Some writers talk about the creative process using bucolic images of springs welling up in wooded glades, but for me it is a foul black sludge that I must constantly pump out of me. Beyond me, out in the world, the black sludge turns into a beautiful child that I can admire, but locked within…
I was not born but sacrificed into the world. Like the rest of us, I gave up something secret and essential when I came here, something I could not afford to lose but did.
So I play the blues like I write the blues. It is my nature. It is what comes out when I open my mouth. I can never forget what awaits me, so every moment between now and then is invested with the exquisite, bittersweet perfume that is the scent of life itself… Breathe deeply.
By some curious fluke of my internal clock, I was up before dawn. Indeed, I was up so well before dawn that I had plenty of time to fiddle around (my favourite pastime). I fiddled with the mate, then I fiddled with the camera, then I fiddled with the tripod and eventually I fiddled with…
These days, what excites me is music. It is almost the only thing I care about. Making it. Listening to it. Living through it.
I listen to other peoples’ stories and imperceptibly they become mine. It is as if I were compiling an encyclopedia of stories. I settle into a seat at the corner café, open a newspaper or begin a conversation with a stranger and their stories – whether I want them to or not – become a…
(published 28 March 2010 in The Buenos Aires Herald) In the old days, after the artist, it was about the instrument. That’s why people would go to such lengths to steal a Stradivarius. Today, in the era of amplified and recorded sound, much of the action takes place once the sound leaves the instrument and…
My only salvation is the love of a woman who lifts me in her arms and wraps me in her perfume and carries me to the other side of the night.