Greet The New Orthodoxy

Everyone doesn't think the same, they never have. It's just that, nowadays, I get the impression that there's less tolerance for views outside the orthodox. There seems to be more rules about what to think.

Sometimes I think I'd like to post some inflammatory opinion on my FaceBook status or my Twitter but I can't, for the sake of offending someone. And I wonder how many other people hesitate before saying what they think because it's not only the people in the room listening, but another few hundred, many of whom you never see any more but there you go.

So there's this kind of averaging out of opinion. And if you're too far along the narrow bit of the bell curve, not only are you wrong but you're wrong to say it, there must be something wrong with you, you troll. And if you have one opinion that means you must belong to a subset, and have a load of other opinions.

In my job, I can't discuss politics or religion in any other way than factual. Fair enough too, people should be able to make up their own minds, and I wouldn't want my nearest and dearest influenced by someone else (especially if I disagreed). Mind you, I like to think my friends etc are probably pretty clear on my leanings.

Still, it leaves plenty of room for opinions on other things. But still one hesitates to express them. If I say X-Factor (Strictly/I'm a Celebrity etc etc) is shit and aimed at placating the vegetating masses with some artificially enhanced drama masquerading as jeopardy or talent, I would probably risk offending the many friends of mine who feel the need to point out what it is that distinguishes their particular chosen participant/contestant from the others who are by some mysterious measure still more awful. So I don't, because if I want to argue I'll do it face to face, preferably over a pint. But I am in the habit of expressing strong opinions.

Those who know me well recognise it as a starting point, not an end, but in the new orthodoxy it's getting harder all the time.

Last minute dot gone

I've got a million and one things I need to to do, but I'll still lie in bed all morning. I will sit at the computer and resolve to get some important document for work done, but decide that my hard disks need organising. I'll get completely distracted by tiny things that make me disproportionately cross, like the state of my local newspaper or the shouting Americans on my TV, and devote energy to writing a half-arsed blog instead of writing job applications ('blog', by the way, is not considered acceptable by the in-program spell-checker. I expect you knew that).

Not that I haven't got a job. I just want a new one. And music keeps me busy enough without the distraction of my 'real' job. Anyhow, is it me? I don't know whether I'm doing that thing males do, using some slack part of my brain to do some distractive activity while the rest of it subconsciously deals with the big stuff. Or perhaps I'm knackered and I'm somehow being forced into relaxing. Maybe I'm just disorganised. Or leave everything to the last minute come what may, so even when I have the time I don't use it effectively. I can envisage some point later today when I'll feel glad I've reorganised my hard drives, posted a blog, found out about faster broadband, and collected my repaired guitar. I'll be ready to do some song preparation or some important document writing.

Next week I'm playing a half hour set of my own songs in Hove. There are four acts, I'm on first. I suspect they know I'm really old and want me to get finished in time so I can get an early night. Still. Hopefully there'll be a few people there and I can find out how the songs hold up. I have enough, even though I'm not the most prolific songwriter in the world. The best thing is it will force me to make sure the newer songs are ready to go. Even if I don leave it to the last minute.

Aaaargh! It's all too much!

Bloody hell! I forgot about the blog!  No one's reading, no one's reading, no one's reading, sod it, give up, someone's reading! Hello John.
Morecambe, last post, four years ago! Trouble is, keeping up this information stream is hard work, and to what end? I had this grand idea of starting a MySpace (remember?) for each of my musical projects from the last thirty-something years. So I did, and I uploaded recordings from each one. And made them all friends with each other, and other people joined in, a bit. Then MySpace got a bit shit, and looked like history, and no one else joined in any more because I'd probably saturated my audience. So I got rid of them all. No one has banged on my door demanding their return.
I have a Facebook page for music and a personal one too. I'd quite happily give up the personal one but I feel I need to sustain it for the sake of the music one. The music page has music you can listen to, details of gigs, and automatically updated my Twitter account. Oh, and it's linked to ReverbNation, and possibly Soundcloud. You can listen to my songs on last.fm if you want, assuming that still exists. I might have a We7 account with songs on too, can't remember. My YouTube channel has videos to go with demo versions of new songs, and links from other people who video me when I'm out and about. I've got a web site. Two e-mail accounts. Subscriptions to Facebook music groups, and a Yahoo group somewhere or other. What's it all for? Who cares? Who is taking any notice? I suspect that a normal human conversation with a few people on selected occasions might well be an adequate replacement for all this online information overload.
Then again. Went to a venue a couple of months ago, set up, got a request for 'Silly Alibis'. They saw a poster, checked me out. Another venue about the same time, this couple started asking me when I was going to play some original material, they didn't come to hear covers, they've downloaded my whole album, love it, play it in the car all the time (is that the only place we use CDs now, the car?).
So I suppose I'll keep updating everything as best I can for the sake of the few people who might be interested, or that stumbler-upon of my stuff...StumbleOn? Isn't that something....

Up North

Went up to Lancashire for a week or so, pleasant family time. Visited, briefly, the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, Forest of Bowland and Morecambe. I had to look Morecambe up in the 'Crap Towns' book. It's deservedly at number 3. We drove through a derelict seaside resort, parked on the seafront carpark and walked along the prom. The wind was strong and the sky was grey, although that's not Morecambe's fault. The Midland Hotel has been restored to its deco glory. There was an amusement park in between the closed down amusement parks. We had coffee at Costa, I looked in a bookshop.
Superficially disorganised, rooms coming off rooms and stepping over piles of books to get from one place to the next, it reminded me of the way secondhand bookshops were thirty years ago. Masses and masses of books you can't imagine anyone ever buying, which is exactly the sort of place you need when you can't find what you want through more straightforward means. At some point over the last twenty years, bookshop proprietors have reasoned 'instead of charging what I think this is worth, I'm going to charge a generous percentage of the price were you to buy it new'. This particular bookshop proprietor has then added another percentage, so you get to search longer than you need to to pay more than you want to.
I enjoyed visiting Morecambe. It makes the seaside resort I live in (Crap Town 18 in the second book) look tolerable.

More Songs

I have recorded three more songs and put them here for your enjoyment. They haven't been mastered (because I'm not really sure how to do that yet), but they are quite close to finished. One is very new, one is very old, one is somewhere in between. Please feel free to leave a comment, I'm not really sure anyone's listening!

Youth of Today

The thing that was weird about last night was that there were lots more young people than usual (Lewis said they've been in more lately), but they asked for Elvis, Dire Straits, and 'some reggae'. I thought they were taking the piss, out celebrating A-level results, but that's what they wanted. It was the (older) usual types seemed to appreciate the more modern stuff (Killers, Kooks etc) and the punky songs. Still I expect everyone got what they wanted somewhere along the line, apart from the beardy folksters who left as soon as I played with a backing track!

Singing can be difficult

I did a four hour set last night. I enjoy singing, I'm not complaining. Still, I forgot to look after my voice throughout the evening. I started with some acoustic songs (Golden Touch, All You Need Is Love), and then some quieter ones with backing tracks (Come Back and Stay, Tempted, Yellow), but they have high-pitched vocal melodies and I hadn't warmed up. Consequently, I began to get a little croaky around 11:30, which is early for me. That means picking songs that give my voice a break (Bohemian Like You, Make Me Smile), and avoiding songs with falsetto in them, because that's gone. It's not that anyone else noticed, but it matters to me.