Musical Stepping Stones

It's Monday. Uncharacteristically for me, I don't have the energy today to post anything too in-depth, so you get snippets. Here goes:

I'm still having difficulty finding people to play with. It doesn't look like the guys I was supposed to be meeting up with for a jam this week are going to come through, unfortunately. They postponed and postponed and the last thing I heard was that it might be today or tomorrow. I've been trying to get hold of them but have had no response. You ever get the feeling you're being ignored? Well, like I've said before, I'm not going to hold out too many hopes or put too much emphasis on any of these contacts until something actually happens.

Okay. The weekend? Erm... coffee at Starbucks (eugh!) Musak version of the theme from Hawaii-Five-O! Totally groovy in a Hank Marvin solo-guitar stylee. Realisation as to what it was crept up on me slowly, a bit like when my favourite cabaret act, Kiki & Herb, mixes "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with "Suicide Is Painless" (theme from M*A*S*H)

Speaking of Teen Spirit, we were at the Shunt Lounge under London Bridge station on Saturday night. Shunt is... well, Shunt. Erm... it's a bar/club/art space/avant garde performance arena. Oh, just go look at their website here. The things that were going on included some mic'ed up 'singing' pendulum sculptures that you could play with, a 3 DJ club room with some performance dance stuff in the background, a simulation where you got to 'escape' from a crashed jet via a massive rope slide... and the reference to Nirvana, there was a dance floor which was having a 70's to 90's night, spinning stuff like Nirvana back to back with Bowie and Guns 'n' Roses! I've never seen a mosh vibe take off so quickly as when the intro to "Welcome To The Jungle" kicked in. Very cool.

Oh, and for the dedicated drinkers amongst you. They free pour Absolut vodka. Whereas normally I can slam overpriced 'club' mixed drinks and feel virtually no effect all evening, two of those and I was well on the way to being smashed. Surely the larger, more well known clubs wouldn't water down their stock? Surely?

On Sunday we headed over to Regent's Park for a bit of an impromptu pic-nic. The sun was out, the sky was blue. All was good with the world. We picked a spot just off the inner circle, parked up our bikes and headed for the nearest grassy knoll. As we did, we were treated to the most surreal sonic experience. It sounded like some kind of native american chant. Very odd. Even more strangely, the chanting kept repeating, slowly building up the tempo and as it did the whispy white clouds turned grey then black. Damn it if it wasn't a freakin' rain dance they were doing AND it was working! Spooky.