oncle yanco 'le merveilleux' (jean varda)

horsemouth is up late  (jesus he really is turning onto a lazy sod in his 'retirement').  he's finding his 'retirement' a bit boring (he may have to find something else to do). he's a bit shocked by this realisation.

last night a phonecall from his mum with added radiophonic sound courtesy of water on the wires. it seems like phone communication with his parents will be cut when it rains. his dad is off to the dentist and his mum wants to go see the doctor but can't. 

Oncle Yanco from JP Achard on Vimeo.

he's enjoying agnes varda's film of her oncle yanco and his floating village (similarly there was a grauniad article about californian boat dwellers). at one time he though gentrification was so intense that we would be driven off the land (this may well yet turn out to be the case). at some point oncle yanco (jean varda) makes reference to the importance of 'le merveilleux' (the marvellous) to him, this should be understood in the french sense as a mixture of myth and fable and folk tale. he discusses the importance of his collage art.

horsemouth's resonator is over at howard's (the great clanking beast that it is) so he has got the peasold classical guitar out of its gig bag and has been playing that. he's been thinking about his putative gig at water into beer  in february (which as howard points out is a long way off), he's also thinking about the PPE (peter, paul and enza) reunion session wednesday - he can't take the resonator (he'll probably tune the hummingbird copy standard and take that).

now the PPE line up is double bass, guitar and vocals so horsemouth is interested in playing a jazzier set than he would do normally, something slightly chanson. last time they were opening with the get carter theme music and including the cuban spanish a la luna yo mi voy,  peter will bring his tunes (which are good and memorable). enza will bring stuff she wants to cover.  

yesterday he played his way through - something's on your mind, sometimes our dreams, painbirds, katie cruel, the entertainer, ace of spades, high rise strutter's ball, honeysuckle rose and paper moon. he had a look at autumn leaves. at one point he had the guitar parts for st.louis blues worked up maybe he could revisit that. he also had guitar parts for some french songs worked up (but he has largely forgotten them). these will either be good for PPE or for his upcoming musicians of bremen gig. 

now autumn leaves/ les feuilles mortes gives the potential of singing a song in both french and english. it is a song of regret and misery at the passing of love affairs with (as horsemouth has noted before) slightly different metaphors employed for the passing of time (autumn leaves/ footprints in the sand). it will take him some time to work up - he has a set of chords from an eric clapton version (!) that may work (and some different ones in a teach yourself jazz book). 

horsemouth can't (as yet) play jazz. he lacks the musical knowledge and his ears aren't wonderful. that said he likes the idea of working with double bass (and the idea of singing songs in more than one language).