The Human Soundwave Company

2001-06-02

The Finborough Arms
57 Liverpool Road
London N1 0JD

Thanks to my current state as a strange attractor for chaos, we arrive late, just as the breaks is ending. This means that we miss all the floorspots (inlcuding Dave Russell and Aiden McGee and several others I'd have like to have seen).

It seems like quite a quiet night (or at least not an overflowing night. Mainly this would be because with my recent email difficulties I haven't been able to send out reminders about the gig. But it's not a problem – the faces who are there are at least friendly ones.

Kath Tait is first up after the break, and I notice that a lot of her set is newer stuff - The Cyclist From Hell, The Wrong Train, Bollocks! I've Got Too Many Lovers – which is nice. The fact that the audience is often the same does tend to make some of us on this circuit guilty about playing the same songs over and over. For my part, the set is broadly drawn from the older material, because that's what I could give Steve to listen to. The percussionist factor will hopefully give it a twist, though.

While Nina Finburgh is performing (she does characters to classical music – that's the only way I can explain it. It's sort of like a revue act, and very fine), I tune up the guitar.

We're on.

Originally billeda s a trio, it's me and Steve Beaver. Steve's mostly playing a snare drum in different ways (brushes, stick rapping on the rim, snare on, snare off, etc) and a shaker (on Little Games).

It is a very different experience, having someone else to concentrate on. Normally my consciousness will be split between what my left hand is doing, what my right hand is doing, what my mouth is doing and everything else (audience behaviour more often than not). With Steve playing there is another, very powerful influence, situated somewhere to my left – on occasion I have to perform and be aware of timing shifts, and if we go out of time, will he adapt to me or shall I adapt to him? Some ralls are a bit strange, but that's to be expected, I suppose. So not the tightest unit on the face of the earth, but that really doesn't matter, our intentions are in the right place.

I've written and used a set list for the first time since 1996:

The Things You Get

Mr Wrong

The Secret Agent's Dream

Idiot Child

Where Did It All Go Right??

Little Games

Sensitive Boy (dropped for reasons of time)

Iodine

Comforting Lie

Some things change significantly –on The Things You Get there's more drive, and I don't have to power it along; on Where Did It All Go Right, with Steve going through the (normally quite sparse) bridge section, I can just sit back and sing, dropping in chords as I see fit, or not if that's what I want; Little Games comes out a lot slower, but that gives me more space to interpret the songs.

People's reactions – Phil J, Kath T, Brinsley S – are very positive indeed, and I think this is definitely a project that I will continue with, and I'll go looking for a bassist again. The main problem will be remunerating the musicians for their time (given my dismal record of promoting myself). It did remind me of things that I enjoy about solo performance, but I'll take it as a suggestion to me that I should perform more rather than differently.