Slugs

I'm woefully out of practice with playing my songs. My girlfriend was out last night so I had a run-through of my songs. It was such a disappointment! I've had Fleet Foxes songs going round in my head lately and I think when I imagined being on stage that's the sound that came out. But I'm nowhere near that standard. I mean, I never will be, but I'm sure I was better than this!

It's made me realise that I need to keep up the practice regularly. It's like my garden: if you leave it too long the slugs get it.

Fretless

I got together with Sarah who I met on my songwriting class on Saturday to do some music. We've been meaning to have a musical get together for ages, since the songwriting class finished in fact. Now Sarah's totally inspired by Glastonbury to get going with the music. Sarah, incidentally, used to be lead singer in Headmix. Anyway, she's got some great songs and I really like her singing voice and I'm looking forward to doing more music with her.

I think my electric bass will suit some of her songs so it'll be great to get that out again. My fretless acoustic bass has annoyed me ever since I bought it. It's great to have that slightly-double-bass sound and to be able to slide up and down. But it's cheap and rattles and goes out of tune and it's hard to get the right note and it's got a cheap-looking, holographic effect ring round the soundhole. Or maybe I'm blaming my tools as the person who recommended it plays one to great effect in The Bohemia Ukulele Band.

So I dug out my electric bass yesterday and it's been so long since I played it it had actually gone mouldy! The strap was covered in white spores. Anyway, I just need to take my bass amp back home (it's still here at my studio after the studio gig in May) and I'm away.

In other news: I went to the Willkommen Collective's mini-festival in Stanmer House last night. Fantastic! Such a great venue, out in the beautiful grounds of Stanmer Park. Well done! Best of the night was Pete Roe.

Drone

My latest obsession is for the first song on the Wickerman Soundtrack. A little hunt around the internet tells me it's called The Highland Widow's Lament sung by Leslie Mackie. Anyway, it's composed as a drone. I've always thought that drone songs are boring but this one is truly beautiful. It's also memorable, which again, I didn't think would be possible with a drone note running right through the song. From what I can hear it's just on one chord. Amazing!

I usually spend a long time working on intricate chord-changes as I think that's what gives my songs their interest. But now I'd like to set myself the task of writing a drone. I know a bagpipe player too who would be great to collaborate with.

As it's on one chord the song could also be sung acapella, something else I've wanted to try.

I just have to write the damn thing now!

Compare

Another open mic at the Brunswick last night. Not nearly as enjoyable as playing at my studio gig. There's just something about plugging in to an amp; it makes it stressful; more like a chore than an enjoyable experience. And it's really uncomfortable because you have to keep your head still to sing into the mic. I fluffed my lines and I could hear my voice going out of tune.

I had the usual out-of-body experience on stage. This time it was like dreaming about being on stage. It felt like I was in this room completely by myself, singing to nobody.

Interestingly, I didn't get nervous until I heard the people who were playing before me. It was then that I realised that I'm not as good as I am in my head. In my head I'm really quite good. But I don't often go out so I don't get the chance to compare myself to other musicians so there's only my past performances to compare myself against. And compared to me, I'm quite good!

Instrumentation

The next stage in recording my mini-album is to add extra instrumentation on to the songs that need it. I want to keep it all quite home-grown and a bit wonky sounding. On the weekend I bought a beauty of an instrument for this purpose. It's a little, blue, portable glockenspiel.

I've come up with a little melody to go over the chorus of 'Grace is Just Her Middle Name'. It matches the theme of the song perfectly as it's got that kiddy, girly, delicate, toy-like sound.

But I just don't know what to do with the other songs. I imagine orchestras on some of the songs but unfortunately I don't know any orchestras.

The main problem is that I just don't know music well enough to know what to put on there. It's all very well saying I would want an orchestra on a song, but what notes would they play?!

Ah well, I suppose it'll just take a bit of time to come up with the right instrumentations.

Words

I was just looking at the words I've used as titles for these blog entries...

Words, Roots, Song, Relief, Hastings, Change, Before, Stormy, Well, I've, Another, Interference, Worthy, Cock-ups, Hate, Dive, Job, Scrabble, Low-key, Ghosts, Eve, Jumping, Two, Hooks, List, Week, Toy, Appreciation, Stadium, USP, Honest, Extraordinarily, Real, Booming, Caravan, Arigato, Why

...and it's given me an idea to try and write a song using some of these words. I knew there was a reason for keeping titles to one word. Maybe I should cut them down a bit first though.

Or I could use them together:

Word roots, Song relief, Hastings change, Before stormy, Well I've another interference, Worthy cock-ups, Hate dive, Job scrabble, Low-key ghosts, Eve jumping, Two hooks, List week, Toy appreciation, Stadium USP, Honest Extraordinarily, Real booming, Caravan arrigato, Why?

Roots

Funking hell! Just discovered Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings. The super-hot weather we've been having lately has been annoying me. But as I drove home from work in the usual rush hour traffic last night, a Sharon Jones track came on and everything was alright for 3 minutes.

This video isn't the song I was listening to but it makes me want to get back to my roots and try and write a funk song.



Did I tell you I used to be a funk DJ? I played at the Yum Yum club in Swansea when I was at University there. It was great! It used to be free to get in and you got Big Issue sellers in there. One guy would play reggae and dub to start off with, then I would play funk then someone else would play more latin jazz style funk. It was the highlight of mine and my housemates two weeks. I met my first girlfriend there too when she drunkenly asked me to play another record.

I've loved funk ever since my mate Bezz got me into The Brand New Heavies in the nineties. Bezz lent me a load of Stax records and I heard all the originals of beats I'd heard sampled on hip hop records. I realised that the bits of hip hop records that I liked the most were the beats and grooves. Listening to the original funk records was like heaven: pure beats and groove.

I know you probably have to be more of a jazz musician to be able to write a funk song, and I don't want to stop writing melancholic folky stuff, but I'd love to give it a try.

Song

Singing and songwriting are on hold at the moment while I move house. But I'm still constantly thinking about it...

I went to an Ane Brun gig that was part of the Great Escape Festival in Brighton last weekend. She was amazing; like the last time I saw her at the Duke of Yorks in last year's Great Escape. And also like the last time I saw her I had to sit through two fucking awful bands before she came on.

It comes back to me over and over again that in music, it's all about the song. It doesn't matter if you've got an amazing voice, or if you've got virtuoso musicians around you, or a band with cool guitar sounds, or a fashionable 'name' singing with you. You can have all these things and more but if the song's shit it's always going to sound shit.

I'm also noticing how musicians present their songs. It just seems slightly arrogant when people don't introduce their songs; when they don't even say a word and try to look all gloomy. Ane Brun was warm with the audience and humbly introduced her songs and you instantly liked her.

But, more than anything, her songs are just brilliant.

Relief

I had my gig in the studio where I work last night. It was great! Everyone seemed to really enjoy it and said what a nice atmosphere it was. That was what I was hoping for.

I went on first. I was nervous as always and my fingers were like jelly when I was trying to pick the guitar. But I thought my voice wasn't too bad. It wasn't wobbling everywhere like it used to. I did start to feel sick half way through my set. It just seemed to be taking ages! Anyway, I got through it and got a good old round of applause.

Most people in the studio don't really know that I write songs and play guitar. I think they just see me as Simon-who-disappears-into-his-office. So I found it quite difficult to suddenly stand up and sing songs in front of these people. And I think they were quite surprised. Hopefully in a good way!

Anyway, Annie played afterwards and I played guitar with her. Her two violinists played too and they sounded great. Her first number was quite atmospheric and there was a huge downpour outside which mingled perfectly with the song as it bashed against the metal roof above us. It was one of those never-to-be-repeated moments.

But best of the night was definitely The Great Indoors, the band that I used to be in. Brendan's songs are just brilliant. The Great Indoors are Brendan singing and playing guitar, Anjuli on backing vocals and sax and Dan on double bass. Together they had a really warm, rich sound. Like a dark, mature, red wine. Delicious! I thought I would be a tad jealous seeing them with a different bass player but I wasn't at all. It was just really good to hear them play again. They very graciously let me play bass for their last song, Working Overtime.

So overall, a success! The audience enjoyed the music, the musicians enjoyed playing.

Here's me on my last song, Indian Summer. You can almost hear the relief in my voice!

Hastings

I was recording my EP/LP in Hastings on Sunday at Blue Eyed Sounds. I had such a great day! Six songs in one day! Adam & Jayne always make me feel welcome and are always enthusiastic about music and that makes for such a good atmosphere for recording songs. Thanks guys!

We spent the morning recording the guitar parts and then the afternoon doing vocals. I did a couple of the songs live which was a new experience for me. Doing songs live you can really get into the feel of it and hopefully that comes across in the recordings. I might wait a bit to reveal the recordings to the public. I've got other parts to write for them and I'd like them to be really finished before I put them out there.

At the end of the recording session Adam took some photos of me at a local crack-park. When we got over there there happened to be some kids' paintings of butterflies on the wall! Perfect! We'd just been talking about the meaning of my song The Lepidopterist too (it's about a butterfly collector).

For more of Adam's gorgeous photos have a look at his photography site.

Change

My Portland dream moves away from me like the door at the end of the corridor in Poltergeist.

The recession is hitting my business as my main client is making drastic cutbacks and I'm losing loads of my regular work.

And now my landlord (and friend) wants to move back into his flat so me and my girlfriend need to find somewhere else to live.

And my neck's fucked again.

What a shit week.

It means I can't afford flights to Portland in the near future. And now my parents have bought a caravan in Wales where I can go on holidays. Not exactly Portland I know but a much cheaper way of spending my hard-earned spare time. And I'd be spending it with the girl (and dog) that I love. Funny how ambitions change.

And the good news:
It's two weeks to my Studio 106 private house-gig!
I'm starting to record my EP/LP in Hastings on Sunday!

Before

I should mention at this point that I've been to Portland before. I think. This was before I got into music in a big way and I'd never heard of Portland.

I worked at a summer camp in Connecticut over the summer of... '97 was it?... Anyway, I worked there for two months – as a steward in the kitchen – and then went travelling around America. I had visited New York for a couple of days, relaxed on the coast in Avalon for a few days and then had a mammoth, seven-day journey right across the country from Worcester, Massachusetts to Seattle, Washington. After spending a few days in Seattle I got the overnight Green Tortoise bus to San Francisco.

It was an amazing bus trip; probably the best bit of the three months I was in America. The bus didn't have a toilet on board and stopped every 45 minutes. One of these stops must have been in Portland as the route goes right through there. I do remember stopping in one place that seemed very cool – lots of record shops – and in my mind that's now Portland.

The bus stopped off in the woods at a place that was looked after by employees of Green Tortoise. There was a sauna built of wood into the hillside with a fire lit underneath it. We got in the sauna and then ran down to the stream afterwards and jumped in. It was such a beautiful place. A hippy showed me round his teepee (no, that's not a euphemism) and we all had a cook-out. Amazing!

Stormy

I just walked past some god-botherers knocking on people's doors. There was an old lady inside one house, the door opened just a crack, with two women standing on her doorstep. I overheard one of them say, in a terribly dramatic voice: "The world is in a stormy situation".

I can feel a song coming on!

Well

I did another open mic night at the Brunswick last night. It went well I thought. I was more nervous before I went on this time. But when I was on stage I was alright. I was a bit shaky through the first song but I relaxed after that.

I think I'll always find being on stage a weird experience. It's like you're not in control of yourself. You can look down at your body playing guitar, thinking all these thoughts to yourself like: "Is this me on stage? Is my voice in tune? Why is it so quiet out there? What if everyone thinks it sounds shit? Did I say that out loud? This song is taking ages? Is everyone bored? Do I look silly singing with my eyes closed? That note sounded alright! Hey, I'm doing it, I'm on stage and it's going alright. That note was a bit off. Shit, I went wrong there... etc"

At one point, because I had my eyes closed, I fully expected that when I opened them there would be someone standing right in front of me shaking their head and saying "No... can you get off stage now" and people laughing behind them. Thankfully this didn't happen and it seemed to go down well.

I've

I've done a drawing for my album cover. It's of my ten-ton typewriter.
I've got three of my latest songs up on my MySpace.
I've got a gig coming up.
I've performed my own gig once before at the now defunct Mint Bar in Brighton but this feels like a proper gig with songs that I'm happy with.
I've made it so it's completely acoustic. I want it to be really relaxed like a house-gig.
I've organised it so it's in the shared studio where I work on Thursday 14th May, invite only.