Self indulgence

Was going through some old videos I posted up on YouTube a while back and thought I'd share, just for the fun of it.

The first two were complete self-indulgences. In the case of the U2 track, it was one of those songs you find yourself listening to and suddenly realise you know all the words, so took a few minutes one Friday evening after everybody had left the office to work out the chords to go with it.

For a long time after I'd retired her from gigging, I kept my Takemine acoustic in the canteen at the office so a guitar was always to hand at odd moments through the day. A good habit, and one I should probably reinstate. She's quite past her performing days, but she's still a lovely, delicate guitar to fiddle around with.

Anyway, I seem to recall I worked out some chords to the track, recorded it on my mobile that same evening before I left for home, then have probably never played it again. Self-indulgent, in that it's not the sort of track that lends itself to the band's live set.

Anyway, U2's "One" as covered by yours truly:

In 2009, my ham-fisted guitar technique (as described by others; I prefer to think of it as "enthusiastic") finally wore through the delicate maple top of my Takemine, so I retired her from live work and replaced her with a Taylor.

A gorgeous, full throated, dreadnought of a guitar, quite a different beast to anything I'd owned to previously.

Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" recorded in 2009 on my then new Taylor. Can't believe I've had this guitar since 2009. She's not looking as shiny and new any more but I still think of her as the new toy:

It was recorded on another Friday evening, this time once I'd got home; my wife being still at work, the dog sleeping on the patio (I assume) and the kids in the front room playing on the computer, the living room made for a great ad-hoc studio. And then Sam (boy_v2) crept in about half way through recording the track and settled down on the sofa behind me.

Again, quite self-indulgent, but for different reasons. This is a song I think would work in the band's set, but although I've tried to work it in on a number of occasions over the years, we've always hit a wall. The trouble is, it's a favourite Radiohead track of both Matt (the guitarist) and I, but we both hear it slightly differently, and have conflicting views as to how it should be covered.

We've never resolved them, so the song has never made it into the set.

And finally, a live recording of the band from 2008. A cover of Paul Weller's "Wild Wood" and probably one of my favourite songs to play, it's been in the set longer and more consistently than half the musicians on the stage with me here. Actually, I'll amend that. I think it's probably done more time on the stage with me than all the musicians here!

It was one of the first covers we ever did with the band, back in the day when the vast majority of the set was made up of our own songs. It's a potential victim of its own longevity, and I have to fight to keep it in. Despite the fact that it always goes down well, always triggers a great response from any audience, because we've been playing it for so many years, Jay (my brother and our bassist) is bored of the track and would happily see the back of it. He has been for years.

So yes, it's really another self-indulgence, but one I share with many of the folks that follow our band, and so one I intend to maintain just a little longer!