London gridlock. There’s nothing quite like it to ruin your day. Travel should be transparent – a bland tunnel through which to pass on the way to brighter things – and I’m pretty sure it used to be like that, but time have changed and travelling from A to B has become a thing of great smelliness. There had been an accident in Chelsea, meaning all bridges across the Thames and roads leading up to them from the South side were just standstill traffic… even in that there is something to see. A crazy woman (at least I think she was crazy – maybe she wasn’t… after all she was walking and we were sitting in cars) was stopping at the window of every vehicle, asking where they wanted to go, and offering the best possible route. I love the random choice of crazy action… she has obviously decided that is her thing.
Anyway, after the dreadful journey, I arrived at Brian Eno’s studio up in Notting Hill a quivering shambles, and just lay down on the floor for a while as he made me a cup of tea. He has moved the studio out of the famous little cupboard of a room he used before, and into the light airy space that is the rest of the building. Something of an improvement. It was good to see him again – he’s a man who knows how to smile. Naturally the first thing we did was leave the house and head for some lunch on the terrace of Rico’s up on Westbourne Grove. Theoretically it shouldn’t be that good, but the salad was a killer and with the sun beating down in that “London summer” way, it was pretty close to a perfect lunch.
Thence to “Tea Palace” for the purchasing of some nice tea. Since L. was born, I just haven’t had a chance to indulge in brewing much. I even went so far as to buy teabags!! When you have 5 minutes between a nappy change and bathtime its more important to get a tea hit than worry about the quality of your Keemun/Yunnan blend. Brian bought some very odd Japanese tea that smelt like All-Bran – it tasted damn fine though.
Back in the studio, it was time for the fun to begin – recording some guitars for an installation piece he is working on for Art Angel based on the biblical plagues. It opens with Robert Wyatt being a swarm of flies. What followed was a fun session of playing some pre-written parts, and an insane trip down effects lane – always my favourite bit, as Brian inevitably gets ideas for other tracks and lets me loose on those. It got so chaotic that I eventually handed him the guitar and just started manipulating knobs and pedals with all hands and feet. What fun. It made me remember why I loved music so much… when I start to play it just all floods back.