Thursday, 17 May 2007

...which is both a Duke Special song, and very true.  Well, not really true...  but I was in a bag last night.  A mixture of stress and lack of sleep I think.

The last few days have been extremely interesting.  Monday night was the gig in the Pigalle Club with a couple of the guys that played on the album, and of course the usual trio.  Even though I find these situations intense, i.e. playing a gig with musicians you've never played a gig with before, I must say I don't find them at all stressful.  It must be the years of playing in cover bands where you were constantly working with deps (I don't know if that's a common phrase, but it just means stand in musicians).  Regardless of why it is, I do love it.  To add to that mix, after playing Indiscriminate Act of Kindness someone shouted "again"... So I shouted the chords to Ben the bass player and just smiled at Jez the drummer, neither of whom have ever played the song!  We launched into a New Orleans version of Indiscriminate with an equal measure of brut determination and acute awareness of a possible train wreck.  I'm sure a lot of people will argue but I think this combination can create (and did create) wonderful music.

The next night I was at the Shepherds Bush Empire to do a song with Duke Special, aka Peter Wilson.  It's great to see things going so good for him these days.  He's been getting behind the mule since ever I first met him.  We sang a song called 'This could be my last day', a song I did with him on the album and a song I adore.  Having asked about it's content, I now find it hard to sing without feeling like my heart's being torn out... which strangely enough is another emotion I find makes great music.  Tom Waits once said he likes beautiful melodies telling him terrible things.  I think most of us like that at the right time(?).

So it's post Duke Special gig and my songs need to be delivered the next day for the mastering process to begin on the album (most of it is done now), and as yet I don't have a version of Indiscriminate that I'm completely happy with.  So, I decided to go to mine and Joanne's shared studio space in Greenwhich and record it.

At 2:30 in the morning I gave birth to a healthy baby song.  The labour was long.  I tried various approaches.  Then I stood in Joanne's side of the room with the lights off, with just one spot light coming down on a painting of me as a kid with my Mum and Dad.  It's a painting Joanne has done for me called 'Big Daddy', and it's set to be my album cover.

I stood in silence for a while, and then out it came...

I live for moments like that.