It has been a whirlwind fortnight for Kites.
When I have not been gesticulating and gyrating onstage, I have been
harnessing and honing new material.
Our adventures have taken us to Newcastle, motorway service stations and,
most recently, to a studio situated on an island in the Thames.
In those ephemeral moments when I have been able to lay my weary bones to
rest, I find myself having the most vivid dreams. This is partly due to
sleep deprivation and partly owing to the fact that I suffer from sleep
paralysis. This affliction pits its victims in a halfway-house between
consciousness and slumber. It has become a fitting metaphor for my life.
Permit me to recount one such vision that appeared to me when I was held
captive in this delirious state...
(N.B: None of the below actually occurred. It is simply the fictional
imaginings of Matthew’s cerebral wonderland.)
...
I was floating in some sort of expectant purgatory.
As I peered skywards, shielding my eyes from the celestial effulgence, I
glimpsed St Peter waving the golden keys of heaven before a brood of
sycophantic hopefuls. It struck me that St Peter looked uncannily like Sir
John Peel and that the queue assembled outside the pearly gates consisted,
not of the religiously devout, but exclusively of recently deceased
musicians. In the middle distance I could see Syd Barrett and Ian Curtis
playing a game of croquet and sipping coupes of champagne. Elsewhere, Buddy
Holly was engaged in a game of French bowels and Janis Joplin was puffing on
a pink Sobranie cigarette. Smug bastards, I thought.
It was with courage and a dizzying sense of vertigo that I tore my eyes away
from that paradise and bent my head downwards. Through the fumes of the
infernal fire I was dimly able to distinguish the profiles of Lucifer and
his satanic horde. The horned beast – who incidentally is the spitting
image of Bono – was surrounded by every one-hit-wonder, every reality TV
star, every harmonica player to have ever sullied earth’s harmony with their
vile racket. Bono used to be highest amongst the archangels. I mean, let’s
be honest, the Joshua Tree is a truly remarkable album. Regrettably
however, he suffered from that fatal flaw: Pride (In the name of Love). He
was cast down from heaven for attempting to make his throne higher than the
clouds over the earth. Yahweh preserved his life in order to tempt man with
generic cock-rock.
As I returned my gaze to my nowhere-land, I was acutely aware of my own
nebulous future.
Is this tale allegorical? Well of course it bloody is!
It is obvious that I currently reside in the realm of Chaos.
...
And then I awoke to grim reality. I awoke to uncertainty. It was Sunday
bloody Sunday.
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