Mon, 28 November

Montreal
so the UN are meeting in Montreal to decide what to do after the Kyoto protocol.

and already the US administration has buried its witless head in the fucking sand.

refusing to take part.

you can even see the strings being pulled.

this is a true evil.

and on tv they are talking about the sahara and how global warming will destroy the lives of the millions who live there soon.

oh and the weather man says how weve got caught out by the extreme snowfall. highly unusual.
cue footage of stranded motorists.
but hey itll be nice for kids.
cue taboganning footage.

and business leaders are meeting tony blair tommorrow to express their concern about gas supplies.
fuck business leaders what about the rest of us?

if ever property in the country had solar panels or mini wind turbines, just like it has water supply and a satelltie dish perhaps we wouldnt need new nuclear power stations that we cant afford to please these fucking business leaders.

thm

p.s. please excuse the swearing. im mad.


Thom

Sat, 22 October

Sat, 22 October
the dogs have gone to bed
friday night ....... the end of a two week session .......riffs and fragments of the songs going round my head ...... its been great .... its always difficult to judge right now but i think we may have got 'bodysnatchers' ...... had a couple of sticky days at the beginning of the week but saw it through .... on a roll now ..... lots of stuff to be done yet, but so far so good.... the studio is fab, its so good to play in and listen.... you know what works and what doesn't ..... the only problem is you will never hear what you do sound so good as the sound system is outrageous .... ths studio also sits on the edge of some beautiful woodland .... had a great ray mears moment in the wood today on a solitary walk when i came across some deer and hid behind a tree to watch them for a few minutes ...... time to head off i'm really tired.... goodnight.
Ed

Sat, 22 October

Sun, 16 October

two days off, sunday spent dragging a puppy around Abingdon.
back tomorrow, after a full on week of recording a song a day, some not even on the blackboard....one of jonny's tunes, packing a lot in 2 mins 45 seconds! Spent weekend agreeing with Nick Cohen, hoping Simon Starling would win the Turner, listening to new modeselektor album, and waiting to get the boards of canada and pharrell williams tomorrow. Exciting talk of shows next year; it's good to have a plot. Another week ahead in the studio, then more in December. I'll keep you posted this week with more news and wonky shots, so wish us luck!
Colin

Wed, 12 October

Nothing can bring peace..........but yourself

Tue, 11 October

Fri, 30 September

Wed, 28 September

storm coming
satellite not working

rain rattling down the chimney. windows buffering.

not got th e words to PAY DAY yet.

but today i got the words to BURN THE (WHITE?) WITCH.. thats a good un. jonny has losts of orchestration tasks now including this..('oh good' says he exiting stage left)

blackboard filling up with ideas. lots of things happening all over the studio at once.. which i always like.. although i keep having to remind myself to sit down occasionally.

night night
Thom

Wed, 28 September

good evening
right now colin is reading that strange devarahi synth book.

stanley is hammering and making greetings cards which may or may not be for christmas.

im working on something that i think is called PAY DAY. im gonna lay the lyrics line by line on the floor and shuffle them. and im having to play gentle fingerpicking over furious beat.

ed is sick as a dog at the moment poor guy. he is feeling very sorry for himself and keeps sending us sad little texts.

in the distance there is a cloud but as im in an ok mood i can keep it away
........friends of the earth have asked me whether i would meet Tony Blair at downing street to discuss what our government is not doing about climate change..i dont know if this will ever happen for certain.... it is rattling around in the back of my mind and concerns me a lot.
i have no intention of being used by spider spin doctors to make it look like we make progress when it is just words.
id love to know what you think but i cant ask.
youd say oh ther e he goes again interfering and meddling in politics why doesnt he get on with the music and shut up.
perhaps because i feel like a hypocrit if dont do anything, and equally feel like a hypocrit if i try getting involved.
nobody wants to know. none of u s do, me included id love to forget about it like your average Times reader. wed all like it to go away. turn to to the rising sea and say come back later im busy right now.
Blair has been uttering nonsense lately about kyoto and such, real la la stuff... looks like th eamerican right have finally eaten his mind... blah blah why on earth would i meet this man? o r perhaps that is exactly why i should. but i dont have powers of persuasion, i just have temper and an acid tongue.

trust me i find this as dull as you do... politics is poison..
what do yout think i should do?

speak to you later
Thom

Tue, 27 September

great web site
http://www.preoccupations.org/2005/09/911.html

post 9/11 article with lowell quote from 66

this site is an amazing blog done by a friend who teaches english in Oxford.
Colin

Mon, 26 September

andre 3000
did an interview last week, very good, oh yes, especially bit about getting out more....

Colin

Fri, 23 September

Clocking on again.
We're back in the studio, and all is fun and well. Stanley's here too, or at least in the shed out back, painting again. The rats have got in and eaten all his blue paint, and there's blue rat shit everywhere: but at least he's got a good dub cd to listen to while he's working. At least, I think it's good. Let me explain.

There is loads of great music out there that you’ll never have time to find out about. I’m always saying this - boring the arse off someone about this. Partly to make me sound like I know loads of great music that they don’t, and partly to justify why I’ve never heard a note of, say, the Stooges (though I really must, I know, I know...how can I claim to be a an Iggy Pop fan if I've never even heard 'I wanna be your dog'? etc. etc.)

I often glibly add - ‘you could spend 6 months listening to just dub reggae, and it would all be worth hearing.’ I realize that sounds patronising, but I choose reggae because I know so many people who collect this kind of music and no other - which fascinates me - and because it’s mostly unknown to me. Not any more....I’ve just done it. Six solid months of nothing but Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Ken Boothe, Junior Byles, Marcia Aitkin and hundreds of others. It’s to make a compilation which may or may not ever be completed - I hope I’m not just proving a point to myself - but either way, there’s been nothing else on my ipod since April.

There’s something exciting about coming to musicians when they’re just names, when you’ve no idea who Derrick Harriott looks like, or what his reputation is - considered naff by real dub fans, maybe ? Derivative ? Or maybe ground-breaking ? I know the Stooges were ground-breaking - maybe that’s what has been putting me off. The weight of knowing already how good it’s meant to be. With this compilation, I’ve just ploughed through all these faceless names, liking things I probably shouldn’t (covers of soul songs! Spanish guitar solos!) and maybe finding nothing I like by the supposed classics (some of the very empty dub stuff is kind of....tedious) - or nothing I really like on the records I already have. Although Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry seems to me to deserve all respect he gets. His records are just magical. Ditto Linval Thompson, Sly and Robbie, and Scientist.

(Interesting how making a compilation for someone makes you listen to your music completely differently. Endless moments of 'do I really like that track, now I'm actually listening to it for someone else?' It's a great way to get rid of records that you only think you like.)

So it’s great music. If you don’t know any, it’s really worth getting into. There’s more than one speed, one rhythm, one mood - more than one gender, even, than you might suspect. Marcia Griffiths was a revelation. If I ever finish this thing, I’ll put the list up, and invite you to check it out. And disagree. "Ken Boothe ? Theat's not real reggae....Robbie Williams of his day.....might as well put 'I come from a land down-under' on... "
Jonny