Tuesday 16 December 2008

Today I found myself in the rather strange position of researching a project by listening to some of my own records. I don't think I've heard Mungrel Stuff for a few years, and to my surprise I enjoyed it, agreeing with whoever it was in the Sunday Times who called it 'bizarre, but utterly compelling'. It certainly doesn't sound like anything else - for me this is a good thing.  But it feels like a long time ago that I was there.

The project I'm planning is rather complicated and won't reach a final shape until various people's diaries have been investigated, which could take some time. Meanwhile, I'm amassing lists of possible repertoire in a number of categories: 'music I would like to play in' basically. I have to get the whole thing together for a print deadline of 9 January, and given that there's a great fat holiday between now and then, I need to get ahead with it now.

In the process I finally got around to listening to the copy of Alasdair Roberts' No Earthly Man that's been lying around my study for a while. About four seconds after the end of the first track my stunned neurons were trying to get him on the phone.   

Getting into so-called 'creative' mode is difficult though. Before I could even think about making lists, I had to try out some previously unvisited guitar tunings, do some laundry, and practise the art of work avoidance for a bit. Graham Linehan would recognise this as storing up material in the sub-conscious.

With the passing of the peerless Oliver Postgate, has anyone else noticed that the song that the mice on the mouse-organ sing is to the tune of 'Sumer is icumen in'? I only just figured it out.