Experiment V...

Well, that's it - end of experiment. Phew, glad/sad *that*'s over....

It's always a bitter sweet thing, the creative impulse - bit like the whole male sex experience really, I suppose. Great in the build up, fan-bloody-tastic most of the way through then "whey-ey-ey-ey-fhnoarrrrrgorfluggin'norathawas-bloody-corkin-smashing-love" at the end and then.....slow, contemplative puff on a post-coital gasper as the vague feelings of inadequacy/nausea begin to make themselves known in the groin/gut/adenoids etc. Yep, that's about the size of the making of Bedroom Burlesque too, you could say. Nice while it lasted love, but - eh, do us a favour darling, don't slam the door on your way out, there's a good lass. Before it's even on the shelves, you're already eyeing up - if not actually groping - the firm but ample posterior of the next one....

But 'Glam' will just have to wait...

So, what of the experiment? Well, I set out to write from the position I felt I was in - namely, an artist trying to sell his wares for the first time; in layman's terms, then, a *prostitute* of some sort. I mean, what else can you call doing what you love doing...for money? Anyway, that's the voice I think I was subconsciously reaching for in all of the songs; that of the slightly shady character who sings 'What I do' - proud and shameful at the same time, bold enough to give you the bold facts of the transaction in a matter-of-fact, pulling on a Gauloise in a shady doorway of the Rue St. Denis kind of way, but deep down, still secretly hoping that the people s/he cares about never find out what exactly it is that s/he actually does. I eventually arrived there in that song, I suppose and - back to the old 'joy detumescing into ennui' mode we talked about earlier - once you arrive, you know it's time to move on...

But then, isn't there some canny quote (I can't put my finger on it right now) that says something along the lines of, well, it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey? If that's so, then I suppose we could call the experiment a qualified success. There were the unfathomable good uns - the ones that just worked, you knew that, but not *why* - for me those would include 'Cathy Moriarty' and 'Tramp Smash', they came unbidden and you just have to hold your nerve, thank your lucky stars and get the bloody things down before you forget them...a bit like the gentle art of seduction itself, I guess, when you put it like that and if I can dare to stretch that old art/whoring metaphor any further than I have already...

Then there are the ones you hope you're right in thinking have some substance to them, once the bubbles have subsided and they get listened to a bit further down the line, when the medals are being handed out - 'Veil & Jimmy Choos', 'Jailbirds', 'Boytron' and - and this is at a real push, you understand - 'The Circus is Leaving Town' would be the ones I'd enter into that little lottery myself. You *hope* they'll leave more than a monosodium glutinate bloatation to the stomach. But as with so many things in life, that's all you can do really, in the end - hope...

Otherwise, it's been a pretty tough one to gestate - I suppose in many ways because of the way I've chosen to go about it. I have an intractable inability to do things in the abstract - method man, me. I have to make my mistakes in actual fact, not in the abstract, learn my lessons by poking a dozy finger into the light socket rather than sating myself on the received wisdom that to do so will actually *hurt*. Unless I feel it, I'm not convinced. So, hence the dressing up and the rather strange response that that's encouraged - I mean, have you never seen an ugly, big-boned man dressing up like a cheap, common tart before? OK, so it's not everybody's cup of Darjeeling, but - heck - I *have* got a stonking pair of legs, haven't I? *Right*! So why hide them under a bushel? Huh??? But then there's the uncounted on sub-narrative for you: the serious artiste who just wants to know what happens when you poke A with B gets mistooken for a weirdo, child molesting 'prevert' [sic] and the words and the tunes get swallowed up by the fellow in the fishnets wearing a bin liner with a raffia work crown of thorns upon his/her head....There's always a cost, isn't there?

And that, I guess, is my theme here - on the album that is, not in this post - value(s). It's there from the first track, I suppose - a shadow of horrible, ill-defined intention, lurking like a grimy tank-topped paedo- in the shadows of the park where the kids should be playing without fear. That's where the songs lose their innocence - when you try to write *about* something, I suppose...But then, how many novelists avoid that reductive, lollipop sucking question - "wassitabart??" It's not about anything, but there are, unavoidably, themes. And the obvious one here is the unregarding harm that money wreaks upon us - and we get younger and younger in its clutches. It's there from note one, bar one, I guess. 'Joining the Cyber Circus' is a child in a bedroom cavorting lasciviously in front of a webcam, his or her little lap dance being instantaneously lapped up globally....poor parents, poor child, poor audience, poor walls. It's maybe a tad bland musically - but doesn't it have to be, in a way? Doesn't the blandness reinforce somehow the pathos of what is an every 'She's Leaving Home' type scenario; I mean, you don't even need to leave home anymore to leave home a long, long way behind you...so it needs to be rendered as being as out of the ordinary as 'Neighbours', doesn't it?

Then there's the calculating boss, greedy fingers abacusing the worth of his secretary/lover in 'She's Falling in Love With Me'. The bland - again, blandness....this is getting to be a disturbing trope... - emptiness of that 'Glam trash, tramp smash doll' - so seductive, but - really what *is* s/he saying? Not much - but hopefully enough... The Jailbirds who are happier with the 'fun' they can have on the inside than the freedom on offer 'outside'. The Boytron, who only charges a 'love token' before pumping away until the batteries run out. There's joy, for sure, but emptiness too. Awkward exchanges, unfair deals like the 'let's start all over again' trip to New York that ends with a tearful pop of the cork in 'Champagne Shag'. The fuzzy end, a better writer might say, of the lolly stick...

I think the last track is the strongest, in some ways...but I'm not sure that it works without the rest of the album - and no, I'm not just saying that so you download all the tracks.... It's a personal emotional lowpoint, bizarrely captured (very quickly) on a Sunday morning - the ink not yet dry on the tears occasioned by the night before. It's the sound of a sad, cross-dressing clown realising that he's been corrupted, stomping off across the stereo soundstage. But you know (and I hope this comes through just a tad in that final, album ending flounce) that even as s/he flips up her skirts and turns tail, just like the circus, s/he'll be back in town before too long. "joining the cyber circus" once more..."performing my tricks for the world...."

I'll be posting up as many of the songs as I can in the next two or three weeks, so I hope all this will make a bit more sense once the songs have had a chance to have their say...




L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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