You are allowed to enjoy this…

At the beginning of the year I made a promise to myself and The Missus that I would somehow pay-off our combined credit card debt. Now I wouldn’t say that we are heavy abusers of the plastic, but we had a certain amount shuffled around on those zero-percent interest cards for a while. We are good zero-interest whores and moved our debt around when the going got tough. We realised that this amount had been with us since our wedding way back in 1998 and was just there, hanging over us. It was an average amount of credit card debt, but I knew something had to be done. And so I sold off various nick-nacks and CDs and whatever and after much effort and belt-tightening the final cheque for £1200 heads off to Capital One. We are now debt free (with the exception of the mortgage, naturally).
Of course, things never go to plan and this week I noticed that Soundslive (a rather excellent online music shop) had a number of Boss RC-50 Loop Stations in stock. Now these doo-hickeys are as rare as rocking horse shit in the UK and so I purchased one. Don’t worry, most of my music gear I pay for by selling off other instruments. It’s survival of the fittest here for the gear at Studio Lock and I am selling my old RC-20XL and some other stuff to cover the amount. The pedalboard arrived on Wednesday, but it was too hot in Studio Lock to have a fiddle, instead I waited until we had a thunderstorm and the cooler weather to arrive.
The RC-50 is a great bit of kit – it allows me to loop in stereo (at last) and its sound playback is superb. You can also record three different loops and let them organically run alongside each other. Anyway, I made my first attempt at a recording today and it isn’t like my usual looped material. Enjoy!

Direct download: CLICK HERE

Well it managed to hit 33 degrees C in Studio Lock yesterday. I took refuge downstairs and did very little. Even at midnight, the temperature of the top part of the house was 30 degrees C, so we threw the quilt off the bed and slept with a thin sheet. During the night, the weather cooled and I awoke with a stiff neck. Oh well, that’s what I get for sleeping in a draught. You have been warned…

So you look backwards to go forwards. One of my own favourite lyrics was a for a song I recorded fourteen years ago when I started messing around with a 4-track recorder. In those days, I wasn’t much of a player and it was more about getting ideas down onto tape than anything else. However, I did used to enjoy scribbling lyrics and coming up with these little songs. OK – they weren’t very good. I know that, but it was my hobby and I was learning my instrument. Some may say that what I do at the moment isn’t very good either, but again, it is more about impressing myself than impressing you. Like all of my creative endeavours, I do it for me and no one else.
So the lyric is written and I really like the spirit of the original recording and when I decided that I was to put together a vocal CD for my new set, I knew I wanted to have another crack at this song. I’d been putting it off for many years mainly because I have a poor memory for my own tunes and once they are recorded I often forget how to play them – because I am not a professional player with no need to remember these follies. But with this tune I had to crack it. For the first time, I actually put down the drums and sang a guide vocal so I knew where to put the rest of the instruments. Then the bass and guitar went on next and then the lead instruments. I’d never recorded like this before and was surprised that it worked. Anyway, here is an early mix of the track for your delectation and below that are the lyrics so you can sing along. There is a deep meaning to it and is supposed to examine the omnipotent idea of maleness and one man being able to experience the feelings of all men, but I don’t know if that comes across. Ooooh, to be 21 again and be totally pretentious. 🙂

Direct download: CLICK HERE
The Clock Keeps Ticking
And I sit on the bench and watch the cars go past
And the drivers watching me watching them
And life seems so simple and clear cut
Like a door – open and shut
I try to hide it
I try to hide it well
No one can see it
Only time will tell
I feel so dark
I feel so dirty
I feel so out of my head
I feel I want to hurt you
In the dark
It’s so nice to be in the dark
No one can see my thoughts
Or wonder what I do
Or wonder what I want
And you try to push me away
Here come the words I have given you to say
I try but it never goes away
It swells and rises
And it makes me afraid
You can never predict what shape I’ll take
What form I’ll denigrate
Sometimes I can be so charming
Sometimes I can be a shit
So don’t push me
I said don’t push me
And I get so excited when I smack you to the ground
I get so excited when you’re lying on the ground
I can’t believe this love I’ve found
I’ll pick you up, only to knock you down
Resist me, oh resist me
It’s fun to watch you try
You missed me, oh you missed me
If you want, I’ll make you cry
After the tears
After the bruises
We patch it all up
You’re one of life’s losers
This feeling that comes over me
These waves of violent pleasure
Makes life much more exhilarating
I bet I can’t get you to hate me
After the blood slows down
When the drums stop beating
I feel so ashamed
I just can’t explain
I have all these words
A rich vocabulary
But I just can’t tell you how I feel
In the street at the violet hour
I can see all the paths laid out before me
In the street when the sun goes down
I can see all of time before me
It is everywhere and I want it
You try and stop it, but you can’t get it
And there’s nothing you can do about it
I want them to look at me
I want them to take notice
I want them to myself
I want to show them
In the alleyways
In the park
With my knife in my pocket
My hand on my mask
And the clock starts ticking
The impulses rise behind my eyes
The monotone noise of everybody else’s life
It gets me down
Oh it gets me down
They say the grass is greener on the other side of the fence
Do you dare, oh do you dare
Stray from the track?
To find it covered by tarmac
And you feel the stickiness on your skin
Wipe it away, wipe it away
And you don’t know where it’s been
And you don’t know what’s lurking within
There’s no regrets, no regrets
Till they find their skin drying out
Waking up with the night sweats
Still no regrets
Still no regrets?
And you watch the last chance of a lifetime
Slip between your fingers
The grains of sand from the broken hourglass of your life
Slip away, slip away, slip away
It’s so great to be so fucking normal
The sun rises and the sun sets
The moon comes out
They never forget
And I’m still here
Just sitting on my bench
The cars still going past
And I know these things will always last
And the monotony of living
Is an excuse to carry on?
Why else should I keep breathing?
Why else should I keep thinking?
Why else should I keep dreaming?
Why else does the clock keep ticking?

For those of you who are regular readers of this, you might remember me blathering on about my dog Alex being attacked by a mastiff in March. Well I’ve been keeping a regular log of other attacks caused by the dog involved in our attack and last night my mother told me of yet another. One of her customers told her that she was attacked by the dog the previous evening as she walked with her partner. They are friends with Mr G, the owner, and have two greyhounds themselves. They were walking these dogs when they saw Mr G with the mastiff. She went over to say hello and the dog reared up and lunged for her, ripping her cardigan. Luckily, she wasn’t bitten, but she said that was only down to her own quick reflexes. As you can imagine, she is pretty annoyed and fears for her own child when he walks the greyhound. She says she will contact the RPSCA, but what will that achieve?
Now I’ve been saying this from the beginning that it was only a matter of time before the dog attacked a person and with the summer season well and truly upon us, I often see small kids taking the family dog for a walk on the green spaces in the area. My deepest fear is that this mastiff will attack and kill one of these dogs (because a child will not know how to react) or even worse attack a child. If this was an Alsation or a Staff, I wouldn’t be so concerned, but because this dog is huge and could easily kill a grown man, I keep writing about it – it’s all I can do. My report to the RSPCA got a zero result – did he muzzle his dog, does he keep it in control? No – nothing happened. While we have a Dangerous Dogs Act, what we really need is a Dangerous Dog Owners Act.
No, I fear that my next report about this idiot will be of the fatal kind. I have my fingers crossed while typing this, but I can see the stupid inevitability of it all…

If you are like me and are of the same generational and cultural stock, you might remember programmes such as How! or Play-Away that would show little films of how lightbulbs are made or how they put toothpaste into the tubes. I used to find all that kind of stuff fascinating and while perusing YouTube I found a little film that tickled that particular itch. Currently, I am playing a Godin xtSA guitar and it is probably the best made guitar I’ve ever owned. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still got “Blackie” in its case – my 1997 Fender Fat Strat on which I wrote and recorded the majority of my recordings up to the last one – Textures. Since then, I had a Epiphone Black Beauty, which was a nice guitar but a little too anonymous and easy to play for my tastes and the aforementioned Godin. I am still bonding with the Godin and at the beginning I was worried that I’d made a mistake in buying it as I didn’t feel it was my guitar. It’s hard to describe, but for me to get anywhere with an instrument, I need to have a physical bond to it. My fingers need to feel comfortable on the fretboard and I need to know where all the sweet and dead spots are. With my Fender, it was literally love at first sight, but with the Godin it took time and I am only just cementing our relationship. The great thing about it is that it can be an electric, acoustic or synth in one guitar. Very clever. Anyway, I am again detracting from the starting point of this post. I found this great video of how they make guitars at the Godin factory:

Recently, the Crimson Guitars website announced its signature Robert Fripp instrument. I’ve never been too keen on signature instruments, but I was interesting to see how they tackled the MIDI guitar aspect of the guitar. Again, they relied on the Roland GK range of pickups and I was surprised by this because the guitar is quite futuristic and I was kind of expecting a rock-solid piezo type MIDI pickup, the same kind they use on the Godin Synth Access models. I like the shape and contouring of the guitar, but not too enamoured on the wood used for the body. I am sure it looks better in the flesh, but I would have preferred an all-black model. And yes, it is too expensive so I’ll be sticking to my tried and trusted Godin. 🙂
Currently trying to do a re-recorded version of “The Clock Keeps Ticking” for this vocal CD I am pulling together. Now the original version was recorded a long time ago when I thought all I needed was a solid drum track and growling bass line. It’s not a song in the conventional sense of the word as it just jumps around four or five notes all the way through – it’s more of a sound palette for the poem lyric that runs through the song. I’m trying to get the vocal together, but the hayfever is playing havoc with me tubes and I sound like Malcolm from the Tunes adverts from the 1970s. Anyway, here’s the incredibly dull backing track…trust me, you will nod off…

Direct download: CLICK HERE

Oh deep joy. The taxman sent is second yearly bill to be paid ASAP. Oh well, dig deep into the coffers to come with the readies. Good job I sold all those CDs and T-shirts, eh?
My current musical obsession is swinging between Daniel Lanois and the Go! Team. I’ve seen the Go! Team on a number of festival shows on the TV and they always grab with me their energy and feeling of impending chaos. I also like their upbeat tunes too. So I was delighted to discover that eMusic had the “Bottle Rocket” single for download. I got it and then I ordered the album. Here’s the vid for all you passing travellers:

And this is the video to Ladyflash:

My other musical obsession is with Daniel Lanois. Well I absolutely loved last year’s “Belladonna” album and again eMusic provided me with the ability to download his 2003 “Shine” album. It is sublime and I really like it. I like it so much, that I waited for my monthly credits to be renewed so I could download his “Rockets” album too. Very chilled.

So yesterday afternoon, The Missus gives me a call to tell me she’s heading home. She’s been at some business meeting in Soho and has stopped by Virgin Megastore to by yours truly a treat.
“Syd Barrett’s died,” I tell her solemnly.
“The parrot’s died?” she replies confused, the rush hour noise in the background making our conversation almost impossible, “What do you mean the parrot’s died?”
I raised my voice a decibel and tried again and this time she understood. In an act of synchronicity, she was phoning to tell me that she’d just bought me the new Pink Floyd DVD “Pulse”. We watched it last night and somehow it wasn’t the same – songs like “Wish You Were Here” and “Shine On” have taken a new meaning. Before they were a raise your glass, wish you well type of ballad, now they’ve turned into elegies. I listed to those early Floyd albums yesterday afternoon and felt very nostalgic. They were the records I listened to quite early on – at about 14/15 – and remind me of a time when things weren’t so troublesome – or at least the troubles weren’t so adult, if you know what I mean.