I am very much feeling the Christmas love right now. Don't get me wrong, it's still very early to be actually celebrating Christmas, but it's never too early to start singing Christmas songs in front of around 10,000 people. That's what I was doing at the weekend - being part of the entertainment for Barnstaple's Christmas lights switch-on. I was part of a group of some very talented local musicians, who first got together last year to play for the 2010 switch-on, and had the best time doing it.
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| I want to be right here for Christmas |
I'm lucky enough that not only is everyone involved in the group a very talented artist, but as a collection we get on so well; we've gone from being thrust together in the name of Yuletide to being friends, collaborators and, at times, emotional support groups to each other through the rest of the year. Being a part of this Christmas Crew represents everything I love about playing music - everything from taking a shitty Christmas song that I scribbled on a napkin a few years ago to the heady heights of being sung by a town-full of people, to mixing creative juices with other humans and seeing what comes out, to the near-psychic communication of performing live with long-time collaborators on stage.
Sure, the amount of time it takes to practice fifteen or so songs that aren't exactly ingrained in your memory (for eleven months of the year, at least) and the effort to stay afloat in the maelstrom of different artists' rehearsal times can get a busy boy down at times, but there's no question that it's worth it for that very short hour on stage.
Jackie and Ellie, two of the girls from our Christmas supergroup, are hopefully going to be collaborating on a song for the album, too - the song's currently called Go Team and it's loosely about a night we spent drinking and talking a lot of shit. I guess their input and eternally talented performances will mean that at least one song on the album is worth listening to :)
With the lights switch-on done, I can not only devote more time to finishing writing the album (six-and-a-half songs done so far), but also to road-testing the new songs at open mic nights and late-night shopping performances coming up (I'll probably be posting a load of guff as each one comes up so you won't miss it, don't worry).
It's nice that the stars seem to have aligned between not having to worry about too many serious things for a while (other than, of course, the everyday, mundane dramas) and feeling the creative urge off the back of being so festive.
It's also nice not to have to remember G Em A7 D7 for at least another few months. EDIT: Thanks a lot, Ellie. OK, starting from... now.
- Ben x
