Ink Polaroids
It's Not How It Looks
Other Things That Are Imaginary (4) - My Dog
While at work – yeah, apparently it’s 9 hours a day and you have to go every day for, like, your whole life – I was flicking through some blawgs. These are what lawyers who write blogs call their musings: do you see? It’s a law blog, a blog about law, a blaaaaaawg. In the most part they’ve very dull, but it’s my way of getting my blogging fix during the 9-6.
One of them had this quote, which I like:
"In a lot of ways, blogging is like owning a dog. You have to feed it, you have to take it for walks, you have to take it to the vet. It's a living and breathing animal that needs to be regularly dealt with."
Thankfully, blogs don’t wee on the carpet or bite your children or shag your slippers. No unconditional love either, mind. (And I’m not sure what he’s on about with the vet bit. Should I be taking fox-in-the-snow for the snip?)
Anyhow, this quote reminded me of Sparky, my imaginary dog. Sparky was fairly short-lived, sadly. He was sustained by the power of my imagination, and withered away when I got distracted by conkers and shiny things and crisps. Oh God - I let him die.
He served one purpose, which was to keep me company on the long and arduous walk to Sainsbury’s every Saturday, a mere ten minute stroll that felt like hours. It was a gloomy march unto my doom, the soul destroying trip to a crowded supermarket where my parents would dawdle and umm and aah over non-essential items that weren’t cake or chocolate.
So on the way there, I would walk Sparky. He was an English sheepdog, big and friendly and obedient and just happy to be outside. I’d grasp his imaginary lead in my hand and he’d walk just a bit in front of me, sniffing at trees and lamp-posts on the way. Occasionally I’d have to pull his on his lead to restrain him when he saw another dog, just to remind him who was boss. But subtly, mind – I didn’t want to my mum to notice my imaginary pet and think I was crazy.
Of course, dogs aren’t allowed in shops so I’d tie up him outside and try not to weep with boredom without him. Oddly, I didn’t always remember to collect him – either my brain had atrophied so much in Sainsbury’s that my short-term memory was gone, or I was so delighted to be going home to watch Supergran and read the Beano that I had no need of my fantasy pet.
Eventually, I was trusted enough to be left alone in the house while my parents shopped (as long as I didn’t do anything potentially dangerous, like using the oven or opening an upstairs window or, indeed, even going upstairs) so I had no more need of Sparky. Goodbye, Sparky, the best dog a girl could ever have.
It's Not How It Looks - part 2
Our Experience (It Is Many And Varied)
Kat is an ex-Pipette, who as we all know are the greatest girl group in existence. Can she actually drum? No-one knows, but more importantly, she is h.o.t.t.Denny writes about music for a living, and therefore knows what cuts the mustard on the live scene. He is our svengali, our non-murderous Phil Spector.
Paul – as noted in the last instalment, Paul has irksomely played real actual gigs, which sort of goes against the whole spirit of this enterprise.
Me – um, does singing about Jesus in a choir at the Royal Festival Hall count? It means I have the Lord on my side in this venture, hopefully.
James – aside from supporting Belle and Sebastian (no, really), James only grudgingly stops singing to breathe and eat. It's like being in a musical, only without passing strangers spontaneously launching into a dance routine.
Making The Video – Urban Lo-Fi Style
Wanting to keep it real, we decide to take a more unusual approach to making the video rather than the usual hire a studio / find a director / set up fancy lighting route. So passé! We want to come across as street, gritty, in touch with our roots, much like Jenny from the block, only more suburban. We want to show not that we grew up on the gun-ridden, crime-filled streets of Harlem, but the curtain-twitching, Ikea-loving, leafy environs of Ealing/New Malden. Also: our budget is 50p, which isn’t much for the artistic representation of our latest single.*
As always, we ask ourselves – what would the Arctic Monkeys do? The answer is simple: use the New Malden traffic camera to create a visual masterpiece, albeit a jerky one as the camera refreshes once every five seconds. Loitering outside KJ’s restaurant on the high street and employing someone to view the results on Kingston Council’s website can produce results as professional as this:
I’m the one that looks like a bloke, ignoring the leaping orange Jamesian figure in front of me. Quality, eh? Pan the camera round and there's a bench which could be a key prop in our video. Pan it round a bit more and you can see into someone's bedroom, but I don’t think we'll use that footage, as apparently that would be a bit stalker-like and weird. We don't want a lawsuit on our hands at this fledging stage. Now we just need to persuade the rest of the band to join us with their instruments, and, until the police move us on, we will play like our lives depend on it.
* No, we don’t have a latest single as such,but ssssh. No need for something as coarse as reality to spoil the fun.
It’s Not How It Looks - part one
A brief explanation: this section is going to be about the (thus far) imaginary band that NewMalden and I are “in.” I’m keeping a journal of our adventures for the London Loves website and cross-posting it here, in the hopes that I’ll actually remember to write something occasionally.
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The story so far…
The Name
It came from a conversation at a bus-stop with James, a chat while waiting for the 65 about the frequent misunderstandings about our relationship. (For the record: Belle and Sebastian are not snogging. But they are sleeping together. Hope that clears it up.) The specifics are lost to the mists of time (if I can’t Google it, I can’t be expected to remember it), but it was about getting photo-stickers of ourselves from a magic machine in Kingston.Said stickers would decorate James’s letter to his penpal to prove he has real friends. But a photo of him and a girl? How to avoid confusion about us looking like – God forbid – a couple?
Me: "I know – I’ll hold up a sign that says 'IT’S NOT HOW IT LOOKS.'"
Pause
"Band name!"
Genius is sometimes just that simple.
Putting A Bit Of Thought Into It
This was the breakthrough we’d been looking for. After talking about starting a band for ages – we need something to occupy our days, instead of just pissing on the gift of life – we had a start. James and I have been singing together for years, but purely in our bedrooms and occasionally on trains, depending on drunkenness. He’s an unexpectedly glorious crooner, a Richard Hawley-esque charmer with a fine vibrato, a charismatic would-be frontman who once supported B&S on tour. No, really. I’m a shy ex-choirgirl who can still carry a tune if I put my mind to it. I’ll manage backing vocals and the occasional lead, in an embarrassing 'let Ringo have a go' style.I can play guitar and keyboard a bit, but it was becoming clear it would take more than the two of us to make this work We’re not the White Stripes after all, although the media do regularly debate whether we’re married or siblings. Next step, however, is…
Telling The Internet
As we all know, the internet is the pathway to guaranteed fame and riches. ItsNotHowItLooks.com is in the pipeline – in the pipeline in my mind – as all the best bands have their own website. Take my previous band, documented at Ghostwatch-Ruined-My-Life.co.uk. Were it not for the site, perhaps we would never have reached the (imaginary) dizzy heights, written the (fictional) hit songs, rocked the (make-believe) venues and taken the (what are drugs?) drugs we did.
A lot of bands happen only in my head.
For now, we start the way all modern bands do – with a MySpace page. Like everyone over 19, I don’t understand what MySpace is, although this hasn’t stopped me from having my own page and 31 "friends". It’ll give us a place to advertise gigs, hand out MP3s and demonstrate to the world
that we can get our shit together. Like the trailblazing Arctic Monkeys, we will steal our fans through the internet.
Within minutes, it’s done, albeit shabbily and somewhat lacking in the type of music / photos / upcoming shows / band biography sections:
Band biography? Of course: we need more members. Time for recruitment.
The Line-Up
This will be news for roughly 70% of the band. Aside from James and I, INHIL will comprise:
- Paul: Lead guitar. The most experienced member, Paul’s gone as far as mastering an instrument and playing gigs. Show-off.- Matty B: As his alternative monicker Slappy Bass suggests, Matt will be on bass guitar. He may also get on up like a sex machine.
- Denny: I forget what Denny’s doing. But he’s in.- Kat: Drummer. Radically, the drum-kit will be at the front of the stage in order to showcase Kat as the most beautiful band member.
Woo! We’re a band! We’ll have handclaps and catchy singalong tunes and dance routines and merchandise and rave reviews. Some day. For now, we’re just keeping the dream alive. We can do this…
Next time: setting up a photo shoot, how a Dictaphone is not like an eight-track, and the MTV-esque Making The Video: Using Only the New Malden Traffic-Webcam and the Council Website. No songs yet. Let’s not rush anything.