Muddy Summers and the Dirty Field Whores

Combe Haven Defenders are on a mission to stop Osbourne’s Road to Nowhere near Bexhill in East Sussex.  A three month reprieve is imminent IF they can get enough support on the site up to the 1st March when the hedgerows become protected for nesting birds. If you can get there, do it! More details on their site HERE.

DJ Ray ‘Rude Boy’ Gange, Puddock Stew, Ms. Something-Else (me), Charlie Bateman (Thinker) and Ukulele Dave played a benefit gig for them at The Roomz in Hastings t’other day, and had the proper craic!

Here’s some videos from the night..

Solidarity!!

Well, it’s shaping up to be a very exciting year already! For starters I’ve been on a bit of a writing and recording frenzy. Seventeen new songs are now tapped into my laptop and three are up on Soundcloud for free download.

First up is Not Nowhere – a collaboration with Sdooley. Unusually for me, it contains some stuff that I wrote ages ago combined with some new words. Seems I’ve broken the habit of ‘if it’s not finished now it never will be.’

It’s about Sleep Paralysis – a condition I’ve had since I was a teenager which kicks in with a vengeance during times of stress - and it’s been kicking my arse for the last four months or so.  Not anymore though. A good friend of mine suggested I use placebo and write who or what was bothering me on a scrap of paper and then burn it. I half-heartedly tried it just after the latest SP bout started, but it didn’t really work properly, so I tried again a couple of weeks ago and must have meant it, as that problem is definitely out of my life now…

Next up is Old Time. It’s for a friend who has helped me a lot in recent weeks and in return I’ve helped them. Mutual Aid – you have to love it, especially when it’s so energising. It’s about not being scared to be, to not be too proud to take a helping hand when you need it, to not let the past and folks in it rot your head and to love the now for what it is, not what it might turn into…

Enough of the hippy healing bollocks then and back to politics! It’s been a while since I collaborated with Bellicose, but he pulled a blinder out of one of his delightful hats for me this time. I thought I had some dirty words for it, but then new ones came when I started recording the vocals. It’s an anti-Workfare song with a dose of personal fantasy thrown in and delivered  in full sleaze mode. Fitting, and who wouldn’t want to torture Cameron and his cronies?! It’s dedicated to every filthy rich, greedy shithead on the planet. Let me at ‘em!!

Well, actually I finished my first attempt at animating one of my tunes while your gran was snoring and parping in the corner complete with wonky paper hat – and ‘ere tis!

 

Created with a Trust graphics tablet, Photoshop and Windows Movie Maker.

Now to master  this huge Adobe Suite before the next attempt..xx

I have to admit to finding competitions in general a bit wanky, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t grin a little bit when Silent Screams, my collaboration with Fool’s Chaos,  got a score of 8/10 in the UK Songwriting Contest, and almost made the finals in the Electronic/Dance/Ambient category.

Some of it’s electronic, bits are ambient, but it’s not really dance music, and if you listen to Fool’s Chaos‘ other stuff,  you’ll hear how difficult it is to box his incredible style.

How do I feel about the fact that industry nobs listened to my words and didn’t hate them? I guess I should have sent in Cameron or Jesus.

Here’s the tune..

It’s been a while since the Rev Phil Dread and I collaborated. This one is a true story about my experience in the kettle at Trafalgar Square last March:-

Dear Riot Copper

It’s the end of an eventful day and I’m in Trafalgar Square.

People dancing, fires burning, solidarity in the air.

It’s peaceful and it’s beautiful and then out of nowhere

come your shields and batons making walls around some of us there.

As you close in violently, we’re chanting ‘It’s your jobs, too!’

But your job here ain’t to listen. It’s to bully and subdue.

Your glowing wall is now three deep. There is no breaking through

and I’ve lost my friends, I’ve got the fear and don’t know what to do.

Then an overzealous protester throws a barrier your way.

It hits me on the head and knocks me down and then you say

‘Well, you shouldn’t be here anyway

and we’re gonna nick you for public disorder and affray.’

I ask you for some water, or a medic or to get out.

You seize the opportunity to give me another clout.

Do you even know what this protest is about?

Forgive me as you hit me if I start to scream and shout

about what you’re protecting – property and profiteers.

You hide behind that uniform to shield you from your fears.

You can gas me in the face, but you will never have my tears.

I reserve them for my children and their future years.

I was brought up to believe that if you need help ask a copper.

Just like democracy, you’ve helped kill that myth good and proper!

You look at me with empty eyes. ‘C’mon boys, let’s drop her.

She’s getting in the way of our spectacular show-stopper.’

Someone picks me up and tries to help me climb

up onto the statues, telling me that I’ll be fine,

but I need to piss, so I crouch down right in front of your line.

Victory? Not really, but it felt good at the time.

I’m dizzy and my head is pounding. My vision is now blurred.

but still my pleas to you for help remain unheard.

Then I find a woman among you, and though my speech is slurred

she listens and she looks and says that she will have a word.

The copper overhearing next to her couldn’t resist

another shield clip, but with the second one he missed

as I lost my balance. ‘Is she alright?’ ‘Ah, she’s just pissed.’

Then someone from the back line grabs me and I’m whisked

through your three deep kettle and out the other side.

‘Keep walking’ he says. ‘Don’t come back.’ ‘No worries!’ I reply.

I stagger out and put my hands over my face to hide

from the cameras pointing at me. Then I crumple. Then I cry.

I protest peacefully, that day included, so you know.

I have post-concussion syndrome and recovery is slow.

I’ve never felt so frightened, so impotent and small, though

my fight is for my children, and with them it will grow.

***

Status is the second one, and also my second attempt at messing with loops:-

Status

Status isn’t real and basing everything you feel on what the neighbours see is mental.Everything you seek to be in residential harmony is fake – down to the Waitrose on your plate and the stain upon your fence but still your brain does not relent from telling you that this stuff matters. But you, yourself are just the tatters of a child that once did dream of more than tablecloths and finest cream upon the tart designed to fire a jealous heart and bitter compliment and feed a charged resentment – deliberate with its intent.
I get the love to hate game, but you have to draw a frame around it. Keep the boundaries clear cut and know your chosen target and make it mean something and match the colour of your dreams or let them be forever green and meaningless – never real or keen for less than spoonfed motivation from some embroidered framed quotation sitting on your wall that’s newly decorated with up-to-the-minute not you gone tomorrow chic to mither cliques that either judge you, or secretly begrudge you..

Your stasis it is real and basing everything you feel on what the TV says is mental. Won’t you see it’s detrimental til it’s too late – and there’s no food upon your plate, so sod the cracks along your fence and use your brain for what it’s meant for. Think outside the box you sent for cuz it’s flatter. Grab the hammer, watch it shatter..

xxx