FUCK ART... LET'S DANCE!!!

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31 August 2004 - Tues MGCK Music    

Thought for the Day :  They may be giants, but they're playing Bannerman's on Thursday night 2 Sept 04.

I have to say, for ONCE in the last six weeks (since dallying in the Mykonian sun with Brad and Danielle) I am EXCITED!!  My Electric Love Affair (read the Scotsman review) are playing The Full Moon Club on Thursday with me and a bunch of other people (who are Nicotene Fingers?).  MELA are, probably, the best band north of Marylebone Road (if not south as well.. are there any bands in London?) and the only band that's excited my mind and sensibilities since, well.. maybe Primal Scream ("Vanishing Point" driving up I-15 under an incredible Utah sunset).  [Actually, I forgot about Jesus Enterprise (read my review!) and Steel Moon.  Two contenders}  Anyway.. My Electric Love Affair: The trick and the magick? No Songs.  Kinda like a sonic fuck-fest (I may be exaggerating).  No wanky teenage-boy- in- his- bedroom pseudo-intellectual neo-DEEP lyrics!!!  No 'Marillion'.  No FISH!  No words!  What a relief and a revelation.  No bulltits and wank.  Just a vibration that takes you, cycling through changes.  [I have to give myself a little pat on the back.  I saw them at CGCB after Jim had raved about them to me for over a year and, yeah...emailed Steve, the manager, and said, "please play the Full Moon at Bannerman's.  The night won't be the same without you!"  Great.  Inspires me.]  

30 August 2004 - Mon - Edinburgh Festival - DEREVO

Last Night:  DEREVO's 'Reflections'': Not having been raised with any religious affiliation and never (and I mean never) having been in a church for a service (that's right, not baptised - I'm supposed to worry about my immortal soul), apart from my sister's wedding in Spain when I was 14, I find myself mystified by the emotions, fears and passions stirred by religion.  My father was an agnostic and I never heard him mention God until he was on his death bed when he admitted he was a little scared.  My mother was raised as a catholic by nuns in some convent in New York when her immigrant parents split and her mother could no longer take care of the children on her own.  She tells me she was terrified at every turning that she might do something God wouldn't like.  He might pounce on her from around any corner.  He would 'get her' for some imagined wrong-doing, but, presently, she seems to be the one on the road to eternal life.  God 'got' my father and left my mother alone.  Maybe there's something in it, but it doesn't move me to join the club especially after watching Tanya Khabarova's tortured expressionism of 'man's' journey from the primordial soup to a rather frightened life lived with 'the Cross'.  As an outsider, it looks like people are (again) frightened regularly and by professionals.  But the lady is gifted and if you aren't too squeamish about what religion has done to the world and is still doing, go see it.

29 August 2004 - Sun - Edinburgh Festival - DOUG STANHOPE

Doug Stanhope?  More or less exactly what he was billed as (read the review!!!), and he says just about everything I think (and some things I certainly DON'T!).  I should get him to write my daily notes for me.  Anti-everything about our culture except alcoholism and copious drug consumption, (have to say I disagreed with him there.. I hate alcoholics.  If I had a de-moleculariser handy, every single one of them would be dust) he rampaged through all of our social ills (War: "let the guys who want to kill people kill each other, it's ok.  'Desert Storm 1' should really be called 'CNN Classic.'" Overpopulation: "Stop making babies!" America: "just cuz I was born in a place doesn't mean I think like everybody else who was born there." Nationalism: "Can't you make up your own mind?  You want to be part of a tribe??? What is all this Celtic/Rangers shit?"  Heritage: "that's just too weird for me, man.") and alighted on a particularly non-PC subject:  Women.  The women in the audience already hated him, but absolutely hated him after hearing his take on them: don't marry them, don't let them bring more kids to an over-populated planet (his pro-abortion skit was sick and explosively funny) and if you can, of course, 'poot 'em in the ass'.  That's all the guy said.  I could see the painted feathers ruffling on every female who'd come with a boyfriend and was waiting for the ring and the proposal on one knee, followed by house, comforts and babies to secure the deal.  Doug Stanhope is not the traditional girl's poster boy.  But then.. he was right about so many things.  By the end of his set I just wanted him to keep pontificating.  Thought-provocation all the way.  My kind of guy.  I'm not going too deeply into the last line he kind of 'tossed' out about the World Trade Center.  I wonder how many people heard it... 'Detonators.  Text-book collapse.  It's a bit like the JFK assassination.  There are still a lot of questions to ask.'

"The Hero" stays with me.  The film keeps coming up in conversation with friends who saw it because, really, he is the eponymous hero.  The archetype Jung and Joseph Campbell discuss at length.  He's the guy who, at the end, does the right thing, regardless of consequences.  It's a transformative act.  The route of least resistance is always the route down.

I've been writing a lot on this particular page lately.  I went through most of August in a quiet mode, not wanting anything except more Aegean Sea, maybe a couple of Bulgari necklaces, some 'veneers' and a canary diamond the size of an apricot.  I can be DEEPLY superficial when left to my own devices.  Of course, I am not left for long and there's another thorn in my paw or ship on the horizon or provoking thought.

Recently, there was already a small storm centre over Jim's business life, then my birthday in the middle of the month, which he forgot (or possibly ignored and/or deliberately refused to celebrate due to a point of argument lying unresolved between us) and then the Twelfth Night thing came out of left field, which at first seemed both thorn and provocation, but later, has made me look at something I dismissed completely so long ago.  Yesterday, I took a little stroll down memory lane.  Dug out tapes and envelopes filled with shreds of lyrics.  That in itself was an eye-opener.  Who I was then and am now.  Not interesting to anyone but myself, but still.. eye-opening.  In some ways, I wish I was more of that person. I was pure then.  Pure in my intentions.  Genuine and quiet.  A bit more like 'the hero'.  Now.. I'm hard and clever and funny and ingenuous and charming and talkative and much better at shmoozing.  Then I was interested in love and passion and truth.  Now, I know there's only one place for love and that's in your heart and only one place for men and that's up your sleeve.  Keep 'em out of the bedroom. (Very difficult specs to juggle, but really... wise up.)  Truth?  That's the only part of that 'early me' that has stayed.  At heart, I love the truth.

TWELFTH NIGHT NOTES: Anyway... found a snippet of a rehearsal tape with part of the track 'Sequences' on it.. it sounded beautiful.  Then searched for the middle bit of the same song; called 'Sequences' for a very good reason.. it passes through several parts or 'sequences' and each one is a departure from the one before it.  Challenging for a lyricist and singer.  I had a hell of a time with it, but two parts pleased me when we first rehearsed it.  The end and the middle bit that I wrote with someone specific in mind.  I know there is a copy of that piece of music somewhere, but cannot lay my hands on it.  So.. this morning, I just re-performed it (comfortable in the knowledge I can bootleg my own CD's).  Took a cassette copy of the instrumental backing.. put it on an old 4-track cassette player, stuck a microphone in it and put down a vocal guide which I believe is similar to the one I did then.  I'll send them to Jerry, as he asked to hear anything I could find.  But for me, it's been a good stroll.

So.. who is this Mark Hughes guy?  I guess the only question that really matters: Is he cute?

28 August 2004 - Sat  - Edinburgh Film Festival - "HERO"

Thought for the Day   "He does not waste his time listening to provocations; he has a destiny to fulfil." 

 "Manual of The Warrior Of Light" compiled by Paulo Coelho 

Last night: "HERO" at the Edinburgh Film Festival: Yimou Zhang's visually sumptuous masterpiece about a nameless hero (I thought of those words all on my own, I promise); the archetypal dude who wanders into every one-horse town and changes it all around in every epic tale passed down since cave painting.  If you've seen Crouching Tiger, you've seen Hero.. kind of.  Or you get the drift.  1500 BC Chinese 'supernatural' warriors.  Chi, chikum, calligraphy and copious understanding of all flow in nature and the harnessing of energies.  The battles that ensue when such powers are captured and honed by specific individuals.  Their duty to their nature. The story at first, seemingly jejune, unfolds with completely unexpected intricacies of plot.  What always steals my heart and mind when faced with the spectacle of ancient chinese culture is the austerity of their values.  Intimate with the void, they live and breathe at the edge of the abyss into which they're willing to leap should it be required.  A far cry from the life-support-machine, life hugging, gotta have fun! desperation of our fat, soft, whitebread, western culture.  A long way from Vegas.   Also, the music was absolutely beautiful.  

27 August 2004 - Fri - More Twelfth Night Notes.

Some people hold their cards close to their chest, but I'm quite fearless in that respect.  I always believe I can get more cards.... life's been good to me so far.

Yes it has.  BUT, I almost blew some kind of a ridiculous gasket in frustration at not getting answers to questions I asked today but really wanted answered yesterday.  At 5 minutes to midnight on my internal let's-call-the-solicitor clock, Brian Devoil made his virtual appearance.  He kinda said, ''hi' and 'everything'll be alright', 'no need to be concerned' and other pleasant phrases meant to soothe.  It must work as I feel somewhat soothed.  We'll see what tomorrow and the next day bring.  Can I just get someone else to read the paperwork from now on?  I should be out climbing mountains, slaying sabre-toothed tigers, migrating in a canoe from iceberg to iceberg dressed in skins.  Aging with fearless grace and dying naturally, far away from civilisation.  At least on a Friday in August, that's where I should be.

Anyway.. I'm sure Brian's a lovely guy too.  I have this newly acquired image of him: kids, wife, thatched cottage.. foxgloves and lavender in the garden.  Strolling about smoking a pipe.  Brian has suggested all the legal t's would be dotted and the i's crossed.  Everything would, haphazardly and with great attention to detail, take it's correct place in the scheme of things and more Twelfth Night material could be mined and released; material that included lyrical and vocal contributions I have made.  It seems to be the zeitgeist of the times.  Everybody's mining the past.  I've been artistically concerned with my own creative here and now so the past hasn't figured much.  But, it might be ok.  We'll see.  I haven't really thought about this for 24 years.  Would probably prefer not to think about it for another 24.

I said something to Jerry like, 'I don't think there's a lot of love lost...." and his reply, 'fortunately, that's not necessary for a business arrangement.'  No.  Certainly not.  But it does help if people have mutual respect.  Nothing beats mutual respect as a good starting point for good business dealings.  Just leave the 'o' out of the word 'accountant' and you've got the whole story.

26 August 2004 - Thurs - The TORTURE NEVER STOPS!

Spoke to my PR doll in LA, Alexis Blue Wright at Urban Rodeo and her understanding of the Twelfth Night tapes for sale, or NOT for sale even.. just the usage of my name is thus: "The logistics on the recording may vary.  If it can be proven that you were paid for session work....well....you sort of lose out.  If you co-wrote the songs, than he owes you a little something.  However,  if he is so bold as to call it "The Electra Tape" he must compensate you for using your name and likeness........there is no way around that.  Even if he changes the title....if he has made a profit thus far with your name.....he OWES you money in an American court......in an English court...well I couldn't tell you yet.  I'll keep you posted.  In the meanwhile, try not to grow a resentment over this usage of past projects.  It may prove to be an opportunity in disguise...."  

Of course the word 'profit' is the unlikely part.  But has Brian kept good accounting records?  How much did those initial recordings cost?  Who paid for them.  I don't even remember if I part paid for them.  How much was the packaging?  Are there any other distribution charges?  Mileage taking a boot load of cassettes to a gig? etc.. it's hairy.  The saga continues.  Brian, if you're out there,  I hope you're well.. but we must talk.  It's been a long time.  I wonder how Mr Devoil would like it if I was going around selling copies of that first tape and not telling him about it?  Maybe I SHOULD sell copies of that tape on this website.  Ahhhhh a business opportunity!

Last night, Rich Hall, as his white-trailer-park-trailer-trash aware, social commentating, alter-ego 'Otis Lee Crenshaw', was hysterically funny - "you can always tell the single woman in a trailer park.  She's the one without a black eye." - or as Jim put it, 'a nice guy to hang out with for an hour.'  His instrumentalist sidekick (pedal steel and electric guitar) was phenomenal.  I felt like kissing the ground the man walked on when I spoke to him after the show.  It was a comedy show, so WHY was the musicianship better than in almost any gig I've been to in the last 6 months?  This particular guy (an Englishman) could have given Bonnie Raitt's country-weaned musicians a run for their money.  I feel a bit ashamed I didn't get his name, but he's also played for Jerry Sadowitz.  Is there a message in this?  A brilliant musician would rather play with comedians than other musicians?

Met Ed Karushi, a london agent.  Real smart, cool, even and a nice-lookin' fellow.  He's not Rich Hall's agent, so when Jim ran into him there was a little bit of, 'Going to a show put on by the enemy?' (Off the Curb is the agent for Rich Hall), but it is a festival and as a result tonight we see Jason Byrne at the Assembly Rooms.

No music this week.  On the way up to The Pleasance venue almost went into CGCB for a drink.  There was loud rock music coming from the cellar.  So tempting.

25 August 2004 - Wed - 

Jerry Van Kooten IS a lovely guy and he asks a lot of questions, but I don't mind answering them.  I suppose I should put his website link here: www.twelfthnight.info (just don't buy anything with my name on it!)  Jerry seems to be a keeper of the flame.  Actually, I feel flattered that someone has gone to the trouble to find me after 2 decades absence from a project and one I spent so little time in (3 1/2 to 4 months max).

Last night saw TAO at the Festival.  Japanese drummers who, in their blurb, say they began 10 years ago with the ambition to play Las Vegas!  [Now, I love Las Vegas, but know that spending any time there is a bit like sitting up Satan's bum-hole.]  So, their ambition took me by surprise.  Their opening 'number' was very show-biz and, thus, disappointed my sensibilities that wanted the 'real thing': Japanese drums, beaten by Japanese people, in a traditional Japanese way.  But as the gig moved along, I was entranced by the incredibly complex rhythms, their sheer physical prowess and their bodies.  Drum beating keeps you in shape.  So, yes, if you want to be mesmerised and pass the fastest hour of your life (it was gone in a flash) go see TAO at the St George's Church, Shandwick Place, Edinburgh, probably til the last day of the Festival 30 Aug.

Tonight it's Otis Lee Crenshaw at The Assembly Rooms.  Friday is a visit to the Film Festival to see 'Hero'.  Saturday so far will be Doug Stanhope and the Russian dancer from Derevo doing her solo performance.  I don't know what else will pop up.  This week the Festival seems to have come to life.  Edinburgh is vibrant and the torrential downpours stopped.

My sister emailed me from San Francisco to say the 14-year old daughter of a friend of hers was just in Edinburgh for the Festival.  She came home saying, 'Who'd want to live in San Francisco, when they could live in Edinburgh?'  All I can say is she's very young.  But yes, it is a pretty city.

Next week I'm doing the Full Moon at Bannerman's again. Fritz has come up with a surprise request.  Will I please do 'Amos Moses' (the only cover song I've ever done and only done it once! written by the 'Alabama Wildman' Jerry Reed Hubbard and made famous by Alex Harvey) and can he please play drums with me while I'm doing it.  Ok.  Why not?

Watching the Olympics and dreaming on spending more time in Greece, but Brad is in Moscow and Danielle is in the Hamptons.  Without my 'nazi-spa' mates it wouldn't be the same. 

23 August 2004 - Mon - 

The Handsome Family have cancelled their 25th Aug Festival gig at The Underbelly.  There goes the middle of the week.  I've heard so much about these deep south deep bayou goth alt-country strokers that I was salivating dreaming of the gig to come.  This was going to be something truly, impossibly (in a ClearChannel world) 'different'.  Now.. it's just gone again.

22 August 2004 - Sun - 

Hmmmmm... to slap a retainer on it or NOT to slap a retainer on it.  That is the question!

I've just had yet another interchange with the 12th Night webmaster and am a little bit miffed and shocked to discover that my old pal Brian Devoil, is selling tapes described as 'The Electra Tape' on that site (Note 28/08/04 - apparently he is no longer selling The Electra 'tape' as there are none in existence any more.  And the name is not used for marketing purposes.. it's just what the fans 'affectionately call it'.  Or so that's the new bit of info since the above was written 6 days ago.  But he does want to release more material).  I have fired my warning shot over the bow.  Told Jerry Van Kooten to ask Brian where my penny in the pound is.. even if he's sold only ONE in 20 years. (According to Andy M, the king of UK Copyright, that's actually true, regardless of the seller having no money at all now or not having sold any for a while.  If he sold any after I left the band, he owes me my pence on the pound for them.)  I want my percentage.  This could get ugly.  Or it could just get.. well.. ugly.  Who would believe?  See the power of the internet.  People can make something you thought long dead and buried into an event again.  But then again... looking on the other side of the coin.. because Brian mentioned me, someone else found me and as a result may become familiar with what I'm doing now.  These things have to be weighed in the balance.  And, Jerry's a lovely guy to correspond with.  OK.. the gloves can stay on (they didn't really)... for a while.

21 August 2004 - Sat - 

**My Electric Love Affair at CGCB again tonight.  Steve, their manager, emailed me to say they're looking for a new rhythm guitarist, but they will be on tonight regardless of line-up issues.  Yes indeed, they COULD be giants.

Just had a blast from the past.  As a matter of fact, I'm surprised I'm still standing.  A guy who runs a '12th Night' website in Holland (the first band I was ever in) emailed me to say the photo of a singer called Electra on the back of the First 12th Night EP entitled "7-inch album", looked remarkably like the photos of this singer called Electra that he'd seen on this website.  I told him that was the unremarkable part.  I would hope to look like myself.  I mean, who would I look like, Mao Tse Tung?

Anyway... someone had recently sent him a CD of my first warm-up gig with the band.  That I would like to hear.  For me that's the BIG comparison.  My voice then.  My voice now.  My face and ass now and then don't matter.  Only the voice matters.   But, what else I gleaned (perhaps wrongly) from his email is that Brian (the drummer) is mining the material to sell to any die-hard fans out there.  The point being.. well.. if he is selling any material with my voice and LYRICS on it, then we have both a performance royalty and a publishing royalty issue.  Know what I mean?  Especially if he's selling material over the internet.  Jerry, the dutch guy from the website, said he wants to create a page for me on the site.. with my 'story'.  Which part does he want?  The trips to the toilet to powder my nose or the vaguely remembered times on stage?  I'm curious what he wants to know about.  Everybody always wants to know something.

Visit this site for an inside view of some great cities: http://www.underbelly.com

20 August 2004 - Fri - 

Before anything else is discussed.. we need a few moments silence for the passing of an eponymous hero.  One of the greatest score writers of our time.  A man who gave us music to die for, and he has:  Elmer Bernstein.   In the main, his most popular work may be The Great Escape theme... but for me.. there is nothing, (no the cat can't scratch it) to compare with 'The Magnificent Seven'.  The theme synonymous with 'Marlboro Country'; captures the essence of  a life lived free and wild on the open range.  I've seen the film a hundred times in my life, but actually ordered the video three years ago just for the music.  That music is down to that one man.  Where they come from I don't know.  But we need more of them.  I realised recently that music is more than in my blood.  It's my reason for living and if it didn't exist, I wouldn't. Elmer Bernstein is also responsible for the soundtracks to perhaps another 50 famous films, but also the haunting music for 'To Kill A Mockingbird'.  The man was a gifted, gifted, super-gifted genius.

Last night: Massive Attack at the Corn Exchange and, yes, I went.

Pretty awesome, as per usual.  Saw them in the early 90's at Brixton Academy.  Not much has changed except the vast catalogue of great music they have to call upon during a set.  Last night: a lot of tracks from the first album and two of Liz Fraser's contributions to Mezzanine, which were performed by Dot Allison.  I've met Dot and know that filling Miss ex-Cocteau Twins boots would be difficult for anyone but...uh... Liz!  Liz Fraser has an exceptionally beautiful voice.  I'll never forget hearing her version of "Song for the Siren".  Haunted me for years.  I don't know that Dot is the person to fill those boots.  She's not really a 'singer', but she gave it her best shot, the audience was with her and the songs carry themselves.

My feeling watching the set was that we're at the end of an era.  The excitement of all the great drug music seems to have cooled.  Even Ibiza is hanging up her dancing shoes.  I don't know what substances are fueling the writing of music for new artists, but I think it's not very good grade gear.  Some time during the set, one of the Bristol duo.. can't remember his name, if I've ever known it, apologised for making a political statement.  He didn't want to bring anyone down, but the bombs have to stop in the middle East and what's with that wall in Israel?  I welcomed his break from entertaining us to remind us about what's goin' on, but wonder just why people don't want to know or be brought down and why he would apologise?  If there was ever a time in the world where you gotta wake up and take a stand.. it's now.  Pre-apocalyptic my friend.  Or maybe, we know this is where it needs to go?  Very buddhist of us really. Just go with the flow into the void.

I came to a flash conclusion yesterday that Global Warming is a 'strategy'.  Allowing certain nations to take the full force of climate change, i.e. the farmlands of China either blowing away as dust bowls or flooding repeatedly, which will slow that particular economic giant on it's projected trajectory to economic superiority by 2010.  This 'strategy' will also keep certain nations unable to build arsenals or become counter-powers as all resources have to go into mopping up or finding food.  It's a bit of a shell-game.  You can't really predict who's going to get it in the neck or under which shell the next great storm will appear, but I have no other explanation for the laxity of governments in the West to create directives about emissions, pollution and climate change.  If it works to the Americans' benefit now to let other parts of the world suffer, I think they'll let it go on.  That's all I'm saying.

19 August 2004 - Thurs - Massive Attack at The Corn Exchange and, yes,  I'm going.

18 August 2004 - Wed - Edinburgh Festival

Thought for the Day  "Where's an asteroid when you really need one?'  My take on the state of the world.

Ok - Location: Edinburgh Festival.  It's been raining. Global warming has come home to roost.  I told my brother of the floods throughout Britain and he replied, "they started the Industrial Revolution."  Astute observation, now it's payback time.  Drown in too much water or bake in too little.  Build yourself an ark for the biblical weather, or be wealthy enough to move ahead of the storm fronts.  These are the choices entering the 21st Century.  

An article in Metro on Monday revealed a government directive to architects and engineers to 'build structures that can withstand climate change.'  I guess they're not planning to try to change it back.  Just go with the flow of complete consumerism (must keep the economy ticking over) leading to decimation of all life as we know it.  Those who survive will be, as I suggested, those who can afford to move ahead of the storm fronts.  Right now, rather than soaking in the UK or baking in northern China, we could be aboard Valentino's 'ark', the 'Blue One' not a care in the world.. halfway to Capri.. 'where's it raining this week honey?'  Not where we are.  Fiddling while Rome burns.  Thank fuck I haven't got any kids.  Actually... the review I did for 4-Hour Shut Up is how I see it too:

""These three tracks plus last track:  DISTORSION (Distorted?) sum up the band's politics, describe the world they live in: this British Isles’ disintegrating social climate and opportunity wasteland..  post ClockWork Orange, post The Undertones, post Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and Iron Maiden…post Margaret Thatcher, post whole-foods and early 90’s grunge, post Oasis and the new poster-boy posers (the Franz Ferdinands etc), post everything that was nice, firmly in the here and now; a world of global warming, crap Pop Idols, social deterioration and inflamed social hatreds, increased government surveillance and control.  A world where there is no frontier, young man.  A world definitely Pre-Apocalyptic.  The music describes a frantic lull before the storm.  A world where going out with only one aim (“a place so full of the totty you seek, you’ll never miss your chance!”) is ok. Understanding and accepting the environment is key: “Every day I go outside when the clouds are grey.” something something and ‘some little shit’s tryin’ to ruin my day!” “Twats!” The knowing this is going nowhere except down the plughole and some gigantic tsunami really should come and wipe the whole slate clean.  Where's an asteroid when you really need one?""  Does that sound cynical?  Morton promised me, 'everything will be alright."

17 August 2004 - Tues - 

I had a superb gig on Sunday night at CGCB (Canon Gate Cellar Bar), where, vocally... I surpassed myself.  My voice coach, Suzanne Bell (yet another American) who I've known for 14 years was there.  We met when I was in the deepest of hells, in the middle of a recording project costing £5,000 a week with bronchitis and laryngitis.  She helped me perform and function then and has been a reliable exerciser of my voice since.  Her word for Sunday night was 'effortless'.  Stu, the sound guy's word for Sunday night was 'epic' and my own word is 'virtuosic'.   And, in that environ, that cozy in your face place, 'That Boy' went down so well.  I've finally figured out how to deliver that song that seems to shock and upset people without shocking and upsetting them too much.  This time it worked.  So.. yeah.. review will come later from someone who was there doing that kind of thing.  Also playing were a band called 'Calvin' who did the cutest little 'one minute song' and a set of other 3 and 4 minute songs, and an American (New Yorkese lives in LA) singer/songwriter, Mara.  She did a very lively set of songs on a current theme, ending with 'Peace in Iraq and Roll'.  Mavis Analogue cancelled.  Apparently, Mavis is a guy who's had to scurry down to London to negotiate the fine print of a recording contract freshly on the table.  Good luck to him.  These contracts can burn.  

Anyway, the Canon Gate Cellar Bar is a complete surprise.  The sound is astoundingly good for the space.  I saw My Electric Love Affair there on Friday and throughout the Festival they've had just about every band in the region of any repute who doesn't already have a massive record deal, playing there.  I have to thank Kevin McQueenie and Craig Kenny for inviting me to come and play.

14 August 2004 - Sat - A Revelation

Finally... I saw them.  My Electric Love Affair.  I did a little recon of the CGCB gig site last night in prep for my Sunday evening set.  To my surprise.. the band I've wanted to see for the last 3 months was there before my eyes.  And it was well worth the wait.  It reminded me of so many things I love.  A kind of Hawkwind-meets-Tangerine-Dream at the Fillmore experience.  The average punter would probably need an Acid Training Pack to get into it, but for those of us already well-trained it was just like coming home.  What I loved most was the absence of any 'songs' and I suddenly felt absolutely fucking awful about the lay-out of my own set.  My set is song oriented as that's what I've been doing for the last 4 years... just writing songs... in my little room.  Their set was shamanistic and 'vibe' oriented.  Songs?  What songs?  The rumble of thunder over there...the downpouring of heat from the heavens and up from the earth.   The best bit for me: they would drift out of key and then roll back into the original groove later.  I hope that was deliberate.  If it wasn't it was a happy accident.  I also love the way the guitarist played like he was under water.  Such slow steady stroking of his instrument.  It was positively orgasmic and promises much off stage.  My Electric Love Affair indeed!

Anyway... great stuff... I will see them again.  Jim had been raving about them for over a year, as the best thing to come out of the region North of Marylebone Road.  So there you have it.  And the venue was ok.  It's cozy... and the sound quality is not bad. 

11 August 2004 - Wed - Must smoke more

Thought for the Day  "If only this kind of indulgence were sustainable.. and didn't actually destroy the very planet we're standing on."  My lament for the 'good life'.

The Paps of Aphrodite:  The view from the veranda - cigarette in hand... how I miss it.

I've neglected this space for the last few weeks.  Neglected music.  Not been in the spirt... not been dipping into the river or communing with the muse.  I called Fritz last Thursday and cancelled my participation in the Full Moon Club that night at Bannerman's; partly due to a combination sprained ankle and sore throat, partly because I'm just not in the mood.  I have a Festival date this Sunday the 15th at Venue 78, Canon Gate on the Royal Mile, 8pm.  I am trying all ways to get in the mood by that time, but, well... my heart and mind are elsewhere at the moment.  Or as Norman Lamont so succinctly put it in his list of reasons why it's so hard to get together to rehearse: "f) the persistent (if little understood by the other members) recurrences of the notion to do other things than play music."

I'm having one of those recurrences this month.  I've cancelled my guitar lessons and, although since returning from Mykonos quickly penned a Bassanova-esque little tune called 'Wait for Fate' capturing the spirit of that trip, have not so much as listened to any of my other music or worked on it.  4-Hour Shut Up sent me their newest release to review and I've listened to it, but not mustered the energy to address it.

Jim's world is of course completely manic and antithetical to my own.  He's out there every day.  The Festival is ON and he's on top of it.  I just want to lie on a sun-lounger watching the blue Aegean Sea, listening to the tinkle of laughter after Brad has verbalised another radical thought, watching the personal helicopters land, bringing their owners to the Taverna for lunch, and the white yachts drift in and out of the bay.  My friends are still there in the sun and I wish I'd stayed.  Sometimes we need to do nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Really nothing.  In a beautiful place.

"The money junkie calling. The money junkie talks. The money monkey on my back, the craving never stops.  The dazzling white of new teeth.  The dazzling white of lines... All I want’s a cabin in Montana til next time... All I want’s a cabin in Montana til next time...  All I want’s a cabin in Montana... til next time"  Wait for Fate  ©Aug 2004 Electra

8 August 2004 - Sun - Hard Talk

Listening to 5-Star General Anthony Zinni, ex-US Envoy to Iraq, guest-speaker on HARDTALK last night.  For the first time I realised there are individuals within the US Military Establishment who have a separate point of view and an honest and humanitarian view of what has occurred in Iraq.  This man was the US Envoy to Iraq up until the month before the war began.  He had disagreed with the intelligence that described the 'imminent threat' from Iraq and Sadaam Hussein and resigned his post, describing a war in Iraq as a 'powder-keg'.  General Zinni was so brilliant, so articulate, so well-informed, so fucking SMART and so anti the 'neo-Conservatives' as he describes the leaders of the 'new coup', the civilians in the Pentagon; the Rumsfelds and Wolfowitzes.  (I hope there's only one of each.)  He said he'd been a party Republican all his life, but if the present leadership continued in it's strayed path, he wasn't sure if he could vote Republican next time.  For one glorious moment, I realised that there was still something great about America and some Americans.  Men like this 'fighting' to improve the dream.

7 August 2004 - Sat - Thought for the Day   "He knows he can plan all he likes, but one day he must JUMP or all is lost." Paulo Coelho  "Manual of The Warrior Of Light"

Post Mykonos: Listening to Maria Callas and reading a Paul Evans book re Aristotle Onassis and the Kennedy's: "NEMESIS".  Incredible.  The things nobody knew and nobody knows now.  How stupid we are... little lambies just clip-clopping along... to the butcher block... to the slaughter.  Happy with so little.. settling for less.

Pen-pal-ing with 'John'.  I met him on the little 30-seater putt-putt plane that flies you out to the island.  He likes CRAWL and thinks 'That Boy' is erotic.  Thinks my voice is erotic.  Maybe it's because he himself has black hair.  But anyway.. he tells me Greek summers are 'longer' and I am invited back to be his guest any time... spring summer winter and fall.  Greek tycoon material?  Maybe his father is.  He's early-mid 30's.. went to school in the States... very nice and well-mannered.. reminds me of our John.

4 August 2004 - Wed - 

Thought for the Day   "Look, we're all gonna be dead someday.  If you want to leave a 'good-lookin' corpse, die when you're 25."  My comments to Brad on the what I consider to be 'excessive' use of plastic surgery that's become like 'the norm' in our freaky western world.

Mykonos: The Jewel of the Aegean - Jumping there and back (did I have to come back?) from the 'Nazi Spa'.  No viagra, no coke, no ecstacy, no carbohydrates!!!!  A pure health experience in the hands of an expert.  The man with a credits list longer than all of our arms tied together.  He's worked on, styled, created, the look for EVERYBODY on this planet from Academy Awards red carpets to the films they got nominated for to all those music videos and artists you loved, and I love him now so much I can't bear to be parted from him.  My Brad!  And the wonderful Daniele;  a new and now also much beloved acquaintance.  And Renat... the only Russian who came.

The incredible aqua of the Aegean sea.  The sand, the sun, the luxe hangouts and our beloved veranda.  We met a 'man with a past' - Morton the Norwegian via Libya - who forever shall remain a whacky mystery: "CIA" or just C.U.Next.Tuesday.  Daniele and I went to Valentino's birthday party for his boyfriend (vetted and petted and letted in by the "style nazis" guarding the door) without an invitation.  Brad had some unexpected difficulties - "it's a private party".  There was so much and things I could never explain.. and remember to cross against the lights.. you wouldn't want to be "pedestrian".

I never got it before.. but now I fully understand why everyone wants to marry a Greek tycoon.  'Mrs Onassis'?  I could live with that.. for a week or two.  I think Niarchos has two grand-daughters, one named Electra and the other Eugenie.  Great names.

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