Too much going on. Why am I even writing this?
Saturday, Oxford Improvisers put on a show as part of Abingdon Arts Festival. This had been arranged a while back, and I’d missed out on the original call for acts … but last Monday Chris suggested I join in with Dom’s arrangement of “Cobra”, a self-conducted improvisational “game” piece by John Zorn.
Great, except that on Thursday evening one of the key guards fell off my Sax, the C key spring jumped out, and the C stop was waving around like a little flag, preventing me from playing C, C#, D or D#. Friday morning took it to Allegro (Sax retail & repair shop) who couldn’t fix it, as needs blow torch & soldering iron.
Saturday morning ensconsed in studio, son holding blow torch in one hand, little brass clip in the other, myself with soldering iron in one hand and solder in the other. Remarkably, we fixed it, just in time to catch the bus to Abingdon.
On the way I remarked to son that I never thought of Abingdon (sleepy market town 7 miles from Oxford, best known for its pubs on the river frequented by holiday boaters) as a venue for avant-garde improvised jazz. This oversight was later justified, as there were a total of 20 performers and only 4 audience. Never mind, the music was great, and my son video’d the whole thing … will put up a link as soon as edited and posted on net.
Sunday evening, technical rehearsal for piece with Helen JS Edwards. After half an hour hoisting a 2m x 1m mirror in place, my son piped up: “look, you can do it without a mirror if you put the projector here!” … and so we could.
Problems with the projectors not being powerful enough. We need 2 projectors in excess of 2000 lumens, and the ones the art dept. have only rack up 450 … to hire would be £75 a night each … but think that Brookes University AV dept. can help.
Have now booked the swimming pool for eve of April 10th for final piece, and decided on a title: “Aquaphonics”. Details in “What’s On” section.
Last week my old friend Bruno (also improviser) invited myself and another to put something together to support his gig on April 20th. Have come up with some interesting material after watching Phil Minton’s Feral Choir (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9tLgWKvCu0).
A couple of days were spent anxting over the poster, final version was agreed, when suddenly “other” emailed to cancel his involvement. Not good. I’ll probably go ahead anyway, and try to get another improviser interested, but being one of the least accomplished musicians in the group, I’m not sure there’ll exactly be a queue to be seen on stage with me … Never mind, something will happen.
Currently sweating to get March accounts finished for computer business. Lots of receipts to put through the accounts, but hardly any invoices to send out … the price of having a creative time!
On Thursday, taking son walking in the Yorkshire Dales and the Lakes for 4 days. My knees don’t work like they used to, so doing acclimatisation training trotting up and down stairs. yesterday made 100 ascents (200 metres), tomorrow aiming for 200 ascents.
Will be walking with one of the members of the Oxford Feral Choir, so hopefully will return with some ideas for the improvised mountaineering project, which has been rather neglected since December, when I resolved to do it.
As soon as accounts are finished, rushing off to meet Helen at Brookes AV, and see if we can get the projectors sorted.
After Easter, going to have to get back to the computer work. I’ve been having such an amazing full-on creative time in the last month while business has been slack, it’s going to be a sad and frustrating April …
Have you seen the film “Awakenings”, a true story about a doctor who finds a miracle cure for chronic Sleeping Sickness victims, who all suddenly wake up after years of being semi-comatose, only to slip back into coma over a period of months … ?
Hope the funding bid succeeds – fingers crossed!
