The Cloisters NY 

Fort Tryon Park 

LONDON CALLING

Yes yes yes. I know it's been a while. But really, this City sometimes seeps every ounce of energy and will out of you, then squeezes a bit more for good measure. I only wish American washing machines were half as effective. Or indeed anything around here.

The last two weeks have been largely, how we say, stressful. 1 step forward 2 back. Ok, it's not all been bad - had several great interviews and cups of tea with lovely musicians - Tessa Souter, D, Orlando le Fleming and Mat Fishwick. But meanwhile, perhaps the most useful interview of all is still in disc hospital where minidisc recovery seems like a very rare skill. The doorman at the data recovery place now thinks I work there I've visited so often, and today mr d. recovery had to admit defeat and now wants to send it somewhere else. At least he's still trying...... But I wouldn't be surprised if by the time I've actually retrieved this interview (if indeed I ever do), the magazine I'm writing it for has folded or something, or it'll be way too late. It clearly doesn't pay to do any work here, as I've already spent way more on equipment to DO this job than I'll ever be receiving FOR the job, if indeed the job ever manages to get done.

I have turned to M&M's. Even the blue ones.

Meanwhile my dear friend D has been having a kind of Tsunami in her bathroom. Every time anyone else in her building takes a bath or shower, huge waves of dirty water well up into and over her bath. This has been going on for over a week now and her landlord is less than interested. Which would be all very well if she wasn't paying about a million dollars a month for a ROOM. She has spent the whole week in said room waiting for a selection of plumbers to arrive, none of whom seem able to deal with the problem other than suggesting knocking down a couple of walls (which actually might not be a bad thing, as it could double the size of her apartment), but they won't take the job on nevertheless because it's 'too difficult'. The inefficiency here is really remarkable. As D pointedly remarked to me today 'New York, New York... So good they named it twice. Maybe they should have named it a few more times and sorted out their housing policies.'
Still, at least she's not been able to leave the apartment to work or anything, which is clearly a good thing or she'd probably be bankrupt into the bargain. Like me.

D, who has only had about three alcoholic beverages in the 8 months I've known her, has turned to drink.

So as a brief respite from our frustrations we went to a rather wonderful gig at the 55 Bar the other night.
I pause here for a statistic.
Apparently rats outnumber New Yorkers by 6 to 1.
I didn't set out to prove this point. Hell I've got enough problems as it is. But the statistic was nevertheless borne out when on ambling along Seventh Avenue at 1 am or thereabouts after the gig, the TH, D and I stumbled upon what can only be described as a 'rat pack' in and around a pile of black bin liners on the sidewalk. Several things happened in the next few seconds. King Rat obviously called last orders and the convention broke up sending a huge number of terrifyingly large rats scurrying around our feet in a kind of horror-movie scenario, D screamed and ran and a passing homeless character became very excited and started jumping up and down ranting about how rats could jump up and bite your neck. Helpfully like.
Somehow, amidst this frenzy of activity, I found myself calmly counting, in the way that one repeatedly counts anything in a stressful situation - ceiling tiles at the dentists, sheep when you can't sleep (do people really do that?), and I counted 17!
3 of us and 17 of them. That's really not a nice number of rats to find yourself surrounded by.

And don't get me started on the many and various flying insects that are gradually eating me overnight here....

Is it time to go back to London yet please?

IN THE LAP OF THE PODS

New York is beautiful at the moment. By that I mean it's cooler. And by that I mean it's 'only' in the mid '80s. A gorgeous morning last Sunday in Central Park. Then to the American Museum of Natural History for 'Indigenous Peoples' Day'. Bag checks are cursory now and seem to have been replaced by drinking displays - you can't go in without drinking from whatever liquid you're carrying in front of security guards, but you can probably take in a couple of suitcases full of who knows what without much trouble. All a bit strange as apparently some liquids which could be used to make explosives wouldn't do you any harm if you tasted them anyway. Then to performances by Matou - mesmerising chants and harmonies from a fusion group of native Americans and Maori singers and Tama Waipara - a Maori vocalist/songwriter who played a kind of mellow soul set. Had arranged to meet Janek Gwizdala there (as he was performing with Tama), to do an interview for the feature I'm currently writing on British musicians living in New York.

We decided to go back to his apartment for the interview on account of the general children-meet-dinosaurs din in the museum, and there then followed a very amusing few minutes where security wouldn't let us OUT with a bass guitar and amp, thinking that we were stealing Egyptian artifacts. It's an oldish amp, granted, but Egyptian.....? A good and very interesting interview, but was slightly panicked at the end when I went to save it on my newly acquired Belkin ipod attachment, and the ipod crashed on me mid-save.

Hours later I was that person with a midnight appointment at the 'genius bar' at the apple store. It's true - pretty much everything is 24 hours in this city, except the 'genius' that is, who was showing clear signs of needing sleep. In trying to salvage the interview by 'updating the software' (this is only a 2 month old ipod we're talking about), he managed to totally crash the entire thing and lose the whole 30GB of music etc currently on there. All backed up of course, but a total pain. It's at times like this that I'm definitely becoming American and I let the 'genius' know in no uncertain terms what I thought of the situation.. Left with a replacement ipod, new software and a guarantee this wouldn't happen again, but had lost the last 10 minutes of the interview and was gutted.....

Did a few ipod recording test-runs before Wednesday's interview with Wayne Batchelor. On the morning of the interview another test run sent the ipod crashing again. This was no joking matter now. Very annoyed. So persuaded Wayne to come round to my flat instead of meeting for lunch, where I'd set up my old mini-disc recorder, which for some reason will only work when plugged into a UK socket which in turn is plugged into a step transformer. (They'd have loved that at the museum - it even looks like a bomb. But I guess that would've been okay 'cos it's clearly not a liquid.)

Another good interview, and apart from that really good to catch up with Wayne, who I've only seen a couple of times briefly since living here. Then ran off to buy a new mini-disc player because frankly life was getting too stressful without one, and the Belkin attachment is obviously a pile of crap.

On Thursday to the upper West side to meet Mark Taylor. We had lunch and a good catch-up chat before the actual interview, which went very well and was totally fascinating. After that back to his apartment for tea and more chats. We haven't seen each other properly for something like 12 years, and literally didn't stop talking for five hours. Really lovely to see him again, and I think we'll be seeing a lot more of each other now we've re-connected. I'm totally loving doing this interviewing thing - nothing makes me happier than good interesting one-to-one chats, and hanging with musicians, on top of which I'm really fascinated by their New York stories and am looking forward to writing it all up.

Then the third crisis of the week. Got home and transferred the mini-disc to another player, which for some reason immediately went into record mode. Hastily ejected the disc and when I put it back, it read 0 files and 'read error'. The absolute final straw. What is it with crappy new digital media??!! Is absolutely nothing reliable? I need that interview, not least because Mark goes to Japan for seven weeks this weekend and although I can remember the essence of it all, I want his quotes. So spent the whole evening searching for a data recovery place in NY to take the disc to which isn't going to totally break the bank, and spent this morning taking it there. I am not happy. At least I'm not happy until they tell me it's recoverable.....
Then I need to take the Belkin rubbish back for a refund. Arg.
Bring back cassettes....

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

Last week I had the great pleasure of spending a good few entertaining hours in the 'time-capsule-which-is-A's-gaff' for a breakfast which seamlessly morphed straight into lunch, then just kept on going. The way time disappears in that house, without anything being achieved other than the sort of conversation which could easily go on indefinitely and large gaps appearing in the wine cellar, could explain why it's taken him approximately 3 years to get the kitchen fitted. It might also explain his strange fetish for anything vintage (and not just of the liquid variety). He is currently experimenting with 30 year old blackberries (so old in fact that the word means something entirely different now), 1985 Diamond Jubilee Oxo cubes and a 1997 jar of honey. The honey I can sort of understand though, now that I think about it, because I'm sure it's entirely possible to arrive at that house for breakfast in 1997 and not leave until 2006.

Anyway, my point is that there is now, finally, a kitchen. But not just any old kitchen. For example, the hob is the size of most NY apartments and has a dimmer switch and the drawers have a kind of time-lapse self-closing system. I am presuming it is a slow one though, because to unload the dishwasher this symmetrically would probably take a compass, slide rule and another 3 years.



The man is clearly a virgo. Only he's not. This total planetary error kind of destroys any astrological faith one might ever have had.

BACK IN THE USA

I know this because everwhere is very hot outside and very cold inside and it took me nearly half an hour to find cotton buds in the drugstore yesterday, (which are, by the way, called cotton SWABS here, which makes them sound so gross I then almost couldn't bring myself to buy them.) They were in the chocolate section. Of course, silly me. What is the problem with filing in NY drugstores? Unbelievable. And it's not like you can ask anyone, as most of the assistants only speak Spanish, and my school Spanish unfortunately doesn't stretch to 'bud', let alone 'swab'. I did try a 'sticking my finger in my ear and wiggling it' mime type thing, until I realised that of course they wouldn't get it like that, because that's the one thing you're not allowed to do with cotton buds...

Got up at 3am. Wide awake. Watched tv, read, answered emails, dealt with forgotten-for-3-weeks loaf of bread situation in the kitchen and dead plants situation in the other rooms, opened post - bills and a bunch of results from the medical I had last week which pronounce me not alive after all and in need of further tests or a blood transfusion or a new liver or something. (yeah - a new place to live).
Daylight. Sleepy. Grrrr.

I'm sure it's obvious that I'm really happy to be back.

TOURIST TRAP

Back in the days when I lived in Earl's Court, I found myself engaged in an almost daily exchange with rock-gig or exhibition-seeking tourists on the tube platform or street, which went something like this:
'Excuse me, where is Earl's Court please?'
'You're in it'.

Nowadays, in a manner of speaking, I've become a London tourist. I therefore feel no compunction in mentioning that for the past two weeks we have been staying in St Paul's, thank you very much.