Final week at RFH

I'm currently in Dressing Room 15 at The Royal Festival Hall. KlangHaus is about to do it's 33rd show of a run of 41. I am relaxed in here. I iron all the show shirts and do my vocal warm-ups. When we are all in here it's pretty snug, though we calmly fit around each other. Often Mark asleep on the floor or recording/writing songs. Jeron on the sofa. Sal pop's in and out. Jon pop's in and out, he prefers being outside. Lingford will pop in and out. I am often stationed at the ironing board or in the massive bathroom doing some singing or putting my hair up. That's our routine we choose to anchor ourselves. This show has been a wonderful success so far, affecting people on a deep emotional level. This is due to many reasons but Sal and I laugh about how our sexuality as women plays no part...flat shoes and flat chests. I wear a shirt buttoned up to the collar. There is something honest and different about this show. Being in the show actually makes me none the wiser of it's effect. All I know is that it feels pretty damn good to be in. My voice is just about holding up. I got too over emotional on Friday night and over-sang. Then had there shows on the Saturday. The first show I realised I'd lost my vocal power, not really the notes, just the strength. I 'Rod Stewarted' through the next three shows. I remained calm and went with it. I still remain calm, I'm curious as to it's state today, so warming up fully and gently and gargling salt water...weirdly I love gargling with salt water. Then finally I tell myself a story about how my voice will be fine, stoopid, but it works!

15 shows in at The Royal Festival Hall

This is a place in my life that is hyper real and yet unreal. I'm performing daily in the RFH, which feels like an enormous brilliant dream. Trying to maintain energy, be real, be here now. Not only are we at the RFH doing music and singing and mucking around all evening. We get to touch our audience, get close-up. Let them feel the air between us. Once installed we have a lovely time. The build is pretty painful, especially if we are stressed. So a strategy is needed, we will be working on this in the next week. We walk miles to, from and during the show. We behave with grace to all we meet. We attempt our most skillful ways of communication. This is heaven, the world and its politics are mayhem around us. We make our own world in KlangHaus: On Air and allow ourselves, us and the audience to escape for 50 minutes.

Day 3 RFH

On the first day we had to be inducted and sign lots of forms. We were in offices near our workspace in the ceiling, with a view over Waterloo. I had a moment of realisation that this is actually happening and a massive flush of pride...' We are here now'. Rosie is being complimented on her astute risk assessment. This is real. Then to work. What has been great is that over the last two days if one of us has floundered, another has scooped them up and either helped, or distracted them from themselves. We are a strong team, the skills between us are diverse. We are gonna make this show the best yet.

We're about to leave for London

On the eve of leaving. Very tired now but a good day. Collecting artwork, dimmer racks, perspex, ordered sharks tooth gauze,BNC convertors, watched Dan's new video for Jon Hopkins, a drone flight over Stiffkey marshes, so beautiful. Had artwork chopped, we were assisted by all manner of Norwich folk. Sorted a cash-flow plan, paid people we had to. Remembered at 7pm that I hadn't chased up the insurance people... Karen our event manager sent the unhelpful folks a stinging email at 11.30pm...nice! We've done our best and that's all we can do. Sleep well all and let the adventure unravel.

7 days to go before RFH

Feeling calm and determine. Today's list is to be in touch with friends of friends to help on the show, being 'hosts'.To begin the insurance form, that is now urgent! I have an interview with the EDP local newspaper.I need to send Sal the lyrics to new songs we are including in the show. I need to email the head tech re technician requirement times for the get-in week. The biggest task is gathering the component parts for book finishing. We will be taking with us Butcher of Common Sense books to sell. T-shirts will be printed on Tuesday. Artwork is being made tomorrow and hand-outs will be risographed also on Monday. Thursday we will be visiting a school to thank them for lending us 6 school gym benches. In between time we are learning songs. Last week we had two days rehearsal of the music in the country -side at the Bakehouse in Glandford Norfolk. This was heaven. Just time with the music away from logistics. It gave us focus and space and allowed us to visualise and imagine the sound of the building. We visited the building in between rehearsal days. We laughed a lot. Very lucky, delightful times much work ahead.

Rewiring for calm

I find it helpful for me to remember how it feels and what I'm actually doing before a show or set of shows that in my mind are important. So, stress levels rise. I thought I would be able to steadily plan and write songs, but it comes in waves. Waves of nothing then bursts of ideas and energy to push forward. I am making a mental note of this. I berate myself for not steadily completing stuff that needs doing. Came across an idea of work intensely for 20 hours a week and relax intensely for 20 rather than doing 50 hours full pelt. I have certainly had some days where I can't stop working and I am physically trying to balance them with walking around in the sun just thinking about anything. However, I am 50% relaxed... I think the key for me would be to do something more physical so the brain gets de-fragged. I have some exercises to distract my brain from strategising ( my default setting!) they involve eye movements and overloading the brain with menial tasks of humming whilst spinning my eyes in different directions... so,simple and yet you can feel it work! It reminds me of that fantastic discovery of how gaming immediately after a traumatic incident can stop the brain creating flashbacks. Re-wiring. I have been feeling overwhelmed, but that's just a feeling, so I'm changing the feeling so I can get on with stuff. My personal biggest stress buster is singing practice... which is handy. That's what is happening for me three weeks before the show.

The best show on earth

We have a show, 41 shows, at the Royal Festival Hall in July. It is a dream come true. How did that happen then? I want to answer that question so I can remind myself! It came about through a series of events over several years and I think a large part of that was talking to people, making friends with other musicians and artists and building working relationships. We have done large shows in unusual places since 2011 and on a much smaller scale in derelict shops, behind gallery walls and in attics since 2008. The show at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014 was a catapult into having a national profile and being written about in the national press. Building relationships with people over many years, building a reputation for solid, innovative work. Pushing and following up off-the-cuff remarks, "I know an interesting building, perhaps you could do a show in..." Listening to people we trust, trusting our intuition. Avoiding people we don't trust (often after trying to trust them for a year or so!). Talking to people, not worrying if we come to a dead end. We have been especially excited by our own work since our trip to Berlin in 2008 when we took 9 artists and musicians to an extraordinary building The Funkhaus and played games in order to make new work. We became obsessed with the building and its sound/acoustic/resonance and all realised that we could literally 'play', muck about in order to make songs,images,films. As a band we had already been playing together for 10 years. We re-found the fun. we stopped feeling like we had a race to win, to get a record deal, to 'make it'. That was a golden moment. I remember walking on stage at a gig in Belgium not long after sensing this feeling of freedom and saying, "Wow, we don't have to make it". So when faced with the daunting task of making and performing 41 shows at the Royal festival Hall that we want to be exciting, innovative, moving and unforgettable, our armoury is, trust, trust in each other and calmness in order to play, muck about and continue working with a sense of fun and to get on with it. Make enough stuff so that 70% of it can be rubbish and the 30% is more than enough to fill the show. That's the challenge. Join us in July and see what happened!KlangHaus:On Air