Submarine Port

Mornings before the others rise look like becoming my time for writing these entries. I tend to be up a bit earlier than the others. It’s because I’m getting old I think; who would have thought, when slumbering through my teenage years, that age would bring with it such problems with sleeping? Anyway, it’s Sunday morning now and I don’t have any official techie stuff to write so I’m just going to describe the day yesterday and talk about Firenze (and probably food) some more. I’m also, to amuse myself, going to lace this entry with song titles. See how many you can spot.

“Mi sento fortunato” is not a song title. It’s what is inscribed on the right hand button on Italian Google. “I’m feeling lucky” says perfectly the way I feel today; Sunday morning, and I should be so lucky as to be here, lucky to have worked my way to a position which offers such opportunities.

It feels like it’s going to be another hot Firenze day today, full of girls in their summer clothes and the sounds of the city blowing free on the summer breeze. At this latitude it’s more or less automatically sunshine I guess. I have kept the shutters closed against the sunshine and the windows closed against the buzz of bad motor scooters. The peal of the church bells can still be heard calling to the faithful. Something about the sound is foreign to an ear used to Canterbury Eights and Plain Bob Minors. It evokes for me that robust Latin Catholicism of saints carried at shoulder height in procession through the town, the streets strewn with flowers and nasal close harmony chanting. But there are no saints and no chants and no flowers (where have all the flowers gone?) I guess Tuscany is too cooly northern for such histrionics even if, to one grown watered by English drizzle, the undeniable and unforgettable fire is still evident. Summer in the city will always be several degrees more intense than summer nights in my little town.

So, yesterday was my day of rest. A day to take it easy. I had vague plans to go and sketch in the piazza, but, apart from an expedition to the shops for supplies of coffee and cold drinks, I ended up lurking inside in the shade all day. I read and I posted on Facebook (when the wifi would let me), I edited photos and I generally tried to keep cool and not get too hot. It did me good to take a day to just relax after the frenetic travelling (I’m not really a travelling man, unless it involves motorbiking).

We went shopping just after lunch, and Italian supermarkets are much like their English equivalents, though with more pasta. Actually, with the exception of one apologetic looking packet of curry sauce, there was only italian food to be had. With the aisle signs all in Italian, however, it would be pretty easy to get lost in the supermarket and it was a little tricky to find some of the items on the list: some household products, some cold drinks, something for dinner, and something sweet like chocolate. Chris N wondered if his Mid Counties Co-op card would be valid here and let us in the much shorter checkout queue for ‘members only’, but we decided rather to stick with the queue we were in as it inched forward one salami at a time.

Italy is definitely not a country to come to if you like things to be done in a hurry. The word ‘rush’ doesn’t seem to exist this far south. There are good reasons of climate for this and, it turns out, that time will actually wait for some men; when the sun is so hot that time itself takes a nap in the afternoon. I think the notion that everything has to be hurried is something that is bred in to our chilly northern blood. We need to keep on moving so as to avoid frostbite. Down here, however, there is always the sun and nothing else matters enough to break a sweat over. That thing you were so urgent about will still be there in an hour, or three. And, if it’s not, so what? Tomorrow is another day. I don’t know if there is an Italian equivalent for the Spanish concept of mañana, but, even without an actual word, it seems implicit in the lifestyle.

Meanwhile love is in the air. Tim and Emily got engaged last night! I found out when Tim changed his relationship status on Facebook. They came back to the apartment briefly yesterday before heading off for their night to remember. The power of love is a pretty awe inspiring thing, never more so than with young love. It’s easy to get cynical when the love train hasn’t stopped at your station in so long and a fool such as I can get crazy because, while I love to love, right at this moment in time I’m not in love. Still, while I am not so yet so cynical as to imagine myself in a world without love, or to think that I’ll never fall in love again, it’s nice to be reminded that, sometimes, all you need is love.

“In the room the women come and go, Talking of Michaelangelo.” ~T.S. Eliot

It had been decided that we would need to leave Oxford at 7am in order to make it to Stanstead in time to check in for our flight at 11.20 I duly set my alarm for 5am and while mostly I had everything ready, there were still one or two bits and pieces I would have to do in the morning. Of course, knowing that I faced such an early start, sleep eluded me entirely for most of the night and I’m not sure what time I drifted off – each time I looked at the clock it just seemed to be saying ’5AM. YOU HAVE TO BE UP AT 5AM!!!’ – though in the end I did sleep, and slept on peacefully right through the alarm. I finally opened one bleary eye to squint at the clock. It was now saying ‘YOU’RE OVER AN HOUR LATE! GET UP! GET UP!! GET UP NOW!!!’ 6.05 saw me trying to shave with one hand while pouring coffee down my neck, get dressed and feed the cat all at the same time. By 6.40 I was on the bike, my bulging case strapped somewhat precariously to the pillion, and fast filtering through the morning rush hour in to town whence I arrived only 5 minutes late.

My boss, naturally, was 10 minutes late.

The route to the airport is via some of the most murderously congested roads in the country, but today, mercifully, they were clear. We made the airport in good time, got checked in and were downing a leisurely Starbucks by just after nine.

The flight, naturally, was going to be over an hour late.

Ryan Air managed to mostly defy it’s less salubrious reputation and the flight was actually quite pleasant. There was only one screaming baby and it was far enough back that it sort of blended with the whine of the jet engines. I buried myself in my Kindle and managed to tune them both out. We made good time to Pisa and disembarked down open steps to a bus waiting on the heat shimmered tarmac. Somehow open stairs on a plane, rather than a sealed tube injecting you directly into the arrivals hall, makes me feel like I’m in the 1950s. The bus took a while to fill, then drove forward maybe 50 yards (sorry, 50 metres) before it stopped and we all got off again. If they had parked the plane just slightly to the right there would have been no need for the bus at all. Immigration, passport control, and customs were quick and painless to the point of near non existence. Sorting the hire car took slightly longer, but sort it we did and were soon launched into the Pisan rush hour.

We had decided that we needed to go and see the eponymous leaning tower. How can you go to Pisa and not see the leaning tower? To be fair it was quite something to see such an iconic building in the flesh. Rather than looking smaller in real life as most things ‘off the telly’ tend to, it was actually imposingly and impressively large. I took lots of photos, though the most interesting photos to be had were of all the tourists on the green lining themselves up for the obligatory ‘holding up the tower’ shot. I didn’t bother getting my own such shot; the tower can come crashing down for all I care it seems.

From Pisa we drove through the postcard perfect Tuscan countryside for Florence. Actually, in deference to my hosts, I’m going to call it Firenze from now on; which makes me think more of fire and Latin passion than of the little girl from The Magic Roundabout. The satnav took us most of the way around the ring road, but eventually, on a side street off a side street, we arrived at the apartment. Beautiful, cool, terracotta tiled floors, high ceilings, whitewashed walls, a little roof terrace outside my blissfully air conditioned room, and quite the flakiest wifi connection I’ve yet come across.

By the time everything was sorted and squared away it was nearly 9pm or, as it seems to be known in Firenze, almost dinnertime. Directly across from our apartment there happens to be a superb little pizzaria where we duly adjourned to eat. Dinner was a long and leisurely affair of pizza, gorgeous italian bread with olive oil for drizzling, ice cold beer and rich red wine. Actually the red wine was brought in error, but it was decided that rather than send it back we’d just order a bottle of white as well. I finished off my meal with my first cup of genuine Italian espresso; first of many I suspect.

After dinner we set off in to town in search of a gelateria to sample the legendary Italian ice cream. I wasn’t convinced that we’d find many ice cream shops open at 10.30, but i couldn’t have been more wrong: there seemed to be one on almost every corner. Firenze comes alive in the cool of the evening and the streets were thronged with people; people of all ages eating, strolling, or just lounging on the ornate marble steps in front of the cathedral.

It’s one thing to think about the words café culture in the abstract and to ascribe our unsocialized youth and their binge drinking to our lack of such, but it’s quite another to wander through streets where parking space is less important than space for tables and chairs, where every third door is a restaurant, and where the line between a bar and an icecream shop is so unimportant that it is dismissed with a shrug. I’m beginning to learn an important lesson about the Italian way of life I think. It’s that languid cultural shrug of the shoulders: a shrug which says so much more than the surly sub-vocal ‘I dunno’ of a British teenager. Its a shrug which says ‘Eh, why-a you worry about-a such-a things eh? The evening is-a warm, an-a the piazza is-a full of-a beautiful women. Come my friend. We drink-a the wine an-a toast the health of Il Pape in his palazzio in-a Rome, an-a give thanks that we are alive on-a such an evening.’

Barstock has been a unique experience as I knew it would be having sampled David and Patricia’s hospitality a couple of times before, but I have to say that a part of me is looking forward to certain home comforts and to returning to normality; well, as normal as I get anyway. I need my own bed again, I want to see mum, and Ben and Tammy, and Raggy the cat. Maybe even see something of Andrew and Ema now they are engaged. Back to our own little communal meals, all sitting at the table for sausage and mash with onion gravy, endless cups of tea. My big, firm, multi-pillowed, spacious, cat adorned, and comfortable bed; with especial joy in the fact that the ceiling is not two inches in front of my nose. I’m kind of looking forward to getting back to the land of non-smoking too. It hasn’t been a problem for me, though I was vaguely worried that it might be after heart attack survivor Anndra succumbed at Nicestock, but I have found myself looking at the packets of cigarettes lying around and thinking, hmmm yes, I used to punctuate my day with those things. I’m pleased with myself that I managed not to evangelize about Carr’s ‘give up smoking’ book, because I always said I’d hate to be one of ‘those’ ex-smokers, but now, from the other side of the addiction fence I kind of realize where that comes from.

So, au revoir mes amis anciens et nouveaux. J’espère que nous retrouverons bientôt.

Yesterday some of the guys decided to record their version of the Dave Brubeck classic Take Five. The line-up was drums, bass, piano, guitar, and sax. Now, understand that there have been various people practicing this song for several days. We’ve heard it on guitar, we’ve heard it on saxophone, we’ve heard it on accordion, we’ve heard Sharon humming it as she goes about the kitchen. Do-da do-da dooo-da, do-da do-da dooo-da ad infinitum, indeed ad nauseum… So you’d think recording it would be a simple matter of sortng out the signals and mics needed, hitting the red button and playing it through one more time. Well, six hours later and they’re still trying. DC is ready to kill and the saxophonist is in severe danger of having to play his instrument through an orifice for which it was never intended. The disc on the recorder,which can hold up to 12 hours of 24 track recording, has an hour’s worth of six track left; DC pushed the red button and left it pushed just in case. At the close of play last night all the rhythm and backing tracks were done, but the sax player had yet to do a single successful take and poor old Mr Brubeck was spinning rapidly in his grave in 5/4 time.

During the afternoon I went with Claudia down to the house where she and Fabien live in order to help John out with the meal he was preparing. The setting is equally lovely though different to up here on the mountainside. They are right down in the valley with the river running along the bottom of the garden, so what they lack in views they make up for in access to cool clear refreshing water. In fact they have a couple of stone benches actually in the water which is, I should imagine, just about the perfect place to sit and drink wine on a blazing hot day.

John had taken quite a leisurely approach to cooking for 30+ people and, in around 10 hours, had basically made a lamb curry and a lot of facebook updates. There followed several hours of frantic chefly activity during which we made four large leek and tomato gratins and the biggest pot of rice and peas I have ever seen. I have to say though that the ten hour curry justified every second; the subtly spiced meat was so tender that it literally melted in the mouth. The accompanying dishes complimented it perfectly and, after racing back up the hill with the hot food in the back of Claudia’s car, ten hours of preparation was consumed in as many minutes.

It’s our last full day today and the last official day of Barstock. We fly back to the UK tomorrow and, although I am looking forward to stretching out in my own, large, comfortable bed after a week of sleeping in a tiny canvas coffin which laughingly describes itself as a tent, I am going to miss my friends old and new when I return from this time out of time to the ‘real’ world.

Tonight we were joined by Auro and Ali from India and Turkey respectively (though they both currently stay in France, just a few miles up the road). Ali plays something called a nez-flute. Not, as its name might suggest, played with the nose, but a lovely, mellow sounding, traditional Turkish wind instrument. Auro plays the tabla and the sitar – not at the same time obviously. He sat on a rug on the floor and played an evening raga which was in danger of making me float off over the mountains.

How rare are the occasions when the musical highlights come one upon the other day after day after day? It was a privilage to listen to Ali and Auro tonight, as it has been to listen to and participate in everything which has gone on this week. I’m conscious that tomorrow is saturday and that we leave on monday. The week has gone so fast and has accelerated noticably as the days have progressed. I’ve been trying to capture the essense of the event here, but it is, of course, quite impossible to even come close. I know these moments will live in my memory as vividly as they do for the previous ‘stocks’.

Again last night the tables were sagging under the weight of food. First came the ante-pasti dishes which Claudia had made, then an amazing lamb chilli with warm french bread. There was so much food that it was difficult to do it all justice. Mind you, we had a bloody good go. Even the wasps were joining in; flying up through the umbrella hole in the table to wrestle with crumbs of pastry from the quiche which were, in some cases, bigger than the wasp itself.

After the meal there was a bit of a sing-
song during which I helped to re-imagine the Beatles by adding a bit of banjo, which did not please some of the purists. I also chipped in on other songs with some ukulele and eventually settled on congas. I avoided guitar because there were already so many talented players playing and my sore pinkie means that I can’t give of my best anyway.

I’ve been playing bass a bit today, which I can do in short-ish bursts. The song is one which Rob wrote last night after most people had gone to bed and is called Burn. Again I have to drop in a couple of bars of bass, but it should be fairly straight-forward to do. The other thing which happened later last night – told to me second hand because I had pussied out and gone to bed myself before mdnight – was that DC fell asleep in the control room (again), but was also talking in his sleep, issuing instructions to non-existent players in the live room over a mic which wasn’t even turned on. At one point, apparently, Lionel was singing a Pink Floyd number and Dave, in his sleep, joined in! Then he was asking for a cigarette from Sharon who he thought was in the live room. She was actually immediately behind him and when she nudged him to pass him the cigarette, he jumped up shouting ‘what the f….?’ because he thought she had teleported instantly next to him.

Dinner tonight is, I believe, the remainder of the lamb chilli. I look forward to doing it more justice tonight.

43°c outside today which is just so un-britishly hot that my poor temperate climate brain turns into something like melted strawberry ice-cream and ceases to function properly. I slept in the air-conditioned control room last night and I can’t believe that, when I first woke up, I was thinking it was too cold! Oh for a time machine! Along with the heat come these little black flies which land on any exposed skin. It’s not that they bite or anything, but they tickle and annoy. I have some insect repellent wipes, but the buzzy little bastards don’t sit still long enough for me to apply it. Hot sun combined with no breeze, augmented by hot women in little sun dresses or bikinis turn my brain into silly putty. Meanwhile the studio is pumping out some heavy duty rock putting me in mind of the mosh pits of yore and making me even hotter.

We put down most of the rhythm section of Accessory in the studio last night. I have to re-do about the last 16 bars of bass, but that should be pretty easy to drop in. The scratch tracks I heard last night sounded pretty good and I can’t wait to hear the finished article once DC has weaved his mixing and mastering magic on it.

Lamb chilli for dinner tonight which is not something I have ever tried, so looing forward to that too. Honestly i think if I never recorded note one in the studio I woud be more than content just to haven come for the rambling, leisurly, and loquacious meals. 32 people sitting down to dinner with all different conversations ranging up and down the table. Last night Sharon Le chef de Barstock made a lasagne which will live in legend for many years to come (just like the one at Nicestock four years ago has done). Truly not all the talent here is musical.

More pictures in the Barstock set on Flickr now if you fancy a look.

…Hang on, what happened? Where am I? The last thing I remember is falling in to a bottle of Chimay; it was either drink my way out or drown. Now it’s three days later and I don’t remember why I’m here or what I’m supposed to be doing. I now it had something to do with the hippies. Maybe it was befriend them? Learn an instrument? I certainly don’t feel like doing much more than sitting in the shade and relaxing, though that des seem to be the done thing here, so I should fit in well.

Peace, Love, and Chimay….Agent Orange Out.

Last night, well all day on and off, but particularly after dinner, I laughed and laughed until the tears rolled down my face. I wish I could remember even 1/16 of the comments which went around, but every few minutes the tables would erupt in laughter. Subjects spanned ranges broader than the mountains we are sitting in; backgammon, black metal and the culture of its Nordic adherents, gay porn, designer sunglasses, satanism, whisky, the morning habits of scottish husbands (with particular reference to wafting), food, and counting in the drummer.

David asked if there was ever a time in your life when you’d gone somewhere so apparently full of strangers, but felt so loved. I could honestly answer that I had done so three times in my life; Dijonstock, Nicestock, and now Barstock. Truly these have been unique and special times in a way which defies explanation; you simply have to be here and experience it.

All this and, today according to the plan, we will be making and recording some equally unforgettable music.

Tuesday already. Last night I was privilaged to lay down the first recorded track in the new studio. We did a version of Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’ on which I led with the bass line while one of the German girls sang. The rest of the ‘band’ consisted of accordion, saxophone and a five piece scratch percussion section. The overall sound was, after a little rehearsal, pretty tight. Although the only thing actually recorded was the bass and, I think, the vocal, the arrangement is good and recording the other instruments should be a useful exercise in debugging the studio systems.

Dinner last night broke all attendance records with thirty people sitting down to barbequed choritzo, rice, fresh bread, and some superb local handmade goat’s cheese. It was getting on for midnight as we sat down, but I think I’m getting used to these later meals and it just felt like dinner time. After the meal came the recording, so it ended up as my latest night so far and it was gone 3am by the time I wandered off to my little tent. Even then I didn’t sleep right away and lay awake listening to a Cory Doctorow story on my iPod for a while. I heard the bells in Le Bar ringing 5am before I finally drifted off.