Tear Down The Wall

I've been away. Thinking a lot though. These are the best and worst days.

I had intended to post the prologue of The Light Gate opera here last week, as it was the anniversary of the sub-conscious germ that seeded itself five years ago. I felt distracted, in a good way and this might appear over the coming weekend.

What about work? I finished a mix for Beacon ~002. Still some overdubs to do. Had a long, long conversation with my friend Nick Sykes last weeked (aka the legendary Nico No U-Turn). He told me that my Tascam 2488 looked like a science experiment and advised that for a technical dilletente such as I, that I should go out and get Garage Band for a Mac. He's right, of course. I think that I've known this for a while too.

Blues. I have listened to a lot of blues, for the first time in a long while. When my show got cancelled by Monto Water Rats at the last minute, I headed to Charlotte Street Blues, where my friend Garage Thomas was DJing. Nothing like the blues. Its kicked me off again. I love the sheer simplicity of the form, but more than that, the blues comes from the heart. I am not a good blues musician. As Muddy Waters once said, "those white boys sure want to play the blues bad, and believe me, they do."

When I am in my right mind, I feel inspired. Like all apparently narcisstic musicians spawned by the internet age, I am subject to constant doubts about what I do. But I am confident in my convictions. These are not, and never have been, about getting laid. I've spoken in interviews before about the psychological fault lines that drive us performers to the stage. I don't need to restate anything here.

What I have come to realise though, is that my music should be event based. We no longer listen to albums. We skip through songs as though they are fragments cast into the ether of aural pleasure. I have no interest in merely obtaining a cash paying audience (I haven't seen any fucking Austrian Emporers in Crouch End recently), but what I am interested in, is congregation. To, be here now. To share experience.

You see, there are many musicians and writers in my shoes right now superficially speaking. But I can see the specificity amongst us. I can see the differences. I have no issue with taking my own flawed bent in terms of what and how approach music. So, the idea of an event based approach fits. I learnt that from performing Attack Of The Chevron Action Flasher: A Mini Opera in Regents Park. I am doing the same with The Light Gate. You have to be there.

And then there is the day today. I live in a little house. In a well healed part of town. I go to gallery openings and drink wine, whilst passing niceities with whoever I meet. I listen to a lot of bullshit and question motives. The most unsettling feeling, really. You could cut through my motives with a paper knife.

I wonder where the superfical gloss stops and the hearts begin.

But sit down with me, I'll talk mine through with you...you can question my motives anytime, any place. I'll lay them all on the line for you. "Tear down the wall".

What about you?

The BoHo Scarecrow