Day 383

Monday July 22

I’m about to do that thing we do every now and then when a whole bunch of time gets thrown out in one entry. That can sometimes be for reasons of catchup and sometimes for reasons of, well, not a great deal of difference has been happening for a while. Here, we’re just about in the middle of those two scenarios. 

I’m writing out loud here and thinking we may just cover the whole next period in just one entry which would be about two months. An actual daily entry or two may make its way in. Let’s do this little next bit together and see how we go.

First, I’m just going to throw in a whole load of Mondays and Tuesdays that we do. We’ve written about a whole bunch of Ramshackle events at The Ten To One Bar in Tottenham and we continue to do a whole bunch more of them. Ditto the Monday nights until late August when we start to think that we’re neglecting other opportunities and open mic nights and the like that we’ve never been to because, well, they happen on Mondays and Tuesdays too. So, not to stop entirely, and totally grateful for all the stage time and such we’ve been able to take on. We’ve also really felt a lot of much needed improvement and consistency through these events because, yeah, as we’ve said a couple of times, life has got in the way a little bit in a kind of non-Diary way meaning momentum and actual performance level has taken a few knocks. So having these regular Tuesdays and Mondays has been fantastic to pull ourselves back up while hopefully pushing the level on at the same time. But now yeah, a little step back to maybe see if we can take a step forwards. Or at least sideways. New thoughts of NOW Hustling are also starting to creep back onto our horizon. For one reason or another we’ve not done that in London. Just the once in Shoreditch and that was only because a planned gig fell through so we went off in search of another one, which we found in The Old Reliance with Mario. Oh damn yeah. That could be a good place to get back to.

I’m well aware this is going to sound a touch boasty or big headed but we’re saying it If anyway. We’ve been talking about it and we agree we’re kinda at the point where we have to announce from any stage that all the songs we’re playing are actually our own. Most of the time you see singer/songwriters play their own songs and you just know they are originals. They can be very good songs of course, but something inside you just knows they aren’t playing covers. Although I have seen some bands or solo people play songs I’ve thought were amazing originals and have then been sometimes, yes, heartbroken, to learn that they were indeed covers. Sometimes I’ve not learned that till years after the fact. Torn anybody?

We now know that sometimes people just assume the songs we’re playing have to be by famous people, or some unknown songs from somewhere that are in some way professional and/ or successful and we’ve just decided to play them ourselves. We’ve had instances of people coming up to us and making requests then recoiling in impressed shock when we tell them we’re not a cover act and that these are all our own songs. Again just a few days ago, someone completely matter of factly, as though of course nothing else could be the case, asked where we found the songs we played. She said, very politely and with no tone of accusation, more curiosity really, is it just that you listen to a lot of music, hear a song you like, learn it and start playing it. She almost fell off her chair when we replied simply, no. We wrote them ourselves. Happened again in another bar recently. The William IV in Hampstead actually. We’ll get to that. It might be one of those usual daily entry things now I’ve just reminded myself of it. Nice round of applause after our third song. Maja announces that all three have in fact been all our own songs and the place erupted. Yeah. People often assume we’re an acoustic cover act. Because, hey, there’s no way those songs aren’t already hits in some way, right? There’s now way those people up there we’re watching on a tiny stage in a regular bar could possibly have written them themselves.

We get it. It does make a kind of sense; over the past 20 years our music experiences and sourcing have become so increasingly fractured, personal, generational, any-other-kind-of-groupable, that even people totally in touch with many things media and entertainment can find that huge monster hits and totally otherwise stellar artists have somehow slipped and sailed quite loudly and proudly under their radar. I’m only vaguely aware Brat Summer exists. Is that even what it is? I didn’t check. It’s not like I have a computer, internet or a Google search anywhere handy as I’m writing this.