i walked over to MX with Team Brick. He told me about his new instrument- a metal CD rack that he has bent all about to get it into tune. He’s going to play tomorrow at MX at 7pm. as we walked along Brick embraced various people we came across. he seemed to know all of them. one of them, Ben, looked like he had come through the time tunnel to this century. i mentioned this to Team and he said that their friends thought he’d come from the ’90s; Team likes that decade.
when i arrived the Aliens were on. i don’t enjoy bass being so bassey that it makes the page i’m writing on vibrate. to me it is an invasion of personal space. i could’ve left but then i would have had to move and besides a fraction of me (probably the piece that was resonating most violently) was curious to see whether the bass could make me throw up.
as i stood with my notebook in hand pondering such questions the man who i had stood next to struck up a converation, asking what i was writing. i’m afraid i gave him the wrong impression and for a while he thought i was a member of the Venn team, one of the big players, a mover and shaker. he writes for lots of music magazines i’ve not heard of ( god, most of the bands are new to me) . but i relaly liked talking to this guy, John Fletcher and his friend/photographer Stuart Green. Both were very friendly and even offered me a drink when they went to the bar. i thought that beautiful behaviour. they are from manchester and when i realised this i was reminded of something two friends of mine had said when i visited them in Liverpool last week. ‘Mancurians are a melancholy breed. they are poetic and tragic.’ for some reason this correlates with gentleness in my mind. and these two men had a gentleness about them.
having said that John seemed to be balancing on a cheesewire of tense excitement that might raise him to epiphanic ectasies or drive him to rampages born of horror and disappointment. he spoke of Ariel Pink and Kode 9 with an enthusiasm that electrified his body. i think this must contribute to his wiry suppleness.
stuart is a bear-tall man. i think he would be good at protecting cubs and catching fish from wild running rivers while remaining a very approachable bear. when we parted company he said of John, ‘i’d drag him away if he hadn’t run off.’