: 20 March 2002 :

WARNING: trying to play the guitar like Robert Quine can seriously damage your fingers

The knuckles on my left hand felt funny this afternoon. I thought I might have dislocated my little finger or something, but then I realised I was being melodramatic. After that I just sat (relatively) calmly and listened to the rest of Blank Generation, still not getting over how good an album it is. It's not so much that you think Quine's guitar playing is good, it's more that you never would have thought of playing like that in the first place. Well, I wouldn't. But I still have much to learn.

As well as the Voidoids I've been listening to Beulah (first album), or trying to. My CD player was being weird. First the pause button wouldn't work (the counter blinked on and off but the CD kept going) then the play button on the remote wouldn't work, then when I took the disc out and put it back in again I got the “no disc” display. Finally it started cooperating, but it had me worried. The CD player always has problems with the Kid 606 album I got in America, but then that's kind of apt, I suppose. I half suspect it of being manufactured in a deliberately fucked state.

Listened to Woody Guthrie too, this morning while I had my coffee. I heard the words to “Tom Joad” properly for the first time, and listening to it I could see Henry Fonda's face, his big melodramatic monochrome eyes, and I could hear him speaking the words softly behind Woody. I was surprised to find my eyes pricked with tears.