I struck an owl with my car yesterday, which might go some way to explaining my evening’s — well there is no real word to explain it — it requires a physical component — or rather you wish that you could have avoided the physical component, but by some quirk of cosmic significance beyond our comprehension you just couldn’t. It started out harmlessly enough. I was to meet my sister at the Tulloola Cafe for a little bit to eat and an early evening’s entertainment listening to a short programme of Trevor Malcolm on the piano accompanied by his digital self. Several other versions of himself showed up to join the party.

I usually listen to classical music, Shostakovitch being my favourite composer, so it is unusually for me to hear someone performing their own work. Actually it unusual for me to hear a performance at all; it is many years since I have regularly gone to listen to live music. Trevor composes his own music, and in a style that I usually enjoy. His work is rythmic and repetitive and not having a great deal of thematic development, complex chording and juxtapositions of sound; think John Cage — don’t think Johann Brahms.

It was a style that was very popular when I was at university. I think the belief was that the repetitive nature would capture the attention of ear of those whose brain had rotted under the influence of pop music; something that was cross-disciplinary. I, however, find that unless you can give it the attention it deserves right off the bat, you won’t get pulled in. Beethoven catches you every time, it starts off simple and undemanding, you get inexorably drawn in to his world and can’t help but experience it in its full complexity by the end. Alas, I came to be entertained not enlightened; as did everyone else in Tulloola — a fact not lost on Trevor. There was development, but I wouldn’t call it musical development.

There weren’t many people there, there were even fewer by the night’s end.

P.S. The jaunty improvisation “I am Kevin Atkinson” did have a certain vulgar appeal.