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… is on the way, and it’s called “Shadows”. Here’s a taster, “Baby Lee”, originally recorded by Norman Blake for the Burnsong Songhouse (a project where songwriters are locked up in a house and not let out until they have a song), adopted live by the Fanclub at various gigs, normally with me in a state of delirious wonder somewhere in the crowd. The album comes out at the end of May, and I can’t wait.

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Teenage Fanclub - Baby Lee

I’ve been looking for this track for a little while - the studio version of Life Without Buildings’ “The Leanover” from 2001’s “Any Other City”. Well, here it is: a bunch of students from the Glasgow School of Art doing something rather wonderful between 1999 and their split in 2002, with painter Sue Tompkins‘ incredible spoken/sung vocals.

Sue has a couple of exhibitions (here and here) at the ongoing Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, and hopefully this weekend I will be checking out some of it and then blethering on about it here. Good times.

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Life Without Buildings - The Leanover

Well, in order to kick-start this blog after a few months in the doldrums, I thought I’d work through some non-AA (or other 12 step fellowship) approved literature. So I’m going to be choosing as topics quotes from one of my favourite films, the childish, immature, facile but nonetheless completely brilliant “Wayne’s World”.

Well, I hope this is going to work.

My concert going is not quite at the level of absolute mania it was last year, but looking back at the list of stuff in my last.fm diary there’s been some good ones recently, and one of those was the Indietracks festival at the Midlands Railway, Butterley in Derbyshire. This is a completely charming festival where you park up, wander on to a railway platform, get on a real live steam train, and sit in a Formica bar drinking lukewarm pop as you chug through a leafy cutting to a railway yard stuffed full of old engines, carriages, railway buildings, and twee indie pop bands. With the main stage sponsored by Madrid’s Elefant Records there was a healthy contingent of Spanish bands and Spanish people, who always seem to be the friendliest people I ever meet at festivals. So, to kick off the totally amazing, excellent discovery of the Indietracks festival, here’s Cooper, a Spanish band who had heard before but didn’t really *get* until I saw them there supporting the Teenage Fanclub set. Whilst not likely to win any awards for innovation, they were nonetheless a charming, competent and heart warming outfit, who even apologised for singing in Spanish and threw in some English covers to make up for it. Here’s a picture I took of Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub enjoying the entirety of the Cooper Set.

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Cooper - En El Sofa

The sharp-eyed amongst you might have noticed that this post has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 12 step recovery. Well, I thought I’d try to ease back into that, the way I’m easing back into meetings (2 this week, an improvement). I really don’t feel like forcing it, I am sure I will think of something to say when I get the inspiration.

Hmmm, sensitive subject, as for a little while now some of my addictive behaviours have been raging, and I and other people have been paying the price, as I’ve been tired, full of self-loathing, and generally foul tempered. I made it to a meeting the other night and saw a stranger who I suspect is my sponsor. Some steps in the right direction.

The wider point (trying to move away from this navel-gazing) from this question in the Narcotics Anonymous “Steps Working Guides” is that our powerlessness means that pain inflicted on ourselves and others isn’t enough to get us to stop. Pain isn’t enough. Over the next few posts I’ll going through the questions in the Guides relating to unmanageability, and then I’ll be looking at surrender, which is where Step 1 really begins to kick in.

I’ve written before about The Primary 5, the vehicle of former Teenage Fanclub drummer Paul Quinn. When we last left The Primary 5, Paul had announced that he was folding the band and quitting the music business. He obviously meant it - I subsequently read that he was selling off items of musical equipment. But then, he came back. And he came back to Darvel, Ayrshire. On after Dropkick, The Primary 5’s youthful line was augmented by Gordon Keen (formerly of the BMX Bandits, Captain America and Eugenius). For the track “High 5″ they were joined by Duglas T. Stewart of the BMX Bandits. The final song was the joyous “Make Believe” from 2007’s “Go”.

I’ve struggled to connect the topic from the “Steps Working Guides” with the concert - I’ve got a lot of concerts to get through and I’m way behind schedule. All I can say is that my addiction has immense potential to cause me and others harm, and is often happily doing so. By contrast my recovery has really has brought me things beyond my wildest dreams - I certainly never thought I’d be sitting behind a trestle table in Darvel, drinking Diet Irn Bru, and seeing a band where several of the members have become friends. It’s a pretty good feeling. Here’s a photo I took of Duglas, and “Make Believe”.

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The Primary 5 - Make Believe

Next topic: Unmanageability

Well, my musical mojo has been revitalised by a lovely weekend seeing bands in Glasgow and Newcastle, DJ’s in Newcastle, and friends in Glasgow, Newcastle and Cumbria. And I’ve been taking photos, sticking them up on “Facey”, and people have being saying nice things about them (although the trick seems to be to take about 250 photos and see if you get 4 or 5 good ones). And I think this blog needs a kick up the arse. At the moment, I’m ploughing through the Narcotics Anonymous “Steps Working Guides”, and it feels like a bit of a slog and a rather too-personal exercise, in a bad, navel-gazing sort of way. My intention was to go through the whole book, but at the current rate, we’ll be on it in 2011. So, I’m going to finish Step 1, maybe missing out some questions, trying to be a bit punchier, and we’ll review it at the end of that chapter. OK readers?

The Glasgow gig was actually a little outside Glasgow, in Darvel, Ayrshire, at the Darvel Homecoming festival. The theme of the festival seemed to be the niceness and warm-heartedness of the organisers, from the moment they personally emailed me and told me my ticket would be waiting for me, to the incredibly friendly welcome when I arrived, and then band after band saying how well they had been treated. Apparently there’s home cooking for all performers instead of a fiver and being pointed in the direction of the chip shop. The whole thing has an atmosphere of local friendliness and I can’t recommend this festival highly enough.

The name “Dropkick” is one I’ve seen floating around the Teenage Fanclub messageboards and other similar web places, but for whatever reason the band has passed me by until Friday night when I saw them play Darvel. Consisting of 2 brothers and 2 non-brothers, they are a Scottish alt-country power pop band and were just really rather good in that relaxed diffident way that very talented people are. Here’s a photo I took (for once!) and the track “Obvious”, which seemed be my thought about today’s question from the NA literature. I’ll be writing more about the festival over the coming days. Eager fans of factual accuracy can in the meantime read this speedily produced and handy review.

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Dropkick - Obvious

This question in the Narcotics Anonymous Step Working Guides made uncomfortable reading when I typed it out on the last post. As the book says:

We are powerless when the driving force in our life is beyond our control. Our addiction certain qualifies as such an uncontrollable, driving force. We cannot moderate or control our drug use or other compulsive behaviours, even when they are causing us to lose the things that matter most to us. We cannot stop, even when to continue will surely result in irreparable physical damage. We find ourselves doing things that we would never do if it weren’t for our addiction, things that make us shudder in shame when we think of them… We may have tried to abstain from drug use or other compulsive behaviours - perhaps with some success - for a period of time without a programme, only to find that our untreated addiction eventually takes us right back to where we are before. In order to work the First Step, we need to prove our own individual powerlessness to a deep level.

Well, I’ve been proving my own individual powerlessness on a pretty deep level recently. Hopefully I’m a little more back on track now. I shared in a meeting tonight for the first time in ages, and at one of my favourite meetings, inside my local prison. I got to a part where I talked about some of the stuff I did which helped me recover, and realised that I wasn’t doing any of it at the moment. Back to basics, again.

Yesterday I had a ticket to see Camera Obscura, but not really the inclination, as, high class problem here, I’ve seen them 3 times in the past year or so. In the end, and largely because I have a dear friend overseas who’s a huge fan, and couldn’t face telling him I’d not gone, I got over there. It was a revelation. Although they’ve been around a while, this band has really grown and matured and gained a confidence that it didn’t seem to have when I saw them at the same venue in 2007. And it got me thinking as to how I’ve changed over that period. Certainly my circumstances then were very different to my circumstances now, or indeed when I saw them in Glasgow in January last year and again in Spain last summer. And it got me thinking how lucky I am, and how important it is for me to stop fucking around with what I’ve got. I started off thinking “hmmm, I’ll leave half way if I get bored”, and ending up rooted to the spot, mesmerised. For an encore they played, as always, “Razzle Dazzle Rose”, but before that, hesitantly, tentatively, “Books Written for Girls”, a rare live choice.

If you want to know about the effect “Books Written for Girls” can have, then read this beautifully written blog post. I could try to describe how the song made me feel and just flail around with a load of adjectives, but I don’t think I’d ever improve on that.

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Camera Obscura - Books Written for Girls

Next topic: What things I have I done to maintain my addiction that went completely against all my beliefs and values?

Well, if there was ever a heat-seaking Exocet missile that targets on any active denial in my life, this question is it. If we are too ashamed to seek help about a particular problem, if I’m ashamed about that problem, and I’m avoiding action because I’m worried about what others think, but I’m carrying on with it, then there’s got to be an element of denial in there.

And, no, I’m too shy to tell you the stuff I’m too shy to tell you about.

Here’s Belle and Sebastian’s “I’m a Cuckoo”. Have we had Belle and Sebastian on this blog yet? I don’t think so. How did I manage for 3 months without them? Maybe because I’ve been posting rather sporadically this month, and just postponing the inevitable. Hopefully now my move to my new office is settling down things are going to be a bit more consistent. Hopefully.

My trouble raised its ugly head
I was revealed
And I was home in bed
I was a kid again

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Belle and Sebastian - I’m a Cuckoo

Next topic: Hitting Bottom: Despair and Isolation.

Now, I just don’t get this question.

The self-centered part of my disease? What, as opposed to the caring, considerate, altruistic part?

This is the new single by the fab Camera Obscura, “My Maudlin Career”, which seems an appropriate song title for what recovery can rescue you from.

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Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career

Alcoholics (and addicts) are great at using the word “if” to justify behaviours: if I didn’t have this stressful job I wouldn’t drink, if it wasn’t for my lousy homelife I wouldn’t need to unwind with a drink, if you’d had my upbringing, you would drink too. And this chapter of Living Sober is a reminder that this sort of justification and self-negotiation can continue into sobriety. So I have found myself thinking in the past that I would stay sober so long as my health was good, or that I had my job, or a relationship, or whatever, but that I couldn’t imagine recovery if I was seriously ill, or homeless, or the victim of some unspecified calamity. This continued use of “ifs” just stores up a relapse. When I’m thinking that sobriety is fine if everything goes well, then the reality is that everything is not going to go well (that seems to be the harsh reality of life - gosh, it’s tough being a grown up!). Sobriety needs to be unconditional. There’s nothing to be done about alcoholism or addiction. It can’t be changed or got rid of. Recovery can’t depend on some external factor. It has to be independent and unaffiliated with anything else.

Here’s The Pastels.

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The Pastels - Nothing to be Done

Next topic: Being wary of drinking occasions.

The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O.

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BMX Bandits - Green Grow the Rashes (live)

Next topic: Being good to yourself