Thanks to everybody involved for making the MOAT – Poison Stream Listening Party happen today, William and Stas and everyone who attended and then went on to the Zoom Q&A which was actually more of a live forum chat. Thanks to Olivia for her usual faultless coordination. Great to see Niko, Dare, and Ed there with Olivia and me – the people who actually made the music happen. And thanks to everyone else who makes it all worthwhile by listening. I’ve never done anything like this before but hopefully, we can do it again on other projects that will be coming out later in the year. That is Space Summit, Arctic Lake, RSD album TBA and Ahad Afridi. I get the feeling that this year is going to be the year of releases and it won’t be till next year that we get out on the road – and then imagine how many bands are going to want to be out there. As I said in the Q&A tonight, you’ll have Radiohead, PJ Harvey, The National, and Nick Cave playing in the same town on the same night.

Olivia is in the kitchen ruling out lines for the remaining illustrated lyrics. Next week we will be getting on sending off the remaining mystery flat packs as well, the postcards, and any debut MOAT albums as we have those here. Unsigned vinyl and CDs are on the way, the autographed ones will get there when customs wake up and let us through. T-shirts will also be coming soon. Thank you for your patience and understanding in these tricky times.

On a totally different subject, last night the wind was so strong that the shutters were rattling loudly but it didn’t disturb me at all, nowhere near as much as the man snoring upstairs through the ceiling – that can really keep me awake. So I was thinking that it’s not the noise, it’s the type of noise. Traffic never kept me awake but people talking in the next room would. The sea crashing against rocks, seagulls, anything natural doesn’t keep me awake but the sound of a television through the walls would. So I know that rattling shutters isn’t nature but nature caused it so it’s okay. There’s a difference between noise and disturbance. You can drift off to the elements but irritating noise is something else.

I woke up today and the rain was pouring down, the sky was thick with clouds, the two seagulls were sitting on the roof opposite looking up at the window waiting for their benefactor un-phased by the rain – I suppose as seagulls they’re used to getting wet. As a human, I don’t really mind getting wet either, there’s something cool about getting drenched, getting home and drying off, rather that than being burnt to death by the sun because when you get home it’s just more suffering. I waited for a break in the rain that didn’t come but as it eased off I ventured out to the bakery for the weekend supply of pão da avó. I didn’t take the umbrella, stayed in shorts, and felt the rain come softly down. It’s so close to the bakery, there was no time to get wet but I dodged the raindrops anyway, one by one.

Liverpool lost at home again today, this time in the Merseyside derby to Everton 0-2. It’s the first time they’ve lost four games in a row at Anfield since the 1923-24 season. They haven’t lost to Everton for 22 years. Oddly, they don’t look too bad during the game, it’s just that everything is going wrong at the same time, plus there’s a long list of injuries. Their status as champions will be short-lived but there will always be another year.

I listened to The Pretty Reckless today, I’ll report back on them when I’ve had more time to check them out, but they’re a straight-ahead banging rock band fronted by ex-actress Taylor Momsen who really is a great rock singer. But I moved on to Black Mountain because I’ve heard them a lot and can’t quite make sense of them. They are Canadian, they are tagged as psychedelic but they are also riffy in a heavy rock kind of a way. Sometimes they sound like Hawkwind, other times indie, other times arty. They have a girl and a guy singing, sometimes separately, sometimes together. They have odd timings and normal timings. You can read all about them on Wikipedia but frankly, it doesn’t tell me much, Stephen McBean seems to be the main man, singer-guitarist. This from their website:

…McBean also saw some personnel shuffling within Black Mountain. Both Joshua Wells and Amber Webber have retired their Black Mountain Army uniforms while Arjan Miranda paid his outstanding membership dues and rejoined. New members include Rachel Fannan (Sleepy Sun) and Adam Bulgasem (Dommengang & Soft Kill) plus other familiar names like Kliph Scurlock (Flaming Lips), Kid Millions (Oneida), and John Congleton (St Vincent, Swans) take a turn in the shotgun seat. Collectively, there’s a renewed vitality to Black Mountain on Destroyer — a seasoned, veteran of heady hard rock that’s found new, young muscles to flex and roads to explore.

I think you really have to go back and listen to early albums as well to get a feel for them. Check out their discography – if you like this kind of thing.

Song Of The Daze