Category: Uncategorized

Little to report I’m afraid. Have been working on all sorts, with some success in places. To make up for no hard evidence of this, here’s a picture of a cat on a stamp.

So last week I played a gig at Leicester Central Library with Her Name is Calla. I was majorly excited about this gig because, well, it’s in a library!! I have another reason too. This library used to be known as the Leicester Reference Library and it used to be the library I would go to when I was doing my A-levels some time in a different century (the 1980’s to be a little more precise). My school was in the city centre of Leicester and this was the best placed to go to. I have strong memories of being holed up there with books trying to fit the words and the meanings in my head. Like many towns and cities much of Leicester and Leicestershire’s library services have been downsized and/or amalgamated with other services, a consequence of local authority cuts and a change in how people access information.

For me, it was a massive privilege to be offered the opportunity and the time and the space to play in a place that is, essentially, a repository of information and ideas. I felt really lucky.

Photos by David Wilson Clarke. Video below by Real Spleen

'Ghost ending' amongst some books

I’ve been way busy of late recording stuff (don’t ask, don’t ask) and so haven’t been posting as regular as I was previously, for which I apologise. This last week, though, recording has stopped for rehearsing for a gig I’ve got next week I’m very excited about. I’m playing Leicester Central Lending Library with Her Name is Calla. A library!! It’s took me 25 years to get there but at last I’m playing a library!

This week I got back to working on the last project I started in 2011 – checking what work I’d done and working out where to go next. This lead to a couple of discoveries, some positive and some not so.

The bulk of the recording I’ve done so far is bang on track and I’m really happy with it, I’ve still a lot more to do though. Part if which lead me to put a shout out on Twitter to find somewhere to record ‘a song’ – the shout came good and an offer to record some singing and guitaring should hopefully spur the next phase on.

In the course of going through the work I’d done though, I again discovered how unattached I feel when working with digital files. It doesn’t matter how you title each file, I find it really hard to go beyond looking at a screen and a waveform and actually listen to the recording. With tape and minidisc I seem to identify the object with the particular experience and then zone out to what it’s playing. With digital – it’s a screen, it’s work.

There must be a knack to doing it – a separation perhaps? – but I’ve no idea how it’s done!

A couple of fridays ago I did an phone interview with Adrian Arratoon for Different Class Radio. It’s now up live on their website for a month, so you can go and listen to me talk about my jazz and stamps and stuff. According a friend who listened to it, I sound like I have a beard. He meant it as a compliment.

Go listen!

YOU AND THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC

 

[As titles for radio shows go, I am so behind this one]

Nearly a year ago to the day I posted about my New Years Improvements, my own attempt to get myself organised (inspired by the ever fantastic Christine Bougie). Whilst not immediately successful in it’s implementation, it did make me examine how I organise my time – which was both distressing and rewarding – which definitely helped me accomplish some tasks I never seem to finish, like, er, recording stuff!

The publication of Woody Guthrie’s resolutions list (I read about it courtesy of the awesome Brain Pickings site), which I saw sometime in December, made me ponder about the whole idea again. His list seems so humble and yet so inspiring. These little things that make such a big difference, sometimes even just thinking about them….

Learn people better…..Read lots good books…Keep hoping machine running

I had a look at a few of the people who’s blogs I follow to see what they’re upto this year and felt the same ways about theirs too – please go to Crafty Fox and to There are always flowers for more inspiration.

As for me, I’m not going to be as bold as to print out what I would like to achieve this year. There’ll be ore streamlining, for sure, but it will all be to live and experience more.

Well, here’s the last post of 2011 and the last of the Stamps of the Week. Happy New Year everybody. x