| CONFESSIONS...CHAPTER TWO |
18th March 2008, 7pm |
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Chapter Two: The Other Side.
So, from that gig at the Soho Revue Bar, feeling like I had no single song I could play to anyone, wishing I could leave the performing duties to the others, to the other night in Paris, playing for three hours to a small family of a crowd at Studio Melodium (the studio where I’d recorded “Supernatural” www.myspace.com/studiomelodium ??), to just 15 hand picked friends of Nicolas (the owner of the studio), recording the whole thing on separate tracks so it could be mixed later and made in to a live album and feeling like I had never played better. This is the world of extremes I live in. Ok, so he’d expected a few more people to come but those were the music industry types, who I hadn’t expected to turn up anyway. As it was, the people who were there were people who loved my music and had travelled from all parts of Paris to this basement studio on the outskirts to see me and Ben (who had come for the trip to play piano) do our thing.
I wrote down a bunch of songs I wanted to play on a piece of paper and when we’d all had a couple of glasses of wine and I’d showed them the first couple of episodes of The House We’re In (the online tv series my friend Dave and I are making of the Unlit tour this January we did around the UK, which launches on Youtube April 1st), we moved through to the main live room of the studio where there were chairs, and stools and armchairs, a Wurlitzer, a piano, my guitar and a mike. I gave them the paper and they took it in turns to choose which song I would play next…which was great! I’d never done it before but it was nice to have these choices taken out of my hands….instead of having to think whether it was the right time to do a song with ben, or to do one solo, or to do one upbeat, or quiet….i didn’t have to think at all! They said a title, and I had to play it….so I didn’t have a chance to think “do I really want to play that one?” or indulge in any of the usual songwriterly insecurities (“oh, but so and so said they didn’t like that three years ago and maybe that means its not any good”). They chose and then I had to make it as good as I could. And it was great! I gave long ridiculous surreal half French half English introductions to each song, trying to help them in to the meaning of it before I sang…occasionally drifting in to some candid confessional narrative which slips out so easy when you’re speaking in a different language! And yes, there was a good deal of mention of the universe and other quasi spiritual banter which I wibble on about when I’m feeling buzzed and in the flow and I can feel that everyone is with me and feeling the songs as much as me.
We had a break…then went back and played some more….I ended up playing three hours, and 23 songs and by the end was so exhausted I could hardly stand up. But we had a new album in the can! JONT LIVE AT MELODIUM…..Nicolas is mixing it now and I guess I will put it out later in the year. And the guy filming me playing “Supernatural” who had shown a keen interest in the short films…apparently he was the vice chairman of EMI France…
We headed out with a couple of friends back in to Paris, found a creperie, did a good deal of hysterical laughing, a sort of exhausted euphoria after the intensity of the concert, and then found a bar. Ten minutes til closing time. Can I play a song? Yes…and so I sang new song Sea Of Stars…(.the new Supernatural!) to the assembled six locals, and then New World War III and then handed over to Ben who played a 20 minute bowie medley while I chatted to the landlord about a potential future gig. When its flowing, its flowing, and it seems a shame to stop it, even if I can hardly stand up… ….
Gigs apart…and there’ve been a few in the last couple of weeks – I’ve been mainly spending time working on organising the release of my album, single and online tv series. There’s a lot to do but fortunately I have found a brilliant team of people to help me with everything….previous Unlit devotee Lee is now onboard as my right hand man at Unlit Records, and I also now have the full complement of radio plugger, online pr, print pr, radio plugger and booking agent who are going to do their best to get word out of my first officially released full-length album, not to mention the incredible good fortune to have my friend Dave editing these little films we shot as I toured the UK this January and February, putting on Unlit in the homes of people I had met through myspace. And so with the work comes new developments each day…Gideo Coe was the first DJ to play my single “Candlelit” on his show last week (www.sixmusic...), The Purcell Rooms will host my big London gig on Sunday June 1st, the guys out in france want me to go back and do a weeks residency in a venue there in May, Radio Four want me to come and play on Loose Ends on April 12th, and gigs have just come in for me this summer at Glastonbury, The Secret Garden and the Small World festival, as well as there being a whole UK tour being booked for June…
So, things are getting going…soon I will be looking for someone else to get involved to help me take things to a bigger audience, but at the moment its me and the team trying to get word out there..so if you want to help, do tell your friends about the album, put supernatural on your myspace profile, come down to a gig or an Unlit…all that really makes a difference…
Tomorrow I return to the revue bar, where I hope to banish forever last time’s demons! and maybe see some of your smiling faces! More soon… xjont
“This little world that we’re on, a grain of sand in a sea of stars, and when they say that you’ve lost, just look up and take a look at where ya really are…in a sea of stars
That goes on and on!”
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