zero degrees of separation

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oh it has been some time since I have seen your face mr blog....

I must excuse myself thusly dear reader - despite the fact that I have spent the past week in the hi-tech capital of London town, in relatvively high class establishments, there has been jack-all internet access.

HOWEVER, I have been cunningly storing up my thoughts in a series of synapses and synaptic fluids so I can share them with you now.

I arrived in London last Saturday after an exhausting night of slapping myself repeatedly around the chops in alarm that ONCE AGAIN I had left everything until the last minute. Renewing overdue library books at 4am is distinctly un rock-and-roll and I know it. Still... I probably would have only gone to bed to lay awake and wonder what musical perils and/or amazements were about to unfold like a big ole flabby camp bed.

Thr train journey went like a Flash! (ah-aaah) as I listened through and tried to take in the 18 songs on m iPod by the 3 other awesome bands on the upcoming tour. Besides Vashti Bunyan (whom I play with) there is Juana Molina from Argentina, Vetiver from San Francisco and Adem from London. They are all fairly different but equally sublime and marvellous bands who are connected to eachother in some way or another and had agreed to step together into the dark of the "zero degrees of separation" concept. That's the name of the tour we are now embarking upon, devised by the Twisted Folk peeps and meant to involve - as the name suggests - a good deal more collaboration than is ever usual on a tour.

None of us really had any idea of how any of this would work, what on earth might be the result or even if it were possible. I recounted my previous 3 night's worth of anxiety dreams about fruitless attempts to play a tune on a carrot in front of huge assembled masses to the other musicians' haunted faces, and got the feeling they knew exactly what I was talking about!!!

The first day's rehearsal (all 13 hours of it!) seemed to allay everyone' fears. Start from the beginning we thought, and see what happens. So all 4 groups each decided on one song that definitely invited collaboration and we began to work on them one by one.

Gradually it became apparent that we were all too excited about the possibilities of collaboration on one track to stop there. With the help of Adem's unbeleivable collection of wonderful random instruments and his endless enthusiasm, we added our efforts to around 22 more songs. (22!?!?). By the end of 4 more days of completely exhausting days of cramming notes and rhythms and lyrics and recorder fingerings into our heads (once again I have clapped so hard and for such lengths that my favourtie plastic bubbly ring has snapped in half. Woe is clappy me!), we were aware we had created some kind of a crazy monster thing that we had never expected, but were really quite proud of!

All there was left to do was to wait and see if it would eat us or carry us away in its hairy arm and introduce it to its friendly and fascinating family.

Aside from all that work, there is much silliness to report. It appears that most members of the touring party rejoice in ridiculousness and frivolity as much as I do - who would have thought it?!?!?! Many an hour has been spent lost in uncontrollable laughter over some surreal imagining or crazy new game. Consistent overtiredness and jangly nerves only adds fuel to the fires!!!

"Handy Slappy" appears to have gone down particularly well. This is a creation of members of the Jo Mango band and friends, which has been featuring backstage at several recent gigs. It has attained the new name "Slapoiera" and oftentimes we have had to cancel tournaments due to incontrollable giggling. Next post comnig up with news of gigs will contain special video of a match between Juana and Adem backstage at the Roundhouse.

I understand that last night, although I wasn't there to witness it, there was even a human pyramid in the hotel foyer.... Reports are not yet corroborated.

We have also managed to ascertain that not only do Christmas crackers not exist in either Argentina or America, but it is extremely hard to explain/describe the concept without wild misunderstanding. The small-firework/paper-hat duality appears to be the main stumbling block.

Other news is that on our one night off from the smelly airless world of the studio we went along to an Adrian Crawley gig. That man is incredible! The song "Walk on Part" has truly haunted me ever since. You should seek him out. At the end of the gig Brent (bass player from Vetiver) found a helmet someone had left behind that has the word MANGO emblazoned down both sides. He took it as a sign I needed it and I have been looking like an idiot wearing it in the tour van ever since. Still... there plenty of thigs that can fall from the sky and cause damage at any time and better to be safe than sorry.