June
Get an e-mail from Dick Heath who runs a radio show out of Loughborough university that is well listened to on the net, apparently. Well I’m thrilled that anyone would be interested enough to interview me, so I agree to travel up there the following week to do it.
The 8th of June is my birthday. I have 2 special e-mails awaiting me when I log on in the morning. One is from Henry Cow’s Tim Hodgkinson reflecting on the 2 Henry Cow covers from CD 2 of the new album that I had sent him.
He doesn’t like the slickness of my version, nor did I expect him too. However he is very generous and tells me that ‘You should be proud of yourself’.
The second mail is from Robert Fripp. He has been listening to the album whilst touring the churches and cathedrals of the UK. His compliments are fulsome, gratifying and a genuine thrill. These will be the best presents I will get today.
In the evening we go for a meal with Alan Cowderoy and his wife Martha. Amanda and myself have known Alan since the early 80’s. Amanda was working at Stiff records, when not modelling, and Al was my A&R man there. He’s been a great supporter and friend ever since. A nicer bloke you couldn’t hope to meet. We both shared a love of Crimson and Robert. Indeed Allan had been guitar player in a band called Gracious! Who had made 2 albums for Vertigo. Crimson had supported them in ’69. They were so freaked out by the performance that they deliberately pored beer over a plug board so that they didn’t have to follow them.
We drive to near by Sudbury to eat at the splendid ‘5 Hot Chillies’
I have a very lovely time.
I have been aware this past week of something significant changing in my life. Despite the fact that most of the songs on the album have been written and finished for a while, the full cathartic experience of their existence has only just kicked in, now that’s it’s mastered and the art work completed. Years of emotional baggage has just disappeared somehow. It’s very odd, but welcome.
I actually feel very blessed. I have 2 beautiful children, a gorgeous wife, plenty of work and an opportunity to create music for myself. No I’m not drunk!
On the work front, the finished piece for the Motorola Museum in Chicago, that was so well received a week or so ago, has been ditched altogether. I get a concerned call asking me gently if I was disappointed. I ask if I’m still to be paid. They tell me yes. I tell them that I’ll get over it.
We now have to create a brand new piece for a brand new film. This starts out as a simple job. 1 minute 30 of a sound-alike piece. It turns out to be a bit of a nightmare. By the time I’ve finished it I am on version 14!
Meanwhile the new Whiskers ad that I have just finished. that was so well received a week or so ago, has been ditched altogether as well. The agency didn’t ask if I was disappointed and told me that I would be paid half my fee. However, we now have to create another version for the original fee as well! So all’s well etc. I call Gavin to help me out with some live drums. He records them and e-mails them back as wav files. I add my bits and tart it up. Hey presto. On change later and were off. Meanwhile I’ve been approached to compose a song, featuring existing chants and crowd noise, for a well know sports shoe and clothing manufacturer who are about to sponsor a famous high profile premiership football club. I have been sworn to secrecy. No I’m not sure why either. This takes a while as its full length and has serious vocal overdubbage. It’s a pitch, but a paid one. Bit of a lottery really, but hey you can only win if you have a ticket.
Turns out they like it a great deal. So now they have given me a detailed brief and I have to start again. Oh and one other guy is doing one too. Oh and it’s not paid this time. As I say, a lottery.
Travel up to Loughborough on a beautiful sunny day. Listen to England versus Trinidad and Tobago on the radio. Turns out to be the best way of watching this uninspired drivel. Actually the best way to have watched the game would be on telly text. England go on to win the group in spite of woeful performances. The phone in’s are chocka with people telling me that we will win the Cup. I wonder if they are watching the same games as me. Now this bit is true and not invented with the benefit of hind site. I visit 3 betting offices and try to place a bet which none of them will accept. I’m not familiar with the betting shop experience. I thought they would take a bet on anything. Anyway the bet I try to place is this. That Wayne Rooney will be sent off at some point in the competition. It just struck me as inevitable. In a kind of English, dare I say, Shakespearian tragic way. Heres a young man with a history of temperament problems. He’s being hailed as the one thing that can bring us the cup. He’s been unfit for weeks. The whole of England’s hopes are on his shoulders. He is being played up front on his own by the dreaded Sven, the Chancy Gardener of football. Other teams will wind him up, the rest of the winding, he’ll do himself. And so it goes. Red carded for stamping on Carvahallios nuts (the player who broke Rooney’s metatarsal in the first place)
Go to St Paul’s to experience Roberts’s soundscapes. It’s a beautiful experience in an extraordinary location. Even the sound of large doors closing and baby’s crying seem to be part of the aural fabric. I find myself staring upwards into the dome as Robert plays. Stunning.
Speak to Trevor Wilkins after. Robert contacted me some months back and asked if I could recommend a good guitar tech. I immediately suggested Trevor as a brilliant one. Trev worked for the Schizoid’s and impressed everyone as super efficient, sensitive and hard working. A very lovely bloke to boot. While we chat a man in full cassock and dog collar approaches and says ‘Could you please pack up this equipment as soon as possible please as we have the Yeomen of the guard arriving shortly for a rehearsal’
Oh that old excuse.
The following week I’m in the studio when the phone rings. ‘Hello is that Django’s father? It’s the nursery here’
They only phone in the middle of the day when he has a temperature, or the first signs of some childhood illness.
Amanda is out and I’m up against a deadline.
The joys of parenthood.
Instead of telling me what has happened the woman at the end of the phone begins to tell me about the strict policy that they have at the nursery with regard to bringing jewellery to school. At first I wondered what the hell she was on about, but my natural cynicism told be that this was a precursor to distancing them selves from any responsibility.
‘Can you just tell me what’s happened’ I ask.
‘Well a child has brought a bracelet today. It broke and Django has placed one of the beads in his ear’
‘He wants to talk to you’
She puts him on the phone.
‘Daddy, I put a bead in my ear’
‘Yes I know darling. I’ll be there shortly and we’ll sort it out’
Daddy, I think we should go to the dentist. I think they will get it out better than the hospital’
So I stop what I’m doing and pick him up and take him to hospital. To cut a long tedious story short, they were unable to remove the offending bead using conventional methods. So we are referred to another hospital. They can’t remove it either. Eventually we book Djano into the surgical department of the first hospital we visited. He is given a general aesthetic and the bead is removed. It was a traumatic experience. For me, not Django, who sailed through the whole episode with no after effects. I remain furious and write a letter to head office. The law of sod dictates that 2 jobs with deadlines just a day away come in. I work through the night to finish them.
