velmavideo from Robert Swipe on Vimeo.
xxx
Bob
Saturday, 25 May 2013
Friday, 24 May 2013
Transvestite Pop Star Hacked to death in Second Brutal Hacking to Death Incident...
Robert Swipe, the transvestite Pop Star and self-styled 'First Lady of Web Terrorism' has been found viciously hacked to death by Islamofascist Global Terror Suspects in his West London home. Swipe, who up until his untimely and sensationalist murder was trying to kid the world that he was still only 45, left behind several wives, one viciously carnivorous but ultimately lovable Tabbyssinian cat and two half-eaten Snickers bars which, in typically contrarian style, he insisted upon referring to as 'Marathons' right up to the bitter end. At a hastily arranged press conference/champagne buffet and reception held in the back of the Prime Ministerial limousine, David Cameron made the following statement:
We condemn in the strongest terms this vicious and unprovoked assault upon one of our Nation's most expendable stand up comedienne's/talentless pop wannabees. Robert Swipe may have been typical of his class; a decadant, amoral loafer with all of the ambition of a demotivated sloth suffering a major existential crisis and about as relevant to contemporary British society as a vaguely racist Lance Percival 45 rpm disc, but he was often completely harmless and had, to his credit, as much intention of voting UKIP as my wife and I have - although of late Samantha has, worryingly, begun to make some rather alarming comments about asylum seekers and 'squeezing the cripples' until the pips squeak'. Much as I would like to reassure her that both of these are indeed very high on the list of current Government policy priorities, I have to be very careful of what I say in public in case the Deputy Prime Minister finds out. Robert will be sorely missed - not least at the ballot box in the forthcoming Eurpopean elections where - I won't lie to you - we need every single non-UKIP vote we can get our hands on, no matter how unsavoury and morally dubious some of the lifestyle choices of these grimey little toerags might be.
The circumstances surrounding Swipe's brutal hacking to death with a saracen sword-style machete remain surrounded in the usual bogus fug of obfuscation that surrounds carefully orchestrated symbolic state executions masquerading as random atrocities aimed at spreading fear and terror amongst an otherwise docile and harmoniously co-existant multi-cultural society. However his murderers are believed to have broken into his bijou West London home in a fashionable part of Feltham (nowhere near the terrorist hotbed Young Offenders institute) and savagely hacked him to death in a vicious and brutal manner. The terrified perpetrators then beat a hasty retreat to await arrest in a crowded nearby street, posing for photographs whilst telling the rapidly swelling crowd of onlookers that, rather than voting for UKIP at the forthcoming European Elections, they could send an even more powerful message to the Coalition by agreeing to be swallowed up by a new Caliphate sweeping its way majestically across Europe, from Southern Spain to the Russian steppes, with the Eurozone being effectively replaced by a return to the feudalism of the Middle Ages. 'You'll be begging for the EU to come back by the time we've finished with you', one of the murderers is supposed to have informed Adam Boulting before helping himself to a bourbon biscuit offered to him by the hastily convened Sky outside broadcast catering unit.
Swipe's widows, Sophie Rayworth, Michal Hussein, Wendy Hurrell, Emily Maitliss, Kirsty Wark (Kirtsy Wark???) and Tanya Beckett (Swipe converted to Islam in 2006 precisely in order to take advantage of its more liberal attitudes to polygamy) are convinced that their former husband (and lover) was the victim of a shady collaboration between the CIA, the British Government and the laughably incoherent and ineffectual assortment of so-called terror cells grouped together under the supposedly terrifying umbrella of 'Al-Qua-bloody-eda'. "We want the truth about Bob's viscious hacking to death by Islamofascist Global Terror Suspects in his West London home to come out", said Bob's harem of wives in a carefully worded - not to mention synchronised - statement. "We know the CIA and 'Al-Qua-bloody-aeda' have been in cahoots since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and have now forged a mutually beneficial 'enemies of convenience' arrangement that allows both parties to benefit from massively inappropriate levels of funding from their government and the Saudis respectively. This may be convenient for the organisations themselves, the military/industrial complex, the global power balance and News International, but we have lost a much-loved husband and a tender and giving lover not remotely fazed by the complexities of pleasuring multiple newsreaders in the 24/7 digital information age. A part of us died with Bob and we now have only our vast collection of sexual aides and Trevor McDonald to comfort us at this most difficult of times."
Bob's cat, Monty, was unavailable for comment...
xxx
Bob
We condemn in the strongest terms this vicious and unprovoked assault upon one of our Nation's most expendable stand up comedienne's/talentless pop wannabees. Robert Swipe may have been typical of his class; a decadant, amoral loafer with all of the ambition of a demotivated sloth suffering a major existential crisis and about as relevant to contemporary British society as a vaguely racist Lance Percival 45 rpm disc, but he was often completely harmless and had, to his credit, as much intention of voting UKIP as my wife and I have - although of late Samantha has, worryingly, begun to make some rather alarming comments about asylum seekers and 'squeezing the cripples' until the pips squeak'. Much as I would like to reassure her that both of these are indeed very high on the list of current Government policy priorities, I have to be very careful of what I say in public in case the Deputy Prime Minister finds out. Robert will be sorely missed - not least at the ballot box in the forthcoming Eurpopean elections where - I won't lie to you - we need every single non-UKIP vote we can get our hands on, no matter how unsavoury and morally dubious some of the lifestyle choices of these grimey little toerags might be.
The circumstances surrounding Swipe's brutal hacking to death with a saracen sword-style machete remain surrounded in the usual bogus fug of obfuscation that surrounds carefully orchestrated symbolic state executions masquerading as random atrocities aimed at spreading fear and terror amongst an otherwise docile and harmoniously co-existant multi-cultural society. However his murderers are believed to have broken into his bijou West London home in a fashionable part of Feltham (nowhere near the terrorist hotbed Young Offenders institute) and savagely hacked him to death in a vicious and brutal manner. The terrified perpetrators then beat a hasty retreat to await arrest in a crowded nearby street, posing for photographs whilst telling the rapidly swelling crowd of onlookers that, rather than voting for UKIP at the forthcoming European Elections, they could send an even more powerful message to the Coalition by agreeing to be swallowed up by a new Caliphate sweeping its way majestically across Europe, from Southern Spain to the Russian steppes, with the Eurozone being effectively replaced by a return to the feudalism of the Middle Ages. 'You'll be begging for the EU to come back by the time we've finished with you', one of the murderers is supposed to have informed Adam Boulting before helping himself to a bourbon biscuit offered to him by the hastily convened Sky outside broadcast catering unit.
Swipe's widows, Sophie Rayworth, Michal Hussein, Wendy Hurrell, Emily Maitliss, Kirsty Wark (Kirtsy Wark???) and Tanya Beckett (Swipe converted to Islam in 2006 precisely in order to take advantage of its more liberal attitudes to polygamy) are convinced that their former husband (and lover) was the victim of a shady collaboration between the CIA, the British Government and the laughably incoherent and ineffectual assortment of so-called terror cells grouped together under the supposedly terrifying umbrella of 'Al-Qua-bloody-eda'. "We want the truth about Bob's viscious hacking to death by Islamofascist Global Terror Suspects in his West London home to come out", said Bob's harem of wives in a carefully worded - not to mention synchronised - statement. "We know the CIA and 'Al-Qua-bloody-aeda' have been in cahoots since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and have now forged a mutually beneficial 'enemies of convenience' arrangement that allows both parties to benefit from massively inappropriate levels of funding from their government and the Saudis respectively. This may be convenient for the organisations themselves, the military/industrial complex, the global power balance and News International, but we have lost a much-loved husband and a tender and giving lover not remotely fazed by the complexities of pleasuring multiple newsreaders in the 24/7 digital information age. A part of us died with Bob and we now have only our vast collection of sexual aides and Trevor McDonald to comfort us at this most difficult of times."
Bob's cat, Monty, was unavailable for comment...
xxx
Bob
2012 Games Hit by Savage Coalition Cuts...
The prestigious London Olympics set to be staged in summer 2012 could become the latest high profile casualties of the ongoing cuts sanctioned by the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition. Seb Coe, himself a high profile tory supporter, was the first London 2012 official to break ranks and come out in public to condemn the government for extending its austerity programme to what had been hoped would be a joyous sporting occasion.
"I'm fecking livid!" Snapped former middle distance champion Coe, in between taking swipes at a punch bag with a photograph of Steve Ovett sellotaped to the top. "We're hoping to lure the word's finest athletes over here for a wonderful athletics tournament when all the time the rug is being pulled from under our feet by those cowardly politicians. First they let the anti-cuts protestors abscond with several thousand quid's worth of Boris Johnson's hire bikes (sponsored by Barclays) and now they've told us that the games won't be exempt from the cuts either. It's a rotten shame as we were hoping to use the bikes for the Cycling pursiut in our lovely new state of the art Velodrome - or flipping bike shed, as it'll no doubt be by the time Cameron and Clegg have had their way with it."
"And that's just the start of it", continued Lord Coe. "How's Hussein Bolt going to feel when he turns up and finds there's only enough cinder track laid for him to run the 50 metres?
"I'm fecking livid!" Snapped former middle distance champion Coe, in between taking swipes at a punch bag with a photograph of Steve Ovett sellotaped to the top. "We're hoping to lure the word's finest athletes over here for a wonderful athletics tournament when all the time the rug is being pulled from under our feet by those cowardly politicians. First they let the anti-cuts protestors abscond with several thousand quid's worth of Boris Johnson's hire bikes (sponsored by Barclays) and now they've told us that the games won't be exempt from the cuts either. It's a rotten shame as we were hoping to use the bikes for the Cycling pursiut in our lovely new state of the art Velodrome - or flipping bike shed, as it'll no doubt be by the time Cameron and Clegg have had their way with it."
"And that's just the start of it", continued Lord Coe. "How's Hussein Bolt going to feel when he turns up and finds there's only enough cinder track laid for him to run the 50 metres?
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
We're only making plans for Nigel...
Exciting developments here at Swipe Towers. As many of you will know, I've been a long standing opponent of Britain's membership of the European Community - well, you know me and foreigners! Never have got on with them - especially the French! And don't start me off on the Germans... what was it Tom Lehrer said?:
We taught them a lesson in 1918 ....
...and they've hardly bothered us since then...
Erm, *hello*!?
So you can imagine my unbridled joy when I get a call from UKIP leader Nigel Farage asking if I'd be interested in appearing in or doing the voice-over for their next Party Political Broadcast. 'Just try and stop me, Nige!' I chortle down the line as I rifle though the old wardrobe for a suitably exotic tweed three piece - well, you can never look too stylish for voice-over work, can you? 'Indeed, I can go one further,' I tell him as I run the rule over a rather dapper pair of plus two and three-quarters that haven't seen the light of day since my last tour of the 19th hole with Alice Cooper back in the heyday of his peak time 'A round with Alice' pro-celebrity golf and wine tasting televisual spectaculars. 'If we're really going to build on the solid start you chaps have made in the recent local election and really start powering on to become a major force in British politics, you're going to need to get your social media campaign sorted, and PDQ. Now, don't take this personally Nige, but pleasant old cove as you'd no doubt be to sup a couple of tankards of fiercely independent British ale with in the snug bar of the Dandelion and Artichoke, I'm guessing you don't know one end of a Twitter from a Joined-up FaceTube, am I right?' There's a cascade of pooterish snorting from the other end of the line. 'Right-ho, Nige - leave it to me.'
Well, we've all got to play our part haven't we if we want to drag this sad and begraggled country kicking and screaming from the mire of Federalist craziness, Health and Safety straight jacketing and Political Correctness gone mad and back up to where it really belongs - in the 1950s. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've nothing against your average Nigerian or Somalian. No. Indeed, some of them have been amongst the most reliable domestic servants I've ever had the pleasure of fining a week's wages for dozing off in the larder whilst on kedgiree stirring fatigues. The sun shines on Englishman and wog alike, who could disagree with such a basic, noble sentiment - after all, is not such a progressive notion of brotherhood and commonwealth the very foundation stone of our blessed and eternal Empire? Exactly. I'm no racist - indeed, I'll take my sturdiest 12-bore to the first curmudgeonly rascal who dares suggest I am and have them publicly horse-whipped by the Royal Hussars' finest into the bargain. No, I'll happily break bread with any tint of darky, be it in Nairobi, Lagos or Mogadishu, once the forced repatriations start.
So I'm straight on the old Skype contraption to my new buddy from across the pond, the startlingly witty and (I'm sure she won't mind me saying) rampantly horny, hot piece of ass, Kelly Oxford. Kelly and I first 'bumped into one another' on Twitter. I was immediately drawn to her no-holds barred approach and her mastery of the pithy put down. Indeed, she was able to sum me up in as little as 9 characters. I felt she was perhaps a trifle lazy with the 'camp' bit, but the 'cunt' was certainly spot on... Kelly's in mid-tweet when she comes on the line. 'I'm just Barrcking Obama' she tells me. I didn't realise that legalised that too, not so soon after allowing sodomites and lady poofters the right to the old matrimonials. Strange country. Always has been.
Now, I know what you're thinking - this Kelly Oxford dame might have the anglicised name and look like as English a rose piece of pereipheral eye candy totty from the aristos of reality dramas, Made in Chelsea as you could ever wish for, but isn't she (forgive the non-PC terminology) a septic? Yes, yes, yes, I see the irony and - if they haven't bloody banned that too - if you'll forgive the industrial expression; what the bollocking hell if she is?
Look, it's impossible to disentangle the history of our beloved isle from that of its more illustrious former colonies, would you not agree? Similarly, our destiny has been forged -and for the better I'll have you know - by many a former colonial. Without the likes of, to choose just one example from literally six or seven, Ian Macgregor, who helped poor departed St. Margaret break the yoke of militant trades unionism, we'd still be piling our refuse sacks onto the local village green and have a currency that would look like green shield stamps compared to the Drachma. The day that this country can't open its doors to outsiders in order to rid itself of filthy fifth columnist enemies within is the day this pride nation of ours might as well fall on its ceremonial sword and hand the levers of state to the ruddy Liberal Democrats once and for all.
But I digress. Kelly's pretty soon on board when I let her know that she'll have unlimited scope (well, 140 characters) to be as rude and nasty to foriegners and the mentally retarded as she likes. 'Today Twitter, tomorrow the world!!' she tweets me later on. I smile and go back to Yesterday. They're re-showing 'The Nazis: a warning from history' in its entirety.
We taught them a lesson in 1918 ....
...and they've hardly bothered us since then...
Erm, *hello*!?
So you can imagine my unbridled joy when I get a call from UKIP leader Nigel Farage asking if I'd be interested in appearing in or doing the voice-over for their next Party Political Broadcast. 'Just try and stop me, Nige!' I chortle down the line as I rifle though the old wardrobe for a suitably exotic tweed three piece - well, you can never look too stylish for voice-over work, can you? 'Indeed, I can go one further,' I tell him as I run the rule over a rather dapper pair of plus two and three-quarters that haven't seen the light of day since my last tour of the 19th hole with Alice Cooper back in the heyday of his peak time 'A round with Alice' pro-celebrity golf and wine tasting televisual spectaculars. 'If we're really going to build on the solid start you chaps have made in the recent local election and really start powering on to become a major force in British politics, you're going to need to get your social media campaign sorted, and PDQ. Now, don't take this personally Nige, but pleasant old cove as you'd no doubt be to sup a couple of tankards of fiercely independent British ale with in the snug bar of the Dandelion and Artichoke, I'm guessing you don't know one end of a Twitter from a Joined-up FaceTube, am I right?' There's a cascade of pooterish snorting from the other end of the line. 'Right-ho, Nige - leave it to me.'
Well, we've all got to play our part haven't we if we want to drag this sad and begraggled country kicking and screaming from the mire of Federalist craziness, Health and Safety straight jacketing and Political Correctness gone mad and back up to where it really belongs - in the 1950s. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've nothing against your average Nigerian or Somalian. No. Indeed, some of them have been amongst the most reliable domestic servants I've ever had the pleasure of fining a week's wages for dozing off in the larder whilst on kedgiree stirring fatigues. The sun shines on Englishman and wog alike, who could disagree with such a basic, noble sentiment - after all, is not such a progressive notion of brotherhood and commonwealth the very foundation stone of our blessed and eternal Empire? Exactly. I'm no racist - indeed, I'll take my sturdiest 12-bore to the first curmudgeonly rascal who dares suggest I am and have them publicly horse-whipped by the Royal Hussars' finest into the bargain. No, I'll happily break bread with any tint of darky, be it in Nairobi, Lagos or Mogadishu, once the forced repatriations start.
So I'm straight on the old Skype contraption to my new buddy from across the pond, the startlingly witty and (I'm sure she won't mind me saying) rampantly horny, hot piece of ass, Kelly Oxford. Kelly and I first 'bumped into one another' on Twitter. I was immediately drawn to her no-holds barred approach and her mastery of the pithy put down. Indeed, she was able to sum me up in as little as 9 characters. I felt she was perhaps a trifle lazy with the 'camp' bit, but the 'cunt' was certainly spot on... Kelly's in mid-tweet when she comes on the line. 'I'm just Barrcking Obama' she tells me. I didn't realise that legalised that too, not so soon after allowing sodomites and lady poofters the right to the old matrimonials. Strange country. Always has been.
Now, I know what you're thinking - this Kelly Oxford dame might have the anglicised name and look like as English a rose piece of pereipheral eye candy totty from the aristos of reality dramas, Made in Chelsea as you could ever wish for, but isn't she (forgive the non-PC terminology) a septic? Yes, yes, yes, I see the irony and - if they haven't bloody banned that too - if you'll forgive the industrial expression; what the bollocking hell if she is?
Look, it's impossible to disentangle the history of our beloved isle from that of its more illustrious former colonies, would you not agree? Similarly, our destiny has been forged -and for the better I'll have you know - by many a former colonial. Without the likes of, to choose just one example from literally six or seven, Ian Macgregor, who helped poor departed St. Margaret break the yoke of militant trades unionism, we'd still be piling our refuse sacks onto the local village green and have a currency that would look like green shield stamps compared to the Drachma. The day that this country can't open its doors to outsiders in order to rid itself of filthy fifth columnist enemies within is the day this pride nation of ours might as well fall on its ceremonial sword and hand the levers of state to the ruddy Liberal Democrats once and for all.
But I digress. Kelly's pretty soon on board when I let her know that she'll have unlimited scope (well, 140 characters) to be as rude and nasty to foriegners and the mentally retarded as she likes. 'Today Twitter, tomorrow the world!!' she tweets me later on. I smile and go back to Yesterday. They're re-showing 'The Nazis: a warning from history' in its entirety.
Saturday, 11 May 2013
Friday, 10 May 2013
Scott...
One of the most pleasing aspects of putting together the 'Urbane' LP has been the opportunity to work with some of my personal favourites and heroes from the world of pop. Obviously Eno's involved too - incidentally, I swear he eats his own body weight in Jaffa cakes over the course of a session - although his contributions have got so quiet and ethereal of late that I just tend to turn the level of his synthesizer down completely and crank up the mic on his feather boa. Sounds much the same - in fact, a bit grungier if anything...
Lana del Rey was an unexpected but very new addition to my close-knit coterie of collaborators. I'd expected her to be somewhat more of a diva than she turned out to be actually. Her penchant for milk stout was particularly surprising - especially so when taken with a Cinzano top. I'd had an odd inkling about the pickled onions though, as it goes, and so was able to congratulate myself on my excelllent foresight whilst watching her guzzle down a couple of jars in between crates of Mackeson. I was flattered but still a little irked to discover later that she'd swanned off with a couple of my favourite blouses after laying down the tambourine part on 'Sparklejumpropequeen' - although, to be fair, she probably pulls off a wire wool and cheeseystrings combo with a little more elan than I ever managed. They probably do need a broader shoulder, with hindsight.
So you can imagine my unbounded joy when one of my favourite ever singers, Scott Walker called to ask if there was anything he could do to help me put the finishing touches to the album. Obviously Scott's about the only person currently operating in the music business who could reasonably be described as being more outre than your humble scribe - obviously as I'm almost comepletely vegan, it rather rules out the possibility of using a dead pig's carcass as a percussion instrument to recreate the viscious slapping meted out to Mussolini and his wife (Clara?) as they hung from lamp-posts. Obviously, I'd have no such qualms about using Nick Clegg, but I've just not had the time to hunt him down yet, but I'll catch Scott up one day in the wierdo stakes, just you wait and see!
Scott arrives looking dapper in a baseball cap and a pair of luminous Mickey Mouse ears. I'd been warned to expect a somewhat erratic presence but even an eccentric old duffer like me is a bit taken aback when he insists on talking in a high-pitched and squeaky voise and calling me 'Pluto'. Still, he's otherwise no trouble at all and certainly not a biscuit-hoovering gannet along Eno lines. Indeed during the marathon session the poor thing is more than happy to graze onnothing more elaborate than a hardened crust of cheese he'd spied lurking at the back of the fridge. He nibbles on this occasionally throughout the day in between making odd peeping noises and twitching his nose.
Lunch sorted, we head up to the attic and, when I can stop him from nosing around the skirting boards for five minutes, Scott begins to layer some dissonant string parts onto my song 'Gone'. It's a complex and time consuming process which entails him lying spreadeagled over the keyboard playing a series of chords as dictated by the random gyrations of his enviably wiry torso - must look into the nutritional values of hardened cheese rind; it's obviously working for him. Of course, that's the easy bit. The difficult and laborious part is sifting through hundreds of takes to find the one that sounds most out of tune. It's no wonder his LPs take so ruddy long - I'd have cracked by the second week and be phoning up the rest of the Walker Brothers to ask if they wanted to do an album of saccharine Archies covers played by five year olds on the ukulele, but Scott's obviously made of sterner stuff. I keep wanting to tell him he should let me produce him - it only took me six weeks to churn out the tuneless twaddle that was Bedroom Burlesque and I didn't have to lie on top of the keyboard once - but I hate to disturb a proper artist when they're at work.
Finally, after what seems like a month, we manage to comp a section that comprises of absolutely no melody whatsoever and I'm able to usher him out of the studio (carefully avoiding the cat, who has a current body count of 21 mice, 1 rat and a wood pigeon to his name) and wave Scott a cheery farewell. Blimey, that was hard work. I've barely time to wind up another dumb waiter-full of bourbon biscuits to keep Brian going as he starts adding 'Enossifications' to Scotts sting overdub than it's time for Emmerdale. I must be due for retirement soon, surely...?
xxx
Bob
Saturday, 27 April 2013
42 words about 'Urbane'...
Obviously there comes a stage in one's career where the need to court popularity from one's massed millions of admirers becomes almost a total irrelevance. You've done all the wearing a kimono to get a bit of attention and pretending to be a Nazi bit and you just want to get on with what you do best: grouting. You've got so much money in the bank you could end Third World debt by giving up six months interest alone, so what else is there for you to do with the last few dull years of your life but have the occasional 3-day Skyping session with Ricky Gervaise and pals and bask in the Caribbean winter? Well sod that! The need to create, create, create is still all consuming. So,my hordes of brainless lackeys have hit upon a fabulous plan. They told me at our last webinar/virtual catch-up that I had gone way beyond this point of brand recognition several LPs ago and it might now best served my interests to announce a complete conventional media blackout/radio silence/internet account Omerta and leave everything to the bods in the Viral Marketing department who will, I'm reliably informed, get me onto every news bulletin in the civilised world without me needing to do so much as take my eyes off the current ever-so tricky Jenga manouvre. As Ross would no doubt say, "*FINE* *BY* *ME*!!!"
So, I leave you not only with a new LP (out soon from all good retailers. And HMV) but also 42 words that I believe really get to the heart of the Chothic (no, I've no idea what it means either) nature of the current ouevre (ditto). Right, I'm back to me plank insertion before Stephen Merchant eats all the Bourbons. Here are your 42 words humanoids:
Panglosian
Dissonance
Rentaghost
Defenestration
Gengolphus
Plantagenet
Garribaldi
Bling
Cadaverous
Dork
Wagnerian
Semantic
Gorgonzola
Frenetic
Bijou
Caliper
Drachma
Volleyball
Pincer
Draconian
Vituperative
Peruvian
Lithe
Scalloped
Finbar
Animatronic
Zoob
Recalcitrant
Fol-di-rol
Rendered
Immutable
Koan
Hotline
Botticelli
Runes
Clippy
Stanza
Cormorant
xxx
L.U.V. on y'all
Bob
Monday, 22 April 2013
Madonna@80...
Personally, I've never quite forgiven her for that 'Hand of God' incident. Still, at least she never tried to bite anyone's arm - well, apart from Sarah Bernhardt, obviously...
xxx
Bob
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Birthday boy...
Ah well, another candle on the cake tomorrow - it'll need to be a pretty big one to fit them all this year. Not that I'm particularly age conscious - indeed, I'm rarely conscious, period, but that may well be as much down to the Drambuie Breezers as to any incipient senility. I hate using the phrase but 'when you get to my age', you tend to treat each day as a bonus - especially when you've lived life with an acetylene blowtorch trained on the centre of the torch as I have been wont to (Grammar Nazi aside - *why* is Blogger underlining the word 'centre' as if I've spelled it incorrectly? Did we actually win World War II? See, there, it just did it again. Ridiculous.) Anyway, assuming I make it through until tomorrow before the spellchecker gives me a stroke, I trust as many of you as possible will be joining me up in town for the big Official State Birthday Celebration shindig that Dave, Nick and all the lads are putting on for me. I'm sure you'll have seen coverage of the preparations on the news over the last couple of days and are like me scratching your head and wondering why the hearse bearing my coffin will be collecting me from the chapel of rest and not the Coach and Horses as I requested. Probably Dave and Nick's idea of a little joke at my expense. Or is that Michael Gove? Anyway, God only knows what they'll have planned for my 30th next year - probably a lynching if this lot drift any further to the right. Which reminds me, how is Kenny? Anyway, you should come along. After all, you are ruddy well paying for it.
But enough rambling about my birthday celebrations. You'll all be wondering I know how the new album's coming on and I have to say, at the risk of sounding a self-satisfied old toady, it's progressing rather well. After having held out for as long as possible from joining the digital revolution, I recently invested in some new recording hard- and soft-ware and the results have been quite dazzling if I say so myself. I really wish I'd taken the plunge sooner. The microphone is proving a particularly solid upgrade - especially since the baked bean tin and string arrangement I've been using up until now was beginning to fray. Not to mention dent. Of course, as with all progress, there's a downside. As much as the new sense of clarity is a boon, obviously there's a cost in that you can now hear most of the lyrics. And the singing. But after the initial heebeejeebees have died down, you do get used to it - well, the cat has at any rate. Mind you, he's long been pretty much inured to the idiosyncrasies of my vocal technique as he's probably strangled more water voles than I've had hot dinners. 13 mice, 1 rat and 1 pigeon is the current body count. I'm thinking of shipping him out to North Korea - he'd soon sort 'em out. So, what can the avid listener expect from the new album? Well, it's probably my most accomplished LP to date and that production gloss is compounded by a growing sense of lyrical maturity. The title track being a case in point:
Oh dear what can the matter be
I got stuck in the lavatory
Stayed there from Monday to Saturday -
Oh what a state of affairs...
So I hope you'll all brave the elements to join the celebrating throng up in Westminster tomorrow. I'll be handing out a few signed test pressings of the new LP - well, we have to do something to try to keep the numbers down; Health & Safety etc. Why else would Cameron and Clegg be going?
Toodle-pip xxx Bob
Friday, 23 November 2012
Open mic night: 22/11/2012...
Never forget the golden rule of the open mic: it was good last week, so it will be awful this. You hope against hope that it won't always be the case, but invariably it is. I say it was awful, but I can't really speak for the first hour or so as I don't get there until after 10pm as it's a late night at work. But Cas's last words to me on Wednesday after our weekly practice session are along the lines of 'get there at 10 because I can't wait to play the stuff we've practiced'. Getting back home from work, wet, brain-dead and tired, I could happily flop in an armchair and yell abuse at the screen whilst watching Question Time with the sound muted (well, we all have our own ways to unwind) but I leave a mildly disgruntled, long-suffering partner in crime to head back out into the rain, trying to keep the worst of it off my little 4 watt Vox amp and my caseless £80 Strat copy with my overcoat, and down into the steaming pit of rock 'n' roll debauchery that is the Cow & Snuffers. No matter how tired or apprehensive you might feel, the pull is always too strong to resist.
Mick the Landlord pulls me up a free pint of Butcombe and I try to hide from view of 'the stage' so that I can at least savour a couple of gulps of ale, but it's hard to be discreet when your amplifier is causing a blockage on the well-trodden route to the ladies loo and Paula the Landlady is flecking both one's (facial) cheeks with parodic aristocratic French mistress kisses replete with much exagerrated lip puckering and butterfly wings arm flapping. Sure enough, I'm spotted and make my way through the adoring crowds to the tiny corner of the pub into which a drum kit, PA system and various other forms of amplifiers have been arranged to form a Krypton factor-esque obstacle course for the daring handful of musicians. Once a week they attempt to insinuate themselves between this jungle of mischievously angled microphone stands, noose-like cables and illuminated music stands in order to attempt to bluff their way through a carefully selected repetoire of popular favourites and hoary old chestnuts. In short, imagine an area the size of a modest king-size bed decked out by Salvador Dali and co. along the lines of their first Surrealist exhibition only with an overloaded household electrical current running through it and you have some idea of the extreme bodily contortions required by the artiste in order even to stand on - or, more accurately, in - what we might with heavy irony refer to as 'the stage'.
"What kept you?" "What time do you call this???""Thank God you're here!" The imploring throng pat a legendary shoulder, shake a saintly hand, grasp at a messianic arm as I move amongst my flock. Their pent up desperation for my arrival wafts me onward, their sheer desire spiriting me towards 'the stage'. It's quite touching at first, until the bubble is rudely burst. "Thank God you're here - Zak said she was waiting for you to get here before she'd go up and sing. Come on - we've been waiting all night to hear her."
And Zak - Cas's daughter - is indeed here and sporting an early modernist masterpiece by way of her coiffure. Resembling the charred remnants of a crop circled cornfield that's been razed to the ground, her short back and sides are topped by an electric blue ball of coiled plaits. It's lovely to see her. Where do you start with Zak? Studying at Oxford, super model good looks, voice of an angel and with all that, add in a zen-like poise and self deprecating niceness that many with a zillionth of her talent or accomplishment lack. So, all in all, just your average teenager, really. Jo, her Gran, is there too - only Gran seems far from apposite when used to describe this lady. Only the grey of the hair might offer a clue - unkempt in fiery abandon, it's like something out of Blake and emblematic for me of the bold, bohemian spirit I've known since I was a kid. The hair, like the spirit, is no less wild, than it was back then, just lacking that black lustre of yore. I give Zak and Jo a hug, ask Jo if she's had a chance to play - she's blossoming into a fine jazz pianist since studying improvisation. With each week it's harder to equate the confidence and authority of some her playing with the timid-seeming soul we almost had to lead screaming up to the piano when she first performed here. She has played and, barring the obligatory music stand disasters and accompanying blizzard of carefully prepared cribs and sheet music, it went OK.
Lovely Julia is on 'the stage' with her shiny new Yamaha semi- acoustic and, with Bluegrass John - charming hard-to-believe-he's-a-pensioner - on acoustic and Cas on stand-up bass we lurch through 'I'll be your baby tonight'. My poor attempts at the kind of fills you'd hear on an early Johnny Cash record (who, incidentally, sounds not entirely unlike our Bluegrass John here) are saved from total, tuneless mediocrity only by the judicious addition of a few intermittent cutting out and spluttering noises, the kind usually associated with a faulty lead. Or Adrian Belew. It's always easier when the first one's out of the way, thinks the eternal optimist in me. Then a Cornish-looking debutante - Sue(?) - gets up to sing an old folk number about white something or other. I say debutante, you understand, because it's her first time 'on stage' at the open mic, not because she looks like Yasmin le Bon or some similar glamorous upper crust fillie. Simon (no, not another le Bon) knows the chords to 'White something or other' so he plays acoustic and harmonises with Cornish looking Sue (?) and, not really knowing what else to do, your humble scribe interjects a bit too loudly with a few trademark Exile-era Keef/Proud Mary-era Creedence-style slurs. It's awful, but a bit better than the first one.
Simon gives me a nod and asks if he and the other guys from Grand Union - his wife Kate, Cas and fellow gooner Gerry, who also moonlights as the Cow & Snuffers' resident kit basher - can do one more song before he and Kate have to go. They have a gig on Saturday and I'd expected them to want to use this session as a final rehearsal for that, but with an unusual turnout of wannabe performers tonight, they've obviously only had a limited time to play. It's fine because I can sit down and have a beer and catch up with Zak. One song turns into two and I find I'm feeling a bit wound up - a combination of not playing well earlier, having kind of known that something like this might happen - that I'd get all psyched up to play and then not get the chance, despite having spent all yesterday afternoon practicing for what I knew would only be, most likely, a 10-15 minute spot - and of partly not really wanting to be here in the first place.
Several flute solos later, Zak finally steps up before her adoring public. I've been wanting to hear her sing 'I only have eyes for you' - our arrangement based on the gorgeously loopy Flamingoes version - for a while, but as soon as we start, I make a fundamental error of judgement. The arrangement relies on some beautifully abrupt and oddly unsettling (for a doo wop record) 'shoo-wop-shoo wops' and in order to make these work, I need to contort myself through the cat's cradle of cables and isometrically arranged stands to a position somewhere in the vicinity of a microphone. However, in doing this, I realise with mild alarm that the position I've adopted (at the cost of some considerable discomfort, most pertinently a rakishly angled cymbal perilously close to my crack which I keep backing into and getting jammed up there) was perhaps ill-advised. Whilst allowing me to 'shoo-wop' like a king, sadly I'm also positioned in such a way that Zak's gently skanking body is almost completely obscuring the chord sheet I'm relying on to get me through the song. It's turning into one of those evenings. All the 'shoo-wops' in the world won't disguise my inept chording. My casual acquaintance with the structure of 'I only have eyes for you' becomes a total stranger during Bobby Vinton's 'Blue velvet'. Oh sure, we'd rehearsed it yesterday and it sounded fine- only that was in Bb. Zak prefers D which, not to get too technical about it, is a long, long way away from Bb - at least on my fretboard it is. I end up soloing as at least it will only sound fucked up one note at atime, rather than in clumps of fucked-up-ness if I stick with the chords.
Something has to change - and fast. I pluck out the stacatto opening riff of 'I'm blue (the gong song)' and suddenly we're motoring. Cas and I share the bluesy harmonies of the call and Zak lets loose on the response in a cascade of gong, gong, gong, gong g-g-gong gong yeahs, Gerry pinning it all down like Al Jackson and the place starts to move. A handful of folks are dancing and I can spot the row of regulars propping up the bar mouthing along with our voodoo mumbling. It comes to a halt and I feel that at least something's worked for me tonight. Happy to have finally got into it, I get a bit hacked off when Cas calls a halt to the proceedings. But then we find out it's only ten to eleven so there's the usual dithering - probably only a couple of seconds, but in the adrenalised timespan of the performer, it feels like about 3 days - what to play and at some point I go into a minor 'I'll play anything you want me to play and if you don't want me to play anything I won't play at all' style wobbly.
More dithering about whether to do 'Run baby run' even though like a divvy I didn't bring the chord sheet with me in my rush to get out. I suggest 'Sympathy for the devil' and we're off. Cas thinks afterwards that the potency of our rendition is sparked by my channeling some of my frustration and aggression into the song, but I actually become quite calm quite soon into the song. Gerry once again gets his target acquisition system locked straight on the groove and starts to enjoy himself with the tom toms. Cas throws in some spirited growling harmonies on the chorus and the woo-woo mantra that we finish on and for a brief moment, it's like you're floating on air with the chug of Richards' guitar as your shield and Jagger's barbed lyric your spear. I don't even have to look at Cas, I can sense the relief in his voice that we're finally cooking and that I'm at last starting to enjoy myself. I try not to look at my neighbour Geoff, who is old Bill, when I sing 'just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints'. Old Bill, Old Nick, none of that matters anymore, in the moment of the song. There's still an internal frisson though at the transgressive power the words somehow seem to have maintained, but the real power it contains is something wordless, elemental. You feel the full power of the song like a pistol in your pocket, the dancers lose their clothes, become a warpaint-daubed tribe. A strange telepathy of the spirit takes place. None of us, performers, dancers, needs to say it, we just know. We know that everyone in the room is involved in this song, that we are merely the channel for it. And I realise that none of the rubbish they have written about this being some diabolical evocation or summoning up of evil spirits is true. You know it, you can feel it. This is no satanic ritual. It's an exorcism.
* * *
Mick the Landlord pulls me up a free pint of Butcombe and I try to hide from view of 'the stage' so that I can at least savour a couple of gulps of ale, but it's hard to be discreet when your amplifier is causing a blockage on the well-trodden route to the ladies loo and Paula the Landlady is flecking both one's (facial) cheeks with parodic aristocratic French mistress kisses replete with much exagerrated lip puckering and butterfly wings arm flapping. Sure enough, I'm spotted and make my way through the adoring crowds to the tiny corner of the pub into which a drum kit, PA system and various other forms of amplifiers have been arranged to form a Krypton factor-esque obstacle course for the daring handful of musicians. Once a week they attempt to insinuate themselves between this jungle of mischievously angled microphone stands, noose-like cables and illuminated music stands in order to attempt to bluff their way through a carefully selected repetoire of popular favourites and hoary old chestnuts. In short, imagine an area the size of a modest king-size bed decked out by Salvador Dali and co. along the lines of their first Surrealist exhibition only with an overloaded household electrical current running through it and you have some idea of the extreme bodily contortions required by the artiste in order even to stand on - or, more accurately, in - what we might with heavy irony refer to as 'the stage'.
"What kept you?" "What time do you call this???""Thank God you're here!" The imploring throng pat a legendary shoulder, shake a saintly hand, grasp at a messianic arm as I move amongst my flock. Their pent up desperation for my arrival wafts me onward, their sheer desire spiriting me towards 'the stage'. It's quite touching at first, until the bubble is rudely burst. "Thank God you're here - Zak said she was waiting for you to get here before she'd go up and sing. Come on - we've been waiting all night to hear her."
And Zak - Cas's daughter - is indeed here and sporting an early modernist masterpiece by way of her coiffure. Resembling the charred remnants of a crop circled cornfield that's been razed to the ground, her short back and sides are topped by an electric blue ball of coiled plaits. It's lovely to see her. Where do you start with Zak? Studying at Oxford, super model good looks, voice of an angel and with all that, add in a zen-like poise and self deprecating niceness that many with a zillionth of her talent or accomplishment lack. So, all in all, just your average teenager, really. Jo, her Gran, is there too - only Gran seems far from apposite when used to describe this lady. Only the grey of the hair might offer a clue - unkempt in fiery abandon, it's like something out of Blake and emblematic for me of the bold, bohemian spirit I've known since I was a kid. The hair, like the spirit, is no less wild, than it was back then, just lacking that black lustre of yore. I give Zak and Jo a hug, ask Jo if she's had a chance to play - she's blossoming into a fine jazz pianist since studying improvisation. With each week it's harder to equate the confidence and authority of some her playing with the timid-seeming soul we almost had to lead screaming up to the piano when she first performed here. She has played and, barring the obligatory music stand disasters and accompanying blizzard of carefully prepared cribs and sheet music, it went OK.
Lovely Julia is on 'the stage' with her shiny new Yamaha semi- acoustic and, with Bluegrass John - charming hard-to-believe-he's-a-pensioner - on acoustic and Cas on stand-up bass we lurch through 'I'll be your baby tonight'. My poor attempts at the kind of fills you'd hear on an early Johnny Cash record (who, incidentally, sounds not entirely unlike our Bluegrass John here) are saved from total, tuneless mediocrity only by the judicious addition of a few intermittent cutting out and spluttering noises, the kind usually associated with a faulty lead. Or Adrian Belew. It's always easier when the first one's out of the way, thinks the eternal optimist in me. Then a Cornish-looking debutante - Sue(?) - gets up to sing an old folk number about white something or other. I say debutante, you understand, because it's her first time 'on stage' at the open mic, not because she looks like Yasmin le Bon or some similar glamorous upper crust fillie. Simon (no, not another le Bon) knows the chords to 'White something or other' so he plays acoustic and harmonises with Cornish looking Sue (?) and, not really knowing what else to do, your humble scribe interjects a bit too loudly with a few trademark Exile-era Keef/Proud Mary-era Creedence-style slurs. It's awful, but a bit better than the first one.
Simon gives me a nod and asks if he and the other guys from Grand Union - his wife Kate, Cas and fellow gooner Gerry, who also moonlights as the Cow & Snuffers' resident kit basher - can do one more song before he and Kate have to go. They have a gig on Saturday and I'd expected them to want to use this session as a final rehearsal for that, but with an unusual turnout of wannabe performers tonight, they've obviously only had a limited time to play. It's fine because I can sit down and have a beer and catch up with Zak. One song turns into two and I find I'm feeling a bit wound up - a combination of not playing well earlier, having kind of known that something like this might happen - that I'd get all psyched up to play and then not get the chance, despite having spent all yesterday afternoon practicing for what I knew would only be, most likely, a 10-15 minute spot - and of partly not really wanting to be here in the first place.
Several flute solos later, Zak finally steps up before her adoring public. I've been wanting to hear her sing 'I only have eyes for you' - our arrangement based on the gorgeously loopy Flamingoes version - for a while, but as soon as we start, I make a fundamental error of judgement. The arrangement relies on some beautifully abrupt and oddly unsettling (for a doo wop record) 'shoo-wop-shoo wops' and in order to make these work, I need to contort myself through the cat's cradle of cables and isometrically arranged stands to a position somewhere in the vicinity of a microphone. However, in doing this, I realise with mild alarm that the position I've adopted (at the cost of some considerable discomfort, most pertinently a rakishly angled cymbal perilously close to my crack which I keep backing into and getting jammed up there) was perhaps ill-advised. Whilst allowing me to 'shoo-wop' like a king, sadly I'm also positioned in such a way that Zak's gently skanking body is almost completely obscuring the chord sheet I'm relying on to get me through the song. It's turning into one of those evenings. All the 'shoo-wops' in the world won't disguise my inept chording. My casual acquaintance with the structure of 'I only have eyes for you' becomes a total stranger during Bobby Vinton's 'Blue velvet'. Oh sure, we'd rehearsed it yesterday and it sounded fine- only that was in Bb. Zak prefers D which, not to get too technical about it, is a long, long way away from Bb - at least on my fretboard it is. I end up soloing as at least it will only sound fucked up one note at atime, rather than in clumps of fucked-up-ness if I stick with the chords.
Something has to change - and fast. I pluck out the stacatto opening riff of 'I'm blue (the gong song)' and suddenly we're motoring. Cas and I share the bluesy harmonies of the call and Zak lets loose on the response in a cascade of gong, gong, gong, gong g-g-gong gong yeahs, Gerry pinning it all down like Al Jackson and the place starts to move. A handful of folks are dancing and I can spot the row of regulars propping up the bar mouthing along with our voodoo mumbling. It comes to a halt and I feel that at least something's worked for me tonight. Happy to have finally got into it, I get a bit hacked off when Cas calls a halt to the proceedings. But then we find out it's only ten to eleven so there's the usual dithering - probably only a couple of seconds, but in the adrenalised timespan of the performer, it feels like about 3 days - what to play and at some point I go into a minor 'I'll play anything you want me to play and if you don't want me to play anything I won't play at all' style wobbly.
More dithering about whether to do 'Run baby run' even though like a divvy I didn't bring the chord sheet with me in my rush to get out. I suggest 'Sympathy for the devil' and we're off. Cas thinks afterwards that the potency of our rendition is sparked by my channeling some of my frustration and aggression into the song, but I actually become quite calm quite soon into the song. Gerry once again gets his target acquisition system locked straight on the groove and starts to enjoy himself with the tom toms. Cas throws in some spirited growling harmonies on the chorus and the woo-woo mantra that we finish on and for a brief moment, it's like you're floating on air with the chug of Richards' guitar as your shield and Jagger's barbed lyric your spear. I don't even have to look at Cas, I can sense the relief in his voice that we're finally cooking and that I'm at last starting to enjoy myself. I try not to look at my neighbour Geoff, who is old Bill, when I sing 'just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints'. Old Bill, Old Nick, none of that matters anymore, in the moment of the song. There's still an internal frisson though at the transgressive power the words somehow seem to have maintained, but the real power it contains is something wordless, elemental. You feel the full power of the song like a pistol in your pocket, the dancers lose their clothes, become a warpaint-daubed tribe. A strange telepathy of the spirit takes place. None of us, performers, dancers, needs to say it, we just know. We know that everyone in the room is involved in this song, that we are merely the channel for it. And I realise that none of the rubbish they have written about this being some diabolical evocation or summoning up of evil spirits is true. You know it, you can feel it. This is no satanic ritual. It's an exorcism.
* * *
Thursday, 22 November 2012
The Beverly Brothers Rifleman Rehearsals - vol.1
Balu & the boys getting in trim for the show...
Download The Beverly Brothers Rifleman Rehearsals - vol.1
Love on y'all,
BOB(CAT)
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