Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

I have been listening to Roger Waters' re-recording of 'Dark Side of the Moon' and... probably uniquely amongst my friends and people I know, liking it. It is not a rock album and, perhaps as suggested by the title ('Dark Side of the Moon / Redux') is a revisit of something he did half a century ago. He talks rather a lot, probably too much, through it. It is much sparser than the original recording (certainly not a Pink Floyd record) and with a feel much, much darker than the original. But then it is that: an 80 year old man revisiting something he did in his prime and commenting on it, the lyrics about ageing and fading and death so much more relevant now. And I, now 71 and finding it difficult to believe it or accept it, can see something of myself in that dark mirror. I'm liking it a lot although I shouldn't play it too much -it is not exactly happy cheerful music, something that one might miss in the whole rock vibe of the original.

Haven't posted much of late as my mind has been preoccupied with the current horror show I'm facing with my health and the hoops I'll have to jump. Funnily, that has made the Shell situation (where a large transnational insists that I'm their gas customer and are trying to charge me some eight thousand pounds as according to them I've never paid -whilst I've been with the Co-Op/Octopus that whole time and I'm reasonably happy with them, insofar as you can be with an energy supplier) -this has suddenly become far less threatening, with something so much bigger on my mind.

Apart from that, I still haven't been to a club night -and very likely won't be until that health issue gets resolved, which will take a fair while. I have been to one friends' picnic which was very good and didn't feel crowded in. And yesterday I met a friend mid-afternoon at the Pineapple, a local pub here in KT. And that was absolutely lovely, to catch up with a friend in person and, apart from inevitably boring her with the gruesome details of my current health thing, hear how she's doing and where her life is going.

Other things: the current book for Bibliogoth I'm liking a whole lot more than the previous one. It is 'A Woman of No Importance', by Sonia Purnell, a biography of Virginia Hall, an American spying for the British in Vichy France during WW2.

Something I never did properly when I was studying music was to learn the piano; had two years of piano as a secondary subject but it was very much secondary and our teacher had 'ideas' and made us spend most of the first year with lid closed, practising dropping wrist and passing thumb under. When my midi keyboard died late last year I decided to replace it with the cheapest digi piano I could find that had hammer-action -a Casio. It probably wouldn't withstand somebody practising a diploma level concert on it but it is ideal for me. So I find myself in the curious situation that I'm quite professionally proficient on one instrument and a complete beginner on another. It is fun, though, and it has taught me a lot about how somebody my age reacts to learning a new instrument. This has already been useful for my guitar teaching.

Played a couple of times in the last week and a bit; one was a little recital at the Café Rustique in Tufnell Park. This was the first time I'd played in public since the accident nearly a year ago, so I chose a short programme, about 40 min of music... but not the easy listening programme at all; played Bach's Chaconne from the violin Partita in D minor, a set of very short preludes by the Mexican composer Manuel M Ponce and 'Usher Waltz', a piece by the Russian composer Nikita Koshkin, after the horror story by Edgar A Poe, 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. There was a full house at the café... but that, I s'pose, is not that difficult as the place will be packed with 25 people in it.It seemed to go well and people didn't throw rocks at me so I reckon it wasn't too bad.

The second was a private gig. Again, I played that same programme, perhaps a bit heavy for a private party but I added a couple of shorter Spanish and Latin American pieces -it seemed to go down very well, again, the hosts turned out to be very nice people and were heaping praise on me so I'm pleased with that. In both cases the performance wasn't free of mistakes and, in one case at the café, an enormous memory lapse, but those things happen to everybody (except John Williams). Overall, I think both went well. Hope I can make a few more small gigs happen in the near future.

Again on a train slowly crawling its way out of London... only 25 miles to Watford where I'll have a very short teaching day, after four hours' sleep. It's going to be a long day... but going to bed late to wake up at 5:00 am was worth it at least. I hadn't ever seen Gertrud Stein (no, not _that_ Gertrude Stein) perform live and I was pretty much bowled over. I only really knew her as a friend of aka_toothbrush and had some idea that she was a musician and a performing artist. Hers was a very good show, deceptively simple with very good use of a few visual resources. And that tiny Casio keyboard, I'm pretty sure I had one of those once upon the time -but I didn't give it such full use (with two fingers... those tiny keys are not for the ten-fingered keyboardist..)

There's always a first.

Today I had an MRI scan done at the Royal Free. Only of my wrist, they left my brain alone (there's probably plenty of wrong with that but probably of the kind that would need shrinks rather than imaging machines..) -one interesting thing for me was the variety of noises it made, punctuated by a regular 'oohm-shah!'-like pulse. I did make a remark about it as to how, as industrial music goes, it was rather a bit rubbish but maybe I would like to use samples of those to build some old 'musique concrete' type piece or doodle....

Recorded at Susi's Atomic Powered House Warming Birthday Bash.

Infest. That was a blast! Also slightly painful and bittersweet on some personal levels, but that doesn't go into this story. Had less than eight hours' sleep the whole week-end, caught up with old friends, met new ones, had interesting conversations late into the night (well, also.. "have I told you about my three wives. No, wait, have I told you?.." oh,drunken friends. Because of course I was completely sober.. oh, ok; maybe not), enjoying Project Pitchfork, Mind-in-a-Box, Mikey's AlterRed , Roi's Mechanical Cabaret.. missed quite a few bands this year but decided early that it wasn't going to be a band watching marathon, I was there to see music but also for other things. Tons of giggles over late breakfast at the Titus Salt with Laura, Blanka and a few other mad people. Mr Moxy's mad antics outside Halls in the mornings. Catching up with Jillian and Bryon. After parties in the halls in the early hours, from dancing to loud pumping music to quiet slightly drunk conversations by a ball pit (didn't get in it, should have). So much fun!

Pictures I took -so far for Friday:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153585358494919.1073742014.544159918&type=3

and for Saturday:
https://www.facebook.com/flaviomatani/media_set?set=a.10153587435979919.1073742015.544159918&type=1

pics for Sunday still being sorted out...

So looking forward to next year!

Yesterday brought a couple of lessons and helping a mature student buy a guitar. This took only about 20% of the time I anticipated; we went to the London Guitar Studio, Steffi asked my pupil what sort of budget he had, he mentioned a figure, she produced three or four guitars in that range, he liked the second one he tried and that was that. I was expecting to spend half the afternoon pondering about the different tone, action and feel of the different guitars. Only had two lessons yesterday (itself not that good a thing, I should be much busier this time of year). One was a lad doing so-called 'acoustic' guitar. He's a Beatles' fan and we have been doing Blackbird, Walrus and a couple of RCHP things (yes, that one..). The other lesson is a young professional lady about to do a grade 3 and doing very well in spite of busy busy life. Very different and satisfying lessons in very different ways.

Also, I have dates for my pupils' ABRSM grade exams for this season. This is good: they gave me late dates so I have a little more time to make sure they're ready on the bits nobody ever wants to do. You know which ones: scales, sight-reading, aural comprehension. I have another Grade 8 this term, the aural test can be a bit of a nightmare and there are bits of it that, with my goldfish memory, I'm not sure I myself would pass without some training. All good, though.

One lesson done, another one to go.... then the Hampstead Alternative Picnic, August Edition, hopefully the Dry version (might not be; rain forecast, etc).

Tomorrow, going with pupils to the open day of the Classical Guitar Summer Course and Festival at West Dean. It's been years that I don't go to one of those events and I can't afford to (hence the open day only) but I need to, also, to keep in touch with that world.

Hanging out with goths is fun (a lot of the time, anyway) but it doesn't help me further my guitar career (if career it is; I hardly do any playing in public and mostly just teach). Most of them are not really that interested in what I do as a musician. Of which there are several sides but I've neglected my classical guitarist side for too long -not the playing, I can do that and keep the practice up, but the being out there doing guitar things.