Very often - well, almost always, actually - my first step in building a Shriek song is injecting lyric fragments from a notebook into a sympathetic host groovelet. In this case, I had a few lines, including ‘be not afraid of beauty / do not avoid the light’ and ‘I am shimmer and glare / I am vanishing rare’, both of which made it to the final draught, and the over-arching - and, indeed, over-arch - working title, ’the sum of all our follies’, which didn’t, though it kinda tells you where I was at. So I clearly needed something pretty epic, quite downtempo, dramatic - or even melodramatic - and, the lyrics seemed to be suggesting, something in a 6/8 or ¾ rhythm. Listening through the 20-30 grooves we’d spawned in our 2-day jamming session in October 2020, I think there was only one candidate with the required 6/8 feel, and, luckily, it fit - sometimes it’s great when there’s no choice: it saves so much time.
The improvisation had been given the working title ‘Space Blues’ because it was, well, spacey and bluesy, with a fair bit of Dave Gilmour-esque echoey guitar noodling. That was soon stripped out; I asked Martyn to send me a cleaned-up version of the drum groove and I started structuring the song over that. However, by the time we were in the rehearsal room in May 2021, I still wasn’t sure where the song was going - I had three distinct sections evolving, all quite promising, but not really unified lyrically or melodically: it sounded like there might actually be two separate songs there. It took a few hours in my hotel room in Eastbourne to get the three melodic/lyric parts to sit together as a unified verse/chorus and then expand the lyric to three verses. I ended up with this big, torch-songish thing where each verse surged unstoppably towards a cliff edge where our overwrought narrator would fall off… or through… what, exactly? I had no idea what that would be until I realised - either through desperation, luck, synergy or the benevolence of the Shriekback über-spirit - that, with a minor tweak, ‘Space Blues’ could become ‘the space in the blues’ and I could fall through that. Yippee: demo vocal recorded on phone, job done.
Except… I had no guitar or keyboard with me that night, so I couldn’t hack out the chord progressions. So the next day I sang it to Barry as we sat around the piano, old-school stylee. Which we hadn’t done for a long time… if ever, come to think of it. Barry’s first take on it was full-on Berlin/Paris cabaret, which was a hoot but unfortunately didn’t quite work with my melody, so we got it down to the verse/chorus you hear on the record .Barry wrote the middle eight later.
UNHOLINESS (CM)
Like several tracks on the album, Unholiness began as an improvisation in a writing session at Echo Zoo i October ’20. As is a fairly standard practice for us now, - WFH veterans that we are - I sent Martyn some edited clips from the jam which he used to build a drum track which formed the bedrock to develop the song (no change there, then). I put down a rhythm guitar first, for groove and vibe; the next thing to go on, oddly perhaps, was the multi-tracked ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’ vocal - it was a clear idea I had in my head and defined a certain part of the character of the song, so it went in early, as did the brassy synth part, which picked the bones out of some of Barry’s keys from the improvisation to make a hook. That was enough to sketch out the core vocal/lyrical ideas; I thought these might have to be extensively revised later, but as it turned out they survived pretty much intact. Finally, I had great fun putting on a nifty bass part - so much fun I even posted a video of it (it’s here, should you be following the trail - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkVTWuOqc3M).
So far, so funky. My only reservation was whether I was too far back in the Shriek-funk comfort zone when we had an intention to explore a new landscape of glitchy loops, unpredictable fx and a plugged-in electro-Mart. Hmmm…
Christoph and Martyn excelled putting the drum track together in the studio - the former obsessively swapping snares, changing mics and tuning the kit between practically every take, Martyn playing with impeccable technique and feel. Bang. Christoph was also particularly smitten with a little bit of rhythm guitar I’d left hanging around on the outro of the demo, for its groove and attitude (whatever, dude): that became the source of the dual rhythm guitar parts. Barry put down fabulous keys, mainly some Hammond that managed to both push up the rhythm and swirl into nooks and crannies in the groove. Apart from my disappointment at having my bassline voted out in favour of Scott playing it (“it’s a no-brainer” - bloody cheek!), all was going well.
So, an easy one, right? Well, not quite. Christoph was on a quest for the secret key to unlock the track, whether it was in a rhythm guitar phrase or a Hammond riff, so there was quite a bit of tidal flow. He requested a guitar solo NOW, so I did one, which I wasn’t allowed to redo, so hey, a one-take wonder. That’s what happens if you give someone a Producer hat - great responsibility is handed over, great trust is required. And we got there in the end, sassy Sids’ vocals an’ all.
The track sits in the album either as a funky outlier or as a sort of link back to Shriekback’s core DNA. Either way, it grooves like a mofo.
PORTOBELLO HEAD (Barry Andrews)
‘I’m gonna have to dissect my own head’
Well yeah, I think we’ve all been there. Heads are good - Celtic heads, Riddley Walker (sorry but I insist) ’hedds on poles and ripe for telling’ (also ‘The Head of Orpheus’) and, more geographically apposite - the head of Bran the Blessed who guards London against the oncoming of enemies - now, they say, buried under Pentonville ('pen’ in welsh means ‘head’) Road. And, let’s not resist the line of least resistance - the squishy hippy mind set of the pre-Julia Roberts inhabitants of Notting Hill - Portobello Head is a real condition, man..
A comic book thing perhaps - anyway, the point is our hero’s sheer abjectness: cock block him, infect him, cuff him to the radiator - truly the dude is on his belly, rolling around on the leatherette in the fumes of burning rubber. What a fucking rotter.
The multi-synth/sampled, mad-as-a-balloon ending was my attempt to respond to Christoph playing us a Franz Ferdinand tune (forgot which) where the standard rocky instrumentation morphs into a technology-driven smeltdown.
In our version I like how a gazillion squirming plastic snakes burst out of the guts of the song and slither off into the night. WTF happened there?
Slowly at First Then All At Once (BA)
…was Hemingway’s reply to the question: ‘how did you go bankrupt?’ Then I heard it applied to the HBO show about Nazis taking over America (no, silly, it was a ‘what-if’ thought experiment set in the 40’s) and I thought that this template - a slow ramp up then a swift ascension, followed by a long decline culminating in a rapid plummet, is the pattern for a whole bunch of things.
I guess also I was thinking of the Pareto curve - the savage law (or maybe more of a guideline - a savage guideline) that obtains in the pitiless game of Monopoly and, indeed, Life - it explains why most of the vinyl in the world is used by Adele, for instance.
It struck me as interesting that there can be mathematically coherent laws which govern human behaviour just as they define the parameters of physics. I like maths, I think, because I really, really don’t understand them (qv. ’37’).
So it’s a very intelligible song for us, I think. Nice and clear. The music also is pretty trad: those straightforward chords with their hymn-like progression.
Its first encounter with the band had Mart going full-fat Power Ballad on its ass - massive drum sound wreathed in reverb and tubular bells - was it overegging the old pudding, I wondered? Christoph curated the present version, distressing further the already pretty lived-in loop the song was built on (from the Chase Bliss Mood pedal, since you ask, my new bff) and reducing the drums to Mart’s reined-in, best-behaviour brush/soft-beater combo.
The verses, rather like Nemesis, have a bullet point, issue-based organisation to them:
V1 is Love: falling/not falling in.. I question the metaphor. Isn’t it more that we suddenly notice it’s there and, heartbreakingly, when it’s not anymore? As in all these examples there’s usually a catalytic, propulsive event - the Reichstag Fire of Romance, if you will.
V2 is Nature - in particular the phenomenon of the Last Tree Standing - usually in November in the UK - one lonely, brave-looking fellow has somehow retained a lot of its leaves when all the others have succumbed to winter - clinging poignantly onto the summer as if to say: ‘nothing’s changed really, look - leaves! It’s still kinda August, right?’ Genetically talented or just aerodynamically lucky, he’s on borrowed time, that tree… Winter is, as they say, coming.
And suddenly, and with one last decisive storm, it’s here.. and all the trees look the same.
V3 - and here come the fascists - I pick a pair of representative tyrants: Ubu Roi - the fictional fat dude with the spiral on his stomach (merdrrrre was his catchphrase (Eng Trans: ’shitttrrr’). And Mu’ammar (Gaddafi).
A pair of right little charmers.
The point, I tried to make in as non-inflammatory way as possible (for after all it is just a pop song) is that - well, you know it by now, if you’re ever going to - look after your democracies - they’re not, by any means, a given and there are those who are (and how best to say this?) just cunts and we should really try and keep ‘em in check, before they get out of hand.
V4 - this time it’s personal - our narrator foetally curled and thumbsucking in the terrible presence of these inexorable laws - contemplates the 'Ultimate Decline’: these days very much along the Slowly at First model - you get old, then you get sick, then you go into hospital and you recover but not quite back to where you were before. Repeat for a few times until one day…. it’s usually a Fall isn’t it? - and then one condition which has tenaciously (albeit precariously) maintained - Being Alive - is instantaneously replaced with… you know - the Other One.
Good Disruption (CM)
This didn’t get its title for a while - it started off as the rather prosaic New Recording 16 - but I did want to try a couple of different things. The twangy, picky, surf-ish guitar tone isn’t one that I use a lot, and I haven’t really pulled out that whiny singing voice since, I dunno, Jam Science? Well, not as a lead vocal, anyway.
I don’t want to go into the lyrics too much here, but I suppose a note would be useful. I had noticed that ‘disruption’ had become a become almost a generic (and generally positive) term for ‘shaking things up’ in almost any context - business, politics, art - and ‘disruptor’ was being self-proclaimed as a title by those fancying themselves as being on the cutting edge of radical change; I’ve even seen it used in peoples’ LinkedIn profiles. However, it also seemed like a lot of real disruptors weren’t working for the general good, ‘disruption’ in these cases meaning ‘wilfully vandalising existing stable paradigms’ through self-interest, ignorance or hey, just for the hell of it. Yes, I’m talking about you, Donald Trump, amongst others.
Then I found the little parable about the ants in the jar which had sprouted on the internet. Essentiall, it goes:
‘If you put 100 black ants and 100 red ants in a jar, they will co-exist peacefully. However, if someone shakes the jar, they will fight to the death, the black ants thinking the red ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in fact the real enemy is whoever shook the jar.’
You can find this trotted out all over the place to illustrate different conflicts - Black/White, Male/Female, Right/Left etc.. It’s such a neat little picture that no-one seems to care whether it’s actually true or where it first originated. I think I first saw it on a website called The Good Republican, which no longer seems to exist (maybe unsurprisingly), but it’s been attributed to all sorts of people, notably David Attenborough (it definitely wasn’t him). I just found it interesting as an example of how things are spread and appropriated and how the dissemination process becomes a kind of disruption in its own right.
Anyway, back to the studio and, in this case, a relatively straightforward build on Martyn’s once again excellent drums. The guitar sound posed some issues for Christoph, however: he loved the sound on my demo version, which was built in Logic, recreating the pedalboard sound I’d created in the writing room, and he in turn recreated it (ish) in the studio for me to play and expand the parts. I think I liked the result, although the sound was harder and brighter, but Christoph elected to use the parts from the demo, favouring sound over performance, arguably. Somewhere in the mixing process we also effectively lost a synth part I’d put on; having now lived without it for a while, I think that was a mistake, as it leaves the chorus vocal somewhat exposed and unsupported. (You just get a taste of it right at the end, pretty much the last thing you hear.) It’s that Producer trust/responsibility thing again…
To make up for that, we get some fabulous keyboards - squiggly synth and groovy, atmospheric organ: Barry’s not a Manzarek fan at all, but he gets his Doors on here. And of course The Sids, gamely chanting along to the, erm, disrupted middle vocal section, straight-faced but flexible. An interesting tangent, then, but worth pursuing further…? We’ll see, I suppose…
EVERYTHING HAPPENS SO MUCH (BA)
'That might as well happen’ says Ryan George the Youtube comic as his Hollywood script writer pitches plots at his (thinly disguised doppelganger) movie executive. Every far fetched and arbitrary thing that happens might as well (happen).
Reality, of course, does not flinch from arbitrariness or ridiculously impausible content. A commonplace comment over the last few years has come in these variations: 'if this was in a film you’d say it was too over the top/on the nose/ downright unbelievable.'
I mean check this out:
‘The conspiracy theorists behind Frazzledrip believe that Hillary Clinton and former Clinton aide Huma Abedin were filmed ripping off a child’s face and wearing it as a mask before drinking the child’s blood in a Satanic ritual sacrifice. Supposedly, the Hillary Clinton video was later found on the hard drive of Abedin’s former husband, Anthony Weiner, under the code name ‘Frazzledrip’.
So yeah. The wheels have come off on the Crazy Train, people. So, it’s no wonder that our poor narrator is driven to consult (in the bridge section) his spirit guide or an oracle to get a bit of perspective.
The whole tune was extrapolated from the little Mood pedal loop with which it begins - started off as a piano, as I recall. Really is paying for itself, that thing..
Different Story (CM)
This, the most ‘pop’ song on the album, started from Barry’s catchy little piano riff. It’s essentially a boy-meets-girl ditty, about how that’s a timeless story and yet different for everyone. What’s been different during the past couple of years, of course, is that boy couldn’t meet girl. That lack of personal contact has left story arcs hanging, and it’s become apparent that that narrative is not only a description of reality but somehow part of its fabric, so removing it has left a bigger hole than we perhaps would have expected. We have filled it in remotely, by Zoom and social media and by creating our own internal stories, but the lack of human face-to-face interaction has left a huge disconnect for some. In this song it’s the young: I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be so isolated when I was, what, 20-21 - there may not have been a Shriekback, for a start!.So the pop song is followed by a reflective passage about the ways we create and modify our stories and, through those, our realities, with a respectful nod to those we’ve loved and lost in these strange times.
Musically, the initial groove was developed into a loping, rattling thing that for a while clattered along so happily that it was the longest track on the record, until it was reeled in to an appropriate length for its pop status and is now the shortest track on the album. Still, there’s always a remix…
There was some sparring around the bassline - whenever Barry worked on the track he took out my bass guitar and used the keyboard bass; I did the opposite. Eventually we worked out the plot for a hybrid, switching between the two for different sections: a risky strategy, but it works. For the big chorus chord progression I decided not to do my usual Big Chord trick, but went for sharp chords cutting across instead. I sort of wish now that I’d done both: there’s a reason I always use that trick… oh well. The Sids are on point, of course - quite unusual choices, intriguingly dodging the obvious.
Now the story starts again…
1000 Different Books (CM)
This trippy thing emerged from improvisations using loops and atmospherics generated by the battlestar of new hardware that Barry auditioned, accumulated and harnessed during lockdown (quite obsessively, really, but someone’s gotta do it). From the start, it seemed to resist the structuring that we imposed on other tracks, going a different way every time we played it, so much so that we decided to let it be the only one that would continue to be developed through improvisation in the studio. If I may quote myself from a recent interview (indulgent, perhaps, but I think this nails it):
“I’m usually fine with this idea, but in this case I sort of lost my nerve, mainly because it was too hard to develop a lyric and vocal over such a random piece… and, unlike the early days, we didn’t have unlimited time to follow ideas through. So it was structured, although there was more improvisation and layering than on some other tracks. At various points we had extensive piano sorties, a fair bit of feedback guitar, then it got reeled into what you hear. I really like the organic shifts in tone and rhythm, and how the drums work in a way you might not immediately think of as a Shriekback groove.”
1000 Different Books clocks in as the longest track on the record. I thought about shortening it, but again the organism resisted - I tried editing out the second verse (“rolling back the mind…”), the only lyric I considered potentially expendable, but a simple edit damaged the organic development of the track underneath: an actual remix would have been required, and we’d gone beyond the time and budget for that, so we have 5:19 of sonic evolution to live with forever. Nice.
The title, as you may already know by now, comes from a quotation from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Sculpting In Time - “A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books”, which seemed appropriate not only for the alternative realities of our fractured times but for the multiple interpretations that any Shriekback release inevitably attracts (me reading reviews: “oh, so that’s what I was on about”). In this case, it’s a reflection along the lines of ‘what have we done with all this time, why are we still here, what’s next?’, a coda of sorts to Space In The Blues: we cry into the future, but at least there is a future.
WILD WORLD (BA)
Wild World was a bit of a turn-up - right at the end written very quickly with no big struggles (see also: Exquisite Corpse, Bernadette, Hubris) - like it just wanted to burst out. So weird how that happens and yeah, a gift. From…. our boiling interiors, the Universe? She-Ra? Wotan?
We may never know..
The use of the vocoder - completely unplanned - was just from improvising with the Big Rig (the coral reef of quirky musical equipment accreting and mutating constantly in my living room) and the way it lets me sound prettier than I can can usually sound (v much as on 'Evaporation’ from Care). It was the prosthetic I needed, clearly.
How it becomes alien and impersonal like Laurie Anderson’s answering machine was not really intended - I worry that it’s a screen to hide behind but I wasn’t about to fuck around with it since it obviously - on one level anyway - 'worked’.
My son Finn’s song ’One Piece at a Time’was an influence - that idea of a beneficent, forgiving world - and the Martin Amis notion (from 'The Information’) that pretty much everywhere in the Universe would kill you in seconds if you went there but this place doesn’t - that’s a very elemental kind of love isn’t it?
Well, collaboration is everything really innit? No man is an island, not even the ones who pretend they are. That’s what I reckon. Merging somebodys’ talents and energies with yours. What a thing. The very stuff of life.
Still, it can be a fractious business: politics will come into it. LIke: who’s in charge here? Who gets to say whether your bit is better than my bit? And how do we work that shit out? A microcosm of the world or what?
Undeterred, we seem to do it (collaborate) quite a lot. And these are some pretty successful tunes, I would say. Good for us. Bold and resolute Shriekback!
So there’s Hope, right?
(BA)
MART’S TRACKS:
DROP BY DROP Barker/Burridge
Taken from my Album" Water and Stone.“ Exploring my rolling Gtr and groove in 7 with the wonderfully talented musician cellist Emily Burridge.
Inspired by the miracle of water, its rhythm, its music, its journey, its myths, its poetry and beauty
FLYING SAUCER Barker/ Roedelius/Noah1
Lovely to have met and worked with the master of Ambience, Hans Joachim Roedelius for the Album Fibre.
Recorded up in the hills of Shropshire with George Taylor (Noah1) and Jez coed
This piece was inspired by my riff Im playing on the Hang Drum, hence the title "Flying Saucer”
GOLDEN MOON Barker/Young
Taken from my mini Album” Blue” Talitha Rise.
This was my first big endeavour into the musical spiritual world and collaboration with Jo beth young.
We are joined on the Riti by Juldeh Camara.
PILGRIM`S WAY Barker/Adams
My new project/collaboration still ongoing with the mighty talent of Justin Adams .
This first piece inspired by ancient walks.
This new whole album partly inspired by the writing of Robert Macfarlane “the old ways”
SANDLINES. Barker/ Adams
Second piece inspired the Ancient paths of the desert.
THE LAKE Barker/Young taken from the album" Abandoned Orchid House” Talitha Rise
Another collaboration with Jo beth Young and another piece in 7!
Intense, energetic and rich with riddles.
THE SELKIE. Barker / Pynn
Second Piece taken from my Album “Water and Stone”
Inspired by the Myths and stories of the Selkie. With the magical multi instrumentalist Nick Pynn on Violin.
CARL’S TRACKS:
Words Fail Me
with AMANDA KRAVIT
(Barratt/Marsh)
David Barratt and I were introduced to Amanda by John Mrvos, one of the A&R team at EastWest Atlantic in New York (Happyhead’s label) - she was his girlfriend and he wanted to get her recorded, basically, so we came up with this. Dave had done some kind of publishing deal that allowed him to sample the company catalogue, hence Ravi Shankar playing sitar all over it. Backing vocals by Bill Clift; some of the drums sound like Jim Kimberley, sampled from HH sessions (1992ish.)
The Longest Goodbye
with BILL CLIFT
(Clift/Marsh)
I’ve written loads with Bill under various banners, of course. This is a mid-90s demo recorded in Bill’s flat in Greenwich. BVs by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle, bass (I think) by Gary Brady… not sure who did the wibbly organ. This song was later recorded by Bill’s band Fuzzbuddy, re-titled Killing Me Now - it’s just been re-released as part of their Complete Studio Recordings compilation.
THE PALACE DOGS
with GEOFF WOOLEY
I’ve collaborated with Geoff Woolley since Out On Blue Six, and in school bands even before that. These two tracks, from around 1995, are both built from sampled TV shows (and therefore subject to all sorts of potential copyright issues…).
Queen of Peoples’ Hearts
(Marsh/Woolley)
The self-styled QOPH’s Panorama special, cut up and pumped up with added Dario Argento and a spot of Jeremy Paxman. The Original is all-electronic; the Guitar Version has not only mine and Geoff’s rhythm bits but some wildfire lead from Steve Bolton (Atomic Rooster, Paul Young, The Who etc. and currently fronting the mighty Dead Man’s Corner). Take yer pick.
Crazy Dames
(Marsh/Woolley)
The main voice and piano on here are from a 1961 Twilight Zone episode called The Midnight Sun, in which the Earth is knocked out of orbit and is spiralling towards the Sun… it gets hot. Other vocals by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle.
GASWERKS
The Ying Tong Song
(Milligan)
Basically the same format as The Palace Dogs with the addition of Bill Clift, whose idea it was to knock out a dance version of The Goons’, er, classic. Dig that crazy rhythm, indeed. We were told the novelty song market was a hard one to crack… by the singer of Black Lace, who should know, I suppose…
WOOLLEY/MARSH
The Girlfriends Of Dorian Gray
(Barratt/Marsh/Woolley)
David Barratt came up with the conceit of a modern Dorian Gray who preserves his youth (or immaturity) not by having a grotesquely ageing portrait in the attic but by having an ever-changing string of girlfriends who absorb the consequences of his many flaws and are discarded one after another. Dave sketched out the chorus and then proposed that he, I and Deni Bonet (NY-based violinist and writer that we’ve worked with on various projects) should write our own versions of the story, possibly with the idea of creating some kind of meta-version combining them all. That never happened, but I like the track Geoff and I came up with and the lyric is nice and tricksy - shades of Costello, maybe, if I say so myself.
You’re The Only One
(Marsh/Woolley)
A re-write of a Happyhead demo, switching New York electronica for some 90s Britpop vibes, it sounds like. Bit of a kinky ménage à trois scenario with reasonably loud guitars. Nice.
BARRY’S TRACKS
The Frances & Martine poems, with Hilda Sheehan (2014)
part 1: GLOW, GOOSE, CORN-REMOVER
part 2: COAT, ARM, KNOB OF BUTTER
I met Hilda Sheehan - through the (surprisingly vibey) Swindon poetry scene when I was stationed back there for 10 years in ‘04. She was often the star turn at their spoken word events and, I thought, had the mark of a real artist in that she came with her own self-contained world (’magical realist Northern UK kitchen sink’, if I had to describe it).
I thought it would be fun to 'set’ (as they say) some of her poems to music and so I did. From Hilda’s considerable oeuvre, I picked the Frances and Martine series - I liked F&M’s mutually abrasive dependence - the key ingredient in any sitcom - and the succinct and sometimes brutal nature of each of their adventures.
Dame Hilda Sheehan
The Anaxaton6 EP with Mike Tournier (2013)
I first worked with Mike Tournier (Big Mike as opposed to Little Mike - these were Flukes’ Contrasting Mikes at the time) as producer on their OTO album c.94. Techno outfit Fluke apparently liked them some Olde Shriekback (they had worked previously with Wendy and Sarah) and thought I might add something to the project.
It turned out that producing a techno band is every bit as awkward as you might imagine (there’s only one computer screen for a start) and we abandoned the collaboration after I’d failed to insert myself into Fluke’s process in any useful way (sandwich run doesn’t count).
Anyway, we stayed in touch and collaborated rather more successfully on a Fluke/Shriekback tune and performance for MTV.
It was the redoubtable Julian Nugent, Fluke’s manager, who got in touch - in 2013 to suggest that Mike and I might like to try knocking up a tune together.
I liked the idea of this straightaway. Mike can produce huge, hi-torque productions and I had an idea of a songwriting approach which I though might complement this. The vocalist would be recognisably the bloke out of Shriekback but CG’d with florid new appendages. I fancied some mad-as-a-rat lyrics (Welcome to their secret sign: Boola Stack! Haunted Lego of the Mind! Boola Stack!) but the music would be slick and vivid and solidly crafted because that’s always how Mike rolls. Thus you get something quite absurd being taken very seriously which is, to my mind, the best thing you can possibly have.
extract from the sleeve notes:
BONE MARAUDER tells of a pure love, painful engorgement and hog sorcery.
JUJUGRID (GO LIVE!) wrangles with hedonic guilt, ecclesiastical turpitude and leaves everything else the fuck alone.
BOOLA STACK! - There are so many things to say of Boola Stack that to ennumerate them insults us both.
NO FOOL BOLETUS… let’s just be clear about this: you got nothing to hide, there’s no need to worry. Be lucky.
Michaele don Turino and Bleary Android are the naked mortals chained to the husky obelisk of ANAXATON6
I had a shonky kind of weekend I have a number of regrets There is a haze across a number of days I haven’t seen through it yet
It’s not the bug it is the feature like many monsters we recall there is quite a range of things that are strange and many things that will apall…
Gotta keep the lid on the Agony Box (we all saw what you did in the Agony Box) there is nothing inside you can hide - the confusion is no longer funny The tribulations are all in the Agony Box bouncing off the walls of the Agony Box it’s a battle of faith with a wraith for the love and the money
Pandora and her boyfriend they sent a postcard from the place where joy and sorrow meet down on the street and all the echoes of disgrace. I had a sermon at the ready: ‘the metamorphosis of pain’ i saw them yawn at the back at my obvious lack and I would not do that again
If i were you I’d not shake the Agony Box There is too much at stake in the Agony Box are you just a blob in the mob in this bucket of Crazy? There is nothing but time in the Agony Box all of your crimes are in the Agony Box If you can bear the despair all the rest will be gravy
a swarm of military secrets - a million nutters in a jar- the pilgrims I’ve met they all try to forget the stuff that made them what they are I finished burying the bunny the thought of it still makes me weep It was all over - I thought I had closure: now I see her in my sleep
Gotta keep the lid on the Agony Box (we all saw what you did in the Agony Box) there is nothing inside you can hide - the confusion is no longer funny The tribulations are all in the Agony Box bouncing off the walls of the Agony Box it’s a battle of faith with a wraith for the love and the money
agony’s your friend it’s hope that gets you in the end…
BOLLO REX I can feel the air is shaking and the sky begins to burn and the lonesome claxons sing to me - and ‘the Crazy is loose’ and the tide’s on the turn The aparatchiks bluster for the gen’ralissimo. All this is true, but if i were you I would not SEEK to know
GORILLA SITS ANYWHERE HE WANTS HE’S GOT A SHOTGUN BABY…. SHOTGUN BABY BOLLO TANKS THE GRID GORILLA SITS ANYWHERE HE WANTS HE’S GOT A SHOTGUN BABY…. SHOTGUN BABY AND THE WILD SHALL WILD REMAIN…
with an enormous effort of the will one quells… …the cultural logic of late capitalism the enormous anti-natural power of dead human labour stored up in our machinery.. The physical impossibility of death in the mind of anyone living.. … The implosion of the real in a hyper-real nebula in which even the action of the medium can no longer be determined The inexorable decline of liberal humanism… the structural possibilities of steel and aluminium.
I’LL JUST SAY - ANYTHING AT ALL I’LL BE YOUR SHOCK JOCK BABY …SHOCK JOCK BABY …AND THE WILD SHALL WILD REMAIN I’LL JUST SAY ANYTHING AT ALL I’LL BE YOUR SHOCK JOCK BABY FATBERG RISING …BOLLO SPIKES THE MOOD
here come History, with the caps lock on WITH THE CAPS LOCK ON
when the hypothermic shudders in the final throes he gets the urge to dig a hole and rip off all his clothes while this is not effective - indeed it seals his fate - it yet will keep him occupied and busy while he waits
WE CAN ALL DO ANYTHING WE LIKE IT’S ALL A CRAP SHOOT BABY, CRAP SHOOT BABY BOLLO’S SPIKED THE MOOD AND THE WILD SHALL WILD REMAIN
And when we struck the fatberg there was a long pause …. And when we struck the fatberg there was a long pause ….
(………)
…and a rampant surge as the facts emerge… and what sinks will not converge - what sinks will not converge…
what’s my Safe Word, baby? what’s my Safe Word, baby?
bring me safe to harbour.. safe to harbour
(And I have asked to be Where no storms come) Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea)
(last stanza by Gerard Manley Hopkins)
PUTTING
ALL THE LIGHTS OUT
Coming
from the back room
Looking
for a positive sign
Angle
and line
Circles,
ellipses, shadows and eclipses
A
meditation on a different time
A
meditation on a different time
Watching
all the flowers bloom
Breathing
in the scent of a rose
Strange
how it grows
A
whim and a notion, moving like the ocean
Up
she rises and there she blows
Up
she rises and there she blows
It’s
alright if you jump when the moment comes
It’s
alright that what’s done can be still undone
It’s
alright to be lit by a setting sun
Putting
all the lights out
Driving
with your eyes closed
Listen
to the crash boom
Feeding
on the fear in the dark
The
eyes of a shark
Spices
and citrus, acid over litmus
All
aboard on a drifting ark
All
aboard on a drifting ark
It’s
alright when the wind blows dust and dirt
It’s
alright when the day brings harm and hurt
It’s
alright to be there when the last comes first
Putting
all the lights out
Driving
with your eyes closed
Putting
all the lights out
Driving
with your eyes closed
Underneath
a full moon
Living
in the light from the stars
A
glow from afar
No
sooner no later, burning all the data
Until
the next time au revoir
Until
the next time au revoir
It’s
alright when the trip gets too surreal
It’s
alright when the end is not revealed
It’s
alright when the future stays concealed
Putting
all the lights out
Plug
into the mainline
Driving
with your eyes closed
Habits
for a lifetime
Putting
all the lights out
Swimming
for the shoreline
Driving
with your eyes closed
Making
up for lost time
WEATHERMAN
Cease
fire – he’s at liberty
Running
around like a man of mystery
Bring
it on, bring it on, bring it on
Cross
wire liability
Blowing
around in the wind of history
It’s
all gone wrong, all gone wrong, all gone wrong
The
weatherman
Will
hang you out to dry
Yeah
hang you out to dry
You’ll
be sorry you messed with the weatherman
The
weatherman
Don’t
need a reason why
Don’t
need a reason why
He’ll
just change, change, change with the weather
In
the absence of civility
Fill
a vacuum with brutality
What
comes around, comes around, comes around
Can’t
ringfence gullibility
With
a voice groomed for neutrality
A
dead-end sound, a dead-end sound, a dead-end sound
The
weatherman
Will
hang you out to dry
Yeah
hang you out to dry
You’ll
be sorry you messed with the weatherman
The
weatherman
Don’t
need a reason why
Don’t
need a reason why
He’ll
just change, change, change with the weather
Too
much, never enough
Too
much, never enough
Too
much, never enough
Too
much, never enough
Brace
up – here come tougher days
For
avenging snowflake renegades
Overload,
overload, overload
Heads
up – so many ways
Feel
the energy on the barricades
Hit
the road, hit the road, hit the road
The
weatherman
Will
hang you out to dry
Yeah
hang you out to dry
You’ll
be sorry you messed with the weatherman
Too
much, never enough
Too
much, never enough
The
weatherman
Don’t
need a reason why
Don’t
need a reason why
He’ll
just change, change, change with the weather
Too
much, never enough
Too
much, never enough
The
weatherman
Will
hang you out to dry
Yeah
hang you out to dry
You’ll
be sorry you messed with the weatherman
Too
much, never enough
Too
much, never enough
The
weatherman
Don’t
need a reason why
Don’t
need a reason why
He’ll
just change, change, change with the weather
Too
much, never enough
Too
much, never enough
ALL
ABOUT NOTHING
We
got some backwards evolution
Got
some attrition coming down
Old-fashioned
aggro and pollution
Can’t
recognise your own home town
In
the race to the bottom
Who’s
on top and who’s forgotten?
Lose
your friends, lose your marbles
Are
you digging this farrago? ‘cos
Here
come the boys
All
puffed up and all about nothing
Into
the void
Eyes
down and all about nothing
Just
smoke and noise
C’mon,
c’mon it’s all about nothing
Inside
out and upside down
What
comes around is all about nothing
We
got some shameless intervention
Got
some deep dealing underhand
Anaesthetising
good intention
All
helps to reinforce the brand
It’s
the will of the people
Some
very angry sheeple
Truth
is out, truth is over
Shot
with a gold revolver now
Here
come the boys
All
puffed up and all about nothing
Into
the void
C’mon,
it’s all about nothing
Just
smoke and noise
C’mon,
c’mon it’s all about nothing
Inside
out and upside down
What
comes around is all about nothing
I
hear complaints about the neighbours
I
know they take their own sweet time
I
don’t mind their bad behaviour
Any
friends of theirs are friends of mine
So
take it out to the city
Fire
up anger and not pity
Kick
it out, kick it over
Get
your arse up off the sofa ‘cos
Here
come the boys
All
puffed up and all about nothing
Into
the void
Eyes
down and all about nothing
Just
smoke and noise
C’mon,
c’mon it’s all about nothing
Inside
out and upside down
What
comes around is all about nothing
It’s
all about nothing
All
about nothing
It’s
all about nothing
All
about nothing
THIS
IS THE SCIENCE
I
tried my hand at some sacred geometry
There
were some things I didn’t understand
I
crossed the line and I messed up the symmetry
What
happened then kinda got out of hand
Down
in the basement when the window slammed
Next
thing I know cyclonic disturbance
The
heavens opened and the sky turned round
Now
I’m waiting for a plague of serpents
Coming
up from the underground well
Hide
in the shop with the shutters down
This
is the science of idiot thinking
This
is the science of too much fun
This
is the science of heavy drinking
This
is the science of really dumb
Fabulating
in a state of hysteria
The
only way to keep the panic at bay
It’s
getting harder to divine the mysterious
Lock
the door throw the key away
Out
on the pavement in the light of day
This
is the science of all books burning
This
is the science of not much sense
This
is the science of backwards learning
This
is the science of the present tense
I
take the blame for the sordid experiment
A
little knowledge and a dangerous thing
I’m
really sorry that I busted the firmament
It
ain’t over til the archangel sings
Up
on the corner with a broken wing
This
is the science of fire and famine
This
is the science of wayward plans
This
is the science of hacks and spamming
This
is the science of science be damned
This
is the science
This
is the science
This
is the science
This
is the science
HYPERACTUAL
Blastwave Susan in the heaving night (she will not survive the gale) Deep confusion with no end in sight (like a lizard loves a whale - like a lizard loves a whale)
We all molegrip tight (you know it) (just flow with it) there’s a golem in the mall Head into the Light aglow with it it is epically banal it’s all Hyperctual
Fright-Night Gladys has no stated goal (they will drag her out in chains - they will drag her out in chains) She enjoined a battle for the soul (she is funky like a train - she is funky like a train)
We’re all glow-stick bright (all sold on it) (pure gold on it) You can pixellate it all Whiter now than white (with mould on it) It’s all: ‘fuck the protocol - It’s all Hyperactual’
Shakti Cromlech has a Disneyland display (she is quite replaceable - she is quite replaceable) putting on the Pluto head and going all the way (she has bought the rights and all - she has bought the rights and all)
We got balls of light (no doubt of it) (so proud of it) it’s a tricky one to call Counterfeit Delight! (no clout to it) - got its bags there in the hall It’s all Hyperactual…
C1 (Am - F) all of this mercy has fallen away And if it was up to me the fire has brought us together there would be something special where there used to be no more than this.. the fire has brought us together
for the (Am) ocean’s meaningless and immense and, it was clear that these events had (F) overwhelmed our usual praxis I said: (Am) ‘shantih shantih - praise the Lord’ but the paralysing rattle on the slippery boards (F) had neutralised my prophylaxis
C2 (B - G) all of this mercy has fallen away And if it was up to me the fire has brought us together there would be something ringing where the bells should be no more than this.. the fire has brought us together brought us together…
mid 8: (F B Dm Am C)
(Am) Well there it is, I don’t know why there’s a fearsome clarity I can’t deny - I’m (F) contemplating what its face is…
gazing up at the fathomless stars: (F) (that one’s Venus, which one’s Mars?) Om-Mani-Padmi - Ooh La La! (Am)- got no use for that kind of Magic..
all of this mercy has fallen away (Am - F etc) And if it was up to me there would be something beautiful and clean and free no more than this the fire has brought us together
The Fire has brought us together and if i had my way - I would save this nonsense for another day no more than this.. The Fire has brought us together no more than this.. no more than this.. no more than this
THE ELATED WORLD (Cornell Boxes)
the stubble, the rubble you roll with it but it never fits in the Broken World
the love nest, the warm breast, the all-desiring, intensifying, unsated world
the heartbreak, the arse ache, the pawnshop ring and the broken wing in the Raindog world
delighted unblighted the shining gaze, all the untouched days in the newborn world
the elated world, the elated world, the elated world..
the burst thing the worst thing the trauma blow that will never go in the violent world
the fake claw the chainsaw the infra red and the Evil Dead the Horrific World
gated sedated the liquid cosh antiseptic wash in the Locked-down world
the first strike the MAD spike the fizzle yield in the farmer’s field in the fissile world
The Elated World …The Elated World The Elated World
the shapers, the scrapers the fast eroding, the kind of stroking, the haptic world
So massive impassive the concrete beam and the soviet dream in the Brutal world
dissectors and vectors the clipboard rules the precision tools the schematic world
the starfish the moon dish the lunar seas and the lunar cheese in the astral world
The Elated World …The Elated World The Elated World
I’ve been a groom I‘ve worked the room I’ve wrapped myself around a broom back in my prime I shaved the rats I fixed the stats Brought litter for the Thundercats - so many times (I’ve been a jerk)
PUT ME TO WORK!
O mighty plume! O suffering moon! O weasles in the drawing room! (please make it fast) enklastify my words right now unruly gods will show me how I’ll get the mule behind the plough until the last I will not shirk PUT ME TO WORK!
I’ll get the weight upon on my back I’ll eat my body weight in thrak I’ll holler by the railway track (and holler loud!) This Plasma-shift i cannot stop Plumescence intra bellytop Merch is flying out the shop. and in the crowd, are many perks…
PUT ME TO WORK!
O master fruit so tried and true O solemn plague-rat kangaroo Something to get my teeth into is all I pray now linear ducks have just arrived the bullshit has metastasized i am intensely exercised O mood display! Let’s go beserk…
PUT ME TO WORK!
PUT ME TO WORK!
SHIT-PIXIE Don’t you feel in the spring the sickening overkill of everything? can’t help it it’s all hard-wired now All these earthly delights Looking as silly as a bag of lights Ah come on now It’s gotta feel real tired now…
Hey Mary! Get Lairy! You’re still off with the fairies But you know what the whizz and the gelignite can do.. Don’t tangle, just jangle Bring on the crimes and the scandals I’m the Shit Pixie - I’m gonna dance for you.
Nothing real will impinge on the fierce exertions of your perma-binge. Working for you? Got it in hand now? But you won’t draw the sting with your classical allusions and your broken wing. I’m gonna draw you a line in the sand now
So shabby! Gabby! Get yourself back to the abbey you can tell the enqiuiry what and when you knew They concluded what you did was totally scuppered and scoobied I’m the Shit Pixie and I’m gonna tell you true
All the gears grind for you but the light still shines on Column 32 It’s an idea (might make it worse now) Nothing glows in the night and you feel sexy as an ammonite all your virtues are a kind of curse now
Ah Mimi! It’s dreamy! if you shut your eyes you can see me I’m a horse of a different colour boiled to glue. Ignore it; just floor it. It’s so shot-away-in-the-war it’s just the Shit Pixie who’s got a thing for you..
Virgin of the Ladder
I really dig your chiaroscuro it gives me something I can misconstrue these sickly martyrs make me feel alright: they give me something I can live up to
I guess this is where the magic happens: an epiphany of stone and light? Blue-collar… of the Madonna to bring in something from the building site.
O my Virgin of the Ladder will you be with me when I start to climb? Gravity I’m overcoming Nothing doing when it comes to Time
in this year without a summer when I lost everything I thought was mine all the pain and the sheeting rain and I’m sorry baby that was the last of the wine
and I know I can change but there’s only so much a ladder will do D’you want an acolyte that is so scared of heights? rung by rung I’m climbing up to you O virgin of the ladder grant me only that I do not fall towards the centre of the earth Ah keep that ladder up against the wall Oh Virgin of the Ladder what a pretty gal you are maybe a slow climbdown into the squalid town Light a candle on the way to the bar
it’s laboured as an image overused as a metaphor for spiritual ascension (Blake and Jacob did it long before)
but you are Mother of the Word Incarnate but what good are words when you want deeds? - you need practical KIT when you’re deep in the shit and that ladder’s gonna meet my needs O my Virgin of the Ladder will you be with me when I start to climb? Gravity I’m overcoming Nothing doing when it comes to Time
ABDOMEN JONES she will never understand all the tragic flaws of man and has not the slightest sympathy for anyone who can she disdains all protocol (she finds much distainable) still she has nothing in the quiver she’s unable to deliver
Calling Abdomen Jones I love Abdomen Jones and her animus is tidal Paging Abdomen Jones - with her 3 mobile phones - she says: ‘work is the blackmail of survival’
Honey badger isn’t fussed he has transcended disgust ….and it’s known that Jones atones for anything she must Doesn’t claim to be profound never takes the Higher Ground She is fully hypostatic - you should hear her in the attic…
Calling Abdomen Jones Strength to Abdomen Jones! with all her subtle modulations Paging Abdomen Jones with her libido made of chrome she says: ‘pain is a kind of information’
And in any case she sees she is queen of all the bees (as she has some fun and stuns us with her fluent Javanese). And who tunes the concert grand? who will now conduct the band? Her case is prima facie (takes the Beethoven quite pacy)
Calling Abdomen Jones Lovely Abdomen Jones she makes the sound of steam escaping Paging Abdomen Jones she does just fine on her own says: ‘caresses are a form of scraping..’
LOLLIPOP BOMB
Darling monster, sweety-pie.. my mind is wandering sadly I must walk into the reeds` terribly corroded and the saints have crumbled into sand they will not intercede
And I carress the velvet hand grenade my part is played and yes- the windows are steamy so no-one can see me
I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb
hark the hot valkyries cry their flaxen hair and crazy eyes they come at last for me honey angel baby lamb I am not what you think I am and i will never be
and I will dally in the sullen glade I’m not afraid of al that I will be streaming at twilight’s last gleaming
I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb
tho I was galloping along I read all the portents wrong the Golden Age could never last that long
we are not brave we are not free and yet somehow, remarkably, are able to apall this thinning crowd here in this place the baffled looks upon their faces really says it all
and I will freak out when the time arrives it’s very clear to me that life is a long song and I sang the wrong one
I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb
FILTHY WONDERLAND
Come with me if you will - my imaginary friends - I have a tale to tell of phosphors and vapour. Upon a tiny screen i saw a magic realm though i was overwhelmed I got it down on paper.
there’s a scenario: a woman and a wasp not everybody’s thing but no doubt it’s someone’s tumescent butterflies are spurting everywhere: to get the full effect you can even become one
there is a land of wonders and a lot are for hire where all pay homage to the glories of the gland. Do it with Dumbo’s mummy if that is your desire there’s nothing you can’t do in Filthy Wonderland
Some legendary beasts preposterously endowed throw down a fairy girl with wings and tiara. The hobbit looking on is visibly aroused to see these monsters ride the lovely Titania
…and Things with tentacles - that penetrate the bum, A massive squirrel with a fearsome erection the whole environment inclusive as they come, pushing the envelope of natural selection…
There is a brave new vision that machines have designed (the old pornographers will never understand) such complicated pleasures for the liberal mind this is the way of things in Filthy Wonderland
a rampant unicorn; a goblin in a thong: sexual complexity well beyond triangular little Red Riding Hood encountering the wolf in ways (you have to say) are specifically glandular
Phantasmagoria: the Japanese Depraved My Little Pony is away on a hack there. Some mythic masterplan - the lion fellates the lamb - (I need to think this through before I go back there)
There’s an enchanted garden with a final frontier: a blessed Shangri-La to greet with your left hand. they put the magic in you in a new ecosphere a brave and weird new worldc in Filthy Wonderland
There is a land of wonders (and a lot you can buy) where all pay homage to the glories of the gland. Make it with all the cast and crew of Family Guy nothing’s denied to you in Filthy Wonderland..
CONSOLATION
Christ, here comes the storm again that lacerates the heart: the savage wind of ‘really nothing doing’. Pray for us the blighted: all the failed in love and art, who question everything they were pursuing. When the black dogs come for you well, what else can you do, but downwardly revise your expectations? Just kiss the sickly little rose and hold her steady as she goes as you light out for those lands of Consolation
All the aching moments when it didn’t go your way (we saw it all and none of it was pretty) Now you hear their voices in the gruesome light of day, with the wheezing, cheap harmonium of self pity. And there’s some sad things known to man - and quite a few are sadder than the sodden Paggliacci’s ruminations - but still you’d have a heart of stone to leave the poor clown on his own with half a bottle left of Consolation.
When you’ve failed to consummate the wedding of the soul or any other union you may yearn for Let the baby demons come and stretch you on the coals There’s nothing else you’d really care to burn for. Well it really isn’t fun and it comes for everyone It soils the sheets /hauls you off despite your protestations. But all the Saints of Legoland; the Poundshop Martyrs hand in hand Will wash you in the seas of Consolation.
Satan in a monster truck Jesus on a bike all these things are sent to test your mettle Half-mast flags in Whitehall or your head upon a spike? Depends on where the dust is when it settles. All the things you struggled for you can check em at the door get ready for a dubious sedation. It’s all designed to reassure: the bingo and the talking cure, as they walk you round the grounds of Consolation
Feel the Need (lyric by Abrim Timon - Detroit Emeralds)
See how I’m walking See how I’m talking Notice everything in me Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me
I need you by my side To be my guide Can’t you see my arms Are open wide? Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me
Every day, I need every day, I want, without your sweet Sweet love, I’d rather die
I need it constantly your love takes care of me your love is better To me than apple/cherry pie
Your love is tuff and I can’t get enough Girl, your love is So important to me Feel the need, feel the need in me
Just put your hand in mine Love me all the time The proof you will Plainly see, Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me
I need you on the case To keep my heart in place You make me what I need to be Feel the need, Feel the need in me
I need you by my side To be my guide Can’t you see my arms Are open wide? Feel the need, oh Feel it, feel the need in me
I’ve been a groom I‘ve worked the room I’ve wrapped myself around a broom back in my prime
I fixed the stats
I shaved the rats
Brought litter for the Thundercats
- so many times
(I’ve been a jerk)
PUT ME TO WORK!
O mighty plume! O suffering moon! O weasles in the drawing room! (please make it fast) enklastify my words right now unruly gods will show me how I’ll get the mule before the plough until the last I will not shirk PUT ME TO WORK!
I’ll get the weight upon on my back I’ll eat my body weight in thrak I’ll holler by the railway track (and holler loud!) This Plasma-shift i cannot stop Tumescence intra bellytop Merch is flying out the shop. and in the crowd, are many perks…
PUT ME TO WORK!
O master fruit so tried and true O solemn plague-rat kangaroo Something to get my teeth into is all I pray now linear ducks have just arrived the bullshit has metastasized i am intensely exercised O mood display! Let’s go beserk…
PUT ME TO WORK!
PUT ME TO WORK!
SHIT-PIXIE Don’t you feel in the spring the sickening overkill of everything? can’t help it it’s all hard-wired now All these earthly delights Looking as silly as a bag of lights Ah come on now It’s gotta feel real tired now…
Hey Mary! Get Lairy! You’re still off with the fairies But you know what the whizz and the gelignite can do.. Don’t tangle, just jangle Bring on the crimes and the scandals I’m the Shit Pixie - I’m gonna dance for you.
Nothing real will impinge on the fierce exertions of your perma-binge. Working for you? Got it in hand now? But you won’t draw the sting with your classical allusions and your broken wing. I’m gonna draw you a line in the sand now
So shabby! Gabby! Get yourself back to the abbey you can tell the enqiuiry what and when you knew They concluded what you did was totally scuppered and scoobied I’m the Shit Pixie and I’m gonna tell you true
All the gears grind for you but the light still shines on Column 32 It’s an idea (might make it worse now) Nothing glows in the night and you feel sexy as an ammonite all your virtues are a kind of curse now
Ah Mimi! It’s dreamy! if you shut your eyes you can see me I’m a horse of a different colour boiled to glue. Ignore it; just floor it. It’s so shot-away-in-the-war it’s just the Shit Pixie who’s got a thing for you..
Virgin of the Ladder
I really dig your chiaroscuro it gives me something I can misconstrue these sickly martyrs make me feel alright: they give me something I can live up to
I guess this is where the magic happens: an epiphany of stone and light? Blue-collar… of the Madonna to bring in something from the building site.
O my Virgin of the Ladder will you be with me when I start to climb? Gravity I’m overcoming Nothing doing when it comes to Time
in this year without a summer when I lost everything I thought was mine all the pain and the sheeting rain and I’m sorry baby that was the last of the wine
and I know I can change but there’s only so much a ladder will do D’you want an acolyte that is so scared of heights? rung by rung I’m climbing up to you O virgin of the ladder grant me only that I do not fall towards the centre of the earth Ah keep that ladder up against the wall Oh Virgin of the Ladder what a pretty gal you are maybe a slow climbdown into the squalid town Light a candle on the way to the bar
it’s laboured as an image overused as a metaphor for spiritual ascension (Blake and Jacob did it long before)
but you are Mother of the Word Incarnate but what good are words when you want deeds? - you need practical KIT when you’re deep in the shit and that ladder’s gonna meet my needs O my Virgin of the Ladder will you be with me when I start to climb? Gravity I’m overcoming Nothing doing when it comes to Time
ABDOMEN JONES she will never understand all the tragic flaws of man and has not the slightest sympathy for anyone who can she disdains all protocol (she finds much distainable) still she has nothing in the quiver she’s unable to deliver
Calling Abdomen Jones I love Abdomen Jones and her animus is tidal Paging Abdomen Jones - with her 3 mobile phones - she says: ‘work is the blackmail of survival’
Honey badger isn’t fussed he has transcended disgust ….and it’s known that Jones atones for anything she must Doesn’t claim to be profound never takes the Higher Ground She is fully hypostatic - you should hear her in the attic…
Calling Abdomen Jones Strength to Abdomen Jones! with all her subtle modulations Paging Abdomen Jones with her libido made of chrome she says: ‘pain is a kind of information’
And in any case she sees she is queen of all the bees (as she has some fun and stuns us with her fluent Javanese). And who tunes the concert grand? who will now conduct the band? Her case is prima facie (takes the Beethoven quite pacy)
Calling Abdomen Jones Lovely Abdomen Jones she makes the sound of steam escaping Paging Abdomen Jones she does just fine on her own says: ‘caresses are a form of scraping..’
LOLLIPOP BOMB
Darling monster, sweety-pie.. my mind is wandering sadly I must walk into the reeds` terribly corroded and the saints have crumbled into sand they will not intercede
And I carress the velvet hand grenade my part is played and yes- the windows are steamy so no-one can see me
I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb
hark the hot valkyries cry their flaxen hair and crazy eyes they come at last for me honey angel baby lamb I am not what you think I am and i will never be
and I will dally in the sullen glade I’m not afraid of al that I will be streaming at twilight’s last gleaming
I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb
tho I was galloping along I read all the portents wrong the Golden Age could never last that long
we are not brave we are not free and yet somehow, remarkably, are able to apall this thinning crowd here in this place the baffled looks upon their faces really says it all
and I will freak out when the time arrives it’s very clear to me that life is a long song and I sang the wrong one
I lick the Lollipop Bomb I lick the Lollipop Bomb
FILTHY WONDERLAND
Come with me if you will - my imaginary friends - I have a tale to tell of phosphors and vapour. Upon a tiny screen i saw a magic realm though i was overwhelmed I got it down on paper.
there’s a scenario: a woman and a wasp not everybody’s thing but no doubt it’s someone’s tumescent butterflies are spurting everywhere: to get the full effect you can even become one
there is a land of wonders and a lot are for hire where all pay homage to the glories of the gland. Do it with Dumbo’s mummy if that is your desire there’s nothing you can’t do in Filthy Wonderland
Some legendary beasts preposterously endowed throw down a fairy girl with wings and tiara. The hobbit looking on is visibly aroused to see these monsters ride the lovely Titania
…and Things with tentacles - that penetrate the bum, A massive squirrel with a fearsome erection the whole environment inclusive as they come, pushing the envelope of natural selection…
There is a brave new vision that machines have designed (the old pornographers will never understand) such complicated pleasures for the liberal mind this is the way of things in Filthy Wonderland
a rampant unicorn; a goblin in a thong: sexual complexity well beyond triangular little Red Riding Hood encountering the wolf in ways (you have to say) are specifically glandular
Phantasmagoria: the Japanese Depraved My Little Pony is away on a hack there. Some mythic masterplan - the lion fellates the lamb - (I need to think this through before I go back there)
There’s an enchanted garden with a final frontier: a blessed Shangri-La to greet with your left hand. they put the magic in you in a new ecosphere a brave and weird new worldc in Filthy Wonderland
There is a land of wonders (and a lot you can buy) where all pay homage to the glories of the gland. Make it with all the cast and crew of Family Guy nothing’s denied to you in Filthy Wonderland..
CONSOLATION
Christ, here comes the storm again that lacerates the heart: the savage wind of ‘really nothing doing’. Pray for us the blighted: all the failed in love and art, who question everything they were pursuing. When the black dogs come for you well, what else can you do, but downwardly revise your expectations? Just kiss the sickly little rose and hold her steady as she goes as you light out for those lands of Consolation
All the aching moments when it didn’t go your way (we saw it all and none of it was pretty) Now you hear their voices in the gruesome light of day, with the wheezing, cheap harmonium of self pity. And there’s some sad things known to man - and quite a few are sadder than the sodden Paggliacci’s ruminations - but still you’d have a heart of stone to leave the poor clown on his own with half a bottle left of Consolation.
When you’ve failed to consummate the wedding of the soul or any other union you may yearn for Let the baby demons come and stretch you on the coals There’s nothing else you’d really care to burn for. Well it really isn’t fun and it comes for everyone it hauls you off despite your protestations. But all the Saints of Legoland; the Poundshop Martyrs hand in hand Will wash you in the seas of Consolation.
Satan in a monster truck Jesus on a bike all these things are sent to test your mettle Half-mast flags in Whitehall or your head upon a spike? Depends on where the dust is when it settles. All the things you struggled for you can check em at the door get ready for a dubious sedation. It’s all designed to reassure: the bingo and the talking cure, as they walk you round the grounds of Consolation
Feel the Need (lyric by Abrim Tilmon - Detroit Emeralds)
See how I’m walking See how I’m talking Notice everything in me Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me
I need you by my side To be my guide Can’t you see my arms Are open wide? Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me
Every day, I need every day, I want, without your sweet Sweet love, I’d rather die
I need it constantly your love takes care of me your love is better To me than apple/cherry pie
Your love is tuff and I can’t get enough Girl, your love is So important to me Feel the need, feel the need in me
Just put your hand in mine Love me all the time The proof you will Plainly see, Feel the need, oh Feel, feel the need in me
I need you on the case To keep my heart in place You make me what I need to be Feel the need, Feel the need in me
I need you by my side To be my guide Can’t you see my arms Are open wide? Feel the need, oh Feel it, feel the need in me
I first encountered Tracy Angelina Evans (or was she Tinhuviel or Suspiria? Can’t remember) in an odd online encounter in 2000 - possibly the first person I ever met that way since the internet was only just gaining day-to-day traction in the UK (I had to use the ‘Easy Everything’ internet cafe by Trafalgar Square - a quid in the machine and the portal to the cyber-world was opened unto you). I was - er - pretending to be someone else, lying low; still uncertain about re-entering the muzbiz after a 6 year hiatus - but she had her suspicions and gently but insistently prodded me till I fessed up (Gentle But Insistent turned out to be Tracy’s formidably effective main operating mode). And it was good I did because it began the near 20 year relationship between her and the band in which she really was our champion/guide/full-on committed PR person in this new, sometimes baffling milieu. Firstly, she was online point-woman during my solo piano/Stic Basin tour of the US in 2003 - getting me and Jon Holmes’ tour diary up online as we processed in dissolute, if colourful, fashion from NY to LA. She was a key figure (along with Graham, Dirk and James) in the ‘Cabal Iguana’ which was the first outpost of Shriekery online and which was instrumental in getting together our first crowdsourced album ‘Having a Moment’ (before there was crowdsourcing). Then she built me a website. And then she created and posted many videos of my obscurer tunes (Illuminati, Stic Basin etc). It was nice to have someone rooting for those otherwise lost babies and, because of Tracy, they now have a public life. And, when the last tranche of Shriekback releases began she went into full-effect promotional attack mode - doing the Gentle but Insistent hustle for reviews: hashtagging and tweeting where I (still, kinda) feared to tread. I always sent her freebies of our releases but she would insist on paying - so we often did that little dance: ‘but no, I insist..’ Terribly English. Paypal refunds were the last resort. I was pleased to see her get seriously into her own work - starting with her Cliffs of Insanity blog and proceeding to honest-to-goodness published fiction, a Trilogy, no less: ‘The Vampire Relics’ (Shriek-quotes and dedications pleasingly included, cheers T!)
In 2006, I met her and her Aunt Tudi on a visit to the UK - we had a pint or two down in Brighton with some mates - and, after both of us getting over the weirdness of real-world, corporeal interaction, we had a good laugh. She was very witty, astute and funny and we talked about the ‘origin story’ of our first unlikely encounter with me in my ineffectual disguise (though I guess she was too) and - telling it to the gang in the pub - it really did seem as bonkers as it undoubtedly was, yet, indeed, totally auspicious. We’ve lost a great friend and supporter and a big-hearted, unusual and talented person. We’re dedicating our new book of ’Selected Lyrics’ to her. Tracy always liked the words.
TRACK LIST 1 Rossmore Road 2 Win a Night Out (with a well-known paranoiac) 3 Freak 4 Me and My Mate Can Sing 5 Mousetrap 6 Bring On The Alligators 7 Sargasso Bar 8 Feeding Time 9 Muscle & Movement 10 Opposite Way in the Rush Hour 11 Taking Over ICI 12 Vampyr Skinhead 13 Big Soft Safe Family
MUSICIANS 1-3 clarinet: Frank Abrams, trombone: Ian Bateman, guitar: Rob Hendry, Robert Fripp, Bruce Mcrae, bass: Dave Marx, drums: Richard Wernham, engineer: John Strudwick, backing vocals: Bruce Mcrae, Patti Palladin, Clara Harris, Steve New, Marion Fudger. Recorded at Rockstar Studios, Fitzrovia, Mixed at Regent’s Park Studios, St Johns Wood. 4-7 guitars and bass: Dave Marx, drums: Rob Wilford, engineer: Hugh Padgham, Producer: Martin Rushent. Recorded at Townhouse Studio 2, Goldhawk Road. 8-10 guitar: Jon Ellis, bass: Dave Marx, drums: Richard Wernham, engineer: John Strudwick, recorded at Pathway Studios, Islington 11-13 bass: Marion Fudger, guitar: Rob Hendry, drums: Richard Wernham, engineer: Eric Radcliffe, recorded at Blackwing Studios, Borough.
The songs on this album have been lying about for a looong time, as you see. The reasons for this are twofold: 1- it’s juvenelia, really - undeveloped, derivative. Trying stuff on for size. An artist not in complete control of his medium, if you like. So I was not in a hurry to expose it, I guess, for its flaws are obvious. 2 it’s precious, unrepeatable, unvarnished. Truly an account of Process as someone’s aesthetic develops. It’s fascinating to me, of course (‘each man loves the smell of his own farts’) and, I have to assume, as an article of faith, that it may be to others. So, as a one-time-for-all-time thing, I was hesitant to release it. Anyway, here they…are, these songs which are inextricably bound both to a critical time in my life and the interstitial flavour of the historical moment: the end of the 70’s in good old (post-war, now post-60’s) UK. The dingy, dark, money-strapped days of Callaghan and Heath on the cusp of the New (fake) Gold Thatcherite Dawn.
London still grubby, edgy and un-Developed in a lot of places (squats still available - for instance) and Punk, which had roared for a couple of years - having redefined pop culture, via getting Pissed and Destroying - was about to stagger off into the wings, fresh out of ideas.
the Roxy Club, Covent Garden in 77 (it’s a shop selling Speedos now. Out with the Bin Bags in with the New Shiny Pants!)
The Clash and Pistols albums of 77 had permeated, by 79, everywhere they were likely to go (surprisingly far) but their offspring - the ninety-to-the-dozen, political, permanently furious form of *Punk was on the wane. ‘New Wave’ as a catch-all term for anything that was neither hardcore (with a little ‘h’) Punk nor Old School Rock was becoming the mot du jour. Another strange little sub-genre was Power Pop (which my old firm XTC could be described as, although to be fair, we were doing it well before the term was coined). Blondie, The Rich Kids, the Rezillos: all were attempts to make ideologically (yes!) acceptable the idea of melody and upbeat themes in a landscape where (Iove this term) *Ramalamadolequeue was rapidly wearing out its welcome.
(the Rich Kids - ft. Steve New, the baby deer. They’re not signing on are they? They’re Rich.)
Personally, these tunes cover, as historians say, ‘the long 78-80’. Roughly from the end of my time with XTC to the beginning of Restaurant for Dogs which was (sort-of) the R&D for Shriekback, although definitely with its own sovereignty and aesthetic.
Rossmore Road source: 1/4″ tape This came to light in a box of old tapes (Lordy I wish I had more tapes). It’s the first mix John Strudwick and I did for the single but I wasn’t happy and, rather sportingly, Virgin let us remix it. This version, though, not only has the ‘son trouveé - ‘asking for directions’ elements at the beginning and end (hilariously furious posh guy who - you can hear - I have managed to wind up even in the few seconds it takes to ask where Rossmore Road was. How? I really was an annoying, chippy bastard in those days - you can see why I felt paranoid (see below).
I was playing with Robert Fripp’s League of Gentlemen at the time and Robert kindly offered to come down and bestow his guitar benediction upon my humble pop tune (skills which were to be deployed, rather more usefully, on Bowie’s ‘Scary Monsters’ later that year - which Robert had taken a break from rehearsals with us to do (‘I have redefined the parameters of modern guitar playing’, he self-deprecatingly declared, on his return).
We got off to a bad start and never got beyond it: we plugged Fripp in and played the tune - John the engineer had assumed, totally reasonably, that this was a ‘get familiar’ go-through before we started recording.
As producer I should have been clearer - very much so, as it turned out because Fripp threw a total hissy fit when told we hadn’t recorded his 1st take. He gave us a rant about Heroes etc - how all his most genius work had been 1st or second takes. I apologised. He made a somewhat passive/aggressive show of graciousness in spite of this clear affront and the atmosphere was kinda tense after that. Someone else who hated me. Just great.
And anyway, what we would have got (and, on the 2nd take, did get) was - Fripp fans forgive me - 70’s prog-hero solo guitar noodling (very good guitar noodling, but still) - which loftily ignored the song’s structure so entirely that you had to choose between either just showcasing Robert or actually crafting the song. On the remix we ended up using one note (at the top). I honestly couldn’t find anything else that properly fitted. On the present mix, however, if you listen carefully, you can hear Fripp doing his flash, busy thing - it’s mixed as loud as I dared but you can hear it doesn’t really work and, if it hadn’t been him playing it, it wouldn’t have been there.
An inappropriate and inelegant use of resources, as he might have said. Interesting to hear though, perhaps, in a vestigial tail/snake legs sort of a way.
ROSSMORE ROAD (NW1) The 159 runs along it Round the corner from Baker Street There’s a dolls house shop on the corner Of Lisson Grove and
Rossmore Road Rossmore Road
Turn left at the DHSS in Lisson Grove You find yourself in Rossmore Road And there’s a number of public buildings And a safety barrier down the middle of the road
In Rossmore Road In Rossmore Road In Rossmore Road
White and yellow lines and street signs And public phones and traffic cones And belisia beacons on the central reservation All humming now, all humming now, all humming now
To the north The Grand Canal Round the corner Regent’s Park Next stop on the tube Marylebone Road And you can see Balcombe Street from Rossmore Road
The 159 runs along it Round the corner from Baker Street There’s a dolls house shop on the corner Of Lisson Grove and
In Rossmore Road White and yellow lines and street signs North of the river South of the circular Under the road Above the railway
All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now…
Win a Night Out (with a well-known paranoiac) sound source: 1/4″ tape
Very pleased with this, I am still. Sui generis as they come. Blur before Blur said somebody. OK I’ll take it. I was (I think) actually thinking about Patti Smith’s Piss Factory - and Land and Wave, those half-poem, half-song tunes of hers. This, though, suffused with the provincial UK, late 70’s consciousness you get when you perhaps smoke too much grim hash and take too much speed. Interesting sexual punishment element to it also. Because it’s two dates: one rustic and one urban, then an extreme post coital reverse followed by a horrific denouement (Nazi Vivisection! The worst kind) which shows that, as they say: ’just cos you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’.
This is, obviously, autobiographical (apart from the vivisection). This arsy, scruffy little bloke, oppressed by the forces of reaction and class, who seems to attract humiliation and brutality wherever he goes, even though his intentions are just to have fun and get laid. It’s a little poem about fear and self doubt which, around ’79 there seemed to be lots of. So I made a record. More expensive than a therapist but it has a trombone player..
WIN A NIGHT OUT (WITH A WELL-KNOWN PARANOIAC)
We could rendezvous in a country pub I know in the heart of rural England where the landlord sports moustaches just like Jimmy Edwards and the crisps and pickled onions on the bar are numberless as the stars at night We’re just about to order scampi in an Elizabethan basket when two neckless men in blazers and cravats approach our table and say - “sorry - this bar is exclusively for the use of Nobel prize winners, latter day saints, people who have seen God and selected relatives of our dear Queen, and furthermore, you worm, there is mud upon your plimsolls”. I reply that I am a member of most elitist cliques you care to name and the blood which courses (at an ever increasing speed as it happens) through my veins belonged once to the Cuban royal family, but, they don’t listen and they just pour my drink down the sink and say “this is not what we mean. In this life, one is either U or non-U and if I were you I’d make myself bloody scarce.” I even try to show them my credit cards but unmoved they say "OK sonny, it’s time you were taught a lesson and there’s only one thing that your sort understand”
Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid
At an Iberian eatery in the west end, we could gaze at each other across saucers of yoghurt and bits of crusty foreign bread - and then - I could order a carraffe of Asti - we could have so much fun. We could discuss things like communism and chart positions with the lack of inhibitions that separate the truly liberated from the herd - but - I should mention that I talk quite loud as a casualty of inexpensive foreign wine and neither am I unaware of the restive noises from the party sitting close by. But as I’m in the middle of my funny story about the Arab and the underwater toilet, I can’t stop now ‘cause I’m in too deep, as I’m coming to the part where I say (in my best joke telling voice), “so the Arab says to the attendant, right…
‘Of course as we know five thousand pounds of pressure can suck out almost anything,’ and it all goes quiet and a little girl is saying: "Daddy, what a horrible man” and Daddy replies, “don’t worry darling 'cause I’ve just made a phone call to your crypto-fascist Uncle Roger and he’ll be here quite soon, and make quite sure he doesn’t upset any little girls… little girls any more”
Win a night out with a famous paranoiac Win a night out with a well known paranoid Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid
Lying in your crumpled bed on Sunday morning, you said your Mum and Dad had gone away to a conference in Bath and I believed you like a fool. Now you get up, go to the window and you turn a pot plant round. I study your naked bottom with a twinge of lust but I’m not twigging that something’s going down. There is a sound of the heavy boots upon the stairs and the door crashes open and in comes your Dad with some faithful retainers and some ex-Army mates from the Conservative Club. And I figure they must have been waiting all night because your Dad is clutching two reels of infra-red film and he’s looking dangerously pale as he shows me the microphone under the bed, and I’m just about getting the message: all is not too groovy
As you stand there in your dressing gown laughing at me, then in comes your Mum in her nylon house coat with her hair hanging loose like a suburban Harpy and she advances towards me with an army surplus bush knife, clearly bent on wreaking havoc down below the navel and she’s just about to get stuck in when I wake up… and yeah, it was all a dream
I’m really in a hospital bed. There is a smell of formaldehyde in the air, and a couple of doctors with swastikas on their arm are doing something to the brain of a sheep and in the corner is a huge zinc bath containing some sort of reptile and the nurse is saying “be a brave boy and drink it all up”. And I realise I can’t feel me legs and the shape in the bed isn’t my shape at all and I wanna cry out but I can only bleat
Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid
FREAK source: cassette So Funk was the thing - but let’s take it and fuck it up with our English voices and anti-slick playing. Let’s actually take the funk/fun out of it. Disco hatred was the tip, kinda. I recall saying in an interview that it was like scratching up a big lairy american limousine with the nasty, rusty keys of your squat (there’s also an unreleased Restaurant for Dogs version we recorded for Warners with Nick Launay which takes this approach to its theoretical limit: it’s pretty hard to listen to). We are, in fact, so alienated from the subject matter that I sing ‘just come on down to the fifth floor’ instead of ’54’ - the iconic New York club, me not having heard of it (though - quirky historical note - Shriekback did actually play there in the place’s last week - on the Sacred City tour).
Dave’s ‘confused Dutch person’ on the end is a nice random element. Like he’s wandered in off another session.
4 Songs from Town & Country EP (Virgin 79) Me and My Mate, Mousetrap, Bring on the Alligators, Sargasso Bar sound source: vinyl Ah T&C - I sort-of despise thee. No-one was taking care of my career development - especially not me - after XTC so I got stuck in a posh recording studio with the Strangler’s producer way before I should have been. This you can hear from the ‘apprentice piece’ nature of this EP. All influences fully on show and sellotaped together. A ‘band’ which, you can tell, has only so much in common and which was kinda thrown together. An adolescent ferocity in the delivery not masking very well a slew of insecurities. ‘Calm Down’ I want to tell this snarling young herbert, ‘nobody thinks you’re cool anyway. It’s fine: do an album about a fish, why dontcha?’ As it is, we get a variety pack of New Wave/Post Punk styles and lyrical tropes: Me & My Mate (the Clash obvs: stage democracy, anti-rockist groupy exploitation, DIY fanzine-esque self-expression for the working classes, Patti Smith reference). Mousetrap A classically-trained-but-recently-listened-to-Elvis Costello/Joe Jackson Bitter Relationship song. I like the spoken word bit that deconstructs a Well Made Play in 4 lines though (for those who don’t know, The Mousetrap is the longest running show in the West End - since ‘52!). The ‘Darlings’ repeated hookline was a reference to my lovely Aunty Rene who worked many years in the box office of various West End theatres (the Adelphi and the Prince of Wales I think - and since you ask) and had adopted a fabulously camp way of speaking through long exposure to gay theatrical men. Her poodle Chico was ‘my little Treasure Island’ and everyone else was ‘Darling’.
Aunty Rene (2nd left) with her theatrical crew and actress Anna Neagle at the Coalhole on the Strand 1968)
MOUSETRAP Been playing Shaftesbury Avenue For a thousand years or maybe two - darlings Done plenty bum gigs in my time But everything’s alright now
In the mousetrap In the mousetrap
We fall in love most every night We’re quite ridiculously tight - darlings And yeah I feel some kind of freak Getting killed six times a week
In the mousetrap In the mousetrap
It’s nearly half past three Gotta do a matinee I don’t understand this game Why everything’s the same
But as the show go on and on And on and on And on and on and on and on and on And on
I know the punters mustn’t see How mundane it seems to me - darlings But sometimes I wish I could screw Someone else in Shaftsbury Avenue
In the mousetrap In the mousetrap
Curtain up - exposition Development of character Plot - unravelling slow Sustaining interest, gathering momentum
Till they unmask the killer Then a twist right at the end And it’s all over till tomorrow night
In the mousetrap In the mousetrap
Sargasso Bar definitely the best of this bunch. Although the Small Town Observational style is a little irritating (alright, Bazzer, you’re a Poet of the Everyday and you are so very alienated) it is here for the first time that a certain mock heroic, magical-realist aspect started to appear in my writing. ‘they raise their glasses in 2/4 time and they study the latecomers as they slither in beneath the door’. XTC did a version of this which failed to get onto GO2. Not too much different I think but I recall Andy Partridge’s objection to the line: ‘we’re surrounded by the Eels of Death’. He felt it was the sort of hippy, trippy kinda image which XTC Stood Against. I felt it was - well - mock heroic and magical realist. This conversation went nowhere, obviously, but it was instrumental in making my decision to leave the band. These people just didn’t get my shit…
SARGASSO BAR Couple in the corner Now she’s crying on his shoulder Well they’re a couple of Modern Lovers Sort of Kevin and Isolde She’s embarrassed by his footwear He’s embarrassed by her hair But he doesn’t really care He says it’s murder staying emotionally aware He’s another Lost Soul But he’s only come here to die And get high
In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar
Big John in the wooly Football training in the evening Well he got married married married Now he only thinks of leaving And he’s surrounded by the blubber Watch the terylene stretching As he makes a point about his car When you’re on miles to the gallon You know where you are And he’s here every night, he’s such a regular guy He gets high
In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar
We came in from the rain Now we’re surrounded by the Eels of Death Everyone nervous and everybody couldn’t care less We raise our glasses in 2/4 time We study the latecomers as they slither in beneath the door About this time of the night There’s more and more and more and more Well, give them ten minutes then they all go home to die Cos they’re so high
In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar
Bring on the Alligators yeah, dunno about this one really. Clearly I’m really working the magic realist tip again but to what end? It’s clearly meant to be funny, what with the Polish ‘1234’ in the middle and the ‘cocktail bar’ quiet section at the end and all but it’s all trying a bit hard for my liking. The awfully Lahndun working class accent I have on all these tunes is also a bit abrasive. My estuarine whine is of course part of me but it is underlining, unecessarily and stridently I feel, the ‘prolier than thou’ ethic which I had bought into wholesale during Punk. Let it go, dude…
2 LOTS OF DEMOS source: cassette Well, now we were getting somewhere.. Listening back now, 40-odd years on it really does seem to me that the year (ish) between the EP and this first set of demos represented a huge leap in my - er - self development. The life in XTC - still living with Ma & Pa or on the road within the Mothership of the band - record company, management, everything being done for you (at the expense, as it turned out, of knowing what was actually going on..hem hem). It’s cosiness and material sufficiency came at a price I could no longer put up with. Time to go, clearly.
I remember leaving the last outpost of that world - the nice flat above the Townhouse, paid for by Virgin while we were recording the EP but now, since recording had just finished, off limits. So…I could go back to Swindon - or step out into the scary metropolis, where all the safety nets have been packed away, and see what can be made to happen. Me and a girlfriend (who had signed up when I was a (sort-of) pop star - she was in for a taste of the real musician’s girlfriend’s lot now alright) went over to my old schoolmate’s flat in the East End (he was at college in London) - it was pouring down of rain as we walked across Tower Bridge. No money for a cab - the XTC wages had long been cut off.
Youth seeks a Rite of Passage, does it not? This seemed to be mine. I felt noble and scared and reckless and Hungry for Experience. So, these tunes were written after a year of London, of squatting, signing on, meeting loads of new people, getting sick, getting well, hanging round the ink well - no, actually, after a particularly avid speed binge and a dreadful mini-tour with the T&C band I developed serious chickenpox (more virulent in adulthood, it turns out). I was the Elephant Man for a while. The body was having its unignorable say about all this new input. But the tunes were definitely better. More individual. Not trying so hard and, sometimes, there was a Showing Forth of something really quite juicy and new (and I don’t just mean the pustules, har har).
Feeding Time I submitted this to Shriekback’s publisher when he asked if we had anything that might do for the Eurovision Contest. He never quite looked at me the same way again, I thought (nil points pour moi).
I had been working at London Zoo (west gate and Reptile House: taking money on the door) that year and eating in various Camden/Kilburn greasy spoons. These two experiences were to produce this little gem. A Meditation on Eating. I think it needed doing.
Points of interest: Dave Marx’s great bassline which is really the hook and the armature. Jon Ellis’s glistening ‘egg’ chord. The ‘Taking Your Order’ on the fade (Prawn Cocktail! The 70′s are strong in this one…) I had earlier recorded this with some ‘opera’ singers (from the BBC West of England Chorus - including Mrs Evenett (contralto) my old French teacher) singing the ‘Feeding Time’s’ in fine bel canto stylee. Which I may release at some point.
FEEDING TIME Putting things into my body at Feeding Time White wine and little damaged bodies from the bottom of the sea inside me still feel hungry when I reach the end and I won’t feel good when it’s Feeding Time again. I watch him from the corner at Feeding Time sometimes he is hideous to watch as he shovels his chops inside him and his belly is beginning to distend and I know he’ll feel great when it’s Feeding Time again
but in the meantime Eat - don’t stop Eat - don’t stop Eat - don’t stop
Biting Viscera and gristle at Feeding Time listen to the lobsters whistle crack their legs open suck out what you find inside The spaghetti as it glistens at Feeding Time like spirogyra on your wet lips munching masticated chips in your mouth with lots of wine Eggs! Eggs! Soft and warm romantically slipping down inside and I wish it could always be Feeding Time and I wish it could always be Feeding Time (let’s see what’s on menu.. I’ll get an onion bhaji.. …prawn cocktail …three more pappadums…)
Opposite Way In The Rush Hour You know, it’s a bit cheesy and self serving but I still dig this. Our hero is heading off to some gig (some horrible, low paid, nightclub-type gig - let’s say in Edgbaston. Or Stoke). He’s hitching his way up there to meet the band at the soundcheck and it’s just getting dark. He looks at all the Regular Folk coming home from work: old geezers on pushbikes, factory workers - UK manufacturing has still a few years in it at this point - young girls (that might have been mating/marriage material in his former life) wait at bus stops and the cosy tea (the evening meal not the drink - important class-related point) on the tables, visible through the shortly to be curtained windows and our man gets all Springsteeny-sentimental about his self-ordained High and Lonely Destiny. Noble chords, I think, and very clever drumming by Rich Wernham (he was bloody good, I must say - as Nick Lowe said - ‘you can get away with murder if you’ve got a good drummer’). The absence of traditional last chorus repeats, instead dissolving into a babble of voices was indicative of some creative, envelope-pushing Thort, I would say. The boy’s finding his feet..
OPPOSITE WAY IN THE RUSH HOUR Going the opposite way in the rush hour watching the cars going past in the night. Factory gates let out the day shift - they escape on their bikes. Daughters go home on the bus, see you’re not one of us. The sensation is sweet and it’s sour. Going the opposite way, opposite way, in the rush hour.
Closer to being a part of the big system: so near and far from all that you seek. Closer to where the big heart beats you into submission then rocks you to sleep. Curtains still open The news on the telly they’re making their tea and I want all they’ve got but somehow.. keep on going this way: opposite way in the rush hour.
Street lamps come on now, those front rooms look so warm now. Old men with empty lunch bags pedal homewards and the girls wait at bus stops as the weekend unfolds. Once it would have felt so right heading into the hot sticky heat of the night
…it’s not a question of honour or a question at all Just the way that we choose to live now Going our opposite way… opposite way… opposite way…
Muscle and Movement Painfully sincere (and unintentionally camp) credo from the Squat years. Fucking grim, mate. It was cold, self-flagellating and unecessarily unpleasant. Here is the mantra behind that lifestyle experiment ‘pain is knowledge and knowledge is wealth.’ Jeez, give this guy a cuddle…
MUSCLE & MOVEMENT Fed up of sitting around with my legs crossed Pretending and smiling and saying ‘yeah, cheers then’ avoiding the whites of their eyes. (and another thing) And another thing- don’t try and tell me you’re gonna get something together when everything’s going your way then the limit’s the sky. You can’t always hide on the side watching people who do things bigger than you. You can’t have a permanent stop to the things that displease you or give you unease. ‘Cos all that matters is Muscle and Movement flesh out all your fantasies with Muscle and Movement (ain’t no such thing as security, just Muscle and Movement Muscle and Movement
as you relax at the end of the day there’s another tomorrow staring at you as it stands at the top of the stairs time is a swine it just keeps coming at you battering you to the floor as you try and stand up yelling you’ve had enough save it for somebody free - don’t talk to me I got no symapthy pour out some more of that wine everything’ll be fine just stay drunk all the time but remember that Muscle and Movement is all that makes you what you are Muscle and Movement standing still don’t get you too far it’s Muscle and Movement Muscle and Movement
it’s hard but it’s true that there’s nothing to cling to nothing to belong to and nowhere is more important than where you are now and there is no rest for the wicked, no rest for the wicked or peace for the innocent or the don’t knows (this lines indecipherable) cos there ain’t nobody got the things they need (same) cos the things that you lack are what you never get back cs the only secret weapon is Muscle and Movement
Muscle and Movement nothing happens by itself Muscle and Movement pain is knowledge and knowledge is wealth
Vampyr Skinhead & Taking Over ICI Well, it’s here that I claim total responsibility for the Two-Tone/Ska Revival that was to occur later that year. No, honest - no-one else was doing this stuff at the time (or they were but no-one had heard of them yet). These two tunes were, moreover, direct descendants of my song ‘Super Tuff’ from the XTC album (btw, that title came from the strapline of a Bruce Lee movie ‘Bruce Lee - Super Tough - but also Tender,’ so I was also anticipating Tarantino and all that kitsch martial arts movie stuff from the 90’s - could I be any more prescient?) Actually, exciting self delusion aside, I claim only to have had my finger on an historical pulse which had been throbbing away since the 70’s and which obviously many others had also been party to. As I say somewhere else ‘it’s ok to have a great idea but you have to get off your chuff if you’re going to start a cultural movement’. I wasn’t dedicated enough, clearly, but I was quietly and briefly, a canary in that particular coalmine.
The idea of reggae as this parallel exotic, possibly dangerous sub-track to Pop/Rock had been around for quite a while and kept bubbling up out of the Zeitgeisty swamp to varying amounts of mainstream attention. Bob Marley (pretty much just him) had Broken Through to become the reggae artist that unitiated white people liked and played at parties to show Cool. U Roy, Big Youth, Scratch et al remained the province of hip white people (as we liked to think of ourselves). But, under the audacious banner of ‘Fuck Art, Let’s Dance’ the Ska revival, the Two Tone label, Madness etc were to mine the accelerated beats, fruity grooves and edgy vibes of Jamaica (along the lines of Desmond Dekker and Toots and the Maytals) to international chart success. Of which more in a minute..
Since Punk there had been this strange symbiosis (which is easy to forget, it’s so non-intuitive) of reggae with Punk which had continued, unabated since the days of the Roxy Club. This, eventually, had permeated the wider scene. So, when XTC would play, in 78, gigs in Birmingham or Leeds, the disco would always be alternating, say, the Drones, Chelsea or the Pistols with Althia and Donna, Steel Pulse or Culture. It was a tacit admission, I would say, that the Punk formula was a limited one and, while its brutal austerity had been bracing (and a welcome antididote to Old Fart music), people still needed melody and sensuality and Actual Dancing.
But, there had been, in my late schooldays (early to late 70’s) an earlier, more schismatic appearance of Reggae (in its proto form of Ska) which I had observed firsthand in my Comprehensive provincial schooldays with all its codes and brutalities (kinda charming and nostalgic now; fairly scary and intense at the time). There was a 2 tribes battle going on at my school and in the UK generally: the Skinheads and the Greboes/Hairies (vestigial, usually non-ideological Hippies, really, sometimes with a component of Biker). It was a pretty one-sided battle: the Skins were an embodiment of working class, unsmiling rage and violence (’Aggro’ and ‘Bovver’ were their coinages (graffitti in my town read: ‘S.T.A.B (= Swindon Town Aggro Boys) Kick to Kill’). It was a culture of fighting and machismo which picked on pretty much anyone (it became a white racist movement eventually of course: ‘Paki Bashing’ being one defining activity but, as is documented in ‘This Is England’ TV series, the Skins didn’t start out that way: look at all that ska and blubeat. Also, in Swindon in the 70’s there wasn’t much opportunity to get the ol’ racism going - there wasn’t a single black or Asian kid in my year at school; only one or two in the entire school - so the Hairies/Greebs would have to do as a Victim Class, I guess.
The mostly docile, pacifist, great-coat/tie-die-wearing, patchouli-smelling, Topographic Oceans-carrying quasi-hippy was always good for a bit of a kicking (though I suspect, the lack of physical challenge made them a bit uninspiring - football hooliganism probably gave the Skins more of a work-out). At any rate, the hirsute, messy look and, (NB!) the usually university-bound, middle class nature of the Hairies was a walking provocation to the neatly groomed, fashion-conscious, mostly working class (went to work instead of Sixth Form: fuck school and Uni, let’s make some short-term money - therefore doomed for life to the factory or site) Skinheads.
This schism was enacted in the music, as it often is: the long-winded, effete, sexually inert tropes of Prog, the self-indulgent, solo-wanking, adolescent-boy mirror-gazing of hard rock versus the clipped, disciplined, concise sexy beats of Ska and pop reggae (showcased particularly in the ‘Tighten Up’ series of compilations). It really was chalk and cheese.
There was, btw, a whole genre of dirty ska songs, epitomised by Prince Buster’s Big Five single (‘funky spunky man in Big Five, screaming steaming night in Big Five…there will be water all over the bed…water all over her head..’ (!)
One night after a Manfred Mann’s Earthband show at Swindon College (deep Hairy territory, obviously) when the crowd were reluctant to go home, the promoter stuck a Ska tune on the PA which cleared the room like tear gas. Hard to imagine now. Like I say, Tribal. So, when I started writing songs (Pop Songs! For Bands!) I felt I had struck a fruitful vein in observing the horrified yet strangely fascinated viewpoint of the oppressed Other (Hairy/Greeb/insert Ethnic Group) as he is subdued and brutalised by his natural predator, the Skinhead.
Form following subject matter, this would, of course, be couched in a mutated form of reggae which, though, as a fledgling Hairy (with already insufficient hair, aIas!) I was forbidden to like - I must say it did exert a fascination. It was so alien. Alien is interesting.
Thus, in Vampyr Skinhead we have, again, a randomly predatory hardnut - this time he’s going door to door terrorising people (‘no compunction as he hammers down your door - or elects to clamber in the window - he is swift and he is sure..’). The image really did come to me in a dream: this ferocious little fucker doing his rounds of the estate, like a Clockwork Orange version of the Man from the Pru. Definitely a Viz magazine character there, I reckon… The sound of a Ska beat still had, for me, the menace it did when the Skins at school danced their clipped, butch, slightly-ridiculous-but-I-fucking-dare-you-to-laugh, scary little dance to it.
Non Cultural Studies note: the riff is played on a WASP synth - I guess the 1st affordable synthesiser. Fairly horrible but it had one good sound so hey… No actual keyboard - a flat plate which was murder to play and ‘explains’ the really obvious cock-up on the intro which we didn’t have time to repair. It wasn’t mine btw (the WASP not the cock up).
VAMPYR SKINHEAD Vampyr Skinhead knock at your door Don’t sell brushes or Brittanica no more He no check for pushing leaflets through the door or collecting money for the football he lives outside the law. He’s just out on the street with his boots on his feet and I would give a lot to know what he’s got Vampyr Skinhead.. Vampyr Skinhead Vampyr Skinhead strikes again Vampyr Skinhead feel no pain gonna do it again and again and again
Vampyr Skinhead come down your way and he’s not from anywhere silly in the USA. Not religion that he’s peddling door to door he’s not looking for the meter (he wouldn’t know what it’s for). He’s just out on the street with his boots on his feet and your little sister’s crying but he’s not. Vampyr Skinhead Vampyr Skinhead Vampyr Skinhead
Somebody’s gonna get uptight, gonna get hot and they’re gonna make mincemeat of him someday… Somebody like Peter Cushing gonna wreck the curtains while he’s sleeping then they’ll be nothing left but a pair of Marten’s and a pile of dust…
Vampyr Skinhead come down your street he’s a monster and he’s got sharp litle teeth. No compunction as he hammers down your door Or elects to clamber in the window - he is swift and he is sure. Out and I would give a lot to know what he’s got Vampyr Skinhead…. Vampyr Skinhead…. Vampyr Skinhead……
V.S.’s Nemesis…
Taking Over ICI was an attempt at a pure pop reggae tune - with a socialist/punky spin. Lovely playing by Rob (gtr) and Marion Fudger (ex wife of Dave Fudger, charming chap who used to write for Sounds and now worked for Virgin Publishing - he got me the gig with Iggy Pop). Rich Wernham (also of the Motors). Cracking organ solo dontcha think? I had chops in those days - before Quantise fucked me up.
TAKING OVER ICI Alone I just didn’t dare make my move to trash organised laissez-faire but since you nibbled my ear Cadbury-Schweppes and Lever Brothers quiver in fear. All the multiples are whining. All the big nobs are resigning. Since I found out you loved me, I’m taking over ICI Taking over ICI Alone I couldn’t handle myself let alone the redistribution of wealth. But, since I found out you care, I could trash the System single-handed I swear. Can’t handle all their wheeler-dealing - prefer to hear rich people squealing… Since I found out you loved me, I’m taking over ICI Taking over ICI… Taking over ICI..
Big Soft Safe Family Rather as ‘Paranoiac’ was: a one-off, never to be repeated thing. Deeply and nakedly autobiographical. Musically quite original, I venture. Shmershy chords the like of which I hadn’t used before and a confidently slow groove. Vignettes of my respectable working class, late 60′s, Mike Leigh previous life suffused with the cheap cynicism of a young sprat who didn’t realise how lucky he was. They’re all gone now.. and - spoiler - I actually never had an aunt from Torquay (but she rhymed).
BIG SOFT SAFE FAMILY The relatives are all on their fifth cup of tea. Their rapid eye movements are something to see - all lying to each other and smiling alternately. Your mum and your dad and your aunt from Torquay they are none of the same as they once used to be but they’re all of them, gloriously in the Big Soft Safe Family
We all of us have a particular smell I know their’s and they know mine habitually well. They worry about me and I worry about them I’m surprised you can’t tell. We use the same toilet and eat the same food and we savage each other when we’re not feeling so good but blood is thicker than water and ultimately we’re a Big Soft Safe Family
We’re slowly aquiring the things that we need they’re very pleased with our progress indeed. They were saying we looked very happy and of course we agreed. Respect due to father and love due to mum and the daughter is lovely and so is the son. Illusions die obstinately in the Big Soft Safe Family
SHOVELHEADS Draining off the charge-grid. Dresssing up the cats Leaning on the Mercy Weights the days go by like that. Hosing down the Love Bus That’s how I got my start To seal the deal - now I reveal the secrets of the art…
So I say: ‘Hey Mr Cronenburg show me inside. Hey Mr Cronenburg, what you got to hide?’ I’m out with the new crew. I’m down with the Shovelheads - solving mysteries at night down on the riverbed - I’m out with the Shovelheads - the oxen have been bled - and I feel fine..
Live at the Boiling Statue, my new friends entertain. Their furious intensity I cannot quite explain. Winding up the rheostat: hear that sucker whine. Do not crank the handle if you cannot do the time.
I said: ‘Hey Mr Carradine you’re a friend of mine, spare me all that violence that you peacefully decline. I’m lost to a new groove, I’m down with the Shovelheads (being constantly dismayed by what is done and said). I’m out with the ShovelHeads the mall rats have been fed - not before time.
Fondling the spectre. Strapping on the cape. Feeling extra special as I’m peeling off the tape.
All this new oblivion really hits the mark. I fall asleep and feel the deep enchantment of the dark.
And I said ‘Hey Liebermann show me your disguise. Hey Mr Liebermann Don’t try to be that guy’ You’re in with with a cool scene. You’re rocking the Shovelheads. You’re one of the angels levitating on the needle’s head. You’re with the Shovelheads give them their daily bread (cos I got mine).
I’m out with the Wild Bunch I’m in with the Shovelheads I got a panoramic view from on my waterbed I’m down with the Shovelheads and I’m a Shovelhead and i feel fine…
AND THE RAIN
Some spooky cowboy voodoo what did you do on the plain? Marlboro man is decomposing got Jack Daniels on the brain All the fatal hesitation in opening the files Incidental caterwauling of the lord of the flies
Some neat holistic vision deft incisions sliced around There’s a different city showing now the weather’s broken down A little nuclear friction upending all the lies Got sunburst and distortion on these unsceptred isles
When the half-light starts to rise And the long gone come back again After the shortcuts and the highs Comes the pain And the rain and the rain and the rain And the rain and the rain and the rain
Some hokey-cokey money sweet as honey nothing found There’s a Bitcoin river rising the dam is coming down A hint of degradation hanging on a sigh Now slogans and perversions just don’t raise a smile
As the deep force evolves a form When the dead loss outweighs the gain Inside the cold eye of the storm Hides the shame And the rain and the rain and the rain And the rain and the rain and the rain
And the rain And the rain keeps falling And the rain And the rain keeps falling And the rain And the rain keeps falling And the rain And the rain keeps falling…
When the half-light starts to rise And the long gone come back again After the shortcuts and the highs Comes the pain And the rain and the rain and the rain And the rain and the rain and the rain And the rain and the rain and the rain And the rain and the rain and the rain
CATMANDU
Had a giraffe With the dandy lion Watched the leopard skin With the ol’ skunk eye
Then squirrel away All the missing lynx Take a baseball bat To the hippocrites
Tell that wasp to let me bee I’m staggered deer hart you’re moosin’ me
High as a kite Down at ‘eel Hear the killer whale And your fate is sealed
Swanning around on pigeon toes Duck and cover hawk it up and crow
Don’t know why but I know it’s true The dogman don’t but the cat man do
Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do
From throbbin’ red breast To cold blue tit Was it the horsin’ around Or the pony club hit?
Bullshit comin’ down the chicken wire Tern and swallow set your heron fire
Don’t know why but I know it’s true – The dogman don’t but the cat man do
Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do Dogman don’t but the cat man do
Such, Such Are The Joys
Mud-wrestling the bride Lamenting loud and wide All of the stuff implied: the wax, the weed, the cyanide.
No bruises that will show. And still an inner glow but still you do not know: the flak, the fuel, the quid-pro-quo.
All the little secrets and the toys All the little tricks that .. time destroys don’t bother me so much. I tell you such, Such are the Joys
The liquids that remain. The Armagnac and rain leave quite a livid stain (I will not bother to explain).
These ample plates of food This quite delicious mood, There’s no need now to brood on things with wings and attitude.
All the recreation and the noise All the little tricks the flesh employs: you say they are a crutch but I tell you such.. Such are the Joys
Me and my anima try to examine her: her core, her lamina, her lips, her locks, her stamina
The AmDram in the rain. The melancholy Dane These tableaux will remain And animate the helpless brain
There is a vast supply of things that dream and die and couple up and cry beneath a katabatic sky
Some shabby revelry. This low spec devilry: not what I’d thought would be the Photoshop that rendered me..
If some of your illusions start to annoy: have a little word: send round the Boys. Innocent as such quite sticky to touch ..such are the Joys.
Innocent as such..
..such are the Joys.
WRIGGLE and DRONE
On the way home from the Blade Bone, you see a lot of wriggle and drone. All the shamen and some gay men walk it back as they wriggle and drone. On the flightpath, after the bloodbath, it’s a feast of wriggle and drone. My favourite pop group with their drumloops lock it down as they wriggle and drone…
All the subtle links are severed to the coiling arcs of pleasure. Though it seems it lives for ever - there’s nothing left but wriggle and drone…
So bracing, south-facing, in the sun we wriggle and drone. On the back foot, when I last looked, you couldn’t move for wriggle and drone. All the Greek boys, with their bleak noise: Ruritanian wriggle and drone. Feel the blastwave from the Batcave: cataclysmic wriggle and drone…
There is nothing left to hope for or to push the envelope for. Not inclined to drop the soap for anymore of that wriggle and drone…
On the shake-down we had a scrape round. All bound for wriggle and drone. With the grindcore on the shop-floor. They’re all for wriggle and drone… On the blindside slightly pie-eyed won’t be denied some wriggle and drone. Out in deep space and at the duck race, we got a taste for wriggle and drone…
Quite a lot of now or nevers. Surreptitious use of feathers. All those classical endeavours: file em under wriggle and drone…
(wriggle has a thing that doesn’t quit drone has a wriggle inside of it)
(drone gotta wriggle on the blindside wriggle got a drone it cannot hide)
The Painter Paints
Skyball the endless highway, holy stocking-top sunrise, doctor ricochet live and otherwise, the rip-off, the kiss-off, neutral density: blue is blue and I am too. Clouds harden.
Somewhere else, files deleted reappear, reassigned, mouse-handed cat burglar booty, raw material ahead of blade and edit, an impact shine at the black/silver interface, mountain-textured, ice-burned… beautiful.
The painter paints and the writer writes What will you do, what will you do? The painter paints and the writer writes What will you do tonight?
Hanging on and standing alone, beyond salvation, beyond standard procedure, with the jagged loops and loopholes closing up, we are living defining moments in stupidity, ego-powered, transient.
In the give and take and borrow, when accountability is forgotten or futile, the degradation of detail is not only likely but is likely to be desirable: decay is a feasible strategy.
The painter paints and the writer writes What will you do, what will you do? The painter paints and the writer writes What will you do tonight?
Alternatively, we advance through memory and moonbeams, past malevolence and moodswings, to a state of continuous unreasonable excitement, vibrant, untenable and momentous.
So follow, follow, follow the lonely, lowly, lovely cowboy wandering thoughtless into the supermarket supermodel sunset. The painter paints and the writer writes: what will you do tonight?
The painter paints and the writer writes What will you do, what will you do? The painter paints and the writer writes What will you do tonight?
Church of the Louder Light
The phantoms reign where no gods are. Their indiscreet abominations are spectacular If there’s a lousier scene, I haven’t seen it yet (we been ridden hard and put away wet - been ridden hard and put away wet).
There comes a day you see what we are: closer in nature to the tapeworm than the jaguar. And we’re the feast of germs - lest we forget. (Hey - are we having fun yet? Are we having fun yet?)
Bring us the Louder Light. Bring us the shining noise. Bring the kind of mess the ghost of Elvis enjoys. Join the Windowlickers in the holy night. We make our own kind of entertainment in the Church of the Louder Light.
Let the Imponderables foam as they may. We haven’t reached the point of peak psychosis anyway Interrogate yourself before the moment’s gone - ‘is this the hill that you wanna die on? Is this the hill that you wanna die on?’
Bring us the Louder Light. Echo the blinding sound Let’s all go into the cyclotron and wander around. Check out the monster in his silver tights! It’s a new kind of Wrestlemania in the Church of the Louder Light.
We’re Synaesthesiacs for the New Age. Purifying the ether from the Pyramid Stage. A consummation by a thousand drums All aboard for the life to come. All aboard for the life to come
Bring us the Louder Light. White Noise Perpetual Bring us the party we can hear through the wall. Slake your lumosonic appetite. You can see through the veil of silence in the Church of the Louder Light .
Sons Of The Dirt
Walking on sunshine stepping in shit It’s not so bad when you understand You gotta get in to get out of it
Higher than mighty lower than bass Made a stand for the white van man Turned your back and now he’s in your face
The market stall that falls apart The bargain bin where I saw my heart The quick quick slow the quid pro quo Rashomon Pokémon go man go
Sons of the dirt sons of the dirt The children of confusion are the fathers of hurt Sons of the dirt sons of the dirt Filthy urchin scruffy bastard Sons of the dirt
Burn down the library build up the wall A wonderful time for the philistine You win a little wager then you lose it all
Chain up the wild ones unleash the clowns Getting down with the kids putting on the ritz Then the game is up and the house falls down
The empty promises just get worse The blindfold driver hits reverse The body blow the same old show Touchdown meltdown no-one knows
Sons of the dirt sons of the dirt The children of confusion are the fathers of hurt Sons of the dirt sons of the dirt Filthy urchin scruffy bastard Sons of the dirt
Quick quick slow, quid pro quo Rashomon Pokémon go man go Body blow, same old show Touchdown meltdown no-one knows
Sons of the dirt sons of the dirt The children of confusion are the fathers of hurt Sons of the dirt sons of the dirt Filthy urchin scruffy bastards Head ass-backwards to disaster Raging in the hard hereafter Sons of sons of sons Of the dirt
THIRTY SEVEN
I was running interference I was coping with demand and the litany of facts had me weeping on my back as they all gathered in the yard.
It got the better of me, that lyrical disdain. All the roses and the brass and the discussions of the past. all that confusion in the rain.
Thirty Seven Fishes in the snotgreen sea Thirty Seven sugars in the old man’s tea all the doves are here and cooing love’s sweet song keep it all on lockdown till the doves have gone
..and god forbid that they should love me and keep me company at night. God knows we all need a friend and it’s as easy in the end just to erase or overwrite.
Then a troubled intervention by the broken, busted moon. But the smoulder in the wires and the various small fires said it would all be over soon
Thirty Seven shovels gonna bury me Thirty Seven windows where the doors should be Everybody and his dog knows what went wrong Count to Thirty Seven it will not take long
Thirty Seven fishes in the snotgreen sea Thirty Seven sugars in the old man’s tea All the doves are here and cooing love’s sweet song keep it all on lockdown till the doves have gone
It’s a clumsy entertainment All the hawks have got the floor. And the major takeaway from that hideous display we’re not eager to explore
One bloody thing after another it’s numerical and clear. It’s just points upon a line which will disappear in time: nothing you can engineer.
Thirty Seven sherberts and the band played on Thirty Seven doves are cooing Love’s Sweet Song Count to Thirty Seven as the wheels scrape round Count to Thirty Seven and we all fall down
Thirty Seven fishes in the snotgreen sea Thirty Seven windows where the doors should be Thirty Seven’s hard enough to contemplate Don’t know anyone who got to Thirty Eight…
CREDITS: Written, performed and produced by Shriekback: Barry Andrews, Martyn Barker & Carl Marsh. Bass - Scott Firth, backing vocals - Wendy & Sarah Partridge. Mixed and Mastered by Stuart Rowe. Live drums recorded by Christoph Skirl except 1,3 &4 by Ian Caple. recorded at Mart’s Bubble and Echo Zoo studios Eastbourne, Yellowfish Studios Lewes, St Joes (BA), Delafield Rd (CM), Mixed at the Lighterthief Bunker, Swindon.