I am listening to the Radio 3 Mixing It review of the Chicago Music Scene - a place I have yet to visit. It certainly makes the case for a trip � in Chicago there is both the spirit of the blues plus the idea that its good that musicians need to have an independent space to experiment where they don�t have to compromise. Plus the idea that you ought to be aware of all kinds of music and mix genres. If you have an hour to fill on these first few days of 2003 � then I can�t think of a better call than http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/playlists/mixingitn.shtml and find out more.

I am recovering a NYE party � Phillip � the host � has a brother in law with a PRS, a Custom Shop Strat and 1960s Epiphone Casino � the electric guitar I remember Fred Frith playing � also what Lennon plays in Let It Be � the movie. In fact I have played the guitar at another party doing the fills when a local opera singer sang the House of the Rising Sun � oh the Guildford music scene has its moments.

Anyway I took the Duosonic, the Vamp and the Cube 20 � and this connoisseur ended up playing them in a way which really interested me. Mostly we were jamming the blues which is his thing but it was interesting to hear what kind of sound he got out of the rig. For example he used the phaser in a minor funk lick while I jammed on the vast synth which the host has in his study with some great organ patches on it. So between us we managed to get rid of most of the guests!

Ciaran was there � he is planning to cycle from Lands End to John O Groats in May to raise money for the Highveld projects. We had a chat about how we can use www.kwase-kwaza.org to support this project, raise awareness and bring in sponsorship eg through the Global Business Coalition against AIDS � I have just put their link up to their stuff on the site.

James went over to celebrate with his friend Trafford. Traff is into Nick Drake, Belle and Sebastiane etc and is going to study Classics at Bristol next year. He has this romantic view of the English pre WW2 scene even as far as flirting with communism which drives James wild. James stayed the night there and I picked him up to go to Heals to work for triple time. He and Traff are doing their version of the European Grand Tour in March and April. In fact last night we had a bit of a talk about reasons for spending several weeks in Florence which is a thing I did in my early 20s and left a big mark � we found a Foucauldian reason eg in getting into the textuality of Ruskin and Forster who made points about English culture by feeding it through a romanticised view of the Renaissance. Have I mentioned that I suspect that Nick met EMF?

When I phoned Yvonne about the letter from Hogwarts she was out in the middle of Thetford Forest with her sister and his husband and Jake � all completely lost. So contact from anyone about anything was quite welcome. They managed to find a road just before it got dark � actually quite a lucky escape.

Vita went to a party nearby at one of her friends and I had the task of ringing up from time to time to check. She and Becky stumbled into the house around half past two apparently relatively sober and collapsed in front of the TV downstairs.

Fortunately I caught the end of some ranking of 80s soul where the sexpixie from Minnesota towered over all comers (no cheap jokes there � tee hee). There were clips from interviews with sidemen talking of stadium gigs with no setlist and the conjuring of 1999 out of thin air. They all seem to think that he is pure music � I think Miles came to the same conclusion. Gavin is doing a synoptic tape on the artist formerly known as the artist formerly know etc which should be fun.

The Global Wiring has an article on Smileys and the Backstabbers. Roughly the thesis is that its no accident but a trope of the Worldspirit that the smiley icon emerges just before the O Jays Classic � The Backstabbers. I just listened to that track back to back with the Strat and phaser combination on Summer Breeze. No wonder the O Jays recycled so well in the last few years � it is an astonishing piece � those guys at the Wire are maybe onto something � the Utopian possibilities in soul may have become abandoned at just that point (just after Whats Going On) and backstabbing paranoia may be the authentic mentality for the next few decades.

There is a real gap in the production landscape between Summer Breeze and the BS � the former is recognisably a band in a studio � a piano miked up, the band responding as the guitarist raises the emotional temperature. Virtuality has taken over in the Philly production � the emotional intensity is there but its comng from different sources and is sustained in other ways in less �spontaneous� but nonetheless powerful � the mild disquiet in the string writing as a calmish surface reflecting deeper disquiet.

Emails from Robin and Gilbert about the next Highveld CD which is slowly forming in my mind. I bought the Steinberg sound cleaning software which you can get for around �25 � you get a quite well specified version of Wavelab thrown in with this and so its pretty good value plus an amazingly powerful mastering suite. I was tempted by the �plus� version which has a little interface box taking audio turntable input into the PC. It took me a while to work out that the USB is just the power supply to drive a pre-amp optimised to compensate for the low bass output from cartridges � oh well it avoids using even more AA batteries or transformers.

I have started to build a file of the collaborations with Gilbert that aren�t the Shortstories � and to use the mastering software to get what strikes me as the most expressive sound. I am listening to Approximately Four Minutes which is followed by one of the Flute Tunes and then the acoustic version of Face. Yesterday in the car I found a CD that I had made of some more recent stuff in Leamington and I have just lifted BBC500 trio off it into the new Software. Gilbert thinks maybe this has gone to too great a density and so I am looking at the separate elements today. Altogether there is about 20 minutes of music down � quite a lot of which is quite acoustic � and some of which definitely isn�t!

Tempted by the LTIA flyer especially as it pulled me spaceward - imagine my surprise when there emerged a connection between one of the label archive and a Ghosts member � I say no more for now. You know who you are (or possibly not).

And so to the death of Leamington�s greatest poet � D J Enright - who was in the first generation to fall under the Leavisite spell. (Some of my peers at Hogwarts were the in the last generation to get it from the horse�s mouth � I hadn�t heard of him before that.) I pointed out to James that DJE found that Leavis� faith in the enlightening power of great art � experienced collectively � was challenged when he lived in Berlin and began to understand what Wagner had meant to the Nazis. One might also point to Himmler reading Carlyle to Hitler in the bunker � a bit closer to the Great Tradition methinks � or Hitler and Witgenstein having opera whistling competitions in the playground (actually that last bit is speculation). Anyway here�s a DJE quote or two:

To miss and miss and miss/And then to have and still to know/That you must miss and miss anew

Ypu think its easy all this sanity? /Try it, It will send you mad