The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

twilight mysterioso

meet the band

adrian hoffman on bass guitar guitar and b vox

a tall blond geezer of about 20

adrian is a very talented bloke actually

hes got his own bloody band, hasnt he…?

writes and sings his own bloody songs, doesnt he

he is a cool calm collected and wry humoured type

shaun hoffman on drums about fortyish i guess

hes in charge (a bit) i guess booking flights etc

he is reliable and amiable and a little on the wry side too

a very individual drummer and very good too

on the guitar is ricky maymi

talk about a mercurial character

one of the best musicians ive ever seen

absolute encyclopaedic knowledge of rock music

i dont mean rock trivia neither …..i mean the actual music

watching a video of him playing at notes in newton is a revelation

the way he plays the guitar and the way he moves with his music

ricky would be an asset to any rock band on any fucking axe you like

hes an amazing drummer too

hes got energy motivation verve and pizazz

he helped me put this david neil thing together

on 12 string occasional bass and vox is me

i need no introduction here i suppose

old sk you know

the guy from the crunch

anyway

i fly off to perth one day last week

our rehearsal is drowned out by the pounding rain

our first gig is a party

thats right i’ll play yer fucking party

or write you a fucking song or whatever

if you can but come up with the dosh

so yeah we played at this very nice blokes fortieth

it was at a gig in a hotel

the bloke came in and said ” can we get ya anything?”

ricky quick as a flash says the name of some drink

the bloke goes off and comes back with a bottle

we drink it with orange slices and much bonhomie is had

we play pretty good i guess

the crowd at the party like us dont they

more drinks more bonhomie

ricky even sings happy birthday in a dean martin voice

(how BJM is that??!!)

ricky and i stay at a beautiful house in fremantle with felicity and otis

on sunday afternoon i meet up with david kenworthy a sculptor

im gonna do some music for an installation

he gave me a fantastic piece

which is jelly babies set into black and lit from within

a real stunner it is

now i own 2 david kenworthy pieces

he also had a neat house in this strange suburb

i felt very relaxed there it was nice

that night we played in freo at a bar called mojos

we certainly rocked

they liked us

we did an impromptu gloria

and ricky turns it into a bit of a happening

he gets down on the floor and plays with the pedals

the guitar sits in its stand mildly feeding back

and ricky manipulates the sound twiddling the knobs

a series of telegraphic tremolo blips …its fantastic

the next gig in sydney is more problematic

its at the beach road in bondi

my neck of the woulds

its a free gig and i dont like it because of that

it actually wasnt as bad as i feared

but still……

i kept my head down n was glad when it was over

the next night at notes was different again

we had johnny z joining us in sydney on the double bass

he played on the DN record

notes was a good gig and left a nice taste in yer mouth

then melbourne at the cherry bar

this was a hip little venue in melby and very rocknroll

so we rocked and as a guest we have evil graham lee on pedal steel

he plays on the record too

seemed kinda crowded there and we went down well

the next night was ho-bart the capital of tas-mania

wow a bleak cold remote city reminding one of norway

a strange but good gig there

ricky and co stay at a house

where theyre filming a tasmanian macbeth

that was not a joke

the gig was cool i enjoyed it

ok …..next:

new zealand

ps i will be sending david neil albums to all subscribers

who have paid one hundred dollars in the last year

this is the beginning of sk premium…details soon!

bib lick all pro poor shun

i’m bib pectin and i take no prisoners

well i wouldnt would i seeing im a pop singer

im a good pop singer too not rubbish like they got nowadays

i learnt to sing at the NSW conservatory of rock

i majored in hand gestures and romantic ballad lite

i had the hit when i re-did the anthem made it sexier

bib pectin is my stage name

my real name is tid memo

tidney fitzwilliam memo-bing to be exact

obviously that is not very sexy

so me and my manager came up with bib pectin

crikey it drives the ladies crazy its numerology isnt it

tid memo got as much feng shui as nothing

but bib pectin is dripping with good luck from its vowels

just try dropping it in a conversation with a lady you like

just drop in a little bib or pectin and see what happens

if you wanna be more sexy that is

bib pectin is the way to go

to me sexiness is an art just like golf is an art

just like romantic ballad lite is an art

you know some are born sexy and some have sexy thrust upon them

i guess im all of the above ha ha no pun intended

i take the ladies to say a cricket match

a little red wine a little goose liver pate

im quite dashing in my special box

the bib pectin stand for members only

a few beers a few wines

my aftershave a special eau-de-pectin whiff

my cravat with its kama sutra motif

my gold chain against my hairy chest

im quite the sight for the sore eyes of my fans

the BPASALG

bib pectin appreciation society aux ladies guild

see my secretary for details of joining

or email iwantmorepectin@bib.org

get my free pamphlet on sexiness for everybody

because a sexy pectin world is a better place for everybody

if you could use more sexiness in your life this could be for you

sexiness is coming to you soon

sexiness for just 20 minutes a day and under 38 dollars a week

sexiness you can feel and depend upon

sexiness the bib pectin way natural and with extra marlyebone  jelly

sexiness people will want to touch and breathe and hold onto

sexiness in an instant

but thats just a part of what i do

i’m so much more than just plain old sexy

if youre intrigued check out my site

theres something there for everyone really

enough bib to go around…ladies stop fighting please

im bib pectin

i know what you need…..

fizziness fizzle

henceforth haphazard

my name overcame me

whoever wrote this stuff had more than enough

man we can rock unto the red sea

some suessy whore delicto is whaling the blues

my electric guitar shorts upon entry

i enter into song like moon crashing into sea

i flog my 12 merciless of the approaching storm

music shoots up my heart and explodes in a space

the feedback hits a plane and cruises in tremolo bursts

baby see me shoot you down over the fields of france

you hit the gentle grass in a ball of flame framed against our same sky

honey you run like a colour into the red blood and oceanic green

the soldiers carry your cross on  their shoulders

oh music is like that when it first comes into your fingers

in some hotel in athens where you bought the cocaine

the girl in the moonlight said something in turkish

it sounded like a curse in her bursting tongue

i finished off the one in the lobby

sometimes you wonder what youre singing yourself

nepotism is a word that will fit here

it could have been callous or it could have been pyre

music in a distant seashell music in a silent print

music in a guild guitar too pretty to ever strum the blues

the drum come down boom wallop crash

gotta tap my little foot oh yeah just like that

i know i know i know rocknroll is nothing that much

but if you touch me again i will melt into music

music in your heart dear tho you never learnt to play

me i slogged at it for a hundred days and nights until my head bled

the lord saw my clawed eyes and wept quavers which sealed and healed my fate

music as a blessing i really gotta stop coming here

music when we lie in darkness she was only one woman

throbbing afterlife bobbing in time

i am a musician and my heart aches to its beat

this life is given freely yet i must pay my fuckin’ dues

and the stars dont care and thats old news

david frickin’ neil gonna rock like a bitch

and a bitch cant rock till ya fix the glitch

and the fix is in and dead in a ditch

elysian alien simian carnelian

yeah thats it whatever you like

its all music

its all i got

steve " theres a little david neil in all of us... "" kilbey

david neil aint jive

i can feel his love shining down on all of us

david neil wrote electric lash

david neil wrote most of those songs and i ripped him off

david is a flesh and blood ghost

he exists he existed he will exist in the best of all possible worlds

meanwhile me n ricky n the hoffmen are trying to reproduce his stuff

we sound like credence and that aint a totally bad thing

i cant fucking sing it like david can i…?

ricky says sing em like yerself so i am …but who is me…ha ha…

anyway it was so long ago i last saw david alive

i know he’d think i was doing the right thing because i am trying

the wilderness years is finally coming out after what 36 /37 years…..

people are interested in him again…ok…

he was not the nicest cat but ok…

i’d say he was quite a selfish type …i dont think he’d disagree either….

he could write songs but as a human bean left a lot to be desired

up to his eyeballs in one shifty caper after another

the drugs the women the pawn shops the hotels

money disappearing

sessions cancelled

tapes mysteriously altered erased and modified

for example a tape that was dated feb 75

but david died in dec 74…huh?

david apparently sang this song called ” near” 2 months after his death

nice work i suppose

such a fragile geezer running around being a singer songwriter

smuggling stuff and goofing off yeah and sometimes songs

breaking hearts and losing his bond

back in the van in the back of the van

the amps the guitars the guys sit around smoking spliffs

grumbling and laughing

yeah i remember the camaraderie all too well

like its yesterday once more

david tall and blond and kinda nebulous like he was already a ghost

johnny the guitar player what a hypochondriac what a joke

always out of it on something stupid that had him stupefied…

jim jim the bass player wasnt there …hed broken his ankle

thats where i came in…i could play bass and i met david in australia

and biff on the drums a complete law unto himself on every level

yeah we played mosta the songs on wilderness years

im glad its becoming available

we tried to make it authentic but the tapes had deterioted

we had to re do bits n pieces

david would love it for sure

and its coming to you soon

the wilderness years

the addict immaculate

dont get hung up on the terminology

try to find the idea within the words

modern science is uncertain where addiction resides

yes it is a series of neuro chemical blah blahs

it is also a crafty opponent that seems to out think you at every level

as you plot its demise in the secretest corner of your being

it fucking laughs to itself

baby it  knows your tiniest little inkling inside out

its got you bugged in heart and mind

its blocking your own internal dialogues

it obscures the heart and mind from each other

it fills you with irrational fear

it manipulates your choices

it jams your common sense

it bombards you with its propaganda

and it censors the information going in

it switches off self preservation measures

it over rides logic

it tells you one and one is three and you believe it

you find it hard to fight it because it isnt anywhere

but it always knows what your next move will be

it plays you like a fish…. let you go …reel you in

its got your number

it knows you

it is within you

you invited it in

i believe all substances that affect our consciousness have some spirit

or some program

or some agenda

or some disembodied intelligence behind them

and these spirits hide inside us

like lobbyists championing their cause

and telling you how badly you need them

and putting a spin on anything concerning them

and if ever cornered becoming angry and desperate

if you ask your friends why they smoke

after youve waded through all the usual rationales

you will invariably find that they become quite angry

because the spirit will not let them access the answers

and in their bafflement they become surly and incommunicative

and protective of their addiction

the spirits inner voice can sound just like your own

and it can threaten and cajole and whine and remonstrate

talk you into or out of anything  it wants

it tells you you enjoy smoking more than you do

it tells you that stopping will be harder than it really is

it tells you that you will stop…one day…but not yet….

it spews out hard luck stories why you need to keep going

dont let other people control you by getting you to quit

you’ll quit when youre good and ready but not today

you read all those statistics about cancer

you see all the pictures and the voice thinks of something

the spirit convinces you it wont happen to you

you’ll be the one percent that doesnt get something from it

i knew a woman who was a heavy smoker

she had a terrible cough

i said maybe you should slow down with the cigarettes

she said the cigarettes helped her cope with the cough!

i mean whos coming up with this stuff…?

who is manning the switchboard in your brain…?

something is telling you to keep doing something thats killing you

something that barely gives any reward but to satisfy itself

for this most meagre pleasure you are prepared to die horribly

and prematurely

and the spirit goes on yabbering year in year out

helping you procrastinate helping you relapse

helping you ignore those nasty warning signs

sometimes a whisper sometimes a roar

the voice of the spirit

listen

can you hear it?

st steven supermartyr

i hate fucking cigarettes

i detest and loathe and fucking abhor the fucking things

these fucking cigarettes are some fucked up fucking shit, right…?

what the fucking fuck???????

filthy stinking stupid idiot things that do nothing

at least fucking alcohol does something even if its horrible

oh yeah sorry cigarettes do do something

they fucking kill ya

heres the deal imagine this

13 bucks for twenty little putrid sticks

that stink out inside and outside in

dirty mucky ashy smelly foul foolish fucking useless things

for a hundred bucks a week habit you can develop a disgusting disease

you wont get any visions or dreams or loss of inhibitions

you wont get any drowsiness or euphoria or blurred eyesight

you wont hallucinate or overdose or trip or get loaded or pissed

or high or down or out there or stimulated or anything

what do you get?

fucking nothing

i keep using the word fucking

so as to emphasise to an nth degree the total imbecility of cigarettes

no one can defend them there is not one good thing you can say

“oh it gives me something to do with my hands”
yeah…so you gonna trade your fucking lungs for that..?

i mean before smoking who ever fucking said that…

gives me something to do with my hands…

do you think cavemen sat around

wishing that their hands had  something to do…?

do you think aristotle fucking wondered what he could do with his hands

as if his hands were restless and demanding “something to do”

what a fucking joke a killing joke it is

what about “it calms my nerves”

try fucking having throat cancer n see how calm your nerves are

a total criminal absurdity

a wicked cosmic joke so incredibly blatant we almost ignore it

for the last forty years since we kinda “found out” about smoking

we have ignored the vicious pernicious fuckwit grip of this killer

its just totally stupid

and it goes against the grain of intelligent western thought

one day it will have to go just like fucking bullfighting

in fact they are both totally idiotic things

no there is no beauty or inexplicable enigma to em

both of em are death

a negation of life

fuck you kilbey you take drugs you say

fuck you kilbey you are an ex cigarette smoker yourself hypocrite

or as one alcoholic cretin recently re-marked to me

when informed that i did not take kindly to booze in MY house

he said : you sound like the reformed whore in church, steve

and there you go some little axiom to justify yer unhealthy habits

so when kilbey says fuck dont smoke cigarettes

you say fuck you kilbey you took fuckin’ heroin, BABY!!!

yes i did but that doesnt help your tongue cancer

yes kilbey is a hypocrite

but surely its better to be the fucking reformed whore in church

(ha ha)

than the unreformed whore getting fucked by some horrible brute up the back lane

or what?

are you following my fucking logic this is not rocket surgery!

it kills you

it does nothing but feed itself

no that is not just a metaphor

maybe i know nothing about anything

but i fucking understand addiction

my friends whom i implore DO NOT SMOKE

i was addicted to smack for ten years

it gave me a lot of time to consider the mechanisms of addiction

yes i consider myself an expert like a thief is expert in thieving

i am not proud of my knowledge or how i obtained it

but is knowledge nonetheless

i tell my friends look there is some kinda spirit at work in this

an opium spirit

a tobacco spirit

a wine spirit

a vodka spirit

a marijuana spirit

yes metaphorically

yes on certain levels

levels you may not understand unless

you get someone like me

someone who examines thought as a living

i write words and the words come to me

and i have observed how these words arrive

i see where the words come from

and until i tangled with heroin i didnt understand

humanity is in some apparent symbiosis with many things

with animals with plants with environments

the fruit contains the seed so some creature  eats it

walks around

and excretes it somewhere else

the fruit tree cannot get its seed over there by itself

the tree makes the apple so human will eat it and help it propagate

the human benefits from the apple and grows loadsa trees

this is as our symbiotic relationship with tobacco

fuck are you telling me humanity

is not in some sorta symbiotic relationship with tobacco….?

tell me this :

if tobacco had no use to man would it still be around after millions of years?

it had to figure out something didnt it?

i mean every fucking thing that gets through each century

has to have something going for it, right?

otherwise you fade away

you gotta have strength or speed or endurance or adaptability

in the plant world i guess things must die out too

they have the problem of no mobility and they need to get about

usefulness to another species is a big fucking plus i’d say

ok so theres this substance and its usefulness is to man

only this fucking symbiotic relationship is now a hoax

i reckon the native americans for example used tobacco “correctly” :

yeah on special occasions  they would smoke a large quantity at once

eg dig this

a junky in stockholm once told me that hed tried every fucking drug

i said what was the weirdest scariest fucking trip man

he said tobacco

i said what do you mean…tobacco…?

but this swedish junky had once visited new guinea

and smoked tobacco with the natives

big deal i said

no man he said

this fresh tobacco in this great big pipe

its like smoking a hundred cigarettes at once

he said it fucking knocked ya right out of this world

you know i could kinda imagine it

like when you start smoking and you get your first nicotine rush

its fucking horrendous

like dizzying  nauseous breathless kick in the guts

imagine that feeling times 100

thats the correct dose i guess

one huge fucking blast occasionally

the native cultures dont puff on fucking cigs all day n night

they use it with a certain ceremonial feel that almost prevents abuse

the men would gather and i guess have their ceremony

i dont fucking know say some stuff

to give this smoking some context or holiness or tradition

i dont know do i……

ok you smoke this great big pipe

with the circumference of a small cannon

and one can only imagine

BANG! youve gone from 0 to 1000 in one tenth of a second

the swedish junky convinced me of his weird tobacco epiphany

yes i do believe there is something out there to be observed

and normally i am the first idiot wanting to see what it is

every fucking substance got its own dimension

heroin dimension is warm and sleepy ….at first….

the cocaine dimension is exhilaration

whatever i guess angel dust has its own dimension

datura has  got a dimension and its hideous

tobacco definitely has a dimension but i dont wanna go there

it may even be a useful dimension

i dont know

i have never really read an interview with a sioux

talking about his tobacco experience

one assumes it had some big pluses

but um white man is not using tobacco in this way

i smoked a million cigs and not one tiny revelation

like ingesting a tiny bit of some drug

never getting the real effect but just constantly under the surface

the trouble is not so much with the substance tobacco and its effects

the trouble is the means by which we fucking get it into our systems

the way it comes in

not what it does

the native users smoke it occasionally not constantly

not with all the additives and all the fucking other shit

i bet the native users dont suffer all the chronic smoking bullshit we got

we’re smoking this stuff

we’re getting no revelations

we’ve fucked it and modified it

like how we made cocaine from coca leaf

they say the cats in south america who chew the coca leaf are cool

at least cooler than the raving egotistical cocaine addict in the west

not all people react to cocaine like that

drugs are like alcohol

people react   in a whole gamut of ways

going from total negative disinterest to crazed apostle-like mania

but by fucking with the coca-leaf the west did its usual dumb thing

some of the active ingredients were extracted from a melange of molecules

the west considered some parts of the coca leaf unnecessary

maybe they thought it inert or something

other bits are souped up with a chemical process

the mode of transmission is changed perverted

now its superfast  superstrong but supernasty too

it wasnt sposed to be

youve fucked with something far deeper than you can understand

something had already figured out how it was supposed to work

god or the plant itself or something else …nature if you like

it doesnt want to kill its host

tobacco doesnt want to kill its host

no drug does…enslave them yes but not to harm them too much

the 2 sides of a symbiotic relationship need the other to stay in good shape

the sucker fish on sharks

the shark says get rid of my irritating parasites and you can hang onto me

the sucker says cool i’ll get to work right away

he knows the shark aint gonna hurt him cos they gotta good deal

but either god or evolution or some other force… nature for example…

has somehow sorted it out and theres a real mesh of interconnectedness

and that is how it works for mutual benefit

the size and shape of both the fish for example

if a human redesigned one of the fish  if it were possible

you can be sure it would go wrong maybe in some hideous unseen way

thats what happened with tobacco and the west

we are not using it we are abusing it

it wasnt supposed to be like this

we are creatures for all our intelligence

we are subject to the material rules of our reality

tobacco smoke

esp in cigarettes and the 20 a day smoking of them fucks you bad

hang on

smoking tobacco constantly kills people yet we tolerate it?

somehow our symbiosis is outta whack

cos our partner is dealing us death

if it was anything else killing us so unnecessarily as this

people would be going fucking beserk that it was banned and hard to obtain

but we have accepted it

its hard to stop now it is so thoroughly rooted in our lives

but my fascination is actually with the tobacco spirit in dialogue with us

now a kinda perverted fucked up spirit urging you to smoke

even tho its taking out people left right n centre

young women especially dying faster sooner nastier

big multiplier /good odds on an early death

fuck that spirit of tobacco is selling you some trip aint it?

more tomorrow

the bondi strindbergs

i am the chill severe papa down here in these colonies

our lives paradoxically skandanavian in its existential struggle

a harsh conceited man who has made and lost fortunes

father to an unlikely number of daughters each impossibly lovely

my coach has broken down in an enchanted forest

i am old but still vaguely handsome as i wander in the snow

years of city living have left me unprepared for the wilderness

i am a merchant and my ship of dreams has run aground

my horse disappeared into the darkness

my fortune was only in words and words became cheap

and i said something once and no one remembered

and i said something once and no one forgot

the trees are old and scarred they seem to sneer

the moon over head is neither here nor there

its place in the story unclear

the night is antiseptic and frozen

the sparkling stars are captured as if on velvet membrane black

a loud voice in my head shouts defiantly at the night

the other voices are quiet and waiting to see

and the forest squeezes itself in roots and in fronds

its thought given form in spirit which animates matter

an unknown past

a distant future

oh now for the warm bath the opium pipe the touch of woman

oh for the crisp sheets oh for the toast and jam and mulled wine

the night full of its beasts unseen but moving in undergrowth

the night full of traps and pits and rusty old hooks

the night full of whispers from the grave

the night full of its mists smelling faintly of some far-off laboratory

the night of thorn the night of claw

the night of snout the night of bone

expelled from time during some dismal spell

and now you merchant have wandered into the domain of Lunacy

who am the master of these lands and some great feline terror

and he will play with you in his long lit halls

and things will move of their own accord

a very bad dream

a long moment between lives

perch-prism

the hammer of the gods

the whip of the moon

the electric lash of the trees in the studio

one of these days im gonna slide down that rainbow way

im outside your house i see everything you cant find

a ship of the silverest metal

i’m not your 20th century man, oh no

i dont want to feel like a machine

youre not the only one who wants to feel the in between

i want to be a machine

dont believe what you heard faithfuls not a bad word

love the one youre with love the one youre with

darling darling do we part like the seas…?

you got off light  lying there in your own world tonight

keep on playing them mind games

i’m stiff on my legend

my death waits there in the double bed

the sails of oblivion at my head

forget that i’m fifty cos you just got paid

all you sweet girls with your sweet talk

you can all go take a fucking walk

it was a delicate crime

inside the car sat a sulky blonde

on her lap the road went on and on

its the last ride our little game is over

i remember riding riding in your car

i see the city’s ripped backsides

if you wanna be the passenger

you cant afford the ticket

i got 2 loves i got 2 loves

and they go tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet like little birds

theyre my true loves

yonder shes walking long black hair

there she goes there she goes again

in winter when the fog rolls in upon the briny deep

the apartments are half empty and the big talk is cheap

the sweetest pearl in the shell

why even jesus christ was betrayed by a kiss

its coming on again life speeds up dont you know

i love you like the stars above you

gather round all you clowns let me hear you say

heyday

as i go along my way i say hey hey

good morning steve well you wont believe me today

aurora what you doing here?

an old man here says that he knew you in another life

this life reserved for a friend

is this the end beautiful friend

of our elaborate plans the end

we drive into the east

look at the map add up the cost

dont let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

so tired of running from my own heat

as we ride down the highway 101

hiding in the backstreets

always something there to remind me

only 24 hours from tulsa

25 or 6 to 4

1 for the money

2 for the show

3 to get ready

7 times i cursed these 7 tears

but ive been dirt but i dont care

on saturday night i saw a light shine from a window

driving home from the show i saw your lights

i knew youd been with her

my abstract model

my favourita

is this where you live

you only live twice

(there was a lot more to this blog

but an error caused me to lose the other half

i am to0 weary to try to reproduce it so

i will let this fragment remain)

the light still pours out of me

the need to experience everything

the most sacred place the most dirty place

the place that is no place at all

the emptiest place where the soul stripped bare of skins

and  hardly recognisable  to that naked  i

they have sold you a lie brothers and sisters

and the rock and the roll is a path to that lies heart

ladies and gentlemen is it not best that we rock and rock on?

i strap on my plank with wires but its a stradivarius of a plank

boom boom boom my amplified notes that have busted my ears

i am an old soldier still fighting in his legion

my sword is my music

my arrows are my words

my integrity is my shield

my failures and mistakes scar me but i fight on

such a grandiose metaphor  such is rocknroll

you can be high n mighty

you can be down and low

you can be gay or junkie or christian or  fool

you can be lovely or ugly or rich or poor

self taught or conservatory it doesnt matter

rock put the power back in all our hands

now we the people can select our heroes

and we choose em from rocknroll because its all we got

you cant trust actors n politicians speaking someone elses lines

you cant trust rocknroll singers either …what the hell do we know?

but rock aint asking for your trust

rock aint asking for your vote

but it is asking for your money

and in return it gives you something

so sublime there is no word to describe it

some revelation some bliss some divine insight

some release of the feeling of love

some excitement some hope some pride some joy

only a few can ever invoke such things and that music we treasure

it brings the holy to even the most heathen of hearts

it sets the scene for an epiphany

it guides you towards a splendid feeling of being in the know

it creates a world for you

each record by the beatles built on and expanded from the last world

the initial solid modern construction would begin to sprout strange new wings

consider “the end” by the doors

who has ever conjured this mood before except maybe arthur rimbaud?

a journey within decadence and failure and random images of dissolution

when its all over you feel like you experienced something, eh?

oh that jimbo quite a poet and those lovely instruments

hear them embellishing and weaving the threads of the story

hear that voice leading you all over the place

through time and nightmare

its a play its a poem its a story its a vision

in this we somehow get glimpses of  the supernatural world

the world inhabited by spirit by the dead by the drugged by the insane

a wild world oh baby baby

there is magic in this world and 3 short cuts

are sex drugs and rocknroll

all three together taken in regular large doses will open up your chakras

or something

the profound shift in any direction away from this dismal reality of here

when i was 16 i worked on a building site as a labourer

for 6 weeks of school holiday one year

at work it was brutal and hard and so male it was disgusting to me

everything was coarse and vulgar and loud and brutal

i got home and my antidote was to enter the world of “a beard of stars”

yeah marc bolan was the opposite of the guys on the site

here was romance and tragedy and strange strange magic

a middle earth set to some mixture of the weirdest rock

these songs seemed dragged from another continuum

where eric claptonesque forms are laid over baroque tapestries

where fey means faery and miracles are materialising

and the love oh my goodness

the love the love the love

bolan is in love with his babe

he is donovan playing romeo playing legolas playing caspian

away from the concrete dust and the muddy carpark and blokes

bolans world opened upon the first note of the record

it was not a world like a book to be explored once maybe twice

it was a world expanding open in breathtaking jumps

the more you listened the more you heard and ditto in reverse

this was not the hamfisted thump of your zeps and purples

nor the grammar school feel of yer yesses n genesises

nor the rebellious strut of the stones

not even the beatles

in all their trailblazing wanderings had hit upon this world

not even druggy not even deliberately weird

bolan had taken rocknroll instruments and techniques

and used them to outpour babylon and greece and narnia and druid

like half remembered books from childhood

with the witches and black cats and its elders and m m m magical moons

and against this backdrop bolan invokes youth and love and an ideal idyll

fuck its not everyones cup of tea

but the marvel is nonetheless that he pulled it off

and it gave me a chance to see the possibility

of reconciling all my favourite things into song

and somehow locking them there to be taken out when needed

i take bolans blueprint and i sometimes reassemble it in my own materials

thats alright thats what its all about

thats the business thats the way it s’posed to be

you take the best stuff and recombine it

thats what we do

thats what you like

temporary magic 7

i fucking love rocknroll

love its myths and characters

love its ups n downs

love its snakes and its ladders

love its ritual love its symbolism

love its tradition love its innovation

love its winners love more its losers

i love to fucking rock and lemme tell ya its a loada fun

man you can just say whatever you want

man you can just play whatever you want

every song should have everything in it

not much you cant put in a rock song

except mundanity and tepidness

then you got pop i guess

you can be rock and still pop

but you cant be pop and then rock

is it love that makes us rock ?sang marco boleyn

a deeply profound and deceptively simple question

because what the fuck does make us rock after all if it is not love?

love of your baby

love of your friend

love of your brother and sister

love of this earth

love of anything even if its bad i suppose

rock is so subtle and so obvious

rock to describe feelings no other artform can or even tries to

a wild hedonistic pagan spirituality steeped in its own icon and iconoclast

a collision between black rhythm indian drone white melody

if he were alive homer would be rocking and william shakespeare too

gilgamesh was a rocker so was lucifer the naughty one

jesus could do lovely ambient stuff and beautiful folk

but once in the temple with the money changers he really rocked

he blew em away with a blast of proto rock rapping

had the phucking pharisees bopping in their kaftans baby

oh yes jesus could write lyrics too …are you kidding me?

ask nicky cave for example…..

throw in a bit of jesus into a bit of the old murder malarkey

and you got some new profound trip happening before you can say amen

oh yeah napoleon rocked too

he fucking brought the house down

charisma in spades a proto beatles hairdo and sgt peppers get up

hand in his jacket as a gimmick

a french salon groupie slut for a wife

hes like the artist formerly known as prince in whatever century that was

fuckin’ hannibal barca …i mean how rocking was this freakin’ druid?

he fuckin’ well rocked rome and that was a hard city to crack

buddha was a brian eno type but nevertheless rock

krishna is like a hindu ziggy stardust complete with tragic ending

but whilst burning bright he was androgynous and beautifully weird

just like ziggy!

houdini was a rocker n he rocked in spades

he was dazzling and he left em gasping

rasputin was alice cooper and percy shelly was peter frampton

guy fawkes was the clash

caligula was marilyn manson

nero was courtney taylor taylor

king henry the eighth was elvis

robespierre was rage against the machine

dr john dee was john lennon

isaac newton was paul mccartney

gandhi was george harrison

doubting thomas was ringo starr

archduke ferdinand was pete best

louis pasteur was george martin

fuck i dunno

liszt was rog adultery

dante was um….me…according to a secret doctrine adhered to by certain people

panthers rock

cheetahs rock

wolves rock like a heavy metal band

eagles rock

falcons rock

bears dont rock

squirrels dont rock

sharks rock but its vicious cold rock like the velvets

dolphins are easy listening rock

swans are jeff buckley

kittens are richard from the underground lovers

pandas are kiss

fire is rock sometimes air rocks too

water rarely rocks and earth never

male is rock female is rock

but in the right ratio

too much male and you got a building site

too much female and you got a bridal boutique

too much young you got a cartoon

too much old you got a game of fucking cricket

rock is also wore and piece

too much war you got yer johnny rotten

too much peace you got the friggin’ thompson twins

too much thought you got rick wakeman

too little thought you got robbie williams

blah blah blah

go and rock on then

in the free and freer worlds

in the far distant past and future to the birthday present day

rock is the answer

the question

the equation

the spell

the need

the reason

we rock because we love