Shit Shit Shit

This week I have 2 gigs.

I haven’t gigged since sometime last summer.

Last week, about Thursday I realised I was scared.

I ran through a few tunes and came to the terrible realisation that I couldn’t sing, my guitar playing was shit and all my songs were dull and derivative.

This is a bit of a drawback for someone who is aiming to make music their profession.

I wandered around the house wondering how I was going to break this to my lovely wife, the wife that has supported me, built me a website, created the artwork for my last album and believe in me.

I decided I’d leave it for a while and join her on the sofa and watch TV for a bit, Jonathan Ross was on.

I quite like Mr Ross, I also like his taste in music, normally.
This week he had a band called Vampire Weekend to finish of the show.
I sat watching, listening. They were dreadful. Now I’m not one of these middle age men that moan on about “music today blah blah blah” (or maybe I am!). But they were dreadful.

I then turned over to watch Jools on BBC2. Yes, I know you can guess so I won’t go into detail but …. Fratellis = Stereophonics with a great drummer despite the grey tee-shirt, Alison Kraus and Robert Plant – Plant is a god therefore nothing can taint him, Spiritualized-out of tune, Chris Gifford-just embarrassing, Emmylou Harris-ZZzzzz.

I then started to feel better.

There is a mindset (yes I hate that phrase too) amongst us creative types, that we are shit and should go and work down a mine and stop thinking that we can do anything that people will find entertaining.

I get it, I think the simple term for it is self doubt, but I think I’m a creative person so fuck off!

On Sunday we finally got round to watching “Tony & Joan”, the drama doc about Tony Hancock.
There are scenes with him (Tony) having great bouts of self doubt “You’re shit, shit, shit” he says to himself in the mirror.

The penny dropped, rolled around then flew up and smacked me in the face.

Later on Sunday I burned some tunes (from iTunes) on to a cd so that I could do the thing that I love best, sing in the car. I chose all the tunes that I love and know well. So this week I have been singing at the top of my voice on my way home and now feel that I am ready both mentally AND physically for this week.
I just hope that next time, next time…….


See? Look a happy ending!