F has decided to buy a zoom today. For my sins (because I am a wonderfully supportive girlfriend) I am going with him while he buys it. Greater love hath no girlfriend than she will devote a Saturday afternoon to the interior of a shop devoted to music.

(Or, what happens when you meet Karma on a slippery slope while wearing impractical shoes)

The most important thing you will ever learn in life is that it doesn’t matter how much dosh you throw at a therapist, you will never escape your childhood. Like black bullets to paper, the precepts that you were brought up with will stick to you for the rest of your days. Some that I grew up with are as follows: “if you control the head you control the man” is a piece of advice I’ve found works on so many levels. “If you can’t do the time then don’t do the crime” has kept me on the straight and narrow through many a decision while the direct instruction that “a lady can never have too many shoes or clothes” is a simple precept that I try to live my whole life by.

Now I realise that some people might disagree with this last proverb. For example, some (misguided) people may think that if, when you’re tidying out your shoe cupboard and you discover three pairs of shoes that you’d bought, stashed and then forgotten about, this means that you are an extravagant hussy who has too many shoes. These (sad) people are wrong and should be sent to a (tooled leather with jingling spurs and diamante heels natch) bootcamp for re-education post haste. (Although, if you live in Edinburgh then it should be a damn sight haster than the post as the mail service in this town has kind of grasped the concept of putting the mail through the letterbox but hasn’t yet figured out that the address of the mailbox and the funny squiggly lines on the envelope should match up. Still, never mind, other peoples bank statements make much more uplifting reading than your own) However, sane people with a proper aesthetic sensibility know that finding three pairs of shoes whose existence you’d been hitherto unaware of is symbolic of the fact that the Gods are not just smiling on you - you’re practically the new messiah. I mean, even Jesus only got to wear sandals.

This is possibly the reason that I’m typing this while wearing a pair of wooden soled, Perspex heeled, incredibly strappy, slave girl shoes. I could have worn the distressed leather and bronze ankle straps or the scarlet patent leather Bally heeled mules which also miraculously materialised from the depths of the closet but, lovely as both pairs are, they paled into insignificance before this particular pair. Not only is the heel constructed out of the sort of clear Perspex so beloved of pole dancers but in his infinite wisdom, the shoemaker decided to make the heel a perfect circle set into the middle and not the end of the sole. This gives the impression that the wearing is walking on tiptoes (I know this because I’ve been parading up and down in front of my shoe mirror while wearing them.). The whole effect is quite cyber geisha, or it would be if I weren’t wearing flared jeans, a stripy cheesecloth shirt and a pale lilac and green tweedy cardie (hand knitted by the MC Grandma of the WI posse’s little OAP sweatshop)

You may be wondering why I’m talking about shoes. It’s a metaphor, or at least it will be in a moment. You see when it comes to shoes I believe that they should be the stuff of fairy tales and not morality plays. Cinderella did not go to the ball in Polyvelts, Dorothy didn’t trip down the yellow brick road in a pair of Doc Martens and Posy Simmons could never have become a prima ballerina in a pair of flip flops. But the beauty of my shoes does not alter the fact that, there are some things that they just aren’t designed to do. Anything that involves putting one foot in front of another should be avoided for starters.

So it goes without saying that slippery slopes aren’t a good idea either (Watch out, here comes the metaphor). Dancing blithely down the primrose path to eternal damnation? No problem. Slippery slopes? Forget it. These boots weren’t made for walking on anything other than on someone’s back.

It’s this avoidance of slippery slopes which means that the one thing I never do is “help” F with his work. I’m in a minority on this one. When confronted by a musician, people who wouldn’t dream of offering advice to a member of any other profession, be it artistic or otherwise, will blithely and on no more authority than the fact that they have ears suddenly think that they’re Mutt Lange and start making “suggestions”.

This is dangerous for 2 reasons. Firstly, any artist asking you what you think of the thing that they’re working on is a question as loaded as a Gestapos Luger. Like the infamous “does my bum look big in this?” there is no right answer. However, and as note to any girls who may be reading this – bitter experience has taught me that if you have to ask “does my bum look big in this?” then the answer’s an unequivocal yes.

Secondly, those that preach that everyones opinion is valid speak out of their ass. It’s not. Your opinion is only as valid as the amount you know about a subject. It stands to reason therefore that if you know jack shit about a subject, then your opinion is worth jack shit. The only exception to this rule is fucking awful modern art when three black lines and a used tampax are supposed to represent the mystical cycle of womanhood (or an orange, or the city or any other word chosen at random by the perpetrator of the crime). In that case the art is worth jack shit and you are quite entitled to say so.

Now despite the fact that on a good day I’m an egocentric, opinionated, arrogant, stubborn bitch (and that’s just what my immediate family call me. Don’t worry, they meant it as a compliment), I’m a great believer in Karma. Not in the sense as one particularly moronic lead singer once told me – after sniffing up the entire GNP of a medium sized South American country - that if you give to Mother Earth, then she will give to you. In his case, Mother Earth (in the unlikely manifestation of the short arsed Alice Cooper look alike that was managing the band – and several high class escort girls –at the time) had given him the GNP of a medium sized South American country to shove up his rather unpatrician nose. Posterity waits with bated breath to see what he will give to her. I met his wife and it sure as hell won’t be brilliant progeny. No. The Karma I know is the one that has really sharp teeth and a propensity to bite you in the butt. So, if you write such things as:

“…if you are trying decapitate a member of your band then its probably best to do so with a silver guitar…lead singers don’t mind physical violence too much so long as it’s with something that glitters, they’re a bit like magpies in that respect and tend to be mesmerised by anything that sparkles”

Or

“the exquisite delight of stripping a lead singers carefully constructed ego down to bare id may be a more subtle joy than merely socking him one but is infinitely more pleasurable”

Or even

“…The lead singer (having that killer combination of insecurity and egoism without which he wouldn’t be a lead singer) hates the guitarists girlfriend because she’s taken his new best friend away from him and is convinced that the reason she’s stopped them going out on the piss together is because she knows either of the plot to put the singers girlfriend in the band, or for the singer to go solo (she does - she learnt it from the bass players girlfriend whom the singers girlfriend confided in after a drunken argument with the singer, although the reason she’s stopped the benders is that after paying for all the bloody uninsured guitars they’re skint), is staring at the guitarist and not the singer during the shows (and what’s more is bringing her friends to the shows to stare at him too) - or, she’s better looking than the singers girlfriend and isn’t falling at his feet (which his ego can’t deal with), has a sneaking suspicion that she’s laughing at his lyrics (she is) and has already worked out that there’s a plot afoot which will ensure that the singer gets all the publishing royalties (she did).”

Then it’s a sure fire bet that somewhere the big K is getting out the dental floss. If you then go on to write things such as…

“when it comes to rock woman don’t have balls. … I’ll allow that a few of the fairer sex have made an OK-ish stab at it for a single or two but usually once they stopped shagging the lead singer/chief writer of another group their creative juices very quickly dry up.”

…then just paint a target on your bum and hang it out the window. It’s better to get it over with quickly.

I’m sure you can see where this is going can’t you? Not difficult. I don’t help F with his work, in the past I’ve been wildly uncomplimentary to lead singers and I believe that Karma always gets you in the end. (It’ll be a full moon over Edinburgh this evening then.)

In fact forget the teeth. Just give me the gun and I’ll shoot myself. Because about 6 months ago F was recording. Nothing unusual about that. Playing things, recording things, remixing things and generally making noise of some description is after all his job. What was slightly unusual about this particular recording was the fact that it was with two members of one of his ex bands. Not the most fucked up band he’d ever played with – just the most fucked up band he played with in England. It spent 3 years in London as the band most likely to…and then imploded over a broken mirror, a Spanish tour and a creative paranoia of the sort that usually gives the people concerned a beautifully upholstered room of their very own.

As is usual when F records, he needs all of the bloody computers in the house: Macs. PC’s, digital watches, anything with screens and buttons really. He’s the only person I know that can not only get Apples and PCs to talk to each other but actually get on and so I was mooching around, as I do when I can’t plug my brain into the mainframe, trying and failing to kill time.

“Come here” said F, like the spider to the fly. (NB – I can’t write F’s accent so you’re just going to have to imagine it. Not only is he French but he learnt English in LA Think of the sort of voice that a really expensive bar of dark chocolate would have and now imagine it carrying a surfboard)

“Why” said I

“Because I need a voice and you’re the only one who can do it.” Saith he.

Note that he didn’t mention that I was the only one in the house other than the real Hendrix Cat at the time. While the real Hendrix Cat has an amazing vocal range, it is somewhat limited when it comes to lyrics. Put it this way – she could do Robert Plant but she’d get stuck covering any singer who gets past ow, eeow, meow, aaaaaaaeow and ick. She’s probably be great in an early Aerosmith tribute band (all those ikkkkkkkya eeeeeeeeow’s) if her tastes didn’t run more to Santana (and they do- she sits on the CD player when I put Oye Como Va on – sad but true. Sad because not only does a cat called Hendrix prefer Santana but she lives in a house where Santana is played)

“What do you want me to do” I asked extremely suspiciously - visions of pink cowboy hats and puppet shows dancing before my eyes.

At this point he went into a long and detailed explanation of why the problem with computer voices was that they didn’t have nuances and dynamics that changed with each time that they said something so that if they repeated a word it sounded exactly the same as the first time they said it…but I tend to switch off when he starts on this track.

Basically though it boiled down to the following request.

“All I need you to do is say a few words and then I’ll sync you with the computer voice and it will sound better”

“But I don’t want to be recorded” I said.

“I’m not going to use you” said F “Just combine you with the computer “

Leaving aside any suspicions I may have had that this is his plan for the perfect girlfriend, I was still less than convinced.

“That’s all? “ I said. “You won’t hear me?”

“Not at all” said F “It’ll take you 2 minutes”

It was about half an hour later that we discovered that I suffer from red light fever. This is where quite normal, sane and intelligent people become tongue tied, thick voiced idiots when confronted with a microphone.

“Get with the beat” says F trying (and failing) to stay patient.

“Sync me” said I, trying (and succeeding) to make it sound as insulting as possible.

“Sound sexy” said F, 2 hours later.

“Fuck you “I said

“You don’t have to move like Jagger while you’re doing it” he suggested a little later, soon after I’d knocked over several of the guitars…

“I need to feel the rhythm” I said taking off my sunglasses.

“Can we move the mirror” he asked an hour later “It’s not really convenient to have it propped on the keyboard while I’m playing?”

“I find gazing at the transience of my physicality enables me to tap into my creative centre” I said, casually inspecting a strand of tinsel I’d draped around my neck a la Jim Morrison.

“You only have to fucking count” he said. “Its not white rabbit”

“I don’t like the lyrics” I said handing him a piece of paper “I think mine get the feeling across so much better”

F took them, looked at them, scrumpled them up and threw them on the floor. “I’m not working with another fucking singer who’s obsessed with rats, butterflies and vampire kisses” he said “Just do it”.

“It’s a wrap” he whispered hollowly some hours after that. “And I’m never working with you again. Get out”

“It my computer” I said. But at that point I knew I’d lost the fight. Nominally the PC’s mine and the Apple belong to F. However he’s added so much stuff to the PC that the sodding thing now needs to be strapped to the floor to make sure it doesn’t take off. In any case, after the red wine over the Apple incident and then again after the red wine over the Apple replaced by the insurance company incident I did tell him that I’d swap computers and I’d have the one with the waterlogged pink screen (back to childhood programming – you bend it, you mend it)

“Get out” said F

I went and stood not upon the order of my going. F wrote and recorded the rest of the song. He sent the song to London. The bastards discarded the track that used the computer and went with my voice. The album got a deal. The song became a single. So here you go. Available from all good record shops, or online at Amazon, Rough Trade or Pure Groove. It’s also available from itunes but I can’t figure out how to work that so you’ll have to do it yourself. I will warn you now that you’ll either love it or hate it but either way it’s extremely catchy and will drive you round the bend.

Hoisted on my own petard. Guest appearance on a redneck disco ditty. That’ll teach me to be mean about bloody musicians

RIP Ernie Ball - creator of Slinky Strings. Without you my life would probably have taken an entirely different course.

Apparently, according to Jboy (onebads) last e-mail if I didn’t post a new blog by midnight last night he was going to turn me into a pumpkin. Again. He has a disconcerting habit of carrying out his threats and the experience of being a pumpkin is not one that I’m eager to repeat (being a pumpkin is not so bad - its when some interfering fairy godmother turns you into a coach that it gets uncomfortable) but as you can see this blog is not being posted before the deadline.

Before Jboy zaps me with his pumpkin spell I’d just like to proffer my excuses. You see I did take his warning seriously and so at about 4pm yesterday afternoon I stopped conversing with Stinky and The Wizard (two nice people from a flash forum who, in words of one syllable, have been selflessly explaining to me the finer points of action script) opened up Lotus, popped on Led Zeppelin and began to blog

I was just getting into my stride and they were just looking for the bridge when out of nowhere came a terrible noise. It sounded like the cheesiest of cheesy synthesisers. Straight away I leapt to the most obvious conclusion.

“F” I shouted through to the kitchen where he was trying to convince the Apple that it liked running Logic.

“In a minute, I’m just…” came back the reply

“No, this isn’t about the dishes” I shouted back

“What then?… I’m busy”

“Will you turn the fucking volume down”

“It’s not me” came back the reply ” I thought you were listening to Jethro Tull’s eighties album again”

“Well I thought you were mixing something for AD” I retorted angrily. It was a cheap point. AD (who I would provide a link to had they not, in an attempt to lower file size, exported their songs at 16 instead 80 bit with the result that it sounds like they’re being played through a sock) are (god it hurts to say this - I’ll type it quick so that I can’t read it) are actually really good and are being ironic when they use the cheesy synths while the only excuse JT had was Ian Anderson had spent some of his royalties on a recording studio (Lesson 1. never but never allow the singer to have his own recording studio - don’t even give him a tape recorder. Lead singers have the same fascination with recording their musical ideas that Mr Toad had with motorcars and the results are usually far worse than a car wreck)

I lowered the volume, cutting off the Zeps search just at the point when they’d been through the darkest depths of mordor, found the dork on Satan’s daughter (or is it doorway? - no a doorway on Satan’s daughter wouldn’t make sense) received a letter from their mother across the border and were (with the aid of a meletron, bow and valkeries armed with custard pies) just about to stumble across the bridge once more. God they don’t make albums like that nowadays - you can’t get the drugs.

The noise was still there. In fact, owing to the fact that I was now sans Led Zep - it was louder. It was also def. not a synth. It was far far worse than that. It was a sax. Now I like the saxophone. Next to guitar the sax is possibly one of the most sexy sounding instruments there is. At the risk of sounding pedestrian I’ll even admit to liking the sax solo in Baker Street. But there’s one sax song I hate. It’s that especially annoying one. You know the one that sounds like its the title track for a bad eighties show where the guy (who wears loafers with no socks) looks like he’s a Chippendale, is really a DJ doing the midnight slot and works as a Bounty hunter during the day and moonlights as a PI. You know the one I mean? No not the show, the song. No? Oh you do. It goes toodee toodoo pause toodee toodo pause toodee todo pause warble warble repeat to coda. You still don’t remember it? You lucky fuckers. I’ll probably never forget it now. Toodee toodoo pause toodee toodo pause toodee todo pause warble warble repeat to coda don’t forget the reverb.

I looked out of the window. Not a saxophonist in sight. But the noise went on. Toodee toodoo…etcetera…etcetera…etcetera. It was definitely coming from outside. Then I spotted it. Not the saxophonist. The neighbours. They had balloons. Purple ones. They’d tied them to the washing line. It looked pathetic. I’m not just saying that because I’m a miserable fucker with no life. (although I am) I appreciate balloons as much as the next person and if the next person’s Jgirl then I appreciate them more, (Jgirl having a deep seated psychological terror regarding a balloons propensity to go bang when you stick a pin in it apiece of knowledge that, once she’d shared it with us meant that forever afterwards we made a point of buying balloons and sticking pins in them next to her for the simple pleasure of seeing her launch ten foot into the air from a sitting position) No, these particular balloons looked pathetic because whoever’d blown them up hadn’t done it properly and they sort of hung there and flapped in a vaguely obscene way. But though they were an affront to any aesthetic sensibility they definitely weren’t making the cheesy saxophone sounds. That was coming from a cheap stereo buried somewhere inside the depths of the downstairs flat and obviously turned up to the max. You could tell it was cheap stereo as the only thing you could hear was the mid. It went on and on…Toodee toodoo pause toodee toodo pause toodee todo pause warble warble repeat to coda.

Now most people who have neighbours who play their music too loud are - well they’re probably living next door to us - but if they aren’t then what they probably do is close their window. But I can’t do that. Not that there’s anything wrong with the window. It opens and closes perfectly. But, just as Jgirl has psychological aversion to balloons and Jboy can’t drive at less than 90 mph and herebe can’t use words of less than five syllables or F can’t use the washing machine, I can’t close windows. It’s a long and sad tale to do with having fresh air in the house and like most things I blame it on my mother but there you go.

It was dilemma. I could speedily evolve into the sort of person that is capable of closing a window which was unlikely given that even the fastest evolution takes a few generations, or I could ask them to turn the music down which would make me a party pooper of the worse kind (and force me to actually speak to my neighbours - which apart from the answering good morning/afternoon when I meet them on the stair - is also something I don’t do) or I could grit my teeth and put up with it. Again the last option was not viable, although I have dental insurance I doubted whether it would cover the damage caused by gnashing molars to the tune of Toodee toodoo.

What I needed was something to mask the sound. A frequency guaranteed to cover up the piercing tones of a saxophone. So began my search. Through the very depths of my CD collection into Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. I was a Ghost in the Machine journeying through Solid Air to the edges of the Blue Nile by the light of a Pink Moon. I touched on Jane’s Addiction and blacked out in the red room of a Sonic Temple a Little South of Sanity. In Manic Nirvana I sat Waiting For The Sun in Fields of Gold and Shook the Tree leaving Blood on the Tracks. Blow by Blow until I was Black and Blue I searched. I thought things were Hunky Dory and that I’d found the Real Thing with the Kohn concert but it was just a Placebo and Living With the Law didn’t work for an Infidel like me. There was a Communiqué Cool from the Wire but it was from Raingods with Zippo’s and it all turned out to be Rumours. A Flex-able White Rabbit watching a Passion Play In A Gadda Da Vida suggested I Use My Illusions but I was a Dummy venturing into the Superunknown and I didn’t have the Knack. And all the while the ungodly sound continued… Toodee toodoo pause toodee toodo pause toodee todo pause warble warble repeat to coda. It cut through everything I tried.

Until at last, buried somewhere in the bottom of my CD lists I found it. Not loud. Not brash but the only thing that could possibly stop the sound. Eagerly, nervously my fingers hovered over the mouse. Dare I play it? I knew Mum would disapprove. Not so much music as a lifestyle choice had been her critique. The last time I’d heard this I remembered putting the needle on the record but things had gone a bit hazy after that. On and on the saxophone played. Toodee toodoo pause toodee toodo pause toodee todo pause warble warble repeat to coda… Toodee toodoo pause toodee toodo pause toodee todo pause warble warble repeat to coda. Oh God I couldn’t take it any longer. Haze would be preferable to this.

I couldn’t stand in any longer. My fingers hit the mouse button. There was a brief silence as time rewound. And then it began, almost silent yet you could feel the weight of the notes hang in the air. Guitars, sweet as molasses, tasteful as an armani suit and as wholesome as a bowl of grits. That slow familiar mumble. Hypnotic as a cobra. “Thirteen Days on_______down South. We’ve got enough dope to keep us all high. We’ve got two girls dancing to pick up the crowd. Sound men to mix us, make us sound loud. Sometimes we make money, sometimes we don’t know. Thirteen days with life to go”

The sax faded into the distance as the backing singers took up their refrain. “Nah nah nah nana Nah nah nana. Thirteen days with life to go” For this amount of peace it’s worth becoming a pumpkin.

F has gone. Tappy lapping off to London town with a pocket full of railway tickets, and an acoustic, an electric, and a bag full of guitar pedals and strange complex music programmes slung over his shoulder. It was the usual last minute dash…train at 4pm and F still slinging stuff in his bag at 3.30pm while I stomped around the place saying such helpful things as “When I asked you last night if everything you needed was clean and packed and you said yes, I wasn’t referring to your pedals, I meant your clothes” and “how should I know where your glasses are, you haven’t worn them in three years which, by the way, is the same length of time you’ve had your contact lenses in - it might be time to change them as you’re only supposed to wear them for a month at a time”

Now this is not usual behaviour for me. Normally I am Super-girlfriend when it comes to getting F’s kit ready. He slings his gear into his bag and I cram in clean socks and undies around it. But this is different. He’s going to London and I am not happy about it. In fact I am extremely pissed about it. London is MH territory.

Now MH is not an ex-wife/girlfriend or anything so mundane. MH is far more dangerous. MH was a band. MH was probably the band. Lamacq called them an adrenal Suede - Jgirl and I called them a bunch of arrogant tossers who couldn’t find their instruments with both hands if there was a gaggle of supermodels in the room. Well actually we didn’t. We just called them a bunch of tossers. Usually behind their back but sometimes to their face - it all depended on how much we’d had to drink. But they were good. They were real dammed good. On stage that is. On stage they kicked ass. Usually each others. The number of nights that Jgirl and I have stood at the front and silently prayed “F please don’t hit J with the guitar it’s not insured and we can’t afford a new one” would probably add up to..well at least the number of gigs that they played and probably about 99% of their practices. When they weren’t beating each other up they were shooting themselves in the foot - I mean I’m not a musician but even I can hazard a guess that on being offered an album deal the thing to say “thank you pass me your pen” not “Fuck man, you’re brave - we hate each other so much we could split up at any moment”

Off stage, they were probably all really nice people but as a girlfriend I never got the chance to find out. We were in separate camps right from the start. That’s the way it is in bands. Even if they’ve never seen Spinal Tap all musicians view their band mates girlfriends as the enemy. Their own (should they have one - and they quite often don’t, as only a masochist would put up with the amount of self-absorption required to be a musician) they think is an angel fallen from heaven who is always right. About everything. No matter if they’re playing death metal and her favourite band is Take That she is the font of all musical knowledge. They have to think that because if they disagree with her they don’t get laid - and that, my friends is the reason why musicians pick up their instruments in the first place. The other band members girlfriend’s they see as a threat. Partly because they have all seen Spinal Tap and have a terrible feeling that one day they’ll have to get on stage dressed as their star signs but mostly because if there’s a girlfriend around they can’t practise the evil little head fucks they love so much. Boy, did they practice head fucks. Every single little emotional trick in the book. The only trouble is that woman are genetically so much better at them. We’ve had more practice. Subtly kneecapping someone’s self esteem? please…we learn that as soon as we go to school. Guilt tripping someone to get what you want? We pick that one up when we get our first flat and need someone to decorate it. Emotional blackmail - don’t even go there. It comes fitted as standard. Thing is, it didn’t matter how much they practised they still stunk at it. Forget the steel hand in the velvet glove - they were the concrete fist in the iron mitten.

So MH hated J girl and I, and Jgirl and I reciprocated. It wasn’t difficult. They hated me because they wanted F to live and breathe and be with them 24-7 and Jgirl and I hated them because we were bored. F didn’t take too much notice either way- he had a guitar, an amp an ebo, a zoom and a slide…he was busy experimenting about how little like a guitar he could make a guitar sound.

It’s a strange thing but of all the bands F has been in and of all the deals he’s had, the band he misses most is MH. Maybe it’s because it was the one band he didn’t get signed to a major. It broke his track record. Maybe it’s because they were fucking good, or maybe it’s simply as a friend of Jgirls once said when I was trying to explain the weird evil chemistry they had which made them so good “that’s not rock and roll - that’s dysfunction..” I always thought that was the same thing but there you go.

This new recording is with 2 ex members of MH and with F down there that makes three. Althoughit pains me to admit it - it is a good band. Loads of interest too, and I wish them well (not exactly from the most altruistic of reasons I admit, as F has written, played and produced some of their stuff) He’s been working with them on and off via virtual reality for a while. It was bad enough when they lived in the computer - at least I could shut them off but now he’s actually meeting up with them in real time I foresee it all starting over and I’m too old and too tired for all that girlfriend V band shit.

On the other hand there’s nothing much to do once the nights draw in and I’ve been looking for a hobby…