I have just received a call from Fripp, bemoaning the pathetic lack of diary activity on these pages. I myself bemoan the lack of activity in my life which might make worthwhile reading. I now accept that a major part of the next period of my life will be as the author - or more properly the instigator - of the Vicar Chronicles. Much internal work, little outward progress to report in a diary.
Whether this means that there is less or more music in my life has yet to be seen.
I quote below from today's preface to the first chronicle, which addresses the same questions raised recently by Barry:
Preface to Chronicle the First
The publishers have asked me to explain why a shy and retiring man, like myself, might allow his life to be used as material for a book and TV show. I myself wonder how it could be otherwise. How could a man who pays lip service to lofty notions of Integrity, Justice and Art avoid such a project once it presented itself? There are times when the creative impulse takes us into its confidence and beckons us forward. This is one of those times, and we must trust the process. Or not.
And yet, even as I write this, I realise that these self same publishers may not like my reasoning. They may prefer to believe in a devious plot, as expounded recently, that will make me the "cruel, heartless, raging venal leader" of a Vicarious empire, designed to enhance the sale of Vicar barbie dolls to an unsuspecting public. I reply that, if such a plot involves the flow of unhealthily large sums of money in my direction, I am happy to consider it.
And what of the writing itself. I do not always agree with Punk's point of view, but they are his opinions, honourably held, which will, I trust, be received with generosity and goodwill. In over 27 years of jumping in and out of vans, travelling the world, playing and recording music in the most unlikely and inappropriate venues, I have yet to find a book that accurately describes the industry in which I earn my daily crust – an industry which encompasses the very best and the very worst of humanity, its excesses, greed, jealousies, capacity for infinite beauty, strange attraction to mind altering substances, big people with big egos and even bigger erections. And that's just the good guys.
Some of Punk's writing may touch on these truths, much of it will not, but I trust it will always be entertaining.
At the time of writing, Punk's simplistic direct prose has yet to be "moulded" at the hands of an editor. I now realise that this process is to be feared as much as the A & R man at a record label, who loves your album, but suggests you "rework it with different musicians", or that he "cannot promote your album without a single". I therefore have no idea if, when you turn this page, you will be greeted by Punk's six rules, which I love so much, or by a new sanitized beginning. This is a creative process. The outcome is therefore necessarily uncertain. The book, which you hold within your carefully washed and manicured hands, may by now be a best seller or an abject failure. That is for the future. We must all begin somewhere, and Punk's initial verbal onslaught awaits you over the page.
The Vicar
The Vicarage 5th November 2001
"A beginning is invisible."
