Jim Bob session

Just got out of the Earth Terminal studio with Jim, although it was a shorter session than previous ones – we didn’t mix or even finish vocals, just slammed down multi-layered backing tracks for seven songs and they sound amazingly lush.

I can’t really tell you anything about the theme, style or anything, because it’s not my story to tell – but it’s the third Jim Bob album I’ve been involved in and definitely the best yet. It’s light-of-touch because Jim wrote these tunes fast, while concentrating on something else (writing the script for his story, which has been optioned by a Hollywood production company). It’s also black-as-treacle… but that’s a judgement on unfinished stuff.

Johny came along for the ride and brought crazy instruments with him. We jammed out chunks live, rehearsing the evening before each day, which is a departure for Jim’s stuff. Also, although we’ve been gigging together for almost a year, I haven’t been in a studio environment with Johny before and it was great, he’s got a similar constant musicality to Tim Victor which I should’ve noticed before but didn’t.

Another highlight of being in the studio with Jim is Mr Spoons’ high class catering. Johny is a pro chef but that didn’t cramp Spoons’ wong – he did seriously gorgeous mushroom wellington, squash soup and a blinding veggie curry. But more importantly, he made sticky toffee pudding with dates that was psychedelically intense. Because I’m “cutting down” (whatever the fuck that means), I ate one portion slowly – but when you eat slower, less is more.

The trip kicked my own demos up the bum and I’m rattling along at a decent pace now, will have enough tunes to hand in a disc to management before we head off on tour. I’ve also worked out what this year’s Christmas (free homemade) EP is going to be: A.A. Milne. 

A big personal prop to Sarge and Jane because Sarge is taking 3 weeks off to go campaign for Obama in Nevada and (I assume) he’s only able to do it because Jane is keeping everything else going. And when I say ‘campaign’ I really mean it – he’s working his arse off knocking on doors, canvassing and fighting the good fight in a vital swing state. The US elections seem enormous, showy and impersonal. But really, the importance of swing states means it often comes down to a few thousand votes in certain areas. The work Sarge does in Vegas and surrounding towns will make a real difference.

autumn clean… like spring clean but in autumn

Home started returning to normal yesterday, after damp-proofing and re-decorating madness – that turned downstairs into a dusty bombsite for three weeks – was done with. I was able to clean all the living room furniture and move it back where it should be and had an amateurish go at really scrubbing the kitchen. Best of all, I took the books and shelving units and piles of other stuff out of the bedroom, which suddenly feels enormous.

There’s a lot still to do, especially rewiring our audio set-up but on the whole it’s lush. Which scarily means it really is time to clear out the attic – and perhaps learn about eBay for piles of old crap unwanted book’n'music gems.

We’re rehearsing tonight for This Ain’t No Picnic tomorrow. I think KCLSU is my favourite London venue – the room rocks without being divey, the sound kicks it out, facilities are decent and you can look out over the Thames while you soundcheck. Plus we’re sandwiched like a minced beef pattie between two stridently enscarpmented live bands, Bearsuit and Future Of The Left. Might be worth using our AAAs to go back Sunday as well, because the whole bill rocks.

some pain, some jim and some scam

“Dead” redirects here. For other uses, see Dead (disambiguation).
For other uses, see Death (disambiguation)

I hurt: heartburn all night and I was surely dying. Earlier, decorators left windows open and – late evening – eight big flies buzzed around, trying to escape. I imagined Death had floated in. So when I woke with chest pain at 4am, I knew He was waiting (ooh hooh!) I knew He was waiting for me.

Jim sent demos. He’s been writing scripts yet still knocks out the finest new songs I’ve heard this year, in a couple of wet afternoons. So dark though. Jim made me think of Death, maybe it was his fault.

Either you buy shares or you don’t. People who do gamble for profit, that’s the point. But now, with gamblers losing money, the US government will nationalise that loss with tax dollars. Everyone who didn’t buy shares in the first place still funds the bail out of those who did. Simple and sick: a swindle of epic proportions. The American government has made me think of Death for years.

Bankrupt

I put my money in a bank account
I put my money in a bank account
I put my money in a bank account
But the bank fell down and the money’s never coming back out

I save my money for when I get old
I save my money for when I get old
I save my money for when I get old
But the boss stole the money and I was never told
And I can’t pay the bills and it’s getting cold

Ghosts in the machine
Numbers on a screen
Lying by omission
about cash you’ve never seen, you’ll never see

Put your money underneath your bed
Put your money underneath your bed
If everybody put their money underneath their beds
That’s that: revolution and no bloodshed

Ghosts in the machine
Numbers on a screen
Lying by omission
about cash you’ve never seen, you’ll never see

the fetishisation of words, in all their glory

We’ve got damp-proofers in tomorrow, to replace our out-of-date coursing along the front of the house. This means clearing all our shite out of the living room, which turns out to be mostly books. I hate books, especially thousands of them, when you have to carry them up to the attic and they’re dusty and you sneeze on the stairs and the 40 books you’ve got piled up in your arms go flying everywhere. Little fucktards, books.

On the way to Moseley Folk Festival, I helped Ben (drummer) move house from Brighton to West London and, while loading up the car, discovered he’s published a book of poems. It’s excellent and extremely complex stuff, that I’m having to work hard to get my head around. I’m trying to persuade him to sell it on the merch stall in October – how cool, the drummer’s poetry book!? Best of all, it’s a small book and doesn’t weigh much when carried between rooms.

An amusing thing happened to my Morning Star column this week, where they’ve slightly edited one of my favourite sentences.

What I wrote:
Face it: cocaine is everywhere. It’s at the BBC, in Parliament, the police force is full of it, it’s in all the media companies, most bog standard offices and I’d be massively surprised if there’s not a fair wodge floating around the Morning Star HQ right now.   

What they’ve published: 
Face it, cocaine is everywhere. It’s at the BBC, the police force is full of it, it’s in all the media companies and most bog-standard offices and I’d be massively surprised if there’s not a fair wodge floating around in Parliament right now.

lol – understandable really!

I’m going to have to write a big bad Billy Bragg blog (say that fast 5 times) – or possibly Morning Star piece – in the next couple of weeks and find a way of confronting an old issue face on: although it’s almost three years since 9 Red Songs came out, this week I got yet another pair of nasty emails from rabid Bragg fans, still harking on about (and still totally misunderstanding) the line about him in my song ‘Preaching To The Converted‘. And literally on the same day last week, a Myspace friend sent me a Youtube link to the Imagined Village roots supergroup’s updated version of ‘Hard Times Of Old England‘, where the lyrics seem so close that they could well have been directly inspired by ‘Huntsman‘. Anyway, this sort of stuff (the aggressive emails I mean) does my head in and needs a new considered response, so I’ll have a think and get something down. 

At Moseley Folk, I clocked Martin Carthy, nosing through vinyl on his own at a record stall – so he must’ve been on site for my performance of ‘Huntsman’ only 20 minutes before. I wish I’d had the guts to go up and say hello, partly to shake his hand and say how staggeringly wonderful Signs Of Life is but also partly to ask whether ‘Huntsman’ came up when they were developing ‘Old England’. I bottled it, sadly, because I was hanging with friends, drinking coffee and eating a messy falafel. But it would be fascinating to know if they acknowledge or are even aware of the song.

The Lizards, The Scientologist and Marc Riley

Me and Tom White jump in the Electric Soft Parade van (a well customised and lived-in Merc sprinter that steers like a dream compared to the last one I drove) and head north for the first leg of our co-headline tour. I’m increasingly secure driving these beasts and after the last blog entry, I’ve started planning a coffee-table picture book of tour splitters and their bands. Awesome idea, Chris.

Before leaving town we scoot across to Metway Studio, where Tom’s brother Alex is demoing with The Pipettes, to drop him off a spare guitar. Chatting outside the van on a sunny Brighton morning, suddenly a lizard runs along the pavement. It’s about 3 inches long.

We get to York in reasonable time but then the Satnav (she’s called Madame Swish) lets us down (that’s twice so far) and it takes 40 minutes to find the venue. They’re nice about it though – lucky we’re acoustic or there’d've been no chance of getting checked. I forgoe a soundcheck, so my set is entirely acoustic, but it goes well and I enjoy myself more than expected.

Tom reprises his monumental Nina Simone cover, which took the room apart in south London a couple of days before, in a venue that didn’t deserve us.

In the evening Charlie phones to tell me a funny story: walking with his daughter, they spotted a lizard in the street. I can’t believe it, it’s a 2 lizard trip.

After York, we’re hosted by Sam and his friends, who’ve just finished college. It’s a household of musicmakers and fans, yet it’s spotless and comfortable – which is rare – and you can feel a slight air of sadness that they’re about to go separate ways. 

The next morning, eating breakfast in a café, we’re leaning into a conversation about appalling religions and obviously Scientology comes up, thinking about that poor kid who is being taken apart by The Met for waving a banner at a protest that used the word ‘cult’ with reference to Hubbard’s Hoons. Suddenly the middle-aged woman on the adjacent table introduces herself with a broad smile – she runs York Scientology Centre. Cripes! She launches into a broad defence of her ‘faith’ that within one minute is becoming a brazen attempt to recruit. That took balls, it must be said. Well, either balls or the funneled focus of unquestioning faith. She’s full of holes but friendly and (I think) sincere. Her starting point plays down the religious side almost entirely – describing instead a benign business networking opportunity and a chance to self-improve. Quickly though, she openly accepts some of the looming tenets I find most disturbing, while determinedly dressing them up as positive spirituality.

Interestingly, despite running a centre in a town, she is still a volunteer and not doing her OT levels (or whatever they’re called) yet – so one gets a real feel for how deep members have to go before they start to gain any ‘intuition’. No answers, anyway.

I’m not going to call her the 3rd lizard of the trip because that would be mean (!)… But the whole time we were talking (which must have been at least 30 minutes), her companion – an unsmiling younger man – sat silent and still, not reading or even looking around curiously, waiting for her to finish, seemingly eternally patient. If you told me he hadn’t blinked I wouldn’t have been surprised. Or that he can re-grow his leg if you bite it off.

We say goodbye and drive to Manchester. Matt Thwaites’ band Restlesslist are doing Marc Riley’s show on BBC6Music this evening and Tom is drumming. On the way, we do a quick stop-off at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where a young sheep escapes and has to be harried back through an open gate by punters. Then we rumble over the Pennines and park up at the Beeb, where we head for the bar.

Restlesslist are storming, doing complex, instrumental psyche prog-pop (spacerock?). Bloody ace – and it’s nice to meet Marc. Refreshing to see a DJ at that level actually playing entirely from CDs (and some bloody brilliant ones to boot) and just wanting to talk music, not bollocks.

And when that’s done we’ve got to make it to Glasgow for midnight…

 

this is what you get

This morning it sounds increasingly like they’ve rolled out of the suburbs and taken back the London Mayoralcy from Red Ken, placing it in the unsavoury inky-pinky hands of Boris. Yup, he’s a funny guy – probably fantastic company over a scotch or a line of charlie – but would you really leave him in charge of your house and/or kids for a week while you went on holiday? Simply, no fucking way. Some prime Boris for ya…

“That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me.”

“Labour’s appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools, and all the rest of it.”

“The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers… scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.”

“I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed so it didn’t go up my nose. In fact, it may have been icing sugar.”

“Both the minimum wage and the Social Charter would palpably destroy jobs.”

Finished watching The Wire yesterday, got through the final ever episode and then dived straight back into earlier episodes of Season 5 because Rifa hasn’t seen most of it. Like only the very best TV, it’s just as good the second time around. Without spoiling anything, the climactic few episodes are almost impossibly moving. Even as they wind down, they’re not pulling punches.

Most of my new songs are really upbeat. I wonder how the next record will end up sounding, since all the demos sound so psychotically positive (and acid-fried) compared to everything on Capital. Three animal songs already down and there’s a whole bunch of lovey dovey stuff as well, most of which will inevitably get rejected for sheer sickliness. Probably just relieved because I won’t have to live in London-Under-Boris.

tour diary #4 – white light white heat

I’m back on the road unexpectedly: a few days ago Frank Turner’s keyboard player Ciara had to quit his tour just before the end, to go join The Kooks, so now I’m filling in on piano and organ and doing unannounced opening slots as well, which is a total blast so far.

I’ve always switched over when the Kooks come on the radio, til the other day some highbrow critic (I think it was on Radio 4) said they had one of the best young lead guitarists around, on a par with Johnny Marr or Bernard Butler. Since then, whenever their songs come on, I have to stick it out and listen properly to figure out if he’s right. And it turns out, even if namechecking Marr is overstating it a bit, the guy has a point: whoever plays lead in that band does work in some shit-hot creative bits’n’bobs. It’s just you have to endure that glottal scenester warble (and the worst lyrics outside Scouting For Girls) to get to it. But I’m listening now, god help me.

Last night we played Cambridge Barfly. It was rammed and holy chaos. I knew it was going to be a toughie when the wifi only worked in the room with no power points. When we get there, there’s a bunch of local supports advertised but Frank’s tour is a full-up bill. We’re reassured there’ll only be one local opener but in fact this is two singer-songwriters sharing the stage and alternating songs! (They’d never met!) Meanwhile a third Cambridge act is bumped but plays a storming set out on some grass near the venue, earning big props from Frank later on.

Back inside, they have one fiery white light aimed at the stage and no aircon. It’s so fierce it smells of burning flesh and pretty quickly (like, when I’m still doing my solo set) the place is too hot to exist in. Frank gets less than a third into the set before we’re begging to get this light switched off – but there doesn’t appear to be a lighting person, so tour staff have to fuck with the lights til they manage to swivel it sideways. We’re also having piles of technical problems, battling sulking DI boxes and wet leads. Luckily none of this shite affects the soul of the gig, which is outstanding.

A funny thing – remarkably similar to playing with Jim Bob despite the big differences in style – because of the addictive nature of Turner’s massive singalong choruses, his and the (devoted) crowd’s shared vibe transcends the actual musicality of the show a bit. Not that the band isn’t bloody great – they’re (we’re!) absolutely blinding players. But (far more than my own band shows I reckon, where the rockout is more internalised and confrontational) tonight we’re clearly slaves to a higher connection. We’re a backing band in the classic sense, I think. It has the same energy as when Jim hits full stride on Touchy Feely or Mrs McMurphy and it’s hugely freeing of responsibility. Hmm, that’s poncey.

I wonder how far along that road I’d be, if I’d had the courage years ago, early on, to develop the chorus-and-party-fried vibe of material like ‘Bubble’, ‘Flirty’, ‘Injured Popstars’ or ‘Sellotape’, instead of trying to move into (perhaps fallacious) ‘artier’ territory. So this is what Turner does when I spend time in the company of his songs: reminds me how ridiculous I am, instead of simply entertaining and connecting with people. Ha! Never mind. I swear I’m not down about it, the opposite in fact.

It’s Evan’s stag tonight – sending you all the drug-addled love in the world.

xxx

In The Dressing Room

thinking about touring and not touring…

In The Dressing Room

Let me sit alone this evening
I’m going back to the dressing room
Try to figure out how I’m feeling
About the things we were planning to do
10 years gone and I’ve stopped believing
That the music is all I need
But I can still talk to the audience
Better than anyone close to me.
Are you even close to me?

Lights up, hats on, playing on the BBC
(the best one, the best one)
Lights out, hats off, sounding like a hit to me…
(the best one, the best one, the best one)

From the start, you were in a different league
You’re beautiful and you’re brave
You don’t deserve to be betrayed
But it would be easy to walk away
After 5 years working in the same place
Coming on the same face
Sticking it in, sticking it out, shake it about
Never really much of a love affair
But you weren’t there, there’s nothing for you to say
It’s none of your business anyway

Tits out, shoulders back, everything’ll be OK
(the best one, the best one)
Lights up, hats on, same thing day after day
(the best one, the best one, the best one)
Lights out, hats off, travelling alone again
(the best one, the best one, the best one)

Lights up, hats on, putting on a show tonight
(the best one, the best one)
Tits out, shoulders back, everything’ll be alright
(the best one, the best one, the best one)
The truth is the best song anyone can ever write
(the best one, the best one, the best one)

from the ‘This Gun Is Not A Gun EP’