Saturday, October 30, 2021

Everybody Hears The Hum At 3am

 

I recently wrote an essay for A Sound Map Of Dunloaghaire, Everybody Hears The Hum At 3am - Sound Marks, Memory Prompts and Possible Futures, reflecting on the sonic landmarks and associated memories of my younger days.

Monday, June 21, 2021

New album

My latest album, Plate Spinning, has just been released. It is available via Bandcamp in digital form, and in a very limited physical edition of 25 only.






Saturday, February 27, 2021

Dirty Blue Cheeseburger




I've put together a playlist of all the 139 song fragments used in my recent post-punk tribute, Dirt Behind The Daydream. It was fun putting the piece together (lots of work too, of course - best part of a month in total). Only a fraction of the over 1500 edits were used in the final piece. Some only about a second long.. I think I did manage to capture that post-punk spirit of experimentation and DIY.


Like the other tributes, some unintentionally uncanny moments: after The Fall's Mark E. Smith says "Friday.." early in the piece, I realised that the Associates song just before it was called Tell Me Easter's On Friday... The Fall track is called Gramme Friday. Various melodies from different songs coalescing in surprisingly tuneful ways.. especially when a moment of Joy Division's 24 Hours is superimposed with The Fall's Kicker Conspiracy - Hooky's bass harmonising with Hanley's ! Hugo Burnham's muscular, inventive drumming on Gang Of Four's Cheeseburger accompanied by Captain Beefheart's Dirty Blue Gene is another favourite among too many to mention.



Initial notes/ideas Nov/Dec 2020


Edit list with working title, Post-Punk Pearls, Jan 2021.


PLAYLIST:

23 Skidoo:

Porno Bass
Mary's Operation
Vegas El Bandito
Quiet Pillage
Last Words


A Certain Ratio:

Abracadubra
Waterline


Associates:

Kitchen Person
Tell Me Easter's On Friday
The Associate


Au Pairs:

Set Up
Pretty Boys
Headache For Michelle
Love Song
Unfinished Business

Black Uhuru:

Shine Eye Gal

Buzzcocks:

No Reply
Nothing Left


Captain Beefheart:

Dirty Blue Gene
Best Batch Yet
Run Paint Run Run
Sue Egypt
Hot Head
Sheriff Of Hong Kong

Cabaret Voltaire:

Silent Command
A Thousand Ways
Red Mask
Touch Of Evil
Jazz The Glass
Landslide

Clash:

Janie Jones
Career Opportunities


DNA:

Lying On The Sofa Of Life
32123


Dome:

Cruel When Complete
Breathsteps
The Red Tent


Ian Dury:

Sweet Gene Vincent
Blackmail Man
If I Was With A Woman
My Old Man
Reasons To Be Cheerful
Clevor Trever
What A Waste
Inbetweenies
Blockheads
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

Eyeless In Gaza:

Three Kittens
Dreaming At Rain
Before You Go



The Fall:

Frightened
Gramme Friday
Music Scene
Live At The Witch Trials
Two Steps Back
US 80s-90s
Kicker Conspiracy

Flying Lizards:

Another Story
Cirrus


Gang Of Four:

Cheeseburger
Not Great Men
If I Could Keep It For Myself
Glass
Ether
Paralyzed
Anthrax

Bruce Gilbert/Graham Lewis/Russell Mills:

Extracts from MZUI album

Joy Division:

The Only Mistake
Atrocity Exhibition
Wilderness
Day Of The Lords
New Dawn Fades
Autosuggestion
Isolation
24 Hours
Disorder

Ludus:

The Escape Artist
Unveil
Box
Sightseeing


Magazine:

The Light Pours Out Of Me
My Tulpa
Feed The Enemy
Cut-Out Shapes
The Thin Air
Stuck
Because You're Frightened


Pere Ubu:

The Modern Dance
Life Stinks
Heart Of Darkness
Over My Head
Sentimental Journey
Non-Alignment Pact

PiL:

Theme
Bad Baby
Annalisa
The Suit


Pop Group:

Trap
There Are No Spectators
Don't Call Me Pain
Don't Sell Your Dreams
Thief Of Fire
Blind Faith
Amnesty Report
She Is Beyond Good And Evil
How Much Longer

Rip, Rig & Panic:

Need (De School You)
Those Eskimo Women Speak Frankly

Slits:

Newtown
Ping Pong Affair
Instant Hit
Shoplifting


Steel Pulse:

Handsworth Revolution

Stephen Mallinder:

Temperature Drop

Talking Heads:

Warning Sign
I Zimbra
Drugs
Stay Hungry


Television:

Marquee Moon

This Heat:

Triumph
Horizontal Hold
Music Like Escaping Gas
Independence
24 Track Loop
Paper Hats
A New Kind Of Water

Ultravox:

Saturday Night In The City Of The Dead
Distant Smile

Virgin Prunes:

Sandpaper Lullaby
Abigail
Sad World
No Birds To Fly


Wire:

12XU
Former Airline
Once Is Enough
Mercy
Reuters
Too Late




White Noise In My Old Man's White Room



It's a no-man's land in the Forbidden City








Friday, February 05, 2021

Dirt Behind The Daydream





It's 5.45pm, so time to reveal the fruits of my recent labours. 5.45 was the time Andy Gill once mentioned the 'red spot in the egg' which confused me (I've never seen any red spot Andy, watcha tawkin' abaht ?). I've done another tribute piece, even though I'd kind of decided I wasn't going to do any more after spending two and a half months on the Bowie one last year. However, this one's not about any band or singers but rather an entire clutch of bands and singers in my attempt to capture the spirit of post-punk and the excitement of first hearing it as a teenager. I've built a plunderphonic pot-pourri of forensically scalpeled song segments, sliced and diced and overlaid in surprising new configurations, moving swiftly via various tempo matches and shifts and uncanny harmonies with disparate melodies. It's post-punk pinball, bouncing manically between multiple points along the '77 - '81 timeline.