I’ve got four weeks to go now on my course then head south. Shorthand is the albatross around my neck at the moment, it’d be so frustrating to fail the course because of it. Can’t allow that.
The gig on Friday was great fun, though one problem with playing live is that everything seems anticlimactic for a while afterwards until a new one comes up in the future to look forward to. I’m probably too busy to do another before the course finishes, but I should play in Dunedin (that was 80% of the reason for asking to go there for my work experience posting). We should get the Ascension Band together again for an informal jam session though – everyone was pretty happy with how the gig went, and there is a feeling that we should keep it an ongoing project. I guess that’s an incentive to live in or near Wellington for the summer.
Me, I think it’s just great to have an outlet to crank up the electric guitar – can’t do that at home (except through headphones but that gets claustrophobic), and it makes a change from playing mostly acoustic this year. Ironically the big group (ten-piece) was easier to organise than The Winter (a trio) this year – here if someone can’t make it we can still continue. And a big group takes on a life of its own – I convened the group and conducted the rehearsal but then Nigel, the keyboard player, asked to take over conducting on the night. That was fine with me, he’s a full-time musician with a BMus in jazz and plenty of ensemble experience, and it meant I could concentrate more on having fun with the guitar. The band should have looked interesting, ten guys all doing different things. Very casual dress, and several pairs of tacky tinted plastic sunglasses - 70s looking? And Warwick, one of the bass players, is taller than I (I’m 6’3”) so he stands out anywhere.
I’m on a nocturnal rhythm at the moment, this is going to be the fourth night in a row of going out for live music. Will Oldham tonight - I've wanted to see him for years. The three-night Meatwaters Festival has just finished, and I also saw a pretty good death metal band at Valve on Thursday, as well as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra performing Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring on Saturday. That’s the piece famous for causing a riot at its premiere in 1913 – one of the classic works of early modernism, lots of percussion, sudden dynamic shifts, and unresolved tensions. My Californian friend Jesse (Ascension Band bassist) called it “the birth of heavy metal”, which made a lot of sense.
Today’s pretty dreary outside, non-stop rain, so staying indoors. I’m tired from the late nights, they’re one reason not to be a professional musician. My natural rhythm is more like 10am-2am, rather than the musician’s rhythm of 1pm-5am. There’s also the ugly sensation of coming home with clothes stinking of cigarette smoke (you can tell I don’t spend a huge amount of time in bars). I’m one of the people looking forward to the ban on smoking in bars coming in at the end of this year – although I have been toying with the idea of taking up smoking temporarily to calm me down when I do shorthand practice. Almost certainly a bad idea.
Wrapping up affairs in Wellington has been a big theme for me in 2004. I keep revisiting places I went a while ago and seeing old faces again in different contexts. Elisa was working at the bar for the three nights of the festival. It was great to talk to her at first, we know each other so well, but then she said something like “well, I’ve wasted enough time with you” which spoiled it for the rest of the time. I went along to a party in Hataitai after the Friday gig - same address where I went to a party in 1999, which is described in the track "After the Filmshoot" from Loose Autumn Moans - and ended up staying til the sky was getting light. There was one girl who was pretty friendly and started kissing me – felt lovely until she said she had a boyfriend and it all fell apart. That kind of thing makes it pretty tiring being single I find, not that relationships are any less complicated.
The other odd encounter I had was on Thursday with a guy working as a painter on King Kong, which started shooting this week. He offered to buy me a drink but for some reason I had an overpowering urge to decline and buy my own - there's a lot of water under the bridge between myself and the film industry. I was happy to have a drink with him but didn’t want to become indebted in any way (even though he’s probably earning $25-$30 per hour and I’m on a student allowance). I guess that might have given offence? I’m really not much good at social manoeuvrings and games, I’m sure I come across as blunt (when I’m not being overly quiet) to some people.
Speaking of which, I need to go do some homework now.
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Posted by fiffdimension at September 12, 2004 07:17 PM | TrackBack