Friday 23rd of March, 2001
Finish cover and send it over.
In the morning I had intended to go to the gym, but the 11:00 dealine tcks by and I fail to get there, deciding to when lunch had settled (4:00) instead.
Decide that I'll drop by Denmark Street before I go andtry to get the groovy little Danelectro amp (it looks like an especially tasteless retro radio - all pastel colours and faux-chrome). As I am hanging about Denmark Street, I somehow convince myself that now is the time to get the Ovation shallow-bodied guitar, or at least the Applause version of it, New Standard Tuning for the use of, since I notice that they are a lot less expensive than I thought (and a lot less expensive than the proper grown-up Ovation versions).
I try the black one that's hanging toward the front, and it plays perfectly well, except for the bottom E string at the 13th fret, which buzzes quite badly. On the one hand it's hardly the most utilised fret on the guitar (particularly in NST, which results in some very odd intonation on the bottom string, apparantly), on the other it's still a fault, something that mars my enjoyment of the instrument. Perhaps I'm just overly squeamish. I also figure that since it's the grooviest looking one, everybody has had a go with it and it might not be the freshest chicken in the shop. As it were. Consequently I get a brown sunburst that has been hanging towards the back of the room. It actually feels and (I think) plays better, although all that will change when I get the new strings on it. I also get a strap and an NST set of strings, the guages for which I carry in my personal disorganiser (and luckily I notice that the batteries are about to run down - I'll change them when I get home).
On the one hand the last thing I need is another guitar. On the other, this will represent a commitment of some sort to GC, a restatement of my intention.
My living room is beginning to resemble a guitar shop. That also sells books. That has been done over by professional clutterers.
I put the new strings on the guitar and do an hour (at least) of the primaries - it's true, they really do fall into place on a shallow-body guitar (presumably no differently than on the unaffordably expensive ones). I do crosspicking until it stops feeling fluent - have found that, that something starts out stiff, then becomes fluent, then when I've done too much of it, becomes stiff again. Hopefully I can open a wider window of fluency.
I watch a bit of Flashdance on the TV - I am struck by the way the American music industry absorbs things in almost as entertaining a way as the Bollywood one - there is one song - Maniac, I forget who it's by - that has all the affectations of Rawk - particularly that straining, gravelly voice - but embedded in a solid mass of Giorgio Moroder techno beats. The signifiers of authenticity in 80s Rock - that mannered singing, the carefully controlled "wild" guitar solo - are so inauthentic, so over-dramatised that any sense of a genuine relation to music exists in the synthesizers. Perhaps I'll listen to more of this.