Its been a while since I put up a blog post. Whether that's because I haven't felt like enough has been happening to justify one or if I haven't been looking hard enough I'm not so sure. Looking back, so much has happened I'm struggling to organise it all into anything structured or coherent.
There've been a lot of shows. Perhaps too many for my weary body to take alongside a full-time job, but i've enjoyed it, even if my body is still begrudging me for it. The highlight for me so far has been the Jesca Hoop support show. It was the first time that I felt that I had a real sense of what I was doing, rather than just making my way through the songs. I was joined for two songs by Kathryn Edwards, who you should totally check out if you haven't listened to her stuff before. Hers is one of my favourite voices and I always get a kick out of singing with her. She gave me a copy of her single the other day, and its a beautiful thing. Jesca was amazing too, and I can totally recommend her. Its useless trying to describe what her music is like. Anything I say will fall short of it, so you should probably just listen to it and if you don't 'get it' you should probably listen again because you'll clearly have missed something.
I also did my first full band show in ages, complete with pedal steel, mandola, piano, bass, drums and electric guitar. It fell short on the sound during the actual set, but during the soundcheck when I could actually hear what the fuck was going on it sounded great. I think its really beginning to gel. I'm still in two minds about whether I should play acoustic or electric guitar. I guess there's time to experiment. We should be playing together again for the Paris Riots support show I just booked for April the eighth.
The headline act that night was my good friend and piano player, Gabriel Minnikin. He was joined by an eighteen-piece orchestra (or thereabouts), and a five piece band. It was amazing. That dude doesn't get any way near the recognition he should.
Last night I joined The Travelling Band for a few songs during their set at the deaf institute, which was a whole lot of fun. I've always loved those guys. We did a song by Damien Jurado, who is somebody else I'd recommend. I'm sorry to keep throwing names, but I think its more interesting to spread the word on good stuff rather than just go on about myself relentlessly with no mention of all the other cool music that's out there. He's my favourite songwriter (living) at the minute. His songs are just extraordinary. If I find one I like, I'll just listen to it over and over again, and I'll just be somewhere else for a while. He's a fantastic storyteller, singer and poet.
With all this that's been going on I haven't really had time to stop, so I'm making a conscious decision to slow down and write before playing the same songs all the time starts to make me bitter, bored and detached (know what i mean, musicians?). I think that if I entirely absorb myself in gigs, labels, myspace, blogs and all that external, busy stuff, I'll end up neglecting the quieter internal space where songs are nurtured and created. That and getting the band more together, which is something I'm really enthusiastic about.
Before I go, there was a mention in a blog that I was really happy about. Press!
Thanks for reading,
Your pal,
Jo Rose
xxxo
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