4th March 2009

 1st-22nd February 2009

February 2009 has been characterised by 'the heaviest snow seen in Britain for 19 years', which has apparently brought the entire country to a standstill (Here in the north it has mainly meant cold cold fingers and a lot of muddy footprints). 19 years ago would be when I was about 6 or 7 - school was closed for two days and when it reopened they had to bring a JCB into the playground to clear a path to the school.

I took this snap whilst walking to work on one of the various early mornings I've done in the past few weeks, getting up at some point between 7 and 8 to be in mega early - my mega early is everyone elses 'time that they start work' I know - but I'm still proud of myself....

There have also been a lot of Vessels writing sessions in the last few weeks, ranging from the inspiring and exciting, to the meandering and uneconomical. I for one, don't know how to go about writing an entire album from scratch; perhaps if we just worked on one song at a time like last time we'd be fine, but at the moment we've got 6-7 different pieces that could be 6 or 7 different songs and we're nowhere near finished any of them.

I am however enjoying the whole process, which I suppose is the whole point.

I took the picture above and the picture below as I closed the office for the last time this Friday gone after work. As of now I am officially no longer a Footprinter, which hasn't quite sunk in yet. I've been working as part of Footprint Worker's Co-op, as my own boss, alongside my friends, for the last 3 years and 8 months, and am thoroughly looking forward to spending my days now playing some serious guitar instead. I've put in a lot of time these last few weeks, working with the new recruits Claire and Dan, and finishing up the work that I had taken on. On my last day Andy had baked me a vegan cake and bought Cava -  which I didn't drink - the cake was immense. I feel like I should say epic things about eras coming to an end and inspirational people and life-changing experiences and such the like, but it could never do those guys and the operation that for years we have staffed together any justice......

This next photo shows J with my new niece Cara Mae, who I finally met on Thursday - although she didn't open her eyes..... She didn't look as much like Winston Churchill as other babies do. S she seems to have brought untold amounts of joy to my family.....

And these three renegades, pictured at various points last summer, all turned thirty this week - and to celebrate we gathered in the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, a triumphant effort considering how many Leeds crew missioned it down - and partied till the wee hours.... It was a night characterised by Lime and Soda, loud techno, and lots of childish behaviour. My mind is elsewhere, and I fear I did my friends a diservice in my distraction - but I don't think anyone really noticed....

And that is pretty much it - save for the fact that in the last few weeks J and I have found a cottage to live in and will be moving within days of returning from Malaysia - it's awesome, and it has its own little garden, and a wood burning stove, and will the perfect hideaway for the hours and hours and days and days and weeks and weeks of guitar, bass and piano that I plan to play in the coming months.......

Apparently the cottage is one of the oldest houses in Leeds, and I found found this picture of it from the 6th of June 1913 on the Leodis website, which is dedicated to old pictures of Leeds. We're moving into the nearest one on the left. The houses on the right aren't there anymore, the old school house that you can see at the end has been converted into flats, and the little boy on the right holding the milk bottles will be over a hundered years old in the unlikely event that he's alive today.....

  Awight den, a cottage fang down.....

Friday 30th January 2009

  PO-LEECE THAT MUS-TACHE SOLDIER!!!....

Thursday 29th January 2009

John Martyn passed away this morning. His album 'Live at Leeds', recorded at Leeds Uni in 1975 is a masterclass in guitar playing, songwriting, bass playing, drumming, atmospherics and all round masterful musicianship. Get it, today. Clem and I sat up till four in the morning listening to John Martyn records and catching up......

  Love is a lesson to learn in our time......

Wednesday 28th January 2009

Tonight was video lesson seven, with Will Newman, former guitarist of Leeds based rock legends 10,000 Things. Again I didn't take any snaps, so I found this picture online of Will performing with 10,000 things. Anybody recognise the cheeky chappy on the mic? If you don't already, I expect that one day you will....

The lesson was outstanding - Will played Hendrix, and Freddie King, and Al Green, and Little Feat, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and his own tunes, and all sorts of others, and he sang like some kind of a don, and he did it all in a way that'll made it all seem so simple......

Legend.

  This is my baby.....

Tuesday 27th January 2009

Tonight after work saw the undertaking of video lesson number six - with Lee from Vessels. He played me an overview of all of his guitar parts on our album, and then I filmed him making a tune from scratch on Ableton Live - which might just be tghe best computer game ever conceived. The lesson was tremendous, but again I didn't get a snap, so I'll give you this one which I took of Lee as he sat and made techno in the airport in Minneapolis as we returned from our trip to make our album in 2007.

  And then you just turn this knob, and it suddenly sounds ludicrously tremendeboons.

Monday 26th January 2009

Today Martin and I updated the band accounts for the last three months  - and backed them up in several locations. MInch and Kes' new daughter was brought into the world..... That's the third child that my friends and family have created in the past few months, and that's only the beginning.....

Camera is on the blink - I did not take this picture.

  The net is readied, the sack is clenched.......

Sunday 25th January 2009

Today was Imran's birthday. I went out for dinner with Seb, Clem and Imran, and as is to be expected, when Clem and Imran are in the same room, the conversation turned to the global economy and political climate, and the causes and ramifications of the current recession.

I didn't get any snaps, so you can have this shot from Germany last century, when paper money became so worthless that, as legend tells, you needed a wheelbarrow full of money just to buy a loaf of bread....

  What if you didn't have a wheelbarrow?...

Saturday 24th January 2009

In comparison to the now retracting bombardment of Gaza, the ongoing siege is easy to forget. But the protests must continue. This particular one in London saw us stop outside BBC Broadcasting House to register public displeasure at their refusal to broadcast a humanitarian appeal for donations to aid the wartorn victims of the bombardment of Gaza, for fear of being accused of impartiality in a political matter. Funny, because in doing so, they have been accused of impartiality in a humanitarian matter. 

And which ex-Leeds stalwart should we find wandering the streets of London in need of a cup of coffee and some banter???

When I told him that we were in London to protest in the day and then go to the theatre at night he called us 'Champagne Anarchists'..... Which made me laugh. The champagne bit might even be true if I ever drank in the earlier part of the year, but I don't consider myself an anarchist, anymore than a fascist, or a socialist ,or an econimist, or a pragmatist, or an atheist, or anything else that ends in 'ist'. Just as it's tricky and at times counterproductive to pigeon hole musicians by genre, so do I not want to be defined by the over-arching beliefs of various groups that I might share some ideas and beliefs with, whilst disagreeing with others - maybe there's an 'ist' just for that.....

And Billy Elliot was tremendous. Set in the mining community of Easington, the accents and characters transported me back to my upbringing in the small community of Annfield Plain, with the mining banner of Easington compelling to the fore memories of the banners that hung, and burned, in our church.....

  It wasn't me man......

Friday 23rd January 2009

This memory stick contains the only copy of the Vessels accounts for the past couple of years. Until moments before this picture was taken it had been missing presumed dead for several months, but a frantic search of J's apartment trying to find our tickets for tomorrow night's theatre extravagnza, failed to turn up the tickets but did reveal where this little badboy had been hiding.

And, relax......

Tonight was Tim's 30th birthday, everyone was down the BRud for the Gregor Samsa gig, with Tom doing a lovely solo set as Peasman in support. All told it was lovely, but my anti-social ways still got the better of me, and I was tucked up in bed before most of the guys had even really started partying....

  I think my camera might be on the way out.... but maybe not....

Thursday 22nd January 2009

This is my niece, Cara Mae, the first of a new generation for my family, who came into being at some point today. Although I'm not sure when my work schedule will let me meet her....

Today, the new President Barack Obama signed a decree promising the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba within one year....

  The shadow makes her look like a Europunk...

Wednesday 21st January 2009

Yesterday Barack Obama took office in the U.S as Commander in Chief and Israel completed its withdrawl of ground troops from Gaza. I don't think anyone really believes that the two events are unrelated, but yet some people continue to behave as if they do....

And tonight was video lesson five, with Si Cartwright in Ilkley - bass guitar technique, in the style of Claypool et Graham et al and jazz guitar chords and lead lines, Joe Pass stylee. It was beyond immense, and nice to spend time in Ilkley, in Si's big old house, with a friend I haven't seen for at least a year.... For all that I am becoming consumed by cynicism and anti-social tendencies, time spent in the company of good musicians, dissecting the magic, will always give me a buzz....

As with previous lessons, I was so busy taking video footage that I didn't take any still pictures. I could extract one from the footage, but it's on a different computer, so I'll include this picture of Whitely, who until his demise, lived just round the corner from Si....

Monday 19th January 2009

Tony Hart died yesterday. he is definitely partly responsible for the development of my older brother's artistic tendencies as a child.... HIs TV shows were awesome, as far as I can recall....

Tonight, instead of rehearsal, Tom and Martin and I sat and sampled sounds to use on the new Vessels album. Tom is pictured here recording single notes on the stylophone that Dan got me for Christmas to put together on the computer and make into a big chord. We also captured the zither, the music box and the thumb piano, with added platic karaoke mic spring reverb...

 Pling...............................................Plong...............................

Saturday 17th January 2009

Today, only days before Barack Obama takes over the office of President of the U.S.A, Israel declared a ceasefire against the Gaza strip. Declaring a ceasefire and ceasing firing are two separate things though, and should be treated as such...

Today we planted the Christmas tree out on the ridge. The tree is only a few foot tall, and was still rooted and very much alive for the entire duration of it's stay with us this Christmas, and we'll just have to see how it manages out in the cold amongst all these strangers. Perhaps some conservation group will remove it because of the nature of coniferous trees and their expected relationship with the other trees and their shared resources, perhaps it'll die out in the cold, perhaps it'll run off to the city and become a shoe maker..... the last one is the least likely I think.

  Onwards...

Friday 16th January 2009

True enough last week my queasiness expanded itself into the sort of situation that means you can never stray more than 20 seconds away from a 'likely to be vacant' toilet, and much inconvenience ensued, including me missing the second rehearsal for tonight's ludicrously awesome gig

Tangaroa were flawless, as usual. We, reformed for one night only as 'White Boys for Black Lizzy', adorned in stockings and crowns to represent the Uk's first ever black Monarchs, were ludicrously sloppy and by all accounts highly entertaining. Red Stars Parade were immense, and then the latest line up of Leeds' most atonal horrific pseudo-political metal outfit, White Boys for Brothel Med Clinics (pictured), played a blinder of a set, replete with immense potential and moments of incongruent and unescessary distraction.

All of this rammed into a tiny bar over on the trendy side of town - has the borgoise quarter ever known such filth?.....

  ....till the milk starts running red

  Saturday 10th January 2009 

Today, being Saturday, began with another demo in town against the assault on Gaza - more rhetoric, more marching, and a continuing sense of confusion about how best to proceed....

I've been spending some time with Laurel and Hardy, picture here this week, including a rehearsal this afternoon for the 'White Boys for black Lizzy' reunion gig next Friday. Tonight Tom and I scooped out to Pin Bar to celebrate Emma and Alex's joint 30th birthdays, and then mosied on down to Sela afterwards to soak in the genius of these two baboons. I'm starting to feel fairly queasy in my stomach - and I can't tell if it was that or my general state of mind that contributed to how tremendously anti-social I felt. I'm definitely enjoying more time than ever before laid out on the couch with that special someone watching episodes of 'House' or 'Twin Peaks'......

  MMMMMM that is good coffee....

Tuesday 6th January 2009

Today I filmed not one but TWO awesome video lessons. Firstly with Garside, pictured above, and then immediately after with the Sweener pictured below.

Garside and I sat in his yard in Meanwood. He played jazz, blues, African music, folk music, several of his own compositions (including the Cave Yard, which is my favourite) and all sorts of other stuff. There must be years and years and years worth of study material on the tape, but yet it only took an hour of his time. He dropped me off back at home just in time for the Sween to turn up, and spend an hour and a half rinsing up jazz and gospel licks and tracks on my piano. He unravelled the mysteries of 'My Back Pages' by Keith Jarrett (originally a Dylan tune) and demonstrated both the art of transcribing and the art of improvisation impeccably, it was awesome....

Meanwhile, in some overcrowded pocket of the Middle-East, the state of Israel killed forty people including several children by attacking a UN school in the Gaza strip.....

  It is becoming cleareer what needs to be done.....

Saturday 3rd January 2009

  Thinly, thinly veiled......

Friday 2nd January 2009

And so, onward in the New Year with the second of my bespoken video lessons. Pictured is Simon Siddol, you can listen to his virtuosic piano mastery here. The lesson was unique and bountiful. Sid talked a lot about technique and about best practice for practice, and he played some Chopin for my beady little mind. I imagine I won't get chance to study it in any depth till March when I finish work. But for the moment, the very memory propells me forwards....  

  Hang on, hold that note, I think my arm is going to fall off.....

 Thursday 1st January 2009

New Years Day - To me, this is far more of an occasion than New Years Eve, which has this tremendous reputation to live up to and be the best party of the year etc etc etc. On New Years Day however, nobody has planned anything, and they're all a bit worse for wear and thus eager to attend the invitation of a free scran up. The megascran, now in its third year, fed 32 people this year, which is less amazing than the fact that 32 people fitted in my house. I cooked the main courses, baked cajun fries, Sweet potato curry, Mushroom chilli, Spinach and cous-cous bake and Asparagus and orange risotto (Stobbo took over and did the risotto, legend), Rich did the rice, Andy brought bhajis and vegan cheesecake, Seb and Emma brought Pie and Ice Cream and Issi brought vegan and non-vegan mousse. It was an awesome scran up and a perfect party, which would make-up for the fact that we were in bed by about 11 on NY eve whilst everyone was out partying, except that it doesn't need making up for.... 

Next year I am going to make the biggest pie you've ever seen