New directions

All change this week. Stix and Kimba are to remain in Malawi working on their Real Elements project indefinitely, and Subsource are to press on without them in the meantime. (Any MC's with a bit of free time reading this?) Focus has also shifted to writing material and ideas have started to bounce between us already. Over the past few months there have been many, many ideas about how to write and not much writing going on and we're finally putting pen to paper (hand to mouse) so should have some semi-complete tunes within the next two weeks.

Stuey is off to Goa for this two weeks so sadly we won't have his valuable contribution for a while, but hopefully he'll comeback brimming with inspiration that from a wise Indian man on the street.

Rehearsal was a strong one and the set is just going through the final tweaks.

I'm a little anxious about writing again to be honest.

A Dream

It's so rare for me to actually remember my dreams. I was told once that everyone has several dreams a night but I'm one of those people who either sleeps too deeply or doesn't have an imagination active enough during the night to warrant recollection of anything come morning.

However, every now and then, like last night: I have a dream that has a peculiar reality to it. Around the room, a dozen computers in various states of disrepair were scattered. As I inspected each one in turn and diagnosed each one, (the first had loose hard drive cables, the second had a burned-out power supply etc.) they melted away into the carpeted floor and I turned my attention to the next. The fourth machine had an annoying side-panel that required 7 screws undoing, and the fan on the CPU was whirring rapidly although there was no plug connected to the computer. As I smelled for burned-out electronics, I saw a blinding white flash and felt an agonising pain rip across my cheek and my right eye. Blood dripped across my vision and I stumbled back in total panic. As I reached out behind me with my arms to brace my fall, I felt my straightened fingers fracture then break as they caught the ground earlier than I had anticipated. All I could do was curl my legs tightly into my body and lie on my side, rocking, as I waited for the pain to subside.

NEIL AND STUEY IN REHEARSAL

Welcome

What a crap first entry that was to this journal. Sometimes I get started on something and that's all I can think about at the time.

Anyway, let me update you on the current Subsource situation (like I was supposed to do last week). Having between four and six members in the band, it's a little bit more ambiguous than we ought to let on. There are the four core musicians and the two MCs, who are currently out of the country. Exactly how we got together is a long-drawn out story which I can't really be bothered with right now so I'll save it for another time. The exciting news this week is that Stix is probably going to be back in the UK sometime in April, which is good news considering we have shows lined up starting with the Bar Knowledge gig on the 22nd April. Gig dates are rolling in so it should be a pretty good season for us.

The weekly rehearsal was successful - continuous tweaking of the set is ongoing. The Oasis cover band that rehearses next door at the same time is also sounding pretty-well polished, I wonder if they're out gigging a lot... in fact I wonder how many Oasis cover bands have ever formed. Somehow I doubt there's going to be any Subsource cover bands in ten years time.

You just have to do a quick browse through HMV across the A-Z artists to realise there's so many bands and musicians out there asking for a piece of your time that you never WILL have time to listen to it all. For every artist on a label, there must be a thousand more, all stuck in a world that's completely anonymous to me and you. If everyone in the world stopped making recorded music today, we'd easily spend a century digging up and uncovering 'new' material that people had already made. I could easily convince myself that making yet more music to be thrown into the anonymous music disposal chute is a waste of time for everyone. Nobody's going to reclaim anything from there.

Why so damn cold?

I can't fucking stand it when it's this cold. I mean, I don't mind the snow so much, but when all you've done is gone for a short walk for a couple of things from the local store and you get back and you're so cold to the bone -- that's what I can't stand. It's when you get back indoors and even after about an hour after you've been back, you don't feel right still and your fingers and toes aren't fully functioning yet and moving how they ought to: Fingers after all are the most important tools I use on a day-by-day basis. Maybe it's just that I take them for granted when it's not so cold.