I park above the band's rehearsal space, feeling unusually fantastic. Generally by the time I pull up outside the dank, cramped room beneath Euston Road I am ready to pass out after a(nother) restless night, a full day teaching, and the emancipatory drive from the burbs to the centre of London. Last time the band met to practise, I fell asleep in the car for 45 minutes the second I’d turned off the engine. Tonight, though, I am buoyed by the week’s work – I have been preparing for tonight’s session and the upcoming album launch gig that we have in two weeks’ time, with renewed enthusiasm. I brought extra bags, even after consolidating. I cheerfully make two heavily-laden trips down the stairs to the stinky, humid chamber, a spring in my step. It’s been a marvellous week so far, and I’m encouraged by the fact it’s Thursday so there’s precious little time left for the positive trend to alter significantly before the weekend. As I left the house almost an hour earlier, it seemed that the baby might be about to demonstrate her commitment to a new vomiting bug – her second in as many week – so I am glad to be underground for a few hours with no mobile phone reception; not that I don’t want to be able to help, and to mop up a good deal more vom today, but to rehearse with no distractions like this is a luxury I loathe to contrive, so separation being forced on me is welcome. I put my phone on Airplane (Apple means “aeroplane”) Mode, so that I cannot receive a distressed SMS about our ailing child and then have to face the mutual frustration and anguish of not being able to reply to a message that my wife has seen I've received.
I take half an hour to set up – there’s a lot to plug in, especially for a luddite tub thumper who has so doggedly and deliberately pursued a career playing a gloriously cumbersome but feedback-free and bug-averse acoustic instrument. But I am chatty and excited, although confused by the passive DI box not also directly outputting (kind of the only reason I brought it with me) the sounds of my trigger pads. I am also enlivened by my new noise-cancelling headphones. My previous set of cans, that I have used for three-and-half years, always made me hot, sticky, and generally feel pretty oppressed. They squeezed my head, pushing my glasses painfully against my ears and skull, and giving me headaches. I really have no idea why I sought no alternatives in the whole time I had them before they broke. The new set – Metrophones Studio Kans – feel like someone is cuddling my head and playing sweet music (albeit an abrasive cowbell click track) into my caressed, contented ears. They more generously accommodate my shell-likes, and have gel padding that works beautifully to preclude the need for the vice-like pressure of the old phones. I am completely ready to play darkly assertive electro swing pop noir.
The rehearsal is probably our best to date. I drum well, and the effect is clear on the others, who are all grins. At the last rehearsal I managed to fuck up a song we’d played thirty times in succession for a video recording two days before, and the bassist rightly got pretty annoyed. Tonight, though, I am on a roll – musical, dynamic, effortlessly in time with the click, and loving the process. In the zone! Hugh thinks this is all on account of the new headphones, which I let him try on because I am evangelising about them. A few cool things have happened this week, though.
On Tuesday I wrote the proposal for a research project that’s been brewing for a year, and then turned the proposal into a blog article that I submitted to a colleague’s semi-cool website about music and academia. I finished another blog post, about ups and downs of life in London. I finished the review of the Mr Big gig from the previous Friday at Koko, and sent that to the editor of the drum magazine who commissioned it. I conducted a handful of interviews for a book chapter I’m writing. On Wednesday I sorted out the complications around maybe popping to Malaysia in the middle of the panto run at Christmas and meeting simultaneous contractual obligations in two other cities. I obtained consent from the band members and producer on the panto to conduct some ethnographic research during the production. I finished a bunch of admin for the Moodle at my college, and planned a day's teaching. I went running. I worked out. I put new laces in my shoes. I did the washing up, two piles of laundry, and took the week’s mugs and wine glasses out of my office. I caught up with correspondence for a book I’m co-editing with a colleague. I received (and promptly tweeted about) the news that another book I’ve been planning for ten months was accepted by the publisher. I finally got around to testing, trouble-shooting and re-booting the live setup I use with Sweet Tooth. I bought new cables, DI boxes, and a mixer. I tested, recorded, emailed and discussed different drum and sample sounds vaguely imitating Native American Indian instruments. I bought a djembe stand. I purchased ear defenders for my daughter, an analogue synth, and a ticket to the London Drum Show.
Today was positive too – I taught research seminars half the day, and was on top of my admin by mid-afternoon. I got a “very good” (one down from “outstanding”) overall in my annual performance appraisal, which is decent enough since I am probably misconstrued in my place of work and trying desperately to leave there anyway. All this, plus the bottle of 2012 Pillastro I opened last night to help calm me down was especially robust and fruity. Can it only be downhill from here?