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BLOG POST TWELVE: THE LONG WEEKEND

2013-01-29T07:34:00.002-08:00

Right, okay hello, I'm doing a blovella. I started one a while back about a young woman starting Uni and had some ideas for stuff I wanted to put in it, but then I sat down to write some scenes and felt like they were all pretty much botch-jobs so it never really happened. I think I might be better at it when I'm back at Uni (I hope to be back at Uni soon).

Anyway, the new blog novella is called The Long Weekend. I am going to introduce some 'situations' and allow the readers to decide which route the protagonist should take. FYI, this is pretty groundbreaking stuff.

BLOG POST ELEVEN: MOTIVATIONAL POSTER #2

2013-01-22T09:13:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone, I've done another motivational poster. It's designed for people who are creative, to give you that extra boost, maybe print it out and put it above your desk?

BLOG POST TEN: PIZZA PARTY

2013-01-22T09:04:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone I'm just doing a blog to say there is a great new podcast available for everyone who is enthusiasitc about pizza/pizza varieties. It's called Pizza Party and it's by two emerging experts in the field of Pizza called Chris Killen and Socrates Adams.

If you'd like to find it then please click on the following internet hyperlink:

click here for pizza party . biz

BLOG POST NINE: MY FRIEND EMMA GETS HEAVILY DRUNK AND READS POEMS THAT HAVE BEEN SENT TO ME EPISODE II

2013-01-22T04:35:00.003-08:00

Hi guys, I never quite got around to re-posting the second episode of this, but I am doing it now because I would really like you to send me a poem for Emma to read so we can do another one.

If you would like us to do a reading of your poem please post a link to it in the comments, that seems like the best way of doing it maybe? Then I will give Emma a few tequilas or something and she will bring your words to life.

BLOG POST EIGHT: AN INTERVIEW WITH GRIZZLY BEAR

2012-12-08T03:52:00.000-08:00

Hello, ages ago I interview a band called The Grizzly Bears who are A++++ brilliant. It was on Clapham Common, I think. They were great guys, we had a nice talk, but I had recently had one of those 'filter coffees' from Pret (they are basically stewed black tar that sends you insane for ~25mins). I might have been a bit 'fast paced' and I went away thinking "Those guys were the actual professionals in that situation, I think I just about got away with that." Also, Daniel Rossen took one look at me (I was wearing a novelty jumper) and sort of wandered off, which is completely fair enough, actually. I think Daniel Rossen and Annie Clark are probably my two favourite guitarists currently actively making albums at the 'height of the their talent'. Basically what I'm trying to say is Rossen is a fricking genius and he can do whatever he wants. Here is the lovely chat that Chris Taylor and Chris Bear and I had.

Originally published on The Line of Best Fit.

All tomorrow’s parties this weekend. That’s a cultural experience in England, going to a Butlins in Minehead, really.
Haha, yeah?

Do you guys have anything like that in the US?
There’s nothing where you stay there… I mean 6 flags America has hotels nearby….

Chris Bear: Yeah but nothing out in the country like that.

I’m going to the Breeders one, I’m gonna miss you guys.
It seems that they do so many of those now there’s like every week or something! There’s a Halloween one? The Christmas one. The programming with the bands is crazy awesome.

Chris Taylor @ ATP 2009. All live photographs by Richard Thane.

I’ve been following Ed on twitter.
Oh, okay…

What’s this Snoop Dogg thing?
We… we really just wanna hang.

Yeah?
Chris Bear: We just really think he’d be cool to hang out with.

Is it because maybe he could do a rap with your band name? Like Grizzle Bizzle something…
Yeah that would work really well… hanging with the bizzle. And all that business.

Chris Bear. Yeah that could work really well.

I just like his phrasing! it’s just like… soothing… in a way.

He got banned from the UK for a while.

Oh really?

Yeah I think there was some shit about drugs or something…
Oh that’s horrible, I just think it’d be cool to hang with him… He seems like a cool… I mean in terms of huge cultural icons, I think that he’s got a good vibe and I think it’s pretty admirable that he just remains like really mellow and stoned, like all the time. Like on the television.

Did he get in contact?
No, that’s the funny thing. Ed’s just kinda endlessly pestering him on twitter every day… just to see.

No reply?
No reply… I don’t really expect it. He might not even be the one twittering…

Yeah and I mean if Ed is doing it then maybe there are loads of people like… I don’t know actually. I don’t really know how it works, I don’t have twitter!

You need to get his mobile number or something.
Yeah.

So shall we talk a bit about Veckatimest now we’re here?
Sure.

It’s said that this album was more of a collaborative effort with the band with all you guys throwing in more – would you say maybe as far as Grizzly Bear as a band is, that makes it more of Grizzly Bear record than the last.
I think we were all throwing in but in different ways on Yellow House. It wasn’t by any means a singular effort. We had the same sort of thing with everyone just throwing in just coming up with much more songs y’know, from the ground up. But like… there are about five songs on Yellow House that are the same thing, like a two bar guitar loop, some lyrics (of which there aren’t that many) the band did the same thing but the process wasn’t quite as.. ‘trusting’ you know, with ideas and how we go about it and trusting each other to just do it.

So yeah, Ed was twittering about Paulo Nutini last night.
Oh he did?

Yeah he said something like ‘Known in the UK, new to us.’
Yeah, true.

So what do you reckon?
Great, actually yeah his stuff was really good! I’d never heard it before and I thought it was awesome and the band was good yeah cool.

Are there any other British bands that you’ve recently become aware of that you like?
Micachu and the shapes.

Chris Bear: Oh yeah, Micachu!

Oh cool yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing them at the Bella Union stage at O2 this year. They have this small stage on the grass with a double decker bus and tables and chairs and things…
Oh that sounds really cool. That sounds really nice.

Chris Bear: I didn’t get to see Micachu play at SXSW but apparently… yeah awesome.

Have you heard the new Noisettes record?

Yeah they’re like huge now. They had this pop breakthrough and they’re all over the side of buses and stuff.
That’s awesome for them, she’s awesome, too. So pretty.

So compared to Yellow House do you think that Veckatimest is going to be more of an accessible pop record? With songs like ‘Two Weeks’ that are more solid chunks of melody…
Yeah I think that it’s kinda clearer, clearer equals more accessible I feel like clearer equals more accessible in general as a rule.

I don’t think it’s bad to say that Yellow House was a grower album..
Oh yeah totally, I’m fine with that. I love that about albums, you know my favourite records are like hear it and you’re like ‘okay… this is cool’ and then there’s one day when the song comes along and you’re like …

…’I love this!’
Right! ‘I fucking love this song!’ There’s like this moment when the music really hits you, when something is just right and you can really deeply into it.

Oh god, so Johnny Greenwood said that you were his favourite band! That must’ve been awesome.
Yeah I mean Ok Computer definitely changed my life. And uh, I mean, I was mostly playing Jazz and it was the first Rock band that I could hear real depth in and that I could really fall in love with. So I mean, yeah there’s really no words, I mean gratitude. Really grateful that we got to play music you know alongside those guys.

What was it like touring with them, what were Radiohead crowds like?

Really good, really good. Very positive. Responsive. Before we got out on tour the it was like ‘Okay, this could just be like y’know…. Nobody cares about us, we should really prepare for a crowd that just doesn’t get us at all.’ and I was like yeah I guess you’re right because I was just so excited about playing shows with them and then I thought ‘Oh shit, maybe everyone will hate it’. We went out on the first show and the last thing Ed said to me before we went on stage was like ‘people might not clap, okay just remember that.’

Hahaha! What kind of thing is that to say?
No, it made me feel good! Cause I was thinking fine. That’s fine. I’m cool with that, I just had to be reminded not to expect rapturous applause and… yeah all that. But people were really were responsive so it was like ‘woah… cool!’

L-R: Daniel Rossen and Christopher Bear

It’s a good match actually because you put the two bands together and they’re quite different but I think there’s a definite crossover with fans.
Chris Bear: I feel like they out of any other band have the most open-minded diverse audience. I’m sure there’s probably some people who have like one of their albums but I feel like people who are fans of Radiohead have seen them go through albums like The Bends and all the way through to the new albums and have crossed over so many different styles…

I think they introduced so many people to electronic sounds and electronica.
Yeah in a way that was sort of when I first started even imagining that was one of the first ways or times I’d head electronic music intergrated into rock music in a really seamless way. It felt like a completely new fresh thing and you know it wasn’t forced.

Chris Taylor: It’s crazy to think about people who’ve just like for example heard Radiohead in their dorms… just the single from the album and are like ‘oh I never really checked them out before’ that’s so wild to me because they’ve been such a mainstay for me for so long.

Yeah it’s almost weird to hear things like ‘Pyramid Song’ on the radio.
Oh wow. That’s an awesome song.

Yeahh.. I know. It’s crazy that they’ve been around for song and managed to stay current so well too.
Yeah yeah, totally.

What other UK bands, like mainstay UK bands are there as influences for you?
Well y’know there’s The Beatles. Actually recently there’s apparently this divide, like, you like the Rolling Stones or you like The Beatles… You’ve heard this?

Well yeah..
And I was like definitely like Beatles very much and for a long time but I’ve kinda come around and I really dig the stones stuff a lot now. I am a very late bloomer.

Yeah I haven’t got on board with them yet…
Chris Bear: It’s just a different thing. [to the Beatles]

Yeah, I think I wrote off them initially because they sounded like they were trying to do something bluesy and y’know they’re from a totally different culture but it was really just them paying tribute to what they loved and y’know they really did love it. There’s this early photobook that my roommate has he’s a big stones fan and (…uh not really into the Beatles.)

Anyway it’s of their tour with Bo Diddly, they brought him over here to England. And there’s all these incredible photographs. They really did have a genuine respect and appreciation they weren’t posing. Unfairly I wrote them off as that at first.

BLOG POST SEVEN: BRIT LIT TEA TIME

2012-10-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, last night I read at a really amazing, brilliant event organised by Paige Gretsy called Brit Lit tea time. The line up was 'off the chain' :

Crispin Best
Diane Marie
Thom James

Moon Tzu
Livia Franchini
Dan Holloway
Lucy K Shaw
John Brnlv Rogers
Tegan Christmas
Vicki Tingle
Susie Anderson
Giles Ruffer
Peter Bloxham
Joe Vaughan
Michael Scarborough
Emily Louise Church
Paige Gresty

EDIT: I have obnoxiously made a 'clip' of my 'performance' which you can watch here:

All of them were so brilliant, you should watch the Spreecast of it below. I have had to make it small to fit on the blog, but click the little speech bubble button on the top right to see the chat from the audience which is really quite funny/scary/clever/nice all the way through. (My bit is at 1:50, I think.)

Thank you to Paige and everyone for a great evening of great talented people.

BLOG POST SIX: AN EXTRACT FROM SOMETHING I AM WRITING

2012-10-17T05:38:00.005-07:00

An overweight woman gets on at the next stop with her toddler. They sit in the seats near the front.

The woman begins shouting at the toddler for some reason. She calls him a ‘fucking retard’. The woman has rows of thin teeth with too much space between them. She looks like she is made out of pale, floury dough. She has thin brown hair.

I think about shaving her head and putting her in a huge glass container of vinegar, keeping the huge container in a secret room in my flat. She will float there, fat and naked, slowly dissolving. I will occasionally tap lightly on the glass and her eyes will open and stare out at me through the murk. I will put my palm flat on the glass and feel my heartbeat slowing. We will have a ‘mutual understanding’.

Over the years she will melt to nothing, the fat will float, will set into a thick yellow layer at the top of the tank. I will pour the cloudy liquid into mugs. I will pour the woman down the kitchen sink, mug by mug. I will spread the fat on toast and hang it from a tree and learn a pagan prayer and recite it for her.

I will sell the empty vat that once contained her on ebay, it will still have the grey, slick residue of her dissolved flesh on the inside. I will list the item as GLASS CONTAINER WITH GENUINE HUMAN RESIDUE, ONE OF A KIND.

Someone will steal it from me in a Paypal scam.

Fine rain is starting to drift down, misting the bus windows.

BLOG POST FIVE: READ A FUCKING BOOK

2012-10-08T10:54:00.002-07:00

Okay, so this is another motivational poster that I did a while ago. It was designed to encourage reading and promote books as a great way to entertain yourself.

Apparently the publishing industry are worried about the new Sony Reader, Kobo and Amazon Kindle. I don’t think they should make a such a fuss, because these things are currently really shit. But I have come up with a clever strategy complete with slogan and logo to help push books to the 18-29s. See below.

Bored? Under-stimulated? Over-stimulated? Stupid? Unattractive? Insecure?

Read a fucking book!

Books can run for decades on a single charge.
Books are made from paper, not plastic which is harmful to the environment.
Reading a book makes you look ‘clever’. Watching Scrubs on your iPod probably makes you look like a tosser and not at all ‘clever’.
Holding a book makes it look like you’re on your way somewhere to read. Interesting people are often going to places to sit and read. Try these exciting free reading hot-spots; Under a tree, On a Bench, In a Cafe, leaning against a wall.
Famous contributers to books include Salman Rushdie, Jean-Paul Satre, Franz Kafka, George Orwell and God.
They are a fantastic fashion accessory. Jack Kerouac for boys, Sylvia Plath for girls! They come in hundreds of colours.

Boost your look with a book!

BLOG POST FOUR: A MOTIVATIONAL POSTER

2012-10-08T05:25:00.002-07:00

I've done a motivational poster. It's designed to help people be productive and maintain focus by removing a major distraction: sex. I drew a panda as an example/inspiration. Pandas have transcended sex, which you have to respect. If they'd also been clever enough to figure out artificial insemination they'd be a very successful species. Panda societies would be very productive and would not be pre-occupied with sex and would not have issues with sexualisation in mainstream media/socially constructed, restrictive gender narratives etc, etc. Female Pandas would probably not get harassed/shouted at in a demeaning fashion when walking the streets of Panda cities. Also, Pandas would be able to get lots of work done without fantasising about other, sexier Pandas. Panda marriages would last forever, because Pandas would not be motivated to have sex with Pandas other than the ones they have married/artificially inseminated.

Anyway, hopefully you will find this poster motivational. Remember, finish lots of tasks without daydreaming about other's vaginas/penises/breasts/legs/stomachs/feet and the sexual acts that you would like to perform.

BLOG POST THREE: MY FRIEND EMMA GETS HEAVILY DRUNK AND READS POEMS THAT HAVE BEEN SENT TO ME EPISODE ONE

2012-10-08T01:43:00.001-07:00

If you haven't seen this, it's an idea I had to do poetry readings but have a drunk person host/do the reading. Now I'm going to do more and if you want your poem done you should tweet me @ohgodohgod, but first I'm going to put the old ones up for continuity or something.

So this is Episode One, filmed on a Macbook at Emma's old house in East London. I think this one was good because she wasn't quite sure what I was aiming for with this video and we got a nice 'natural performance' from her. I think she had consumed roughly four or five cans of strong lager, which made her 'silly'. I think spirits tend to make her more 'mental'. We will continue to experiment with the formula for the next video, I think.

BLOG POST TWO: AN INTERVIEW WITH YONI FROM WHY

2012-10-06T05:52:00.002-07:00

Here's an interview - this wasn't ages ago, it was back in the middle of this Summer. I met Yoni from Why? in the lobby of The Hoxton hotel and then went to watch him perform some of the tracks from Sod in The Seed a capella at Power Lunches in Dalston . I'd not done any interviews in quite a while and there was a guy doing a documentary about him there too, so I was dimly aware of a guy to off to my right filming me. Yoni was very chill though, so it was actually quite easy. It was published on DIY.

Do you like folk music?
Yeah, I do actually, yeah. I like hearing all kinds of folk music, I think it’s this weird back catalogue of influences and you can hear it in popular music that followed so much later.

I was Googling you earlier.
You and me both, dude!

And someone had used the phrase folk-hop in reference to WHY?
I didn’t make that up! I don’t know...

What does it mean, do you think?
A mix between folk music and hip hop, I guess. If that’s what we do, I don’t think we make folk music though, really. I think we make hip-hop in some way but I don’t wanna, y’know, profess to make hip hop, throw myself into that whole arena, because it’s a cultural thing, hip-hop. I do make rap music, you can’t deny that, but hip-hop is this whole... The five elements of hip-hop, the religion of hip-hop, you know? Growing up in the 90’s. Now it’s not even like that so... whatever.

Folk music, folk-hop, hip-hop, whatever, it’s all maybe a way of describing something that straddles spoken word traditions?
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think at my most honest and unegoed, I write songs in a similar way to how those old folk people used to write songs, you know, taking your own shit that you’re thinking of. Maybe in folk they might take from a traditional rhythm or melody, there’s a lot more of just adding to things.

What about politics in music? Have you ever thought about using your lyrics to deliver a political message? Looking around at some of the political and cultural upheavals of the decade, Occupy and so on?
I think I do that in my own way, but I’m not a preacher. I think 'Sod In The Seed' has a lot of that in it, but it’s a subtle way and it’s through the bounds of my own horizons, what I can see, I’m not someone who’s going to tell people how they should live. I use humour and the poetry of it all.

So it’s more observations through the prism of your own life experiences?
Yeah, very true.

So let’s talk about this EP. Is it this like a taster of what the album is going to be or is this something that splintered off to become it’s own thing?
These are the songs that didn’t fit somehow onto the album. I put the album together first, so I don’t know what the EP makes up as a whole, know what I’m saying? I like these songs and they’re some of my favourites in a way. 'Twenty Seven' is one of my favourite songs out of all of them in a way and I like 'Shag Carpet' a whole lot but y’know, they just didn’t seem to fit with the other songs on the album.

This is a stupid question but how do you know when that happens?
It’s just a gut feeling. You can try analysing afterwards; “That one was too hopeful, the songs have a relationship and it’s weird for that one to just pop up.” But it something you can feel.

Touring is hard work, right?
Yeah.

How are you feeling about it this time around? Excitement and trepidation there?
A little bit of both, y’know. Nervous in a way, I want to make sure that I stay healthy, I’ve had all of these health problems in the past, I just want to make sure that I can do it and stay healthy and all that. But by and large I’m looking forward to it.

You did an a capella performance of some 'Sod In The Seed' material last month, can you tell me a bit about that?
Yeah, I mean I was asked if I would do a little performance and I was like, "Well my band isn’t here and these aren’t really the kind of songs that I would like to perform just piano and singing." So I said I’ll just do them a capella.

So it’s going to be a sort of beat poetry thing?
Yeah.

Are you into of any of that kind of stuff?
When I was a teenager I was into that sort of stuff more. Those aren’t my favourite poets I would say now, but certain things I liked a lot. I mean I haven’t really been to poetry at all for a while now but there was a time when I was around nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, when I was listening to poetry a lot. And that’s also when I was really starting to write a lot y’know I think it was very helpful to me to see what really good, thoughtful writers were doing and then I could have something to look up to.

Do you have literary influences?
I dunno, I don’t really read that much to be honest! The music is aural, that’s why I do it out loud and not in a book. I love listening to people read. I can read a bit. I mean, I can read! It’s hard for me to get deeply into a book without becoming distracted.

Do you get methodical about rhyme structures and things?
Yeah, I mean the rhyme structures come together in an organic way but I get pretty wrapped up in them once it’s all happening... There’s a lot of editing that goes on. General ideas come to me at random times; out walking, in the shower or something like that and then I fill things in and change and work around stuff.

You started WHY? using a basic four track, now it’s all software and midi-controllers and iPads and stuff. How do you feel about using laptops and tech like that live?
Oh, I don’t mess with that shit. I mean, I have a laptop that I use for ProTools, but not live. It’s all 2” tape. On the album it’s all organs, like old and warm sounds, we like that and then live we’ll have like Korg or something. We don’t use any samples or anything or drum machines everything’s played out there, I mean, we’re a band!

BLOG POST ONE: THIS IS A NEW BLOG

2012-10-06T04:28:00.001-07:00

Hello.

This is will now be my blog.

For a few years I did a blog at lesspermanent.com, but it seems that is over now. It started when I met Amber, who does Code For Something and she helped me to set up/host the thing. I used to post a lot of stuff on that blog, I made regular posts because somehow making regular posts seemed 'worthwhile' in some small way and/or 'fun'.

A lot of it was music writing, or stuff to do with DIY WOMP (the art/music/events group, we've now gone our separate ways) or Art and Things magazine stuff, or whatever thing I was working on, interviews and stuff, the occasional bit of fiction, songs I'd recorded, stuff that I'd done through The Line of Best Fit or whatever.

Then I a) got a full time job and b) became more focused on working on NOVEL(S) because I had not time to do other fun stuff and have a life and c) stopped doing lots of other projects and music writing so much. So I posted much less frequently. (I also started and then immediately abandoned a second 'blog novel' because I couldn't keep my ideas straight while writing the other thing. The title for this blog comes from that failed idea, but I really want to do another blog novel soon, they're really fun. (Also Steve Roggenbuck kindly did me a 'cover' for the abandoned one and I didn't properly ever use it, which makes me a little bit of a dick there.))

Anyway, then one day something happened and the whole Less Permanent.com thing was deleted forever. Which is fucked up to a certain degree, but also probably a good excuse to start afresh.

Anyway, most of the music stuff is out there somewhere on various blogs. The Art and Things interviews with artists were quite cute, and since Art and Things is now over I guess those interviews are pretty much gone forever. Unless I can be bothered to go and find one of the physical issues in all of my filing and type them up. Maybe I'll do that one day.

A lot of other shit is gone, mostly general stuff... that thing I wrote about Suit Supply being sexist that offended sexists, some of those 'funny' posters I drew up and stuff, but I think I've got those on an HD somewhere, oh and the Emma Reading Poems Drunk videos, those are out there. (I am working on convincing her to do more, but I made the mistake of letting her see the first two, I will crack her though.)

Anyway, I'm going to blog here for the next little bit of time maybe. I'm going to salvage things bit by bit, post interviews and drawings as I remember them. I've got a note on my iPhone full of shit I planned to put on a blog when I got a chance, so I'll start trying to get through that also.

Anyway, my one mission statement for this new blog will be: 'try never to make a post as rambling and boring/pointless as this one ever again.'

Which is a failure waiting to happen, I guess.