Threads

“A New Bounce…”

In these “unprecedented” weird times, when at all possible, I’ve found its a good idea to embrace the differences, to look for the positives that come out of having to do things differently, rather than bemoan the fact that I can’t do things the way I had planned/wanted.

There’s no doubt that by now, I’d have had a couple of sessions in the recording studio, and would have got a physical thing or two to say yes, done that, tick! We would have had a wonderful time, I know this because we always have. Is it odd that I enjoy being in a very small room not much bigger than a phone box, wrestling with the combination of glasses, headphones, earrings (quickly despatched to the depths of the handbag)?

But Michael’s studio has been closed to visitors for a while now. It is small, but perfectly formed, and in the small gap between lockdown 1 & 2 he commandeered his sitting room to create a separate, video-linked safe space for artists to record, with him in the control room. Brilliant.

But here we are again, unable to do even that for a while.

So what have we done instead? Embraced the unusual, just to see what happened. We have sent files backwards and forwards: sounds, loops, lyrics, melodies, chords, and even a few song sketches too. We have some bones on which to build. It is slow. But actually I am starting to see the advantage of slow.

In the studio with Michael I am a bit star-struck and blinded by the science, flashing lights and scary buttons. I definitely defer. Because he knows all this stuff right? That’s why he is in on this, because he knows this stuff. But here is the interesting thing: given the time conferred upon me by being sent things via email or drop box, I can think. My musical thinking is slow. He knows this and he doesn’t rush me, but still, in a separate studio, without pressure of time, I relax into it more and think it through. I will confess here that I probably listen to things he sends me probably 100 times. Can you imagine how time consuming and tedious that would be? Anyway… away from the time pressure and the embarrassment of feeling stupid and singing out of tune I can be exactly that! In my own studio, after listening 100 times, I can start to hesitantly pick out melody and harmonies from the chords. I can try them out, record them, out of tune mumblings and out of time, until I get it to the point where I feel ok to send him a recording. I have loved being able to do this, to give myself the time, so that when we do get together, our time will be spent differently, possibly more focussed because I’ve already done the workings in the margin. (I’ll let you know)

A few miles away in Kings Heath, I suspect similar things are happening… Michael sent me a photo this morning of him in his studio, with headphones, and casserole dish, and drumstick with adaptations… he has been playing, and improvising, because I had said I thought a bell would be a good idea for one of the songs. While I am listening and mucking about with the words and the singing, he’s walking round his house, bashing stuff with a stick. He has taken on my concepts and ideas and is diving in too. Love it!

I love it when I get a text saying “There’s a new bounce in the dropbox”

I’ve spent years expounding the value of play for children.

Adults need it too.

Never has life been so tangled up in my head and my work.

I’ve always been interested in the touch between people, the physical, emotional, psychological… the effect one person has on another… and now, in its lack we can all feel how much we need it. 

It’s in everything I do here in the studio, on my own. That exploring of touch, and its absence. From the stroke of the ink or pencil on the paper, to how one voice reacts to another in harmony… material textures and the textures of sound that take me from one verse to the next.

There is grief and bereavement in every day… for the life we are no longer able to live, to the real tangible grief of lost friends and families. There’s tension. We are stretched and pulled and putting on brave faces and are filled with bravado (at our peril).

I am preferring these old nibs I’m drawing with now. Their path over the paper is perilous. A scratch, a blot, a bleed and a run could happen at any moment. If it were a film it would say “mild peril” on the certificate. The new pens I bought were great, I am still using them, but they glide easily, an even delivery of ink gives them a confidence and a consistent swagger. The old pens were given to me by a friend, the wife of a wonderful art teacher who is no longer with us… his equipment was stored and stacked high, gathering dust. I kept them for ages unused myself until very recently. And now they are perfect. Sometimes they do glide effortlessly over the paper, time and time again, delivering the ink in a steady flow. But much of the time they do not. I feel I am coaxing them into behaving well for me. But I don’t mind if they can’t quite manage it. We are drawing together. They are part of the team. I’ve got dodgy knees. We can cope.

It is good to be reminded that one’s own voice is worth hearing.

I am easily seduced by the toys in someone else box. I am good at presuming that someone else knows better. Just because they know different. Thank you Sarah* for reminding me that I have a sensitivity and a sensibility that is my own.

Part of the endeavour in this project is to move myself along/up/around what I am doing now. To shake off comfort and complacency and be challenged by my work and to really dig into it.

The things Sarah and I talked about this afternoon were the connections between the lines… lines of music, drawn ink, written and sung words… I am used to knowing what the drawing is for. But working with music at the same time, I have become unsure.

So as we spoke I made notes of the words that held all elements together:

The ongoing narrative of a connective tissue between drawing/sound/music/words

A tension in the drawings – where it is, and where it isn’t…

Where is the tension in the music…?

A squeeze and a bulge and a pulling and pressure…

Discomfort, unease, a disturbance… uncomfortable… a mystery… a secret…

A sadness and melancholy… the moment of “oh…”

There is repetition, a reprise, a point of familiarity then distorted…

These works are not illustrative, they are lived… the making is engaging… the existence of them…

These things aren’t only in the making, but in the showing… how they are presented… An installation rather than an exhibition… paper hanging mounted, not loose, taken as a piece from elsewhere, from somewhere more…

So how do songs work in this narrative?

How do the sounds sit among the drawings?

I have many questions to ask of this work.

I’d better keep going then… and keep listening while I draw, and draw while I listen… then stand back a little and think a bit.

*Sarah Goudie is my friend, erstwhile studio-mate, mentor and co-curator for Drawing Songs

It’s really difficult at the moment for artists/singer-songwriters who perform live.

There’s nowhere to play. No audience. I’m not talking about The Albert Hall etc, I’m talking small scale. As a band, The Sitting Room, and the constituent members that also play solo, have nowhere to do their thing. We play small venues, clubs, rooms above pubs, venues all under 100 seats… to be honest most under 50… But we have regular places we go, where we are known and get a good reception for our set. These places are not presently open. And even if they were, singing in public at the moment is a no-no. These places are at risk, and don’t seem to be getting any of the government support offered to the arts.

I miss it so much!

Many people in our position, but mostly solo performers, have been live streaming. I desperately understand their need to do this, to have some interaction, even though it really isn’t anywhere near the same as having a live audience right in front of you. Apart from a few, I haven’t been able to actually watch. It makes me too sad.

My band mate Andy Jenkins has done a couple of performances for a facebook group he is a member of. But we feel a bit weird singing out at no one. I am missing it so much because I cannot do it on my own. I don’t play an instrument. I need my band! I miss them too. The camaraderie of the rehearsal room and the interaction of five people singing and playing live. Can’t beat it. This country will be in a sorry sorry state if we lose these small but beautifully formed live music venues.

We have managed to adapt the way we write though, up to a point, and then we have halted. I’ve been writing lyrics, quite a few lockdown related songs, and have sent them out to my co-writers to play with. I reckon we have about 5 or 6 new songs ready to be worked up so that we could perform them live, or maybe record. But we can’t. 3/5 of the band are in Birmingham which is currently deemed tier 2, which is high risk. Dudley where I am, and one other player, is currently tier 1, medium. This means that Ian and I have actually been able to get together to work on a couple of songs, either in the garden, or in the large gallery space with all the doors and windows open, and sat far apart, facing our singing in different directions. It has been a lifeline, but I don’t know how long it will go on, as we are surrounded by tier 2 areas…

To work up the songs requires all of us to be together. I attach a link to Soundcloud below, of the song I’ve most recently written with Ian ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’… it’s a guitar and two voices. It is in its most basic, fresh out of the notebook state. We decided to post it up, unpolished, just to get some reaction and feedback, and just to prove to ourselves we are still working.

When the small local bands do get back to these gigs, please please support them… there are some amazing talents out there in the real world far from the likes of Britain’s Got Talent… so much better, but they need support, they need ears and eyes, a round of applause and the occasional purchase or donation!

Be Careful What You Wish For

Validation…

Why do we need it?

I’m always happy working in the studio, either on my own in the building at whatever time of day or night, or if my fellow artists are bustling about. I’m not always happy with the results but I am happy with the endeavour… and happy that I am fortunate enough to be able to afford to be there, even though some months have been a squeeze.

But all that endeavour, I feel, needs to go somewhere. Otherwise its just fancy paper consumption and recycling…is it? (I’m not sure if I believe this, so I am being provocative in writing it) (does “going somewhere” count, even if it’s only in my own head?) (yes)

But anyway… at some point I want to ask of somebody “what do you think of this?” Sometimes asking Louise or Sarah or Simon or Pete or John in passing is enough… sometimes I think I need to get it all out and up in a big space and step back and ask that in a louder voice.

I (we?) need the validation of other people.

A conversation with fellow blogger Stuart Mayes prompted the question whether it matters who does the validating, and whether the rubber stamp of a body of people, a respected organisation, is worth more than a studio mate saying it’s good.

Maybe it is my age/generation, or the fact that I returned to this art-life later on, but I think that the endorsement of an established, reputable group really helps. It helps self-esteem, confidence, and it helps place me among my peers. To be situated… in a place you feel good in.

These last few weeks have been bloody amazing for that. I have got ACE funding for this work that will last about a year. I was selected to be in the RBSA Friends exhibition first, then also in their prize exhibition, and then yesterday I was told I’d be getting a Highly Commended certificate. I am really chuffed, and as my energies for working in the current circumstances was starting to flag it’s been an incredible boost.

Those things are the external manifestations, and they are great. But what has also been happening is the “going somewhere” bit inside my head…

The collaboration with Michael Clarke is so exciting! The backwards and forwards of files is spurring me on. I am loving what he has done, is doing, with the things I send him. It is hard to describe really, but I feel an affinity with this man somehow… I send him words and sounds and describe the feelings that go with them… and he absorbs all of that.. respects the direction and the idea… and adds music to it, in a way that makes me gasp, because he has so NAILED it! My dark lyrics, unedited, understood, reflected back to me with haunting music, disturbing rhythms and sweet soft vocals… it’s like me in sharp relief, focussed. It is extremely emotional. I sent him these lyrics… what he did with them and the sounds I had made, gave me goose pimples and made me cry.

Then all of that gets fed back in to more writing, and more drawing… an ascending spiral.

I feel at the moment, my art-life is certainly “going somewhere”.

That’s why I need other people in it…