everyone's taste and i have to trust my instinct. i used to play my new songs straight away to friends or whoever was playing in my band but i don't do that anymore. i try and live with the songs for a couple of weeks, see if i'm wanting to hear myself play them or if i've any desire to have a listen to a minidisc recording or not. this approach seems to be working i think. there's a couple of songs i'm not as keen on now, but the four new ones we tackled on wednesday night sounded good i think. i'm excited. one of them is a real upbeat one, i think it'll sound good with a full band going for it. it's called 'off the radar'. i'm pleased with the others too, namely 'mystery star', 'old friend' and 'the truth that i have earned'. oh, and we're finally going to start playing a song i wrote a long time ago called 'break free'. i think i've played that once publically, with the early band line-up. i'm never quite sure why i didn't record that one for the first album. i don't understand myself alot of the time. so it was a very productive evening and good fun. these guys are excellent musicians and good friends, i'm very lucky.
i've just realised that one of my favourite places in glasgow is the mitchell library. i had a really nice photo that i took of it at night when it was illuminated but i can't find it right now. anyway, it's a place that always brings back fond memories for me. basically it's europe's largest reference library, with thousands of books, newspapers, periodicals etc spread over about five floors. it's really really old and it's just got a certain magical charm i think. i don't know why, but i was drawn in there today and i spent a little time just wandering around, randomly grabbing books and flipping through them. i found one really funny one called something like 'how to make it in the music business'. there was a photo of sigue sigue sputnik on the front and it was full of contacts for people like buck's fizz's management. it had advice on how to record your demos on a tascam 4-track. i then picked up a book on anatomy and had a quick route around the body before going downstairs and looking at a book on tectonic plates. it's just a great place. it's like a giant brain but with a canteen and a 70s carpet. i was looking around at the people of all ages, wondering what they're researching, why they're there. have they no jobs to go to? are they at school? university? killing time? doing research into caterpillars or Greek mythology? are they writing books? if so, then about what? i was tempted to wander around pretending i was doing a survey.
i think that one of the reasons i'm so attached to this place is because of all the time i used to spend in the old wooden bit at the back of the grand main hall where i used to pour over microfilm of old newspapers on a rickety old machine that they still have to this very day. i was lucky, my dad employed me to do this for him during some summers you see. he's kind, i'm sure i was a rubbish employee. it was fun though! i used to spend hot, sticky afternoons in here looking up very old articles in 'the times' newspaper from 1965 or 'the express' from 1977 or whatever it was he wanted me to find out. it was all to do with trivia so it was interesting and often quite funny material i was gathering for him. it was relaxing yet rewarding. they had a little canteen too. i used to see all sorts of characters coming in and out of the library. poor looking old guys who were obviously homeless or down on their luck would come in and browse the day's newspapers, eccentric looking types in woollen jumpers (despite the summer heat) would pour over books researching their family tree day in, day out, the same table without fail. it was very territorial. students would choose to come here rather than going along to their uni/college library coz (like me) they knew that they'd meet someone they knew there and they'd end up just sitting in the uni cafe eating monster munch crisps. clever school kids would sneak in and get their heads down and study without hassle in the deepest reaches of the building. you could hide away quite pleasantly. i once read scripts in here too, but that's another story.
the mitchell library was always respectfully quiet, dignified. everyone was an equal, everyone was in pursuit of knowledge or information of some sort or another. sure, the internet has alot of info but this grand old building has a human quality to it. it even smells unique and is beautiful coz it doesn't really seem to change. it's a reliable old friend indeed.
there's a little bit of info here ->
http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst8768.htmlthis photo below wasn't taken by me. i still can't find mine.
i got this in an email from chris after he read my last blog in which i mentioned IKEA:
"where else can you get a prawn and egg open sandwich a bowl of chips and a soft drink for less than £2.50. And before eleven you get a full breakfast for 99p. Including tea! " . In IKEA apparently! well, it's my new, favourite place now. sorry for any distress caused! thanks for the info chris :) my day got better incidently, turned out pretty okay. good coffee and peace and quiet can be a turning point when a day starts badly i think.
the first thing to squirm its way into my brain this morning has left me slightly scarred and i have to share it so that by unburdening myself i might begin to feel better. it was a piece of music i awoke to, 'lifted' by the lighthouse family to be exact. how not to start your week. at least it got me up i guess. i'm desperately trying to remedy the situation right this moment by listening to the soundtrack to the film 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'. it's definitely working. i will be back. i need some coffee. i need an mp3 player too, i wanna constantly listen to music as i'm wandering around. stick some john barry on as you walk around some dingy, crappy town centre and suddenly it will have an air of mystery, excitement and you're starring in your own movie. put on the lighthouse family and you'll wander into ikea to look for a sensible, self assembly coffee table.
