Eponymous First Album

Following on from the interest shown in my earlier solo work, I have begun posting the first recordings of Carrillion proper here on bandcamp. As exceptional as bandcamp is, I felt this blog would be a better place in which to expound on the creative process involved in these tracks and what memories they bring back to me.

Having formed Carrillion with bass player Jason King at the last minute for a school charity concert in April 1983, we then went on to record this, our first demo tape around June.
Recorded on a borrowed Tascam Portastudio (a 244 I think) in my bedroom, I had a Roland CR 78 drum machine, a Stylophone and my mother's upright piano. But I also borrowed my friend's Roland Juno 6, eventually buying it off him second-hand some months later. Jason plays bass on some of the tracks, anticipating the synth and bass guitar sound of New Order, Ultravox or Propaganda.

Ahead of my time, as has always been the case.



1: Awaiting Dawn
A bit of an in-joke this, as I was thinking about the time I was waiting for a girl called, you guessed it, Dawn, only to be stood up. The music reflects early optimism about the meeting but eventually begins to sound a little pessimistic and finally abrubtly stops as I realise Dawn isn't coming.

2: Glims Holm
I fed my Stylophone through the unbranded practice amplifier which had a built-in reverb which to my mind made it sound a little bag-pipey, hence the Celtic title; the name of a Scottish island.

3: Wanting More
Nothing but raw greed informs this track. I was at an age where you want everything and I was no different to everyone else.

4: Numbears
Typical of my word play, this is a pun on 'numb ears'. It features Jason's bass going through the broken WEM copycat tape echo machine. The tape in this was so stretched it distorted anything you fed into it.

5: Endtime
I think I was thinking about the short segue 'Get Carter' on The Human League's album released the year before and a massive influence on my music. Very simple, the amp's reverb again on the piano and Juno.

6: Sally Forth
Another reference to a girl, this time one who seemed to unthinkingly find herself romantically involved with a new boy every week. I think secretly I wouldn't have minded being one of those boys, and I thought writing a song in her honour might result in her favouring me too.Sadly, she never got to hear it.

7: She Likes Cream
More thoughts about sex here I suppose, but I cannot remember exactly what the inspiration was. Very hymn-like, I could imagine this played big and bold, like Ultravox's 'Hymn'.

8: Timewright
Classic Carrillion! The CR78 keeping time while Jase plays a root augmented by the Juno's rich chords and the Stylophone doodles on top. The title comes from a short science fiction story I wrote about someone who could manufacture time itself. I intended to perhaps marry the two at some point.

New Wor[l]ds Eleven

After a delay of some eighteen months, here it is at last: New Wor[l]ds Eleven collates my written work from that period.

The Need For More

I cannot understand how the months move faster as I get older and how years ago I was able to complete work faster. But is that an illusion?

I am still writing my poetry and short stories and will be producing the latest collection shortly which I am going to produce on-line in some guise or another.

Scour powdering the web

Bedazzled by various on-line digital publications, I've come across several that boast website introductions full of grammatical errors. I've never done this before but felt the need to post comments to all of them pointing out their spelling mistakes. I imagined they'd remove my comment and correct the grammar, but no! they just wanly apologise in a further comment and leave the original mistakes there!! Why?

Is it so that there is at least some sign of life on their dull web pages?

Would I do the same if someone - anyone - criticized an entry here? The mere fact that underneath this entry '0 COMMENTS' could now read '1 COMMENTS' bedazzling me.

Long Dark Summer of the Soul

There have been half-hearted attempts at starting some short stories. There have been half-hearted attempts at starting a novel. There have been half-hearted attempts at writing some poetry. There has been no attempt to keep up my blog entries.

So much for the summer!

Duff

A long time ago I loved poetry. I read poetry, I wrote poetry, I breathed poetry. I learned word rhythm from the poets of old. I learned playfullness of language with the new poets...

But I was left cold by Andrew Motion's promotion some years back, as I am today by Carol Ann Duffy's appointment. I would want a real poet laureate to be at the Prime Minister's side during important press conferences, with a few words to underline prepared statements. The Press would have to report the poem as part of their editorial, the Media would have to show B-roll of it in their political round-up... Poetry would become a truly essential part of life, instead of the marginalised affectation it is.

Working In A Vacuum

I am working in a vacuum. That is, an atmosphere where no-one reads what I write, hears what I sing, listens to what I play. How does the creative artist continue like this? Complete and utter refusal to engage with the non-receptiveness of a nonplussed public. Sometimes the best work is created in this hermetic bubble, though it is seldom appreciated at the time of conception - but years, perhaps even decades later. Will my blog, this blog, be read by future generations - if it still exists? Will it lead them to my works? Are you, dear reader, the nonplussed public of now - or the student of the future?

Not quite twenty years ago today

1989 was the last year of my degree and after I'd left Uni and moved back home I "put the band back together" as Jake Blues would say. I can hardly believe it's twenty years since all this happened. If only we'd had the internet then, and been able to create myspace and facebook pages for Carrillion perhaps we'd have gotten somewhere. Equally the comedy group I was in could have done a lot more in terms of promoting ourselves by posting our work on You Tube. Damn!

Still, I think older and wiser as I am, my crative work is more relevant now than it was then, mired as it undoubtedly was in a young person's angst. All the same I think that early work of mine is ripe for rediscovery, and I intend to make it available at some point.

+ support...

Been busy scanning in old band posters and paraphenalia from my earlier career as a 'rock star'. Following sixth form I did not immediately go to Uni, but chose instead to pursue my musical passion which had begun as a school band a couple of years before. In hindsight I think I was a little ahead of my time - the early 80s were a time for New Romantics and my unique brand of poetry and rock rhythms had yet to find to find an audience.

This poster here probably didn't help. It was drawn by an old girlfriend from school who was actually in another band and is far too New Romantic to convey to the audience the unusual genre of music Carrillion was about. Later I designed my own posters and covers, but after a couple of years I decided I should go to Uni anyway, and the first incarnation of Carrillion broke up.

Carrillion Group

Today I created a group on google groups for an archival anthology of the music I have produced under the name 'Carrillion' since 1983. I intend to upload some MP3's and other archival pictures and cassette covers as well.

You can find it here.

Dark Nights

I was asked if I wanted to watch The Dark Knight at a friends house who has just bought the DVD. And Dark indeed is the night that The Dark Knight inhabits. Too dark, really. Too much shadow. Ledger is mesmeric, though.

Superhero comics and graphic novels is an area I once ventured into - writing an outline story for a friend of mine who wanted to draw a comic but couldn't write a story. It was called 'Com Sat Angel', after the 80's band, but although I spent some weeks working on the story, my friend never got around to drawing much beyond the cover and the first couple of pages.

I think I still have some of the artwork somewhere and if I find it I will post it here,

New Wor(l)ds 10

A little later than usual, New Wor(l)ds volume 10 is out containing the cream of my recent short fictions and poetry.
I elected a type only design this time to emphasize the power of the word over the image in writing. I am concerned that culturally we seem to be veering away from text toward sound and image. Can this really be the beginning of the end for pure literature?

I guess that as long as me, and people like me, continue to carve away our literary niches there will always be Words.

Fictions:
Tight Fist
Deep Blue Devil
Raking the Earth
Boomerang Babies
Tidiness in Purfleet

Poetry:
Ful(l)filled i
Ful(l)filled ii

Sorry seems to be the easiest word, at least in Oz

I was struck yesterday by the text of the apology made by the Australian government to aborigines for the systematic removal of generations of infants from their families and place of birth. The full text is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations and what struck me was the certainty that we will never see a British government apologise so unconditionally; Blair will never say 'sorry' for Iraq and WMD's.

I am working on a short story based on my research into this Stolen Generation issue called 'Boomerang Babies'.

Don't twitter about it, write it.

As if writers were short of excuses not to actually get down to the business of writing, I have noticed an alarming new development where lazy writers end up writing nothing more than their own blogs... which ironically are all about writing! Because of the connectivity of the awfully-named blogosphere, these 'writers' end up in perpetual connection with each other, Twittering away about how marvellous these new social medias are and fretting over how they 'as writers' are going to fit their work around those medias, all without actually generating any new original writing, unless it is more twaddle on the 'nature' of writing in this new dangerous digital age. Christ!

Death of a Model

The sudden death of Irish model Katy French has provoked a little media flurry. I think there is something almost archetypal about this sort of minor celebrity death. These people literally do flare up like the floating cinders from a bonfire, shining independently before being extinguished, leaving no trace behind.

Death like this often inspires me to write a song, which I have already begun. I thought I might write the lyrics in Gaelic (using babelfish, for among my talents, I am not a Gaelic speaker) or perhaps even French, ironically using her surname.

Personal Information and Archive Issues

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have lost two 'discs' which held personal details of over seven million households in Britain. Well, working in IT, all I can say is I'm surprised they are still using discs to move information around. Were they re-writable cds or dvds? Haven't they heard of the internet and fast broadband connections? Storage on discs is known to be a less than robust method of archiving data anyway, better off putting it on a little hard drive, if you have to. Did somebody have to take the discs home to do a bit of work on it over the weekend? Ridiculous!

But seriously archiving is an enormous problem for everyone nowadays, none more so I guess than for prolific artists like myself. I have untold boxes of cassette tapes, vhs tapes, floppy discs, zip discs.. all with my music projects or writing projects 'saved' at various stages. I intend to begin to archive these things properly soon, and build some sort of user interface for easy access to it all, but its a mammoth task, it really is.

I don't think it's going to fit onto just two discs!!

Ruthless Edit

I spent most of the weekend having a ruthless edit of my blog posts - do anyone else ever do this? Took out a lot of aimless woffle, and eradicated some entire posts forever (after downloading an archive of course). This has made my blog seem leaner, but also I think it suggests I am not as prolific as I undoubtedly am - Oh, well, even in this blogsphere you can't have both worlds.

Pizza Peter

Peter's pizza arrived.
Spinach spun on top.
Crusty cheese browned,
Garlic bread downed,
Pineapple chunks on ham

Peter's pizza arrived.
Olives sliced on top.
Thin tomatoes grilled,
Empty stomach filled,
Pineapple chunks on ham

Oscar's 79th Birthday

Oscar is getting too old isn't he? 79 years is a fair age for anyone, but the truly Americanized glamour of the fabled awards ceremony is looking a little worn to my eyes. Too many categories, too much glitz, too long...

I read there are now some 500 film festivals in the world. Every one of them wants a new film to Premiere, everyone of them wants some media attention... and as thin as that is to stretch amongst 500 festivals we then get all the awards ceremonies. Even more media coverage.

New Worl(d)s 9

The latest volume of my short fiction and poetry is out!

Fiction:
Pop Bitch
The Tiger Watching
Rain Guidance
Nemeses

Poetry:
10:14 am
And Now...
Condensation