Thursday 5 December 2002

I've been getting down to the business of preparing for the various things we're doing in January, finalising programmes, preparing editions, it all sounds very simple until you start doing it.  Have I time to fit in a visit to the Duke of Buccleuch's library in England to look at a manuscript, and still get the parts out to everyone in time ?  What kind of radios do you need to play John Cage's Radio Music ? 

All was going smoothly until someone I won't name realised they had the wrong dates in their diary for the sessions (out by weeks!), so the whole thing has to be re-organised, everyone's availability re-checked, lots of time and money wasted.  It now looks like we'll have a rather wonderful band sitting around twiddling their thumbs for a while, so I'm trying to think up a scheme to put them to good use in front of some microphones.

Had a good meeting with Ben Twist and Marie the other day about a possible tour in a year or so, travelling with a classy PA system and lights so that we can play in venues which don't necessarily have perfect acoustics.  A few other possible dates are nuzzling their way into the diary too.

I've always held that the internet in its present form finds its true purpose in helping people decipher the lyrics of songs.  So today I finally got around to seeking out the words for one of the finest records ever committed to vinyl, the Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch. And it was well worth the wait.  I've been listening to that record on and off for 25 years, and I've only ever had the haziest notion of what the hell was going on in Howard Devoto's head.  I'm not sure I'm any more enlightened now in that respect, but knowing what words he's approximating just adds to the laugh-out-loud brilliance of it all.  Walking home this afternoon I was mulling over the possibilities of a baroque instrumental arrangement of Boredom, with a beautiful violin rendition of its legendary 2-note (well, 3 really) guitar solo, but some things are best left just as they are. 

The Scottish Psalter project may be about to re-surface in another form - I'm not allowed to mention anything about this in public yet though ...