TO WHERE I AM NOW

The great thing about being in Penzance is that you can go down to the C. I suppose you can do that with any instrument. Today it was too dark to see the C, but at some point I’m sure I will be able to show you, especially the sessioneers. On that subject today Dare and I listened through the Space Summit demos. Jed is my longest sessioneer and we’ve travelled leaps and bounds to find ourselves co-writing songs for this project and with Dare involved we are slowly but surely producing an album. We have 12 tracks, 3 mixed and the rest works in progress. I always knew that somewhere out there, possibly near the C, there would be a talented and creative artist who with help could rise to a new level. I will be very excited to share this with you all as will Jed, probably next year, but we may release some digital singles in the coming months as a stopgap till the album is complete. It’s so nice to be near the C.

On the walk down to the front, we passed through Morrab Gardens (there will be more on that when we find the daylight). In the tree was the most beautiful singing blackbird. They chirp and twitter but they also sing the most beautiful clear and pure notes. Often you hear them communicating with each other across the gardens, but today this solitary beautiful bird was merrily singing to himself. Was he singing for his mate or because he was lonely? What was he communicating to his kind and I wonder what do other breeds think of each other’s song? Is a thrush call and a blackbird call like Portuguese and French? Some chirrups are the same?

I went up to swim today but was late and had to hit the gym instead. I don’t mind because there I can listen to music. I have an iPod, in fact I have 4 iPods. I really hate having everything in one place (phone), it makes you think that an improved version of your music won’t be as easy as a better listening experience. The point is that the better listening experience should counteract the convenience of the music sounding like crap. Why do so many people not care about this? The whole experience of music in a quality system changes everything. Don’t be sucked in by Alexa, she hates you and wants your experience to be easy and low quality, how can you let her do that to you? My iPods have thousands of albums, the archive on a digital and convenient device that doesn’t sound anywhere near as good, I have to accept it. I have Bose noise cancellation headphones for the plane and I use Sennheiser headphones in the gym that Olivia’s Dad gave me. The bluetooth buds always fall out of my ears. When I’m out of the archive I have a sonic quality issue like everyone else. It makes returning here even more of a pleasure.

Today I listened to Skin Alley but sometimes in a gym you are fighting with the terrible music they are playing over the speakers. I don’t want the music to be so loud in my ears, but I have to get it over the pain of what’s happening in the room. So I might listen to Metal, quietly. That’s the compromise. If I listen to something soft and beautiful it is shadowed by an angry noise in the background. Skin Alley as a seventies sound flit between soft and harder, more frustrating actually because just when you think you’re safe a mellow part comes up in the arrangement and is suddenly ruined by the encroaching banging repetitious nonsense. Skin Alley passed most people by and had little or no profile in the US, but once they were a cool contemporary Progressive band. Two of the members jammed with Hendrix and Stephen Stills and they made 4 albums between 1969 and 1973. Today I listened to their third album Two Quid Deal from 1972. Bass player and founder member Thomas Crimble was involved with Hawkwind, but was also a major part with THE Michael Eavis of growing and establishing the Glastonbury Music Festival. Crimble was replaced by Atomic Rooster founder member Nick Graham who famously (in my house) co-wrote the No 1 US single The Flame for Cheap Trick.

I’m going to try and find my way through the labyrinthine aisles of the archive into the early hours of this morning and file away some of the records I bought on tour. The shelves are tight and I’m going to have to do some rearranging. I may have to move the US Folk into those old fashioned plastic carriers so there’s more room for the alphabet. I wonder what’s going to happen when I get to the C.