THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

Quote of the Day:

"Luggage is just the bane of anyone's existence. It's impedimenta in every sense. Not having to carry anything is the ideal."

Paul Theroux

•••

Here's something I haven't written about in some time: the quest for minimalism in life. If you're new around here, my plan is to own just twelve things. Right now this does not include books but I'm working on it... nor does it include framed art or stuff that is of actual use like knives and forks or shampoo - you get the idea. Twelve solid items that have a purpose and meaning. Anyway, sometime in the last week or so, little things started to pile up again. I've no idea how this happens but it always seems to be when you leave a window open and the 'stuff faeries' break in and leave shit lying around the place.

What's the point in having a dog if faeries can get past without triggering the alarm?

Talking of minimalism, in my quest to keep things simple, you might have noticed I killed off the music note in the navigation bar up top. I haven't got the inclination to manage multiple blogs on here and there's very little point. File under: good idea at the time that turned out not to be. Thus, if you happen to be looking for what was posted in there, I've reposted them within the timeline of this main blog and that's where they will be in future too. I've given them a category of ROCK IN A HARD PLACE - not sure how that works as a navigational tool but I'll figure it out. for now, I'll hook anything that goes into it in the regular blog posts.  

...and while I'm talking about music, I heard a rumour that Kelly Clarkson was on the Live Lounge sessions recently. After seeing the episode with Taylor Swift (seriously cool), I thought this would be great too - but alas not. I like KC a lot but these three songs she chose to run out? Poor from beginning to end. I expected more - but all was not lost as on my way out of iplayer, I spotted a session by one of my great white hopes for the future - Nothing But Thieves. It's only available for a few more days on there but if you feel like you need a shot in the arm to prove all is not lost, here's the link.

More later... I have a plan I need to take care of right now.

HOW DID IT GET TO BE FRIDAY ALREADY?

My lovely small person went to see Ariana Grande on Monday night - it's OK, I had never heard of her either. It was a little odd hearing about her going to a show and then transposing my own experience of being 14 on top of it though.

At a rough estimate, I worked out that the whole trip - including tickets, travel and essential tour tshirt - probably came in at something like £120 and that's probably being generous. I was going  to tell her about my first show alone (which was UFO back in '82/'83) and then thought better of it but in my silence, figured out the sum total of that trip (ticket, travel, essential tour shirt and oddly a copy of the MAD magazine summer special found at a newsstand outside the venue) came in at less than £15. Is that comparable? The ticket was something like £4 (if I ask my friend John, he probably still has his stub and could tell me for sure) which really enabled a kid of 14 to go out and see a lot of bands. 

Seeing a band sure is steep these days.

On the plus side, she had a great time and some dude from One Direction showed up in the area she was in "without a body guard!" 

Is that on a par with Dee Snider being found playing the slot machines in a local bingo hall after their first UK show? I guess somehow in a skewed universe of strange reality, it just might be. (Quickly references interested parties on such matters to own book titled Black Dye White Noise which contains such stories).

(On which note - if you're a fan of Dee Snider, his new podcast, Snider Comments, is everything you'd expect it to be - in the latest episode he has Wayne Kramer of MC5 in the studio. People forget just how cool MC5 were. Check this out this 45 year old clip from 1969. They don't make 'em like they used to and they really fucking should:

•••

In the interview I linked to yesterday over at Infected, I mention a Bukowski book cover I put together. A couple of people have asked if the could see it, so here it is. It's not a commercial venture or anything of the kind... just a guy messing about with something he loves. Anyway... 

•••

I got all fired up when I heard Clive Barker was finally unleashing The Scarlet Gospels but now it's been out two or three weeks, I'm not so sure I should have been. The reviews from long time fans are not good. Not good at all. I shouldn't have looked but the cat's out of the bag now and I can't get back in. Maybe I'll just leave it unread on the shelf for a little while and see how I feel some day in the future. Still, Clive is Clive and if you're of the same mindset, there's a neat interview with him up at Wired in which he talks about some important stuff - particularly his comments on Anne Rice and the way some her 'fans' treated her recently.

••• 

Finally, Matt Haig followed me on Twitter yesterday. Not sure what I did to deserve that but it's kinda cool for a great writer to click a button your name is attached to. His book The Humans is a fine, fine read. He has a new book out called Reasons To Stay Alive that I haven't got around to yet but regardless of that... Matt: I'll buy you a really big latte if you can be bothered driving to Ramsgate next Wednesday and I'll shoplift your book into the bargain.

•••

Oh - really finally - if you're at a loss for something to watch on TV now silly season is over, Duchovny's Aquarius is out there. Just saying. 

WRITE YOUR HEART OUT

This week I've been making a road map of where it is I'm going right now. It's good to take stock of what you've got going on whatever it is you're doing - sometimes the results of such a meeting with yourself are pretty good and sometimes they can be shitty as hell. Either way, a meeting with yourself is usually pretty short and constructive unless you're careless and can't help but distract yourself with umm... a distraction.

If you're about to enter such a meeting with yourself, don't forget - not every day can be an all-time high. All that matters in the end is the work because one day you'll be dust in the wind and you don't want to leave behind a memory of being a miserable bastard your whole life just because things didn't go your way.

Anyway, to begin, I got grilled last week (or was it the week before?) by the guys at Infected Books for the release of The Family Of Noise and you can find the results of that right here. It's tempting for me to ramble on about what I actually talk about there but I'm learning to simply shut the hell up sometimes. Thanks for your time guys. It was emotional.

•••

Also before I forget, on my travels, I unearthed this gem from Emil at Old London Road tattoo studio. I've seen a few Bukowski nuggets over the last few years but this is great:

•••

While I was sticking pins in a map, (it's not a real map obviously, but now I think about it, there might something quite neat about hanging one on the wall. It's almost as cool as having one of those glass walls they use on crime shows for pinning up evidence), I came across some great images of St. Mark's Bookshop from when they moved premises last year. Take a look at these because all bookshops should damn well be like this (or at least variations thereof):

That's a thing of beauty right there. The whole shop was worked on by Clouds Architecture Office - if you hit that link, you'll also find some explanations behind the images along with some other great work - even if architecture is not your bag, you've got to hand it to them, that's one happening store.

•••

It just dawned on me that it's only a week until we do Publish & Be Damned at Waterstones. I actually have my shit together - or at least enough of it that I'm not concerned it will fall around my ankles like a pair of pants with no belt. I'm sad to say, there will be no pyro. I did ask but health and safety in the coffee shop absolutely forbids pyro of any kind. There are a whole bunch of flyers that look like this in store:

Help yourself to a handful and distribute them amongst your friends and neighbours - probably best if they are planning on writing a book but then again, I'll drink coffee with anybody so it's not a prerequisite.

•••

Currently reading:

...and it's really damn good.

THE BURNING SOULS

The following is not my usual fare. Let's say I got up this morning feeling more sublime than is usual for a Sunday morning...

For a man who, if time had been somewhat kinder to him, would have been 750 years old today (or thereabouts), Durante degli Alighieri is something of a hero to me but most definitely not in the same way a lot of my heroes are - and likely never will be. 

To begin with, it's likely you know him better simply as Dante. Most people who went to school for at least one day in their lives will have heard of his book Divine Comedy, but it's also very likely you've never picked it up or even looked at it. Not coincidentally, William Blake is one of my other literary heroes - and that all stems from the drawings he 'roughed up' for Divine Comedy that captivated me back when I was young and impressionable.

Divine Comedy is often mistakenly referred to in its totality as Inferno (which is only the title of the first instalment), but neither was it first called Divine Comedy. The original title of the book was Commedia (or Comedy) which, using the mediaeval definition of the word, means ' a story with a happy ending' - so if you're venturing in, don't expect a lot of laughs because you won't find many at all.

None in fact.

The basic concept of Divine Comedy runs thus: Dante, in his middle age, finds he has lost his way and at the request of Beatrice, (likely an unrequited love from his life), the Roman poet Virgil goes in search of him. Virgil finds Dante in the woods on Good Friday in the year 1300 and together they begin their journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise to find God. I don't think it would be a huge spoiler if I reveal that Virgil gets replaced by Beatrice for the last leg of the quest - everybody knows there are certain places Pagan's aren't allowed to tread.

Amazingly, the whole journey takes just three days.

So far so good, but this book from Taschen - this monstrous, divine in itself, outrageously most beautiful book I have in my collection (and have ever owned) - is more about Blake than it is Dante, and yet, for all its epic classicalism, Divine Comedy without Blake is only half the book it should be. By my estimation, that means that for roughly 650 years, readers of the classic tale really lucked out on some magic.

Whilst his work on Divine Comedy is not Blake's only undertaking, it is (arguably, I reluctantly suppose) easily his best. The collection ranges from drawings that began around 1824 and run to 1827 when Blake died, leaving only a few completed watercolours of a proposed 102 and some large engraved plates based on seven designs. These were also left incomplete at his death. For the record here, the watercolours remained in his patron John Linnell's collection and estate until their sale at auction in 1918. Through a scheme organized by the National Art-Collections Fund, they were dispersed among 7 participating institutions: the Ashmolean Museum, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, the British Museum, the Fogg Art Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Royal Institution of Cornwall, and the Tate Collection - so if you see what I see in his work, it's entirely possible to see them in the flesh but so far as I know, this is the first time they have been brought together in print like this.

Capaneus the Blasphemer: As they travel through the Seventh Circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil come across Capaneus, one of the seven kings who once waged war on the city of Thebes. In his great pride, Capaneus provoked Jupiter who killed him with a bolt of lightning. Here, he resides under a rain of fire for his blasphemy. So let that be a warning to you.

All of which is pretty much the official sequence of events but when you actually have this material in front of you, the game changes somewhat. Any fool can dissect a work such as this. It's not like there's no reference material to fall back on - and yet, as I sit here with this book in front of me - and believe me it feels like a cheap shot calling it 'a book' - none of those paragraphs above mean a damn thing.

To put some kind of meaning to it as a product, here's how big it is using a regular sized paperback as reference:

324 cloth bound pages with 14 fold out spreads make this so much more than a simple 'art book' - it's actually something of an experience. If you can get into it and lose yourself in what's going on, what you should find is the hive mind of Dante and Blake working together, hundreds of years apart, to create something that neither of them intended this story to be.

If you're game for some deep thought, there's a Canto titled 'The angel who records the failings of the Christian rulers'. To paraphrase, Dante questions the idea that at the Last Judgement, many Christians will be further away from Christ than those who know nothing at all of him. In itself, it's a genius concept that you could argue about forever with scholars (should you be of such a mind) but once combined with the accompanying image from Blake, the whole idea transcends being a clever, moral observation and morphs into something once again magical/mystical... or at the very least majestic. Critical as Blake may occasionally be in his interpretation of the original work, he certainly manages to be faithful to the spirit of the adventure. 

As a writer, you can sometimes think you've delivered gold, but throw in an artist who understands what you're trying to achieve and a whole new set of rules appears in the shape of that very hive mind. I'm no scholar. I know a reasonable amount about both of these men but I'm certainly no expert on either - and I'm pleased about that. Knowing just enough to form a simple opinion allows you to get lost in the adventure without worrying that you've missed something or misinterpreted events along the way.

This way, it's nothing more and nothing less than exactly what I see before me: two of the most powerful artists known throughout history working for no other reason than to tell a story as it needed to be told. Maybe that wasn't the original intention but I guess a few hundred years can change your perspective on anything.

To wrap up: All writers sit in Dante's shadow when it comes to relaying simple concepts of great importance. Blake on the other hand, makes all artists who followed him seem lacking in their understanding of the workings of the world and of what goes on behind the curtain.

And than there's Taschen, who put all other art publishers to shame on a grand scale.

My work here is complete. 

NOTES:

William Blake. The drawings for Dante's Divine Comedy Hardcover, clothbound, with 14 fold-outs and ribbon bookmark, 12.8 x 18.0 in., 324 pages
ISBN 978-3-8365-5512-8
Edition: English
Published by Taschen. The catalogue/shop page is here.

BRICK-WALLED

After three days of full on 24/7 tattoo goodness, I kinda brick-walled and needed to do something else for a few hours... except, after I'd taken Hector out and he'd licked all of the skin from my face, all I wanted to do was write something. Devoid of any Dirty Realism thoughts, I fell back on something I haven't touched for a while and discovered a couple of music driven pieces had fallen out of my pen. If you're curious, you can find both of them under the music note in the top right corner - comments are open for interaction if you're game.

•••

Talking of music, watch this. This is exactly what guitars and mouths were put on the earth for. Simply beautiful:

...and that's all I got right now but after the weekend... a fair old ruck of stuff be happenin'.

TOM KEIFER: THE WAY LIFE GOES

There’s not many bands I miss being around from the days of my mis-spent youth but I’ll make an exception for Cinderella. Somewhere along the road, they found themselves lazily thrown in with other bands who still had their hair - as though having hair was a real life musical movement - and subsequently swept under The Carpet Of Rock.

The past can be a cruel mistress sometimes.

Fortunately, for those of us who still have the use of our own senses, a couple of years back, Tom Keifer released a solo album, The Way Life Goes, which is about as close to being a Cinderella album as you’re likely to get. It's also as close as you're ever likely to get to a perfect rock album. There are a few subtle changes to the sound that will alert the erstwhile fan to the absence of the original members of the band but make no mistake - this is no desperate spin-off. This is the real deal and all of its strength lies in Keifer’s songwriting and vocal performance. 

This is no knee-jerk 'magazine deadline' review of the album either. I’ve lived with it since it was released (April 2013 - I have since looked) and every time I spin it, it’s as fresh as the first time. Would I go so far as to say The Way Life Goes is one of the only albums you’d ever need to stop to pick up when faced with a house fire? I would - but it’s only a turn of phrase. Get the hell out of the house and buy another copy later. Life is all about priorities if you hadn’t noticed. 

What pulses to make The Way Life Goes stand out from the crowd is that it's been written and built from the ground up with nothing but fistfuls of love. Nobody was waiting for it, there was no expectation of it when it arrived and so far as I can see, the whole ‘project’ exists solely because it was inside and had to come out sometime. That is to say, it's great rock for its own sake and not as a commercial venture to put food on the table - although I guess that may be a second priority now, so if you’re thinking about buying it, head over to Tom’s site and grab it from where he says to - maybe if we keep him fed and watered, one day soon, he'll make another. 

The relationship I’ve got going with this album is something I haven’t felt for a while. It’s not even something related to nostalgia. If I wanted that, I’d drop a Cinderella album on. No, what we have here is a collection of songs that are relevant now - so much so, I could be pushed into stating it was timeless. It’s stamped with all the hallmarks of roots that stretch back fifty years if you care to look, but I guarantee it will still sound great ten or twenty years in the future. Rather like the classic albums from Aerosmith (Night In The Ruts, Toys In The Attic) which are albums in which nothing else happens aside from magic being caught on tape, The Way Life Goes operates in the same manner. 

It’s been a fair while since I raised up the inclination to write an album review and I kinda like that it was this that made me want to do it again. If you haven’t put your money where your ears are recently, open up the piggy with a hammer and get it on. 

For the record and for those interested, Cinderella were more derailed by Tom’s voice than by the arrival of the Cobain Train. His vocal problems are no secret, they’re well documented if you choose to look, but the enforced grounding (frustrating though it may have been) has proved invaluable. With an incredibly strong, tight band and what looks like a pretty successful tour of his own, I can hardly wait to see what comes next. 

The Way Life Goes is gonna run and run around here.

It’s more than good to have you back Mr K.

The Burning Bush

Do I feel cheated? Is it possible to feel cheated in a good way? Discovering a nugget of truth about a band I happen to like a lot is not the worst thing that could happen to you, but I do feel I should punish myself for not paying more attention for the last twenty years or so. 

It's an easy trap to fall into and if you're the type of person who likes hitting The Big Machine to siphon every last grain of knowledge about something, it's highly likely if you were in my shoes, you would know all of this already. Here's the killing joke: if I had known what was going on behind the scenes, it's unlikely that I would have given this band the time of day or night and I would have missed out on one of the finest albums I have ever crossed paths with. 

These guys are not alone in their delivery system either - bands like this never are - but I'm sure if I looked closely, I may find there are dozens of them and damn it all to hell, some of them would likely be worth at least spending some time with to figure out if they were worth following up on.

With God on your side, things like that probably happen a lot.

I can't imagine what it must be like playing in a Christian rock band. I would imagine it to be as confining as playing in a Satanic metal band but apparently not - well not from The Light Side of the fence anyway. To people of a certain generation - to which I most certainly belong - only one band name springs to mind when you mention the words 'Christian' and 'Rock' in the same sentence and that's the name of Stryper, who I didn't like then and I most certainly have no time for now. There was no subtlety to their approach but neither was it dumb and brash enough to pul it off with bravado.

I was first introduced to this particular Wizard Behind The Curtain in a club. The DJ handed me a CD (I did know him - it wasn't an act of never to be repeated generosity) and declared most adamantly that I would love it. It wasn't the first time I had ever had a disc shoved into my hand and they always came with the same statement but I'm always willing to give most everything a shot because you never know when such a chance encounter may change your life.

I got home late that night - wide awake - and dropped the disc into the player. Two minutes in, I turned it off. Wandering about the kitchen making fish finger sandwiches was not the attention this deserved. That much was plain very early on. Those two minutes were all I needed to fall in love - and nobody had even taken their clothes off.

Indeed, a find such as this calls for a) absolute darkness and b) headphones. You absolutely cannot immerse yourself in a body of music when there is light or the opportunity for a distraction to make its presence felt. Later, yes. Once you're familiar with every inch of that body, it's perfectly fine but to know a collection of songs intimately, you simply must get to know your way around in the dark. (This does not apply to all albums - only those in which the music-maker has been generous enough to meet you half way and hopes you will make the remaining journey yourself).

Locked inside my bubble of sound, I started the disc again. Swamped in what it had to offer, it was the first time in years I had ever truly gotten lost in an album so thoroughly that I couldn't find my way out. It was not so dissimilar to the first time I heard The Doors. Not sonically but in what it raised up in me out of nowhere. That's a mighty big comparison to make but there it was in all its sonic glory, lifting me high on its shoulders one moment and without warning, dashing me onto the rocks below before picking me up for another trip on the ride. I make no understatement when I say the passion of the songwriting on this album is so intense, it bled out of my ears and rolled down my neck until it pooled on the floor around my feet.

The guitars come out at a pitch designed to drag you along wherever it chooses to take you. Drums - set perfectly in the mix just enough to keep your heart beating as it should, and the bass is practically non existent until it chooses to make its presence felt. It's a damn near perfect set-up.

And The Voice? It comes in to wash your feet with its message, delivering lyrics you can read anything you like into - which is exactly what I did for a very long time. Not the message The Voice intended that's for sure, but I am soulful enough to notice it was something quite out of the ordinary. As I listen to it again knowing what I know now, I don't quite understand how I didn't see all of life's questions being asked in the space of twelve songs. It was such a brilliant disguise, I never once questioned its motivation.

The stories that spring out of this record are the stories of us all but they're easy to miss. I may even go so far as to suspend by own belief system and say, during the days this album was recorded, God had his hands right there on the mixing desk. The more I study this record, the more complicated it gets. The whole of life is present here. God is hidden in every moment but no matter how hard you look, you will not find him - and I hope that was the intention. Sending a message to the world without having to knock on a door or preach a single word shows some true faith whichever way you choose to look at it.

This is likely the most heartfelt and positively mysterious albums I've ever had the pleasure of coming back to time after time and no, I don't feel cheated at all.

Not in the slightest.

The Violet Burning. The album goes by the same name. Do not research. Do not look at pictures. If you're getting in the boat, get in with your shoes off and don't forget to listen using the rules.

DIABETIC OWLS

My friends over at Infected Books ran me through a great interview last night to support the release of The Family Of Noise and to help give the Waterstones gig a good shot in the arm. We don’t really do the same kind of thing at all but we certainly have the same ethos about getting books out into the world. As soon as they figure out where and when to post it, I’ll hook it up. There were some great questions and I’m pretty sure I was on the ball. It makes a refreshing change being on the other side of the pen that’s for sure. 

I woke up, took Hector out and got back to find a new delivery of books and a little while later, a whole bunch of flyers for things that are going on over the next week or so. The dining room table started to look as if serious industry was happening. Then, serious industry did happen to get things into the mail, culminating in a trip to Waterstones where I dropped off these:

...and sometimes, when you jump into the fire, it doesn’t burn you but simply makes you feel warm - this is what happened today when I handed over my wares and we placed them on the counter right next to these flyers for the brilliant David Sedaris on his tour of the UK:

It’s no big deal. Nothing but some flyers sitting next to each other, right? That’s what I keep telling myself - except I love what this man writes and that makes the whole world of difference. Zoom in, check out the dates, buy yourself a ticket and go see a professional do what he does best. You won’t be disappointed.

MINI SHARK HUNT

Yesterday evening, it was time to put books back on the shelf. The house looks like spies had broken in and rifled through likely looking volumes for something hidden inside. (I tried to make one of those books once - you know the kind - where you open it up and it reveals a big hole where a gun or valuables are kept, but it's harder than it looks and what I actually ended up making was a book nobody could read again. Fortunately, it wasn't one of mine.)

It took longer than it should because as I picked each one up, I remembered why I had gotten it down from the shelf. One of these is a big old thing - The Gonzo Papers Anthology, by our old friend Dr H.S. Thompson. I'm not the biggest fan in the world of this book. The majority of his work is designed to be read as it was published (weekly, monthly) and not as a 1000+ page book - it's far too dense like this but plenty of people will disagree with me for the sake of being cool, but it's a good reference item to have around all the same... and the reason it was out in the world is a sinister one. For one fleeting moment, I considered writing about the politics... just to push myself somewhere I've never been before. 

HST always had a grand approach when it came to taking apart the US Government. All you need is a few easy targets, a biting tongue and a lot of patience. Alas, the last two I possess but the targets are worthless. I don't know much about politics at all but I was willing to get dirty for a few months if I felt I could pull it off and add value to the state of affairs. Not 'belonging' to any particular political stance (there's good and bad in most albeit in different measures), it should have been easy to stand back and put some targets in my sights but I found something quite disturbing when I looked under the rock.

Nobody stands for anything and they all stand for everything. 

It's simply grey and not exciting at all.

And that was pretty much the end of that idea. I would be better served spending my time writing about taking the dog out and a small part of me is disappointed by that.

PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED: AN EVENT

A few 'pressing items' (read: taxi driver for small person and cohort on a cat hunt) out of the way and this afternoon I finally carved out some time to wrap this: 

Much like designing book covers before I've hardly got a few hundred words down on a page, now the poster/flyer is finished for this, it seems very real and I spent the remainder of the afternoon stuffing The Notebook with some serious information on things to talk about. Turns out I might know a fair amount of stuff... or at least, I think I do. Hopefully, there will be enough people singing from the same songbook to test me out.

If you live in some kind of reasonable radius, come along. If you don't live in some kind of reasonable radius, come along anyway. It will be fun. There will be coffee, revelations and more coffee. It's a Wednesday. There's not even anything good on TV. 

A BIG HEART-PUNCH PLUS: TWITTER-KILLED BY A FAT MAN WITH A GUN

Let's start today with a heart-punch. A Hulk-sized fist of one that might smart a little to all of you who have stopped by here long enough to order yourself a copy of The Family Of Noise because it means a whole lot to me. Sometimes I question myself harshly with a bamboo cane over whether I'm doing the right thing by going it alone in the world (for now) but the greatest benefit of all, is that I get to do everything the way I want to - from book cover design right down to how things are packaged up for shipping.

This, I also questioned (though not so much) until this morning when I got this email from Katie that ran something like this:

"The Family Of Noise has just landed on my welcome mat! As a person who only ever sends things in brown paper parcels (because I think Jiffy bags have taken the romance out of sending mail to your fellow men/women), I got very excited and then even more excited when I remembered that it would be your book.

While I'm congratulating you on your choice of parcel wrap and your handwriting (which is lovely FYI), I bloody love the front cover of the book. I know people harp on saying that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but it's nice to have a nice cover.

The only books I've ever read cover to cover like I have with yours is the Northern Lights trilogy by Philip Pullman. Again, great covers - I was obsessed with them and the way they were written but then I didn't really pick anything up again until I read The Day The Sky Fell Down. Those stories are just so cleverly written, like they weren't just written for the hell of it but that they were written 'cause they were meant to be... which sounds totally odd but they felt that way to me."

And after I read that, I spent the rest of the day not really questioning my decisions at all. It makes me happy when I hear the things I do have made other people happy. The world should be run using those rules.

•••

Which leads me to this I guess. Earlier this week, I came across this photo on twitter. I reposted it with the caption "Another sad waste of another three lives":

There's a lot of things I could say about it. There's a lot of things I should say about it. There's a lot of things we should all say about it - but we don't. We collectively spend our time on twitter (and wherever else you like to hang out) trying to either promote ourselves, promote our friends or reading somebody else's digital daisy chain of similar promotion but not an awful lot of good comes from it in the real world.

Raising awareness of the awareness of raising awareness. Fantastic.

And you know what? Fuck it. When I read the feeds surrounding the posted picture, I felt like a man clutching a photograph of a God that fell out of the sky while the rest of the world was applying lipstick and browsing through the TV guide. 

I'm not sure what I was expecting by posting it in the first place. I'm not the first and I certainly won't be the last to do such a thing, but it's shifted something in me. So aside from auto-posts from here to there, I'm going to take a little sabbatical from the inanity of twitter and get my head further into what I'm supposed to be doing. I can't do a lot about that lion but bears is a whole different story.

THE DOG FROM SPACE AND OTHER STORIES

I haven’t blogged for a whole week but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing anything. Thus, time for a catch up.

Behind the scenes, plans continue for my ‘unplugged’ evening at Waterstones and I’ve also got this little show on the horizon that’s proving to have its fair share of stuff to do in the background as well, but all is well. I’m really looking forward to both.

Here's the last couple of days of dog action:

Hector looks like he might have an ice cream headache coming along nicely there. He's wet because we've been in the sea. Him on purpose and me by accident. Such is life when you have a dog from space.

Here's another in which I have just got out of the shower and we're getting some good vibes in garden before the day starts:

I got followed home on Twitter yesterday by a stranger who ran an  'ebook publicity and promotion company'. Being the curious type, I checked her out and discovered for a fee, I too could be added to a list of writers named on her site I had never heard of. 

The world is full of this kind of business now. The worst part is it's so damn well intentioned but in the big scheme of things is no more use than knocking your drink over purely to get some attention... at Woodstock.

These are the lowest kinds of facilitators. The literary equivalent of the 'You can do it' X Factor mum - only they take your money and you have to make your own dinner when you get home. I'm guessing you won't get a big hug when the proverbial Simon tells the world you're not very good either.

Back in the real world, it looks like somebody is about to unzip the heavens and H is requesting we go on a cat hunt, so let's get this day on the road...   

THE FAMILY OF NOISE: OUT NOW

The Family Of Noise is complete and now for sale in the store! To say I am more than pleased with it would be an understatement in the extreme. It's been a long haul but the kick in the pants when you're standing on top of mountain looking down at all of the ropes, crevices and carribenas you left behind is more than worth it.

I handed out a few copies along the way to pull in some feedback from readers who had nothing to lose by telling me the truth - that was more important than you would believe and I thank you all. Although I was expecting a thumbs up, I was more than prepared for a thumbs down and heading back to the drawing board but that's not what happened. Stuff like this came in:

"The chapter 'Chain of Fools' was my favourite right up until I got to the last three and even now I think it gives them a run for their money. From the first interaction between Dylan and Joanne to the closing line: 'Put these in your pockets. Please don't blow away', I was hooked."

It's a Bank Holiday here on Monday so I'm not sure when copies will be delivered but the order is in and they'll be here when they get here. On which note, if you happen to place an order before they arrive, I'll be making a trip to the Post Office whenever they do, so you can expect your delivery on any day at all rather than a Saturday... which is what normally happens if you're new around here.

In case you missed it along the way - it looks like this:

I'm going to stop talking now. For once I have run out of things to say - that and Hector is barking at a gang of ravens that have gathered on the fence in the garden.

And the world keeps on turning...

HE IS COMING...

JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL

If this is only half as good as the novel (hereafter known as The Greatest Novel Ever Written), we are in for some serious treats:

HAIR TODAY...

Against my better judgement, a couple of months back my buddy Wayne convinced me that it would be in my interest to host a Facebook page to connect with all the people who think it’s a good idea to hang out there. I know I’m right when I say it’s not because I tried it once and lost a whole bunch of days for no reason at all. Still, he had a good point about it so we agreed to put up a page under the Bad Hare banner. 

I wanted (and still want) as little as possible interaction with it for previously mentioned reasons, but Wayne… he likes it on there and was more than happy to manage it for me by diving into my blog posts and using them as content drivers - and for that Sir, I thank you even though I can smell my own hypocrisy seeping through my pores already.

So far, so good. Then a couple of weeks ago, we had a late night catch up and found ourselves talking about how good some of the music was in the late eighties and early nineties, specifically, what has become known as hair metal.

It wasn’t called hair metal back then. Back then, we were grand-masters at deciding whether a band was glam metal or sleaze metal and sometime, trash metal. Then along came the Electric Boys - or maybe it was Dan Reed - and we also had funk metal. It didn’t end there, it got sillier as time went on and lazy journalists found more ways of describing the nuances of each band until we - or at least, I - stopped listening to them try. It was always just rock n roll to me.

Eventually everybody stopped listening until the laziest journalist of all, upon being in the vicinity when The Daisy Cutter was fired out of Seattle, decided to throw all of these bands in the same bag and slap a sticker on it that said 'hair metal'.

It stuck.

I try not to use the term myself out of respect for the good times we had. All the same, it stuck around and every morning I get up, boil the water in the kettle, fire up a cigarette, let the dog out and press the button on the internet radio that lives in the kitchen and either tune into Hair Metal FM or The Raven, a station that plays hair metal without the visible stigma in the name. Most days, I flip in and out of both. 

Anyway, Wayne suggested we host a Hair Metal Friday over on the Facebook page... just for fun. Wishing I had thought of the idea, we agreed although in my head it’s humorously titled Hare Metal Friday but I don’t know if he did it that way or not because I don’t go there simply to rebalance the hypocrisy. 

This week, I chose Bang Tango because they were always one of the bands I expected to break out. They were real. They were crazy good musicians and there was something different about the way they wrote songs too. Back then, if you had pressed me hard, I would have sworn they could be the next Guns n Roses. Not that we needed a next Guns n Roses, but if we did, I would have put my money on Bang Tango or Rock City Angels. 

I would have been right too if it hadn’t been for that Daisy Cutter and the rest of those meddling kids. 

I flicked onto YouTube and found a good copy of Someone Like You - I even watched it twice to make sure it was as good as I remembered it to be and it was. I stand by that, but as I wandered off to the kitchen in search of coffee, the video finished and started auto-playing whatever was lined up next. Spinning on my heel, I came back to the laptop to find a much older version of Bang Tango playing some festival in such recent memory that even I can recall what happened that year and they sucked like a guppy cleaning up the bottom of an aquarium.

Joe LeSte used to be a pretty sexy motherfucker with a voice that could take all the paint off a Boeing (hey, we all get older) but at what point did the rest of the band feel unable to point out that his voice was shot so far out of the cannon, it got a standing ovation?

I clicked around in the sidebar of the menu and found some other bands on the bill who were sharing the same fate. Watching these bands I once loved trying to recreate something from over twenty years ago is painful (though I must hand out kudos to Phil Lewis of LA Guns who sounds as solid now as he did even ten years before hair metal when he was running with Girl and Torme). 

Headlining this festival of great bands gone bad were Ratt, who came up alongside of Motley Crue in the early/mid eighties. They were huge at one point. They were better musicians than Motley Crue, had better songs than Motley Crue but somehow the chemistry didn’t work so well. I can’t put my finger on how it all went wrong but the Crue are pretty much the same now as they ever were, better right now than they have ever been perhaps. Ratt - not so much. I didn’t even recognise most of the band and over 80% of them in the clip are the original members. While Stephen Pearcy (vocals) was busy trying to remember the words to his own songs, the band flit about like they were still twenty and toned but fifty and sweaty is not the same thing at all.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to keep going if you're genuinely doing what you love but sometimes, it’s a bad thing to keep going when you start to cheapen and diminish the thing you did originally when you haven’t got the chops anymore - particularly when some of those guys really can still cut it. Twisted Sister for one. Tom Keifer for another.

Worst of all, it's a huge punch in the mouth to the people that show up to see you and that's the biggest crime of all. That's not nostalgia. That's sleeping with the girl you lost your virginity to thirty years ago and thinking it might be the same while her kids sit in the car with a bottle of coke and a packet of crisps. It's a bitter pill to swallow and sometimes the pill gets stuck in your throat.

Still - at least we all still have our hair, right? 

BEAR VS FISH

Despite the best of intentions to do something worthwhile for the planet, I can't get a grip on all of it, so something has to give. Not die... but most definitely (temporarily) give. Thus, because too many messages is simply too many messages, I've put a hold on what was shaping up to be my Raw Sharks project and thrown my all into the Big Bear Rescue. I've lost count of the times I've sat here trying to figure out which one to spend time working on and found myself working on neither - which frankly, is pointless.

Being as (one would hope) the oceans will still be here next year, and the bears maybe not so much, it seems like the right decision. I'm certainly not arguing with myself over it which is always a good indication you're on the right track.

That's explanation enough, so let's press on. There is much work to be done. Go check it over if any of this is news to you. 

FOR THE LOVE OF A MOTHER

I read a great story this week thatI'll share with you here via the means of cutting and pasting., but to fill you in on the backstory, one of my favourite bands that ever (briefly) walked the planet (back in the late 80s) were called Mother Love Bone. One album down - Apple - and they lost Andrew Wood - their vocalist/shining star/reason for existing - to a heroin overdose. The rest is pretty much history with some members of the band going on to form Pearl Jam...

Anyway, here's the story (courtesy of consequenceofsound.net - though I would certainly question their statement that Mother Love Bone were a 'grunge' band all the way from here to eternity):

Prior to forming Pearl Jam, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of Seattle grunge band Mother Love Bone alongside frontman Andrew Wood. The band was together for only two short years before Wood tragically died of a drug overdose just days before the release of their debut album. However, in the years since, Gossard and Ament have kept alive the spirit of Mother Love Bone, as they’ve frequently performed “Crown of Thorns” with Pearl Jam, and reunited with the other surviving members for a benefit concert in 2010. 

Recently, Gossard and Ament got wind of the dire living conditions experienced by Wood’s 70-year-old mother, Toni, and launched a fundraising campaign on her behalf. Together, the band and their fans raised over $75,000 for Toni, which she’ll put towards replacing her house and landscaping for a garden.

“Toni is such a magical woman. Her spirit is so close to Andy’s, to whom she gave so much love, humor and spark. If you’d ever seen Andy and Toni together, you’d see the connection,” Pearl Jam wrote on its website. “Toni is now in her 70’s and living in a leaky, dilapidated trailer with bad wiring, while still being a part time caregiver. The more Jeff and I learned about her situation, the more we felt we couldn’t ignore it.”

In an interview with The Kitsap Sun, Toni said, “I always go and whisper to my teller, ‘How much do I have left?’ because my account’s always verging on setting off all kinds of bells and whistles. And she came back and said ‘I don’t think you have to worry.’”

It's good to know that out in the big, bad world that keeps on spinning and doesn't give a flying fuck about anything at all so long as it can keep on spinning, there are people who still have the time to give a damn about something they didn't really have to.

I've told this story to so many people this week who didn't know who Pearl Jam are let alone Mother Love Bone that I figured it more than worth posting here.

Your turn. Go do something for the world instead of checking in to see how popular you are on your social network of choice. Then you can come back and watch this Mother Love Bone video for Stardog Champion: 

READING, WRITING AND FIGHTING.

On Wednesday June 10th at Waterstones in Ramsgate, I'll be hosting an evening on "going it alone with regards to publishing your book" (yeah... gonna need a something a bit snappier than that for sure) - please note the deliberate ommision of the words 'self' and 'indie', both of which I detest with a passion mostly because they're both a lie. I'm also game for talking about writing for magazines so whatever you might have that you think I might be able to help with, bring that.

Anyway, it should be fun - it will be interesting that's for sure. We'll be upstairs at Cafe Nero (naturally) and as I write this, a loose time of seven o'clock has been floated but I'll nail everything firmly to a post little closer to the time.

I'm looking forward to it already. Maybe I'll wear a suit.

•••

A few months back, I received an email from a blogger we shall call Beccy - because that's her name - ho wanted to step it up a gear on herself and write for the mag. I've always said the same thing to every single person who has ever asked me this question: Stop talking now and bring me something I can use - which I always figured was reasonably encouraging, is it not?

Except, in five years, only Beccy has ever picked up the glove dropped on the floor. Since then, we've become friends and we're moving forwards like professional people moving forward should. Swimmingly.

Anyway, this morning we had an odd conversation about the movie Almost Famous and she sent me this clip with a note attached saying "Look, it's you and me!"

...which made me smile. A whole lot. Firstly because Bangs is one of my touchstones and secondly because it made me feel like I wasn't full of shit for five minutes. I don't know... it's just kinda neat maybe for reasons known only to myself, but I thought I would share it all the same.

Plus, anybody wanting to write for a magazine should watch it regardless. 

One day, maybe all editors will run an open and honest ship based on talent and drive over a university degree - but don't hold your breath. 

 •••

I may have written a few sentences a while ago saying that I desperately needed to find a new martial arts class - and it had to be something I had never done before that would be a challenge. So I found one and when I got home, felt like I had indeed been challenged.

I haven't trained in any discipline for a long time. I hope this one has legs, it looks like it has. I'll update more as I go along but right now, I feel like I've been wrestling a horse which means I need to get my shit together.

•••

That's all I got. Finishing up Family of Noise still after being mightily distracted by life, but it was more than I had yesterday.

BOOKS IN NEW YORK

When I took Hector out this morning, I passed a twenty-something guy mowing a lawn and could see from the expression on his face that he thought he was in some alternate-reality Diet Coke advert. He had a Timberland t-shirt draped across his shoulder and was pushing around an old Suffolk Punch mower making his six pack work for its money as sweat beaded down from his ruler-straight hairline...

Correction: he may have thought he was in a Diet Coke advert but what I saw was a comedy scene from the movie The Last American Virgin.

Winners: The two eighty year old ladies who own the house in the middle of all that grass. His ass is dust in the wind when it comes time to collect his money.

It's good to see The Gods never seem to lose their sense of humour

•••

I've started looking for a bookstore (maybe two) to approach with a view to doing some kind of event while I'm out in New York in July. There's a cool looking store in Brooklyn called Greenlight that appears to have a good reputation - or at least according to TimeOut it does and that's good enough for me. Then again, there's also BookCourt in Brooklyn which looks like a neat place to head for.

But if I can figure it out, what I would really like to do is something at McNally Jackson in Soho not least because Lydia Davis has an event on there in a couple of weeks - and for what it's worth, I think she's one of the best writers around right now. Guilt by association? Hardly, but I would think it was neat in the extreme.

I have no idea how to go about fixing something like this up so far away from home but that's never stopped me before so let's simply find out by asking. Looks like a cool place to visit and spend some money regardless - maybe even make some friends: