The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

me n my woofle

working like the clappers on my album

twelve tracks and still more to come

gonna be a long album this one

sometimes little things slow ya down

a tambo part or a backing vocal

or just getting lost in the myriad possibilities of it all

standing there horizons stretching out in all directions

its hard to be simple sometimes when complexity beckons easily

but some tracks shouldnt have everything except the kitchen sink….

i hope you all will like it

a friend of mine called kitty-Q heard some the other night and pronounced it “GOOD!!”

its my first real solo for a while ok i’ll shut up now

the church is playing a corporate gig tonight

45 minutes

play now rehearse later

oh well its a living isnt it?

its better than working i gotta remember that

has anyone out there caught up with that book yet?

the book that i got the short story thingy in?

no…….? anyone out there ….?

anytime…….

never harm monica

free of all constraints i follow my muse

i chuck slabs of sound together

i cut it back i prune it down

this is rocknroll if made my max ernst or ezra freaking pound

i break all the rules

i adhere to em strictly

music is an unending surprise

i love how it reveals itself like a subtle spirit

i am still so delighted by how this whole thing works

amazed by the blithe guidance that now seems mine to avail myself of freely

still figgering out all the rocknroll tricks

i been fiddling about with organs(oooh ahhh davem n andy!!)

organs are very important rnr instruments obviously

yeah i like tony kaye from yes organ work

i like rod argents great organ playing too

ian mac from small faces/faces and stones wow! hes fucking brilliant!

some of my new stuff is a bit rollicking like the faces believe it or not…

altho not known for my rollicking nevertheless i do indeed rollick herein!

yeah so i been playing organ

or i been playing organ samples i should say

virtual organ

i cant tell the difference but im a philistine

im pretty happy with my set up

man if you couldnt make music with all this stuff they got today

you should fuckin’ consider another line of work

music and i have a funny relationship

i am awfully clumsy and inelegant sometimes

then othertimes music lets me pull off some magic i didnt see coming..

as far as my prowess on other instruments is concerned

thats weird too

being good on bass hasnt easily transferred to other things

the way you mighta hoped

but bass is a whole other thing

it is not guitar and being good on one

doesnt mean youre good on the other

ronnie wood is good at both

so is our own mwp

he is a guitarist who throws away his guitar thinking

when he straps on a bass

and plays it like a bloody bass

mind you because of his guitar knowledge

he can push it beyond the boundaries of what most bass players choose to do

but he does that with guitar too….

anyway

importantly he understands a certain thing bass players must adhere to

an allegiance to the cause of the rhythm

you are the gap between the guitars n the drums

you must bridge it wisely first before you get all tricky

man if you wanna be too tricky maybe you should play something else

because a lotta the bass i love is sometimes about hammering down like a storm

and wheeling and slamming and thumping and throbbing

i dont usually put NO effects on the bass

i dont even play thru an amp ever anywhere

i just plug my bass  straight in straight into the PA or the desk

very occasionally i might add some rev or echo or chorus or something

but not often

why mess with this perfect bass sound?

its deep and warm and human

its real

its four thick metal strings resonating against flesh and wood

its a primitive beast yet still unsurpassed even today with all its gadgets

a good fender bass is a straddy-various ..ive said it before

mine has picked up my charge and intent

this wood retains magic like a staff retains magic

i sit here struggling making music

but oh boy when i strap my bass on there are no frowns

i wish it was like that with guitars keys and other things

but i’m a writer more than a player

i wish i had 3 identical brothers

each as good on guitar keys drums

then we would all murder each other in one minute

ah the joys of working totally alone

no explanations no waiting around

just plug in and go!

an important part of this is the strategy of course

theres a billion geezas can play better than me

but i am a solo strategist

some brilliant geeza dont always know where to start (or stop)

his brilliance is so brilliant he is too dazzled to start somewhere

me on the other hand

i just jump in fearing the worst hoping for the best

i’ll do anything for a song

anything at all

the song is my ideal

the song is still my main thing

king o’percussion

i still dont really know what music is

why it captures us so completely

i put together bits n pieces

suddenly a bass line turns into a song

suddenly a song turns into a good song

with my new album i have no real intent

i’m not trying to do this or that

i am just going wherever the wind blows the music to

there i will follow

in cool groves of brittle fender mustangs i will lay me down

in the valley of jazz bass i fear no evil

oh muse may you never desert me….!

here a song there a song everywhere a song song

whats the secret of it?

just boring old perseverance

plus enough madness to do it

but enough sanity to not run off the rails with it

and a sturdy constitution

and just remain a child forever

we are conduits we are channels

where is it all coming from

i am abashed at the audacity of the creative force

it reveals itself openly to me

i am baffled with choice as to what to do

the force says i am the source

the source says you were born to do everything my son

pick up that axe and go forth n make a new record

as you always did and always must do

yeah yeah of course , source

no youre off course says the source

pick up that axe and rock !

a metaphor the pick axe and rock

i chop away at this wall of silence

when i finish i dragged a song( i know you’ll love) back with me

everything is vibrating with possibility now

i aint no mozart i aint no bach

but i perceive music now so much differently

i see an inner working

i see a way to milk music forever and instead of depleting it

it grows richer still

the more you take the more music gives

the more you give music the more you can take

i do not know music inside out

that is impossible anyway

in most areas of music i’m pretty ignorant

this is what i am good at tho

this and pretty much only this:

a guitar a 12 string ac guitar a bass a keyboard some drum thing

a mic a multitracking thing…thats it

i can combine and recombine these elements endlessly

i can never dry up

even my most mediocre songs are still …i dunno…ok..(!?)

so cocky i am i start up

i pick an instr.

and usually the first thing i do is the thing

the thing that becomes the song eventually

i dont usually sit there casting round for ideas

although sometimes i do

i have an instinct for building up layers

layers that one must have faith will develop

this is my thing

i spent umpteen years doing it between about 77 and into the nineties

then i had a long rest

now back into it

it sounds like all my solo records i guess

its impulsive and imperfect

its rocknroll with all the sloppiness and rampant ego

me playin’ everything? why not?

it aint rocket science surgery mister thats for sure

this is what im good at

everybody good at something right?

well this is what i can do best

invent these songs just for the fun of it

i have no attachment to the result

i dont care who loves em hates em or never gets to hear em

i do this for the love of doing it

like building model planes or something

i build little songs

i glue em all together and i hang em off the sky

some of its hard work believe it or not

engineering n getting caught up in cables

and wondering why certain things arent working etc etc

it can be frustrating n lonely work

but usually its enthralling engrossing and a lotta fun fun fun

and its best done alone

with no expectations

i can roam if i want to

love

sk

smoke n mirrors

music what is it?

what is a song a song a song….?

i work on my album alone for better and worse

for better because its pure

for worse because i aint no virtue-oh-so

but what i got …

what have i got….?

i got a glaring individual eccentric idiosyncratic attitude

i do things my own way

it all ways yields re-salts baybee

i mean i cant seem to really go wrong

it doesnt (dark) matter what i do

i never come up empty handed ever and i never did neither

with just the right amount of everything

good enough to play it

but not good enough

to become fascinated with my own instrumental virtue-oh-sity….

i get the job done

the job is the song

the song is the thing

never minded some fancy playing

i mean i wish i could

but i can only be one me at a time

whatever that means

apocrypha is coming

why i wrote a little song last night….!

why what is that my how many numbered song?

aurora : dad, how many songs have you actually written?

me : thousands n thousands …(sigh)

so last night i add another to the stack

a short little number under 2 minutes

with a plaintiff slide part in stereo n some crunchy young guitar

mellifluous bass etc

wry sad ironic lyrics yeah you know the score , my sweet pigs

yeah you know how good this is good it will be good better be kill be

oh an old master bay be i be doing this song thingy so long

it is truly my calling my vocation my porpoise my ex- spurt-ease

yes i am good old narcissistic sissy space-ex rockin’ rollin’ on a river bay bee

uh huh oh mymy my how nice you look shimmyin’ to apocrypha

i was born to make this moosic for ya

solo  n behold

itll be there soon

in yer ipod in yer car stereo

and you’ll wonder

yes

wonder how you ever lived without it!!

s k bondi beach in the tree top studio in cloud

‘ave a go ya mug!

APOCRYPHA 

my new album

a sprawling drawling falling myster-piece

42 years of bass guitar

oh hyper-draw

oh resonated space texture

oh ragtime noodle bang crash wallop

oh rocknrollin’ bitch for you

apocrypha

oh i’m talkin’ my album up

oh apocrypha …are you the blessed record ever made?

solo

so low

so high too

guitar screamin’ at me through the sonick mysts

pounding away them debils riddims

all this music art my fingertips

i am a delirious dervish knew nothing

i contain music in here …(struggles)

jamming with myself oh

a strategy for everything

a shame when i die a million recording secrets

how i get my sound

how do i know what i’m doing?

i dont

i am guided by a pop instinct so fierce it devours triple yes album for brek-fest

i am coming down hard now my fender jazz oh watch out

you rubbery snaky thing you unquantized mess

apocrypha unfinished like life yet

thank you for all the songs wherever they come from

i guess i ripped em from a uni-vurse next door

i guess i burnt em deep in my hardest drive i got em down pattern

i guess you can just go anywhere and i just do

i wander wherever the tune wanna go

i just hold on tight

i pick up some lyrics at the gate

some birds were singing ooh la la apoc-rypha 

i’s pickin’ up on this crazy fuckin nature thing a high a real high

ooh la la apocrypha 

so i pick up my axe and i spring onto my feet

and a bassline comes thrummin’ down the line

boom boom boom

oh i knock myself out on the ceiling

bang i put my head through the sky

i up in a cloud now but my fingers still pluckin’ at the string

ooh la la bay-bee apocrypha

i say a spell

i know damn well you need this one so bad now

apocrypha oh you dying star oh remote and far

huh!?

what can i say

the hype starts here!

insert your own life !

coming soon

APOCRYPHA  !

see holly@thetimebeing.com for a mug story

Join our Facebook Event Invites for the Art rock’n’roll shows in Melbourne 28th Nov and Sydney 6th Dec as well as the Event Invite for the Simple Minds/Devo/Models shows :

https://www.facebook.com/events/362132867211598/ – Art rock’n’roll shows

http://www.facebook.com/events/398777613491963/ – Simple Minds/Devo/the church/Models shows

bookie

i have a story in a new book

just out

called

a song for the road

my story is called

i sing the infernal eternal tour

there are other stories by such people as adalita ,deniz tek

paul kelly, mark seymour etc

my story is some grimy hyperreality

i dont think youre gonna wanna tour after reading it

but its still a good read (i guess!?)

meanwhile a film im doing the music for is a new version of macbeth

filmed in tasmania

surprising how a tassie wilderness looks so much like a scottish wilderness

and the forests too…wow!

getting closer to becoming a reality and early next year hopefully it will be finished!

needless to say its an amazing film and amazing music (no it really is!)

you wait and see

keep your eyes n ears out for macbeth and remember where you heard it first!

meanwhile im keeping this blog short because im working hard on my album

yep

its a beauty and im labouring over it lovingly for ya

true solo albums i enjoy is todds hermit of mink hollow

and petes who came first

anyway this baby should be ready before xmas

a rambling eccentric eclectic and weird bunch of tunes for you all

probably will turn out to be the greatest album evermade……?!

not sure tho, maybe im just an insane egotist

running amok with all these guitars n stuff here

writing oddly meaningful things you only ever half hear

im only ever half here

so…

back to werk!!

sk

pneuma

people say to me

whats it like to be a visionary?

well if thats what i am this is what its like:

as i move through the world today

each place foists its vague memories on me

in a series of blurry vignettes n  echoey whispers

a million things are implied in my mind

i hear names

i see inside the houses

i remember things

mostly good things

mostly lovely warm feelings of contentment

like eating breakfast on a sunny day

or lying in bed sleeping with somebody on a cold stormy night

or reading a book by the fire

in days before power

a million lives drip into my mind

every street calls me

every window i see the faces of the past

i contain sorrow and joy

and their friction inculcates my openess

i cant concentrate

the children all talk to me

i say huh……?

i am a tuner scanning the frequencies

i pick up the chatter of the ages

i hear the bygone days through the gauze

i feel the impression of their feelings

left on times fabric

scars in its hide

everything flows through me then

a sleepy dreamy feeling

like a whale feeding on tiny tons of plank

i dont know what any of this information is

it all just blows through me as it were

i am deficient of the shield that seems to keep it out for others

god and the world are in and around me

no judgement no agenda no ulterior motive

my life is a film gone haywire

all these other actors all these other parts

no one knows where we are going

no one is driving this world through the darkness of space

something good at the end of the journey

something warm and calm like a bath and a cuppa tea

a narnia for sinners who want to go home

a lovely sensible and very english result

choose your own heaven n go in for the prize

acres in dreamland just for a song ….just a song…!

the spirit is a sea we all swimming through

so real so palpable

this liquid invisible prana

this golden chi power

god what are we waiting for …?

maya with its sex n drugs n rocknroll

fine print in the sand

an opera recorded in a sea shell

a painting of the wind

a pattern in a wave

fleeting arc of orgasmick  surge

fragments of shake in a bag

the nights of beltane

murmurings from assyria i still listen somehow

my teenage lovelives in their simple naivete

the western gates of this city in ruins

under enormous strains from the witch who reigns

the complexity and brilliance of nature yes of course

the vegetals listen they are talking to you

coca leaf and poppy and the vine and the bark

the mushroom which grows by itself in the dark

oh its all becoming quite clear  to me now

how the pummelling sea beats the shore in the night

how the angel watches over his ward so unseen

how the devil is stupidity dripping with cunning

but nothing they offer you is worth even a look

where is it all coming from where is it going

where is the bait n where is the hook

we are the broth who are the cooks

i was a little trout in a tiny brook

my zone is unmarked

you can wander off the road here

in this hazy fog of my life

shapes coming out of the mist

i mighta guessed

god not on the guest list

(someone hissed)