Wednesday, April 02, 2008

If They Were Looking Down, What On Earth Would They Make Of Us?


Another busy and somewhat surreal few days. On Sunday I played a floorspot at a night hosted by Brett Gowlett at the Cross Kings. It was entertaining in several ways, firstly I managed somehow to hook my guitar onto the wrong hole in my strap so it was hanging about 20cm lower than normal. Of course this doesn't sound like much, but when you are used to it being a certain position it makes it a bit more interesting than it should be to get your hands to go to the right places. Anyway, I think I got away with it.

Immediately after me there were two female stand-up comedians asking us to "flick our bead for Jesus". not me personally you understand, but the fellow girls in the audience. Their images of Jesus as a pin-up hunk are etched in my mind!! After them was a series of other performance artists and poets who swam in a paddling pool, recited strange poems (and a truly hilarious version of There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly) and recited weird and wonderful facts about the world! Needless to say the usual gaggle of white male middle-class singer-songwriters who performed in between were somewhat nonplussed. Brett is hosting another evening at the Hobgoblin in Islington on the 7th April if any of this takes your fancy, I'm hoping to play there too.

On Monday I went to see the Barbican's current art exhibition - The Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art, which is supposedly a museum of art as curated by visiting Martians. In fact it was a really enjoyable and absorbing modern art exhibition, which has been rightly praised by critics and public alike. I felt very glad to have seen it on a quiet day as I took the time to view every piece and was really taken by it. I don't think I've ever seen modern art in such an accessible and thought-provoking context, so I can't really recommend it enough.

Last night I sat and watched a video tape of Level 42 live at Wembley. It reminded me of a time way back when my friend (and my brother's best man) Andie, who was friend's with the band, threatened to get me an audition as their new guitarist. He was deadly serious, but fortunately it never came to pass. I was immensely relieved as I was scared shitless at the thought! Anyway, the video brought back loads of memories, and served once again to reinforce my belief that you should never let keyboard players sing!!

Currently I'm still working on a new recording, but I'm confident it will be finished enough by the end of today to get an airing. I'm also off to see my friend Jack Stafford play at the Troubadour tonight if anyone is at a loose end.

Okay, that's enough ramblings for now - back to the recording desk.

Dxxx

2 comments:

Peach said...

I think "they" would say, hey, that guy down there with the guitar, he's cool...

Daren said...

Peach: Shucks.