We Do Adventure

Regular readers know I'm a musician, some will have picked up I'm a song writer too. As such it pays not to be too blinkered in your musical outlook. I enjoy music from rap to rock, electronica to eclectica – if such a genre exists! However, in case you think I never draw the line, I'll confess I am not yet a fan of folk, I have an uneasy relationship with reggae and my association with jazz is limited to using the phrase 'close enough for jazz' to excuse mistakes. As a young musician I remember spending hours in extended blues jams with my brother. I use blues in the loosest sense: twelve bar patterns and lots of pentatonic noodling. It was enthusiastic but our comfortable life in suburban Southern England was a million miles from the inspiration for this music. Rock'n'roll historians will know that the blues is rooted in the call and response chants of displaced people. It is the music of facing pain with perseverance; the sound that gives the downtrodd...

We were driving off to a rehearsal late this morning. (First Gilgal gig of 2010 happens Thursday night!) At one end of Mostar's Bulevar our progress was hindered by a guy trying to pull off a reversing-off-the-pavement-into-traffic manoeuvre. His move was a little ill-timed but we stopped anyway. The car coming the other way sort-of did too, but not completely. It kept trying to squeeze through the ever-decreasing gap between the opposite curb and the rear light cluster of an Opel Zafira. Having nudged himself suitability back into the face of the oncoming traffic the driver of the blue Opel turned his face towards us, pulling a blame-it-on-the-other-guy face, with accompanying shrug and hand gesture. I turned to Rowan: “I know that person, aren't they an actor?” She thought for a moment before nailing it in one. Alex Baldwin. Put politely, the real Alex Baldwin carries more weight but the likeness was uncanny. For this we forgive the driver his impatient exit from his paveme...