Barenboim's Reith Lectures

Last Friday was the first of this year's Reith Lectures on Radio 4. Daniel Barenboim is talking about music, and how it affects people. A great question from Julian Joseph in the audience prompted him to state that "improvisation is the higest form of art" (or something like that - I'm sure there's a transcript that could appear here.

I was reminded about this by the Front Row newslettter, which is asking people to keep a diary for 24 hours of all the music they hear (whether they choose it or not). If you fancy filling it in before next Wednesday, go here. This is in connection with the second lecture where Barenboim says something about how "Too often, he argues, our ears are exposed to what's commonly known as Muzak, when on the phone, when out shopping, eating or drinking." That's next Friday morning I think.

Do you use 'Myspace'?

I've been playing with that today. I now look after three 'sites' on Myspace:

Big Buzzard for my own stuff and the Big Buzzard Boogie Band.

Flat Five Records for the record label I run with the Potts brothers.

Coro Choir for a choir I've been singing with recently.

if you use Myspace, feel free to add any or all of these as your 'friends' and I'll return the favour.

I know Myspace is perhaps yesterday's news - especially now that Rupert Murdoch owns it. But I still like the idea of it, and it seems to have retained it's original ethos. There's loads of great original music to be found there.

Piano pledge hits the news

The BBC has put me in the same story as Tony Blair, in a report about the 'tune a piano' pledge (on Pledgebank and on this page).

The rule that any news story that you know something about will contain at least one major inaccuracy applies! The final paragraph quotes me as saying "And it turns out that they have taken the piano away to be tuned anyway - so that part of the pledge was a little bit irrelevant" - which is not true. After I contacted the hospital, they decided to tune the piano themselves, without taking it anywhere - which is quite different! I checked it yesterday, and it sounds much better.

We are all free thinking individuals...(not for long)

For a while I've been subscribed to the peopleincommon email list, populated by the organisers of the weekly 'picnic' in Parliament Square every Sunday at 1pm. They also protest against the new SOCPA act which greatly proscribes the ability of orginary people to protest within the area around the Houses of Parliament, among other things.

Thought provoking things come through regularly on this list - here's one, an article from last week's Guardian.

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1747669,00.html

from which: "The government is briskly and fundamentally reshaping the relationship of the individual to the state, of the Lords to the Commons, and of MPs to ministers. The ID cards bill will allow the authorities unprecedented surveillance of our lives, and the power to curtail our ordinary activities by withdrawing that card. The legislative and regulatory reform bill, now entering its final stages, will let ministers alter laws by order, rather than having to argue their case in parliament."

Do you agree with this?

Do you feel uneasy about saying, in public that you agree with any/some/all of this article? That, I fear, is the direction we're heading in (as ever, just a few years behind America).

Do leave a comment - signed or anonymous - and let me know what you think.

A london evening

Woke up this morning at Maff's house in deepest Oxfordshire, after a night of fine conversation, top roast chicken, and the best three bottles we could find in Wine Rack for under a tenner. There was hardly time for a quick stroll in the countryside in the spring sunshine before legging it to the motorway to just miss an Oxford Tube (seems that happens with every bus I try to get at the moment). Back to London to be hooked up to the dialysis machine for what seemed like most of the day. When I finished, had a really strong urge to be in what was left of the evening sunshine (this was about 7pm), so wandered across London bridge, before heading off to Tottenham Court Road to try and find a charger for a sony camcorder. Too late, everything shut. Apart from the sunshine, it felt like one of those days.

A Madness Wedding...

We haven't been playing at that many weddings recently. For a few years, it seemed like almost every Saturday we'd be setting up the band in some marquee or country house, hoping that we'd be given something decent to eat, rather than dry sandwiches, which for some reason people seem to think are musicians' favourites. Of late, calls from someone who wants a band for a wedding have been sufficiently spread apart that each one seems like a great excuse to get some of my favourite musicians together to do a gig where we have some fun. There's one coming up this Saturday which looks like being exactly that, as it's an excuse to get the great Mitch Hiller to come and sing with us, for the first time on a proper gig. While musing on this, while attached to the dialysis machine, the mobile rang (so far having it on in the hospital doesn't seem to have caused anyone's life support machine to tune to Radio 3, or any other such catastrophe). A vaguely familar voice said "Is that the Big Buzzard band? You might remember me, it's Suggs here" - and it was indeed that Camden ska singer who kept us all going through the 80s with some of the best pop songs ever. We did some gigs with him a few years ago at the Soho Ball organised by his mum! Well it looks like we might get to meet some more of the family, as he'd remembered us, and wondered whether we might be up for playing at his sister's wedding! I think we might...