The Sun Machine Is Coming Down (6/5/13)

And to finish Liverpool Sound City there was a free concert on Chavasse Park in the city centre this afternoon;  The Mono LPs who I raved about a little bit the other day, The Tea Street Band who I managed not to see on Saturday and a few others.

Well, I still haven't seen The Tea Street Band. (Not that I want today to turn into 'here's another reason why I haven't seen this band that most people have never heard of) There may be very little in life that's more enjoyable than watching music in blazing sunshine but sitting in your own garden in blazing sunshine definitely tops the list. I swerved the gig. I chilled. I really chilled. I've done nothing all day. Proper summer holiday feel to the day, 4th day off on the bounce, totally decompressed. Sat in the garden finishing Paul Auster's 'Travels in the Scriptorium' - it's a slim volume, a story about stories, about the nature of storytelling and the control that authors exert ver their characters. As most of Auster's work tends to be. J discovered him on (I thnk) our honeymoon. You know the point when you've reached the end of the holiday, finished the books that you took with you and start lookin for anything that the hotel shop has that looks vaguely readable? J found 'Leviathan' and was blown away by it. Then I was. Then I just kept going.

So I finished 'Travels...' and I started reading a Bowie biog/song analysis which made me start listening to early Bowie. Really early Bowie, 'Love You Til Tuesday, Rubber Band, that kind of stuff. Laying in the sun listening to Bowie, as Bank Holidays go, I'm having that. That and the fact that the holiday feel was enhanced by the foreign accents floating on the air. We have Lithuanian neighbours next door, lovely family, they had friends round, we've been listening to Lithuanian conversation all day (if that's actually a language? It may have been Russian, I have no idea) they spent the afternoon assembling then dissembling a marquee in the garden. I anticipate a party.

And it put me in mind of other, similar days;

Sat in my Mum and Dad's back yard in the early 80s with my old Eko jumbo guitar which I ended up selling to Mally a few years later and always regretted, trying to teach myself the theme tune to The Mysteries of Edgar Wallace (old 70s TV show, great theme tune) and instead coming up with one of the bets riffs I've ever devised which turned into a song called 'I Sell This Kite' which we played live for a couple of years. Which I last played on a guitar about....ooooh...three days ago to be honest. Really loud and really distorted. The best way to play guitar sometimes.

And there was an afternoon in Geoff's Mum and Dad's back yard not long after. I think this happened but sometimes I think that I may have imagined it. Me, Geoff, Andy and Pete, first band I was in, played our entire set in Geoff's back yard in the sun. The neighbours must have been delighted.

And sitting in our garden, our current garden, 16 years ago. Writing a review for Bigmouth magazine back in my short lived freelancing days. The days which ended with the only column that I was ever paid for (if I recall correctly) reviewing The Charlatans 'Us and Us Only' while Tom sat in his high chair covering himself with food, deciding that The Charlatans had made the first album of the summer and building my review around that fact.

Tom told me last night that current theory in physics is that we aren't all made of particles, that there is in fact only one particle in the universe and it moves back and forth through space and time at unimaginable rates and that, therefore, there is no such thing as space or time. Everywhere is connected and everything is happening at the same time.

Which means that it's always Summer really.

Which means that every day is today.

And if every day had to be one particular day, I think today would be a good one for it to be.