Oh no, the alarm went off at ten minutes to nine, and then nine, and then ten past nine, and then I finally managed to get up. Marco the electrician was coming at nine-thirty and he arrived at nine-thirty, result. I thought maybe he could run some electricity through my veins to keep me going, but alas, no. I am in awe of electricians, skilled tradesmen and women are really something, but an electrician makes one wrong move, and boom, Hollywood hair frizzle, skeleton X-ray visual and you’re pushing up the daisies. I suppose a roofer can fall off the roof, a glazier can slice himself, a stonemason or a carpenter saw himself in half, but with an electrician, one insignificant live wire missed and the jolt sends you to graveyard duty.

He did a lot of fixing, but it’s Phase 1, we’re going to have to spread the work out because it’s not cheap when you have to renovate premises. The kitchen will be next and then when the records arrive the placing of plug sockets everywhere for the lights that hang over the shelves. We don’t know where these sockets will be until everything arrives, so we have to wait. Getting started on another aspect of the renovation inspired us to sort out the rooms where The Archive will be, throw away boxes we didn’t need, stack the ones we did, and generally get this creative space into the best possible version of itself. It’s good to have a light switch in the kitchen and one in the front room now. We’ve finally dispensed of all the extension cords and have the roof panels back in place. Now it’s time to start thinking about when and how to start Phase 3, the mega-move, probably around Christmas for a spring execution. (Excuse the choice of words there – Christmas and execution, it gets pretty deep at In Deep.)

I had to rip up all the boxes we didn’t want and get the tape off them, Luke’s boxes from Ireland that he sent the music mags in were heavily gaffa taped and it took ten men to destroy the box (you could build a tank out of gaffa tape). We decided to wait till the early hours to take it all to the recycling. It’s rainy and wet everywhere and we don’t want to be running into people on the street – remember what happened with the legendary red chair.

Sesh today with Artoush in Austin, just getting started, lots of potential there. I also had a conversation with Anekdoten Nicklas who is putting real Mellotron on one of sessioneer Minneapolis Fred’s tracks. I was meant to be listening through to sessioneer NJ Brian’s Valley of Salt mix tweaks, but Marco put an end to that with wires everywhere and I was unsure whether the electricity might go off as he tried to trace wires and figure out why plug sockets weren’t working. Dinner and Andor and now it’s late already.

Music today was Julien Baker’s second album Turn Out The Lights (2017). Lovely stuff, the sound, the songs, the voice, the words, highly recommended. She is also a member of boygenius with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus.

Music Of The Daze