The panoramic function on my phone (LG Renoir) is pretty cool is it not? Just roll your eyes and say ‘Yes Martin’, indulge me.
Yes Martin
Good, now; I was going to write about what I’ve been up to the past week but I can’t get it in any kind of order so I’ll just start writing and see where I end up. It’s 7.01am and I’ve been up for a couple of hours now, rendering the vocals that Mary and I recorded for Akira the Don’s new album, ‘The Life Equation’, last night. He had wanted a huge rabble rousing chorus but as it was only Mary and I with a baby upstairs in bed, snoring his chubby little face off, he wasn’t going to get that; so we sang a sixteen bar vocal arrangement that I hope he fits in somewhere.
When Mary was overdue with Sonny, she booked three sessions at the local chinese herbal place. they reckoned that they would relax her enough for him to pop out without us having to go to hospital for an induction (he was born at home, in a pool). I like that, ‘Induction’, like there’s a guy waiting with a clipboard when he’s born, showing him where the photocopier is and how to smoke a fag without dropping his pint. Anyway, after the second session she went into labour and we haven’t slept or washed since. I was in Music Box studios when she rang me. I panicked and bought eight caramel Freddoes, just in case the gas and air didn’t show up.
So we were owed one session and Mary booked it one for me yesterday because I’ve been run down and I’ve been suffering from bad headaches and mouth ulcers and all manners of coughs and colds. I pretty sure that I would be much healthier if I could sleep for more than three hours at a time, I have no concept of day or night any more. Sometimes I’ll go to bed at nine and be up again at half two, wondering where everybody is. I’ve given up drinking coffee though and immediately I’ve felt much, much better.
I had a brief consultation where it was solemnly announced that I was not going to die, then taken upstairs for acupuncture (head and ankle) and a full body massage which was nowhere near as sexy as it sounds, quite the opposite. All my bad ghosts and shitty-ass chi were brusquely ushered out from my body in a frenzied series of slaps and rubs. It was like being patted down by a drunk Rhino.
I felt better after anyway, pathetically grateful for the lie down more than anything. Then I came home and mopped the floor, the roar of the Ninian Park crowd, gone now, never to return, keeping me company. Mary and Sonny were at Ikea, again! I’m sure they’re both having an affair, she’s meeting up with some big Swedish bloke who isn’t tired and fat all the time while he gets thrown up in the air and has his little big tum tickled by another dad who, again, isn’t fat and tired all the time. I mean, how many times can you go to the same shop? What are they selling? Crack?
The artwork for ‘Ye Gods’ is being done this week, I spent a few hours sifting through photographs from last year earlier in the week. We have literally thousands of photographs from last year alone. The ones I took on our trip to Norfolk last April are my favourites. It was such a beautiful week, Mary was pregnant, the weather was gorgeous and everywhere we went we listened to the Fleet Foxes album. Actually it couldn’t have been April because the European Championships would be on when we got back to the house where we would cook dinner with fresh foodstuffs we had bought and I would drink Leffe and play my guitar and read about William Blake. The whole place was really, I dunno, seventeenth century, which is right up my alley. I know I took photographs when we were recording the album but I can’t find them anywhere. Hmmm.
I’m working on a Flow Machines remix this week, a track from their excellent first album which you can cop here. I’m getting behind on the Black Serpent Choir album but there are more urgent things I need to get sorted first.
Sonny spent the night in hospital last Monday. He developed croup very quickly early on in the evening. We thought it might be an asthma attack, Mary suffers from asthma, and took him in. It was scary seeing him in there with all those machines, especially as he was born at home and we’d never seen him in a hospital. He’s fine now, it’s 9.04am now. Since I started writing this he’s been up, had his nappy changed, eaten his breakfast and has gone back to bed for a bit. HE IS ME IN 1996!
Spent Friday night in the house with Marylou, Pete and Cait and our old friend Ben and his lovely wife Robyn. I’ve known Ben since the mid-nineties when he signed a band I loved, 60ft Dolls and some crap that I didn’t love at all. He’s a very funny man and it was very late when I stumbled into my room. I was in no fit state to drive to Cardiff the following day so Mary had to. We stopped at Reading services and I bought enough food to feed a family of ten (elephants) all of which I scoffed. I don’t know what is going on with me at the moment. I’m supposed to be getting myself cleaned up for when the baby gatecrashes my do-what-I-fucking-like life but I’m drinking and eating and smoking like it was my last year on earth.
We rehearsed at the new Music Box in Cardiff with the band. there are six of us; Me, Marylou, Big P on bass, Rhodri on organ/guitar/pedal steel, Bernie on drums and Danny who I’d asked to help out for a couple of gigs on guitar/vocals. After rehearsals we had a drink or two at our old local, Chapter Arts Centre, with Tom (aka ZWOLF) who was also on the bill in Cardiff.
I think we’re going to have to move back to Cardiff to have the baby which is disappointing but with seven weeks to go before the birth we need to settle and prepare. We’re putting the house up for sale and hopefully we’ll be back in London early next year.
The gig at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff was ace. It’s seven or eight years since I first played there and I’ve done solo gigs, bravecaptain band gigs, electronic gigs and dj’d more times than I care to remember. I used to regularly DJ there about five years ago with my friend James (We were called PopAssHeadSets after a line in a Kool Keith song) where we would play anything that was stupidly loud, from Kid 606 to the Velvets. I’ve been kicked out, passed out, fucked up and knocked down in every room on every floor. When I first moved to Cardiff after my marriage broke up I was there very night drinking gallons of vodka and Red Bull and never sleeping. I’ve seen some of the best gigs I’ve ever seen there and I’ll always be fond of the place.
The setlist for the gig was;
The Dead of Winter
Darwin’s Tree
Bear Lake
Running
Why You Gotta Bring Me All This Rain?
Orpheus Lament
Pontcanna Stone
Tired and Broke and Black and Blue
Goldrush ‘49
The space was very cramped and the vocals weren’t too clear through he monitors but soundman, Ben, was very helpful and we did ok. The place was pretty packed although, as is the case in Cardiff, some people were at the gig to talk very loudly to their friends while the bands played. The supports were both great if completely different. The MeMeMes played tuneful downbeat pop with songs about sorrow and the frustration inherent in fancying people who turn out to be gay. ZWOLF on the other hand wields a laptop, bass and guitar and propels darkness and distort into the crowd. I think I filmed some of their sets, I’ll have a look and upload if I have.
After the gig we met up with old friends and drank until the wee hours (Not Mary of course). We were supposed to be having an early night because I had a meeting in Chiswick (London) the next morning but, as usual, the drinking won and we arrived home at around three.
The meeting was with a publishing company who are interested in my writing songs for other people. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years but never really had the opportunity so I’m hoping that it comes together. Afterwards we crawled up the snailpaced horror that is the North Circular and arrived home to help Eavie celebrate her fifth birthday. Her talented mother had made the most incredible Dalek cake which is still repeating on me two days later. We grabbed a couple of hours sleep then tubed it over to the West End for soundcheck. We were playing at The Social, another venue I’ve spent quite a bit of time at over the years. I’ve never stood on the stage though and couldn’t believe that I was contemplating playing with the band. There was just enough room for Marylou and I but the sound was fantastic. We chatted with Huw Stephens who I’ve known since he was a teenager and we met up with some more old friends (Steve Wood who designed all the Boo’s sleeves, Mark and Dick from Wichita, Keith Cameron and Akira the Don) and then it was time to play. We played almost all the songs we had done the night before, Goldrush ‘49 doesn’t sound that great with just the two of us. The place was packed and the first few songs we performed to absolute silence which really makes a difference.
I went for a quiet drink with Keith at another pub and then met Mary back at the gig. We had a couple of drinks with Akira and Charlotte and then caught the bus back home.
