Friday night was great fun I have to say. I really got a chance to do some proper multi-instrumentalism live on stage - haven't had a chance to do that for a long time. Kaya kept up the clarinet while I tangled myself in a bundle of wires playing toy keys through guitar pedals, glockenspiel and trumpet and cello through Kaoss Pad. Lots of feedback was required to keep the energy up, and I had to get the sound man to throw me a new cable for the keyboard after the guitar amp cut out and I got it working again. It was my sort of thing really - balancing things on other things, using all my arms and legs to keep stuff working, reacting to sound engineering mishaps.

After receiving an initial batch of congratulatory sentiments I found myself sat alone. I felt awfully depressed about this. I felt frozen out of all the groups and didn't feel like I was there with any of my usual friends (i.e. I only knew the people I had played with, but they seemed to be talking to alternative, much closer friends). Angrily scribbling in my pad, I think I got to the root of my problem.

I think I subconsciously expect that if I prove that I am good at stuff, then more people will want to talk to me. Thus relieving me of that painful ice-breaking stage of any interaction. That is, if I show off then groupies will come to me. But no! This does not happen! My depression, it seems, stems from the fact that I *still* have to make an effort.

I cannot tell if my reluctance to socially 'prostrate myself' stems from a sort of childish "it's not fair, it's not fair - why do I have to do all the work?" mentality, or laziness, or something more valid. I'm not being lazy though - I work REALLY HARD on music, I work REALLY HARD when I'm playing live. I'm using my WHOLE BRAIN. So it's another reason I feel this upset indignation when people don't noticeably 'reward' me after a set. If human interaction is all I'm after, then it's an awful lot of misplaced effort! :)

So I discussed this briefly with Kaya, and she told me that I am probably perceived as rather authoritative and unapproachable - reminding my of the artist-audience divide whereby a person might be somewhat starstruck(!!!) in my presence. And so I came to perceive the utter irony of my situation. The more I work on getting good at things, the HARDER I am to approach! Holy fuck, what a joke.

So I know I have to do the approaching still, if I want to speak to people after I play a set. With my newfound proto-clarity on the situation I made a couple of advances to people that I would otherwise have indignantly avoided ('they should want to talk to *me*!'), and discovered that my performer status does in fact make it easier to start a conversation. With a cute girl.