Making sweet music together

Day 1 and 2 of Running on Empty
Myself, Greig Cooke and Scott Smith- the 3 performers- begin the process at Scott's home in Shoreham making music togther, and tinkering about with some of the songs we already had from Lee Ross.

Brad Birch is busy writing away (think Nicolas Cage as Kaufman in the film Adaptation) and we are waiting in gentle anticipation to see how the story will unfold, or maybe there will be no solid story, what's ever solid anyway.

We have done the research, we know how this beast will work, and it is a beast. The writing comes next and will inform all the next moves.... this is the exciting bit! 

Well, whilst we're waiting i can go for a run (tick!) and practise the few chords i have learnt on guitar and banjo...

AAAH!

The Beast

"I love the beast. I actually look forward to the beast showing up, because every time he does, I handle him better. I get him more under control."
... on ultra running in the Sahara.
Instead of cringing from fatigue, you embrace it. You refuse to let it go. You get to know it so well, you're not afraid of it anymore. You can't hate the Beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

Ummmm, Ok, I'm going to face the beast. I'm not afraid of that cold windy day outside, of the steep wooded hill I have to climb to get up on the hill and run across the top. I'm not afraid of the blustery sea in the distance, calling me in. Just me, a little human, padding alongside the ever present ferocity of nature. Bring it on, and we shall see if I learn to love to beast or not!

Born to Run

Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. and when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightening bolts through the bottom and middle- behold, the Running Man.
Running was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everything else we love- everything we sentimentally call our 'passions' and 'desires'- its really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run.

From Born to run by Christopher McDougall,  I really recommend the read!

I just looked out my window to see a man running past, the typical Brighton type- beard, thin well-worn T-shirt, white running shoes- battling against the wind and hill, red faced and sweaty. I'm thinking I'm gonna put my runners on and follow him, see if I can impress him, this is 2013 after all! 

Lift off, we have funding!

Running on empty has its Arts Council funding!!!

we are so unbelievably happy...

we are most definitely celebrating...

we are very thankful.

Now lets all go and make the best art we can possibly make.

Photography: Matthew Andrews