Oh October!

Huge hurricane-like gales hit the UK this month. I was woken by the groan and creaking of the trees. Conkers whipped off the chestnut trees along the drive: pine cones ripped off the fir trees; torn off sycamore leaves and branches; all whirled around in the night air like some strange pre-Halloween recipe from a witches cook book. All very Harry Potter! What a mess in the morning!

• Announcement: The big news this month is that I finally signed the agreement terminating any contractual relationship with Castle/Sanctuary on 30th September 2002. Having started in January 2000, and agreed heads of terms in July 2001, it has taken two years and nine months of hard, gruelling, persistent work to get them to sign off on the deal. Everybody told me it could not be done, that nobody had ever managed to break one of these contracts before. But I have wanted this for thirty five years – and it took all that time to develop the determination, courage, wisdom, self worth and good fortune in order to achieve my goal. I want to thank all the lawyers who throughout the years have firstly been so shocked to read such an exploitative document and have then put their minds and skills to chipping away at the foundations of the contract. All of them contributed to getting me into the position on January 2000 when I could finally go for it. So thanks to:
  
  James Wyllie
  Laurence Gilmore
  Craig Eadie
  Charles Negus-Fancey
  Tim Smith
  
  
  
  "Free At Last, Free At Last..."
  
  
• You and your gladioli: For any Smiths/Sandie fans, the Granada TV transmission date for "These things Take Time" is November 8th.
  
  
  click to enlarge
  
  
• Regeneration: I am getting lots of emails asking for re-releases of Hello Angel, foreign tracks, post 67 tracks and…new material. Thanks so much for your persistence. Watch this space for a very special announcement before the end of the year...
  
  
• Fans lounge: OK, OK, OK. I hear what you say. I’ll follow your suggestions to have a Fan Club in the Fans Lounge run by a team of fans. People have already put themselves forward but just in case we have missed someone who has a burning desire to be part of this – here’s your chance. I will finalise it this month and get in touch with everyone directly.
  
  
• Buddha World: I am opening this part of the site this month. Eventually I will put information and explanations up but initially it will be inspiring Guidance for practising Buddhists. Of course anyone else who feels the need for encouragement or a different way of looking at things it is there for you too.
  
  
• A Touch of The Blarney: Here’s the next instalment of the Irish interview:
  
  

Beechy Interview - Part Two

Today you work as a therapist, what attracted you to this sort of work?

In the eighties I did some work with The Smiths, I had a bit of resurgence during that time but wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I decided to write a book about it. There’s nothing like writing a book about your experiences to make you start thinking about things, about your life. I started thinking, why do people do that, why do I think that, why, why, why – all the "why’s" came up. I thought I’d like to go to university to discover it all. I studied at Oxford and London University, got my qualifications and became a psychotherapist. I started working just with young people at first because that was my main interest then.

What sort of age group Sandie?

Between fourteen and eighteen. So much change can be achieved during that time. It’s a lovely time in somebody’s life – fragile and strong at the same time. I did that for a while and then became more and more involved in thinking about creativity and creative development. So I naturally veered towards working not just with artists but with people within the whole creative industries. There are different ways of expressing art, you don’t have to be the actual artist who does the deed, in fact everybody around them is part of this artistic thing.

Do you use music at all in your work?

No, I’m a really straightforward, straight down the line therapist. I work psychodynamically, integratively, I do CBT work and I stick within my specialities. I don’t just do therapy, I do creative development with people because I’m interested in the wellbeing of people within the media and the Arts industries.

I think, and you will know more than me, that it’s a hugely unlooked after area for a lot of people. I’ve come up against lots of casualties in the music business, young people that don’t really get the sort of help or attention before they’re successful. All of a sudden a lot of things happen and as quick as it comes it can leave again.

My thing is looking to people that have actually done things successfully and looking at what the secrets are of fulfilling yourself as an artist. If you look at people like Madonna or Bowie, who have had that kind of longevity, they do look after themselves physically, mentally and spiritually. You can see that they’re growing all the time. Because they use themselves as the source of their art they have to look after themselves if they want to be artists who deliver consistently and throughout life. You’ve got different things to offer at different times in your life. You don’t have to get thrown on the junk heap - you do it yourself, because if you have a very limited view of your self and you rely on past efforts you will not move forward. Sometimes it’s such a giant leap to move forward which is very scary because everybody wants you to do ‘that’ and you have to do ‘this’; in order for you to have that longevity you have to be able to do that. So I’m interested in working with people more that way now. It’s basically to teach people what the creative process is. They know it instinctively, but if you are quite explicit about the creative process and how it manifests in their lives then they can actually start mastering it, instead of it actually just happening. The muse does not just happen you have to create the right environment in which it can happen. You have to nurture it, there are all these things that you have to do to help it develop in the correct way. Usually the first step is to get people to respect that place that it comes from, because often they don’t and they abuse it. They treat it quite harshly because we live in a commercial environment that has to abuse it and has to exploit it because ultimately that’s what the artist wants.

There must surely be a huge difference now between the music business now and in the sixties and seventies, how do you see that?

It’s become far more corporatized on the one hand, but on the other hand there’s easy access to all sorts of equipment now so kids can actually make music for themselves. They can actually get it distributed themselves sometimes. But there still is that big leap between that independent market and the big corporate market. The other big difference - do you remember that feeling when the world cup was on? That experience was really profound for me and I had this huge thing going on with my son at the time who is seventeen. What was so exciting for England, and also for Ireland in it’s own way, is that for the first time in a long time, (and this is a peculiarly English experience), they felt the possibility of success. The possibility of winning, the possibility of just daring to dream it, that your dream could come true. And I felt that so strongly with my son, he got so excited. I remember saying to him "Do you know how you’re feeling now? I felt that everyday when I was seventeen. I woke up every morning and felt that sense of possibility, that my dreams could come true. And I wasn’t the only one feeling that, a whole generation felt like that. Now that’s what you’re missing and that’s what I want for you." The fact that that World Cup feeling happened is significant. It’s a taster, and once somebody has experienced that in their lives they want to go back for more, to seek for that thing again and again.

There was that feelgood thing and now there’s also a quest for celebrity; do you think that as a society we’re too obsessed with celebrity?

I’ve never enjoyed any of the things associated with celebrity. I’ve never thought there were any pluses to being famous. But there are people much more extrovert than myself who enjoy it. What you’re talking about is some sort of ‘dysfunctional’ thing about this desire to be famous just for the sake of it, not necessarily based on merit. I have a feeling that it’s to do with people feeling insignificant and people not feeling a connection with the eternity of life.

I’ve got this thing that everybody’s ‘here’ trying to get ‘there’ and when they get ‘there’ they realise that it’s just another ‘here’.

People find it quite difficult living in the now. It’s one of the most difficult things to do. It’s this vicarious living though that bothers me. It’s living through somebody else, it would be great if we actually took back our own experiences and stopped trying to experience our lives through other people. I don’t think anything is either good or bad in itself, I think it’s about how you actually use it.

How long have you been a Buddhist for?

For longer than I’ve not been now! About 25 years.

Has that sense of faith been central in your life?

I do everything as a Buddhist. How do people make sense of this chaos that is our life without something like it, without a centralising force? It allows you to be subjective in the moment and objective and outside the moment at the same time. In that way you can see what the truth is of every situation. Everybody and their mother is an expert or a specialist in something or other. The truth is that we are all a specialist on our own lives. Everybody seems to be giving away so much of their power to all these specialists. So that’s why it’s so central to my life because it’s to do with the empowerment of the individual. Not being dependent on anyone or anything, there is nobody on the outside that you are beholden to – it’s all in you.

It’s a total sense of self that can be a real strength.

Absolutely, especially if your sense of self isn’t a distorted narcissistic one, but a huge altruistic one that encompasses everybody that exists, everybody that will exist and everybody that did exist, more than just human beings, but even every atom. It gives an enormous sense of self and a sense of freedom and a sense of belonging.

When you hear some of your songs by the young sixteen year old, can you still identify with her? Are you still with her?

Yeah. She walks with me all the time. When I listen to her voice it’s not my voice anymore, my voice is about two tones deeper, so I don’t sing in high tones like that anymore you’ll be pleased to hear.

I was asked a question a few days ago, somebody said to me, "In five words how would you describe the sea?" How would you answer that? How would you describe the sea?

Massive. Caring. Holding. Invigorating. Eternal.

When I answered that question, the person said to me, "That’s just how you perceive yourself"

Yes, it’s true!

Happy Halloween

This month I’ve mostly been listening to Simian, St Germain, Sandie Shaw on vinyl (only for research purposes you understand) and Swing Out Sister (Hi Corinne).