I realise that the heading alone is sufficient, really, but as I always say, why use four words when fifty will do?  The concept of this has disturbed me since I was forced to buy some because that was all that the shop had left.  In what parallel realm do the designers of that product exist where wiping your backside on a child’s drawing of a snowman and a pine tree makes you feel more festive?  I mean, quite aside from the fact that our cave-dwelling ancestors knew not to wipe with the branches of a %8&+$! pine tree, seeing the childish doodling on each perforated sheet  has reduced the subsequent action performed to some kind of moral equivalence with stealing the bobble-hat of a four year old out playing in the snow and using the pom-pom instead!  Novelty Christmas Toilet paper!  Sometimes I worry about people…

Not that it’s relevant to anything, but I went to see ‘Quantum of Solace’ this week.  I was just thinking that it’s weird how every generation gets the Bond it deserves.  Daniel Craig’s a great actor and is a good Bond, but the script can’t run to more than about twenty pages at the outside.  Instead, what we get is a fetishisation of violence perpetrated on Criag’s body.  Even the adverts have him being buffeted about by flying debris from explosions which seem to catch him even if they are not necessarily anything to do with him.  This Bond is a symbol of how western democracy needs to perceive itself: smashed around but still standing and capable of maintaining a sense of purpose and commitment, despite the fact that the world is becoming increasingly set on its destruction.  This Bond needs to be cut and bruised and suffering… er… for our sins? 

It used to be said that Bond’s greatest victories were consistently over the Americans, but it turns out that the Americans now merely tolerate him.  They’ve become more like another layer of complexity and duplicity than a friend to depend on when you need logistical expertise and a shed-load of cash (for the greater good of liberal capitalism, obviously.)  They still have the decency to be beaten to the punch, though.  The ‘real’ enemy now is some shadowy organisation which can hit you anywhere (erm, see ‘Casino Royale’…)  and is the real power behind, amongst other things, the ecological movement - those well known evil people. 

Smash the Greens! They’re the Russians/Chinese/North Koreans/Iranians/Libyans/Al Quaida in disguise… apparently.  Let’s blow up those trees, deny the enemy a good hug and eliminate a possible base from which they could launch evil Green attacks on the surrounding area, arbitrarily reseeding ancient woodlands and cleaning the air without so much as a ‘by your leave’.  I bet they nicked my floor slabs too - possibly they thought I was going to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.    Dolphins are responsible for the coming global recession by controlling City computers. Ever noticed how the old ‘handshake’ on a dial up sounded uncannily like a dolphin’s voice that has been digitally altered to sound like a computer?  Eh?  Eh?  And whales… Whales are submarines!

Hmm…   It’s almost as if I’m putting off doing any proper writing myself.  And what do you mean this blog’s supposed to be about music?

On a lighter note… At a few gigs recently, people have asked whose signature is on my acoustic guitar.  I should explain that my guitar is made by Ayers, an Australian luthier.  As soon as I saw that name inside the sound box, I christened my guitar ‘Roy’ after the legendary vibes player Roy Ayers.  Anyway, last year, when I’d been playing my lovely acoustic for a couple of years, we got the support slot for Roy Ayers in the Liquid Rooms.  That was a real privilege because not only is he an extraordinarily talented musician (who has worked with a string of greats including Stevie Wonder) but he is also a genuinely lovely guy.  I knocked on his door after the show and explained the story about my guitar and asked him if he’d mind signing it.  He was all for signing it on the back but I insisted he take pride of place on the front.   I had even bought a CD marker pen for the occasion.  Of course, the next day I opened my guitar case to look at it and thought it made my guitar even cooler so I couldn’t resist having a little play.  That’s when I suddenly noticed my finger tips had gone blue and the ‘Peace & Music’ had become ‘ieace u iiiusic’.  I covered the signature up for a year, intending to get it properly sealed, but then I found out I should have sanded the varnish off beforehand and all sorts of nonsense so the signature is now there for all to see until such times as it wears off.  I love it. Thanks Roy!

We are playing a wee private gig in Kelburn Castle next weekend (www.kelburnestate.com).  It’ll be the third time we’ve played there and we’ve had a great time on each occasion.  Some of you may remember that we were due to play at their ‘Garden Party’ last year but the event had to be cancelled due to difficulties put up by the police (that’s not a reference to outrageous rider demands by Sting, but to the kind with caps, high visibility jackets and apparently in some cases, a dislike of live music.)  It was really disappointing because it would have been a sensational event - and also because I had to help my mother-in-law move house instead.  Talk about a double-whammy.

 For those of you unfamiliar with Kelburn and the fantastically enthusiastic and innovative people that run it, check out the video of the graffiti project on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwPK4W1SXBw.  The castle itself, as you will see, is now partially covered by graffiti in an effort to raise its profile and some much needed cash to fund the re-rendering of the outer skin.  It’s well worth a trip. 

Thanks to everyone who was listening so attentively last night and a special thanks to those of you who bought CDs - we hope you enjoy them!   I thoroughly enjoyed the gig and the set by Cibelle was great: some really novel ideas on how to use loops and some lovely grooves. 

For those of you who couldn’t make it, Cibelle was accompanied by a guitarist and a drummer.  She played a variety of instruments, including a guitar, a keyboard (with various digi-weirdness) and a stylophone.  Though they had a pretty full sound, there were times when the music was pumping and I couldn’t help wondering why they’d chosen to omit a bass player.  It’s not that I felt the bass would be crucial - it sounded great as it was - but when establishing a groove (as the Moose never tires of pointing out) a bass can give you that push over the cliff to ultimate ‘phatness’.  I know the absence of a bass isn’t exactly new in music, but it is an interesting phenomenon as it moves to a more mainstream position. 

So anyway, I was thinking about that, and it occurred to me that the effect of missing out a range of bottom end tones gives the music a certain rawness (again, not news) but also - to my ears - a certain ‘provisional’ sound.  By that I mean it’s interesting to listen to because it sounds incomplete (to ears like mine that are used to bass-drenched funk.)  And then I started wondering if this is popular music finally reflecting postmodern suspicion of grand - or meta - narratives.  Stay with me.  If, as Francois Lyotard asserted, we no longer believe that it is possible to express truth in a complete way - say, the Western myth of history as unending progress - and in fact we are now inately suspicious of anything that seems to assert the possibility of such completeness, then maybe provisional grooves are the logical correlative of that.  So the power of something like the White Stripes or Cibelle last night incorporates a (largely unconscious) refusal to express any piece as a closed, completed  system.  The growth of live improvisation within the realms of digital manipulation is a similar thing, but I might blab on about that another time.  So, provisional grooves as postmodern statement? It’s just a thought.  On the other hand, maybe last night the bass player was sick.    

Marty