Tonight I write to you through tipsy fingertips. In the spirit (tequila to be specific) of celebratory post-gig rest, I went to see a movie at the Barbican today around 3pm followed by an obligatory visit to the in-house martini bar before reality hit that it was Thursday and this newsletter wouldn’t write itself. So I find myself sat amongst the digi-nomads and students with 1.5 hours until closing time and lots to update you on.
Blink and you might have missed it but we went on tour this week! The annual full-band congregation travelled from London (where I live with the guitarist and bassist) to Leeds (where our drummer lives) and back down, igniting some dispute as to whether it counts as a tour if you’re essentially just visiting each others home towns. I drove the final nail in the rock and roll coffin when I accidentally set Google Maps to our house in London instead of the venue and nearly drove us straight back home for a mid-tour cup of tea.
Before I allow myself to drunkenly text anymore, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who came to the gigs. I take a pebble dash approach to music promotion; throwing miscellaneous pebbles at various panels of wet concrete, hoping something will stick. So meeting people in real life who found me through the digital universe or the tangible one never gets old or fails to renew my faith in masonry marketing. It serves to remind you that the numbers on a screen are real people and maybe for a brief moment you made something that made them feel seen or held. So thank you for coming out of your cosy homes (something I struggle with) and supporting live music, indulging in the joy of shared experience. I’m waffling now but it makes me quite emotional and I’m very grateful.
Okay, fast forward a week, I’m back in the Barbican but sober this time with nothing in my belly but a Greggs festive baguette. I regret to inform you that after penning paragraph 3 I briefly fell asleep on the floor beside the gentle warmth of my laptop charger as my newsletter deadline went woosh-ing by. Lesson learnt. But to expand on the sentiments of my inebriated, post-gig self, it’s hard to articulate the emotional contour of playing my music live. So many threads go into putting on and playing a show which invariably tangle, tug or seamlessly braid together depending on the day. If you have ever travelled to play gigs (or travelled for work in general) you’ll know that the unavoidable diet of 4 hours sleep, service station food and sofa beds (or floors) is the perfect breeding ground for general hysteria. Add a layer of vocal health surveillance, ticket sales fear and singing about your deepest feelings to a room of sometimes strangers and you have yourself a delicious anxiety trifle.
Often there is no way of knowing whether the balance will tip in the right direction, if the pressure will help you take off or send you crashing down. Last week I experienced both extreme ends of the spectrum and, when it’s bad, it’s hard to not question if you’re cut out for it. I usually find a freedom and release in singing my songs to people, in the ethos of ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’, and expressing myself in this way feels like a huge privilege that I never expected to have. On the trickier days I focus on how my music (or live music in general) helps people relax or feel seen. However, occasionally, in the clumsily assembled trifle of touring, I lose sight of this and feel like I’m just watching a room of perfect strangers read my intimate diary entries.
In all of this, the only guarantee is that every show will be different, feel different and I both love and hate the unpredictability of the that. But sometimes I meet the eyes of someone in the audience and realise we are sharing the same wobbly air and wobbly feelings. The threads inexplicably align, like they did in London last Tuesday and I remember why I chase the high, why music is worth sharing and that maybe all the meal deals were worth it.
Thanks again for coming to our gigs and to my lovely band who play so beautifully and look after me. If I learnt one thing this week it’s that I need and want my people around me, I’m not a lone troubadour wolf and I hope to be able to play more band shows soon. Watch this space…
Meet you in the bookshop
Three Worlds - Avi Shlaim
I discovered Avi Shlaim through his writing supporting Gaza. As an Iraqi Jew who moved to Israel in 1945, served in the Israeli army and then spent the rest of his life in Britain, his memoir explores many unknown and uncomfortable contradictions from a different and important angle. He knots together the political and personal so fluidly that you are reminded that one cannot exist without the other. I would highly recommend this book if you want to understand more about the displacement of people in the middle east after the Nakba. Good memoir always gets me yapping about recommendations. This is one of my very favourites.
Meet you on the stage
14th Dec - Banbury, Deddington Church
Meet you on the radio
Is Anything Wrong - Lhasa De Sela
Later, Later On - Alice Faye, Julen Santamaria
Big Dreams - Rachel Lavelle (I had the joy of supporting Rachel recently and she absolutely blew my tiny little mind!)
Listen to my weekly playlist here!
That's the life. Drunk or sober the world is still there moving.The music helps keep the blood flowing and sharing that keeps living in that moment. A guitar in one hand and a bottle in the other. Thanks for the read.