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Aug 27 2020

TO WHERE I AM NOW

Strangely, I can’t get submarines out of my head today. I’m not sure why, perhaps it was because I didn’t get out much and the archive felt like a submarine. The day looked so inviting, a slight breeze, a dramatic sky full of mixed-coloured clouds, black, white, and grey, the sun dodging them, yellow set in blue as they drifted by. When the sun did actually find a gap and shone down on your back it was hot, almost like it was summer. So I only got to the bakers and the greengrocers and then set about a busy day of catch up that always ends up as, “I’ll have to do that tomorrow”. I did manage to speak to Jerome Froese in Germany as we send files backwards and forwards to each other of songs that we initiated in Berlin in September 2019 for our collaboration and with Dare’s help are evolving into an album. I was emailing with Salim Nourallah about the upcoming EP that I worked on with him in producer mode with his band, I also got to play some guitar but it’s a snippet from the album proper which will arrive sometime next year. I had two sessions, one with Brian in New Jersey, the other with Jeff in Ohio and Olivia and I watched an episode of Humans over dinner. After dinner I did French and now at midnight the day has gone and my list of to-do has gone out of the window for a long walk and isn’t back yet. So tomorrow I will try again. But the point is this, as John Lennon sang in the lyric to Beautiful Boy on Double Fantasy, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans”.

So here on the red couch, surrounded by books and records, guitars and dreams (Olivia is in the other room). I wonder how one is supposed to prioritise everything when everything is a priority? I don’t know how I would manage without Olivia, she is so resourceful and efficient as well as being a loving wife and a talented artist, musician and creator. I wonder how people make their choices, how they decide what’s worth the trouble and what’s not? I suppose that a lot of people’s life is their job and leisure time might come when the day is done but in the creative field the day is never done. There’s also no retirement because your head doesn’t stop writing when your body gets to 60. It keeps on going and you can only hope that your energy doesn’t wane or your body doesn’t begin to break down. If you’ve led a crazy life of alcohol and cigarettes, unhealthy living habits, it’s just about now that you start to pay for it. They say you can get over lung damage from cigarettes if you stop early enough and that the body responds to stopping drinking if you haven’t already destroyed the liver. As a non-drinking, non-smoking vege I’m doing alright because I gave up all that nonsense a while ago but I gotta tell you for all the energy I still have, I feel the constraints of time on my skeleton, in my knees, in my fingers, my teeth, my hip and my neck. Not just your body needs lots of attention to keep it going, exercise, yoga, swimming, walking, fresh air, posture awareness, stretching, lots of water but what about the brain? What about your mental state, your mental health in general? Your aspirations, your disappointments, the things you never achieved, like for me, I never got to Africa or India, I never learnt the piano.

I’m lucky, imagine being a Russian sailor trapped in the Kursk, the submarine that sank in the Barents sea in 2000 killing all 118 people on board. Mostly with a crew that was so young, who hadn’t lived, who knew little of life. But without listing every disaster that befell every innocent soul that was born on this Earth, one wonders how some people can be so evil or simply ungrateful, not people who have been hard done by but those that have had chances and abused their privilege. I guess we are all guilty of something but as George Orwell said in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”.

I love the phrase ‘a random act of kindness’ but even that can go wrong, Olivia had an experience today where she was waiting at a crossing for the lights to go red for the cars when a woman stopped when her light was still green, she was trying to be kind, there was a long queue of busy holiday traffic behind her and Olivia didn’t want to just step out into the road, so she hesitated and in that time the woman who had kindly stopped got angry and drove through what had become a red light. Someone else could have run across, not knowing the circumstances and been hit. So one must be careful of how you help, how you are kind and certainly not get angry when the gesture isn’t reciprocated with gratefulness. It reminds me of the old comedy sketch of helping an old woman across the road – when she doesn’t want to go.

Music today is in remembrance of Brian Epstein who died today on August 27th, 1967, after an overdose of sleeping tablets mixed with alcohol, ruled an accidental death.

I read that when McCartney found out he said, “Oh no we’re f**ked now” and they were, three years later they broke up. I wonder how the whole Apple organisation might have faired if they had their trusty manager to, well, manage it for them. Epstein did allegedly make one big mistake letting go of merchandising rights early on, but they were all learning, how can you know everything, you need to make mistakes to learn. How could you know that you would be managing the biggest band in the world and in a world that had never seen anything like it, perhaps the Elvis phenomenon was comparable but this was a different time, a time of massive changes in the world, the cultural revolution.

So I’ve been thinking about Brian Epstein tonight and simply played Beatles albums in his memory of which I will not attempt to analyse, you might find something about them online.

Song Of The Day is In The Summer Of His Years by The Bee Gees written for Brian Epstein from their 1968 album Idea. On the US release of the album they added I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You with the American cover art by – Klaus Voormann.

Written by Marty Willson-Piper · Categorized: Blog

Missing

This is my stolen 1965 Rickenbacker 12-string, serial number EB157. If there's any chance of this guitar coming back to me before I go to meet my maker, then that would be wonderful. Please contact me if you have any information.

11209512_1669022976719710_7288437867089763325_n

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You usually don’t spend the day in the studio an You usually don’t spend the day in the studio and the night at a gig but if you put the studio next to the gig then there’s a greater chance. So @salimnourallah did just that, he put the gig and the studio next to each other and made it possible for me to spend the day recording and the evening playing live 🎵

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TO WHERE I AM NOW A visit in the studio today fro TO WHERE I AM NOW

A visit in the studio today from old mate Mark Burgess from The Chameleons who has been hanging in Texas recently. I was thinking about the two of us growing up in the northwest of England and all these years later finding ourselves in such an unlikely spot together. We fixed a few issues in the universe and I carried on recording some guitars until Mark had to leave. Mark had played at the Galactic Headquarters next to the studio this year as Olivia and I had four years ago and this reminded me to remind myself to remind everyone to remind their friends that we will be playing there with Salim on Saturday, New Year’s Eve, for the ultimate in intimate performance. You can get tickets here (follow link below).

CONTINUE READING: https://martywillson-piper.com/2022/12/to-where-i-am-now-1045

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TO WHERE I AM NOW Sadness manifested in a buildin TO WHERE I AM NOW

Sadness manifested in a building, today we went to visit Paisley Park. Prince built Paisley Park in Chanhassen, about twenty minutes southwest of Minneapolis. It opened in 1987 and he recorded his later albums there. Apart from Prince, REM also recorded and mixed Out Of Time there, recording Kate Pearson’s vocal on Shiny Happy People vocal. Madonna had Prince play guitar on three songs from Like A Prayer and the two co-wrote Love Song, finishing it remotely due to Madonna not being able to stand the cold weather and the rather desolate location of the studio. Of course, there are things around but it’s not in the city and it’s not in the countryside, it’s in a suburb, no distractions, just what Prince wanted.

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Songwriting & Guitar Guidance with Marty Willson-Piper
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"These are awesome sessions that I highly recommend for guitar players of all levels. Very informative, frank discussions on everything related to guitar and music in general. Definitely a must for anyone pursuing songwriting."
(Stephen G., VA, USA)

"Marty knows how to bypass scales and get to the heart of feel and timing. His musical knowledge spans multiple cultures and genres. Perhaps most importantly, Marty is a cool dude. I highly recommend his guitar guidance." (Jed B., MN, USA)

"Ok, so you’re sitting in your home and Marty is across the world but is actually right here teaching you how to play guitar and write songs. He is a delight to talk to and he is your teacher, meaning he wants to see you get something out of his lessons. You know he’s paying attention and wants to steer you in the right direction. I am so grateful and humbled that he offers his time in this manner. This is an amazing opportunity for anyone who admires anything from his enormous body of work. How often do you get to learn from somebody that inspired you in the first place? Amazing." (Ann S., CA, USA)

Missing

This is my stolen 1965 Rickenbacker 12-string, serial number EB157. If there’s any chance of this guitar coming back to me before I go to meet my maker, then that would be wonderful. Please contact me if you have any information.

11209512_1669022976719710_7288437867089763325_n

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