Sunshine and Despair

Internal Shifts, Moving Between Worlds

I’ve been in LA for over a week, just being here, trying to bring some order to the chaos of a household in crisis. Part of which involves my beloved friend grieving a future that will be un-lived. The weather is perfection, while the news flashes footage of intense ice and wind storms elsewhere, and I assume my UK home is as gray and drizzled as it was when I left. It’s a distressing contrast, to quote my own lyric in my own song:

Sunshine and despair, what a cruel pair.

While my beloved sleeps long stretches of escape dreams where sickness and death aren’t seeping into every thought, I crave order and the power to create it. There isn’t a drawer, cabinet, shelf, fridge, or cluttered surface that’s been spared my need to make order. My eyes land on tiny splats, smudge on a light switch, grime on a stairs rail, dust in a corner, and I pounce on the opportunity to clean, to make better. I have no power to fix what I really want to fix or to reorganize what never should have happened, so this is what I do.

Rick Buckler, the drummer from the Jam died. 69 years old. I see over and over again and again people within a few short years of my own age get whacked by the grim reaper. And I feel a shift, one of those monumental interior shifts that feels permanent: I will never, ever moan about growing old again. I will welcome every inch of crepe, all the decay and the gray, the sags and bags. Even the cholesterol and joint pains and hearing loss. If I’m alive, living the blessing of a long life, all of these things will be my greatest wealth and luxury.

Caveat: as long as the mind is alert and intact and coherent. Forget I said any of that if the mind is gone.

While the sun shined into unusually clear air outside, we lay in his dark room on the bed watching all three Godfathers. Last time I did that, all of them consecutive, was on a coke binge in 1982. With a very cool musician in a famous band who is also now sober and whom I happened to hear from recently, after decades. Funny old world.

Lately it is like living in two—not so funny—worlds, isn’t it? There’s your day to day existence, the usual stuff that happens—brush teeth, decide what to eat, take care of life’s nuisances, repairs, finding a misplaced something. Catch up with an old friend, get some work done. Etc. Those things happen in our little bubble worlds.

Then there’s the big world that the little bubble world is floating in. The problem is the bubble is clear. You can’t help but see that absolutely horrible and dangerous things are happening in the big world. Not only is the bubble is clear, it’s really flimsy too. Bubbles pop, they disappear. This is what it’s like.

Our sheltered American lives that haven’t had to experience what happens in so many other countries—things that entire populations endure: invasions and war, daily terrorism, corrupt and kleptocratic regimes, lack of resources—we don’t know how to handle anything hard. Look at Covid. Look at gun violence. Countrywide tragedies, instead of bringing people together, devolves the USA into further schisms apart, rampant paranoia and misinformation.

This shock and awe rapid dismantling of the order of things is ruining countless lives. It wasn’t a perfect order, it needed loads of improving—but to be completely blown up? And now, the unthinkable, unimaginable idea of the US and Russia becoming allies against Europe and NATO is in motion, happening in real time and is terrifying.

This is one of those black and white, clear and obvious right and wrong instances. Vladmir Putin is a bad guy. I’m under no illusions that the USA were the good guys, but Putin murders dissenters, objectors and rivals, has complete control of a propagandized media, holds farcical “elections” to stay in power and wants to be the reigning world power with the West under his thumb at best and eradicated at worse. He has been transparent and open about his goals.

This will not end well, not for us who are worried, and not for the people who are embracing it.

Okay enough about sickness, death and unholy alliances between supervillains. Let’s talk about music.

On Valentine’s day, I released a single, “I Love You More.” Check it out!

It’s a partnership with my new friend, Neal X, so we called it KVNX. We met on the Glen Matlock tour and hit it off—as I did with all the gang from that wonderful two weeks in a van. Before that November tour started, I watched him play at Glen’s rehearsal, waiting for my turn to show them a couple of my songs. The first thing I said to Neal was “you’re my kind of guitar player.” He really is.

I am very specific about the guitar players I love. I don’t care about Olympian feats of dexterity and speed. Many acclaimed virtuosos do nothing for me. Style, taste, originality, elevating a song, playing hooks, and TONE tone tone are the keys that open my heart. Neal is phenomenal, and as a co-player, generous and supportive. He became known in England in the early 80’s band Sigue Sigue Sputnik. They had a few hit singles in the UK, and became instant media sensations due to a hyper-visual, action comic image, support from well known punk luminaries, high profile gigs, and before-their-time attention grabbing marketing techniques and juicy soundbites. If social media had been around, they might have been world famous.

For the last 30 odd years Neal has played guitar with Marc Almond of Soft Cell, as well as having his own bands and music. I think we will be regular collaborators.

This is my second “duet” style singing back and forth track I’ve done with a guy and I also hope to do more. Maybe collect a whole album’s worth and call it “One of the Guys.” (Here’s my 2021 track with Rhett Miller, ICYMI.)

Totally psyched for new band Psycher after getting together to rehearse for a couple of days and then head into a top notch studio for self financed recordings of four songs. One song was a last minute add on—I’d made a rough demo and sent to everyone, we gave it a go and decided we had to do it alongside the three tracks we’d chosen. We spent way more than we’d budgeted. We had the best time.

As much I loved being in the Bluebonnets and still will enjoy when it works out, this band gives me a chance to grow. I’ll be featured more as a lead singer and more as a lead guitarist. When you’re in a band with a singer and guitarist as talented as Dominique and Eve are, it becomes habitual to step back and let them shine. In general, most of my career band life has been about being the stable workhorse in the background, taking care of biz, arranging, writing, maybe stepping up for brief moments of spotlight.

I was always fine with that role, but another internal monumental shift has occurred, one in which I’m ready to be out front more often. It started with my book and soundtrack. A few years later, with the move to England—choosing door number 'uncertainty and possibility’ led to my first solo outing in November. A revelation. Being just me and a guitar with no band worked out fine—even though being in a band is way more fun.

No one other than myself has held me back. I can’t say it was lack of confidence; more like fear of being criticized or being less than perfect. It’s safer to be an unsung hero. But here is 66, and the direction of motion is expanding, with the same drive and passion I had at 16. I recognize it. Operating on instinct and what feels right is a good part of the comfort zone, happy to stick with that part. The rest is out the door.

The 4 songs Psycher recorded are phenomenal. I’m beyond excited for this music to be out in the world and for this band to play live.

In LA, for one afternoon there was a partial Go-Go’s rehearsal, to run our set for the festivals and make sure it adhered to the strict length limit. I’m getting a bass built to my specs from Fender, the first time this has happened in my 40+ years of playing their instruments. Wait til you see it! So much sparkle.

I have a run of shows opening solo again for Glen Matlock, the 100 Club in London, Colchester Arts Center and Ramsgate Music Hall, which is sold out. I’m interested in how it will feel to do it with more confidence in my abilities to entertain like that.

I began this dispatch in sunny LA, now I’m sitting by the fire, contemplating a walk in the cold grey of England. I’m not sure if I’m becoming adept at moving between worlds so abruptly. Things are changing so drastically and often in the big world, maybe it makes sense to echo that in life. St Albans has become nearly unbearably lonely and I can’t wait to move into a new place in London in late Spring. I think about my unwritten book all the time. I think about my beloved who is on a short timetable all the time. I dream and imagine musical happenings because it is both new and familiar. It’s a little bubble of respite that can maybe be airborne for awhile, keep me afloat.

How are you holding up? I do enjoy reading your comments.

Thank you subscribers and followers…as always, your time, interest and attention is such a gift to me.