Shaving and mixing.

Why this might seem interesting, I don’t know. But, around rather larger matters and to take my mind off them, I’ve found myself thinking about something that men have to (allegedly) do every day they’re alive and which I have been attempting half-heartedly since I was about thirteen. I am, of course, referring to shaving.

I say half-heartedly because, being a creative, I don’t really have to or want to shave every day – looking slightly unkempt between client meetings makes me feel slightly cooler than I am and this is a comfort – and, like most of the finest comforts, based entirely on self delusion. Perhaps because of this lax approach to facial grooming then, I have never developed much of a shaving regime. No fancy equipment, or foams, or gels, or creams or contraptions to see my pores up close – nothing. I have now, however, finally let my old Gillette GII technology slip from the sponge bag in favour of some flimsy new thing called a Mac 3. I think.

I mean, bleedin’ shaving marketing. It’s all got to have batteries and decals to make it look like it goes really fast – even though you really don’t want to be dragging anything sharp across your face really fast when you’re half awake – and it all looks like Transformers or something. All I want to do is reduce my facial rubble without blood and sweat. I was worn out just getting through the packaging. And I’m not altogether sure, but think they might be trying to tell me it’s digital rather than analogue. (I’ll believe this when I can Undo a nasty nick.)

Which is all very well, but am I supposed to not shave with good old soap any more either? They’ll be telling me not to rub sheep fat on my face afterwards next.

Anyway, to add to the dizzying speed of change around here, I also went mad and bought a new mixing desk, Let’s hope this one doesn’t blow up in my face any time soon. Or I’ll have to grow a beard to hide the shrapnel scars.

Gigging for old people.
So I actually went out of the studio for a bit the other night.

It’s been so full-on for so long I forgot that people do this kind of thing. In particular, to go watch music being made live, in front of your eyes. No tricks. Just odd-shaped gizmos called ‘instruments’ to help the people on stage all make this music at the same time.

Thursday was John Peel day and it coincided with a monthly new music event at our pretty-much-only live music venue in Bournemouth and Poole – Mr Kyps. Three bands entertained: Sancho, The Hats and Acoustic Ladyland. And the joyous thing was that all three were comfortably creative. Or even uncomfortably by the end of AL’s set.

Sancho were pleased to wheel in as many people, influences and musical machines as they could think of, creating a playful, carefully erratic performance full of theatrical vocals, medicated posturing by the front chap and gleefully confident tune-making. Fun. Silly-cool.

The Hat seemed every inch a Brighton band; spoken word coolness over creative music scapes, all done very simply with guitar, double bass and one or two xylophones. The sort of thing you appreciated someone creating live, but that you knew you really needed to here in headphones afterwards to get what the hell they were actually on about. Nice stuff.

Acoustic Ladyland, on the other hand, were very immediate. Demonstrating a very singular musical vision, they hit you straight in the face with their energetic stomp which quickly began to convince you they were extremely qualified to show off. A kind of Ska-jazz soundtrack to a Tarantino movie, by the end I felt medically mezmerised, and somehow bitch-slapped intellectually – like they knew most of us were convincing ourselves we enjoyed it to feel clever. Still, I may have been craving an actual melody in a deeply musically-immature way by the end, but enjoy it I did – the frenetic and masterful sax lead and the syncopated but effectively simply keyboard work created a genuinely mature music pallet that gave real qualification to an in-your-unprepared-face energetic show. Genuinely impressed and humbled.

But, at the end of the evening, though there had been a laudable selection of ages mixing amiably around the obvious love of music in the air, I couldn’t help feeling that we really need a music venue with sofas and coffee. We may all be getting old, but standing around nodding for three hours isn’t what it used to be.

Moving blog.

I think I am going to move blog. You know, move into a new apartment. The old one at MySpace is just so old and studenty. Fun but a bit crap – and some days you just wake up and want a clean apartment.

So why the hell am I doing this at 9.30 on a Saturday night?

Jeepers, Momo knows no sensible working hours.