The Unexplainable

On the escalator at Farringdon, I was standing behind a businessman with light-up shoes. He was wearing a grey suit and a blue shirt and I couldn’t see if he had a tie on. He even had a briefcase. The absolute model of a businessman. He wore black oxfords, nicely polished with flashing lights in their soles. Like kids wear. The ones that light up when you stomp, they’re often themed as police cars or fire engines.

I’d never seen a grown-up with light-up shoes. But here he was. I imagined if I mentioned the light-up shoes he would be entirely nonchalant about them and then politely excuse himself. He wasn't wearing them for attention or even as a rebellion. I imagine he didn’t even see them as odd. He may have never noticed that no other grown-ups have light-up shoes.

The Performance

On the 19th of December at St Giles’ Cripplegate we had the second instalment of Continuous Music. The rules were the same as last time: three chairs, when a chair becomes free anyone can take the chair and play for as long as they like, when all the chairs are empty then the performance is over. It was important that we did this second instalment to establish that this is a continuous series not just a one-off. I dream of this being something that happens every month forever.

It was particularly cold and wintery but I think that made the church very inviting. For lots of us it was the last gig before Christmas and stood as an island of creativity in a sea of function band music.

My little dog Sunshine had died three days before. I had the American Hymn “How Can I Keep from Singing” very loud in my head:

My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth's lamentation,
I catch the sweet†, tho' far-off hymn
That hails a new creation;
Thro' all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—
How can I keep from singing?

What tho' my joys and comforts die?
The Lord my Saviour liveth;
What tho' the darkness gather round?
Songs in the night he giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that refuge clinging;
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

I lift my eyes; the cloud grows thin;
I see the blue above it;
And day by day this pathway smooths,
Since first I learned to love it,
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
A fountain ever springing;
All things are mine since I am his—
How can I keep from singing?

I played a bit of the hymn right at the end of the performance when I was sat by myself. Nat thought I was playing Amazing Grace because I always play Amazing Grace. I liked that. It backs up the whole “Endless Song” thing because it’s all just one big song actually is what I reckon.

When I first arrived in New York I had no mobile signal and no idea really what was going on but I knew that every Tuesday night for the last 40 years there’s been a free gig at Downtown Music Gallery so I went there. There were more people in the bands than in the audience (because there isn’t really room for much more than 10 in the audience) and like almost everything I saw in New York it was the best thing ever.

I like the idea of an event that is reliable and continuous, that someone who doesn’t know me or any of the performers would come off a plane from the other side of the world and be guaranteed a performance.

My vocabulary for describing music is very limited. I start to feel angry when I overhear people talking about a performance when it has just finished. I think that’s irrational anger and people should obviously be allowed to talk about a performance after it has happened but I never feel like talking about a performance after it happens. I think you’d have to be much cleverer with words than I am to express what Continuous Music #2 felt like to me. That’s all to say it was very special. I couldn’t believe that such incredible musicians wanted to be involved and it was a privilege to get to play with everyone

No one broke the rules this time and I didn’t feel any fear that anyone would. There was a moment when Dan arrived with a guitar on his back when I thought “Oh no I wish they’d brought their cello, the cello was so nice last time” but that was a ridiculous thing to think. I hadn’t seen Dan play guitar before and his skill was staggering and he was making sounds I literally couldn’t dream of. Because we’d done this concept once before I’d made the mistake of thinking I could imagine how this one would sound. I’d been dreaming of the big warm cello and tuba sounds but of course, if I could dream up the sound before it happened then that wouldn’t be very exciting. Equally with Grace’s big trolley of noisy things, I couldn’t imagine those sounds or the clacking of the wheels across the tiles. It was something really new and that only happens from letting go of as much control as possible.

I cannot stop dreaming of all the future combinations of musicians and dreaming of the gaps of what I can’t imagine.

The day after I’d seen the man with light-up shoes I was on the escalator at Farringdon again. And in front of me was a different man with shiny black Oxford shoes with flashing light-up soles. As I turned to exit the station I saw the large red flashing lights on the ceiling above the escalator.