Preparing to rehearse with Fosca tonight, for the gig at Brixton Windmill this Wednesday. Kate is on holiday, so we’re playing as a ‘power trio’, ho ho.
Looking forward to it, though I’ve decided it’s going to be the last indie-type gig for Fosca, and for me.
After this, I’m only keen to play the occasional festival, or a special event somewhere more fitting for my aging nerves, such as a theatre, art gallery or library.
I don’t want to stop playing live, but I do want to stop playing those sort of gigs. So it’s the end of a very minor era. Maybe we’re just not popular enough in the UK to NOT play anything but little indie gigs, in which case it will be the last Fosca gig in the UK. Fair enough.
As the Weds gig is a rare headliner, it’s a good one to go out on. Best quit while you’re a headliner.
The first proper Fosca gig – in the format I was happy with – was with Rachel Stevenson, Charley Stone and others in Brixton, 1998. So it’s also ending where it started.
I view this Wednesday as the end of a indie gig-playing ‘career’ that started fourteen years ago. My first was April 1993, at the Monarch (now The Barfly) in Camden. This was as an early version of Orlando, supporting Blueboy. Rachel Stevenson was in the audience. It was a weird, semi spoken-word incarnation, and the gig was actually reviewed in Melody Maker. We put three of the songs on an EP under the name of Shelley, for Sarah Records in 1995.
Then there were the Orlando Romo Years. A proper attempt at pop stardom, a lot of fun, a lot of frustration, some tears, many mistakes, a lot of battles, a good album that’s been called a ‘lost classic’, no regrets.
Then a brief attempt to join them rather than beat them: dark hair, calling myself Richard, forming a proper Nirvana / Oasis-esque rock band. Seeing how the other half rocked. Which was actually in danger of being successful (managers, label interest), so I split it up. To ensure you are yourself, it helps to try being someone else for a while.
Then Fosca proper, indiepop and proud, from 1998 to present. John Peel played us a few times, we got to play gigs abroad, became slightly big in Sweden. I also played guitar for Spearmint for a year, which was again a lot of fun. They sacked me, but it was okay. I fell in love with Scarlet’s Well, and played with them at their first gig. They sacked me, and that was okay too.
I feel that I’ve given it a go. Been there, done that. And though it’s important to never give up on the things you do want to do, the latter no longer applies. I don’t feel a burning need to play London indie gigs anymore, vocationally speaking. It’s no longer my ‘calling’.
The paraphernalia of the entry-level indie band now prevents me from fully enjoying the good bits, ie the actual performance. I didn’t use to mind these things, but now they are in danger of upstaging the good parts. Rehearsal rooms which charge a fortune (gigs rarely make a profit), then provide broken mic stands and sweaty, blokey spaces. Carrying equipment about, worrying about how to get it there and back, dealing with promoters who ask you how many people you can pull, sound checks where the engineer says it’ll be better when there’s people in the room. Having to manage yourself, organise band members, try to steal rare matching time slots from their ever-busier lives. It’s all so increasingly… not me.
There’s also the small matter of my Fosca songwriting pretty much coming to a natural end. I feel I’ve written all the Fosca songs I want to sing, and am in danger of just re-writing what’s gone before. A trilogy of albums is enough. I want to write for others, and in other styles.
Like not hosting Beautiful & Damned anymore, it’s a gut reaction. It feels right to quit after a certain amount of time, in order to try something else.
The next step is to find a suitable label for the final album, which is now finished and ready for mastering. I’m hoping the labels who have shown interest in the past will get in touch. I have no desire in the slightest to do any ‘hustling’. And I don’t really want to put it out online, as a download-only affair. I want a proper CD with nice artwork. Is that so unusual? Maybe.
Please come along on the Wednesday if you can. The promoters have said they’re worried about a low turn-out, because of something called Indie Tracks. One wants to say ‘thanks for the vote of confidence!’, but of course they’re quite right. By crowd-pulling standards in our own country, Fosca are an abject failure. Which again is fine, but as I say (and it’s still nearly a good joke), best quit while we’re a headliner.
Oh, and there’s some problem with the Victoria Line tube that night, too. I am of course taking that personally.
It’s been fourteen years of trying and failing. Stress and worry. Things going wrong. But I’m happy with most of it. I’m happy with the new Fosca album. It’s really rather special. The title is an allusion to the joy of doing things for their own sake, even when no one else is watching or listening or reading. And that’s enough.
So, enough.
