French was tough today but I think it’s mostly about distraction, of course there’s some tricky grammar, but you have to concentrate to have it sink in. I was going over it and over it but the good thing is that every time I made a mistake I knew why, you just gotta get those rules into your head. They say it’s much easier to learn a language as a child and I’m sure that’s true but perhaps as you get older you need to keep those grey cells moving and with learning a language you can put it to practical use. Of course you think you’ve learnt something, you get to the country and you don’t understand. Well, I remember my first trip to Aberdeen when I was a teenager! I’ve been to various places in the UK in recent years where I’ve struggled to understand, Newcastle, phew! In Liverpool I speak the language but if you think about northern France versus southern France or northern Sweden versus southern Sweden or Chile versus Spain, knowing a language doesn’t mean you know it everywhere it’s spoken.

Dare and Olivia and I were in the studio today working on Arctic Lake. I was playing a whole range of guitars, Tak acoustic 6 and 12 string, Rick 6, Jazzmaster, Les Paul, Strat. Rhythm parts, lead solos, we will continue tomorrow and try and get this song finished and ready to mix. Olivia sang some Birkinesque vocal parts, Dare was editing things, piecing the solos together. It’s wonderful in the studio how you start with nothing and slowly build it into this fantastic finished thing. The hours I’ve spent doing this in my life!

Out there in reality land, it was dark, cold, windy, grey, rainy, that seems to be the pattern but in the studio, you are protected. I went to pasty land as usual, I went to the greengrocers as usual and bought the most beautiful broccoli crown. I was out for ten minutes and then ran back to the comfort of holding a guitar. I was sure that the soloing would be on the Les Paul but nope it was the Strat and the Jazz, I was sure the rhythm guitar was going to be on the Strat but no it was the Rick 6. Sonics are a strange thing and different guitars blend differently into different songs and they change as you build them, that’s what makes it exciting, it’s the surprise of it all as it takes shape.

The MOAT – Poison Stream Campaign

You may have seen the post today that announced that we have a new MOAT T-shirt on the Indiegogo campaign. You can pick your size on checkout (initial issues now fixed). Stephen in DC was asking today how does the House Concert work? Well, when the pandemic is over and we can travel Olivia and I will come to your house and play, we would need accom and means to get there but we’ve done this before and it works. (Veggie) snacks for everyone and a casual atmosphere playing all kinds of songs in a really relaxed situation. It’s quite different to a gig. We also have a new print available, The Roadmap To My Soul, the latest track for Poison Stream, available to all soon.

 
We’ve also started with Facebook and Instagram Stories and I’ll be showing some sleeves of the records I’m listening to and today Olivia filmed me noodling around on my Les Paul. That’s the Les Paul that I didn’t use on the Arctic Lake track I was working on so that’s a moment that wasn’t preserved on tape. Tomorrow we will continue with this song that has a long outro and although there’s a Strat solo in the middle perhaps that Les Paul may find its way on the track after all.

Some CDs arrived today, four by Erykah Badu, plus Agnes Obel and another Lou Rhodes CD. It’s incredible how CDs have died such a death. Remember when they were the future? Remember when they were indestructible? Remember when the record labels rushed out compact disc reissues that sounded terrible and had cheap and nasty artwork? They finally discovered proper mastering and proper artwork but after they’d made lots of money with no effort. Cynical or ignorant? But second-hand CD prices these days are great for the archive because I can catch up on a lot of music cheaply, get the history into the shelves. I still like CDs and buy them new and second-hand and in a perfect world every time a new record came out I would buy it on both CD and vinyl.

Music today had me trying to take my head somewhere else, into a different reality, so Funkadelic’s Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow (1970) seemed appropriate. (Thanks sessioneer NJ Chris for reminding me.) Some Psychedelic, Sci-Fi, Soul, Funk never fails to inject some groove, some joy, some passion and some madness into the room. You just are engulfed by it, I put it on and turned it up twice. It was their second album and the second album they released that year. Crazy guitars, crazy organs, crazy grooves, crazy singing. Wah-wah guitars, jamming, soloing, it’s Rock music you can dance to. Mainman George Clinton (Funkadelic’s Keith) said that the inspiration for this album was an attempt “to see if we can cut a whole album while we’re all tripping on acid”.

A great band of singers and players, including Eddie Hazel on guitar and Bernie Worrel on organ, Billy Nelson on bass and Tiki Fulwood on drums, George Clinton sings as do Hazel and Nelson with a whole lot of different singers contributing, Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, Grady Thomas, Tawl Ross, Martha Reeves, Tema Dawn and Joyce Vincent. What a crazy scene it must have been on those late nights in Detroit with this band of nutters. If you ever see an original copy of this album with the woman facing down, you know where to send it.

Song Of The Daze