The Beginning Of The End

...or "It's All Downhill From Here"!

Actually, I have a feeling that the summit is still a ways off. Tuesday July 1, 2008 is a milestone for The Project, possibly the biggest milestone outside December 31. Today is the official start of the second half of the year, so I'm here to tell you that this is where things hopefully start to get interesting.

I was going to revisit the ol' action plan, but the action plan days are long gone. The options now are to s**t or get off the pot.

I've started contacting other local musicians with a view to trying to get a band together, whatever that means. 'A band' could just be a group of like-minded individuals who want to jam together. It could just mean finding one other player to collaborate with. If things start to look desperate then it could just mean me on my lonesome, learning some songs for an open mic.

Whatever happens, the clock is now ticking and this is no time to rest on my laurels. Potential band-mates... look out, I'm comin' to getcha!

So, I'm not going to sound a fanfare to announce the start of hunting season, I'm just gonna saddle up and start shootin'.

Eh?

Oh, I don't know. I was 'in the moment'. Gimme a break.

Okay, in other news, I finished Slash's autobiography. I know that this is likely to be an unpopular opinion, but lemme just say it started off well but then rapidly degenerated into a seemingly interminable list of the times the top-hatted one got hooked on booze or drugs. Up until the time Guns got signed it was a really interesting portrayal of a young man starting out life on the edge. Even past then, where it's clear that although Guns were getting an international following they were still as poor as dirt, unable to even buy food. Once they start playing stadiums the storytelling starts going downhill, rapidly becoming a one-sided Slash vs Axl cage match. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading the book, but I have to question whether the thing had to be two inches thick?

Postcards From The Edge...

...of consciousness!

I am so sleep-deprived right now it's not even funny. Last night I lay awake in bed, listening to my family trying to be quiet as they were preparing to watch a movie (sometime after midnight). I remember wondering how much sleep is necessary for a person to function normally. Since the in-laws arrived I think I've averaged around 5 hours a night. I'm alive, but I definitely wouldn't say I'm firing on all cylinders. Just now I found myself falling asleep whilst standing in the cafeteria lunch queue. Not good!

This is my penultimate day at my current job. The hourglass sands have almost run out and I'm very, very happy about it! I can't wait to start moving in another direction. I'm off work next week so hopefully I can catch up on shut-eye.

I've actually started losing track of things. A few days ago I lost my iPod (hence the lack of iPod DJing). Yesterday it inexplicably turned up in my work bag... which I swear I'd searched 3 or 4 times already, each time coming up empty-handed. More worryingly, I also lost my keys for the first time ever. Surprise, surprise, they turned up in my work bag, too. The moral of the story is that if I lose track of anything else, I should persevere with searching through my bag. The errant item will be in there somewhere.

Last night we took our niece plus both our mothers to see "The Sound of Music" at the London Palladium. I'm not a major musical fan, but I really did have a good time and I'd recommend the show to anyone (along with "Cabaret" and "Chicago").

The sets were great, Maria was fab and the seven diminutive offspring of Captain Von Trapp were so cute that you'd have had to be a pretty heartless stormtrooper to mow them down in cold blood with your machine gun. Not that that happened, of course. It's a family show, for gawd's sake!

There was some strangeness to it, though...

In a deliberate blurring of the line between reality and fiction, the girl who plays Maria, Summer Strallen, used to star in the UK soap opera "Hollyoaks". Not so strange, I hear you say. Many TV actors go on to tread the boards. Here's the thing, though: the character she played on TV, Summer Shaw, was trying to get into musical theatre and her small-screen role culminated in an audition with none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber, appearing in a cameo role. Next thing you know, she's 'high on a hill', consorting with the cast of 'Sister Act: The Prequel'. Coincidence? I think not!

I wasn't expecting the director to have re-imagined the ending. In the movie, the Von Trapps head for the hills and escape to freedom. In the stage version they unwittingly step aboard a flying saucer and are whisked off into outer space, presumably by lederhosen-loving aliens. One can only imagine their fate!

Okay, so that's probably not what the production designer intended, but it's what it looked like, dammit. The 'hill' was constructed as a large floating disc and, as the erstwhile gaggle of clean-cut Austrians supposedly headed towards the Swiss border, the set tilted and appeared to launch itself skyward, up, up and away, leaving the habit-bedecked, crooning sisters for spacedust.

Oh, on the way home I desperately tried to convince my 8-year old niece that nuns are really, really scary people. Nuns, Nazis... I get the two confused... Did I mention the sleep deprivation? She didn't buy it, sadly. That would be a cool phobia to grow up with. Hey, I never said I was a good uncle, did I?

Anyway... the only let-down in the show was that there were no puppets during the 'lonely goat' number. Why?! Why did you leave them out?!? The puppet show is integral to the plot, isn't it?

Ach, a minor blemish on an otherwise flawless show.

Moving on...



I just started reading Slash's semi-autobiography this morning. I say 'semi' as it's written both by Slash his-bad-assness-self and some other bitchin' dude (Anthony Bozza). Since Slash didn't pen it in its entirity I don't see how the bio can be considered 100% 'auto'. I'm up to Chapter 3 and so far it's reading a bit like Jonathan Lethem's "The Fortress of Solitude", only without the magic superhero ring. It's possible that the magic ring may feature later on, after the top-hatted-one quits shoplifting and takes up drugs instead. For now there's lots of big hair, delinquency and kleptomania. Watch this space for a more in-depth review!

Inbetween cat-naps I've been trying to get back into lyric writing mode. I had a couple of concept ideas that I thought I'd try to work up into something. So far they're lying on the beach like stranded dolphins...

I got one of the ideas after being unexpectedly caught in the sun on Saturday morning and ending up with a 'farmer's tan': burnt arms and face but pasty white everywhere else. I wasn't the only one. Tim proved once and for all that he really is a redneck from Missouri!

Hahahahahahaaa...

[I'll pay for that one later]

Erm... where was I... A.D.D. comes with lack of sleep...

Oh yes, FARMER'S TAN! That gave me the idea that if being loved by someone is like basking in their sunshine, that maybe if you don't allow yourself to be completely open to it that you'd get some kind of emotional farmer's tan. Everything would look good to other people, but when you're naked and vulnerable you'd end up obsessing about your tan lines. You see what I mean? No? Oh well, I told you it wasn't a great idea.

It occurs to me that many of the letters of ANGST are contained within the words MENTAL MASTURBATION. Granted, not all of them... I think the 'G' is missing, but somehow that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Eh? EH?!

The other song idea related to how you can be in a couple for a long time and then you see someone you inexplicably fancy the socks off. You have some kind of connection with them, either in physical or emotional terms. Rather than run off with them, though, you end up realising the value what you already have and you start to see your existing relationship in a different, more positive light. Kind of a rebirth kind of thing.

No? M'kay then...

How To Make Your Own Slash

From time to time I check out the Gibson website. At the moment they're featuring an extract from Slash's recently released autobiography, entitled "SLASH". I read it with interest.

Sometimes I ask myself whether Rock Gods are born or whether they're created. In Slash's case, I think he straddles both camps, one booted foot in each.

In case you wanted to make a 'Slash' from scratch, here's the recipe:

Take one set of multiracial parents and place in Paris in the '60s. The mother should be a costume designer working in the music industry. Dad should be a painter.

Transfer the mix to Portobello Road in London, not forgetting to put the mother to one side, in LA. Submerge in the Beat movement and allow to infuse.

Recombine all ingredients in LA, add classic record collections, animals and alcohol. Fold in Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison and a fresh clump of Glen Frey.

Once the father has absorbed all the alcohol, remove from the mix and briefly replace with David Bowie.

Stir well with a Gibson Les Paul and turn the heat to max!