Electric Superman

We're making a video for "Electric Superman' .. when it's done it'll be up on here....

Further adventures in the Swimming Zoo...

The Swimming Zoo was the first Moses album. The Swimming Zoo part 2 was the opening track of the 2nd Moses album.

I had a bunch of additional Swimming Zoo themed songs that I put up on the Moses website, under the name 'Further adventures in the Swimming Zoo'; sadly all gone now.

Kindly Super Fan Spiggie saved me a copy of this track '100 swans' recorded with my engineer friend Robin Howell. It is essentially my first solo recording, although it was within the Moses years its just me and its the first time the acoustic and electronic sounds mix together. Its a pretty good indicator of what was to come.



'The Swimming Zoo' is a place by the way. You'll have seen it if you have any of my album artwork... those bouncy hills and trees and landscapes full of monkeys and pigs and ventriloquists dummies and little skeleton men? Thats it right there.

But is it art?

Confusingly (as in is it a good thing or a bad thing?) I get pretty much the same amount of positive feedback about my album sleeves as I do about the musical contents there within. 

I choose to see this is as a good thing, if you like it please feel free to buy the Bad Boy Blue story book form the shop on my site. I'll do another one if people like it. Maybe about Roboboy. Or Electric Superman. Hmmmm... 

Anyway, here's some artwork I never used... Yet.

up stood the ape

Some juvenilia for you. Just before my lovely band Moses got started, so around 1998, I wrote a lot of doings about monkeys. So 7 years later at my first solo gigs I sang those songs.

One of them got beefed up very nicely as 'How I became the monkeyboy'

One of them 'Pigs and Monkeys' was like my main song and I now actually cannot remember how it went. 

And one of them 'Up stood the ape' was simply a title I'd seen somewhere in my day job (as a video tape librarian at SVC television, great place)

By the laws of serendipity several years later when I'd forgotten about this slight little song I went to the house of my new fiddle player Joe Peet to be greeted by a giant poster for the film 'Up Stood The Ape'.

Turns out Joe's flat mate Antony Somers was the star of this obscure short film I had never actually seen, only pinched a title from. 

This probably goes to show something but I couldn't tell you what...

'Up stood the ape' the film by Heidi Easton is on YouTube go and have a look...   it has nothing to do with this song which I only include here because I sound so astonishingly young.

More romance....

My original idea for the Romantic album sleeve was to do something in the style of José Guadalupe Posada, see above. 

But A: clearance for that seemed impossible and an expense I didn't need 

And B: It would have no connection to my previous sleeves, and I like the running theme in my artwork. 

As it goes I love the sleeve I eventually came up with and although the 'collage landscape' references to other albums are actually cropped from the final image, I know they where there.

Speaking of things that didn't make it to the final version of 'The Romantic' here is one of the fairly numerous songs that I eventually decided to cut form the track listing ; 'Brave Heart'....

we can't all be pirates

Carolyn Mark (www.carolynmark.com) is a pirate I am lucky to know. She sings 'More Stars' on my album 'Then I woke up and it was all a dream' and lives a true musicians life in Canada, singing and surviving on red wine and chutzpa.

I am not a pirate though I wish I where.

This song is about her and features her on backing vocals. It was recoded by her long time collaborator, guitar genius Tolan McNeil on his birthday (the day after mine) in Powell River in BC, Canada during my 2009 tour of Canada.

I had the time of my life.

This version of the song isn't really quite there yet but I am simmering this number for a bigger, bolder project still to come....

Human After All

In 2006 I was invited to record an EP for the new label 'Nice Weather For Air Strikes'. They had heard some bits and wanted something with lots of harp. the logistics of recording Tom meant I only got a little bit of harp for them but they seemed happy enough and released the electro-acoustic loveliness that was 'Todays Lucky Winners' anyway.

When I compiled my EPs into the 'Monkeys, Pigs and Wolves' album some tracks had to be missed off for space and this harp/zither/clarinet seduction song was a bit subtle for that album so it is now only available here.

Based on true events it was the start of much more than I knew at the time...