Ping!

Still here good people, just been quiet, working out how life works now, and you know what? I think I might just have the hang of it. Sick, but no no sicker, and considering what I've got, that's as good as it gets, so that's good enough for me.

I will be writing more again now, both here and on Twitter, just needed a break from the whole blogging thing to get away from the idea of writing about being sick and well, it's such an integral part of my life now I don't really feel the urge to bang on about it.

Anyways, fuck all this, hope y're all good out there, and I'm actually going to catch up on all yr writing (you know who you are) and, I should imagine, roundly take the piss with the comments. In the meantime, I'm going to listen to Tony Oxley's Four Compositions For Sextet (which is a hell of a lot less dry and academic than it sounds) and Andrew Hill's un-fucking-touchable Compulsion!!!!!*. Oh yeah, it's a free jazz Monday, no doubt 'bout that.

And, this is important, if you like sludge, old AmRep or just good old-fashioned low end filth, go and buy a copy of the new Palehorse album, Harm Starts Here (Candlelight) immediately, it's exceedingly toothsome and your ears will thank you.

*Yep, it really does have five exclamation marks in the title. It was the 60s.

Buenas Tardes

Sorry for not blogging. I'm actually doing pretty damn good, physically and emotionally, at the mo', just haven't really been able to finish anything I've written yet. Which is why I haven't been here in a while. But there will be ranting, and soon. Fucking loads of it. Anyway, see you all soon.

Todavía Aquí

Small(ish) post to preface a soon to arrive big post. Yes, I'm really fucking sick, but between my innate refusal to give in to shit and the drugs & chemo*, I actually feel pretty damn good. No nausea, no tiredness, and not nearly as much existential brain-wringing as you might expect. But, this shit fucking situation means one thing, that, aside from getting on with life, I'm not going to be working for a living, which means one thing, that for the first time in my life I can throw myself into music without the distraction of a physically and intellectually taxing job. If I'm not playing, I'm thinking, imagining, moulding sound in my head all the time, and given that I could barely lift a guitar a couple or so weeks ago, that ain't fucking bad. So yeah, I'm ill, very ill, but I'm also me, a stubborn, bloody-minded motherfucker who will not lie down and take it. I can't not fight, and I will not let this beat me down psychologically, and music is intrinsic to that fight. So this year is going to be loud, hard but really fucking loud. Stay tuned.

*yes, I have cancer, and a nasty fucker of one at that, and that's as far as I want to discuss it, publicly anyway, email me if you like, in fact do, please**, but I am not going to let this blog turn into an illness diary. Sometimes I'll be be good, as at the mo' and at others I won't be so good, and you'll know by the tone of the ranting which one it is...

**DrWommm (at) outlook dot com or my normal addy if you already have it.

Desafío

On a positive note though, and one that'll ring out pretty fucking loudly when I'm better, is that I've finally found a rhythm section that should be, in the immortal words of Donald 'Duck' Dunn, "strong enough to turn goat's piss into gasoline". Dunno what this group's going to be called yet, but I do know what it'll sound like. Fucking nasty and deeply psychedelic. So that's just one thing of many I've got to look forward to. It might take a little while to get there, seeing as I can barely lift some of my guitars when I'm feeling really shitty, but I'm too fucking stubborn to let illness grind me down. So, whatever it fucking takes, sometime in the near future I will be better, and I will be able to make a fucking beautiful racket, and I'll have my fucking life back.