Blog or whatever (Episode 2)

There is something pointless and meandering about making an album when there isn't a specific deadline to work to.

One spends hours, days, weeks, months and, I'm ashamed to say, years toying with various arrangements, satisfying yourself that you've realised and recorded the perfect guitar parts, only to return to the song a few months later to decide that they were poorly conceived and badly executed, and your new improved guitar parts should replace the existing ones.

This of course, is a dangerous cycle and makes finishing an album virtually impossible.

Somewhere along the way, through sheer exhaustion/boredom with the tracks/external grief from those who give a toss, the decision is made to complete the thing, and during that lasted concerted push towards the end, one again convinces oneself that the correct decisions have been made, and that the songs in their finished, mixed state, sound as close to perfect as is possible.

Of course this is an equally stupid observation since inevitably, after not hearing the old albums for years, on the rare occasions I can bear to listen to them again, all I notice is the flaws; the song lyrics that are a little clumsy or lazily rhymed, the musical and vocal parts that should have been better performed, and the sounds and balances between the instruments that could have been improved with a few more tweaks.

Conclusion?  Nothing is ever finished. Ever. Not in my head anyway.

Can you imagine how irritating and dull that can make life?

Well I'll tell you. If nothing is truly ever finished, then life becomes pointless and meandering.

And as pointless meanderer's go, I guess I'm going.


p.s.  I am convinced that the correct decisions have been made, and the new tracks in their finished, mixed state, sound as close to perfect as is possible.

Album by late spring? It's possible I suppose.

Blog or whatever (Episode 3)

Those of you familiar with the first Jackdaw4 album 'Gramophone Logic' will probably be familiar with the names John Steel and Kate Stevenson, both of whom made various contributions – Kate on drums and John on guitars, saxophone, harmonica, Kenwood chef and various other household appliances. Well I've just waved goodbye to them as they set off back to England, having spent the last few days here in France, making similar worthy contributions to the new album.

These are the occasions when I'm not playing/recording myself. Instead, I'm sitting in the producer/engineer chair, hysterically singing guitar lines for John to perform, flailing my arms in the air miming drum parts I'd like Kate to try, or barking musical orders of one kind or another at the two of them, before demanding that they try something completely different, just to satisfy my curiosity.

It has occurred to me on occasions like this, that I'm far more demanding of other people's performances than of my own. When I'm all alone, recording myself and there is nobody in the studio to try and impress, I'm far more likely to adopt a 'that'll do' attitude.

In between takes, we discussed which songs would or wouldn't make the final cut and I think we're close to settling. I'll probably leave it to someone else to select the running order since I've never been particularly good at that, aside from deciding on the opening and closing tracks.

If you remember, it was 'This Is Your Life' that was the first song on the last album, and I am often asked about the meaning and intent of this song.

On tour, in my usual half-arsed attempts to be witty, I used to tell a brief story on stage, leading to the rumour that I wrote the song specifically about Midge Ure. Not strictly speaking true, although it was seeing him on the British television show, 'This Is Your Life' that started the train of thought.

You're familiar with the format of the show I'm sure: In a well meaning way, his friends and associates from over the years were trotted out on to the stage to tell a funny or moving Midge related anecdote. But, as the show progressed, it felt more and more to me as though it were performing the function of a star-studded, showbiz, fond farewell. As if the contributors were writing his obituary in front of him in a manner that suggested his best moments were behind him, and it was time for him to wander in a dignified manner, into the 'Gone But Not Forgotten' folder.

Now I happen to think, that long after 'Vienna' (which lets face it, is why most people are familiar with Midge Ure), the man wrote and continues to write in my opinion, songs that are easily as good and better than his Ultravox efforts. (Check out 'Breathe'). Then again, I suppose, that 'This Is Your Life So Far, Here's A Taste of The Bits The Public And Press Didn't Seem So Interested In And We Look Forward To The Next Bit' is not nearly so catchy a title or premise for a TV show.

Anyway, rather than a joyous celebration I thought the whole thing rather depressing and it lead to the thought that none of us gets to choose the way we are thought of or how we are remembered. Forget pop stars and celebrities for a second. The fact is that ultimately, we are all defined by consensus of majority, and there is no right of reply or complaints commission to appeal to.

I don't know why that should bother me so much but it does, so there you are. I think that over the years I have probably developed a rather too active sense of injustice. I've tried screaming at the heavens and demanding some sense of balance and redress from the skies, but with no deity putting in an appearance, whom I can impress with my impassioned demands for fairness and equity, I quickly give up and settle in for a brief spell of inertia. That'll do.

Blog or whatever (Episode 4 - Lost in France?)

I've been asked a lot recently why I moved to France. This is complicated. Firstly, I haven't. Well not exactly. I still come back to the UK once every month or so, for meetings and what have you.

Quite why I bought in France at all is really the question, and with the benefit of hindsight I have three main reasons for this. Well four actually, but I'm saving the fourth for another time.

Reason number one: the bleeding obvious. Property prices in the UK were and are so ludicrously high, that for roughly the same amount of money that would have bought a two bedroom flat in West London, we were able to move into a beautiful working water mill next to a trout stream, with seven acres of land and a handful of outbuildings - the largest of which contains my studio. We're only a two and a half hour drive from London via the tunnel, so if I need to go back, which I'm inclined less and less to do, I can drive to the UK and back again in a day with relative ease.

Reason number two: I had reached a point of exasperation with the political situation in Britain. The cherry on the cake and the reson that actually inspired the decision that very night, to look across the water for a house, was the day that war against Iraq commenced. This, despite the fact that two million British people, myself included, had marched to signify their opposition to war (representing the opinion of 90% of the population if statistics are anything to go by) and were roundly ignored, despite the fact that the so-called evidence for war was clearly then, and provably later, a tissue of lies. Lies constructed to serve the purposes of the long stated aims of the 'Project for The New American Century', authored by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz et.al. This information and erstwhile statement of intent, had long been in the public domain and yet they still got away with it.

Someone said to me recently, "Well at least Rumsfeld got his just deserts when he was fired". This is ludicrously short sighted. It matters not to Rumsfeld and co. that they lose a job here and there. The fact is they have already hand picked their like-minded replacements. They are willing to suffer the various indignities of political life so long as their cause is advanced and more importantly, their nests are adequately feathered. Which they invariably are. Those bastards were waiting for any chance to start the military ball rolling, and when they couldn't produce facts, they simply invented them. Well, you know the argument. You've heard it a thousand times before so I won't replay it in any more detail than I have done already.

Anyway, I was intensely depressed by all of this. That a Labour government could dupe the nation so blatantly, in amongst the hundreds of other Thatcherite decisions they had already made and continue to make. Furthermore, it caused me to wonder, that if these are the visible signs of the way that democracy has been rendered impotent, what lies beneath, as yet undiscovered? (Perhaps I should shut up now – I swear I could go on forever).

Not that the political system in France is perfect, but at least the French had the strength of character to stand up to the Americans and question their motives. Now some of you won't share my political views and I understand that, but I'm an intolerant fucker so piss off...

The third reason is a little more personal. Post-Honeycrack, I'd spent the following seven or eight years writing music for television and film, which involved me getting out of bed and walking the fifteen yards or so to my London studio, where I would lock myself in until the break of dawn, day in day out, rarely seeing daylight. The only times I would break from this admittedly self-imposed routine, would be to go into the west end of London and get so drunk that the next couple of days were pretty well a write off. Frankly, after so many years of this repetitious and predictable pattern, life was becoming very, very dull. I felt that I was in a serious rut and needed a radical change. So as radical changes go, moving to a different country where I couldn't even speak the language struck me as a fairly abrupt way to shake things up a little.

The fourth reason is pertinent to the new album and it's a tough one for me to address so as I said earlier, I'll bring it up on another occasion.

You know, when I was asked to write this blog, I wasn't at all sure what it was supposed to be. On reflection, it appears to be some kind of self-examination combined with elements in the style of 'Mein Kampf'. In short, probably not worthy or suitable for sharing. Ah well, if you're bored with my on-line ranting you can always check out some porn. According to statistics, you were probably about to do that anyway. And if you are patient enough, psychiatrists will invent a new vocabulary to encapsulate the blog, and a profitable sideline in drugs designed to quell the urge to ever write one.

Blog or whatever (Episode 5)

So I was back in the UK last week, for the most part to record the last couple of bass parts with Andy (Lewis). He came in to London from Bath or thereabouts, for a couple of days, to do some rehearsing and then to play the 'Al Murray-Pub Landlord' TV show, with Mel C, which you might have seen last Friday. He stayed with me in West London, and we finished the bass parts when he was free.

Some of you have spotted Greg (Hatwell) playing guitar and singing with Mel C over the last couple of years, which is largely why he's been absent at the last few gigs. Greg, Andy and I went out for a drink after they had finished rehearsing last Sunday and I realised I hadn't seen Greg for over a year.

In response to my recent postings, I have been asked which TV shows I've written music for since Honeycrack folded. It would take me a long time to list them all and I still squirm when remembering some of the less imaginative drivel I've laboured through. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to refer you to my website (www.williedowling.co.uk) which lists most of the stuff I've done. It hasn't been updated in a little while but you'll get the idea. Then, if there are any specific questions about particular shows, I guess I could answer one or two.

I have done a lot of TV work with Pete Baikie over the last six or seven years. You might recognise his name from the sketch comedy show 'Absolutely'. Aside from his various, acting/writing/directing/producing duties, he's also king of the TV theme tune and I jumped at the chance to work with him in 1999, when he asked me to write music with him for the ITV topical animation show '2DTV'. Very quickly he became a good friend, and we subsequently worked together on a number of shows.

Pete and I also co-wrote 'Violent Streak', the extra track after 'Happy? (Dumka)' on 'Gramophone Logic', and it fell to Pete to sequence the running order of that album. We met up last week and I played him rough mixes of the new songs since in all likelihood I will ask him to select the running order of the imminent album, which I can now reveal will be called 'Bipolar Diversions'. Clinical and yet catchy at the same time, don't you agree? And about as broad and obvious a clue as I can offer, as to the fourth reason I moved to France (see Episode 4), which should take some of the sting out of it for me when I go in to this in more detail at a later stage.

Incidentally, the video for 'Me & My Machine' should be up on 'YouTube' by this weekend. You might remember the song from the SugarPlumFairies album, 'Fruit Karma'. And if you're wondering why it's taken so long for us to bring it to you, I refer you to the ludicrous reasons I offered you on the first blog of five weeks ago.

Monday, March 19, 2007 Blog or whatever (Episode 6 - SOOMA?) So much for the collected thoughts of chairman Wilf on a weekly basis. You'll have gathered that I'm a little late with this current, no doubt thrilling installment. No good reason. There just seemed to be other things to do. I've just finished mixing 'SOOMA' and am suffering the usual deflated insecurities as to whether it sounds any good or not. If I start tweaking it now, I'll go round in circles and screw it up completely so I'm determined to let it be….(watch this space) I was back in the UK last week to see my old chums Armstrong & Miller record material at the BBC for their new series, which should be on BBC1 in the autumn. I wrote music for three of their previous Channel 4 series. However, I guess I'll miss it since we don't get British TV over here in France, so if anyone's near a DVD recorder when it goes on air I'd be grateful for a copy. I co-wrote one of the songs on the new album with Ben Miller. It's called 'Heimlich's Manoeuvres' and at this moment in time it's one of my favourites. Actually, there are quite a few co-writes on 'Bipolar Diversions'. There are a couple with John Steel - with a few extra lyrical tidbits thrown in by Kate Stevenson - 'My Little Gangsta' and 'Jesus Wants My Soul Back', and a song I wrote with Tim Arnold (Honeycrack fans will remember him as the singer/songwriter from Jocasta) called 'The End Of The Party'. I saw the album artwork the other week, and it's looking pretty good, the Jackdaw4 website is currently being updated, so as ever, I'm the one holding things up by taking so long on the mixing front. So many knobs to twiddle and so few fingers. I've had to take long breaks recently due to repetitive wrist/elbow strain. I'm currently strapped up to the gills, with acupuncture needles stuck in to my elbow. It's been a recurring problem for the last couple of years, and is evidently nothing to do with my nocturnal hobbies, just a creak in the machine caused by the computer mouse. I've tried gripping less hard but you get stuck in your ways don't you find? On a less 'Kenneth Williams' note, we're discussing doing a gig somewhere in London to officially launch the album sometime in late May/early June. I'd say 'book now to avoid disappointment' but since I haven't got a clue where or when, we'll have to keep you posted. Finally, by way of answering a couple of questions that have come up: Working with Steve Coogan on 'I Am Not An Animal' and 'Dr Terrible's House Of Horrible' was very interesting. He's actually got a very good singing voice and knows his musical onions. Armstrong & Miller used the song 'Anyway' as their title music for the last two of the three series I did with them. We re-recorded it and they sang it. Incidentally, we may put the original SugarPlumFairies version up on the Jackdaw4.com website as a free download over the next couple of months. I've no idea where Tony Hawks lives in France. Since we finished his last album/TV series we've only spoken a few times. If you haven't seen it yet, download or buy 'Loose Change – Second Edition'. Essential viewing. We'll discuss it another time.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 Blog or whatever (Episode 7 - Ann Coulter vs Henry Rollins) A quick trip to the UK, and a bit of a discovery in the absence of anything to watch on TV. I was back in London again at the weekend to see the final Armstrong & Miller studio recordings at the BBC. Very funny of course, but I've still to regain any feeling in my buttocks which went numb after the first couple of hours. I think the BBC have had the same seats in their studios since the 1930's when men and their buttocks were made of sterner stuff. I was going to head back across the channel on Saturday, but postponed when John (Steel) rang to say that he could come over for a couple of days if I could wait until Monday. I'm always grateful for a second pair of ears that I can trust, particularly when mixing so I decided to wait for him. Having nothing of great urgency that I could do while in London, and failing to find anything on TV of interest on Sunday, I turned to YouTube. I guess I should confess, that although I'm aware of Internet phenomena like YouTube and MySpace, I rarely venture that way. I know I should but there always seem to be other things to do. So, out of pure boredom I thought I'd check out YouTube for anything on Ann Coulter. As I'm sure you know, she's is the pin-up girl for the American right wing. She's well educated, conventionally attractive, media savvy, quick with a sound-bite and one of the nastiest pieces of racist, extreme right propagandists you'll encounter. She features a little in the song 'My Little Gangsta' that John and I wrote for the new album. So, the very first thing I came across was a piece by Henry Rollins on Ann Coulter. I'm vaguely familiar with Henry Rollins, I think I've played on the same bill as him and the Rollins band at a couple of festival gigs in the mid 1990's, but I'll admit I never looked or listened hard enough to hear any lyrical content of interest, behind the barrage of sound and intense screaming. Don't get me wrong, I have always enjoyed the odd intense track by metal bands, but after a few tracks, when the only emotion coming through the music is anger, (occasionally very unfocused) I get bored, simply because I think there are other musical ways to reflect that anger, and other emotions to explore. Anyway, to return to Henry Rollins; I was dimly aware that he had written poetry, (certainly unusual for a tattooed, muscular man of metal) and that he was renowned for his intensity and his principled work ethic, but the stuff I found on YouTube really opened my eyes. I confess I've spent the last six to seven years nursing what might be called a vaguely anti-American sentiment. When Bush stole that first election I resolved not to go to America until he and his puppet masters were gone. (I bet that decision really upset the authorities) OK, I know one shouldn't tarnish a whole nation with the same brush, and we all know the first Bush victory was at best, highly questionable, but it seemed from this side of the globe, that he went on to legitimately win the second election. Which meant that unbelievably, people in America were actually voting for him and his militaristic, homophobic, socially unjust, neo-fascistic policies. It seemed like an immense step backwards in time, after the tiny, faltering promise of the 1990's. Had Americans learned nothing from 20th century history? Christ, wouldn't the majority of voters have lived through it and seen how with Captain Cuckoo holding the steering wheel, that it was about to repeat itself? (Trust me American readers, I realise that to a large extent, the same accusation can be quite fairly made of myself and fellow countrymen) Where was the outraged and angered voice of opposition? Michael Moore and Al Franken were doing their bit, but nobody seemed to be throwing foam-mouthed punches of righteous anger from within the evil empire. Well as ever, it seems I've been wrong. Having enjoyed his Ann Coulter piece, I followed links for the best part of four hours and saw Rollins in numerous interview and performance clips, occasionally performing what I believe he calls 'spoken word' but I think could equally be called stand-up. Not in the gag-telling, or observational "have you ever noticed" sense. This guy has picked up the Bill Hicks robe and to my astonishment, it fits his strangely Schwarzenegger-like body to a tea. He's well read, well traveled, well informed, self-deprecating and painfully honest. He's highly articulate and incredibly funny, and at a time when many who feel like him prefer to slip into the shadows until this all blows over, afraid of what vocal opposition might do to their careers, he's spitting it out like a machine gun. I may never fully get his musical output but, my God, it was a big lift and a palpable relief for me to hear the man shooting at his multiple targets with sniper like accuracy, and I spent what remained of Sunday evening, feeling strangely optimistic after a marathon session, watching all I could find of the man's output. Of course, you were all totally on top of this years ago. I'm simply telling you what you already knew but damn it, you could have told me. So here's the deal; I'm going to try and pursue my new obsession and see what else I find inspirational and challenging, and then I'm going to indulge myself on this digital soap box, and take the liberty of mentioning or recommending it to you from time to time. And you are going to be patient and reserve your "yeah, we knew that already you dozy twat" comments, and perhaps you could occasionally drop me a line and tell me what else I should be checking out. After all, that's what the Internet at it's best, is meant for isn't it? The sharing of information? Sieve through the crap and it seems that the golden nuggets appear.

Friday, May 04, 2007 Blog or whatever (Episode 8 - Oh Fkkkkkk) Several weeks have passed since last I 'blogged' (is that a verb now?) and many a distraction has lead me away from the project in hand. The most significant was the night I decided to back up three finished mixes for 'Bipolar Diversions' but backed up the wrong way. That is to say, I took the previously backed up versions from my backup hard drive, and copied them over to my working drive, in the process, irretrievably deleting the brand spanking new, finished versions of the three songs. This lead to a great deal of cursing and wailing, and several newly invented profanities hurled at a God that the sane part of me does not believe in. In all my years recording, I've never made a cock-up of this magnitude before and I can even now recall the burning sensation of shock when I realised what I had done. This inevitably lead to a couple of days prostrate on the sofa in an attempt to sleep off the anger and pain. To the rescue came Simon Forsyth, who I am sure some of you will remember as the keyboard/programmer from the 'SugarPlumFairies' days of Jackdaw 4. In fact, now I think of it, he also co-wrote 'Everything I See' from 'Gramophone Logic'. Simon is something of an expert with all things concerning computers and it was he, way back in 1997, who installed my first ever Protools-Logic recording setup in my studio in London. Without boring you with details that I don't understand myself, he managed to retrieve all the missing 'mix audio' files, which was a huge relief. I may never be able to re-mix those tracks, but at least I've got the original mixes back and I don't have to start recording them from scratch again. Since then, I've been doing a couple of bits and pieces for the new 'Armstrong & Miller' show and have spent the last week writing a song with Brian Dooley, who wrote the TV sit-com, 'The Smoking Room' which you may have seen on BBC3 and BBC2, for a new idea he is working on. As I write, I am loading up the eighth song for the new album to begin mixing so I'm back on track. In a manner of speaking. On a positive note, the 'Gramophone Logic' album is now available through iTunes (Jackdaw4 on iTunes). Over the coming weeks, we hope to put up all the recordings of 'Jackdaw4' in all of it's disguises, on to iTunes. We thought that it would be a good idea to promote this a little by giving away a free track via the new-look website so check it out over the next week or so.

Blog or whatever (Episode 9 - Labyrinth of conspiracy) Someone asked me (about six months ago – sorry!) what I was banging on about in the song 'Deep and Meaningless' from Gramophone Logic. Well I guess the simple answer is 'conspiracy and complacency', but I don't do simple answers, I do 'pompous and dull' so prepare yourself. The more observant of you will have noticed that over the course of these - well lets call them digital musings – I have made a couple of overt or thinly veiled references to works on film and contemporary 'think' pieces which the lazy, the disinterested and the extremely powerful would group together and describe as 'conspiracy theories'. The very expression 'conspiracy theory', implies a disproportionate level of wacky-brained, semi-psychotic, instantly dismissible arguments, leading to ridicule at best, and a possible jail sentence at worst. In my opinion this is unfortunate, because lurking amongst the more outlandish 'aliens live among us' weirdness, there are undoubtedly a small amount of well-intended, thought-provoking salient questions being asked. All the more relevant at this particular point in time, when most of us know that we are being lied to. Regularly. Provably. When we see items of news being altered during the course of a day to suit the political output of a government supporting news channel, we witness first hand that things cannot always be as our so-called 'democratically' elected leaders would have us believe. And so some brave individuals go out in to the world in a desperate attempt to get to the truth. Some have their conclusions already drawn, and simply force the facts into their own pre-formed slots. Others are simply curious to understand the anomalies and contradictions that they witness daily, and without an agenda of their own to promote, they scrape beneath the thick-inked, front-page official headlines to find that things are not as we have been informed. This in itself is enough to be angry about, but when we are denied access to relevant information that could conclusively prove an argument one way or another, we are left with no option but to assume that the versions of events presented for public consumption are in all probability manipulated in a manner that makes a mockery out of the notion that any of us live in a truly democratic system. (As one tiny recent example, why does the American government deny it's citizens access to the photographic evidence of an airplane hitting the Pentagon?) In the absence of relevant information, our would-be saviours occasionally speculate at what the motivation might be behind the dis-information and the contradictions that they encounter. This is of course where most fall off the map. Without proper access to information some people are inclined to make quantum leaps of assumption in order to reach a pre-fixed conclusion, thereby handing their detractors a neatly wrapped gift, exposing themselves to ridicule and dismissal, thereby allowing the establishment authorities to neatly side-step the main issue, that is to say, the original relevant question as to why we are being lied to, which is still valid and still demands an answer. However, once you've ventured down the road of implausible conclusion and have been found to have overlooked or misinterpreted crucial facts, your entire argument is dismissed as facile, no matter that the original questions that set you off on this quest are still brazenly left unanswered. In fact it might be said that the entire western capitalist system relies on the fact that most of us are content to go on sleeping through these anomalies, no more than occasionally curious at events like the Kennedy assassination, the Iraq war(s), the US election in 2000, and the September 11th attacks, to name but a few. Recent history is littered with these questionable occurrences but so long as we, the great un-washed, are distracted from the big picture by the pursuit of our desires to own cars, houses, computers, the latest designer clothes, games consoles, gadgets etc, we seem willing to turn a blind eye. Besides which, it takes energy and time to pursue and investigate, and if our worst fears are confirmed, we're powerless to do anything about them anyway, right? What a bunch of sheep we are. You could argue that essentially we get what we deserve. I think I was probably making that argument in 'Deep and Meaningless'. I think I make it again from a slightly different stand point on the new album (now definitely titled 'Bipolar Diversions') in a song called 'Illuminati'. Actually, now I consider it, I think it's been a recurring theme for me in a great many songs. Which probably makes me a conspiracy nut. Ah well, I guess its good to have a hobby of some kind. And despite my asking you ever so politely, you still haven't watched 'Loose Change' have you? I urge you to do so. Come join the nuts. And to conclude in a completely irrelevant and unrelated manner I thought I'd mention that I'm mastering 'Bipolar Diversions' at Metropolis studios on July 24th so it should be available by the end of August, only five months behind schedule. I blame the aliens.

Blog or whatever (Episode 10 - some news) Well now there seems to be a few bits for me to get through, after the latest dormant period, and it all amounts to a bit of excitement. At least for me. Where to begin… OK, let's start with the new album, 'Bipolar Diversions'. It's here and packed neatly in boxes in various locations around London and Northern France. What better way to introduce it than in the manner of a cheap west-end stripper and let you hear tit-bits prior to releasing the whole thing. I know, I know, it's a bit like the prick tease at school who'd let you see her bra straps but make you wait six months before you could touch the goodies. Or was that just my experience? Regardless, the plan is to let you hear a new track every week for the four weeks prior to release on the Jackdaw4 MySpace page and on my personal Facebook page (To those of you who've joined this, please excuse my slowness in response. I've yet to work out quite why it exists, why I should want to 'poke' anyone, or write on somebody's wall, but I'm told it is a good thing so I'll persevere.). This will all lead up to the album being available to buy as of Monday 22nd of October, either as a hard copy from us, or from iTunes. And to follow? Well would you believe a live show. By Christ it's been a while. Over a year in fact. We're going to play a special launch show on Saturday November 24th at the Soho Review Bar in London. We'll let you know about advance tickets in the immediate future. And as further proof of life re-emerging from the stagnant pool, we'll be shooting a video for the track 'Jesus Wants My Soul Back' over the next few weeks, so I'll keep you posted as to when that might be viewable. And lastly a couple of recommendations. A comedy series, with great music, 'Flight of The Conchords', is about to start on BBC4 (on September 25th, according to their BBC website). Having written and been involved with a great deal of music/songs for comedy shows over the last few years, I think I'm probably allowed to suggest in a fairly qualified manner, that this is one of the best musical/song comedy combinations I've ever seen and I strongly recommend it. Great songs, very funny and original. Wished I'd have been involved myself, and it's damned rare that I'll admit to that. And lastly, for those of a political bent who've been with me down the 'Loose Change' avenue, BBC4 also showed a fantastic documentary last month which you will still find on YouTube titled 'Why We Fight'. When information is put together this way, it's mind boggling how they keep getting away with it. What am I on about? Well these intermittent invitations into my many-layered world of conspiracy and beyond may just have started to irritate you, so I'm not telling you anymore. You watch it and decide for yourself. Besides, you may well be one of them...

Sunday, October 14, 2007 Blog or whatever (Episode 11) It's been another hectic month out here in the wilderness. The fish are welding multi-coloured blankets in preparation for hibernation, and countless flock of great brown bear are making their spectacular leaps up stream to lay their eggs before settling down to die in their hives. I love this time of year, so why I had to spoil it by preparing to release another album is questionable. Rehearsing. It's quite hard isn't it? You have to remember all the months of tiny musical self-indulgences that were slotted in every few bars of every damn song, and recreate them. But before you do that you have to persuade five able minded people to join together in a suitably sized and equipped room, with all their abilities in peak condition, and then stroke the tunes out of them. This has proved awkward. So far we've managed a simultaneous three people at maximum but I'm hoping this will improve over the coming weeks. I suppose I should thank you all for your (thus far) kind comments regarding the new tracks on Facebook and MySpace. I'm glad you like the songs. There is always a period of uncertainty for me after a new album is finished. I've heard the songs thousands and thousands of times over the course of recording and mixing the record, and at various points have felt confident, passionate, disinterested, bored, and excited again, with pretty well each one of them. Now that the record is finished I simply don't know whether it's any good or not. I envy other artists who go straight on record to say that their new album is the best they've ever made, although I suspect it's probably promotional bullshit, and like me, they haven't got a clue whether they've produced to the best of their ability until a sufficient amount of time has passed to have a modicum of objectivity. As you will have noticed, it is a very different world for new bands right now. The old paradigms are gone. The way we listen to, and buy music, are radically altered, and whereas the internet has meant that people all over the world can access a bands music, and computers have meant that pretty well any band can make a CD, it is ironically incredibly difficult for a band to raise awareness and reach a new and bigger audience. Without record company advertising budgets, press campaigns and money to buy on to tours, smaller bands are left making barely disguised appeals (like the one I'm barely disguising here), that their audience introduce a band that they have discovered, to ten or more of their personal friends with similar tastes. Often (I'm told) the way to do this is by simply sending the friend or friends an email with an mp3 attachment of one of the songs from the bands previous albums, (say, for example something from 'Gramophone Logic'), and a link to the bands website, (I suppose for example we might say http://www.jackdaw4.com). A few hastily typed words of enthusiasm regarding the band itself, and within minutes, the awareness and ability of the band to stretch itself further afield is increased. Quite simple really. I believe the method is called 'word of mouth' and I politely yet firmly encourage you to try it. That didn't come over too desperate did it? Look to be frank with you, I don't care if it did, just do it will you? Now for some slightly irritating news. The recent postal strike in the UK has meant that the album will only be available from iTunes from the 29th of October and not the 22nd. Apologies for this, although my sentiments and support go to the postal workers who are being pissed on by the usual number crunchers and management game theorists, making working life miserable. Up the workers.


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