Dumb

We all sail our ships across a dangerous sea, steering into the wind, reading the maps on others faces to steer clear of the rocks. Occasionally we crash into the rocks and are saved by passing friends, or we go down all hands with no hope. Clinging to the rocks of life, waiting for some distant light to spell the arrival of help. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it doesn’t.

In this stormy weather it is easy to lose your bearings, lose sight of the horizon, or even sail inadvertently into the doldrums, left to drift for what seems like an eternity all alone. We all need help now and then, and being the saviour can be an inspiring feeling. But it too has it dangers, where the genuine offer of help is mistaken for other motives. Approaching lights mistaken for enemy vessels.

I will never profess to understand people as much as some others do. I seem to go crashing about the place being myself no realising what is occurring around me.

Dumb dumb dumb.

Song for today has a beautiful guitar opening into a Jazz riff, all lounge-lizardy, and then the cutting lyric creeps in under Paul Heaton’s almost whispered voice.

‘Either you are simply Beautiful, or I am simply dumb’

Dumb by the Beautiful South. Let it wash like waves over you.

Carpet Crawlers (2001)

It’s been an oddly distressing week and a bit. Kicking off with our trusted washing machine blowing up, peaking at an incident in Costco on the weekend, and generally getting dragged into the mud with a ruptured water tank and ill relatives.

Apart from the financial burdens of things going wrong, and the emotional edge of worrying about those nearest and dearest who are in pain, the biggest impact on my life over the last week was a twenty minute episode in Costco last Sunday.

As most who know me well would be aware, I suffer from quite bad nose bleeds, usually unannounced and very heavy. I have been lucky over the past good few years that these have mainly occurred at home or in work and very rarely in public places. We were walking around Costco on Sunday when suddenly I felt a rush of blood and so duly headed for the loo’s leaving Kirsty and the girls to shop. Now for some reason this was a particularly heavy one, so I took my usual stance over the basin, taps on, endless paper towel on the go, to wait for the bleed to cease. It did not. Not a problem, just very messy.

Then something strange happened, as people came into the loo’s I noticed I was being stared at. Not spoken to, but stared at. Fine, I thought, bloke with a bad nose bleed, it’s fair enough to stare. Then, when a little lad went to use the sink next to me, his Dad pulled him away to the other end of the room whispering ‘don’t go near’. This happened again, and again, and people were queuing to use the sink furthest from me. As time went on, the bleed got worse and obviously the distress was evident. People came and went, and avoided me or whispered to each other. There I was, a man in his forties, smartly dressed, in the middle of the day, having a very bad nose bleed and of the thirty or so people who passed through the toilet not one of them asked if I was OK….. not one!

I have never felt so let down by people in my life. We all quite rightly rally to support those victims in Haiti without a thought to ourselves. But why are we scared of our neighbours? Perhaps I am an interfering busybody, but if I had seen someone bent over that sink I know I would of asked if they were OK. What the hell are people scared of? It saddened me a lot.

Now I know bigger things are going on in the world, but it is these small steps people need to take that will make a change for all of us. We need to look out for each other, not just when it’s a million miles away, we need to get our hands dirty and take a risk every now and then.

So, song for today, well it’s being difficult. I needed melancholy and an insular feel, warmth and irony. A pathetic edge with a solitary sound. So here it is ‘Carpet Crawlers’ by Genesis. Now I am not one of these geek Genesis fans who likes only the old stuff and reads all sorts of meaning into their often bizarre lyrics. I like a lot of what they do mainly for the musical skills they have. So this is a classic.

Tune out, kick back, scrunch those toes into the fleece carpet………. ‘You’ve gotta get in to get out’

Screen Kiss

Well we are all snowed in across the great UK and all people can talk about is the weather. So very British of us all isn't it.

Lots of stuff happening at the moment in my world and the one outside of my head. Determined to get even more done this year and waste less time with things that don't really matter. It's easy to get distracted when you are bored, but a busy brain keeps motoring regardless. I want to achieve 50 % more than I did last year, and also cram in some stuff just for me along the way. Is that even possible? I am not sure if time or guilt will allow such an indulgence but I am going to give it a damn good go.

Recently recorded a guide vocal for a friend which was the first singing to microphone I have done in decades, heavens I really need to practice and eat less pies!

As for the white-out, only thing to do is warm the soul with a classic track. Today Mr Dolby may be freezing to the bone recording in his boat on the coast of the UK somewhere, but I like to think it was a warmer time when he recorded 'Screen Kiss' since it ouzes Hollywood charm and West Coast warmth.

Screen Kiss, enjoy, its good enough to melt the snow.

Woke Up This Morning

The light is now diffuse and natural, and right where it should be. The place nears completion and now suites a bit of thinking and writing.

Tough couple of days again and just coming out of the other side. Looking forward to a good nights sleep tonight, and a shed load of new music in my ears over the weekend. I have three albums lined up by 'Kate Nash', 'Just Jack' and 'Mr Hudson and the Library' so here's hoping there is something good in there for me.

Hoping to steal some time on Sat to start work on the 'all music' stuff I have on the laptop. A two hour wait for my youngest to finish drama should provide a window with any luck.

Life seems to be getting too busy again, and I always hate not being able to take in the scenery as we go along. It almost misses the point of life if you have no time to appreciate what is going on around you. Gets too blinkered, too selfish. Need some time away from it as ever. But that is , as ever, elusive.

So I woke up this morning, and sung the blues. That's where we are with today's song from the magnificent Alabama 3. Hard to chose from this particular pot of awesomeness but logically it has to be 'Woke Up this Morning' made famous by a certain TV show which I have never seen.

This is angry and driving and right where I want it at the moment.

That voice, so deep, colour so black. Go boys..... 'woke up this morning, got yourself a gun!'

How Do You Live Without Sunshine

Another show, here we go.

And I watch as the talent, raw in its beauty try so hard to impress. But I am already impressed, and there is nowhere further to go with this. The flowered young things dance, gig, and mime to their favuorites, with moves that would make 'Little Miss Sunshine' blush. Ah it must be the weekend again.

I am here awaiting the curtain call listening to the new album by 'Yo La Tengo' still in the excitement of dicovering this band, and wow what a back catalogue I have to look forward to, I hope its all as good as this is.

The sun has been out, and the windows have been cleaned, and the world is now a brighter place. Soft top racing cars call me to the open roads where the stereo would bleed summer sounds to unsuspecting passers by, as all feels good again.

So what would I listen to if I had that car right now.

Easy, Nick Heyward, from the outstanding album 'From Monday to Sunday' the track was not a single but it has all the warmth and beauty of a day like today. Top down, open road, smile HOW DO YOU LIVE WITHOUT SUNSHINE
.......... yey !

Forbidden Colours

Its been a bumpy ride this week, with things not going to plan and various upsets for both grown ups in this household. Unfortunately the worries are about work mainly which is sad since we really shouldn't care that much and really really should of learnt by now that we are not the type of people who get on in this world mainly because we are too honest.

I managed twenty minutes on the keyboards last night and got some spine tingling grooves going, all very 'airy fairy' and not suited to song structures so it will have to go with the 'weird all music stuff' pile. That particular pile is getting quite large now and would merit a collection of its own, which I may well do while I am trying to write the song based stuff.

I have doubts that I will ever actually get around to doing anything more than a couple of demo's but the thought is there.

So after my wispy keyboard romp to which I was groaning along, I decided to quit and listen to some music made by those more competent. The feel was Sylvian, so I pulled him up on Spotify and played some stuff from 'Secrets of the Beehive'
A short while later Holly walks in and said in some surprise 'Oh, I thought that was you singing'.............. yeah right, I wish !!!! She has more faith in my singing talents than I do.

So track for today, is from the man himself and the marvellous Ryuichi Sakamoto who played the piano so beautifully on this, taken from the Soundtrack of 'Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence'. Forbidden Colours is perfect tonally, and rich with East meets West composition, and very very relaxing. Enjoy

P.S. Below a brilliant pic of Isabelle when I showed her some of the more complex arpeggio's you can create on the Juno. The expression says in all !!

Signal to Noise

Sometimes the background noise interferes with life too much.

That uneasy feeling in your muscles, almost buzzing when they should be relaxed, devoid of caffeine or other stimulant, edgy and unnerving. You can almost hear the system running, the blood coursing through your veins, the electrons firing in your brain, the pain rumbling along like an unstoppable freight train hell bound for the head.

We all need to shut out the noise every now and then, and I could really use a dark cool room right now just to reset the servers and shutdown all the crap running in the background. Even writing gets difficult.

So what should I listen to in my darkened room? Right now, only one track springs to mind. A great summation of a feeling. Peter Gabriel… ‘Signal to Noise’.

Great Mood
Great Strings
Great use of vocal styling’s

‘WIPE OUT THE NOISE’

Freak

Technology! I am sure it’s going to be the death of me. I have almost certainly racked up more stress hours in front of my PC and synth than in any other place in my life.

Just when you think it is safe to go back into the studio, it all changes again. ME to XP, XP to Vista, and now, Vista to 7. No! I am not going there, getting Vista upgrades has been bad enough, I will tolerate no more.

I am in the process of redesigning my set-up before I have even begun because of Vista compatibility issues. Out goes my CMI PC interface and PC-200 keyboard, because of those darned latency / compatibility problems, and in comes an Edirol sound interface unit and using the Juno G as the mother board.

Back when it was a mono synth, a beat box, and a Tascam 244, the only thing we had to worry about was background hiss and putting the tape in the right way up.
So not all progress is good, and I am of an age now where simple bugs can seem like giant monsters. But I will get there even if the budget has taken another £70 hit, and one day soon I might just start making some music again.

So what have I been inspired by today. Well sadly I looked up one of Heaven 17’s less know albums on Spotify and got totally hooked. This one came along quite a while after they had been mega famous, and almost slipped under the radar. It has all their classic licks and touches, but now with a maturity I hadn’t heard from them before. The album is called ‘Bigger than America’ and is quite anti ‘that great continent’ in a lot of places, but hey its music not politics so what do I care?

Track of the day is ‘Freak’, best played loud and fast at the end of a hard day in work, with the windows down and the shades on, and a finger proudly flipped at my place of employment. This track is H17 at their best, full on, silly lyric, and brilliantly put together, and dare I say it, it knocks spots off ‘Temptation’

New In Town

Just a quick entry to say my daughter finally read the book I wrote for her.

Rather amazingly she didn't put it down once she had started, it took her a fair few hours but she finished it all in one day.

Initially she didn't believe I had written it (compliment or shame?). I was so nervous about how she felt about it, I had invested over three years into this just for her.

Her response was flattering, but I am used to taking pinches of salt with appraisals from the nearest and dearest.

What really gives me a buzz is the fact that she now keeps talking about it, like she had just watched a film (she also asked if it could be made into one, which is cool). And she remembers so much of it.

Time to find an agent maybe, no rush though, other fish to fry, original intention has been realised.

In honour of Holly the song for today is one we both love.

Perfect modern pop pulp..... 'New in Town' by Little Boots is infectious and bouncy with a respectable dollop of synths.

Classic!!!!

Me Fui

So it's Friday again and I though I would spend a moment to try and at least get one blog entry completed for this month.

Lots of weird stuff happening around the world at the moment, a reason why I am so keen to lose myself in Sci-fantasy and the silliness that is TV. I have been in admiration of Russell T Davies’s writing this week and it spurs me on to get my own efforts to a publisher to at least give them a chance of a public airing (otherwise I will never know).

Music has been brilliant over the past few weeks, getting well into Little Boots, La Roux and Robyn. Not forgetting to visit some old fogies along the way. A-Ha’s Analogue album being one fine example of that. It’s a good time to fill my head with new sounds to try and cleanse my pallet before I start to cook again.

THIS PARAGRAPH IS FOR MUSIC NERDS ONLY !!!!!

To the Tascam generation I give you a nerdy rundown of how I have set up my new studio. So the beating heart is fabulous Juno G (as a writing tool), squeezed through a CMI – 106L sound card interface to my lap top. Sound output is handled either by my Cambridge Soundworks monitor speakers, or though my Sennheiser head phones. I have a Roland PC200 as a Midi controller for the soft synths and a Korg Toneworks AX3G for passing my Crafter 6 string guitar through prior to the laptop. Vocals handled by a T-Bone GM55 mic through a Behringer MIC800 Modeling Preamp. The laptop uses Sony Acid 7.0 Pro and Soundforge 9.0 for music production / recording / sequencing, and a very carefully chosen set of soft synths to back up the Juno comprising KORG (Wavestation / Legacy Cell / Poly Six), Minimoog 5, PRO-52, Yamaha FM7 and I am trying to get Spectrosonics Atmostpheres to work on Vista but I am having no luck.

Low budget I know, but enough to play around with.

The plan is to build songs various ways to get a good mix of sound, some on the Juno, some hard sequenced on the lap top, some built up from wave files, so it should be interesting.

NERD ALERT OVER!!

Song for today is off an excellent new album by BEBE titled Y. It’s in Spanish but needs no translation. The track is called ‘Me Fui’ and is a brilliant example of modern Spanish pop, absolutely fantastic.

Spotify this album now, then go out and buy it, we just don’t hear music this good everyday.

Happy listening

I Never Said I Was Deep

This heat would fracture the strongest of men. So I hide indoors and work on the studio for a bit. A Fathers day gift echoes around me, with a vaguely Bowie undertone. My daughters shake their heads with solemnity, 'Dads listening to old fart depressive music again!'

But this is Jarvis, and given the recent Pop Headlines about a certain Mr Jackson, this is poignant in the ultimate.

It's hard to explain how important MJ was without explaining why he fell from favour, especially to two girls who are wondering what all the fuss is about. The music speaks for itself, out side of that I have no comment.

So Jarvis Cocker is playing, and I have just taken an updated picture of the studio to show I am actually making some progress.

Great new album, if not a little dated.

'I never said I was deep, But I am profoundly shallow!'

Enjoy the picture.

The Voyage of the Minds Eye

A sudden sense of quiet comes over me, drowning out the road drill outside, and the staccato radio bleating its inane unconsidered opinions at me.

As the temperature slips away, and muscles tighten with stress, the focus drifts off to another place.

This is the ‘Gate to the Minds Eye’, flowing over me like cold sheets on a warm day, the ones that never stay that way, ice cold water through the toes at the waters edge, or the cheek stinging breeze of the fresh sea air on the deck of an exotic cruise liner. Or merely the touch of a loved one.

Four muted and subtle chords, the whispered words of a female voice in French, and an agonizing but crystal clear lead vocal.

This track is ‘The Voyage of the Minds Eye’ by Mr. Dolby. How does he get that piano to sound so bright? Great sound track.

And then all too soon it fades.

On Islands

I view life as a series of interactions between the small voice buried deep within this complex brain and the small voices of others trying to reach out and communicate through what are the seemingly endless barriers that are thrown in our way every day.

It’s bad enough that so much seems to be lost in translation between my heart and the ears of the beholder, but to add to that the maze of emotional trap doors we have to negotiate as to what is, and isn’t appropriate behavior for a particular small voice to witness, and it seems the journey for a sincere thought or emotion is almost insurmountable.

Do we not all find ourselves talking to other ‘tiny sparks of love trapped in organic shells’ and hear ourselves saying things that mean nothing, but feeling emotions strong enough to move mountains? And what do we do with these emotions? Bury them deep into our fantasies and dreams, to emerge in the safety of the role playing mind in the depths of sleep.

There are people I want to tell things to, admit a need or desire, or even a hate or intolerance, but these thoughts remain in the dark for fear their light will burn a hole in the fragile world I have built to protect me. It is important however for us all to admit they are there and form part of the person no one ever gets to decipher.

But sometimes it would be nice to say, ‘actually I really……..’

How appropriate then that today’s ditty is ‘On Islands’ by New MusiK, and wonderful 12 string blast from 1980 which perfectly sums up the above. It has optimism and sadness and a brilliant searing synth lead sound. The kid talking over the end is also kind of cool, if not a little cheesy.

‘Were all the same, all on our own Islands, that reach out for ever more… into the darkest depths of eternal space…searching’

Nothing Compares....

A lazy April has left this blog page bare for too many weeks. I apologize for that.
Having to be too creative in work is exhausting my creativity at home. That combined with work on the studio / study.

Well the decorating is done with the help of copious amounts of yellow paint and a permanently streamed Spotify input (what did I do for music before that came along ????? http://www.spotify.com/en/). I have had a great chance to listen to some albums I have wanted to catch up on for years and some very cool new stuff like Lily Allen’s latest. I also got to hear Regina Spektor’s albums which have been great fun.

And somewhere above the wash of Spotify in the study came the pounding of the same online program from Holly’s room. She is luckily not sharing my tastes at the moment (heaven forbid!). For her it’s a perpetually looped ‘Saturdays’ murdering ‘Just Cant Get Enough’. I have tried childishly playing the original even louder to drown her out but to no avail.

Actually they have done a really good job of covering it, but don’t tell Holly that, there’s only one thing worse than a grumpy old Dad who doesn’t like your music, and that’s one that does like it! It’s better for her to think I am trapped in the past, she couldn’t manage the embarrassment of me ‘Daddy Dancing’ to her favorite tunes.

So the Study side is complete, all I need to do now is wire up the creative side, which is causing me much stress.

Today’s tune is one I found on Spotify and is one of the most haunting and relaxing tunes I have heard in a long time. It’s from the soundtrack of the film ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ and is a version of ‘Nothing Compares 2 u” sung in Hawaiian. Trust me, this works brilliantly. So load up Spotify, type in ‘Coconutz’ and select ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ and chill…………….

Walking on Sunshine

I caught the first half of a Documentary about Heavy Load, the thrash metal rock band with three out of its five members having special needs.

It was initially a refreshing breath of fresh air to see a group of five friends in a band, doing what they do because of the love of it, and not giving a damn about how they are perceived or how good people think they are at what they do.

It is always good to be reminded that in its essence, music is there to be enjoyed, to move us emotionally and physically, to change our mental state for the good. Over thinking it nearly always destroys it.

This group of five chums lived for what they did, and what they did, they did with passion and sheer exuberance.

Sadly the documentary maker seemed more interested in how his work would effect them than how they could exist in such a wonderful state. Shame he spoilt it, and we lost interest about half way through.

Today's message then is, enjoy what you do, live for your music, and don't give a damn what others think.

Mental note....... make music I want to listen to, not what I think others might want to listen to.

So how much fun can you get into one song, Katrina has the answer, her and her Waves crammed so much fun into one song only the 12" version does it justice. Cheesy, bubble gum pop it may be, but its as much fun you can have in a few minutes of pop song. Here goes, and welcome to 'Walking on Sunshine'

Out of your Brilliant Mind

What was I thinking?

I must be out of my mind!

Exactly where am I going to get the time from to record another album?

I have been trying to decorate the studio for the last three weeks and all I have done so far is take some stuff off the walls, and give a small area a coat of white paint.

It took me nearly four years to write a short book, it’s going to take decades to write 10 to 12 tracks!

I am in the same pit of quicksand that everyone of my age and position is in. Time is the fire in which we all burn. We feed the kids, wash the dishes, make the meals, clean the house, take them to clubs, do the shopping, do the ironing, repair the broken things, and then we fall asleep on the sofa. Something went very wrong along the way there.

It would be so nice just to take 6 months off and have a proper crack at being inspired. Not going to happen, but it makes me appreciated time, and the time I have with those I love.

Busy week this week, already tired and have Ed Burns Thursday night, friends over Saturday night, and Michael MacKintyre on Sunday night. I am going to be good for nothing on Monday!

So, I bought this fab retro 80’s album the other day with loads of querky songs from the period. I’ll dip my fingers into this for todays track. The, oh so brilliant, ‘Brilliant Mind’ by Furniture. I love this track, it has such a depth of feeling and a totally pointless lyric. Viva the 80’s.

Now where did I leave my white shoes?

Quiet Life ..... Again

Well I have been stripping back the old study to make way for the new studio. Digging through the boxes and paperwork I came across a stash of CD’s I burned directly from audio cassettes and reel to reel tapes back in the very early nineties.

These are a real treat, I haven’t got the time to listen to them all now, but I picked a classic to get the ball rolling. The marvellous Dave James and his recording ‘Squeals on Wheels’. This version has a 6 minute preamble by Dave and myself just talking total rubbish in mock ‘Smith and Jones’ voices. It’s a classic.

I also found an old photo recently of me being extremely young and full of hope.

God I must only weigh 9 st in this shot. Back in the day I used to read a manual before playing a synth… tut tut.


Sitting next to me was my first Casio CZ101, I love those things, such a cool sound to them (Dave still has a CZ1000, the bigger version). I remember I bought a big shed and set up a rack of synths and drum machines in there all wired to my Tascam Porta Studio, I used to spend hours out there at the bottom of the garden being all creative and making some truly bizarre sounds. I have a CD somewhere called ‘The Shed Tapes’ which is about 40mins of live synth twiddling. Not a classic, but my very own creation.

The smell of fresh cut pine still always reminds me of making music in the mid eighties.


So I am feeling the buzz of new music again, and want to listen to some classic stuff. Arpeggio’s in my head walk a meandering line down my backbone (past the dodgy bits).


Japan, oh that voice can be so depressing, but ‘Quiet Life’ has a quiet life all of its very own.


Take me to the far east Mr Sylvian, and don’t spare the horses.

Hope You're Happy Now

Its now the back end of a backlash week and we are all feeling the sting of the stinky stuff that is going on all around. It gets to the point where you are so shocked by what is happening you start to emerge out of the other side of disbelief, through the anger, side stepping the sheer numbness, and you get to place where you just have to laugh.

With all the crap that is going on, nobody has felt the need to say sorry at any point.

I feel really sorry that people I have known for years, friends amongst them, have had their livelihoods snatched from beneath them in the name of Corporate Realignment. Press statements detailing how reorganisation will secure the companies future never once touch on the side of remorse for those who have to give up their careers to realise this goal.

Where is the Heart?

The sun is shining, I have had a good day in work, life is treating me fairly well (better that a significant percentage of those on this planet) and I have a skip in my step looking forward to the weekend.

But I am still angry for those who have been shafted.

NiK Kershaw, has a song called 'Hope you're Happy Now' which pretty much sums up the insult these people must be feeling, and how hopeless we feel in the wake of it. Watch out corporate big wigs because.....

'One day a better man than I,
Will feed you fist and humble pie,
And I'll be there to hold his coat !'

Right on the mark this one, thanks Nik... looking forward to the acoustic show in April.
Back into the sunshine, jolly tune in head, skip in step....... Ahhhhhhh !

One Better Day

There is a definite air of gloom around the place today. Bad news from the colonies, redundancies abound and the definitive lull that comes between Christmas and Easter.

I have been out filming today, and so have suffered the usual insults and jokes people feel they are able to make when you are in public with a big camera and tripod. But even these were tinged with suspicion and weariness.

As the corporate workhorse turns its frown to those no longer required, and the dark clouds of early March gather overhead, I am drawn into optimism.

A single song can pull away this feeling right now. An optimistic sound around a very sad lyric, but all the same it lifts all this above the self pity and despair.

'Walking round you sometimes.. feel the sunshine
Beating down in time with the.. rhythm of your shoes'

Madness leads to Happiness... 'One Better Day' Thanks boys.

Everything Counts in Large Amounts

I have just witnessed the black underbelly of Walt Disney World, and it didn't taste good (unlike the nut in the Gruffalo).

Queuing for a ride called 'Soaring' I saw people push and shove, climb over each other, jump barriers, leap off escalators, and break through cordons just to be the first in line.

I really don't get it, why would they have such a disregard for each other all over a stupid ride. Made me feel sick to my core. It also opened my eyes to what people are really like in situations like that.

So walking away from it all, fast passes in hand, the cool crisp edge of the morning biting my skin, off to meet the others at the racetrack, it came rushing into my head.

'Everything Counts in Large Amounts'

Cue Depeche Mode (hopefully not for the last time on this blog), cue the metallic samples, the Berlin edged vocals, the sheer blackness of the sound.

'With grabbing hands, we grab all we can.
All for themselves after all its a competitive world'

Mums, Dads, children of the world I give you 'Everything Counts' by Depeche Mode.