Still can't live without making noise

9 years on, I think I would say pretty much the same... Happy Passing Daddyo.xx

Visualisation

I'm going to talk about visualisation tomorrow...I realised I do it when I put on events. I do a minds-eye walk through, noting the order of service and what tools and people I might need at certain stages of the event. We all visualise stuff, but it's great to notice how detailed it can be. If you want something you gotta see it first. Here are some shots from our Amsterdam show...I'm visualising some great shows in France in a couple of weeks time!

The Pay Off

At 7.20pm on Thursday 28th March I asked a colleague...what the hell are we doing this for? We had set up secret bar, the slide projector had fallen from the ceiling twice and caused no harm, but shaken us all. The cocktail bar was in busy chaos...leaving good friends to make sense of things. Dashing about trying to make a room light-tight that was refusing. Wondering why we had invited lots of people to pay to come and listen to our album in the dark. Why would people be okay with us telling them what to do.... you do this, you sit here, you listen.... Enter, drink hot rum, Neutrinos appear behind a screen... We kept our nerve. We did our thing....we sent smells into the dark corridors....incense, burning shoe polish, boiling rosemary, charcoal, We played our album in the dark.... struck matches to illuminate the room to see if everyone was okay.... The hot rum sat in their bellies. Then secret bar was open...cocktails and chatter...a bit of acoustic playing.... Next day after a clearing up session... we glowed with satisfaction at having done a thing. Alex Lingford said....and this is why we do it. Steph Potts, thank-you for photos...

Secret Bar

So we are planning an event. I wanted to do an evening where we listened in the dark to music with others. I wanted to do a play-back of the album we have made. Who listens to albums all in one sitting ? I want to smell things.... What is your favourite smell? Put all these ideas together with some booze and people from your city. Secret Bar.

Transcription from handwritten eblog Amsterdam

St. Patricks Day early morning in a sunny Amsterdam apartment. In Amsterdam waiting for a hangover to kick in. I may be allergic to cats. (fast forward..I just have a cold!) Gig was great -we were in control. We went quiet and sang unamplified in the bar. ( I sang out too much - I need to plant the song a little closer to myself ) Downstairs we played loud and brash...lots of space to think. Sound was good attention to detail by Trevor. Before we went onstage our dialogue was "shit , I'm so tired, I can't be bothered to pay attention to detail, but we must, overcome this." it was such a battle...but we did pay attention to detail, especially Sal with her slides. I am awake because I am not good at sleeping in a room full of people. I woke after 4 hours sleep and I'm still awake so I got up and I don't feel tired. We drank lovely cocktails espresso martinis, mint julip, margarita, gin tonic, then tequilla back at Bas and Olga's. one thing that works onstge is obvious inter-band communication. Not in-jokes, but directions, signals and ultimately touching or being in close proximity. Thank-you for the opportunity to thrive. Us in Belgium the night before...

no google

Whilst in the van driving to Belgium, we turned off our phones from data roaming....too expensive and had a new game of 'wonder'. With google, one asks a question and never needs to wonder...you just go to Wikipedia and get an answer. Without this tool, Sal and I came up with our own version of the truth to How do wind turbines work? non google answer - by electricity..just a little bit to keep it going when it's not windy. Did troops get shot when digging the trenches? non google answer - no they were dug whilst being miles apart from the enemy lines. Why didn't the troops go round the trenches rather than towards them? non google answer - I don't know. and so on.

Psychosomatic

Psychosomatic Definition.... 1.(of a physical illness or other condition) caused or aggravated by a mental factor such as internal conflict or stress: So, the psychosomatic theatre is on the sidelines.....I can feel a slight sore throat and an ache in my neck. The best thing to do is to tell it to go away. I am an advocate of hypnotherapy...it works for me, the brain is a powerful and under-used and little understood piece of glorious meat....I know with a skilled and trusted hypnotherapist I can change my thought patterns and feel different. The classic, before every gig I would get a cold Jon said, Karen, 'before every gig you get a cold'. That's really annoying to hear and so I said clearly for my brain to hear, 'No I don't!' From that day forward I didn't get a cold before a gig. It is as easy as that.....so that's what I have to do today. The cold is real btw, it's not made-up, but it is made by stress/emotions/fear. It is interesting as a sign of underlying fears which for these gigs in Belgium and France I thought I was pretty chilled.