Back to swimming today after the strike, the leak, and the hand. I wandered out to a blue sky of wispy clouds and a northern chill in the air and thought I could do with an extra layer. I soldiered on expecting to warm up with the 15-minute walk. I arrived early, got changed, spoke to some of the staff, then sank into the water and it was most wonderful to be back in there with that strange liquid life surrounding my body, suddenly buoyant and weightless, ready to stretch out into a mile of freestyle. It’s so satisfying thrusting forwards into the water, smoothly penetrating, silently cutting through and gliding across the surface. People seem to think it’s boring, up and down, up and down, but it’s a groove, a dance, a drum pattern, a bassline, an incessant riff that you never want to stop playing.

Leyla on reception is from Venezuela and she had a message for me from one of the other customers. She has no English and I have no conversational Portuguese so she speaks to me in Spanish. She explained that one of the customers wants to talk to me about helping someone with some musical contacts. I think I know who it is. I’ll call, we’ll see but it’s not my country, I’m not sure how I can help until I know what they are after. When I left I came up with the idea of clean clothes with my old T-shirt on top of my clean one, under my light jacket as that extra layer. It worked, it made the difference. Close to the pool is psychedelic psupermarket 3, the lady on the cash register there is always super nice. She speaks very little English but when I ask for ‘dois sacos’ she loves saying ‘two bags’. I suppose if you were in Tibet and knew how to say two bags, you’d probably enjoy saying it, laughing about it and enjoying the foreign person interaction with a simple ice breaker. Writing it in Tibetan might be a different issue, a problem we don’t have with Western European languages.

Sesh today with Craig in Atlanta, you may have heard the song we did together already, Amplify Me. Today Craig asked me the six zillion dollar question involving my competency in my home studio now I have my bass, my guitars, mics, the keyboard working. Because now I have this set up I can work on sessioneer projects by actually playing on tracks…but, my competency is not yet there. What I really need is someone to come here for a little bit and sit with me, bang it into me and I won’t look back. Working on my own with technical stuff is always a challenge. Having said that, didn’t I record In Reflection?

Music today has been the third Siouxsie and the Banshees album, Kaleidoscope (1980). A different lineup and a different sound, gone were the razor guitars of John McKay and the driving toms of Kenny Morris replaced with the more sophisticated alternatives of Budgie on drums and ex Magazine guitarist John McGeoch on guitar (Steve Jones also played guitar on three tracks). It maintained an alternative approach to the instruments, musicians who were both creative and competent, different sounds, rhythm and chord ideas on the guitar, parts that were thoughtful rather than rudimentary. Different ideas for rhythms on the drums, add to this mixture Severin’s bass and the uniqueness of frontwoman Siouxsie Sioux and you have one of the more engaging and interesting post-punk groups of the decade, that actually seemed to be becoming more interesting as they became more accessible. Hit singles with Happy House and Christine that boasted something of a psychedelic psychotic lyric. Ace. Plus between this album and next year’s release came the non-album single Israel (1980).

Christine

She tries not to shatter
Kaleidoscope style
Personality changes behind her red smile
Every new problem brings a stranger inside
Helplessly forcing one more new disguise
Christine, the strawberry girl
Christine, banana split lady
Christine, the strawberry girl
Christine, banana split lady
Singing sweet savages lost in our world
This big-eyed girl sees her faces unfurl
Now she’s in purple, now she’s the turtle
Disintegrating

Music Of The Daze