Today was lightbulb day! Which isn’t quite the same as a lightbulb moment. I took the lava lamp base to Rui at the lighting shop just to have experienced eyes check it out to see if he could see any reason why lightbulbs might be blowing. All ok, but he said that the Italian Leucel bulbs might not be as good quality as the German Narva bulbs. That, plus the heat! So, light bulb for the washroom, one for our kitchen lamp, lava lightbulb check and trying to understand what all the numbers mean on a lightbulb box – 1.75/25Watt, Rui had to explain what it all meant, I nodded. I was so mesmerised by the light that I forgot to buy the other thing I wanted, an external hard drive from the computer shop lads for videos saved from Skype-studio lessons or from the camera. Sixty euros for a terabyte but when you compare it with computer storage in the sixties, I wonder how big a machine might have been to have that much space. Again, we don’t think about it because it exists, it’s like you have to have known a time when it was just a fantasy to appreciate its worth. That’s why sometimes older people are wrong because they don’t get what’s happening and sometimes they’re right because they can see where something’s going because they’ve experienced it before, we have to know when to teach and when to listen.

Outside it was warm, I was overdressed, so when I went back out for the hard drive I was in T-shirts and shorts – in January, in Europe, it’s supposed to be winter. João in the computer shop is out with Covid, sessioneer Paul’s wife Rachel has been out with Covid the whole time she’s been here, this afternoon she finally tested negative, somehow Paul has been negative the whole time. What a drag it’s been for the trip for them, hanging out especially on these warm days. In the park, there were lots of people sitting on the benches enjoying the day. Most of the old ones talking, most of the young ones looking at their phones, it doesn’t even matter if they are with friends. I wonder what they would do if one of their friends just started reading War And Peace whilst they were out together? Haha.

The men brought the dishwasher back today and with yesterday’s sink fix we finally have the conveniences back, although I don’t seem to be able to stop washing things in the sink, haha. Olivia was still in sleep land when they brought the dishwasher in, when she finally did go into the kitchen she said, “Where’s the top?”. There’s a top? So they appeared again when I was out with the top. It was like forgetting the pan lid, the petrol cap. I had a sesh with Noelle in Montreal at 5 PM and Olivia had to go and pick up her Chrizzie prezzie boots. The first day she wore them the zip broke, when she picked them up today they’d replaced both boots with sturdier zips, making these special handmade boots one-offs and I wonder if the company is learning from Olivia’s experience that they have to rethink their hardware?

Sessioneer New Jersey Brian wasn’t well today so I watched some of the German snooker masters instead and did my language lessons, day 601. We had a meeting about me making a solo record sometime this year but more on that later, I still have Arktik Lake to complete, Anekdoten dates to do, Brix vinyl to come, Ahad Afridi album, Space Summit vinyl to come, Jerome Froese album to come and sessioneer projects are evolving so we’ll see. Learning the studio is going to be helping with writing songs, a new tool, not that I really need one but quick and easy access to making some simple demos makes the whole process easier – you still have to write a decent song whatever medium you use and good facilities don’t have magic buttons, that’s inside of you and if you don’t have a collaborator you have to find it all by yourself.

Music today has been the great new album by Evan Wright, Sound From Out The Window (2021). You’ve never heard of him, neither had I. I can’t even remember how I stumbled across him. He has a limited edition vinyl version of his record available on Bandcamp (which I ordered). But today I saw that the album is coming out on Light In The Attic Records (Out Of Stock). I’ve posted about him before but he’s so good I had to do it again, check him out.

Music Of The Daze