The Secrets of Soho Event
at TOO 2 MUCH - Thursday 2nd November 2006
So, I’m not sure where to begin with how last night felt to me. There are a lot of feelings that have been pulsing through me since the last note of ‘Je Ne Regrette…’ and I don’t understand them all yet. I have a lot of gratitude certainly, firstly to the band because I would not have done the show without them. If you were there last night then you know what I’m talking about, the violin sang, the cello roared, the bass boomed and the piano stride drove me through the whole gig, those guys are awesome and I’m constantly learning by interacting with them through this music.
The lights were blinding – as they should be, but it meant that I couldn’t see everyone very clearly until I watched the recording of the show afterwards and then I realized how close knit the audience was and it was truly humbling to know that pretty much everyone in there was there because of the music. I also did not know until watching the video back that you all gave us a standing ovation. Thank you. Some of these songs from the Soho album were written for Jocasta when I was 19 years old. I remember starting out in the business at that time and being very adamant that it was the songs I wanted to serve and not myself. Of course at that age, it did not take long before there were lots of people who thought I should serve myself which was a shame but inevitably it was the necessary step to be taken so I could start my strange journey (which I’m still on). I really believed in those songs and I took it for granted that they would travel the world even if I would not. I think by 2000 I had forgotten about them entirely as I reached that special status of ‘Unwell’. So this year when I fell in love with those songs again, it was with great trepidation that I sewed myself in to a new project that would be to serve them again. I’m at ease with whatever home I find for myself but I’m never at ease about music that I’ve tried to find a home for.
Music is regurgitation, I literally fall in love with passages of melody, chord sequences, harmonic devices, starting a phrase with F sharp in the key of C with the right word.
Using a third of someone else’s motif to create a new one that becomes it’s own breed – and then letting that take you to a bridge and a chorus that you have never heard before but it feels so warm and familiar because you used the germ of a Master to plant the sapling in the first place. That kind of thought process has possessed me since I was 12 and I don’t think there’s any place more beautiful actually – that is music, to me.
And that’s all before I’ve shared it with anyone. I suppose what I’m getting at is that I’ve spent most of this year retuning my own inner experience of music and it’s really taken a hold of me again, stronger than it ever did and until last night, it was just sort of all in my head with the exception of a few other people. I’m not talking about my music in particular but music in general. You hear all kind of things, “oh, music’s not what it was etc” “People don’t really listen any more blah blah…” and I’ve got to disagree. I have been cynical for years and never thought I’d ever play to more than 20 people ever again but there were 150 people at that gig. There was no TV promotion, no Radio, no Big hairy record company buying in people off the street, there were friends of mine and about 100 people that I have not met before. Myspace? - Some. Family? – 3. But mainly a lot of people I have come to know over the past 4 months because they got a buzz off the buzz that I was getting from music. I know some people dig the lyrics and that’s cool because it means they are listening, but bringing people out of their homes is a real vibe. I’ve yearned to do that with music since I was a child and it worked for a while in my late teens, then it stopped for a long time and then it worked again last night. I’m not going to let it make me chase it. I guess it happened because I was getting on with what I do so that’s what I’m going to carry on doing. As it is, the next album is all done and ready to go. I don’t think people will warm to it in the same way as Secrets of Soho, in fact I think different people will like the different albums. I might of course be wrong as I was wrong when I said that no one would come to the show last night. A funny thing happened. There is this guy from Belgium who saw me playing over there in 1996 when I was in Jocasta and he’s been looking around to see what I’ve been doing for years and he found out about the show. He was the first person to RSVP for it and he and his wife flew over especially. Now, if you know me then you’ll know that this sort of things gets me all ‘Goobly’ and I’m a soppy daft old bugger but – how beautiful was that? That’s what I mean by grateful, he bloody waited for me. While I went off and ripped myself to pieces with hard chemicals and kamikaze nightcaps for years, some guy I’d never met waited a decade to hear the songs he was waitng for Jocasta to play to him when they did their Album tour (which we never did of course) and that is exactly what happened. Inside Out was the last song on the Jocasta album ‘No coincidence’ and is the first song of ‘Secrets of Soho’. The symmetry of Soho…
It’s very soppy isn’t it? I like it though, there is something spiritual and economical about it.
My oldest and best friend ran through a check-list at about 3am after the gig. He went through all the possible things that might have been wrong about the gig that might have bothered me. He knows me like the back of his hand and he’s seen me do gigs for years to tiny audiences, hard audiences, rude ones, so he knew how much it meant to me to finally sing with my ideal band of choice and ideal audience.
We both concluded that it was (and I hate this word) perfect.
Perfection is over-rated and it is never something I have strived to attain either in my life or my work. So we settled on a much more suitable word: ‘Complete.’
It was a ‘complete’ evening and I want to thank everyone who was a part of it. That means everyone that was there and everyone who couldn’t make it too, even the heckler who thought he was heckling me until he realized it was a famous comedian who gave as good as he got…(sorry fella’). You are all Stars.
Thank you all so much, I really hope you had as good a night as I did. Stay in touch…
Love and light
Tim Arnold
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