Wednesday, April 8

For a brief moment I feel overcome with nostalgia for a past I never had.

I have left the house and walked round to the back shed to record a new episode of Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse, the fortnightly podcast that should release a new episode in two days time. I have decided to broadcast the results of my recent dive into the music available on Free Music Archive, Jamendo and Tribe of Music.

I cannot play reasonably the part of B. Mitchel Reed without disrupting the work going on in the next room. I set up a mobile studio in the shed instead. I then feel like a radio ham from the forties, a small-town dj in the fifties, someone on a pirate radio ship in the sixties. I find the radio ham the most interesting past to find myself inhabiting.

“Helsinki calling Belarus, do you read me” and so on.

On the way out of the studio I turn and photograph the rear wall of the studio. At that particular moment, with the unseasonal sun pouring down on me, it feels good.

Later, when I edit the file and merge it with the music I will realise with a sinking feeling that I bear more relationship to Whispering Bob Harris than B. Mitchel Reed, let alone Wolfman Jack.