Well, more time is going by and more tracks are being written and worked on although the throughput is, typically for me, somewhat stunted.But, thats the way it tends to be around here… works tend to be like London buses. Nothing for ages, then three at once.

There are a number of other songs that are in gestation at the moment based around interesting and maybe slightly off-the-wall themes – concepts like emotions being made human and wearing different clothes to represent their intensity and their best and worst points; concepts like art being a moment frozen in time that never gets old whereas for the rest of us humans, growing old is a privilege, sometimes cruelly denied by fate to some and something that doesnt grow old, stuck away from the beating heart of real life in sterile surroundings is akin to someone hiding from the reality they need to be exposed to. Slightly complex perhaps and yeah, maybe a bit pretentious but… the ideas just come as they come and it makes me think “what if….?”, the lightbulb goes on and the rest just follows.

I’ve also been working on audio versions of some tracks as well… Manhattan Lullaby is pretty much done except for the vocal, some MIDI editing and a decent mixdown; The music for Doesnt Matter Now is being worked on which will probably take a while..(!); I’m hoping as well to start working on the music for Midnight Blue and The Last Dance in the coming days as well while things are quiet on the job searching front.

Yes, not being a full-time pro means that the bills have to be paid somehow and I’m keen to make sure that time outside of that for making music is not lost to frippery and TV. It doesnt always work, but I cant bear to think that the most precious thing we have – time – is not wasted, that I can use it to do more than just exist – I can use it to create, to build something.

On Tuesday, I’m meant to be going to a BASCA gathering in central London about releasing music independently as a writer and producer, which will be useful no doubt but will make for a very long day; I’m also, next weekend going to be working with one of my closest friends and collaborators on some new material and we do have ideas to kick around and do something with. Two of them in particular I’m really looking forward to with themes around:
1) How modern life is totally different to what we knew when we were growing up and
2) What on earth are we going to hand over to the next generation given the mess we’ve been making of things for the last thirty or forty years…. like a variation on Both Sides Now and Big Yellow Taxi, if you will.

Going to be tricky making sure they’re not preachy, but… I have no doubt the effort will be worth it.

And then, in a couple of weeks time comes the annual BASCA Songwriting Camp at Monnow Valley Studios in Monmouth, Wales which last year proved to be so pivotal. Really looking forward to that and hope that it proves to be as inspirational this time as it did last year. I’ll do my best to keep the blog running while I’m there to capture whats going on, as it happens or at least an update at the end of each day. No doubt there’ll be plenty of pictures as well. That weekend is also almost coincident with a major anniversary in my life as well, so if there could be such a thing as a perfect songwriting storm (if thats not too melodramatic!), this month could prove to be it.

Soon find out I guess. So far, September looks like its going to be an interesting and productive month musically, no matter what else happens.