Love You, Hate You

Okay, so I'm trying to give my verbal ceativity a kick in the butt. It's not necessarily about writing functioning lyrics, more about writing something with some validity. Channeling, if you like. No, not like Dionne Warwick and her psychic friends network! I'm talking about honest expression here.

Art (pretentiousness alert, pretentiousness alert!) isn't something that comes easy when you're essentially in a happy place. It's usually born of angst, hate and persecution. Okay, so picture this: last night I spent an hour or so scrubbing the decking on our back patio to try and clean the years of dirt and algae off it...

...okay, that was it! I just wanted it noted SOMEWHERE that I tried to clean that bloody decking. That way when someone says "it doesn't look like anyone's ever cleaned it" I can point them to this blog and say, "See... see... 7th August 2008!"

I tell you, come The Revolution, that decking's going to be the first up against the wall.

Right, I just went completely random. Sorry. It's been one of those weeks. Back to the point...

...which is that there have been times in my life where I've been truly, gloriously unhappy. Downright miserable, if you must know. Fabulous, eh? A wealth of angst just waiting there to be pilfered. This isn't one of those times, though, which makes it hard to write stuff about 'now' that isn't all fluffy bunnies and Flossy the Sheep. So, I thought to myself that what I really needed to do was to think back to a time of abject misery (oh, the joy of songwriting), immerse myself in it, freely associate about was going on at the time and basically just write something down on paper (or screen, as the case may be).

Here's my first attempt. It's not lyrics. It's not a poem. It's just an emotional blurp. While some people enscribe their art on expensive heavyweight paper (or on TP if that's the only thing handy), I typed this directly into Microsoft Outlook. Classy, eh?

So, the background to this is (and I'm sharing here, dammit, so be nice)... the background to this is that after a string of failed relationships (boo-hoo) I got myself involved with this guy with whom I felt the need to make it work, no matter what. The problem was that less than a year in, I realised that he was an arsehole and that I didn't even like him, let alone love him. Even so, my compulsion to 'do the right thing' led me to stick with it until the bitter end. And yes, it was bitter but, thankfully, it ended. That was two years I'll never get back. Hey, look, I'm channeling already. Ride the ride... here goes!

Why don't you make me hate you more
Why won't you cheat, why won't you lie
You keep me stuck here every day
Confined to this righteous path

Til death do us part is a funny thing
I never thought I'd crave the end
So much I'd sit and watch the tracks
Waiting for the train to come

Maybe I should be the one
Show you who you let inside
Play the part so you're the one
Who breaks these perfect chains of love

Eh? Eh?

Y'know the sucky thing is that when I do stuff like this it drags me back to that time and, frankly, it bums me out. Really.

Sitting On Top Of The World

...or having to stand, as the case may be.

I don't normally think about writing social scene stuff unless there's some kind of musical tie-in, but last night Tim, somewhat uncharacteristically, said as we were headed home that if I decide to blog about "Vertigo 42" that I should mention the following:

1) The drinks are way overpriced
2) The staff are unnecessarily rude (until you win them over)
3) They have a 4 chair limit per party
4) The bar chairs are not comfortable
5) It's basically just a mirrored corridor

I figured that if he felt strongly enough about it to mention the blog that hey, I'll post something!

For those of you who don't know what Vertigo 42 is (and, no, I didn't until last night), it's a 'champagne lounge' situated on the 42nd floor of the old Nat West building near Bank, London. The main draw is the top-down view of the city, which is undeniably stunning. Last night it was pretty cool to watch lightning striking around town against a backdrop of the evening sky.

As you can see from the picture, below, the view elevation is pretty much in line with the top of The Gherkin.



After the initial wow factor... a combination of 'wow, what a view' and 'wow, this place is really narrow' you get the wow factor of the drinks prices. The house (i.e. cheapest) champagne is £46, which, from a quick google, looks to be around a 300% markup. For the thrifty, there's the buy-in-bulk option of a magnum of Krug, weighing in at just under £800! Pop one of those baby's open and I betcha you'll be surrounded by new friends (even though one lady apparently wanted a shot of fruit juice in hers to make it more palatable)!

The bar had the potential to be fun, right up until the point that one of the wait staff came up and pointedly told us that we had too many chairs, confiscating one of our five. Eh? "I'm sorry, but you can only have four chairs. Security, you know."... but there are five of us... "I know, sir, but it's the rules".

Later on in the evening the rules bent in our favour and we were granted a fifth seat... the party next to us, however, were not so lucky. Clearly they had unwittingly committed some faux pas and had rubbed the wrong person up the wrong way. They had one of their four stools confiscated by a tut-tutting hostess, leaving them just three! Relaxed evening or battle for social status? You decide! Whatever, we were winning the war of seating acquisition! At another point in the evening, a fist-fight looked likely when Tim tried to take a spare chair from a couple's table. When dialogue opens with "Oi mate, you're not 'avin' that", you know you're not in polite company.

And the musical slant to this story would be... non-existent. Perhaps that's the most damning thing I can say about the place. I don't even remember there being any music.

Hey ho, in other news, I got my copy of "How To Write Songs On Guitar" by Ricky Rooksby through the post. I've delved into it a bit and it looks like there's some good stuff in there. It doesn't necessarily tell you how to write a good tune but it does give lots of pointers, illustrating points by referencing tunes that you already know (if you're of a certain age). I'm already feeling somewhat inspired by it, and the chapter on song structure has really been an eye-opener. For example, I'm forever writing stuff that has no time for the singer to recover between a chorus and a verse... why not insert a 2 bar spacer to buy breathing time? Never thought of that!

Concert Review: Drive By Truckers, Electric Ballroom

I'm not going to give a detailed review (do I ever?) as I'm sure that Col over at Axe Victim will do a much better job as he's more familiar with the band.

I will say, though, that these guys were loud and riff-tastic! My ears are still ringing.

Now, I feel a bit reticent about classifying their music as the Drive By Truckers have managed to slip by under my radar until now and I'm not totally clued up on their back catalogue. I guess nobody's going to shoot me, though, if I term them 'intelligent blue-collar rockers'. I've seen them labelled as alt-country, but, y'know, that term seems to cover a wide range of sins these days.

The band basically grabs the grass-roots zeitgeist by the balls and squeezes hard. The songs are about characters and real-life situations. You get 3 rocking guitars, with Gibson out-gunning Fender (well, a custom job based on a '72 tele) by 2 to 1... as it should be, bass, drums, keys in the back and the occasional country twang supplied by a pedal steel. Then there's the vocals. Both frontmen take turns centre-stage, whilst bass-lady chimes in on backing and occasional lead vox.

The band's 'down-home' imagery is pretty in your face. Beards and plaid are de rigeur. It doesn't come across as affected, though. It's a 'this is where we come from' look.

When I got home last night after riding my bike through the deserted streets of London I couldn't bring myself to go to bed. The Drive By Truckers' music had grabbed hold and wouldn't let go. It wasn't that it was complex or clever. Quite the opposite. Watching the guitarists play, there were lots of open chords, pentatonics, up-down-up strumming. But... it was music. Pure, simple, raw music. These guys were just there to stand up, plug in and say something. Great stuff.

And, last but not least, watching Patterson Hood up there beating the hell out of his Les Paul, I felt my teenage desire for a goldtop flare up once again.

You Can Quote Me On This One...

Whilst watching Placebo "Soulmates Never Die" DVD over the weekend (three sheets to the wind) I found myself blurting out the following pontification:

"Sometimes, when playing electric guitar, it's less about playing the guitar and more about playing the electricity!"

You can use that... really...

Off to see Drive By Truckers at the Electric Ballroom, Camden, tonight. Not seen them before but they come highly recommended by Col of Magic Ship so I have faith it'll be a good show!

Sexy People & Superstars

...okay, so if you've never seen Macy Gray in concert then that will mean NOTHING to you!

Had a good night out last night. Dinner, cocktails, river boat ride up to Greenwich then saw MACY GRAY at the IndigO2. First time at the venue. Not bad. We were in the upper balcony (King's Row) which was a little plush and not well laid out at all. I know they had to fit the auditorium into a weird shape, but c'mon, the folks in the seats at the back probably couldn't even see the stage! No matter. We were not at the back, thank you very much.

Macy kicked off the show with one of my favourite songs from her most recent album, Big, entitled "Get Out". Definitely one of the better collaborations with Justin Trousersnake. She then pulled out a string of fab songs, spanning all her albums, adding in a few covers here and there for spice. She didn't play a few tunes that I wished she had, but let's face it, Macy's a good time and the girl can do whatever she likes, it'll all be fine.

Seriously, even if you're not a Macy fan, you'd still have a great time at one of her shows as she knows how to work an audience. Her backing band was very tight and groovy. For those axe-heads out there, her sidekick guitarist was playing a tobacco-burst Fender Strat. Lots of wah. Quite Hendrix meets Prince at times. Top notch performance. I googled who it was and I'm not 100% sure, but I think he's ex-chilli-pepper, Arik Marshall. Dude, apologies if I got that wrong. Whoever you are, you rocked.

The one slight downer on the evening was actually the boat ride to and from the O2. Although we were told that there would be an express service, there was not. It seems that the express only runs on nights where there's a concert on at the arena, so we were stuck on a boat which stopped at every pier along the way... and there are a lot of piers, let me tell you!

Anywho... that pales into insignificance in the grand scheme of things because... WE LOVE MACY!!!!!

I wouldn't have said it was our best experience of her, but it was damn fine. The best show of hers we've been to was still at a small dive nightclub called Numbers, in Houston. It was about 110 degrees, Macy was sweating, the crowd was sweating, the music was grinding and she totally rocked the place into Oblivion. A truly unforgettable night.