There
are many people in this world that love the sun. There are tribes in the deep
forests of south America that even today, worship the sun for its life giving
light and it's benevolent heat. Each year, millions of us climb into planes,
trains, boats and automobiles in search of a golden beach or a quiet glade so
that we may bathe in the majestic brilliance of that ball of hydrogen and assorted
molten elements that is our sun.
I’m not one of those people……I bloody hate the sun.
To look at my pale (slightly flabby) little body with its blue/grey veins huddling under a ghostly translucent skin is to behold an individual that dedicates himself to the pursuit of sun dodging and aims to raise the act to that of an art form.
I’m completely fine about that for one good reason which (like Lego) breaks down into several connected elements of logic thus;
Did you see what I did there? I slipped in a remark about making an album. How subtle was I?
Yes, I’ve released an album of music at last; 10 tracks of pure bewilderment that will sticky tape my name to the door bell below the door bell of the great rock and roll hall of fame (located in a sports centre just outside of Huddersfield).
I’d like to take you (track by track) through this album so that you may understand the sheer deluded genius that lurks within, and I hope it helps to illustrate exactly how out of step one man can be with the world at large.
Starts off with the sound of a crowd I recorded while waiting for my number to come up at the Hammersmith branch of Argos. The band was made up of my good self on guitar, bass and vocals with a guy called Mr Spazz playing the drums. Rob contributed a vital element by doubling the sound of the bass drum by throwing stale bread at a nun and sampling the impact.
The song is about what it’s like to live in the wrong part of the year (a bit like buying a pair of suede shoes and only wearing them to taunt swans).
Nice track this one. It was co-written by Rob and I in the basement flat in Lambeth that I rented from a civil servant. Mr Spazz did an excellent job of combining the original demo with the studio version and I love the way the vocal swims through the music like a cupboard partially submerged in petrol.
It’s about the depth of love that only exists between two people who truly know and trust each other enough to wear the leather attachments.
I do a lot of field recordings and this vignette was taken in an Indian Restaurant
in Idaho (USA). We had been working a lot with cult producer Yvonne Uterus and she had become obsessed with sports commentators and acronyms, the results of which are self evident.
There’s no story behind this one. I made it up. It doesn’t exist at all except in your head (which is why it sounds so good!).
Cool song this one which contains one of the best lyrics that I think Rob has ever written. It’s about a long car journey between Italy and Germany that resulted in a religious conversion for one occupant and a lesbian experience for the other.
From a musical point of view, the instruments were panned randomly all over the stereo image give it the sense of blatant incompetence which is present in so much of my work.
The longest tune on the album as it clocks in at a little under nine years. It’s separated into two movements that I shall call movement number one and movement number two (hur, hur…..).
Actually Mr Spazz did a great job on this one, it’s full of little sounds and noises that rush up to you, like a group of small children who want you to buy cigarettes for them. To refuse such innocent faces would be a crime in itself and I entreat all who listen, to sit back and imagine these audio children filling their little lungs full to overflowing with all the tar and nicotine that their tiny bodies can absorb.
Being the very personification of Mr Happy Fun Guy, I decided to write a short tune about owing money to people. The trouble with this was that I lost enthusiasm for it very quickly and simply tacked the title (which I still like) to an instrumental written of a tiny electric guitar I found in a scout hut.
I like the bit that goes dingdangdowdowww in the middle. Mr Spazz liked this one too.
Previously entitled ‘Bang Cat’. This song goes to show you just what a fab producer Mr Spazz is. Initially the basic tracks were recorded on an old slipper I used to poke poo around the U-bend of my toilet in times of great giving. Mr Spazz took the tracks I had made and passed them through a very rare sound processor called a cat. The sounds (known in the industry as ‘fireworks’) were inserted into the cat and lit with a match to produce the track we know and love.
A bunch of foetid mimsey. Don’t listen to it. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad. Hang on, actually it’s quite good. Fuck, this is brilliant!!!
My favourite track on the album. This took shape at in a basement flat in Lambeth (London) in the same room I recorded 'Crescent’ and ‘The Inaccurate Man’ although without the slipper. I nicked a sample from possibly the most famous song of all time and warped it in my computer to produce a sound that was so unusable I had to use another sample from one of my own songs instead. Such is the creative process.
I like the way it descends into a sort of flappy goo at the end which kind of sums up my attitude to song writing. Make sure that you keep all of your hopes and fears buried deep inside of you, and when you think you can’t take this terrible hollow existence a moment longer, kill your workmates and let a police marksman deal with you.
Sorry, that didn’t have much to do with flappy goo after all.
Anyway, enjoy the album. If you liked it half as much as I did, you will have liked it twice as much as my mum.
Bitch.
I remain, indecent.
Simon Walsh.