You are allowed to enjoy this…

I love rude words. I think part of it goes back to those schooldays where you used to use the dictionary to see how many obscene definitions you can find. My favourite swear has to be cunt. Now I know a lot of people get really upset by that word, but it has old-Englishe roots and is even mentioned in Chaucer. In the Miller’s tale, there’s a line where the randy young cuckold “privily he caught her by the quaint”, which means crotch area. So the word quaint evolved into cunt. Clever, eh? Anyway, it is my favourite swear and I think the world is full of cunts and people (especially ladies) should embrace it. It’s one of those words that just trips off the tongue, as it were (nudge, nudge – wink, wink).
Anyway, that long meandering preamble was just a piss-poor attempt at bringing your attention to the new Jarvis Cocker single. I have been a big fan of his (and Pulp) since the early 1990s, just before His ‘n’ Hers was released and it was great to see he has a new single out, albeit in digital format. It’s called “Running the World” and is a great summation of the current state of our country and people in general. He is a great observer and pop-philosopher. The chorus is the sweet “Cunts are still running the world” and is a sentiment I totally agree with. Now I ask you to head over to iTunes and buy this little ditty for 79p. If enough of us join the bandwagon we might just get Jarv to the top of the charts. It would have been nice to see him sing the song on Top of the Pops, but they axed it. Like he said, cunts are still running the world. Go on, have a listen…
Click here for Jarvis saying a naughty word.

I had a bit of a disturbed sleep as Alex the Wonderdog decided he would go on full alert mode and would bark at every noise eminating from our leafy Avenue. With every thunderous bark, I believed my heart was going to stop as I was dragged abruptly from sleep. The upshot of this was that I was able to remember a dream.
The dream started off quite normal. Myself and The Missus were househunting and surveying a four-storey townhouse type dwelling. The place was OK-ish and needed some work. Out in the garden, I was greatly impressed with the large pond and Koi carp. The garden was split on two levels and as you rose up, you could see over the back wall to the sea and a beach behind.
Then all of a sudden things got weird as dreams usually do. There was an audible crack and I feel something change. I was no longer me. I felt smaller and younger. The Missus was replaced by a Chinese girl. It quickly came back to me that this was my girlfriend and we’d not been together that long. Suddenly, there was the sound of car doors slamming and raised voices. The girl quickly told me to go inside and so we retreated away from the voices. Inside, she explained that these were the friends she had told me about previously (????). They weren’t particuarly nice people and they were a gang of somesorts and were coming to take over the house. I was confused about the situation, as you would be.
And so the gang arrived. They were non-descript white youths, a mix of male and female. Modern. Good hairstyles, if you know what I mean. These people herded us upstairs and proceeded to yell a lot about betrayal to my chinese girlfriend and how she had let the team down, while gesturing to me. I guess I was the source of the trouble. So we were held prisoner locked in the attic. Time passed and we talked and other stuff happened which I can’t possibly divulge on this family-orientated blog and we hatched a plan to escape.
It seems that she was very athletic and could climb through the small window, flip herself through a lower window and come back to open the door from the outside. This she promptly did and we were free. We were going to head downstairs and escape via the blue sports car on the drive. As we descended, I could hear noises and the gang appeared to be practising gymnastics on one of the floors. It was very strange. They were even dressed in blue leotard-type uniforms.
We snuck past them, but someone must have spotted us as I heard the shout go up and we made a run for it. We made it into the car, but we weren’t quick enough to pull away and the gang surrounded us. The chinese girl was dragged screaming away, back into the house and I was pulled out and given a good kicking by the largest male of the group. He whispered in my ear that if I was ever to return he would kill us both. He pulled out a large knife and brandished it at me. He then stood me up and kicked me away from the car, telling me to go. It was fifteen miles to the nearest train station, he told me.
So I remember walking in the darkness and miles seem to skip past as I was at the station in no time. There was a sharp incline leading up to the entrance and once inside I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. Being a smaller person in this dream life, the crowds were a lot taller and more intimidating. I wandered around trying to figure out exactly where I was and how I could get home. I spent ages in the bustling station exploring. There were many restaurants, even a casino, and it seemed to have its own thriving communitiy. Every so often, a whistle would sound and the doors would open allowing freshly alighted commuters to rush through the scene.
I asked where if there was a cab office and the man gave me directions. I followed them litigiously, only to find myself back where I started. I explored some more and thought a lot about my life with the mystery chinese girl. Was this really my life? I could feel elements of Darren seeping back into my character and I urgently wanted to get home to Loughton. I managed to find a quiet ticket area – all the others had been bustling with people – and I attempted to buy a ticket. But I had no idea from where I was travelling. I asked another man who kindly showed me a mechanical machine on the wall for plotting the route home. But as no-one was telling me what station this was, I couldn’t enter a starting point. How can you head from home if you don’t know where you are? And so I talked to a station assistant who gave me a map and I told him where I wanted to go. He replied, “That’s going to cost you £140 from here”. Of course, he was clever not to reveal where “here” was. I didn’t have that kind of money.
In the end, I was overcome by the place and needed to escape, so I back-tracked the entrance and headed away from the station.On the way down the hill, I found myself walking with another man and I asked him if there was a cab office in the town. He said yes and said he’d direct me to it. When we got to this cab office, there was some kind of misunderstanding and they thought I wanted to apply for a job as a cab driver – which is impossible because I don’t drive. I tried to make it clear what I wanted but I got the feeling I wasn’t being heard.
Then came a voice in the distance and I turned around and saw the large fellow who had given me a pummelling. But before I could find out what happened, Alex the Wonderdog barked loudly again and brought me out of the dream.
What a weird one, eh?
(Again, this dream was written down for my own pleasure and for future reference)

Here’s a gentle ambient piano piece I viddied last night. It’s a live recording of me noodling around on the Boss RC-50 – I basically fed my Triton LE keyboard into it and created three separate loops, one of which is played backwards. This is how the “Mist Suite” was recorded.

Still been feeling a little miserable. The mild depression has only just begun to lift and my day has been lived under the cloud. I thought it would pass quickly as these things usually do, but it was only until later in the day and some vigorous vacuuming that things didn’t seem that bleak.
Managed to record three noodly pieces for my ambient CD. There are called Mist on Stone, Mist on Water and Mist on Mist. They are three piano looped pieces using the RC-50 and are very calming. I have edited them together to create an elongated “Mist Suite”. How fricking pretentious. But when I listened to the reverbed piano, the only image I saw was shapes coming through the mist. So the name stayed. I like them a lot but I am sure others will find them deathly dull. Tough titty.

Yesterday, we spent lunchtime at the pub, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Events of the past week have been weighing on me and I was a bit snappy. I vented. I vented and I vented. Luckily, The Missus has seen this impotent rage before and so just lets me clear my pipes before letting me apologise for my stupid outbursts. I’ve been fairly up recently, so yesterday can be classed as a bit of a downer. Thankfully the booze and the venting helped me feel a bit better – even though it was completely pointless.
After listening to the tracklisting of the vocal songs I have recorded so far, I have decided to stop the CD at 44 minutes. It’s a nice size and doesn’t outlive its welcome and there are six songs from the past and six songs from the present. This gave the CD a name: SIx of One, Half a Dozen of the Other. I like the symmetry.
So now I have three of the four CDs complete and mastered. The fourth CD is about half done with 30+ minutes of ambient noodlings in the can. The fourth CD is my usual “experimental” fare and I hope that each CD gives the listener a different aspect of my musicality. The boxset title has also changed now. It was going to be called “You Are Allowed to Enjoy This”, but that has been dropped for an old expression that my late grandmother used to say: “God Pays Debts Without Money”. It seemed kind of apt with the way life goes.
Now I’ve just got to do some more noodling – hopefully aided and abetted by the new RC-50 and get the artwork together. I nixed any idea of getting this done properly because the costings are beyond me. This is a great shame, but The Missus said that CD packaging is going to be a thing of the past and that everything is being delivered digitally anyway and that I was just being too fussy. She is right, of course. And so, I am going back to the old 4-DVD cases I used before because they give me the maximum space to fit in all the details. No booklet either, but that doesn’t matter because I’ll set up a webpage where the listener can come and read all the details and lyrics.
The funny thing is that I keep listening to CDs one and two and I am really enjoying them. I hate to have any pride in my work (because pride always comes before a fall) but the work and effort in these discs really shows and I feel that I have made more progress that I could ever have imagined. Yes, I honour my mistakes and leave them in for “freshness” and so that I get a sonic smack when I play these songs back. I just hope that I get some good feedback on this stuff. I don’t want money – I just want the odd person to say: “Hey – I really like this, Darren.” That’s not much to ask, is it?
Meanwhile at Chez Lock, I opened the curtains to be greeted by this sight…

Don’t worry, this giant spider was captured by yours truly and released back into the wild.

Yesterday, spent the morning re-recording an old song of mine called “Gone”. Revitalised the original music tracks and remixed it, before adding a new vocal. Also, added a new vocal to “Mr Straight” where I managed to channel the spirits of Mike Reid and Ian Dury. Throat was a little hoarse after that.
Later in the evening, I sat down to re-record the drum loops for “Age of Communication”. The original loop, which you heard the other day, was actually nicked from a commercially available song and was used as a guide rhythm. And so I had to sit down and recreate the rhythm myself, which is a bit tough when you are not a drummer, but I managed to pull something out of my arse which was suitably driving and ramshackle at the same time.
I now have 44 minutes of vocal songs in the can for the third CD. The Missus recommends that I stop after the next tune – afterall, an hour of me warbling is probably torture. Thinking hard about reviving my first ever recorded song “Electric God”, but I am worried that I won’t be able to get the same drum track. Need my old Alesis HR-16B back. This is the problem with recording stuff and then moving on – you end up thinking “I really like that drum machine” and then realising it sold it over a decade ago. I am sure I can come up with something…I still need that pet drummer in a cage. That would make recording a little easier.
Here’s a clever video that is doing the viral rounds at the moment. It’s the band OK Go with “Here it Goes Again”, which is reminscent of those smart videos we used to get in the 1980s when the medium was still young and full of creative vigour:

Managed to tart up and fix “Don’t Want to Be Found” the other day. It’s new name is “Over It Now” and the vocals have been redone and some bass drum added to the mix. These are never the final mixes I post here – I wouldn’t want you to think that this is how this songs are going to end up on the new CD. No, there are rough mixes and very often I re-record the vocal guides and nail down my wavering voice.
I’m not a particularly big Beatles fan, but I understand their value and contribution to popular music. My favourite ever Beatles track is “Tomorrow Never Knows” – purely because it is the first progressive pop record. I’ve always wanted to do a homage and last night I sat down to record the backing for “Age of Communication” – a direct rip of that track. OK – I hope all you staunch Beatles fans won’t throw bricks at me – this was created out of love. This is a rough mix and the lyrics are below, so you can don your favourite Beatles wig and adopt a Scouse nasal drone…