Thursday 28 October 2010

Sonata in A major

First rehearsal for two weeks tonight. I had to do without last week because I was otherwise engaged. The hiatus has had a similar effect on me to that which giving up smoking had; I am cranky, unable to concentrate and constipated. I like my weekly fix of noise and bellowing. It makes the world a brighter place and the glow lasts for just about 6 days afterwards.

Someone asked me the other day what my plans were for Mashemon and I failed to explain them in sensible way. What I should have said is:

“Plans?”

That would have sufficed surely. Instead I rambled for a bit and waved my hands about. This chap went on to ask the big question: why do you do it? On reflection and given my current condition the answer is obviously because I am addicted to making music and noise. What purer reason could a man have? Of course, people may misunderstand that statement and come to the conclusion that I have several screws loose and a live eel in my thinking bag. This prospect does not bother me today, but sometimes it does. Sometimes I do get the urge to be normal and without the glow of a recent rehearsal to buoy me up I often give in.

That said I do have a poster for our next gig on the wall of my office. Not many musicians I know do that. My thinking runs thus: if I am next to the poster then if anyone seeing the poster has any questions I will be on hand to deliver the answers in a concise and appealing fashion. However, when this has actually occurred I have been reduced to my standard response ie. rambling on and waving my hands about. What I need is a script and some kind of hand restraint.

An infinite number of monkeys and typewriters should suffice. You notice I say infinite and not roomful, as a recent coffee advert would have you believe. This coffee advert really irritates me. It irritates me so much I can’t think of a decent metaphor, I have no metaphor for the job. It irritates me so much because it is a willful misunderstanding of a very simple concept. It also implies that a roomful of monkeys and typewriters could write the complete works of Shakespeare but could not make a cup of coffee. Given the quality of the coffee I have endured from said establishment in the past they must employ a fair number of monkeys themselves.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Did you see what I did there? What a twat.

I am still digging my fighting pit and it should be ready soon. I will be in there every Tuesday night, stripped naked and oiled ready to fight all comers, no holds barred. You want a piece of me? You want a piece of me?

Oh yes and come to the gig on Saturday. If you intend coming to the fighting pit it will be a good opportunity for some trash talking. You fat turkey necked lard arsed shrew sexer. You heard me and so did your mother.

Monday 4 October 2010

I am pushed for chives

We were on Radio Merseyside on Sunday night; Dave Monk played Dull Boy on his show, which was nice. There was a debate at the beginning of the show about the Liverpool music scene. I’m not really sure what conclusion they came to. I imagine they didn’t come to one.

I don’t know much about what is going on, beyond the fact that there is usually something of some sort going on somewhere. Sometimes someone is watching, sometimes someone is doing it by themselves. With regards to the music scene I would say this:

1. There are a lot of bands
2. There are a lot of venues

Not all of the bands are good at what they do. Some are ok. Some are poor. The same can be said about the venues. If we hypothesise that the distribution of band quality and venue quality is random then we can predict that the probability of seeing any of the following is equal:

1. A good band in a good venue
2. A good band in an ok venue
3. A good band in a poor venue
4. An ok band in a good venue
5. An ok band in an ok venue
6. An ok band in a poor venue
7. A poor band in a good venue
8. A poor band in an ok venue
9. A poor band in a poor venue

If we do randomly distribute these possibilities 1000 times we would get something like this:



However, when I used real figures, we get something a little more shocking:

That’s right people, using the figures I obtained from TIPISS last Tuesday lunchtime we can see that you are more likely to see a poor band in an ok venue than anything else.

People this is big. I urge you to do nothing about it.