Hello There!
It’s been so crazy busy I forgot to write my blog but forgive me, I am totally absorbed with the new album.
Last week I spent four days dealing with tech issues then I realised we are “Mercury in retrograde”. I have to say things not working the way they should makes me more tenacious, I lose my self in problem solving for ……days! Thus this blog is late!
This album is being written and recorded remotely, my producer lives too far away for me to commute and I don’t have the luxury of being in a studio for a few weeks, that said it is becoming an exciting process of discovery, taking me right back to my love of sound in the late 1970s.
The producer and I exchange many daily e-mails about favourite historic and cultural rock sounds, layers, aims, referring back to historic concert performances that have seriously lit my fires in past decades, not just memories of my own music history but reminiscing on music that totally inspired me over 50yrs ago. Especially the very early history of synthesisers and sequencing.
Each day I am writing a new lyric and top line, sending it down the line, very quickly a track comes back from the studio and I re-record my voice having learned the newness that comes back from the studio that day as a test run, this inspires the conversation about magical moments from past inspirations and a new moment is created.
An example is the general sound of The Doors playing The Hollywood Bowl in 1968…..the live sound is spectacular, clear, exciting with space around each musician.
It’s really great to be reminded of how good sound used to be, maybe I am an analogue romantic.
I am loving this process.
Going back to the four days just trying to get my tech to work. The process beat me down, my computer is old, and on one day alone I did about 40 takes on the same song and still the vocal sounded out of sync, not sitting in the track, slightly off tuning, it was driving me mad, forcing me to search every available alternative, learning to be my own sound engineer…….. eventually the process started to work and is now going well.
Robert is my sounding board and a few days ago he gave me a pep talk because the tech issue bled my usual resourcefulness dry, he said “ This isn’t you, you are a great singer, really good writer, don’t let tech get you down.” It was really encouraging and I went straight back to my computer and addressed the issues, achieving a good vocal take on a fairly decent platform and we were off and in the process.
It has also been helpful that a musician friend has been visiting us from the USA, who worked high up at Microsoft in Seattle. He is coming back in a few weeks with a brand new computer for me.
Mine is 12yrs old and won’t accept the new version of my beloved GarageBand………. SO FRUSTRATING. My determination and will has been tested to the full, yet proven I am as pig headed as ever and the entire situation has possibly done me a lot of good.
Life never ceases to surprise me, more so domestically.
In recent years I’ve had to teach myself to manage food sensitivity, just putting things like bloating down to age. Having had every test under the sun to be sure nothing sinister is going on, I shower A.I. with questions all day long. One morning I ate walnuts for the first time in a month and I started to notice my abdomen and left boob swell dramatically, with one very obvious question to Google A.I. an answer came back that both surprised and shocked me with an obvious answer, offering me a huge insight.
The question was “why, when I eat walnuts, does my left boob swell significantly, and my abdomen swell, going up a dress size?” As you can imagine when this started to happened in the past six years I’ve headed straight to the doctor to be checked, and nothing of any concern has been found.
The answer came back from A.I.
“your left breast swelling specifically after consuming walnuts strongly suggests a localized immune response, likely a tree nut allergy or food sensitivity. While walnuts are generally healthy and anti-inflammatory, if your body mistakes the proteins in them as harmful, it can trigger an allergic reaction that causes blood vessels to widen and leak fluid, resulting in localized swelling. A histamine reaction occurs when the immune system releases histamine—a chemical stored in mast cells—in response to perceived threats like allergies, infections, or injuries. It causes symptoms such as itching, rashes, hives, swelling, runny nose, and digestive issues by expanding blood vessels and increasing vascular permeability”
I have lived off tree nuts, as a vegetarian since the beginning of lockdown and it appears I am allergic to them. Taking them out of my diet has immediately stopped my bloating and swelling. There’s just one small problem……..I am so hungry now and totally amiss as to what to eat at breakfast! Our fridge is FULL of cantering size bags of tree nuts!
It’s only a matter of days now until the Storytelling tour starts and I cannot wait. It is almost a year since the tour was planned and I am so ready to be on the road.
The Away With Media team have been fantastic and I am looking forward to enjoying the entire process.
On stage with me will be Mike Goodman from the Toyah Band and Pete Rinaldi who I first met when he was working with Gareth Gates and we were all on a cruise together as performers.
My focus for the show is the power of music and personal creativity covering stories that have made me who I am today. Most of the stories have a slight comic edge to them as I have found myself in extraordinary situations most of my life.
The only concern for the next three months is my insomnia and having to stay in hotels. My sleep pattern is unaddressable, I am a hardwired insomniac.
If I am lucky I sleep from 9pm till 1am, get up, work, then I deep sleep from 6am till 9am…… the busiest and noisiest time in a hotel…….Yikes.
Add to this that I now only sleep if the TV is on……. the nights can be really frustrating, so I am making every effort to get home when I can.
Also my beautiful giant rabbits need me. Over the past year I have encouraged Robert to feed, clean and interact with them and he is doing brilliantly. Our P.A. adores them and comes in morning and night when we are both away to attend them….. if you are thinking I am over protective towards these creatures you are correct, they are treated as Deities in this house.
I will miss them every day.
But please know, I live to perform and my audience is my oxygen…..I CANNOT WAIT TO BE ON THE ROAD.
BIG LOVE
BE PROUD, BE LOUD, BE HEARD.
TOYAH
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX