The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

wall st even

struggling with life a bit

conscience and all that jazz

i waste my time pontificating

i endure idle indecision

come to an awful fork in the road

dont wanna choose but journey must go on

it cannot stop for long something must therefore give

life is like music

containing an admixture of feelings soul and reason

life’ll bring you to yer knees until you not thinking straight

music ‘ll bring ya to yer knees but you dont wanna think straight

i have all these words at my disposal

but that doesnt mean i’m getting through

some sadnesses are hard to work into songs

some gloom that cant be harnessed n trotted out

a good song for someone else but not me

everyones songs are coming true

i’m living all these songs by the dayload

hard to write a song if you living in a song

hard to paint naive when you feel so weary n cynical

hard to write if you feel wrong

hard to right if you feel left

hard to handle too

trapped in a verse going back round to the opening words

ive had that happen all the time

a double chorus in a different key

a future in a different time signature

a spirit voice chopped and inserted on the bridge

beginning wonder what the middle ate

songs in exile songs in pain

songs in memory sweet again

somewhere theyre playing our song baby

our song remember that

echoes round coldwater flat

F# minor

yeah i sang my girl to sleep

strumming quietly through afternoons totally forgotten

almost inaudible around this world

like a womb the night was all around

i longed for that night which never comes

i wrote songs to talk to myself

to bridge the gap between inner n outer me

i wanted my baby to feel loved

so i sang her all our endings

we will lose each other somewhere eventually i said

it was warm that day

i had a black guitar

the whole world seemed adolescent

she was sleeping gently now

my black guitar was guiding her through realms of slumber

her dreams would be nice

my chord sequence would insure that

i start to pick up a rhythm

yeah but that day is long gone now long long gone

my black guitar was stolen in metropolis

i wonder whose playing it now and i feel jealous

guitars are like sweethearts

you can always get another but it may not be the same

i dunno what i mean

songs are easier to write than digging with a spade

music is like life

it can change suddenly

it can end real soon

it speeds up

it fades away

it ends in silence

bands break up

sweethearts break up

eventually guitars break up i guess

everything put together must come apart

some element will abrade or corrode it

some unforeseen friction will wear it down

your breadwinner gets toasted

harping on about lyres

plucking your eye-pods

i get confused just opening the score

all those players fucking playing

those cats man fishing for birdies

that devils music that old black magic

being pulled apart here

my record is scratched

my grooves are jumping

my disc is warped

my needle is worn

my belt is slipping

my woofer is blown

more grief coming atcha

blues in the night indeed

warm afternoons into shiny cold night

which tries to spit you out

still you have to do what you have to do

the best song

the best life

the best blah blah blah

yeah

if that’ll do

bronze wailer

capable of making statements nothing else can make

beautiful music

surrounding us in the night

stream of sound

keeps giving ya the message

that peculiar wisdom

well it evaporates under scrutiny

music is in all of us…..why?

you dont even question it, do you….?

you knew music was important right from the word go

how do people banging n shaking n plucking n bowing n blowing objects…

how is it transmuted into pleasure……

a mystery then it remains

even to us old hands

i dunno i dunno what music is

my dad didnt either he just kinda played it

he felt it n never once in his life did he wonder what music really was

but me……i still cant understand

i can manipulate its force somewhat

but i dont know why music is so powerful and dangerous

a divine gift we can enjoy it

but still it defies analysis

theres certain feelings you get in certain songs

its just that right combo baby that perfect mix

wow when a pop song hits all yer buttons …..man…..

knock the breath outta ya

put stars in your eyes

put fire in your spine

put a little love in your heart

“music is m0st important implement in the tool box of love”

so sayeth my character nebauchenezzar old moon doggy

in the musical i’m in at the moment

yeah a musical

we burst into songs n i love it

i sing a hilarious little number myself

and i ponce about the stage ‘aving a fucking laugh

god i love music

music i love god

love god music

singing can be a lotta fun

have ya ever tried you maybe surprised

music shouldnt be that hard but it often in fact is

they’ll never run outta ideas

you cant exhaust music

you cant do it all

theres more to be done

more permutations

break more rules

follow more rules

homage to tradition iconoclastic

each individual approaches music differently

you got your take you got your in

do things your way

dream stuff up

special stuff

dark stuff

brilliant stuff

sad stuff

hey

i’m completely blown away with all my birthday wishes

youre all very kind

i’m kinda treading water at the moment

upheaval and chaos slowing me right down

not getting as much done as i would like

i am a driven man and i need to create

but reality intrudes on my imagination sometimes

its wednesday morning 7 50 am

never know what each day will hold

listening to craig pruess n marconi union as i do yoga

been listening to peter hammill peter gabriel lisa gerrard

todd rundgren ….wow he deserves a blog soon…a real genius…

i listen to my ears ringing n it frightens me

my hearing continues to degenerate

i miss a lot of converations now…a real deaf old coot

gigs coming up

another melbourne gig with ricky n hoffmen

yeah we’re pretty good youre gonna like that

the church doing their acoustic retrospective show in aust

a couple of surprise things too

gb3 is coming up in sydney and melb soon too

still music baffles and delights

strap on a guitar never know whats gonna happen

i love you guys my readers

i really do

ok onwards then…….

afternoon of a fauna

here i really am

its 4 57 on monday afternoon sept 13

the birds singing and chirping

tyrannosaurus rex on my i-box

40 years ago since my dad bought me my first bass

80 bucks it cost a lot in 1970

56 you cant say thats not old

56 you cant say that isnt getting on a bit

a proper venerable old geeza

old moondoggy

i cast my eye back over my lifes work

it bores me

it takes much work to focus in on what i did

its done its over

most of its pretty good

thats why you love me

thats why you bother really

those songs

all those songs

oh my lord

500 or 600 hundred out there?

mostly good too

not that much dross

you see i aint no first tier genius

i am a guy who analyses the top tier geniuses

and i reassemble in my own image

so deftly have i blended them that it indeed appears to be me

and maybe it fucking is

and maybe i’m amazed by how much i really need you

ever since i was very little i was obsessed by special songs

special to me that is

songs that had some inexplicable power

songs that cast some unearthly spell

i was searching for these songs

and when once apprehended

i tried to crack the songs open

to see how it all worked

this is a kind of genius of course

a kind of mechanical genius

to be able to parse songs

to be able to figure out how that spell was created

naturally when it came time to do my own thing

this is would be my specialty

and songs are on the way all the time

a barrage of songs until the day i go down singing

thats a given

i guess the church is starting up soon

some recordings to be made etc

music everywhere

i dont want to stop

my daughters ring from stockholm to wish me a brief hbd

the doodles are at art class

scarlet with her mother

voices arguing in a room across the road

a big fat guy on his balcony in a white singlet smoking

an apricot coloured sun through incredibly subtle blue-greys

music music music

40 years since i first started bass

every now n then you make a great leap forward

it all becomes suddenly clearer

what youre doing and why youre doing it

the twin pursuits of money and excellence

to make a living by making the best of all possible musics

you got the church dedicated to that for 30 years

so i did ten years on my own

in saga

in precious little

in baby grande

then 4 years groupless

then 1980 the church

i never totally planned the church to be the way it is

i got lucky knowing pk n mwp

then of course ploogy who for a while was an amazing drummer

a real star a boy wonder

for these guys to play i came up with some special songs

special for me maybe special for you

i guided by my analytical mind

which dissects songs it loves

and puts them back together new

almost as good as knew

i keep on writing em with others or on my own

its what i do

yeah i should be good by 56

i expect to be good by now

its a given

why do so many others lose their edge?

blunted by fame and dough i suppose

not problems for your humble hero

just hanging in there

but my songs are still reliably nifty creations

i surprise myself with the many tiny allusions within illusions

well thats it folks

thanks to my well wishers

56 not out

audiofroth

a million saturday nights

all those songs

all that music pouring in from elsewhere

somewhere else

in dreams in thoughts in cracks n leaks

raw song in astral night

the current horizon looms perturbingly

i appear at a club

a crush to get in

whos on someone asks

we fight through the flesh

the sudden sound of an ampoule cracking

a sigh of satisfaction

a whisper a word

backstage its awkward and crowded

quentin quin is there with his torso double

we nibble on the static

a roadie hovers with my axe

i sip bella codonna

i smoke hook

i take mytime

i handle the ladies with a plumb

i mingle with my agent

he offers me a gig in a group called the eleusinian mysteries

white pancake and black satyric dots

the music is said to be sublime

the recording is available in parallel U’s

a new process recording music with etheric record

its all just bullshit hes saying to someone in darkness

eventually we hit the stage

i stride out and the electronica starts to mesh

out in the audience its raining something

i see eyes sea of eyes

solemnly i use my axe to cut the silence

in half

the rest join in

the drums explode with sizzling bursts

pace yourself i say to me

music is a temptation to not resist

the empty space at its heart sucks like a vortex

the huge throb of our machine begins

slowly at first then taking shape

the elements fall into place

the riff that keeps on going

it just keeps on going a constant a given

i lurch over to my instrument panel

i simulate a cascade of brittle notes

that sheer off the silver strings

a girl screams out for something

i hear myself better in the fluid

i bear down barely impaired

a ripply flashback sequence to the hotel

you fucked with a zeitgeist and a machine ate your money

if your friend is a genius then i’m a blue soup

that group he plays for are 3 light years old

a prehistoric modernity called glass/out

i digress

the gig is taking place

i am an actor playing a singer

i finger the nails

i thumb the tax

i tow the line

steve kilbey from parallel U 23

for a moment we’re strangers

the familiar within the strange

the ache within the pleasure

where universes join up you find the congealed music

i stand onstage in whitest lightest spot

i see my shadow at the back of the hall

i see its reflection in the blaze of an eye

the band implodes to a low pulse

it skates across the silent void

i take the microphone unto my self

my mouth opens slowly to sing the fragile text

anoint me baby anoint me as your pointed man

night comes in spades in delphic glades

its decayed through 3 decades

i transported to artemis-gordon

where i cut through the cordon

yeah impossible to predict the future derelict

i stagger on my dagger

lake just makes me madder

flake just takes me sadder

the musics running out + they cant find the lid

the warp of the woofers + you owe me 3 quid

look what i did

yeah look what i did

yeah look what i did

the volume shatters constraint of time

the beat enables a smooth transition of power

my axe is sharp enough to penetrate skull

i dig deep into head

my music violently detonates in your prelingual cortex

i stand on stage tapping into this earth

up from the ground comes a shuddering impulse

the dirt gives its blessing

babe strap up my one shot for me

i move into concentric parallel U’s

through door after door

portal gives way to next door

onstage we huddle under the onslaught of our sound

it comes falling back down

the audience surge as won

the music rolls along on its own now

who knows what it means

who knows what it doesnt mean

a review said

kilbeys take on ambiguity is unclear

his elusiveness is fixed

his songs are from parallel U 13

same earth but different

here antarctica won the first whirled war

and it shows in frosty bites of white noise

the warmth only begins when he thaws

random choices uncover unusual discoveries

nothing is positive

anything is unchosen

this record is as pointless as a summer day

see ?

the lighting rig sagged 28 feet above head

the lash and loop of the feedbreak

my severed attention i was fiddling with a burn of rome

music is sweet so is love

but music falls into silence

love turns into hate

my songs tell the story of the long gone world

my story in these songs

the hum of the outside

the rumble of the humbling plough

the jumble of the numbing pain

the jarring far out clout that knocks you out

and about

SK + sk

essay on my songs

how many have i written

how many have you herd

how many and how much releases

i started writing songs at 11

i wrote two and then i stopped till 16

then i started again i guess

actually some the the 16 year olds were worse than 11s

yeah writing songs my people

thats what i’m best at in the long run

thats my real day job

writing songs

you listen to all your favourites

from all of that and all of you

concoct a delicious blend

how?

how to delicify the concoction

well a nice beat

boom boom whack boom boom whack thump crash etc

leave that to the drummer he’ll know best for sure

oh now this bits important

more than anything else

get the bass right, right?

the bass is the thing

i realised that

so did paul

stingo

and a few others i could mention

the bass makes the changes

simple subtle gently pulsating bass mmmmm

warm and inviting

oh so enticing

the cake not the icing

mighty obliging

the bass guitar

pluck it slap it pick it lash it strum it thumb it

the deep end fix that knock ya for uh seven, steven

the lowdown hit of creamy bass

like a white shot in your hart

for some songs bass is everything

but for other songs the bass just plods along

plodding songs are ok

yo-o heave ho

father why are the pleasants plodding

father whither pleasants plod

the peasants plod each silly sod my son

yo-o heave ho yo whatsup?

look anysong is good song

you dont need a fucking bass for goodsong

you need number one

a melody!

thats it

thats the secret folks

a good tune ya could whistle down the winding and long road

no one can tell ya how to do that

it just sorta happens

a million or none ways

i dunno

they can never really teach ya that

that sublime moment a good melody jumps inner ya head

it cometh out of nowhere

one minute not there

next minute youre singing it

thats what grant could do

its a gift some have

you can work on it hard and itll blossom n bloom soon

a lot of work can potentiate a small gift

a lot of practice and diligence takes a medium gift right up there

and then after melody you have the optimum words

those fascinating scintillating gems n pearls

about cars n girls greek myths what ifs travel and love

those meaningless words why do they mean so much

how you gonna write that?

you gotta get inside the language of song

you think about it all day long

every word n phrase turned over for sweet suitability

my songs have words

words i dredge my mind for

words i struggle with for ages about 2 seconds

come on my words fly to me outta thin air

my computer like mind interfaced with collectable subconscious

link up with esoteric etheric spirit

which guides and commissions the process

the eternal you

drawing on everything

because a song could theoretically contain everything

go on try chucking random bits of everything in a lyric

see…it aint so easy

you need that leap of faith no timidity please

you need love too

you need to love your song a bit

give it some deep love because it will nourish it

try for the best words only

feel in your heart when you have some good ones

they’ll impress you

let yourself be therefore impressed

instruments you need in varying degrees

guitars of course

piano colada

strings n horns n harps n drones

gonna stitch you up when you come undone

muse : a clever little bastard…

me : you like that…?

and let the instruments be suitable also

dont let them trumpets blow it for ya

dont let that fuzz guitar distort yer perception

dont let the snare rattle you too much

dont let the 88s do a number on ya

dont let the bass go so easy

but dont let it go hard

a simple sigh man

a bass cleft

bass n drum go hand in hand

whatever that means

you already knew it

how they reinforce the other

how they dictate their terms to each other

to interweave maybe

but to collide …never!

this is the important stuff

but you can never say just what it is

but i can only tell ya my version

many ways to skin a song

come in thru the strangest doors

just a title

think of all the great titles you ever saw or heard

the ones that grabbed ya good

get a good title

thats all you might need

mind you not guaranteed

here are some of my favourite song titles

in no particular world order

cirrus minor

strawberry fields forever

queen jane approximately

i want you

eight miles high

king is white and in the crowd

seven by seven

elemental child

moonage daydream

search and destroy

sweet thing/candidate

heroin

the end

underture

helpless

guiding light

mercury towers

zen archer

i dunno a lot more too

i mean millions of em

good titles

i guess

maybe not millions

but theyre not that hard to beg borrow or steal

go on nick it!

i do

they all fucking do

just help yerself to someones novels title

i do

come on shakespeare aint gonna sue ya if ya use a line from macbeth

nick it pick out the bits ya want

go on lift from me

i dont mind

its a complement

use the good stuff thats what its there for

a line outta the bible its pure authenticity

i mean how much more authentic can ya be than adam n eve

you could write a rock opera about them

muse : oh some rich guy, go on, commission him…….

adam n eve by steve kilbey

a new rock opera

adam is some troubled type

sings deep and complicated stuff

eve sings wordless in operatic ecstasies

the snake is a fucking rapper ha ha ha

rapping how the big apple is outta sight

come on evie take a lil bite

the lyrics you liable to find in the bible

asked nick emptor cave

ask paul simon or some other geeza

ok thats enuff for one day

got my opening knight tomorrow

must rehearse all day

im nervous now

good night ladies n gentlemen

SK

song of man

oh boy marconi union make great music

considering my self a bit of an expert in a few types of music

one time being this particular kind of ambientish electronish instrumentals

list to marconi union baby we are in the future brave and new

we shoot down autobahns in plush vehicles

we map far off constellations in our observatories

life is different in this future now

things are smoother but weirder

theres lots of pleasant hypnotic repetition

small machines tinker hum percolate or go zing bing cling

then when it seemed like sterile place the new future

as opposed to the old future

well it would be wouldnt it

but then guitars yes electric guitars appear

sometimes softly reverbed yet organic electric pianos

everything is all moving in time to the other

all the tremelos and pulses gently rhythmic synchromesh

the guitars are sometimes distorted and sustaining

but never do they dominate this sonic nu future

the other things

all those treated fucked up cut up sounds

moving through the backgrounds

flying bumping going straight through

ratchets in echo

a whine a whir a soft whack

beautiful strings overarch in electric dreems

small sounds like steam

like meters and gaskets and little clocks

all busy measuring measuring something

something important that perpetually unfolds in this future

its urbane its sophisticated as fuck

its like kraftwerk but with softness

like they were from i dunno rome or san francisco

like they were some slowed down dmt pattern

all that info being so efficiently downloaded into our neat future

all that sweet green icing flowing down

all that science maths art religion history magic philosophy

painless anxietyless but also ruthless

youre on the ship baby you cant off this thing

we all aboard as we slide down this monolith

vibes mellow and so cool

relentless though/mounting pressure

sometimes the machine itself breaks down elegantly

in perfect harmonic and in time as it cracks up

but these short moments are quickly apprehended

and the future machine kicks in again

marconi are melodic subtle huge tiny sexy neuter

marconi sound expensive

the music itself is really a cut above most future junk you’ll ever hear

rich languid

the titles say it all

interiors

endless winter

hinterland

we travel

debris

you get the picture whats going on here

we are warm in our capsule

we transmit endless europe

we gauge the distance

we are polylingual

we are rich we are in motion

angular jaguar on white track

marconi union

all sleek n futuristic

wow you gonna love this future

gonna leave that past right behind

mmmmmmm

sim salla bim

bar rome 1924

well folks i just did the melbourne writers festival

3 gigs over 3 nights

weird i suppose

seeing i’m not a writer really

i mean lyrics are lyrics

a great lyricist is not necessarily a writer

its not  a given

anyway i gotta slightly literary air to me

so i do my first gig on thursday

its at a really nice venue northcote social club

i’m on between lisa miller and a poetry act johnny hammer n little miss x

when i get to the gig its not a bad sized crowd

it seems they were mostly there to see me

which i dont take for granted

maybe a couple of hundred people maybe a little more or less

anyway i get off to a good start when i play ancient world

this makes me smile and the audience make me smile

it wasnt how i’d planned it to be it was better

i had planned this smooth singer a real pro

but it soon just unravelled into me

but i didnt mind myself so much

and the songs came flowing out ok

i fluffed n blew a few small things

i was a little rusty on guitar but it was ok

ok is ok , ok?

i wasnt fucking mozart

but i wasnt a total hamfisted turkey

i was something else

i began to open up a bit

told some stories behind the songs

grant would enjoy hearing me tell of our jack frost days

i do 2 frosties songs and i stop to annotate them for the crowd

it all comes off smoothly

i explain where grant n i are coming from

how we came up with our stuff

it was a mysterious mystical process

grant had broken up with miss a b

and all his songs were informed and energised with his melancholy hurt

he turned his sadness into beautiful songs

shot through with his tender through to jealous outbursts

so i told em about some of that

i played ok as i said

but it was a warm night

the audience and i had no pretensions with each other

they were supportive and protective

they tried to enjoy what i did  and they did

they understood it and it was a relief like rain coming

so no barriers

a lovely audience

thank you i needed that gig

i came off and i was happy

i nipped round to the little lords and had veg lasagne at 11 oclock

with lovely avo salad

next day

me n martin k drive for miles out to a photographic studio somewhere

on melbournes sprawling outskirts

we drove for ages to get there

we do a photo shoot in our tuxes

our new album is called white magic

so we’re like 2 magicians or scientists or billiards players

or some pair of crazy inventors

a bit of dry ice smoke n voila

instant esoteric geezer

i pick up a slender chrome tube

martin has a little crystal ball

hey this is me as erskine

you finally get to see him folks

that dusty old fraud doing tricks

anyway what a great session

what a great new record

the guy doing photos is a brilliant bloke too

knows what to do thats for sure

one of these will be our album artwork

hey presto !

anyway that night do a gig with a bunch of writers including bryce courtney

i get to meet one my all time faves china meiville

who wrote the scar which is an incredible fantasy

we chat a bit n hes every bit as entertaining as his excellent books

i was starstruck and i pounded him with questions

he cut an imposing figure

quite a bit taller than me

in his mid thirties i guess with shaved head

one ear has many many weird piercings

and hes totally buff

like hes in amazing shape

just short of body builder

he looks like a stunt man for a character in his own books

folks this guy is a real genius

it was kinda weird to talk to him

his books are a total detailed n sometimes fucked up universe

on his world its more laissez faire

life is cheaper and things are more random

apart from humans there are other cactus-men

and lobster men

and mosquito men

and these all coexist uneasily

and things get outta hand easily

so meeting the author of all this fantastic madness was extraordinary

my actual gig was 2 quick songs n bobs yer uncle

afterwards i went for ten minutes to a boring party

i dunno i felt uneasy

after a few conversations i split

i came home got an early night

been eating too much sweet stuff n have put on weight

damn

just goes to show ya

this morning did a little photo shoot with glenn bennie

then we rehearsed new gb3 album with band

wow very very good band too

tight and controlled

i am amazed at how they reproduce the songs so faithfully

we rehearse for a few hours

i split to do a gig in town

i end up sitting around with dave graney having a chat

dave graney is a mercurial type

hes got quite a look going half dapper half camp

hes got a good schtick too

hes funny n urbane n knowledgeable  on a wide range of things

we just have a general rave

i play a couple of numbers not that well

ive added a new verse to ancient world

the girls down in nineveh

give their love forever

the temple whores’ll have ya on the floor

the ladies down in ur

with the whips and the fur

they say summer is super in sumer i’m sure…

anyway that gig was ok you know

i just talked to dave for a while n that was that

thanks con n family for goodies

nice to see big smiles kate who was smiling of course

sam sejavka was there

we had dinner together

but sam felt a bit under the weather n left early

that leaves me here hombre

in my 5 * hotel big deal nice view

melbourne is a huge vibrant city

i love it i love its residents

the coolest city in australia

im just too hedonistic to live here

i just like that bondi weather sorry and the pool

anyway

great to hang with martin kennedy

we had a good time doing the magician shoot

nice to rehearse with gb3 with gigs coming up in syd n melb

all my true n original fans who came along

man, i appreciate you guys

you are the core of my sanity

finally a weird moment

i started painting a commission portrait

to snap me out of my painting dry spell

although i stall halfway through a painting of hotel womb

yeah i was painting the song on commission

its a hotel foyer

theres the guy who commissioned it, theres me, theres an armadillo

theres a native girl theres a guy screaming at the desk n blah blah

but i just havent been able to finish it off

i bit off more than i could paint it seems

anyway so im doing this commish of this couple

and i been working on the guy for about 2 weeks

from this photo hes sent me

and i know this face with its glasses n little beard

a kind of vaguely uni student face i guess maybe a bit older tho

a reasonable intelligent looking kinda geezer

so i’m standing there today talking to someone

when my mind goes

whoa theres your painting walking past

and i start to think i’m finally cracking up

coz my mind has recognized this archetypal face now

cos i been working hard trying to get him right

and this painting side of my mind

that knows this guys face so well

is confused to see that face over there

and it looks just like my painting of him

seeing the actual guy was a bit overwhelming

when i wasnt expecting it

i was totally confused for at least a moment

i never realized the guy was from

melbourne

i thought he was an austrian or something

it was disorienting anyway for a short time

he turned out to be another diamond geezer

i hope i can nail the painting for him n his mrs

so thats it my friends

my report

see ya next week at van park

you gotta come

its a whole new bag

that good night

rocknroll can bite back

its unpredictable

it can do anything it wants

as long as its in E

the tour bus flying into a black wet night

the boys dream in their bunks

as the miles go under

moon rises higher in sky

hash stashed somewhere by neil young

the dead sing through the night up front

people wait on up ahead

with the future behind em

someone appears selling the wink wink stuff

some woman appears you met in vladivostok

a guy wants to interview you for a book

that magazine just came out with the bad review

someone from home on the phone

did you get the package from tasmania

unidentified song enters into our airspace

2 guitars working against each other like serpents entwined

yeah i like that

and the bass lowdown n bit a boom

drummerboy  he is a thumper

the beat grabs you n marches you off down the road

through that swampy  fuzz the haze the smoke

ghosts at the crossroads

the guitar hovers in tremolo cloud

i realise i am alone in this hotel again

all have faded away

the last notes

the curling receipts

the festive evening

the scratches on your fender jag

left in the boot of a triumph stag

a fan says she cant stand your new record

a critic doesnt even mention it on his column

a lighting rigger falls off his ladder in LA

a guy from this record company bought you a ticket

you never felt aloner as you do another phoner

too tired to sleep too awake to relax

a banging noise outside the gate of dreams

a jolt a swerve a lurch a tumble

texas next thru the subtext

where did you write those lyrics ?

in the sand in the land with my own hand

we worship the sun planet star

someone on the other side of the wall moans

our music has evolved from its beginnings in antiquity

we follow the complex cypher

we gild the glyph

we identify oncoming objects

life space music

it joins up it shatters

it keeps mellifluating

it keeps rolling over us like sign waves

guitar overdub is a shadowy affair

it replicates and reassures

a bumping sound makes me wake

nothing anywhere at all though

the boys keep dreaming

the bus speeds on through big green cities

our instruments will arrive before us

i cant get all the stuff back in my suitcase

it just wont go in anymore

i feel sick but i keep on eating more junk

the audience were in different

man i need timeoff

its only drizzling now its quite pleasant out there

rush of traffic miles below

mingles with final cymbal wash

then its ok

torch on

a poor sad tired singer trudges into town

big city full of bright lights

got an engagement somewhere

in some infernal club

singing that same old bunch of songs

singing for a meal and a hotel room

singing for only for the lonely

with his suitcase full of blues

sitting up alone drinking a coffee

watching the city from his room

sore throat and aching feet

tatty old suit

what fucking year is this?

not now not ever

some eternal autumn

some infernal club

some endless night

standing onstage nervous and bored

praying it will begin n end quick

singing through the foggy atmosphere

the trombone slides in like mockery

the flute says i told you so

the harp and strings flutter away like an illusion

its the dead end circuit

its the cramped dressing room

its the warm martini

its the feeling anxious

the poor mans nexus

the boys out in the backroom playing cards

they dont even acknowledge him

he smiles to no one in particular

a waiter passes by

the piano comes in a ripple

the piano softly hammers

the double bass comes in changing things

the drums shuffle slightly

the singer steps to the mike

he opens his mouth

the words gather in his mind and throat

he closes his eyes

he sees her face

that face he loves

a mixture of pain n exultation

he breathes in deep

then

comes his voice

worn torn still a bit triumphant

whats he singing?

whats it matter?

same old song

the broken hearted slow old number bout love

the piano flows around him in melody and mood

a smoky mournful sax

yeah that guy knows the meaning of these blues

the sax sounds like it drank whisky all its life

it paints a picture of emptiness

it tells a tale of the veil of tears

abandoned wrecks of dreams

crushed pulp of hope

when love goes bad and you cant get it good again

or the songs of the loveless

those who never loved or were loved

songs of white hot jealousy

songs of blackest scorn

songs of gentle regrets that have somewhat faded

songs of disappointed suitors empty handed in the rain

songs of maudlin reminiscences

songs of lonely old towns like this

who came to hear him sing……not that many

they listened n drank

it was a strange night

it was the usual thing

* photon

music is sweet stuff squeezed from a tuba

yeah i am the time being

and i been fiddling round with music a while now

40 years on my 56th birthday

i

16 when i got my bass guitar

go on (numbskull) subtract 16 from 56 and  you get 40 ……

40 years of mucking around with music

wo wo wo

still its an amazing thing to me

@ on a night like this

those crotchets those quavers

those piano forte

drum fills

cymbal rides

rim shot

dark hit

hand clap

cast a net

round a bout

electric guitar  bleeds for your sins

morning orchestra stabbing ruthless

dream pop park festival

organ with black keys

augmenting a seven

blown speaker apart

stone gone haze

god out of machine

the fruit machine

the bass push on some inside

outside the flutes play mournfully

a little strange quartet of woods

make out the words

an old sample of something else

not quite perfectly in time

hear it rip back

the join not seemless

thunder is if not music

it is music unforeseen

it is that white piano in mozarts hearts red chambers

yeah some whack bam boom

some trill

some distinct thrill

something rolling down a’hill

music is it a constant?

music has it enough restraint?

music is transparant trans-parent  transience apparently

jim morrison oh yeah but how did he go…..?

my fingers survive

bass blister treble callus

give that disc a spin

it was that deep sax all along

let me down slow i know the way from here

its evening outside n suddenly im tired

you know what you do when you do what you do

i wish it would stop

i wish it would too

music  pounding without sounding

music snarling starlings melancholy  song

music tangled in its own angles too blind to see

music in quatrains and in aeroplanes

music in passing notes each less n less

music overtaken by the wind

music flung out from a window in a tower high above

music burn or bury alive

music untrampled yet all rumpled

music month september on ttb