"
...only to be rediscovered some years hence and acclaimed as a flawed
but magnificent work of genius long after I have succumbed to a tragic,
unrecognised and untimely death."
The Scaremongers
The Scaremongers on MySpace. And may I give the heartiest shout-out to Bev, Wigan's finest, and I suppose Jon, who she drags along behind her! Smithylad Permalink/Comment
29-Jul-2007
The Scaremongers are Go!
Armitage and Smith, aka The Scaremongers, the team of choice for all mature pop fans, the poster boys for middle-aged songwriting, the hottest under-the-song-title brackets in the pre-Sage category, have emerged from the studio with pop music manna in their paws. As Frank O'Hara would have it, You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) and Nodding Dog are sheer gravy! Some day soon, the songs will be committed to compact disc, that technological marvel that recently took over from the wax cylinder and shellac, so you too can purchase a copy to complete your musical archive, but in the meantime, should you want to sample the songs - and I strongly urge you that you should! - you can whizz across to The Scaremongers on MySpace and give them a whirl right now! Yes, that's right, The Scaremongers have put their songs online for your listening pleasure! And not the crappy lame versions you might have heard previously, these are new and improved, shiny and potent, tweaked, honed and polished! Music at it's best - they wouldn't give you anything less!
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03-Jun-2007
First Post in Donkey's Years
I've had a hectic start to the year, and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down. I haven't been doing a great deal of writing because I've been putting a lot of time into my work. My job description changed, so beside being a Sales Monkey for three days a week, I'm a Web Editor for two. This is the first time I've not been employed wholly as a Sales Person since 1992. The blog I'm editing is called O'ReillyGMT, and it covers the tech industry in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, (which I learned last night is abbreviated to EMEA by those in the know). We also launched a spin-off blog called Scenius, which covers similar topic and geographic area but goes quite a bit deeper. Thoroughly enjoying both, and as I seem to be the one writing most of the posts, it lets me hone my writing skills.
The one creative thing I've been doing outside work involves putting a band together with Simon Armitage. We're called The Scaremongers. We've got a studio booked to record a single, which hopefully will be the first of many. Simon and I were kind of in a band in the mid-80's that never really got off the ground, so to some extent this new band is the old band dragged out of moth balls. We've got a couple of songs lined up to record, the demos of which can be heard at:
Little Brother Glen and Rue Bella Publisher Geoff have volunteered to come into the studio with us, so it should be a good laugh if nothing else. Having said that, I'm pretty confident we can come out this with a cracking single on our hands.
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20-Jan-2007
You're Not The Only One
I wrote You're Not The Only One many, many moons ago while I was scratting about at Manchester Poly ostensibly working toward my degree but spending more time with my guitar than was healthy. I soon got to thinking it was rubbish, silly and stupidly pessimistic, and during a big purge of everything else I'd written that I thought was rubbish, I chucked the lyrics away. I'm not someone who dreads the future, I'm actually quite hopeful. But the melody kept on at me, and one evening in a hotel room in Glasgow, I drafted up an approximation of what the words had been and chucked them down on paper. Tracking back all those years to that Stakis hotel in Glasgow City Centre, I decided it was a nice enough song with pleasant enough character, and I learned to live with it. And if it was pessimistic, it was also abundantly clear that it wasn't taking itself too seriously. (Let this be a lesson to all you artists out there - you're the worst critic of your own work that you'll ever come across!) The recording here was done in Finsbury Park in Nov/Dec 2005 at Chris Vacca's flat with just him and me in attendence:
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09-Jan-2007
Rough is the Word
Yet another song from the hit factory that is my front room! Something On My Mind:
And The Non-Hits Keep A-Coming
Another rough mix of today, Dripping Tap (I've changed the name of the songs since I did the recording):Unlike most songs I've written, I can remember exactly where I was when I wrote it. I was in Bradford staying with my sister and my brother-in-law for a week while I was recovering from a broken leg in 1991. Brother-in-law Richard was out at work, or college it might have been then, and Sister Karen and I were dossing about the house watching films. We'd just watched Big Easy, which isn't that great a film but has great music. Karen had dived out for some biscuits, and I promised to write her a song on her return, which would be about ten minutes after she left, and I delivered. (Lieber and Stoller have nothing on me, promptnesswise!) The tap in the kitchen was indeed dripping, and the wind in the chimney was indeed swirling. I wrote it on a guitar she bought to play in a school folk group called Fiesta Folk. I recorded this version of the song while at my wife's family in Glasgow for Christmas. I'd got a Tascam 788 with my Christmas money, and the first chance I had to use it was over the Christmas break. The guitar was a beautiful old thing that my wife's dad had owned for ages, back when he was in a Beat Group in the sixties. I recorded take after take sat on the bed while my wife and her mum were out shopping. When they got back, I played the song for them. Funnily enough, I'd forgotten most of this stuff till I came to write these notes about the song.
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By The Time (We Say Goodnight)
I got around to doing some music finally, working on some of the recordings that I put together last year with Chris Moo N' Duck and Michael Gramatopolous. I did a rough mix of a song called By The Time (We Say Goodnight):
I'm not a producer or a very good mixer, so the version here is OK without being brilliant. I'll get the files to Chris and ask him to do a proper mix some time soon.
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05-Nov-2006
Hyde Park Irregulars - Raw Footage
Last week, a bunch of pals and I made a short football film in Hyde Park, Hyde Park Irregulars. I promised the actors/pals that I would put the raw footage online for them to see, (as I think they'll get more pleasure from this than from the finished film, which is going to take at least a couple of months to edit).
So, here it is. Be warned, the footage is about 330MB, I repeat 330MB, so if you going to download it, be aware that it will take some time and use up some bandwidth, and the way it's set up (and I don't know how to undo this) it started downloading as soon as you clicked onto this web page, so if you don't want to see it, press 'Stop' in your browser toolbar right now.
Jalopies
I'd been meaning to write-up my handwritten material that finishes off the first draft of Jalopies, and that's what I did this weekend. Similarly, I wrote up my notes for Mr Pritani, my corrections for Wizki Fights For His Mother's Love, and much text for the Legendary Hard Man. I'd be continuing in this vein if my wife wasn't hogging the computer. Bad wife! All ths stuff was written on my knee on the train or on the tube, or in fact on the Eurostar. It's a good way of squeezing in as much as possible while I'm travelling around, when I'd only be reading, daydreaming or, heaven forbid, working. The downside is I loathe writing it all up afterward, which is why it gets left for week on end. I don't take the chance to edit while I'm writing up the notes as a) it would take longer and I want to get it over and done with as quick as possible and b) I think it's too hard to understand the feel of a passage when I'm concentrating on my typing, so I'm not equipped at that juncture to make changes. Which is a shame when I'm spending all that time pouring over it.
Other things I've been working on over the last couple of days: A version of A Quick Word rendered in LiveType, the titling software that came with Final Cut Express. I'm going to use a different type face and effect for every stanza, (all the while aware that it could get tedious if I'm not careful) with the poem read in voice-over over the top. Editing down some footage of my wife's family as practice at Final Cut Express for when I film a script. The take-aways I will take away from this exercise are you're not going to get good images unless the people you're pointing the camera at want to be included. And its so much easier to start editing if you have the footage marked with what you've filmed. But the wide-angle lens I bought for just this purpose is glorious. and I need to be careful what I shoot if I don't have my tripod with me. I also put up a couple of pictures that my friend and artist Lyndon Hayes, which we are very proud to own.
Hyde Park Irregulars - Script
I've spent a bit of time today working on the script for Hyde Park Irregulars. I reckon it's about 15 minutes long, maybe 20, with a cast of 11. And I reckon I can film it in a day if I get enough friends to co-operate. I've got nice friends, I think they'll help. I need to shoot it sometime in September or early October. Any later and it'll go dark too soon and we won't be able to get it all done. I've picked up all the equipment I need to make it work, except for two spare batteries for my camcorder. Other than that, everything is in place. I can do this!
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13-Aug-2006
Hyde Park Irregulars
Somehow or other, I've become a little bowled over by the films of Robert Rodriguez. I've forgotten how this came about - I think it was in tandem with my growing commitment to my embryonic Under the Canopy web site. Under the Canopy is my platform to champion the grass roots creative activity of various friends of mine, who are plugging away writing, painting, acting etc. It stuck me that there are plenty of successful precedents for what we are all trying to do, and I thought it would make sense to include articles about individuals who have found a way to make money through their own creativity, and Robert Rodriguez was one such individual who started at ground level, as we all are, yet through talent, invention and hard work got to make the films he wanted to make on his own terms. It re-ignited my interest in doing something with Bestest Friends, which is a screenplay I wrote a couple of years ago. I liked it at the time, knowing as I did that I could make it with the help of six friends and a videocamera. But I got bogged down with it, and as yet, the film hasn't been made. The problem was the script wasn't tight enough but I didn't know what to do about it, I was going edit on my Powerbook, which isn't really powerful enough to do it justice, I did a short piece and realised that if I was the lead actor, (which I was for convenience sake) then I was going to have to learn page after page of lines, and I really didn't have the time to do it. Plus, there were issues about how I was going to record the sound etc, I need to make it in summer because I can't afford lighting. Lots of problems which all were summountable, if I had enough time and energy, but I never felt I did, so I let it drift. However, having read how the boy Rodriguez did it, I'm somewhat more fired up to take some of those problems on. For a start, I bought a nice camcorder with my birthday money last year, which obviously records sound, so that removes the issues of what to do about sound. Digital processing can make up, to some extent, for the lack of light, were I to film it at any other time of year, added to which I think I could mock up a couple of cheap prectical lights, at 250 watts, which would do the trick if we get them up close to the actors. I could get someone else to play the lead, giving an opportunity to one of my actor friends in the process, which would make life easier, even if it was harder to arrange to get together when I would need to organise 3 people for each act, not two, (myself behind the camera, the two prinicpal actors). And as for the script, I need to cut chunk out of it, get it down to just over an hour, including music. Suddenly, it's manageable.
But before I do all that I'm going to try everything out on a short script I have, called Hyde Park Irregulars. The cast will be a bunch of lads I play football with, called the Hyde Park Irregulars, split into two teams, the red team and the blue team. The bulk of the film is footage of them playing football , with their thoughts as they play in voice-over. Just normal guys playing football with some of their feelings and opinions blown-up slightly to make them funny. The script is about eleven pages long and contains 54 lines of voice-over and 53 lines of dialogue, with some improvised stuff at the beginning. It contains three acts - getting ready to play, the game, packing up - plus a tiny epilogue after the credits. And I reckon I have six hours in which to film it if I can get my pals together one Sunday in September before a) they get bored, b) the light fails or c) they get called home for the evening by their girlfriends. I want to get all the voice-over material recorded the same day while everyone is there, as I am sure there will be background noises that I can pick up in the park which will be vital to making the film seem real. While there 54 lines of voice-over, it will be easier to take each player aside and get them to deliver their bunch of lines, and then to hack them apart later on. So, eleven actors, approximately 5 lines each, (though some of the lines are part of a block of dialogue which can be recorded all at once), ten minutes each. The opening sequence contains improvised dialogue as the lads put on their football kit, and I want to make sure I don't film anyone's mouth moving, so I don't have to worry about syncing sound to film over those bits, and which means I can film it real time, so this should take just fifteen minutes, give or take. There will be a tracking shot of someone turning up late, shot from both the perspective of the late-comer and the guys watching him, which will take fifteen minutes to shoot. The game itself is going to be tricky to make look real, so what I want to do is let te lads have a proper game and for me to get in among them shooting from waist height, gettign tackle, passes, dribbling, goals, saves etc. This can then be used as stock footage to fill in the gaps between the dialogue. To go over the voice-overs, I want to close up of the individual player, to whom the camera will approch, possibly in slow motion, with cut-aways to the person they are thinking about. I need two or three of these per person, but it should be easy to film each one, so three minutes per player, which makes it about half an hour for the lot. They can read their lines from a script because they won't be on screen when they say it, so they won't have remember any dialogue, which is important. I'm aware I could easily test the patience of my pals if I'm not careful, so I need to work quickly and not keep them hanging around doing nothing. The fact that they can play football among themselves between takes should at least occupy them enough to let me get on with what I need to do, without me worrying whether they are getting tetchy or not. I have some set pieces I want to film, which will trigger dialogue, and these could be quite time consuming. It would include particular players running with the ball, interplay between two or more specific players, corners where I need certain players to do certain things, actually dialogue where the players are seen to say their lines out loud etc. So this might be the trickiest bit to shoot, but also the most fun. I reckon a couple of hours to film this. The final sequence, as the players gather their kit and make their way off the park, will be the only sustained time when I have to make sure they are both in camera and audible. I haven't quite figured how to do this yet, other than maybe have them in a long line, and go down, swapping camera angles to keep the film moving quickly. The vital bit is the audio, so maybe I'll sneak a clip-on mic onto their person. Or maybe a quick establishing shot of who is talking and then quick close-ups for the dialogue, with the clip-on just out of sight. I could feed them their lines before starting the camera, so they don't have to learn any dialogue. Yep, I think that should work best. I think this might take an hour to film. All the action will be filmed with a hand held camera, (though I've got a tripod I can use if I choose to) and I'll make sure I have plenty of alternative angles so no one shot is vital, which means I can snap away freely. I have three shots of someone on the sideline watching the game, plus his dialogue to record. As I thought I might play this character, then a) I need someone to hold the camera while I'm acting and b) I could conceiveably record it on a different day. But if I can it on the day, with the players in the background, all the better. Quarter of an hour. And I have a couple of shots of an open book to film, but I could do that at home with the a tripod and the camera's remote controller. I need to be sure of what order to work in: Getting ready, while they still look clean and fresh. Late comer, before they are all changed into their kit. One set piece, where the latecomer stands in goal while getting ready, and misses a goal because his trousers are round is ankles. Game stock footage while they are still energetic. Dialogue once they've run aound a bit, so they sound out of breath: let the other lads play football in the background to keep themselves amused. Call each indivual over to record their own lines as needed. Set pieces - once they've played for a little while, with their knees muddy etc. Man on sidelines. Closing scene, when they're all knackered, and when the sun is going down to add to the feel of time passing. I also need to think whether there are specific sound I need to record, like loads of incidents of footballs being kicked, people running into each other, people falling on the floor. Ambient sounds should be picked up by the camera.
Which should do the trick. I reckon that comes to about four and a half hours, which should be plenty if I work quickly. My pal Neil Fraser said he'd help out, particularly when recording the dialogue. Other things I might need a hand with is having people carry me around for steady tracking shots. Again, this might be a way to keep my pals involved when things are a bit slow.
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04-Aug-2006
Eyes Bigger Than My Belly
Who would have thought, eh! I've got far too many projects on the go, for once. Jalopy is firmly put down for the time being, which has freed me up to do loads of other things. Big Screenplay - I've got an idea for a Feature Film that I'm juggling with, scribbling down plot devices, characters etc. The story at its simplest is a guy who wakes up one morning to be told he is the last decendant of the last King of England before the Romans turned up. An archaeologist has just dug up documents that point to his heritage, which means he is, arguably the real King of England. It will probably never get made, though I reckon it's a good idea that would make a fine film for some lucky young film company. I have shyed away from writing screenplays lately, mainly because I know they'll never get made, and a screenplay is not in itself a finished item, it's just a guideline toward making a film. But I can't think how to piece this idea together except as a screenplay, and I like this idea enough to spend a bit of time on it. Small Screenplay - Came up with an idea yesterday for a short ten minute film based around five a-side football. The idea came to me on the train home from the office, and by the time I got home, I'd got the bulk of it down. (I sneaked off the train at Clapham Junction to spend an hour in Cafe Nero in order to keep my train of thought going). I've got plans in my head to make this as a) a comic strip and b) to make the actual film. I might need a hand from a few of my pals, both to appear in it and to film it, but I think between us we can actually do it. I'll post the screenplay online as soon as I've edited it. There was something else I've been working on but I can't remember what it is, so I'll save that gem for another day. Not quite sure which project is going to take precedent yet. You'll be the first to know.
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20-Jul-2006
Jalopy
The first draft of my second novel, Jalopy, is done. There's still loads of work to do on it, - jottings in a notebook to write up on the computer, loads of ideas to add and tons and tons of re-writing to do - but for the time being, I'm finished with it. (I finished it in France, as it happens, just as we entered the tunnel on the EuroStar. On my birthday). It means I can get on with something else for a while, which is refreshing for a project-jumping chump like me. I can let my mind wander onto other work. At some point at a later date, I'll come back to Jalopy in order to re-draft it and try to kick it into a cogent story-line and a consistent voice, hopefully with a fresh perspective with which I can see what needs doing to make it believable. It works for me, to commit to one project until I get it to a certain stage, at which point I can put it down and turn my attention to a different project. I've no idea what else I'm going to get on with - music, Wizki Tales, whatever - but I think even if I wanted to work on Jalopy, I couldn't. I'm over-faced with it. I've done well to see it through to first draft, and I'd much rather turn my attention to something else than go back to it just yet. I'll give myself a couple of weeks before I decide what else to do. In the meantime, I'm interviewing Lyndon Hayes for Conversations Under the Canopy which will take up a bit of time, but for the time being I'm going to enjoy the sense of achievement I have for finishing Jalopy. I'll worry about whether it's worth something later on, for now I'm just pleased with the donkey work I put in.
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13-Jun-2006
Photos from Super-8 Launch
Somewhat late, four photos from the launch of Super-8 on the O'Reilly stand at London Book Fair, 2005.
"Unsigned copies are worth more because they're rarer!"
Upstaged by the Fi
In such a public place, I'm glad to see that I'm not writing with my tongue out.
Thanks to Graham Cameron for letting us launch our books on the O'Reilly stand. Much appreciated.
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11-Jun-2006
Conversation with Paul Hansbury
Paul Hansbury is the second person who agreed to sit through an interview with me. Paul is a writer from South London. He's been writing since he was a kid: novelist, short story writer, poet, exhibiting a dedication to his craft that is admirable. I'll post a few pieces of Paul's writing to give you a flavour of his unmistakable canon, in the meantime, take in his inestimable words of wisdom in this groundbreaking interview. (A couple of words about the file: it's about 38Mb, which is a little large - I need to figure out how to get these mp3s down to about quarter of the size. And I set the gain a bit high, and there's the odd moment of crackling when the signal got too much for my audio device, for which I apologise. I'll get it right next time!)
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10-Jun-2006
2nd Interview Coming Right Up
The next interview in the series 'Conversations Under The Canopy' is coming soon, and will feature the up and coming starlet author Paul Hansbury. Keep tuned for further details!
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03-Jun-2006
Jalopies in a Yard
I'm 7/8th of the way through writing the first draft of my second novel, which is called, for the time being, Jalopies in a Yard. It's a first person monologue, recited by William Teacher, who was one of the characters in Super-8, (where he was predominently known by his nickname, Teach). He's driving from London to Aberdeen and as he drives he tells his life story through the medium of the cars that he, his family and his friends have owned. The story is narrated to his passenger, from whom we never hear. Hopefully I'll finish this draft by the middle of June, World Cup permitting. I have taken time off work this week to go through all the notes I had made, and through the moleskine notebook that was half full of prose I'd scribbled in coffee shops and on trains etc. It's starting to take shape, and while I have a few questions that need to be resolved, I'm pretty pleased with it. Once this draft is done, I'll let it sit for a while, so I can come back to it with fresh eyes, which also means I can get on with other things. I've had a lot of feedback from my friends about this working title, and frankly no one seems to like it. I thought it had a Confederacy of Dunces kind of vibe to it, but that seems lost on everyone. Never mind. I'll worry about it later, once I've given it a read through in a few months time.
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13-May-2006
Interview with Tracey Sinclair
Tracey Sinclair is a fantastic writer from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Her two books to date are the novel, Doll, and the short story collection, No Love Is This, both marvellous examples of the written word. Tracey kindly agreed to be the first interviewee in the Creative Interview series. She's eloquent, astute and witty, and she knows how to write.
Creative Interviews
I have many, many friends who are struggling artists, writers, actors, musicians etc. Each and every one of them has talent to spare, and each and every one of them has strived to make a career of what they do in the face of the incredible odds against them. They have set themselves to their task with ability, humour and good grace, and are bound by enough self-belief to ensure they never give in, that they are still working at their craft despite all the adversity facing them. And, equally as important, they have never sold out. They are principled, intelligent, witty people with vitality and integrity, and they all deserve their break.
Every time we meet up, I get the latest update on how their career is progressing. I love talking about this stuff, and it speaks to my own work and reasons for writing: I am one of these people, and it's great to get some feedback as to why we all do it.
One thing that makes the possibility of a glorious break more remote for them is that they are all invariably terrible self-publicists, (me worse than any of them, and I'm in Sales!). Behind closed doors, I am sure, they are convinced of their own genius, but out in the real world, not one of them knows how to sell themselves. I like the fact that they are not arrogant, gauche or self-centred, otherwise I couldn't be bothered being friends with them, but at the same time I despair that they won't make it unless they learn to shout about themselves a little more. They need an advocate, someone to champion their cause, a manager or agent or someone who believes in them and will help them to get out there before the general public, to let them continue being the shy and affable good guy while at the same time knowing that someone is in their corner rooting for them. But part of the problem is that they are on their own, scratching around for money and having to fulfil every function of a cottage industry themselves, all the while having to go to work to fund it all.
For a while now, I've been puzzling how to help them, but I've never found the right vehicle. I'm not a manager - I'm too interested in my own creations to throw myself wholeheartedly into promoting someone else. I'd love to own my own publishing house, record company, art gallery, theatre etc, but again the time and the money just isn't there. I've tried setting up a communal website for my pals to contribute to in order to promote themselves, but I didn't sell the idea to anyone very well, and they all have their own websites that they are struggling to maintain.
So the operation that I have settled on is a podcast of a series of interviews. I'm going to get them to talk about what they do, why they do it, their work routines (or lack of them), their funding etc. I'm going to try and understand the creative process, as defined by each of my pals, and to find out what they hope to achieve, what success would entail for them, how they started, and when they became serious about it. I admire all these people, and I want to give them another platform on which to present themselves. (Sure it's only on my web site, but that's the best I can offer. And who knows where these things might lead). I want to be able to prove my faith in their abilities.
There are plenty reasons why this would be useful for them, beside the indulgence of talking about themselves for a couple of hours. One reason, which only became apparent as I began preparing for it, is that this is interview practice, which is important because the next time someone shoves a mic in their face it might well be the interview is bound for the Guardian or National Radio. It would serve them well to have already given it a go, in friendly circumstances, and to have had a chance to hear their voice back. Speaking about yourself is a skill, and a little bit of feedback will come in handy.
I have completed the first interview, with the great Geordie writer, Tracey Sinclair, author of Doll and No Love Is This, which I will write up in a later post. I'm hoping to do an interview a month, and I have learned enough about the process to make a better job of it next time. Thanks to Tracey for being the guinea pig: she was the perfect first interviewee, because she was patient as I struggled with the technology and she took to the interview process with aplomb - she's as wonderful a talker as she is a writer. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole procedure, and I'm looking forward to the next interview.
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01-Apr-2006
Reading, Islington, December 1st 2005
I did a reading for the Shortfuse guys at the Camden Head in Islington, London back in December. I recorded it (for training purposes, you understand) and you can find it here. You'll need QuickTime in order to watch it, or something that plays QuickTime files.
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27-Mar-2006
Super-8 available for download
A pdf of Super-8 is now available for your reading pleasure. I spoil you, I really do.
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20-Mar-2006
A Quick Word Podcast - Episode 1
I have recently-ish begun recording A Quick Word With A Rock and Roll Late Starter as a podcast. The mp3 here contains the first chapter/stanza/episode, RRL0001. Hopefully, as the months go on, I'll add the other parts, one-by-one. Over time, you can build an extensive library of Smithiania that will impress your kids and wow your neighbours.
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19-Mar-2006
First Post in Many a Moon
It's been a few months since I posted anything on here, so I thought it was about time for an update. I've been doing a lot of work stuff and house stuff, and so the music and writing was sneaked in only where I could. In reverse chronological order, in fact in no particular order: I finished writing up the latest Wizki story. It still needs to be revised and edited etc. I have a trip to the States coming up, and I think I'm going to take all of the Wizki Tales with me so I can update them on the flight. At some point I'd like to get them published, but they would need drawings added to complement the stories, and I'm not sure how I would go about that. Fiona said she wanted a hobby - maybe she can make some drawings of Wizki. I did a reading on the 14th March at the Poetry Shack, based at the Old Crown, New Oxford St, London. It was the first time I read there, and I fully enjoyed it. They'd come across me when Brett, the organiser, saw me reading at Shortfuse in Islington, London before Christmas. I didn't tell any of my friends I was reading because I like the idea of going on my own. For a start, you can reinvent yourself somewhat if you are on your own, which makes it a little bit easier to perform - I kind of put on a Craig Smith charicature personae, which would be seen as a wanky thing to do in front of your friends, but it really helps when stood up on stage. And you can concentrate on the idea of the reading as work, because you don't have to worry whether your friends are getting bored or not, you can get your head down into what you have to do, including networking etc. And finally there's a point I've got to with my writing where I don't want to have to rely on my friends to make up the numbers or buy the bulk of the copies of my books. A bit like taking the stabilisers off my bike, I want to have to stand on my own. I need to grow up and do it myself. One thing I need to learn though - if I want to get somewhere I need to start charging for my books, rather than giving them away. I get embarrassed that someone actually likes my stuff, that's what it is. But I need to grow up and look people in the eye and believe that my stuff is worth something. Other writing: bits of music. Oh, and I have got stuck into my second novel. I've done about a fifth of it. I need to think a bit clearer about the plot and the layout: again, maybe I can do that on my flights to and from the States. After that, the idea behind the story means it is very episodic, so I should be able to write in spare half hours here and there. I have updated Simon Armitage's website. I used to handcode it (sort of) in Dreamweaver. Now, it uses the templates in Typepad to construct the site. This has many advantages:
Simon can post simply by filling in an online form, which hopefully means the site gets updated more often than it has in the past
The maintenance gets done by someone other than me, so that takes some pressure off me
We can add/edit/control categories/comments/lists, which means there is more flexibility about the site
It looks quite a bit more accomplished than the amateurish effort which came before
I also quickly built a site for Jim Littlewood. Jim's a musician from Hartlepool whom I met via our day jobs as booksellers. His solo stuff appears under the name Crybaby, though I'm also a fan of his previous band, Sweetheart. His music is wonderfully melodic and quite unique: it draws on the Beach Boys, among others. He has a space on MySpace, but he wanted something that was outside that arena, so I built him something on blogger that he can post to easily, and where he can post mp3's of all his songs. I recently registered with MySpace, too. I've changed the name I record under to (for the moment) Heavenly Happy Friendship Store. I think I'm going to change it again to Super Happy Friendship Store, or maybe even Beautiful Angel Birthday Boy. I got fed up with Crawfish: somehow it never sat right.
So, that's about it, three months work in microcosm.
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21-Nov-2005
The Nation' Favourite
The Nation's Favourite: The True Adventures of Radio 1
A few years ago, I was shopping in Fopp on Park St, Bristol and bought among other things, The Nation's Favourite: The True Adventures of Radio 1 by Simon Garfield. I'm not sure why I bought it, except it was cheap. Radio 1 is the station I grew up with, though same as many pop kids I have mixed feelings about it. There are programmes I love but don't listen to, (John Peel RIP, Andy Kershaw, Mark and Lard etc, all the usual ex-Student Indie Kid stuff), programmes I don't like but secretly really enjoy, (Chris Moyles), and things that don't apply to me because I'm 40 and I hate Boy Bands. Radio 1 is certainly the de facto radio station for pop music in the UK, and as such I'd claim it is the best radio station in the world, (though that isn't saying much - why are other countries so crap at pop music, give or take a few exceptions), and though I like that it's there, it's not like I adore the station. So I can't imagine why I thought I'd read a book on it. Being realistic, I'm a classic example of an unreconstituted book buyer, and of course I'm going to buy books that I'm never going to read - why, the book trade would collapse overnight if we stopped being so cavalier with our cash, (or credit). But the book has a picture of Chris Evans on the cover, which I would have thought would be enough to put me off. But, for whatever the reason, THe Nation's Favourite came home with me. And, no surprise, I didn't read it, as is so often the case. I stuck it on my bookshelf where it festered for a good few years. And it wasn't missed. At no time did I look at it and think, 'I really must read The Nation's Favourite'. The book was one of many on three large bookshelves stacked two deep in our office, and there were three or four dozen books which outranked it as possible imminent reads. It was an unloved, unfancied runt of a book with no future prospects. And then last week, as I was dashing out of the house, I was hastily scrabbling around for something to read on the train. Since finishing Kafka on the Shore I had kept my head down in order to get on with a project for work and had made every effort to concentrate on that rather than start another book. But I was knackered and wanted a story to amuse me for a few days, and lo, The Nation's Favourite caught my eye. I don't how this works - I hadn't seen any adverts for it or marketing or heard any word of mouth from my friends that this was a good book that was worth spending some time with. The only metrics that it fitted was that it was the right size to go in my bag. So I have no idea why I picked it up: I am sure the Great Gods of Book Selection would understand why, but I'm pretty baffled. But I did pick it up, and I did read it, and I enjoyed it. It's an interesting tale. It covers the period when Matthew Bannister was at the helm of Radio 1, fresh from GLR. He revamped the whole station, kicking out the old guard of Dave Lee Travis, Gary Davis etc and bringing in fresh blood. Rating's fell and Bannister had to think quick. He brought in Chris Evans to present the all-important breakfast show. Ratings rose. Evans was the star, the loud-mouth motormouth with the genius for the gab, the emblem of the change of direction Radio 1 was taking, and he spun rings around the the tabloids and became the darling of the High Street shopping set. Radio 1 was back on the front pages, back at the forefront of many young British people's lives, back in the nation's consciousness. The weak point was Evans' ego, which became rampant. On his show, he slagged off anyone who expressed their disapproval of his ever-increasing arrogance, and when Bannister wouldn't let him take Friday's off to do his TV show, TFI Friday, he sulked and left Radio 1 with negligible notice and a pluther of unkind comments about how badly he had been treated. The timespan of the book ties in with the rise and fall of BritPop, so as soundtrack to the narrative we get not only Pulp, Blur, Oasis etc, but also Spice Girls, BoyZone and Take That. Already, that dates the book: these days, we would be on about the Kaiser Chiefs and Gorillaz on one side, and Destiny's Child on the other. Yet, it doesn't matter: even though I'm not really bothered about the Kaiser Chiefs, and I really don't mind Destiny's Child, I still know ultimately in these holy wars of pop music who I'm going to back, and it's always going to be the Indie stuff, or rather, the bands where the music comes first, even if I don't care for them. So, the part of The Nation's Favourites that infuriated me most was when Jeff Smith, who picked the playlist for Radio 1 during that period, criticises Mark and Lard, for example, for stepping away from the play-list. I am sure Smith would claim he is a music lover who was simply giving the public what they wanted, but instead he comes across as a small-minded bureaucrat for whom statistics trumps taste. The galling thing is he's probably right where mainstream pop music is involved, at least to some extent, and I'm sure I'm being naive when I find his populist attitude repulsive. I'm sure he'd argue that it's the public's fault for having terrible taste! Still, it's one thing to know that, numbers-wise, a nationally-broadcast daytime radio station should be playing Boy Bands, regardless of the quality of the music, it's another thing to actually programme it. That might be the sign of a mature adult, but somehow it also smacks of being in league with the devil. Which is ridiculous. I'm not the target audience for Radio 1 any more. I am no longer on their Christmas Card list. Yet because of all those years when I dipped in and out, I still feel a sense of connection with it. And it's not that I think they should be playing the music that I like all the time - they are totally right in their efforts to please a much younger audience, and I can quite easily entertain myself. But the point is I don't want the younger generation to be listening to crap. I don't want their formative memories to be tied in with woeful pop songs that really aren't any good. And to some extent I will accept that I am fuddyduddy 40-year-old who has had his day, but I believe with all my heart that I know a good pop song when I hear it, and sadly, I haven't heard many good ones of late, and if other people feel the same, then it means that music matters less than it used to. And I don't want it to. I still want it to mean everything. Is that too much to ask?
Shortfuse
I have another reading with the top guys from Shortfuse, Nathan and John . The date is the Dec 1st (pinch and punch!), the time 8pm-ish, the place Camden Head, Islington, London. I got a very pleasant email from the good people at zafusy Online Poetry Journal, letting me know they had mentioned the reading on their fine site. Much appreciated, and hopefully I'll see you there.
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31-Oct-2005
New Wizki Tale
A brand new Wizki Tale, for all you lovers of reprobate stuffed animals. (No real animals were hurt in the making of this story!)
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13-Oct-2005
Update
It's been a while since I updated this site, so I thought it was time to make the effort. I haven't been throwing myself too deeply into my writing lately, though I have been making plans to do exactly that. Of the three schemes going on at present: I'm working toward recording an album of my songs with a pal, Michael, from one of my shops. He's a top man who trained as an audio engineer, so hopefully we should have complementary skills - he can do the recording, the engineering and the producing, and I'll make tea. (It worked for James Lavelle). Someone asked, 'What if he doesn't like your music?' Well, he's going to have a lifetime of making crap music with a million horrible bands, so he should consider this training. The estimated timescale is 'soon', October/November, though as October is half over, we have to get our arses in gear. The album, (provisionally named 'Music To String Her Along By') is going to be recorded on odd days during the week, so it's not going to get in the way, as I have holidays left, and hopefully it will be fun to do. So I'm looking forward to it, and need to give Michael a call to initiate the first team-up. I'm half way through writing Episode 2 of Sleepwalker. Episode 1 is safely in the hands of Brian, the artist, who is living up in Sheffield now. I've stalled a little bit on Episode 2, and I think it's because it's the consolidation episode, where the events of Episode 1 are re-explained and examined, which means the action can't move on as swiftly as I would like it to. So I'm going to perhaps draft in the odd event from Episode 3 to spice it up. Anyway, it's on my conscience to get on with it, and I'm sure it will just take one big effort for me to get stuck in again. I have a flight on Sunday, so maybe I can have a look at it while I'm airbourne. This really should take priority. The thing that I shouldn't have started but did was a new novel, provisionally named Automobiles. I bought a Moleskine notebook, (I ought to find links for these things, but I can't be arsed) because my laptop had gone a bit loopy, and I started to scribble the opening chapter in the notebook. The story is quite a simple one, and I can write it in short episodic chapters. It re-uses some of the characters from Super-8, so I don't have to worry about characterisation, because they are who they were. Anyway, I seem to have run out of energy for it the last couple of weeks, so I think it's going to shelve itself, so I don't have to shelve it myself. And my laptop is repaired, so I'm back doing laptoppy things. I need to make sure I finish things. I started Episode 2 of Sleepwalker, so I need to finish that. The album is fine, that will fit in, but Sleepwalker has to be prioritised. If I don't, it's that same old routine I got into for the several years before I had anything published, where I started a million projects but never finished them. I have boxes and boxes of papers from projects I started which only ever got half way. It's a foolish way to go, and it never gets you anywhere. So I need to concentrate on Sleepwalker, on pain of death.
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10-Sep-2005
Songs
Been going through my entire back catalogue of songs. I added a couple of as-yet imaginary albums, included a few songs which for some reason I hadn't previously put online and corrected a few spelling mistakes etc. A good days work, and I'll point out a few of the better songs over the next few weeks.
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, and the short story collection, 
