This trip is really whizzing by, I can’t believe it’s two weeks since we were wrapping up on recording Hopscotch Requiem in Martyn’s living room.  It’s really an amazing thing that Martyn did – getting 10 muso’s together who’d never met before and holding a space for us to collaborate and make something in such a short space of time.

He’s put the first mix on Soundcloud.  I can’t listen to it properly yet, it feels like the kind of thing that was great fun to do but is for other people to enjoy for now, I need a bit of distance or some time on my own with a good pair of headphones!  But if you’re into vaguely ambient, sometimes discordant, improvised noodling (or even if you’re not and want to know what that stuff sounds like) do take a listen and let me know what you think.

Maybe try Grocery List which is, y’know, the Clark’s grocery list and Requiem’n’stuff

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

I’m in Nottingham (right now in the @fibrecamp basement studio at Lacemarket House – very chilled and lovely) and staying in town at least until tomorrow.  I’m aiming to be back in London for Wednesday afternoon, I’ve a couple of things I want to do, I’m hoping to get to see Hugh MacLeod on Wednesday night and I think it’s about time I showed my face at Tuttle again.  Then I’m up to Shrewsbury for next weekend and my nephew’s 21st.  After that, it’s probably time to see my pals in Birmingham or Leeds.

So anyway. Ideas please for the next few days, Monday and Tuesday.  Something between here and London?  Probably not too far east or west, but I’m open to suggestions (ie Birmingham wouldn’t be too far west, but Wales might be this time)

I need to have a look at all those people who said “Let’s do something” when I first announced the trip, but whom I haven’t contacted since.  In the last week I’ve put three things in the diary for August: A spot of boat-sitting in Kent; the Dark Mountain Festival in Hampshire; and the Bude Jazz Festival in Cornwall at the end of the month.  I could do with a top-up of work in between, so anything you’ve got that might be a day or two, whether it requires face-to-face contact or not would be most welcome.

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Today and tomorrow I’m doing a tour of innovation spaces in the Sheffield area as part of my participation in CollaboJam on Wednesday.  

I’ll be stopping over that evening but from Thursday morning I’m open to suggestions again.  There’s nothing to say I can’t stay somewhere else in Sheffield.  Or maybe somewhere nearby in Yorkshire or the East Midlands?  Or perhaps somewhere further afield again.  I have no commitments at the moment except to be at a family do in Shrewsbury on 23rd.

Would you like me to come and see you?  Do you have something useful for me to do, for which you might be able to cross my palm with silver?  Do you have a spare room or sofa or know someone who’d welcome a houseguest?  If you can answer most of these with a yes, please do get in touch: DM me on Twitter or Facebook, email me lloyd dot davis at gmail or give me a call 07919182825

Here’s some of the stuff I do, if you’re not sure.

Thank you!

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

I really enjoyed spending some time in the mornings out with Martyn & Mary’s boys.  We had a great game of cricket with an empty cider bottle for one wicket and a crushed milk carton at the other end. (We also had a quick game of pitch and putt another day as well as getting to play with the trainset!) 

It’s been a while since I wielded a lump of willow and I was never any good at it in the first place but I don’t think I embarrassed myself too much.  I did though come away a little sore in the shoulder after trying to show off my bowling technique.  At drama school I didn’t pay enough attention in the “how to fall while stage fighting” class and so ended up with two dislocated shoulders.  This injury very rarely gives me any problems in any of the work I do now.  Sometimes they get a bit sore if I sit typing for a long time in the same position, but that’s about it.  I just don’t do anything that requires me to wind my arm around in a full circle.  Showing young boys the correct way to bowl however requires full mobility – and I can do it, for perhaps 4 balls, but after that it starts burning and I can’t manage much more than an over without going “owie”, rubbing my shoulder and looking round for sympathy. Sympathy from pre-teens? Nah.

Luckily I can still run like the wind and catch a ball hurtling towards the boundary one-handed… pfffftt!

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

After some scorching days in Glasgow, I’ve found some more reassuringly Scottish weather.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

Martyn Clark organised and recorded a collaborative album of improvised music with me and 10 other artistes in his living room in (roughly) 48 hours.

Megan and Stephen Appleton drove around the south-eastern coast of Angus for an evening, including an excitable encounter with flying puffins.

Two very different experiences with my hosts so far, one of them planned (only a little) ahead, the other a spontaneous end to a wet day in the summer holidays.  But this is the reason I’m out on the road – to help people do the things they want to do but somehow haven’t quite done yet.  To give people an excuse to do something a little out of the ordinary, or a *lot* out of the ordinary – it’s up to them.  It’s up to you.  Let me know if you’ve got something that my presence would let you do or even if you suspect there maybe something waiting to be drawn out.  

Note though that this was not part of the deal when Martyn and Megan invited me to stay – in both cases it emerged out of knowing that I was coming.  An invitation seems to be enough to start the creative process…

(Photo: me at dusk at the Clark kitchen table by Martyn Clark)

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

The first night of my odyssey took me to Wood Green to enjoy the hospitality of my very good friend Francesca Elston, her adopted family and then a little later, Dr Hadfield and his hyperactive puss.

It all felt very normal, ordinary people that I spend time with in London anyway.  Just for some reason not going home at the end of the evening, because i don’t have one of those any more.  Or rather that this was now my home, the wherever I lay my hat kind.

In the morning I went into the Centre for a little while to leave my stuff for the morning while I went out to buy a ukulele case and to spend some time with someone precious.  Naturally, in the few moments that I was at the Centre I managed to be asked to perform briefly, by a lady who’d just bought a uke herself. It’s a hard life being me.  

The very quick personal packing I’d done when not thinking about where big items were going to be stored left me with a stuffed suitcase, a big green plastic bag of odds and ends and a case-less ukulele.  I was ashamed to be carrying Samantha (that’s my concert uke) naked through the streets since we left West Kensington, but she doesn’t fit in the little gig bag I have for Daren (the black, Gibson-shaped uke that I took to the US) and the hard case that she does fit into is occupied by my ukulele-banjo (who doesn’t have a name).  So I headed for Hobgoblin in Rathbone Place and we had a mooch through various gig bags and cases.  The problem is her hips.  Samantha’s quite a curvy girl (it’s one of the reasons I like to keep her under my arm of course!) and she finds it difficult to squeeze into the tiny spaces that sopranos put up with.  Eventually we found a hard case that fit her hourglass figure perfectly.  Kerchinnng!

After a delightful secret rendezvous in Marylebone I headed back to the Centre to rationalise my bag and suitcase usage, say my goodbyes and trundle off to Kings Cross for the 15:00 to Glasgow Central.

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Never ask me to estimate how long it will take to move out of a flat.  Just tell me what to do when and keep on at me until I’ve done it. Just don’t tell me now and don’t keep on at me now, please. I’ve got more important things to do right now. 

This was my first experience of moving house without a wife or girlfriend giving me *cough* gentle reminders that things need doing. Or something.  I was doing things.  I’d got a lot done by Wednesday morning, but I knew it wasn’t enough.  And yet it was.  Because here I am almost a week later and I’ve moved out.  Yes, there was some stress on the day and we needed the van for twice as long as I’d thought.  Nick was the best possible person to help me – I needed to be forgiven with compassionate laughter.  We didn’t have lunch until 4pm. Lots was left behind and undone.  No-one seems to mind except me.  

I didn’t feel as comfortable as I could, but it happened and it’s done. Nobody died.

I now live on the internets.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

A writing day today – had an amazing time making music in Glasgow but hadn’t quite hit my stride in getting the balance between making, resting and documenting.  Well, actually I think the balance was fine, it just meant very little documenting.

I’m now a few miles out of Dundee, inland a little and towards Arbroath is as much as I can make out from my scant geographical knowledge of Tayside.  I’m staying with Megan Appleton and her family.  Megan and I were at High School in Bromsgrove together.  We’re Facebook friends of course and something in my plans struck a chord with her, so here I am.

Until Thursday morning.

I have arranged to go to Sheffield on Sunday evening (10th) in preparation for Collabojam which I’m going to be hosting and at which Brian Condon will be speaking.  I’m going to spend Monday and Tuesday visiting collaboration spaces and pulling together some thoughts about what I find for Wednesday.

Anyway that leaves me with a gap.  So while I’m writing today, I’d like some help please with where to stay.

I’d really like to come back to London for most of that time.  I would like some time with my kids – I’ve only been away a week but it feels like longer and I want to establish with them that I’m not just disappearing forever.  I’ve said that I will stay overnight with them when I come –  I expect that Saturday night will work best.  Also, as is typical of the way the world works, just as I was setting off to be footloose and fancy free, I found myself falling a little bit in love with someone London-based.  It’s not the kind of thing yet where I can just turn up and spend the night with her, but I’d like for us to be able to hang out some more, sooner rather than later.

So that leaves me with where to stay on Thursday night and Friday night.  All offers and suggestions gratefully received and considered.

Over to you.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swfOriginally posted on Lloyd’s posterous