BRAIN DUMP

Greetings all

Sorry I'm being a terrible blogger at the moment. Got so much on with life and recording demos and writing the book that there isn't much time left for other things.

So, quick brain dump for you:

1. I've been thinking about the future of the internet. I think right now the internet is really big but, like life in general, it is going to get smaller. When Myspace, Youtube and a million webzines etc have to pay royalties for the content they stream, eventually they will become subscription based. We will choose a package of sites that we subscribe to, kind of like people do with cable TV now.

2. I've been thinking about peak oil. That and eco-villages. That and the fact that Padma does not play well with other children. I have always been weird about groups. Neurotic individualistic singer-songwriter. But community is the way forward. Gonna have to learn how to be more well adjusted.

I interviewed two of the world's leading speakers on co-housing the other week. It was fascinating. I got back to my apartment and found out that my video camera had run out of space for the first time ever, so the interview was lost! Hrmmpph. One of the guys was called Charles Durrett. His electricity bill for last year was minus 83 dollars. (Solar panels). The other guy was the Jan Gudmand-Hoyer, the founder of the cohousing movement.

Cohousing is great. Community is a difficult thing to pull off but cohousing has a high likelihood of success designed in. You need enough privacy to be happy, you need a lack of ideology (just people living next door to each other) and then plenty of spaces and opportunities for hanging out together. The place where I am living recycles 95% of its garbage. Only two small bins for more than 35 people! I will write something proper on cohousing when I have a moment. It's a great solution to city living - and will be increasingly so in the years to follow.

Here's a bit of info on cohousing from Kathryn McCamant (from McCamant & Durrett architects):



3. The music is going well. I have two different things going on at the moment. One is the businessy, organisationy side - talking to producers, managers, press, and so on, trying to work out the next phase of Padma's Campaign for World Domination.

The other side is creating. Making music is so great. I sometimes wonder why I bother with the Campaign for World Domination. I could just be a little guy in my place making music for myself and having a lovely time. But that seems kind of selfish to me. One of the key things about music is it can bring us together and remind us of something magical and beyond the mundane. To connect with others on such a basis is for me the only way I can really connect.

Today I have been recording a demo of 'If Friends Were Neighbours Too'. It will hopefully be on the next album. It starts with 'Wouldn't it be nice if food just grew on trees'. I wrote that line when I was driving up a mountain track on the way to the yurt with a friend and we stopped at a wild cherry tree and picked piles and piles of cherries for all of us. They would've cost LOADS of money to buy in a supermarket, and they were organic and delicious. And at that point I thought 'how preposterous to pay for food'. And then I got that line in my head and the song just came together really quickly.

And now I'm in a cohousing community where my friends are my neighbours too!