ground hog day (horsemouth communing with the sacred bears)

horsemouth is awake. he was dreaming about being a spy. outside it is not too bad a morning (it's not raining there is some sun). he has his coffee. he works in the afternoon. 

today is groundhog day (a day that is supposed to be spent communing with the sacred bears). the news will come through around 1pm. 

last night horsemouth celebrated six months since the release of musicians of bremen volume four = really just an excuse to spam his friends with the good news. it looks like one new person has heard it (so it was all worth it). 

horsemouth still hasn't got it together to do a live gig under the current circumstances. this has been a mistake he thinks. howard has played quite a bit (but no one has seen it because he plays as and when he likes). their social media efforts are divided across different platforms and do not make an integrated whole - but that's probably ok. 

howard has been recording a new tune with his new guitars (he has two - a nylon strung and a metal strung one) adding keyboards and he has a clarinet he is attempting to learn. 

gwenifer raymond was saying how much she appreciated the ability to do gigs from home that the new situation affords. horsemouth has so far not put his hand in his pocket for the new service (but he's a tightwad and thoroughly stingy so this just replicates his previous unwillingness to pay for digital product). 

of course the scrabble is on over who gets paid ('won't somebody think of the songwriters!') there was a whole PRS structure over who got paid when a band played a gig, or a tune got played on the radio that hasn't come into existence yet for the live streaming 'industry'.  

horsemouth is suspicious over the music industry's claim to be an industry - at one level reasonable amounts of money are actually generated but 2/3rds, 9/10ths of musical activity is effectively unremunerated (or in fact paid for by the musician). 

people just want to have their shamanic moment they do this dressed in the costume of paid entertainers. the amount of money he has made  as a musician would not have kept him in guitar strings, never mind guitars, recordings or tube fare to the practices.

the crisis is burning off the physical infrastructure of the creative industries. the venues are shuttered and dark and may not be coming back for a long while. but it is imbolc and we have groundhogs telling us of spring, the new days are coming a thousand flowers will bloom.