Hosted By:
Annalie

When:
09 November 2009

Where:
The Troubadour
263-267 Old Brompton Road
London
SW5 9JA

Description:
Annalie's debut at the historic Troubadour cafe in Earls Court, hosted by Curious Generation. This is a truly original venue, and has hosted the likes of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. It's worth going, even just to marvel at their wonderful array of teapots...

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I cannot deny that the sun still shines
And the sky is as blue as Autumn ever painted.
A carpet of leaves under my feet crunches like an orchestra
And the ducks dance on with the grace of the ignorant.

A world without you is not cold and grey,
So what is this gnawing ache that will not go away?

Nothing changes on the outside; people weave their paths,
Wrapping agendas round each other, talking and exchanging
Pockets of bright energy and laughter; Only I am different,
Swaying slightly from lack of sleep, the pitiless pulsing of raw nerves,
The heaviness of limbs and the blank stare on my face –

Every thing is in its place, except for one, that magnified the brilliance
Of all and gave depth to what is now all sharp surface;
You were a mirror, and now you are gone, the beauty of the world
Drags on

only as I see you leaving
my heart jumps like a small, over-excited dog
– you, this being this entity, this collection of
nerve endings and nude beginnings, you
have taken root like a faithful tree,
your branches searching to discover
but not to grasp –
you teach me
in your ancient tree language
of dignity and respect,
of love and discipline and how the two
are not so far apart;
and so it seems you have made an imprint
on my heart,
faint to start but growing deeper as the realisation blooms
that you are not the person I have been waiting for, all this time –
nothing like that fantasy you are
living, breathing, flesh and skin and eyes and
underpinning all your gentle, curious, loving, playful mind

Sadness weighs on me like a pig,
Crouched over my belly;
Loving but misguided

Well, here I am at 0900 at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton and....nobody's here. Because...they're all still crawling out of bed with a hangover no doubt, as this whole event is apparently one big notorious piss-up. You might think there was a huge gulf between politicians and musicians, but they actually have quite a bit in common.

For a start check out the fringe events wth the free food and you can guarantee they are packed out, no matter what the subject of the debate if you can score yourself a chicken wing and a strawberry meringue. Work hard, play hard would seem to be a good motto for both. Clearly the delegates don't relish an early morning, much like many of my fellow musos...

I am pretty sure I have blogged on this subject before - wouldn't be surprising considering that since moving to London 12 years ago I have lived in a grand total of 19 different places (- 20 if you count the house I moved into and out of in the space of a weekend; everyone makes mistakes.) So I am familiar with all the jargon that gets used on these flat-pimping websites and have seen enough places to know that if it doesn't say "this place is MASSIVE!!!" it is undoubtedly a shoebox.

Absolutely stunning double room = small
Beautiful double room = small
Cosy/Cute = absolutely tiny
Double = two people can fit inside
Excellent double room = overpriced but near the tube
Fantastic = we cleaned it for the photo
Great double room = small
Houseshare = play by our rules and you'll be fine
Including bills = we have a whole bunch of extravagant monthly subscriptions
Just been refurbished = 2 weeks ago there were no walls
Lovely double room = the last tenant left some posters
Must be seen = looks worse than it is
Nice room = smallest you have ever seen
Old house = no central heating
Professional houseshare = musicians fuck off
Quiet street = miles from the tube
References required = last tenant was an axe murderer
Sunny double room = it's a dump, but there's a window
Studio flat = smallest room you have ever seen + a hob
Spacious = no furniture
Tidy double room = you'll need to keep it tidy if you want to see the floor
Unbelievably good value = dodgy area
Very large double room = you can get through the door without falling on the bed
We are professional = artists fuck off

Whilst the war wages on regarding file sharing and illegal downloads my attention is focused on the appalling situation of live gigs in London. It's hard to imagine a world without musical piracy now. If people can get music for free then that is what they are going to do. These are hard times for everyone, and recorded music is easy to come by.

Live gigs on the other hand, it is possible to compensate musicians for, and the live experience is something that is truly unique and therefore valuable. And yet as musicians we are sunk in a pit of exploitation built upon the confused and out-dated myth of the record deal and the A & R man who might, just might possibly be hanging out at this bar the night you happen to be playing and be blown away by your performance and sign you up and yada yada yada. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. But is it not just a big scam to avoid paying musicians for their talent and hard work?

The very fact that we have to refer to ourselves as "unsigned" is the first problem. The definition contains a negativity that suggests we are somehow lacking. And this in turn can lead us to adopt an attitude of the unpaid underdog who has to take whatever they can get.

Anyone who is in a band will know that the majority of venues are managed by companies who call themselves promoters, although I am yet to see much evidence that they actually do any promotion. Instead the band is required to bring an audience, and will most likely not see any of the revenue drawn from the bar the night they play.

Incidentally I often find that people who are not part of the live music scene are shocked by this. They think that by paying their fiver on the door they are supporting up and coming artists. So it is not only the musicians that are being exploited but the audience too.

Bands want to play gigs in order to expose their music to a new crowd. So how is that going to happen if they have to keep dragging along their mates to every gig? Effectively all of these London gigs are "pay to play" - once you factor in the congestion charge and the parking and the time and energy spent hounding people on Facebook.

If it is a ticketed gig you might get £1 per person after you bring 10 people, but how often are you going to get 10 people out on a rainy Tuesday night in November? What intrigues me is that the bands and the promoters work together to maintain the facade that this is an achievable goal. It's often a shortlived relationship though, because both parties are left disappointed.

So what could we do instead? Well, if a promoter were actually to promote, then it might be worth playing a gig for free. Alternatively the promoter could pay the band and both could promote the night together. Or we cut out the promoter altogether and form a collective of artists who put on quality nights and split the profits.

You could say "well, this is the way it is, and hey, maybe I will be the one who makes it and rises above all those other suckers." It's just another shining example of the self-driven society in which we live, and if that attitude succeeds in procuring us a moment or two of fame eventually, some dignity will still be lost.

There are people out there who have a discerning taste in music and want to hear quality live gigs and are prepared to pay for the privelege of being transported. And there are musicians who can provide that experience for them. So how do we get these people together to make this honest exchange possible?

Writing a new song about change. Yes, I know David Bowie got there first but it's going to be a bit different to his. One kind of change I really despise - although I don't think this is going in the song - is the way they keep moving things around in supermarkets so every time you go in you get lost and can't find what you want.

Then they have these helpful labels that categorise things in strange ways like putting soup in the milk section or houmous in with the spreads, when it's quite clearly a dip. I realise I'm a fine one to talk, but don't they have anything better to do than to decamp the wholewheat crackers to aisle 27?

While I'm on supermarkets I have to bring up the sinister revolution that is currently dominating the vegetarian sections of our local/express mini-markets - yes, I'm talking about Quorn. These apparently harmless pieces of protein are actually made from deadly rotting fungus, and have been known to hospitalise me. I'm sure I am not alone here.

It doesn't even taste nice. I wouldn't mind so much if this foul stuff were allowed to share a shelf with other friendlier options, but to take the place of legends such as Linda McCartney and the delicious Cauldron ranges - or even the slighlty more pricey but well worth it Tivall - it is just not on. I call an end to vegetarians being fobbed off with this miserable lack of options. There is so much great stuff out there!

Ok back to work. Phew.

Oh my god! Pablo Neruda also has a poem about triangles - and that is number 2! All the best things are triangular. Samosas, toblerone, the green triangle out of Quality Street...wigwams, Hazard Warning Triangles...TRIANGLES (the musical instrument) - which, incidentally, have become a bit of a joke but are in fact rather challenging to play well. And then they are delightful. Everyone loves a triangle ding!
In maths triangles have all the best names: isosceles, eqilateral, SCALENE - I mean, come on. Triangles rule.
And then you have the triangles in disguise. For instance, if you turn a chevron on its side, it's basically a triangle! That works for arrows too. And there are definitely triangles involved in zig-zags, which in my opinion are the cream of patterns.
I must say when I started out on this track I barely expected myself to get quite so passionate but there you have it.
I love 'em.

PS. If anyone has any other examples of great triangle usage, please feel free to add them here. Consider this an interactive triangle appreciation forum.

As it is the week of my birthday and I am writhing in existential angst, I thought I'd do a round up of some of the things that make life worth living.
I'm going to dive right in at number one with...
OLIVE OIL!
What can't you do with it? Cook with it, put it on your salad, dip bread in it, moisturise your skin, melt your ear wax - and after all that you can drive home with it running your engine. Just about.
Few things in life are so versatile.
And its name is assonant. (Which is posh for both words begin with "o.")
Which means it is a prime target for poetry. And sure enough the wonderful Pablo Neruda has written an ode to it!
It just gets better and better...
Ode to Olive Oil