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.