Are You Wolf? Erm...

Level of conviction in own genius (out of 10): 0. Perfect pitch and clever musicianship is little use in the world of mortgage lenders, solicitors and evil estate managers.
Amount of creative activity achieved today: Too busy attempting to buy houses, to little avail
Watching / Reading: Series 4 of 'Mad Men', hallelujah / A proof of 'The Report' by Jessica Francis Kane - a novel around the biggest single WW2 civilian disaster, in my old endz of Bethnal Green
Hair day: wilting

It took me to move out of Bethnal Green's sanctified environs (not by the Pope, you understand; merely beatified by the holy triumvariate of art, parks and undercuts) to discover a cool new hangout: 10 Gales, under the arches near the tube, which in true BG style, is a mix of boutique vintage shop, cafe, haircuttery, gallery and gig venue. The gig arch is very recent, so much so that it's still stinky, dank and a leetle drippy every time a train thunders overhead. But it feels like an underground room in Berlin with its hotchpotch chairs, little tea sets and £1 beers. I played a You Are Wolf gig there, which went very well, apart from my brain turning to plasticine and me introducing myself as 'I Am Wolf - no, You Are Wolf, no, that's who I am, You Are Wolf!'. Agh. It was nice to meet a mum and son there afterwards who were there as part of a local audience scheme, having been given free tickets to the night; they loved it and compared my voice to Alison Goldfrapp's. Nice! I also talked to a painter and did a significant double-take when the folk-singing best mate he kept referring to turned out to be Sheila Chandra. Sheila Chandra, one of my key experimental vocal influences along with Meredith Monk, Berio and Zap Mama, at least in the early days!

Andy and I were invited to the PRS Foundation New Music Award party in the Serpentine Pavilion last night, and had fun new-muso-spotting (and more importantly, beating Andy, in 5 mins flat, of black and red plastic chess, which is as good an achievement as winning to New Music Award in my book): Errollyn Wallen, Stephen Montague, Bishi, and a whole free-wine-quaffing host of journos, composers and players. Errollyn is a new acquaintance, having written one tenth of juice's monumental new commission, 'Laid Bare: 10 Love Songs', which was premiered at Catrin Finch's converted chapel venue in Wales for the Vale of Glamorgan last week. Considering that, as we also performed some little Tormis songs for the first time, we performed SEVENTEEN new pieces we'd never aired before, we did pretty well. The gin afterwards never tasted so good...