Keeping in touch
Hello from the freelance tundra
I’ve never been good at keeping in touch with people - personally or professionally. At risk of wallowing in false nostalgia, I have to admit that the modern communication infrastructure of multi-app notification bombardment leaves me frazzled and overwhelmed. Although, given my recent track record with Royal Mail, I can’t imagine I would have been a particularly successful letter writer either. If I struggled before, choosing to be a musician was really the nail in the coffin. Your personal and professional lives become so intertwined that avoiding Instagram memes means risking missing gig opportunities in my DMs, while rehearsal schedules get buried under family pup updates and birthday drink invitations.Not to mention the added calamity of multi-platform content creation which has led me to seek refuge right here, in your email inbox.
I started this blog on the other side of winter last year in pursuit of a solution to my flailing music promotion strategy but also as a means of keeping in touch with you all during the proverbial ‘dry spells’ between runs of gigs and music releases. In other words, a way to talk to you when there’s nothing to talk about.
The hilarious and perhaps predictable predicament I now find myself in is that nothing is happening and, thus, I have nothing to say. I am aware this is probably unbelievable to those who know me well. Traditionally, I am the master of continuing to talk when there is absolutely nothing to talk about. In fact, as someone with a life long fear of silence and boredom, I would class this as one of my most well-chiseled skills (though not always my most welcome one). If there was an opposite to getting blood out of stone, that’s what talking is to me. Like getting water out of a tap.
And I knew the dry spell would come. It always does. To be a musician is to willingly engage in the dichotomous dance between chaotically busy and existentially idle. It’s to look at a near-empty Google calendar in January and know you probably won’t sleep for a month in May. And as I gaze out at the vast space ahead of me (my local pub) and nurse the familiar nausea it invokes (with an overpriced but deliciously fruity IPA), I remember precisely why I started this blog. Because against all my intuition I know it’s good to keep in touch lest I wander alone into the tundra and lose my way (and all your email addresses!!).
So tonight I write to you from the back room of my local pub in North London. One ubiquitous characteristic of the freelancer tundra is the complete absence of routine. Wednesday becomes Saturday becomes bed day and I crave this indefinable, empty time. But gradually the high of commitment freedom gives way to a nauseous anxiety sugar crash and I begin scrambling around for external activities to serve as croutons in the soup of my unstructured life. There’s a free writing group that meets here every Monday about 3 minutes away from my house which makes it a great crouton candidate. After 2 failed attempts, I have finally made it and the air smells like shy attempts at new beginnings (and delicious chip fat).
No week in the freelance tundra (nor the ravine) looks the same but for me they comprise three reliable elements: 1 or 2 Cheese Markets, a 4 hour shift at the bookshop (sometimes they are longer ok) and at least 3 end-to-end social justice mini series (BBC preferred but not essential). It’s enough to feel in touch with the world but not quite financially secure or creatively inspired. But this week featured an exciting special guest in the shape of government-funded market research. About once every 6 months, I have a financial panic and, alongside my bi-annual flirtation with FluCamp (£4000!!), I sign up for a million market research adverts (followed by the proportional number of telemarketing scams). This is the first time I have ever been selected and my little lost soul (and bank account) was thrilled. Furthermore, upon arriving at the glass-panelled, lanyard-ridden offices of the HMRC headquarters, I was shocked to find out that this was not some third party palm off but a direct 1-2-1 line to ‘the man’ himself. As a newly inaugurated self-employed person, I have spent more time than care to admit getting to grips (and gripes) with the self-assessment systems and customer interfaces in the UK (I know it’s dull but for some strange reason I feel very passionately about this topic). For the next hour, I revelled in answering their simple, pointed questions about answer phone copy with my thoughts on low-level government conspiracy and criminal lack of education about self employed tax. As a debriefed with my housemate afterwards (who also signed up) we pondered about the effectiveness of this research as the sample can only include people willing to travel 10 miles across London at midday on a Friday, with just three days' notice, all for £80. But anyway, be the change you want to see in the world, kids. Even if that change is the accessibility of online tax returns.
As you can see, I have, once again, managed to find something to say. Quite a lot in fact. In all seriousness, writing to you has become such a lovely and ever-evolving practise, a crouton that I plan on holding onto for the foreseeable future. If you have anything you’d like me to write on, please comment or drop me an email or else risk receiving more rambling anecdotes about tax research. In the mean time, I’ll keep wandering through the tundra and letting you know what I find.
This year I’m on a quest to try and support myself more through my music and writing in the hopes that I can dedicate more time to both. In light of this, I have switched on a paid subscription to this weekly blog which you can sign up to below if you would like to, and are able to, support me on the slightly mad mission to being a full-time artist. Thank you for being here.
Meet you on the stage
No gigs on the go at the mo but will keep you posted :)
Meet you in the bookshop
Why would feminists trust the police? - Leah Cowan
In all honesty I bought this book because I couldn’t think of a coherent argument of why feminists should not trust the police which made embarrassed and curious in equal measure. I had also been looking for a book discussing carceral politics that wasn’t set in the United States (surprisingly hard!) and this a great find. Fantastic, new arguments with very hopeful and realistic recommendations for change. Learnt a lot about UK feminism and community organising in the 20th century and why it has changed. Genuinely unique and accessible take.
Retro bike repair paid for in "cheese" (am sure that's what Kendrick calls money !)