No question, you want summer music, here it is in all its queasy, grooving, smiling, heavy city bright sun concrete cloudy brooding lovelieness - although I first heard this record, this, probably the happiest piece of jazz, of not happiest pieceof all music that I own, and how dare my wife say I like depressing music, on a rainy autumn day in Plumstead - that was when I heard King Sunny Ade too, that same day. Well, today I am on random setting, like a Roland SH-1, SH-101 or SH-09. I put my hand into the Mexican shopping bag that holds all my CDs that don’t have proper cases (MUST get some kinda system for these, must must must) and pulled out a grime compilation our publisher sent to me and a Manuel Gottsching thing and some CD I played on and look, that new Daniel Johnston tribute record I can’t bring myself to listen to yet (has anyone listened to it? What’s it like), that new Red Krayola thing that just got reissued, some of which kicks ass, and OH YES THIS IS WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR, the Joe Meek compilation my ex made for my sister but she gave it to me, I don’t think she liked it that much. THAT’S what I want today, although other things are calling, not least a mix CD intriguingly called ‘Psyche Folk’ that one of my favourite music friends put together and I know it’ll have all that stuff I need to check out but don’t want to check out too much in case it sounds like me or I sound like it or whichever but that needs to be checked out anyway and you know what, after I’ve listened to Lawrence of Newark, which, despite Plan B being a jazz-free zone (so far…), I have to tell you all is a work of fucking GENIUS of the highest order, check out track two and marvel, I will listen to that damn Joe Meek, because today I’m on random setting and on random setting you can listen to whatever bubblegum you like (and you can listen to Nanci Griffith too!) and buy a HUGE bottle of vanilla coke and a bottle of rose cava, and a bunch of lilies and a silk scarf from the charity shop and all kindsa things. Last night I read a book in which a man talked about the time he used music to help him escape from and work through and almost figure out something bad that happened in his family. I could taste in his words he wasn’t just talking about music as a background help, a palliative, a little painkiller. He was talking about going at it and grabbing it and about how it was, literally, saving him. It was the thing he used to make sense of other things. He was allowed to say stuff like that because he meant it. Some of our writers sent me some great pieces of writing. I went swimming like my life depended on it, very fast, considering I swim in the slow lane, and drank ready-mix margaritas with a wise, graceful lady in a labyrinthine flat full of rare books. I woke up early and spoke to Everett on the phone. Soon there’s going to be another whole issue of the magazine out and I’m really, stupidly excited, although I know it means a month of sleepless nights and crazed cross-purpose emails and expensive trips to Brighton, where we get to eat nice food and listen to the Fire Engines and get hassled by the cat. This site’s great, but there’s something about words on paper and pictures on paper that makes me smile much more. Random setting. More vanilla coke. This weekend I have my first hen party (which I have organised!) and possibly the last ever Coil gig. I love Coil gigs, that mixture of the genuinely terrifying and the funny, the intense air of abstract misogyny that hangs over everything and that I still can’t quite decide how I feel about, the wonderful sound of synthesisers doing what they ought. True psychedelia, often, with the sense of the ridiculous and ideas-above-one’s-station that that also encompasses. Someone wrote in a blog that me and my lift-fixing friend’s first gig as Morgen und Nite last week (one guitar, one amazing synth, loads of pedals, severe black clothing) sounded like Heathen Earth by Throbbing Gristle. Is that a compliment? Back to work. Probably time to switch the random setting back to square wave.