I think that my amplifier is turned up particularly high. Up to 11 if you will. I am sure that many of you reading this feel the same, but then, we are all allowed to. You see, I feel shit man! I feel lots of shit. Good shit, bad shit, numb shit, seemingly meaningless shit, powerful shit. Isn’t it great that we feel all this shit? By saying “shit” here, of course, I am employing a common dysphemism for “stuff”. The shit of thought.
I hear a lot from people that they wish they could “turn it down” - not feel so much. But then, what would be the point? Aren’t we here, like fleshy masts, to grab as much of everything we can and then pass it down the cables into our cerebral selves and process it. Filter it for sure, because sometimes there is just too much. While that may be true, I want more. Always more. It’s not about me though. It’s about everything. Everyone. You see good reader, I might not believe in your god or your way, but as far as the clunky mishmash of cellular brain matter that I have trapped in my skull says, I believe in everything. I like being here. Some days I like running at the wind and screaming with joy. On other days, I let salty water flow out of me in streams of sadness or confusion. I want all of it. I believe it is all important. If we cull our senses in an attempt at lessening the noise, are we not closing our eyes to the view around us? Look, of course I have a spam filter on my email account, but I don’t close down my account because “busty betty” keeps getting me to sign up for a month’s free trial to ihavebigfattitties.com. Ok, so I want want more stuff that means stuff but somehow, I think it can all mean something.
So this might be shit. It’s only what’s buzzing around me though. You don’t have to let it in, and apart from the fact that I will never know if you do - unless you tell me, I am merely transmitting. If you want to change the channel then be my guest, but if it’s out there, someone or something thought it was worth putting it out there. I am enjoying this ride and I don’t want it to end. I know it has to though. I am glad we are able to have spent the little time we have being…..well, being!
Today I have a lot of static coming through but I am thrilled by the snowy flecks in the disorder. I see pictures of animals in the sky -probably because I am programmed to. We all are. The next time a child (not yet reprogrammed by the fact based, caged version of reality we learn to live in) looks up at the sky and says, “Look! A giraffe”, try to spot a donkey or a lizard next to it. It is everywhere if you learn to unlearn and drop the filter from time to time. Oh yeah, and it’s fun, and it shifts something in you. Right then, that’s all the shit I have for now. I love every amazing cell of you and me. Good day.
Jx
I was working in the studio today and everything went dead. The dipping doppler whirr of my computer and electrical snap of the speakers told me that something more critical than a simple crash was at bay. I checked the fuses and all seemed fine but I noticed on a visit to the street, that there was an eery gauze of stillness everywhere. Save the distant purr of the odd car and the hum of a jet scraping it’s way to somewhere far above, everything seemed to have stopped. People began to spill out of their houses and stood, necks craned staring back up at the walls as if some great hand might have come from the sky to carve a message on to the bricks telling them why their Sunday afternoon television program had been cut short. A neighbour asked me if my power had gone too, telling me that he’d spent the last 15 minutes on the phone to an answer machine informing him that whatever the problem might be, it was in hand and would be resolved as soon as possible. There was nothing we could do, so we all filtered back inside and checked the candle supply, just in case. I’m sure that whatever the issue with the power may have been, it will be fixed soon and all the things we depend on, from the spinning cogs and belts in our washing machines, to the tiny silicon circuits behind the metal chassis of our PCs will twist back into motion and work for us again.
Some of you may have noticed that I have been away for a while. Away from here I mean. I still inhabit my body as far as I am aware - unless all of this is some sort of Matrix-esque super reality, in which case I am writing to the computer which controls it all anyway (If it’s plugged in). I was away because I had some stuff go down in my life and the power just went off. When I am hit, like the spinning blades of an unsuspecting fan, with shit, my natural inclination is to go inside and wait. It is my own version of a power cut. I don’t chose it. It happens to me. I wait until the little synapses, like the men in white coats at the station, rebuild the broken wires and allow charge to swirl about the mesh of cells again. I am sorry about my absence and appreciate you coming back to visit. I may take a bit of time to gain my stride again but soon I will be prancing about like Bambi - rest assured. As far as what type of shit hit the fan? You’ll hear about it in many a song I am sure. Just peel back the edges and look in.
I hope that all of you out there are well and that electricity is flowing happily all around you.
Jx
But then I think, how far have we really come? When we take to the air today, we are constantly reminded of how little we trust our fellow passengers and how truly paranoid we are conditioned to be.
Ok, before any of you conspiracy “But Osama has still got a plan to get us” theorists out there threaten me with a bottle of Evian mineral water or come after me in the street with a pair of tweezers, you should note that these gripes are not just mine. They are shared by most of the people I know who live in a part of the world where we are lucky enough to have the chance to avail of air travel. I mean, come on, it is a pretty well known fact that it is nearly impossible to bring down an aircraft with diet cola and the threat of plucking “every last bastard eyebrow hair out unless you fly this plane into that building” is unlikely ever to find an airing (forgive the pun) in seriousness.
We have had tragedy visited on us and we have caused tragedy to be visited on others, but in my opinion, this does not warrant the over protective and frankly annoying culture of meaningless “security” measures.
Look, I am so willing to be proven wrong in this and I would love to hear from someone who knows about it but, liquid explosives? Really? That’d pretty hard to carry around! I think gasoline has more energy than TNT per pound but it only burns, it doesn’t explode. That’s Hollywood bullshit. Stuff they made up for the movies. So, why do we believe it? Who is making up these rules?
I agree, don’t let people on planes with knives and guns. Screen the bags and frisk till your fingers are content, but please let me bring a bottle of water with me. I just ate dinner on the flight and they served me with a steak-knife! Honestly, they took the nail-clippers away from me but I can have this 6 inch stainless steel, serrated edged blade - but only to eat dinner with. No grooming!
I do feel truly blessed to be able to get on a plane and be in another country within a few hours. I think that I am so fortunate to be able to do this in relative safety, so people who sit on the right of the fence, don’t misunderestimate me please. I just think that we have learned to go along with certain shit because they tell us to. Of course we need security measures and we need to take great care but I had to take off my jumper and shoes twice today on the way to the gate. They made me throw away my drinking water. Soon I’ll be walking through the airport in the nip. “Shoes, pants and underwear off Sir”. “Please touch your toes and Sir”. Where will it end? Rubber gloves anyone? I think I’ll take the boat.
This may appear to be the king complaining that his gold plate does not match his silver cup but it’s nothing more than a simple overflow of what’s up in my head when I’m up in the sky. I am halfway to Berlin and I’ve only been sitting here for twenty minutes. It is bloody good this flying thing. Well done the Orville and Wilbur! What would they have made of all this winged insanity?
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for listening, we wish you a safe and pleasant flight. Your lifejacket is under your seat. Now, wouldn’t you feel better if that were a parachute?
Jx
While I believe that this process is ever more prevalent or at least instant, I look back at Wordsworth, Yates, daVinci, Shakespeare, Mozart and past them to the mind who thought to scrape the story of his or her day into the side of a rock and make a picture of their dreams in a cave. I think then, and I am not at all educated enough but to conjecture, that this desire to reach out, to say something, is in our nature. It is as much a part of us it seems, as breathing is. It is carved somehow into the DNA that tells the next generation of cells how to shape themselves in the quest to prevail against the odds. Maybe this is what separates us from our tailed or scaled cousins, this engrained need to run our fingers along the edges of a sculpture or play a song until we cry, or merely to laugh at something funny that someone said so as to feel the lovely ache of joy in the pit of their belly when another “gets them”. I don’t know if anyone gets me, but I do know that until my lungs fill up for the last time with the billions of little oxygen molecules that happened to find their perfect partner and become O2, I will be reaching somewhere out to someone. For if it were so that we didn’t care, we would never have had a Kurt Cobain or a Johnny Cash nor would we have been inclined to listen to what they had to say. I am so glad that we do care and that the seeming emptiness of reptilian existence (apologies to owners of pet snakes or iguanas) does not extend to whatever it is that we are.
It is all so much more instant now, but a blog is, in its way, a binary cave painting and a song on an ipod is a musical one. It may not be as beautiful but then even this is subjective. I am sure that some of the millions of images and sounds that we are bombarded by every day are not meant to “say” anything more than the “blahh” they seem to, but equally I am glad that many of them do.
When we are spoiling for the chance to speak, we tend to speak. When we cannot, we rise against whatever rule or regime which prevents us from doing so. I am thrilled that I am lucky enough to be able to write this, whether I understand my reason for doing so or not. But more than that, I am lucky that you want to, or even just that you are, reading it. That said, this is not the utterance of a man who knows much about much, so take it all with a fist-full of salt and try something if you dare: Comment, discuss and debate and if even one of you do that, then this collection of letters strung together by me, means infinitely more to me.
Jx
On the other hand though, I would advise my friends to say something, anything, just don’t say nothing. It’s so much worse to miss out on something by saying nothing. A conduit to an utterance is always easier but rarely there when you want it most. “Excuse me, your handbag is in my soup.”
I know that I’ll go back to all the “hellos” and “heys” once this is out and I will find my way back to saying it without being to conscious of it. What else is there? If I were a dog, I could perhaps employ the art of sniffing you from behind and you would oblige my curiosity by arching your back. I would of course find this blog hard to write with paws instead of fingers but there’s always a way. If Monkeys can write Shakespeare god-dammit then I can get you to talk to me - even if I am K9.
Maybe we could try the bi-directional approach? Don’t sit there on your bar stool and let me wither into a small dried up, used Christmas tree, shedding needles at your feet waiting for the tinder to send a spark my way and make me disappear into a gentle grey plume by your face. “What was that?” you’ll say, “Smoke indoors?”. Tell me what you want. Let’s make this thing work. Would you like a drink? With twiddling thumbs and a blush at the ready, I await your response.
Johnny will be playing at a secret venue in North London for a local charity on Tuesday. The show is already sold out but we have two tickets for fans of Johnny to give away for anyone who writes in and tells us that they will review the show (Pics and a write-up). We’ll have a draw on Monday and let the winners know when and where to be on Tuesday Night. This is a one off and will include some of johnny’s myspace top friends! The Night will be tribute to John Martyn who recently passed away.
Send your ticket requests to info@johnnymcdaid.com with “Tickets” in the subject line.
JMD Web.
We make, all of us, decisions which lead us up, down, across and though myriad paths. Some of us find the streets paved with gold while others beat the dusty road, forever hoping to reach an unattainable end of the rainbow. More than often though it seems, we forget to look around at what’s already there. We focus on the horizon and forget the bits around us that are treasure if we’d only care to notice. I’ve been guilty of the latter state and of late, I am trying my best to bend down and sift through what seems like dirt to reveal millions of little diamonds on their way to becoming beautiful, crafted, honed jewels.I have spent most of my life powering forward and while I have certainly been so lucky and had many chances, more recently I have stopped to smell the flowers.
My job, as you’ll know by now, involves my working with artists on their records. I write songs and produce music, caring for it deeply, reveling in the surprise of how it seems at times to work for no other reason than the fact that it just does.
Here is where I want to tell you about one such gem stone I happened upon on my way. Under the dust of the many crushed silicon bodies of artists and musicians who have gone through the wheels of the shit machine and thusly been spat out the arse end of it, I found a diamond called Carina Round. She is bursting with life and a brilliant ability to capture it. Light goes in and gets magnified by her, her voice and her music. I was lucky enough to have had the chance to write with her for her new EP which will be out soon. I implore you all, if you buy one string of musical bytes this year, buy this. When it’s ready I’ll tell you more about it and give you links galore. Go make friends with her. Love her for she is rare and the world needs her.
I should have waited to tell you more but I can’t. I am impatient with excitement for what this is and what it will be. Go and get a giant sharpie and mark my words; we know her by the sound of her voice. All hail Carina Round.
With love (and dust in my hair),
J x
and you’ll find my tweets (I cringe at the sound of that) here:
http://www.twitter.com/johnnymcdaid
I try to keep them flowing through the day from the belly of my phone and, so long as you like that sort of constant “tap tap” on your shoulder from me, then please sign up and follow along.
Tweet to you later. Oh god no…sorry!
Jx
Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been 2 weeks since my last blog entry. That’s it really father. Apart from that I’ve been very good save one or two late nights and a few impure thoughts.
You see recently I have been working with various artists on their records and songs, and trying to find a moment to write songs for me, from me, about me (it’s a narcissistic business this songwriter stuff - more about me) has proven to be more than I can chew, at least with one bite.
I promise, if you accept, that I will try to write to you here more often.
I will fill you in on the projects I’ve been involved in along the way. I am lucky that my job still puts me in a studio and that I still get to make music, even if the light shines slightly off to my side these days. All the ones and zeros that fly through the wires around my body can’t all be there to tell my story. There are other, very beautiful, gripping and important stories I have been privileged enough to have been asked to help tell too. You will know them by the sound of their music.
I am enjoying the new site and all it’s little children (myspace, iLike, reverbnation, facebook) and I am so happy that you have chosen to spend time here. Maise and I have been working away under the hood (mostly Maise of course) and tweaking the pistons of our newly formed engine. I hope you like it and will visit often to oil and fuel it’s pumping arms.
In case you’re wondering, the songs I’ve put up are some writing demos I have recorded, very roughly, over the past while and I’ll keep throwing new ones at you if you so wish. I am hoping to record an EP over the next few months and I’ll keep you posted on that as the plan grows into a boy ready for his first day at school.
For now, I’m off to eat chocolate, stay up too late, smoke, and not exercise.
Love to you all,
Jx