noise of art

my salvation - banbury internet radio 8th march 2012

A train like a bus parked on the rails. The one I’ll ride. Next is the Virgin bullet, all streamlined and looking like speed. No rush for me, through the city and out into the wider world but a steady, rolling north through the urban decay and then into the green. The ancient stands of oaks stripped in the autumn now stand waiting for raiment , bright green, waiting for sunlight to usher the sap rise all through the valley of the great Avon where Shakespeare did walk. At journeys end, a friend not seen for many a moon though one who always will seem familiar. Have we grown out of callow youth’s things and learned any of life’s great truths or even some things small of real significance? Talking and listening , sharing and learning and still, there is the desire to go forth on a new adventure to seize the day and make our way undaunted and bravely. Yes – we have learned and mellowed. Some rough edges but smoothed in the affairs of folk, kith and kin, kinder and more inclusive. We can commune on a new quest and try to make something special. Can we make something savage and real, down with the people and also some thing clean, bright, new and beautiful? Time will tell. We talk and talk and talk. We play as well. Finding our way with each other. I sense the desire and intent to get this right, slowly, carefully and sure.

I am reminded of a party way back in Stratford Upon Avon, way back in time when we both were together trying to be artists, setting out to be different and beginning to write our own songs.

Driving to Banbury Internet radio. Ten until midnight chatting and singing a few songs. I got to hear a list of my favourite songs. The time went by quickly and after a stop off on the motorway it was back to endless talking,  more catching up and laying loose plans for the way we would begin our work.

A small room with the scent and spirit of like minded souls. They are players all. Those who strive to entertain or inflame, or both, work in here separated in groups and bands of brothers but with a common spirit. It’s here in the room, palpable and real. A peppercorn hire rate for the day’s rehearsal and jam. This space is the gift of a man called Sam who is rightly venerated here.

A drum kit communally battered by all the drummers and a P.A. sits silent. Set up with a lovely Fender amplifier kindly loaned to yours truly. Kindness and encouragement abounds.

Tentative and expectant we all begin the merging, reaching out to commune with out stress or pressure. This must be FUN! Talk about conceptual things, the ideas around the use of random sounds as an emotive driver and words that touch the core inside us all, Big ideas. No restricting luggage or criteria that is still born out of dusty, endless familiarity or institutional rigidity. No reason to do any thing because that’s how we’ve always done it. Every reason to do it all, and why not?

Feeling our way through the songs. Slowly but surely small spaces appear in the rhythms that develop, unwind, reform and gradually settle. Early days, the first few hours. The spaces open up and inside is the room to plant the seeds and noise that will be felt by the listener. Head full of things to be made for the next time. Hands scratching out a strange tattoo on the top skin of the snare. Tiny tingle cymbal things that sing with a small voice against the finger picked electric ostinato provide some thing of a hipitty hopitty vibe and tribal. Bass thumps riffing needs less notes.  Imagining a paper bag with 44 notes – using them sparingly and wisely. I want space in it. Occasional long low sub bass thingies that make your shirt flap and are gone until another moment, waiting, waiting, still waiting and then, there it is again. 

A baby God Light Pop that takes your breath not just because of what it is but also when it occurs.
( see  http://edgarbroughton.com/the%20instantanium.html  )   
A small piece of drama in the offing, just visited and cyclic. Am I really playing finger style on the stratocaster? I take up a plectrum for the next song. It feels so different.

Six white horses backing vocals. A mouth singing one thing and four fat strings saying something else. I lose my place in the song because I am watching and listening.

Shared anecdotes that inform and pave the way forward. Common expressions of the same hopes and dreams. No room for should have done it then, or when? There is  only room for - going to do it now.

This England now has a new vocal part adlibbed. Three voices making space and time for an audience to reflect. In my mind I hear the tingle sounds and prettiness that will underscore this new little vocal part and the huge sweeping thing that will fall down on us all like a breaker shattering over a rocky outcrop in a force 9 gale.

A little robot quartet of strings will play a reprise at the end of the song. A nasty little techno riff that whines and grinds will grow out of the prettiness into the dark. But for now we are simply exploring groove.

Time runs. Time to go back to the metropolis. Time to head back to make the components that will give new voices to the music.

My Train bus rolls back to London. We are overtaken by the Bullet nosed Virgin train. Again I am in no hurry. We stop at station after station. I watch a lively and blooming group of young ones board at Milton Keynes. They are vital and clever. I overhear some of their excited chatter. I think of days gone by. I think of the party in Straford Upon Avon when I was so green and full of arrogant certainty. I think about the road I’ve travelled and how the wheel turns. I drift off some where lovely. The sound of the young ones is a back drop. I come back and reach for my note book. Scribbling new words for another work in progress. I am not sure where all this senior energy and commitment will lead me but the journey has begun.

peace