Journal tags: love

So Frostapalooza happened on Saturday.

It was joyous!

It all started back in July of last year when I got an email from Brad:

Next summer I’m turning 40, and I’m going to use that milestone as an excuse to play a big concert with and for all of my friends and family. It’ll sorta be like The Last Waltz, but with way more web nerds involved.

Originally it was slated for July of 2024, which was kind of awkward for me because it would clash with Belfast Trad Fest but I said to mark me down as interested. Then when the date got moved to August of 2024, it became more doable. I knew that Jessica and I would be making a transatlantic trip at some point anyway to see her parents, so we could try to combine the two.

In fact, the tentative plans we had to travel to the States in April of 2024 for the total solar eclipse ended up getting scrapped in favour of Brad’s shindig. That’s right—we chose rock’n’roll over the cosmic ballet.

Over the course of the last year, things began to shape up. There were playlists. There were spreadsheets. Dot voting was involved.

Anyone with any experience of playing live music was getting nervous. It’s hard enough to rehearse and soundcheck for a four piece, but Brad was planning to have over 40 musicians taking part!

We did what we could from afar, choosing which songs to play on, recording our parts and sending them onto Brad. Meanwhile Brad was practicing like hell with the core band. With Brad on bass and his brother Ian on drums for the whole night, we knew that the rhythm section would be tight.

A few months ago we booked our flights. We’d fly into to Boston first to hang out with Ethan and Liz (it had been too long!), then head down to Pittsburgh for Frostapalooza before heading on to Florida to meet up with Jessica’s parents.

When we got to Pittsburgh, we immediately met up with Chris and together we headed over to Brad’s for a rehearsal. We’d end up spending a lot of time playing music with Chris over the next couple of days. I loved every minute of it.

The evening before Frostapalooza, Brad threw a party at his place. It was great to meet so many of the other musicians he’d roped into this.

Then it was time for the big day. We had a whole afternoon to soundcheck, but we needed it. Drums, a percussion station, a horn section …not to mention all the people coming and going on different songs. Fortunately the tech folks at the venue were fantastic and handled it all with aplomb.

We finished soundchecking around 5:30pm. Doors were at 7pm. Time to change into our rock’n’roll outfits and hang out backstage getting nervous and excited.

Right before showtime, Brad gave a heartfelt little speech.

Then the fun really began.

I wasn’t playing on the first few songs so I got to watch the audience’s reaction as they realised what was in store. Maybe they thought this would be a cute gathering of Brad and his buddies jamming through some stuff. What they got was an incredibly tight powerhouse of energy from a seriously awesome collection of musicians.

I had the honour of playing on five songs over the course of the night. I had an absolute blast! But to be honest, I had just as much fun being in the audience dancing my ass off.

Oh, I was playing mandolin. I probably should’ve mentioned that.

The first song I played on was The Weight by The Band. There was a real Last Waltz vibe as Brad’s extended family joined him on stage, along with me and and Chris.

Later I hopped on stage as one excellent song segued into another—Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I’ve loved this song since the first time I heard it. In the dot-voting rounds to figure out the set list, this was my super vote.

You know the way it starts with that single note tremelo on the guitar? I figured that would work on the mandolin. And I know how to tremelo.

Jessica was on bass. Jessi Hall was on vocals. It. Rocked.

I stayed on stage for Radiohead’s The National Anthem complete with horns, musical saw, and two basses played by Brad and Jessica absolutely killing it. I added a little texture over the singing with some picked notes on the mandolin.

Then it got truly epic. We played Wake Up by Arcade Fire. So. Much. Fun! Again, I laid down some tremelo over the rousing chorus. I’m sure no one could hear it but it didn’t matter. Everyone was just lifted along by the sheer scale of the thing.

That was supposed to be it for me. But during the rehearsal the day before, I played a little bit on Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain and Brad said, “You should do that!”

So I did. I think it worked. I certainly enjoyed it!

With that, my musical duties were done and I just danced and danced, singing along to everything.

At the end of the night, everyone got back on stage. It was a tight fit. We then attempted to sing Bohemian Rhapsody together. It was a recipe for disaster …but amazingly, it worked!

That could describe the whole evening. It shouldn’t have worked. It was far too ambitious. But not only did it work, it absolutely rocked!

What really stood out for me was how nice and kind everyone was. There was nary an ego to be found. I had never met most of these people before but we all came together and bonded over this shared creation. It was genuinely special.

Days later I’m still buzzing from it all. I’m so, so grateful to Brad and Melissa for pulling off this incredible feat, and for allowing me to be a part of it.

They’ve had a shitty few years. I know we all had a shitty time over the past few years, but the shit kept on coming for them:

And then in the middle of this traumatic medical emergency, our mentally-unstable neighbor across the street began accosting my family, flipping off our toddler and nanny, racially harassing my wife, and making violent threats. We fled our home for fear of our safety because he was out in the street exposing himself, shouting belligerence, and threatening violence.

After that, Brad started working with Project Healthy Minds. In fact, all the proceeds from Frostapalooza go to that organisation along with NextStep Pittsburgh.

Just think about that. Confronted with intimidation and racism, Brad and Melissa still managed to see the underlying systemic inequality, and work towards making things better for the person who drove them out of their home.

Good people, man. Good people.

I sincererly hope they got some catharsis from Frostapalooza. I can tell you that I felt frickin’ great after being part of an incredible event filled with joy and love and some of the best music I’ve ever heard.

There’s a write-up of Frostapalooza on CSS Tricks and Will Browar has posted his incredible photographs from the night—some seriously superb photography!

Being in Croatia last week got me thinking about the country’s history.

I remember the break-up of Yugoslavia, but I was quite out of touch with the news for a while back in 1991. That’s because I was hitch-hiking and busking around Europe with my musical partner Polly from Cornwall. I had my mandolin, she had her fiddle.

We went from Ireland to England to France to Germany to Czechoslovakia (still a single country back then), to Austria to Italy, back to France, and back to England. A loop around Europe.

We set off on August 21st, 1991. The only reason I know the date is because I remember we had been to a gig in Cork the night before.

Sonic Youth were playing in Sir Henry’s (a great venue that no longer exists). The support band was a group from Seattle called Nirvana. I remember that some of my friends decided to skip the support band to stay in the pub next door until Sonic Youth came on because the pints were cheaper there.

By the time Polly and I got back from our travels, Nirvana were the biggest band on the planet. It all happened very quickly.

The same could be said for the situation in Yugoslavia.

I remember when we were stuck for a day at a petrol station in the alps trying to get from Austria to Italy. There was a bureau de change listing currency exchange rates. This was before the euro came in so there were lots of different currencies; pounds, francs, lira, deutsche marks. Then there was the listing for the Yugoslav dinar. It read:

• We buy: 00.00
• We sell: 00.00

That really struck me, seeing the situation summarised so clinically.

But what really got to me was an encounter in Vienna.

Polly and I did well in that city. On our first evening of busking, not only did we make some good money, but we also met a local folk singer. This young man very generously took us in and put us up in his flat.

At some point during our stay, we were on one of the city’s trams. That’s when we met another young couple who were on the road. Somehow there was always a connection between fellow travellers. I can’t remember who spoke to who first, but we bonded straight away.

It soon became clear that our situations were only superfically similar. This was a young couple deeply in love. One of them was Serbian. The other was Croatian. It wasn’t safe for either of them back where they used to call home.

I could return home at any point. I always knew that when I was sleeping rough, or struggling to make enough money to eat.

They couldn’t return. All they wanted was to be together somewhere safe. They started asking us about Ireland and England. “Do you think they’d give us asylum?” they asked with so much hope. It broke my heart to see their desperation, the pleading look in their eyes.

I felt so useless. I wished there was something I could’ve done for them.

I think about them a lot.

Jamie Freeman passed away yesterday.

I first met Jamie as a fellow web-nerd way back in the early 2000s when I was freelancing here in Brighton. I did a lot of work with him and his design studio, Message. Andy was working there too. It’s kind of where the seeds of Clearleft were planted.

I remember one day telling them about a development with Salter Cane. Our drummer, Catherine, was moving to Australia so we were going to have to start searching for someone new.

“I play drums”, said Jamie.

I remember thinking, “No, you don’t; you play guitar.” But I thought “What the heck”, and invited him along to a band practice.

Well, it turns that not only could he play drums, he was really good! Jamie was in the band.

It’s funny, I kept referring to Jamie as “our new drummer”, but he actually ended up being the drummer that was with Salter Cane the longest.

Band practices. Concerts. Studio recordings. We were a team for years. You can hear Jamie’s excellent drumming on our album Sorrow. You can also his drumming (and brilliant backing vocals) on an album of covers we recorded. He was such a solid drummer—he made the whole band sound tighter.

But as brilliant as Jamie was behind a drumkit, his heart was at the front of the stage. He left Salter Cane to front The Jamie Freeman Agreement full-time. I loved going to see that band and watching them get better and better. Jonathan has written lovingly about his time with the band.

After that, Jamie continued to follow his dreams as a solo performer, travelling to Nashville, and collaborating with loads of other talented people. Everyone loved Jamie.

This year started with the shocking news that he had inoperable cancer—a brain tumor. Everyone sent him all their love (we recorded a little video from the Salter Cane practice room—as his condition worsened, video worked better than writing). But somehow I didn’t quite believe that this day would come when Jamie was no longer with us. I mean, the thought was ridiculous: Jamie, the vegetarian tea-totaller …with cancer? Nah.

I think I’m still in denial.

The last time I had the joy of playing music with Jamie was also the last time that Salter Cane played a gig. Jamie came back for a one-off gig at the start of 2020 (before the world shut down). It was joyous. It felt so good to rock out with him.

Jamie was always so full of enthusiasm for other people, whether that was his fellow musicians or his family members. He had great stories from his time on tour with his brother Tim’s band, Frazier Chorus. And he was so, so proud of everything his brother Martin has done. It was so horrible when their sister died. I can’t imagine what they must be going through now, losing another sibling.

Like I said, I still can’t quite believe that Jamie has gone. I know that I’m really going to miss him.

I’m sending all my love and my deepest sympathies to Jamie’s family.

Fuck cancer.

2005 feels like a pivotal year in my memory. That’s the year that Rich, Andy and I formed Clearleft. It was also the year that the three of us went to South by Southwest for the first time. That was amazing. Not because of the event itself, but because of the people. I met, hung out with, and formed firm friendships with people whose blogs I had been reading for years—it really was like my RSS reader had come to life. It’s also where I met Cindy for the first time.

We ended up hanging out a lot there, and afterwards. She came to England. We met up in Florida (her family is in Jacksonville, not far from St. Augustine, where Jessica’s family is from—in fact, we may well have been in the same St. Augustine pastry shop at the same time before we even met). And of course we’d see each other at conferences …like that one time in San Diego, when she joined me in my first ever karaoke experience (little did I know that she was in on the rick-rolling). Wherever geeks gathered, Cindy was there. Cindy could outgeek all of us, whether it was nerding out about good food or Star Wars. That was until she met her match at the Web Directions North conference in Vanouver in early 2007.

Matt came all the way from England for that conference. I distinctly remember sitting with him on the bus back from the post-conference snowboarding trip to Whistler after the conference. He was able to point out all the filming locations from The X Files, Battlestar Galactica, and every other sci-fi TV show. He met Cindy the next day and, of course, they clicked.

Cindy ended up moving to San Francisco, and I’d visit her den of nerdery whenever I was in town. Meanwhile, Matt was crossing the Atlantic at every available opportunity to spend time with Cindy. On one of those trips, they went down to the courthouse and tied the knot.

Given the short notice for the wedding, they decided that they’d have a bigger marriage celebration further down the line. At that year’s South by Southwest, Cindy and Matt took me aside and asked if I’d officiate at their wedding. “But I can’t officiate a wedding!”, I said. “I’ve got no qualifications!” “A-ha!”, they pointed out, “It’s technically not an official marriage ceremony—we’re already married.”

That’s how I came to give the most important public speaking engagement of my life. It was nerve-wracking and wonderful.

I’ll never forget when Cindy and Matt came to Boston for An Event Apart a few years later. I was so happy to see Cindy that I didn’t even notice the most striking thing about her; after we hugged, she just stared at me and pointed at her belly until the lightbulb went off over my head. Cindy was pregnant!

They had a beautiful baby boy named Apollo. Isn’t that an awesome name?

They managed to match that awesomeness with the naming of their second boy, Orion. Apollo and Orion!

When Cindy was pregnant with Orion, she didn’t have the opportunity to surprise me with the news in person, like she had done with Apollo. She Facetimed me and Jessica to tell us the news. But she had other news to share with us that she didn’t want to be widely known. She had just been diagnosed with cancer.

I don’t really want to talk about that, but just consider what it must have been like to be going through treatment and being pregnant at the same time! Orion is a miracle, and Cindy was the miracle worker.

(The reason I don’t want to talk about Cindy’s cancer is, well, for one, she didn’t want it to be known so I’m still thinking of it as a private matter, but also Cindy could never be defined by how she died, but rather how she lived.)

By this time Cindy and Matt had moved to Pittsburgh. Myself and Jessica visited when we could. I was there for my birthday last year, and together we recreacted delicacies from that pastry shop in Saint Augustine.

A lot of my memories of Cindy involve amazing food. Like that time we all went to The French Laundry. This year we made plans to go to Alinea in October. Cindy got reservations. Jessica and I booked our plane tickets. But it wasn’t to be. It became clear that Cindy wasn’t able to travel and that there wasn’t much time left. Instead of a trip to Chicago, we made a trip to Pittsburgh. We were hoping to see Cindy one last time. But she died just a few days before we showed up.

But remember what I said about Cindy being defined by her life, not her death? It’s so, so true. Literally everyone who knew her was a better person for it. Her energy. Her indominatable spirit. She really was truly inspiring. She still inspires me. I know it sounds like a cliché to say that only her body has gone, while her spirit lives on, but in this case, it’s really true. Her spirit is alive in every single person who knew her. And if that isn’t enough of a cliché, I’m going to come right out and say it: I’m a better person for having known Cindy.

What happened to Cindy was so horribly, horribly unfair (did I mention that she didn’t smoke, or drink, or even use bad language?). But there’s one thing that I’m so very grateful for: I’m so, so glad that she had Matt. I always knew that Cindy was amazing—she’s Wonder Woman—but I’ve come to realise that she really did find her match. Matt is Superman. I am in awe of his strength. I cannot imagine what he is going through right now. Like Cindy, he is an inspiration to me.

Cindy is gone, but that love between Cindy and Matt …that’s forever.

One hundred years ago today, Alan Turing was born.

I could claim that without him, we wouldn’t have computers; that without him, World War Two would have lasted another two years at least.

But the truth is that the history of innovation and invention is rarely as linear as that, and that if one genius hadn’t made the great leap forward, some other genius would have. The pieces were there, waiting in the adjacent possible.

And yet, in our timeline, history played out the way it did. So I can say that thanks to Alan Turing, we have computers; thanks to Alan Turing, World War Two was shortened by at least two years.

And I can, with absolute certainty, say that the way Alan Turing was treated after the war was absolutely shameful.

We can learn a lot from the life of Alan Turing. We can learn about computation, universal machines, and artificial intelligence. We can also learn about tolerance, compassion …and love.

Happy birthday, Alan. Love you.

— Andy Hume (@andyhume) June 23, 2012