As I’ve mentioned I’ve some shows coming up. These require promotion on my part. I’ve always felt uncomfortable promoting shows at work above all. I’ve kept it to a minimum – promoting to a few at work but not through work. I know others who can do it without the awkwardness – and I’m not saying you shouldn’t promote shows at work – but it’s just whenever I do, I sense the spectre of David Brent hanging over me; and as I hand out flyers, to colleagues who’ve yet to tell me what they’re up to outside of work and then ask me if I would like to come along for a small fee, I hear Brent saying, ‘I’m an entertainer first and a boss second.’ So, I present to you the David Brent Syndrome. ‘Go and get the guitar’
Show Shows Shows
I’ve a bunch of shows coming up and I’ve put them in a list:
- Sun 28th July: Today! Nursery House Party @ The Nursery Training Centre, 5:30pm – performing as part of The Nursery’s student ensemble Something Entirely Quenching;
- Sat 3rd August: Improbotics: Artificial Intelligence Improvisation @ Hen and Chickens, 9pm (Camden Fringe) – there’s a show on the Friday night too which I can’t make;
- Fri 9th, Sat 10th, Sun 11th August: City Impro: Laugh Island @ Canal Cafe Theatre, 7:30pm (Camden Fringe);
- Fri 16 August: Punderfest 2019, Hoopla @ The Miller, London Bridge, 7:30pm;
- Fri 9th, Sat 10, Fri 16, Sat 17 August: City Impro: Improv DeathMatch @ Aces and Eights, 10:15pm.
And that is the end of the list. Thanks. Maybe see you at a show.
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- Reading: The Naming of the Dead, Ian Rankin
- Drinking: Green’s Gluten Free glorious pilsner (to appease my continuing to rebel stomach).
Going For A Song: ‘Keep the Change’
Mattiel – Keep the Change
This year so far has been notable for songs entering my orbit and staying there on heavy rotation – Fontaines D.C.’s ‘Big’ and Mammoth Penguins’ ‘Closure’ come to mind.
The use of glockenspiel and those handclaps on the chorus of ‘Keep the Change’ had me coming back initially, and since returning I’ve not moved.
The Algorithms We Want
I recently finished reading Hannah Fry’s book Hello World: How to Be Human In the Age of the Machine. It’s a clear, non-technical, myth deflating look at AI and the digital, similar to Tom Chatfield’s book How to Thrive in the Digital Age (2012) and the radio show The Digital Human, both of which I’ve extolled the virtues of.
Tour de France
The 2019 edition started at the weekend. My current drink of choice:
Going For A Song: ‘Rocket Man’
Elton John – Rocket Man
Been listening to a lot of Elton John recently. I would love to go see him on his last tour, but until that lottery win comes through I’ll just have to make do with live videos on YouTube.
I’m putting forward ‘Rocket Man’ as another alternative accompaniment to space exploration.
In the Tower of Song
That’s the power of the song. The individual song: just a few minutes in which people can stake their claim to immortality. Only music – and, I think, really only pop music in its many and varied forms – can do that. Only music can make such an instant and immediate impression […] In three minutes, a song can twist you and shout at your emotions. It can elevate you. It can fulfil a need you didn’t know you had. And then you can go back to the beginning and play it again and again and again.
But all speculation aside, the value of a song does not rest with the song itself, but rather the feeling it can provoke in the listener. What moves me may not move you. And so it goes. I see the effect the songs have on my audience when we perform them live so know that these value judgements have little intrinsic meaning […] The actual value of the songs is weighed entirely in the hearts of those who choose to receive them.
