The Black Serpent Choir

from a photo by Mei Lewis

I met Akira the Don in 1995 and ever since then we have talked about making a record together. Somewhere between writing and recording the 2005 Singles Club and making ‘Distractions’, I recorded these bits of music with this in mind. They’re not perfect and I would do much of it different now but I think it works as a collection and historical document. That’s right, I used the phrase ‘historical document’ within the context of my own self. I am a twat. Anyway, we still haven’t got around to making a record together and the songs here were filed in a dusty corner of my computer’s hard drive until the beginning of 1996.

One night in early 2006 Mary had gone off to work and I was wondering what to do with myself when I had the notion of inventing a band on myspace. I called myself The Black Serpent Choir, uploaded a few tracks and sent invites off to all my mates. About three people guessed it was me straight away buy I denied it of course. Adam Walton and Bethan Elfyn played the tracks on their respective radio shows and I think I even did a BSC Mix for Adam’s show? I was offered a gig at the Buffalo Bar in Cardiff which I accepted thinking it would be a good way to prolong my anonymity if I were to somehow persuade a couple of people to do the gig for me.

I asked two friends, John and Richard, If they fancied dressing up as monks and learning to play a laptop set. Being consummate artists (show offs) they of course agreed and we spent a week rehearsing. I bought a couple of ace latex old men masks and I really thought I was going to get away from it. The week before the gig they did a couple of interviews and had their photo taken, hilarious. I was more nervous during their soundcheck than I’ve ever been for one of mine (I wasn’t even there) and sure enough when we met back at the house we had a problem synching up the laptops. After a while I thought I had solved the problem and they left for the gig and I went to the pub. I intended to be late so that everyone could see me arrive. By this time most people were convinced that I was The Black Serpent Choir, that I was underneath one of the masks on stage and I thought it would be funny to show up while the band were on stage. But stage time came and went and I received a text whilst in the pub opposite from Richard telling me that the two laptops wouldn’t synch. Ah nuts.

So I had to go in and edge up to the stage (hidden away from the main seating area so not many people saw me up there) and try to sort it out. We decided just to wing it in the end, they would just have to keep time with one another. In the end I don’t think anybody cared that much although I thought the gig was brilliant and it was the nearest I’ll ever get to seeing myself live. After that I forgot about the Black Serpent Choir again until I decided to keep my electronic and my song shit separate, at least for the time being. The next Black Serpent Choir album will blow this one away but that’s for next year, until that glorious day there is this. Press Play.

Wake up, be bright, be golden and light.

At some point in the past I wasn’t actually sure that this would ever come out but here it is, yo. I could write something moving about the relationship between the artist and his/her audience, the symbiotic line we each have one end of etc But really this is

YOU - ‘We like music’
Me - ‘I’ve made a music you might like, would you like to buy one?
You - Hmm, I dunno, what if it’s crap..?

It’s not crap. It’s me doing what it is that I do nowadays but maybe not next time and after that who can really say?

I should never have given records away, I should be proud of what I do. Besides, baby needs records, I mean, clothes.

Much more to come this year. The soundtrack to this fine Monday is ‘Brand New Day’ by The Staple Singers

THANK YOU! x

Deep, High, Ocean Wide

So the album is out next Monday. It’s all happening so fast and I can’t keep up. There have been some ace reviews, notably in Mojo and Pitchfork and a bit of radio play. Weird for a bunch of songs that have been on on Myspace for well over a year (I’ve taken them down now but they’ll be up again soon) but it feels good to know that people are hearing what I’m doing, it’s been a while since I felt that, ace.

So, if you register at my shop (nothing there yet but have a look anyway, go frolic in the orangicity of it all) you win yourself a Sonny Boy Sampler, ‘Deep, High, Ocean Wide’ which is the title of a song I wrote that is lost forever to the winds and the shadows that gather where once memory basked etc Anyway it features the custard of the Sonny Boy stable. Martin Carr, The Black Serpent Choir and mr bravecaptain himself who may not be making any more records for the foreseeable but who has kindly donated his back catalogue for us to enjoy all over again.

I know that you know that all these bands are just me but this is only the beginning…

Ok, stay on this frequency….

Flow Machines Remix

Flow Machines have a FREE remix ep available from their site featuring remixes by Akira The Don, Cian SFA, Mark West (ex Fanfarlo), Three Men in A Dub and Me, yours truly, mememememe.

It’s ace actually. GO GET IT!

WE ARE STARLIGHT EP

Two and a half minutes of joy

I’m not sure about the game but this, oh this is immense. I demand a full length feature film.

I was away most of last week so there is no 10 Questions this week. Soz.

I’ll make up for it by being extra funny on Twitter and post more on here. Avanti!

10 QUESTIONS - MEG BAIRD

I don’t actually know Meg Baird but after listening to her solo album ‘Dear Companion’ over and over again for the last few months I felt like I was qualified to force my nonsense on her. On ‘Dear Companion’ her pure, plaintive voice wraps itself around songs of death and longing and brings a peace upon me wherever and whenever I hear it. Meg is a founder member of Espers who also make very fine records indeed.

1. Where are you? Describe your immediate surroundings.

I am in my 3rd floor apartment in Philadelphia with all the windows open. It’s very peaceful at the moment, especially since there aren’t any helicopters flying overhead just now. I’m trying not to knock over my guitar, it’s leaning against the couch and I should be practicing.

2. My favourite article of clothing is a sweater I bought about six years ago. It’s Arsenic Grey with a slightly raised neck and the figure ‘29′ emblazoned
on the front. it’s gone at the elbows and, despite the care with which I tend to it, it smells a bit like my dearly departed Grandfather’s outside toilet.
It protects me from devils, evil spirits and the gloom that descends without warning on bleak Tuesday afternoons. I fear nothing whilst wearing it and
would wear it into any battle that I may stumble across. I told my eight month old son the other day that he would inherit ‘Old 29′. He was so excited that
he tinkled all over the couch. What’s your favourite article of clothing.

I have an inherited dad’s sweater that I wore it all through college. I don’t hold on to many clothes or things, but I don’t think it would be possible to give this up, even though it is pretty much retired from wearing now. I always have a favorite pair of jeans and boots, but I am too hard on my clothes to have the same favorites for long. I also have a youth-large hunting orange hoodie that I love. I do feel that it protects me from getting shot accidentally when walking through any wooded area, and keep it around all the time for that reason.

3. “She was not a woman given to recollections” Writes Dorothy Parker in ‘Big Blonde’ “At her middle thirties, her old days were a blurred and flickering
sequence, an imperfect film, dealing with the actions of strangers”.

I have a shocking memory, shocking. I forget names and faces seconds after I’ve met them, it makes life very confusing.
Last Monday I texted somebody apologising for texting on a Sunday and tried to rearrange an arrangement that I hadn’t actually arranged.
What is your first memory?

My first memories involve wood floors and hearing my mom’s voice from another room.

4. What is the one thing you and your sister fight about the most?

Who gets to play the piano.

5. My mate Corin in Boston maintains that he doesn’t like the band Boston where in actual, immutable, fact he is their number one,
all time, bestbandever, fan.

Which band do you outwardly deride yet secretly like? Mine’s Snow Patrol. I have all their lyrics collected in a Royal octavo with Secret Belgian Binding and their turgid, vapid, grandiloquence paints rainbows over my heart. I deride them. Or do I?

(I can’t actually answer this question and still have it a secret?)
Since I feel relatively uneducated about music, I try and never indulge these kind of secrets. I feel like my only way to keep any credibility alongside people who know so much is to at least be very honest about my ears. All the same, I recently way underplayed my love for Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.”. I think this track is a joyful, strong hearted, downtown love-prophecy and a really cool piece of recorded music history.

6. You’re an American musician. What do make of Kaka going to Madrid?

Thank you for the research project.

7. I’m listening to ‘Illinois’ by Sufjan Stevens whilst typing this. It’s one of my favourite records although saying that I could live without a few tracks. Beautifully recorded,
great songs, amazing voice and poignant, singular lyrics. If you had the choice between singing and songwriting, what would it be?

Singing for sure, as long as songwriting is only applying to lyrics, not melody and sound. I’d take glossolalia over lyrics if I had to choose.

8. I’m making a mixtape at the minute, it’s great fun. I’m going to use your A Capella of ‘Dear Companion’ and add some beats, dubby bass and doubtless
a dangerously distorted Moog Bass (Modular Moog. 901b 8-Osc. Stereo Saw + Sub) until the only way they’ll be able to know what the song is will be by it’s dental records.
What do think about electronic music. Great musicians expressing their musicality through modern technology or geeky pocket fumblers, button pushing musical dwarves with operating
manuals sticking out their arse pocket?

No that’s great! Funny enough, the A Capella B-side was designed for this purpose. Tony Vogdes from Tequila Sunrise is a big fan of dance music, and this idea was meant to be a layer in that “album as object” type of thinking (not a concept I am so great at personally!). I wish I knew more about electronic music. Humans looking for new sounds is fascinating.

9. I thought Racism had begun and ended in the seventies and yet democratically legitimised Nazi hitsquad, The British National Party have just been voted overlords of Britain. Has there
been a noticeable difference in America since the end of the republican reign of terror and the dawn of Obama’s presidency?

Maybe racism seems more transparent and demystified…possibly making it easier to see problems with class, poverty and civil rights? But trying to really quantify things like mood just anecdotally–it feels almost superstitious. Of course there was tons of legitimate celebrating and relief to see Obama win and Bush leave. I would be even happier to see The Heritage Foundation go away. I remember seeing some kind of news or fiction or documentary piece about a clerk who worked there who began to shred the donations he was ostensibly processing, I wish I could find the source of this, maybe I have made it up by now.

10. My favourite food is beer and cake, lots and lots of cake. And beer. What’s your favourite cake and beer?

If I could have one favorite, I would.

Where do the weeks go? Sonny is sitting up and has two sharp little teeth sticking out of his lower gums, my hair is long and my beard is huge.

I’m still working on the second Black Serpent Choir album, writing songs for the next Martin Carr record and putting together a mixtape. All of this music will be available to you through my own label, Sonny Boy Records. The beautiful people at State 51 are giving me a shop from which I can flog my dubious wares to the world. All bravecaptain releases will be available as well plus freebies, badges and other things that I haven’t thought of yet. ‘

‘Ye Gods (and little fishes)’ will be released on 6th July 2009. It’s already been played on XFM, 6 Music and the first track on the album ‘The Dead of Winter’ will be on The Word’s covermount CD for August. On the 16th July I’ll be appearing on Roundtable with Steve Lamaq.

Future Sonny Boy releases -

Martin Carr - Ye Gods (and little fishes) - 2009
The Black Serpent Choir - 2005 (Lost in Time) - 2009
bravecaptain - unknownartist (abravecaptainsampler) - 2009
Sonny Boy Records - Birth, School, Work, Death (Mixtape) - 2009
The Black Serpent Choir - Bartholomew Fair - 2010

The full bravecaptain discog will be available digitally soon. I’ve also found a box of ‘Captain America’ 10″s in the attic.

10 QUESTIONS - KEITH CAMERON

I first met Keith in 1991 at Protocol Studios in North London, sandwiched between the bustle, second hand furniture stores and Indian Restaurants of Holloway Road and the relative peace of Benwell Road where John Lydon had spent his boyhood years. Protocol was where we recorded the ‘Every Heaven’ Ep, ‘Everything’s Alright Forever’, ‘Boo Forever’, ‘Giant Steps’ and tracks for the ‘Wake Up Boo’ single (although we rerecorded the eponymous track when we started going to Rockfield Studios in Wales). I’m not sure what we were recording when Keith came down to interview us for the NME but we must have hit it off because a short while later we met up for a drink and a trip to the Underworld in Camden to watch Hole. This was the gig where Courteney Love was dragged into the crowd and manhandled, sickening. We became firm friends and we still are. He’s possibly the most honest person I know which puts a constant strain on our relationship, the last thing I need is an honest opinion impinging on my fantasy world.

We shared a flat for a year in the mid nineties, sitting around in our dressing gowns, smoking dope and playing Brian Lara Cricket on the Playstation. I was away for much of the time, during which KEITH NEVER WASHED UP ONCE! But it’s hard to stay mad at him for long and when I ruined it all by getting married and had to kick his honest, non washing up ass out, I was very sorry to see him go.

1. Where are you? Describe you immediate surroundings

I’m at my desk in the MOJO office, which is on the 5th floor of an unremarkable building just of Oxford Street in London’s West End. In front of me are several file boxes over-filled with copies of the magazine, a teetering pile of CDs I’m hoping one day to be able listen to, though I’m not nearest to the office stereo and sometimes can’t face the opprobrium that comes with putting something on which is deemed unpalatable by my colleagues with louder voices and more conviction in their opinions. Next to the CDs is key books for a man in my position: Eric Partridge’s Usage And Abusage. Which is less exciting than it sounds. Immediately to my right is a West Ham Utd mug full of red pens and a photograph of my son Hamish.

2. ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ is a much loved children’s story about a
woman who is having an affair with a stoner which she rationalises by
trying to convince herself,her daughter and her husband that
it’s actually a large, hungry tiger that turns up unannounced while
her husband is at work and proceeds to eat and drink everything in the house.
What’s the best book you ever borrowed from a female friend?

See, you’ve just spoilt that story for me now. I’ve not really borrowed many books, ever, either from female or male friends. Though if you’ve been wondering where your copy of Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster is, to quote the cuckholded salaryman in The Tiger Who Came To Tea, “I’ve got a very good idea”.

3. What was the worst interview you have did?

Depends on your definition of “worst”. Patrick Duff from Strangelove fell asleep. Siouxsie Sioux walked out in a huff, because I wouldn’t shut up about her past as opposed to concentrating on her fabulous new album. Silly cow. A fair few have been flat-out boring, but that’s because interviews are inherently boring.

4. Scotland is undoubtably the greatest nation on earth and anyone born
there holds keys that unlock the secrets
the universe. Why live in England? Are you subverting the Empire from within
or are you trying negotiating the release
of Kenny Dalglish?

I’ve a soft-spot for Trotsky, so I’d like to think the former. I’m obviously not doing a very good job.

5. Back in 1993 we spent six weeks trying to erase your vocal parts from
‘Giant Steps’. Have you ever, inadvertently or otherwise, destroyed
any other band’s careers?

Hey! Didn’t the stress of that experience resolve you to write some proper tunes in future??!!
I don’t think I’ve ever deliberately set out to destroy any band’s career. Saying like you see it can, however, come off a tad harsh when laid down in print. I saw Radiohead circa 1992 and really didn’t think they were much cop. I wrote words to the effect that they were a pitiful lily-livered excuse for a rock’n'roll band. I don’t think it did their career much harm. So much for the all-powerful music press.

6. On the 5th November 1977, my Dad took me to Anfield to watch Liverpool play Aston Villa. Before the game the European Cup was lifted and my dad pointed out Bill Shankly; it was incredibly exciting. The memory of Ray Clemence, Ray Kennedy, Terry McDermott and my idol, Kenny Dalglish warm up that frosty afternoon will live with me for the rest of my life. We lost only a handful of league matches at home during that entire decade and unfortunately this was one of them. 1-2, gutted.

What can you remember about the first football match you ever attended?

Inverness Thistle v Elgin City, in the early to mid-70s. Lovely sunny day. Thistle played in red and black stripes, hence my residual fondness for AC Milan. Pretty sure Thistle won, doubtless thanks to some quintessential impish wizardry from Alistair ‘Tichy’ Black, though I was too busy being fascinated by the ground, Annfield Stadium (!) which in typical Highland League style comprised a small wooden stand, with wooden benches, a corrugated iron enclosure opposite, and two terraces behind each goal of about half a dozen railway sleepers. I’ve had an eye for misshapen football stadia ever since. Thistle were merged with hated local rivals Caledonian in 1994, but don’t get me started on all that.

7. The boy is teething. He’s not sleeping and drooling like an MEP with an
expense account. What’s the best advice you can give me?
Enjoy it while you can. The molars are worse. Gel’s a waste of time, the homoepathic teething granules seemed to help, but really, the best thing you can do is give the poor bairn Medised. It’s what God invented on the eighth day…

8. Q. Did you hear about the horny suicide bomber?
A. He stepped onto a crowded bus and blew himself off

That’s my humble contribution to the vast and ancient world of original
fungineering? Have you ever made up a joke?

Never. Me and jokes don’t get on. Can’t remember good ones properly to tell them, always fall for the obvious ones, only dodgy punchlines seem to stick in my head (eg, He had a licker licence). Comedy is totally overrated anyway.

9. “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore,
non feci mai male ad anima viva!”
Wrote Puccini in his opera ‘Tosca’. Can you, in a twitteresque 140
words, sum up your philosophy towards life?

Not really, as I’ve never twittered and don’t intend to start now. Wittering, on the other hand, is something I’m good at. The simple facts of life are:
Reggae’s great. Everything falls apart. Be honest. Love is all you need. Marx was right. The kids are insane. Mine’s a pint of Pride (and so’s yours).

10. I reckon the best intro to a song ever is ‘Death on Two Legs’ by Queen from the glorious camprock album ‘A Night at the Opera’. Oneiric, It starts with the sound of a distant, fluttering piano which is then joined by a pounding bass and what sounds like the screaming of ravenous eagles getting closer and closer until you wake, sweating, to the plod of another piano leading us into a ‘Sweeney’-esque groove (and check out John Deacon’s bass playing here, his best). Just as you think the vocal must be imminent, in comes a dizzying guitar solo soaring high above everything else… The whole thing is so pompous and completely over the top. Great, great rock music.

Horrible question, I came up with two dozen right away and then spent a day pondering the definition of ‘intro’. Does it preclude having lyrics? If so, then Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen is disqualified. It starts with lonesome moothie and piano and then Bruce joins in with screeds of his greatest cornball wisdom until the drums kick in and we’re off. So assuming that’s a no-no, then I’ll say Livin’ Thing by the Electric Light Orchestra, probably because it’s been rattling round my head since I heard it unexpectedly the other morning. I had to interview the Arctic Monkeys, met them at a studio where they were doing some photos and Alex had his iPod plugged into some speakers. After about half an hour of Nick Cave he ran over and put ELO on instead. I don’t think I’d knowingly listened to this song for years and I was absolutely floored by how perfect it sounded. I guess part of any great intro’s thrill is the anticipation of where it’s taking you, but Livin’ Thing kinda plateaus out once we’re into the song proper. It’s still amazing though, testimony to the genius of how it starts. Obviously it’s ham theatrics all the way, but no one can do this like Jeff Lynne: the startled lone violin runs about looking for a way out, a trumpet pipes up to give him the good news and off we go into that cashmere groove blanket. Alex said he had a hangover and so it was a bit of an ELO morning. In an ideal world, every morning is an ELO morning.

A Family Affair

I love looking at old photographs, I can do it for hours at a time. Look at that one above; I wonder where it is? Is that a badge that the gentleman has fastened to his suit? Are they married? They seem quite comfortable with one another but there is no physical contact. Where did he buy that tie? Where did she get her hair done? I wonder if that house is till there? I wonder if I could stand on the exact spot they occupy in this photograph? But what I really want to know, what makes me look longer, is what lies beyond that open doorway. What stories and secrets loom within that everlasting darkness?

Actually, that last bit of flowery prose would be true in any other photograph but this one is different, that guy there is my Great Grandfather, the lass in heels and shapeless blouse could be my Great Grandmother, I’m not sure. And that is all I know..

Last week Caitlin sent me, as she does every week, her Times column to illustrate. She had written about ancestry with an emphasis on the titles we give ourselves in order to display to others our ethnic identities such as the oft used AngloIrishCypriotAmericanIndian. Anyway, as I’d recently been doing a spot of excavation work around the old family plot, where our tree stands, bent but not broken; I had a box of photographs that would supply the illustration (The column and illustration are in todays Times).

My Gran died in 1981, I had been playing football with Sice on the fields off Mosslands Drive and arrived home to find the house hushed. I can’t remember being told, I do remember asking my dad how old she was during tea that night, a typically tactless act. I loved my Gran, her laugh, her bunions, the fact that her name was Renie and that she had packets and packets of Renes in the heavy drawers of the big oak sideboard which sat against one of the walls of the cramped back room of the house in Altrincham where she lived with my Grandfather, Jim. She was a large lady, warm and funny. If we asked what was for pudding at the end of a meal she would say ‘A jump at the cupboard door and a bite of the knob’. Her friends called her Keekee because that was the noise she made when she laughed. I know that she had a brother, Roland who my dad remembers visiting in his Navy uniform. We think he emigrated to New Zealand. I can still hear her voice and remember the way she used to get up from her chair, it took a few attempts. I also swear that I remember her running for a bus when we lived in Leasowe in the early seventies but my Mum doesn’t think that would have been possible, even then. ‘You can’t put your arms around a memory’ sang Johnny Thunders but a memory can wrap it’s loving arms around you and the thoughts of all my Grandparents and their houses bring me great pleasure tinged with an inevitable sadness, an intoxicating combination for a hopeless melancholic such as myself.

Thing is, she was just my Gran, not a person with hopes, fears, dreams, desires… She existed solely to supply me, my brother and sister with an endless supply of cake and sweets and comics. That’s her above, how old is she? Where is she? I’ve many photographs of her as a young woman, speeding through countryside on a bicycle, sitting on the steps of an ornate gypsy caravan and laughing with friends. Who are these people? It almost aches not to know these things. Photographs are teasing, showing you what they want you to see and no more, the rest of the world hiding behind the faded and torn white borders, out of sight, gone forever. Like a Time Machine that freezes once it arrives at it’s destination on the very day that you get your neck brace fitted; photographs can often frustrate as much as illuminate. Where is she going? Where has she been? Does she think about having children? Grandchildren?

The photographs below are of my Dad and Grandad (all these pics are of my dad’s family because they are the pictures I have to hand). My Grandfather is the dude in the trilby. My dad is the image of my son.