Good dreamers

Images of Dusk - Newish Song Without Name Yet

I would put up an mp3 of the work in progress but (a) it's still quite rubbish and (b) I don't actually think that I have one at the moment.

Anyhow, the lyrics for a song Chris and I are working on at the moment are below.  It's about love and lust and all the usual stuff.  It's also quite naff (perhaps even naffer than usual), but I think works with the melody.  I think I wrote the first stab at these in November last year on a day off work, which was quite fun.

A fleeting fever then you drifted on your way;
Unfinished feelings are the last to go.
A time-troubled meeting on a picture-perfect day;
An enigmatic smile is the best I'll know.

One brave night and that's what it means.
One night of nothing to disguise.

A far-fetched notion of a half-forgotten kind,
Risk and reason flicker as I let go.

A kind heart and that's all it means.
A gentle touch and empathetic eyes.

Drunk and full of dancing when I
Chanced upon a fairground ride.
You let me share the golden colours;
We lived my dreams, I lived a lie.

One sweet image of you next to me.
A white shirt and a blue pair of jeans.

You didn't let me know your secrets;
You didn't hear my guilty laugh.
You didn't see the signs of sadness
As we lost a love never meant to last.

One brief night and that's what it means.
A kind heart and that's all it means.

Oh what a shame, our night's receding.
Oh what a shame, I've stopped believing.
Where is the shame I should be feeling?
What is the shame in crying as I watch you drift away?

Colonel Frenchy and the Surrender Monkeys

It's been a while since I last posted - my early Saturday mornings have been spent painting fences in the summer sunshine, enthusing about my gradual discovery of the world of gardening (we've even managed to get the local family of crows down to march all over our veg patch), and preparing picnics.

Since it's Glastonbury weekend (we watched about three hours' worth over an Indian takeaway from Kismet (their lamb shashlik tikka was excellent) and a few G&Ts and glasses of red wine), I thought I'd put up a quick post about our own music excursions.  William, Chris and I have been practising as "Colonel Frenchy and the Surrender Monkeys" (or "The Lazy Donkey with Images of Dusk").  William does the singing and rhythm guitar,  Chris does lead, I do bass.  We're improving - the epic Ballad of the Lazy Donkey is coming along particularly nicely.  I'm not sure what the final aim is - either another CD, recorded "live", or perhaps a spot at the Portland Arms.

Incidentally, I thought The Killers were brilliant last night, comfortably my favourite band of the evening (though I'd like to have seen more of The Zutons).

Images of Dusk - The Autumn Album - Preview 2 - Moonspilt (?)

Here's another song we'll be doing for the next record.  Excuse some of the ugly bits of guitar and vocals on this demo - I'm hoping we'll make something listenable when I do it with Chris.  I can't exactly remember when I did this.  I can't decide what to call it - it's been 'Moonspilt', 'The Smoke on the Breeze', 'Weldon Kees' and other things at different times.

Download moonspilt_mp3.mp3

The moon is spilt like milk on the wall
As white as the page, too perfect to change.
The words that he’s found say nothing at all.
He’s counting the time in mouthfuls of wine.

‘I love you my love’ (but he never did though).
His smoke’s like a poem he breathes through the window
Lost on the peregrine breeze.

Running away with Weldon Kees,
Mexico, India, or Belize.

Rainclouds loom, the room goes dark
He gropes for the switch, an electric fix.
In the bald and bare he lifts his glass –
To the thudding rain, he makes things change.

‘I’ll miss you, my love’ (but he never will now).
He loses his past by washing his pills down,
Drops himself down to his knees.

Running away with Weldon Kees,
Mexico, India, or Belize.

She makes the tea, and the rain keeps falling.
She takes him tea, and the rain keeps falling.
Watches TV and the rain is falling down.

And the news says that a man has drowned.
With just a touch of sadness she puts on her dressing gown.

Do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recordings

Jarvis Cocker wrote in the sleeve to His 'N' Hers: 'NB Please do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recordings'.  Actually, I don't know who wrote that, but I'm sort of guessing that it was him, on the basis that he writes the lyrics and it sounds like a typical Cocker sort of comment - observational and amusing.  I'm sure he knew he was instilling a sort of paranoia about our intimate private moments alone appreciating a new record. I quite like the idea of listening instructions to accompany a record.  I think every Images of Dusk record should come with an enormous list of caveats pointing out all the things it doesn't do to try to justify the small things I think it might (but perhaps that's just the lawyer in me).

The trouble is that I love listening to music while reading the lyrics, at least on the first few listens; I tend to want to understand the meaning of a song before I can appreciate it.  Actually, I think that used to be more true than it is now.  I found Lambchop initially alien because I didn't always understand what Kurt Wagner was singing about - then I just listened to the sounds (specifically on Is A Woman - I did it backwards, so to speak - and I still haven't heard How I Quit Smoking, which is very high on the To Investigate list).  In any event, understanding a song (which is not to say capturing every last nuance and allusion) is still high on my agenda.

So last night I sat down with The Divine Comedy's last record, Absent Friends, a record I knew I'd probably like, and of which I had heard bits and bobs (Chris played me his favourite moments, and I have a suspicion I heard The Happy Goth live on Jonathan Ross' Saturday morning show when driving into town last year).  Suffice to say that I thought it was great, and that I'd missed pop songs about ordinary but poignant things, and with lyrics like these:

The city's waking up.
Dreams fizzle out like raindrops
Racing down the glass,
They blur the street-lamps as we pass.

Not enough pop songwriters evoke T.S. Eliot these days (...?).  Well, it made me think of his Preludes, anyway, but that may have just been the streetlamps.

When Chris and I put together 'Hear Me Now' (the short album/EP we recorded in about 1999), we included a lyric sheet - something like we used to get in our school assemblies.  This wasn't because we expected people to sing along (well, the five or so people who received a copy).  And it might have seemed rather self-indulgent (look at what we've written, take us seriously etc. etc.).  But I think there is merit in including written words with songs.  When I've know what's going on, I don't read them over and over again - and I can remember their meaning while listening; but on the first few times, I find that there's something particularly magical about the moment I feel I understand the song (NB I've used this word too often - I considered 'appreciate', but that's not quite what I mean; 'get' sounds naff; 'empathise with' is too specific and also quite naff - any other suggestions gratefully received).

So, we'd recorded some songs.  They were messy, clinical (genuinely both - combination of digital technology, metronome, lack of musicianship - here come the caveats) ... but they were statements of something, and ones we were proud of; we wanted people to hear these little statements and for them to strike a chord with our (five) listeners.  So we included the lyrics: take the songs as they are; here is a map to show just how naive they are too.

All this is a precursor to and an excuse for the post I'm about to make (here are the caveats etc.).

Images of Dusk - The Autumn Album - Preview 1 - My Unpainted Lady

Just to prove that we've actually got some songs to work from (and to test out the whole putting files online thang), I thought I'd post a (very rough) demo of a song from the record Chris and I are recording (which will hopefully be completed in time for autumn this year!).

So here is the demo I recorded in about 2002 of a song called My Unpainted Lady.

Download my_unpainted_lady_mp3.mp3

Music is love (but I'm not so sure about recording)

I've spent almost three hours this afternoon trying to record some music, and I reckon I've successfully got about one and a half minutes down. I almost managed to get the last minute and a half done too, but gave up when my fingers started hurting too much and my irritation with the headphones became too strong (they kept slipping off midway through the last section, so I was left concentrating harder on keeping them nearly on my head than on playing the perfect take).

So what am I doing wrong? Do I have the wrong plan - should I just sit down, record something, and be done with it? (Especially bearing in mind the fact that hardly anyone will ever hear what I've recorded anyway.) At the end of the day, every 'take' captures one unique moment, with all its own sort of beauty and all its own flaws. What is there to gain in trying to 'beat' one of these earlier moments?

The trouble is that I know I won't listen to what I've recorded again with any sort of satisfaction if I've not done something pretty bloody close to the best of my abilities; and because I don't play every day, don't play in a band, don't play regularly enough with a metronome, it takes me a long time to get the right mood in even a thirty second snippet of very simple guitar. And that's without all the stresses of perfect 'mood' takes that collapse heaving to the ground a few paces from the finishing line because of a slip of a finger or sudden over-confidence. So I think it's got to be like this; eventually, I'll get better at it, and it won't take so long. And I think that there's a degree to which the final take - whichever one it turns out to be - feeds on all the ones before it, often in ways we don't notice - perhaps a nuance of emphasis or attack, perhaps in the rhythms, perhaps even the way the instrument is positioned. And given that every recorded moment has the advantage of uniqueness, the final one has to do something else to be the best - and I think the right notes, tight rhythm and sound are the bare minimum required.

So I don't think it's wasted time - I just wish I could guarantee that there'd be something to show for every hour I spend at it.

The story of my life?

It's been quite a while since Chris set up the 'new' Images of Dusk website, and challenged me by saying 'I'm sure Pierre must have some material to contribute'. Perhaps its my new job, perhaps its been finding the habit of writing for this page, but I've finally decided to put finger to keyboard. I'm writing a bit about the history of Images of Dusk, which has made me reflect on a phenomenon that is as old as art, which probably means as old as people.

Writing the history of our 'band' began as the history of us - particularly, of Chris and me, though also of the others (Nick, Robb, William) who have helped us out with our music in the past. But I'm realising that Images of Dusk is actually something distinct from any of us. I'm writing an autobiography and a biography at the same time.

I should briefly explain that Images of Dusk is, I realise, an extremely naff name for a group - it's no great surprise that we ended up being placed in the 'Cuddlecore/Twee pop' category at this Russian website (though how they got hold of our name, I'm not sure - perhaps an automated check against artists listed on the old mp3.com). However, since that late evening sat in my parents' kitchen drinking cups of tea and writing out every alternative we could come up with, when suddenly it became clear that Images of Dusk was the perfect name for us (?), it's gained a history and (admittedly limited) resonance of its own. The music we've recorded under that name is now undoubtedly Images of Dusk music, not my music or Chris's music.

Ours may be an extraordinarily humble comparator, but I think this is the same phenomenon that every artist experiences - the moment when the creation or performance has finished, and (under whatever name you wish), the thing you've made goes off into the world to fight its own fights, be judged on its own merits, quite separate from the person who has created it. It's like a child's first day at school - the parent has created that child (genetically, at least, but also largely in terms of 'nurture' at that early age) , but must now let him fend for himself. This is a peculiarly terrrifying, bittersweet moment of vulnerability, when that irreversible separateness is felt like never before.

Performers similarly have to acknowledge the gaps between them, their performance, and the work they are performing. Helen described how a musician has to reign in the temptation to exert too much self onto a performance:

too little self-control impoverishes the emotion of the music, because it becomes all about you on the stage, and not the work performed.

(Though she also points out the balance that the musician must strike:

too much control and the performance is anxiously perfectionist and wooden.)

For the artist, the parent, the performer, there is a moment when the work of art, the child, the performance leaves its originator and becomes something separate, and quite distinct from an expression of self. Chaucer wrote towards the end of Troilus and Criseyde:

Go, litel book, go litel myn tragedie,
Ther god thy maker yet, er that he dye,
So sende might to make in som comedie!
But litel book, no making thou nenvye,
But subgit be to alle poesye;
And kis the steppes, wher-as thou seest pace
Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.

And for ther is so greet diversitee
In English and in wryting of our tonge,
So preye I god that noon miswryte thee,
Ne thee mismetre for defaute of tonge.
And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe,
That thou be understonde I god beseche!
But yet to purpos of my rather speche.

His 'litel book' would have to 'go' its own way now he had finished writing it; he could only pray that 'noon miswryte thee,/Ne thee mismetre for defaute of tonge', and that his little book be understood. I'm not quite sure what he means by 'miswryte thee' - presumably the hope that no scribes copy the work out incorrectly. When the book left him, he could not control how it would be interpreted (and as a Christian writing about pre-Christian heroes, this was a significant consideration), or even how it would be written. I suppose every composer has the same feeling about future interpretations of his work; a performer has to hope that his performance is understood by his audience. A parent has the (heartbreaking) hope that his child will fit in, be happy, in the wider world.

Anyway - I'll pop a link up to the Images of Dusk life history when it's done.

One bittern, not so shy

I suppose I should start by explaining that I'm likely to be an irregular sort of a poster - I'll probably post several times in some days, and then not for a week or two. On this occasion, there's a reason for this: I've been off work for two weeks, and doing some of the things that matter most to me (playing music, and walking the beaches and heathland paths of Suffolk in search of birds, though I wasn't altogether successful in either of these endeavours, managing to record approximately three minutes of slightly hit-and-miss music, and managing to be in Suffolk at the times and places the birds chose to avoid).

ANYWAY. As the spoiler title of this post will have given away, I did manage to see a bittern for the first time (hooray), and the Images of Dusk New Album Project has finally got off the ground after nearly four years.
As you'll see from the link, seeing a bittern is quite a special thing (though experienced birdwatchers will have seen them on many occasions), and I got a particularly juicy view. Sat (appropriately and tellingly) in the newish Bittern Hide at the RSPB's Minsmere reserve, I was busy complaining that bitterns never come out to play when I'm around when one rose up from the reeds about thirty metres in front of me, flapped slowly around, then off in a roundabout route from us towards the reeds on the other side of the pool. It was in the air in front of us for a good 30 seconds (they're normally spotted dashing between cover in the chick-raising season, or heard 'booming' - listen to the sounds on here - so this was quite something).

I'd like to think that the obvious comparison with my musical endeavours (in terms of rarity, not beauty) will prove to be less than appropriate over the coming weeks as I put down the basic parts for the five or so songs I've got kicking about for Images of Dusk's forthcoming release, The Autumn Album.

And should I then presume? And how should I begin?

Drip. Plip. Plop. Plash. Plwash.

That's the sound of the droplets of bloggish thought that have been trickling out of the water tank (of imagination) in the (metaphorical) loft upstairs over the past few months, encouraged by reading the posts of my pals (see left). And I suppose that this is the plwash, in the wording of that particularly ugly analogy.

Beginnings are fraught with anxiety and risk (you don't want to know how long it took me to decide on the bland url for this blog). And every moment of self-expression is a new beginning - from 'I love you' to playing the first chord of a new song to ... well, 'drip' (not wanting to make a (melo?)drama out of a trivial incident ... hold on, I suppose that's exactly what I want to do - as Julian says: 'our tiny personal dimensions provide us with our biggest emotions').

It's Prufrock's dilemma (hence the name of this post). But, as Joni Mitchell sang in the unfortunately-entitled Willy:

You're bound to lose/ If you let the blues get you scared to feel.

So this is my attempt to beat the inertia, dare to disturb the universe, admit to feeling something - my presuming that I've got something to say. And it's a step away from being 'too afraid to be free' (in the words of The Sun Brothers' Unto Thine Own Self Be True). I'm meeting T.S. Eliot's hyacinth girl and managing to speak; in the 'darkened underpass' I'm asking the question that Morrissey couldn't.

OK - that's probably overstating the value of this post. I can't say what they would have said. But I'm at least saying this, which is a start.

This is the way that I've begun, then. I feel I should also quickly explain why I chose the (current) name for this blog, and the URL. The URL: 'images' is short for Images of Dusk, and we record music under that name. I've called this 'good dreamers' because I thought I should choose someone else's words (that's how I always start - if T.S. Eliot can do it ...), because I wanted to choose something sincere to hang over the blog and remind me to say what I think, because I liked the idea that good dreamers might 'pass this way some day' and maybe add a few comments. I've also always liked the aspiration in the phrase (what is a good dreamer?); and the reminder that it's all very well 'hiding behind bottles' with these hidden, internal, smug beliefs in the beauty or acuteness of our own dreams, but until we express them somehow, they're thin, untested and almost unreal. And I wanted this blog to be a place to express the thoughts I have - to challenge myself to ask whether I am a good dreamer or just indolently carrying around a few half-baked ideas.

It's ended up being more of a plwash than I'd intended - hopefully I'll be a little more concise and coherent with my subsequent posts. But this was always about getting over that first hurdle more than saying anything very profound.