This morning Olivia tested positive for Covid. As I write this I am waiting for the results of my own test. What this means is that we have to stay in our apartment for ten days. Olivia has a friend who just dropped off tests and if we need anything she will go and buy it for us and leave it outside our door. What are you supposed to do about the garbage for ten days? I read that the UK had 130,000 new infections today and the USA had 256,000, a new record. Olivia has some flu-like symptoms, achy, but she said it’s not so bad – I feel fine. Yesterday I was struggling with chlorine nose poisoning but apart from that, I feel good. I’ll keep you posted in a later paragraph as to whether my test is positive or negative.

So ten days of staying in, hopefully not sick. This could be an opportunity to get into Logic Pro. It’s going to be so helpful working with musicians, writing songs, ideas to share or just for myself. Never having been technical or theoretical, I suppose I’m paying now for the time I didn’t put into it. On the other hand, one thing suffers, another gains, so maybe I might have a better understanding of how much to compress the cymbals in a mix (or not) or the bass (or not), or make the vocal sound like it’s coming out of a telephone but I might not have discovered something about playing the guitar or writing a song. It’s like going into medicine, what area are you going to choose? Heart, skin, brain?

So, I got my result, wait for it…I’m negative! So, that’s good, but if Olivia has it, I could still get it from her as we are in close quarters. We decided that we should sleep in separate rooms to try and keep me negative – I get the couch. Of course, I could have it and still be negative at this early stage, I could be positive in two days. We just have to ride it out, it could be inevitable that I become positive. It’s good timing really as I had my booster shot two weeks ago. The scariest thing is not being able to breathe and I’m hoping that my non-smoking swimming lungs are in good enough condition to weather any storm, we’ll see what happens in the coming days.

We are trying to organise a meeting next week with all the right people to figure out how to get the archive here with as little fuss and expense as possible. It’s already cost a chunk to sort it all out and have it ready to be shipped here from England. The move from Penzance to the storage in Somerset wasn’t cheap and getting to England on the ferry with Ariel, petrol, accom, food out every night, the duty we had to pay on the way back. Will keep you posted.

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Music today has been by an artist who rarely makes records, does interviews or tours. Sade’s last studio album Soldier Of Love was released in 2010 which makes her a member of the “You want me to make more albums?” club, along with Joni Mitchell, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Tracy Chapman and a whole lot of artists who have decided that all that music-making nonsense was something they did when they were younger. Established, money in the bank, kids, it’s not like they have to prove themselves or keep a profile alive, they’ve already achieved that and any gig they did would have lots of people and the interest in their music endures. Speed isn’t the point. It’s not exactly Emitt Rhodes who waited 43 years to release Rainbow Ends in 2016 and then died four years later or Bill Withers who gave up releasing albums in 1985 (Watching You, Watching Me) after releasing nine studio albums, one live and one best of between 1971 – 1979.

But still, Tracy Chapman’s last album Our Bright Future was released in 2008. Peter Gabriel’s last album was New Blood (2011) which was in fact orchestral re-workings of previous tracks. There is apparently a follow up to Up (2002), the last album of original material. The album is called I/O and has been twenty years in the making whereas Up…only took ten.

Joni Mitchell’s last album was Shine (2007), Kate Bush’s last album was 50 Words For Snow (2011). Between 1978 and 1985 she released seven albums. Between 1993 and 2011 two, plus one reworking of earlier tracks and a live album from the shows at Hammersmith in 2014 (I saw two). The video was never released.

Music Of The Daze