One of the reasons that I started this blogging lark- apart from the obvious possibilities for ranting of course- was to improve my computing skills. When I was at school a computer was something the size of a block of flats operated by an army of white coated boffins who always looked to me as though they shouldn't be allowed to own any sharp objects. Nowadays of course we have laptops that are more advanced than anything in the most far-fetched Gerry Anderson series- well that's how it seems to me after a few days wrestling with the machine I bought last week. I did achieve something of a breakthrough the night before last however when, as I attempted to record a 16 bar one chord wonder of a tune wittily entitled 'Friday Night', I tried to get so many virtual instruments playing the same thing at the same time that I overloaded the 'Garageband' music recording program and it wouldn't let me do anymore.
It should be interesting to see what happens when I get round to recording some guitars...
In the meantime last night saw Malcolm and myself perform an impromptu 3-song set at a party thrown to celebrate his Uncle Len's retirement. If I remember correctly we played 'Turning Japanese', 'So What About Love?' and 'The Man with the Smile' to an increasingly bemused audience; East captured most if not all of it on video which raises the rather worrying prospect of it appearing on The Price website in the not-too-distant future (it's probably already on there!). As we were leaving Uncle Len- himself something of a guitarist back in the day who was 'offered' a chance to play with some 'names' but didn't on the grounds that he was 'happy where he was'- stopped me to say thanks- and then told me how he thinks that I've 'wasted my talent' and should have 'gone further'. I decided against mentioning that we'd had a similar conversation (with him in a similar state of, shall we say, confusion) about 15 years ago- since then I've toured Europe and the U.S.A playing hundreds of gigs everywhere from local pubs to The Glastonbury Festival; I've also taught guitar to countless people as well as currently running a successful musical instrument shop and in all that time I haven't done any work that doesn't involve music in one form or another. Maybe I could have 'gone further', maybe I've 'wasted my talent'- or maybe I'm just not as good as blowing my own trumpet (for want of a better term!) than a lot of people.
Hmm... better not to be bitter don't you think- eh Len?
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