House shows, AI

Easter Holidays continue, and now that I've 'relaxed' in Norfolk (lovely, but uncomfortable bed, one bathroom between four of us, spent most of my days watching our doorbell camera on my phone), the second week had a bit more action. Great gig with the blues band, packed with guest musicians (slow start, but sometimes all it takes is one drunk woman in Chesterton to start dancing and the whole room wakes up), and lots of rehearsals. 

I watched my play, The Second, in rehearsals, with Alex, Nicole and Paul M all being brilliantly directed by Cara and they're clearly having a lot of fun with this. It's basically a sketch show, a very silly one, but with a load of callbacks that justifies me calling it a play and it all ties in really well. It's a show I've had on various post-it notes for years and I'm so glad it's coming to life. I also continued rehearsing with Esther for our show and it's going up a notch or two, after lots of early, "it's SO WORDY HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS?" moments. Having Cara direct us has been amazing, if exhausting - she's a really good friend of many years, but when she's in work mode you wouldn't know this, almost feels like an army drill sometimes, she's so thorough, so blunt, but it's becoming a hell of a show because of it. I meet up with Esther a lot to run lines, most days if we can, but we need Cara there, really. When she's not there we tend to get distracted by the joys of robot hoovers and quite often, usually after rehearsing for a bit, one of us will say, "shall we get chips?". The show is under a month away, we both care about this one so much, it's all exciting yet a little tense at the same time. 

With my other shows, I was back in living rooms running 'new' material for much of the week - the first half was 'No Dreams...', and then after the interval, 'There's a Band Playing...". Both have obviously gone live already, the former in France, the latter in Leicester, but both are heading to Edinburgh in the summer with many other public bookings before then and I need the stage time. It's a lot for the audience to sit through, a double Richards show, but I'd like to think that both shows are so different it doesn't feel like it drags. The first one of the week was at Claire and Steve's place; they have dogs, they train guide dogs and one of the dogs, when much younger, was featured in my dating profile pic about 8 years ago and eventually helped me get a wife, so I'm very grateful. Then I was over at Edd and Emily's place; Edd is my old landlord and I was his best man, always wonderful to catch up. Then I was at Jacqueline's house, I don't know Jacqueline too well and she packed her living room with friends, none of whom I'd met before, so it felt like a public show, rather than a private one, which was a different sort of challenge. Last night I was in Nicole's flat, performing to her, Ross and Chrissy, all of whom I know really well, socially and with these shows, and it was an easy way to end this run. True, so there was so moments where I tried things that didn't land, there was a few moments where new bits really did work, there was the odd moment where a new bit messed up the structure of what I was doing, but all in all these shows are better for this little run of gigs and I'm confident enough that they're ready for public outings.

During the day, I've been teaching a few lessons to keep the pennies coming in, not my usual manic schedule but just 4 hours a day for students on my waiting list, or those who really can't go two weeks without drumming tuition. Everyone's happy because the suns out and it's been a good balance. 

I've started messing around with AI music recently, found an app, and it's scary how good this stuff is. Morally, it's disgusting, of course, and very, very worrying. Obviously I'd never do anything with these songs, I just treat it as a bit of a game, but it did highlight just the way things are going. With regular students, during the lessons I played a quick game called 'AI or not AI', and they pretty much got it wrong every time. One student said, "I can't trust anything anymore" which is quite profound for a 10-year-old, but I totally get his point. Let's not think about how far this has gone, and will, go. I've got a friend, John, who has started working on a farm, and another, one of my best mates, Phill, is running across the length of Japan. That suddenly feels like proper living. I reckon they've got it right. 

As a random aside, I taught a student yesterday who lived in the best house ever. It wasn't big, or close to town, or, I think, more expensive than ours (in fact, looking at the location, I'm pretty sure of this), but it was just off a main road, just a bit...I guess, private from neighbours. We live just off a busy main road and a result we get a lot of passing traffic. Vans, mostly. There are a lot of vans in Sawston. It does feel a bit like living on an industrial estate sometimes. But that's not my issue, my issues our with our neighbours. I realise it's very much 'my' issue; they are lovely, in a 'polite smile but let's not get into a conversation' kinda way, we're very much in a 'alright mate, how's it going?' without waiting for an answer type of friendship. My 'issue' is that, no matter what time of day it is, they are always so immaculately well presented. Both sides, the young couple on one side, the older lady on the other. When I'm taking the bins out, or checking my tyres, or sorting out my drum hardware first thing in the morning, I'm often in tracksuit bottoms, an old Joe Jackson t-shirt, unwashed, unshaved, breakfast on face and coffee on my teeth. Yet they always look like they're fresh and ready to take on this beautiful world whilst I feel like an extra from Shameless. I spend most of my day having to be at my best (which, I know, still doesn't look great, bit of a skanky lad sometimes but that's just dry skin, alright?), it honestly gets to me that as soon as I step out of the house, I also have to, I dunno, look 'well'. Which I am, even if I don't look it. But if we had a house like that student's house, just a touch off the beaten track and no pressure to impress, I reckon I'd feel more comfortable. Something to aspire to, I guess.