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Category: Dry The Life EP

The Scary Demise Of Personal Responsibility

Posted on by John Reed

The news has been full of it. Three heatwaves so far this year. Record temperatures. The hosepipe bans have begun. The media are obsessed, yet only seem loosely to connect these extreme weather events with the wider problem of Climate Change. 

At the same time, they report necessary implementation of water restrictions as if they are a problem only for the water companies. Poor maintenance of infrastructure over many decades has led to more leaks in the national water grid than can be resolved in a single lifetime, compounded since privatisation in the 1980s by an insatiable demand from international shareholders for dividend payouts.

The one thing that the media seem barely to be paying lip service to is our own profligate use of water. We waste this vital and not inexhaustible essential resource in almost everything we do. For most people, this seems to be someone else’s problem, but that’s idiocy because it ignores the fact that we are 60%+ made of the stuff. If you’ve seen the desperate plight of starving children around the world, the physical evidence is right before your eyes. Without water, we shrivel and die.

None of us can solve the problems that water companies have created largely for themselves, but each and every one of us can take personal responsibility for water conservation, without being overly obsessive about it.  It’s estimated that each of us can save upwards of 80 gallons of water every week, up to 10,000 gallons every year by taking painfully simple measures. Those figures are conservative and come from three sources: for the USA, https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts ; for the EU, https://www.eea.europa.eu/signals-archived/signals-2018-content-list/articles/water-use-in-europe-2014 ; and for the UK https://www.ccw.org.uk/save-money-and-water/averagewateruse/ . Please don’t ignore these links. Open them and learn about the steps you can take to reduce personal water usage. 

None of the measures advised is new. They’ve been around for much longer than my 67 years: the brick in the toilet cistern, turning off the tap when brushing teeth, showering more than you take a bath, washing the car with a bucket not a power washer. These simple measures both enable each of us to play our part, and then to justify any collective action we may then take against water companies. They are responsible for the lion’s share of resolvable waste, but “let he without sin cast the first stone”. 

And to those of who who say “why should I save water when the supply companies waste so much of it”, take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and think how your own propensity to waste will affect the future for your children, their children and generations to follow.

Peace.

John

Wasting Water Is Wank

Posted on by John Reed

I thought that headline might grab your attention! But stay with me on this, because there are actually very few global threats that can genuinely be described as ‘existential’ and this is one of them. We are 60%+ made of the stuff, so if it goes, we go with it.

The Daily Fascist will of course whinge like hell if there’s a summer water shortage because we’ll be discouraged from using hosepipes, washing the car, and having a bath, but the Daily Fascist also supports mega rich people shitting on the rest of us, so their credibility is very much down the toilet.

I washed my car and watered all of my seedlings and salad vegetables yesterday. Most of that water came from water harvesting and household water collection and re-use. About ten litres of that water came from the tap, and that’s what I used to wash the car. In contrast, a power washer would suck out on average 500 litres an hour, and if it takes 20 minutes to wash your car, that would mean just short of 200 litres – 20 times a bucket.

It’s been a dry couple of months here in Berwick. We had our first rainfall yesterday in at least 6 weeks, and the water butts were empty. We are really lucky to have a decent sized garden on a 25 degree slope – not huge, but because it’s on many levels we need several water butts to save our legs. Our current capacity is 410 litres and we plan another 100 when I finally finish off the top of the garden. The water butts are filled with rainwater, but also some otherwise waste water from collecting the cold stuff that comes before hot in the mixer taps. Water butts may not be aesthetically beautiful, but they prevent us from constantly resorting to mains water.

We also save grey water from washing up to water non edible ground plants and the fruit trees. It can be a fag to do, but in the long run, it means we are doing our bit to conserve this vital resource that the water companies and their shareholders seem perfectly happy to squander. Did you know that water company performance statistics for the UK in 2023-24 show they lost more than one trillion litres in leaks? Taking the average of 150 litres of water usage each day, that equates to an average of 10 billion litres, or an annual figure of 3.5 trillion litres…which means our water companies  waste one third of our domestic usage. Pretty staggering huh?

Water is being commoditised in so many different ways. Something that is a human right should never be a source of profit for multinational organisations, but that is the reality. From desalination plants to bottled water to insatiable almond farming (one gallon per almond), they profit from its industrial scale use. Meanwhile, we are over-using this precious, vital source of life, while many of the world’s poorer populations suffer severe annual drought. “So when you cash your shares, or turn the tap upstairs, think about the danger you put them in”.

Dry The Life was released in 2017: Dry The Life Video 

Peace.

John

Live Show: The EPs

Posted on by John Reed

And so Moorscape has been revisited. 28th March was the first time since August 2021 that I’ve been able to get through an hour-long gig without the need for a break. They persist in calling it ‘brain fog’, but it really is a misnoma because it is much better described as ‘brain overload’, rendering you unable to function. At least that’s how it affected me. Now I can look forward to another hour-long online performance on Monday 30th May at 6pm BST.

During the last months of rehearsing older songs, originally intended for the Love Folk gig that I had to pull, I’ve learned a great deal. Most musicians will be able to tell you the things they would do again if re-recording works, but I prefer to celebrate the achievement and make any improvements in their live delivery. Most of all, I’ve really enjoyed playing the older songs again, because it reminds of their roots and how they wouldn’t have happened without the help of some amazing people.

The May gig will be the second of five live performances during 2022, a course of action borne out of the disappointment of not being able to play at Love Folk. At that low point I decided that even if true live was not going to be possible, then at least online live would keep my hand in. I look around now at the increasing Covid rates and wonder if true live will be a sensible option this year anyway? Some will accuse me of paranoia. My response will be to talk about my last 18 months and how I never want to experience them again. Nor should you, so be careful out there.

The focus of 30th May will be the two EPs created between Moorscape and the completion of The Breeding Ground Of Vile. Both the “Dry The Life” and “The Madness” EPs were accidents for different reasons. Dry The Life came from a Skype conversation with a Greek Cypriot friend who ended up loaning me a Malian n’goni he’d been gifted by a Ghanaian while living in Australia. The song was written, recorded and released using an instrument I’d never played before just 8 days later. As well as delivering its important environmental message, the reminds me that everything is always possible.

The Madness was originally written after reading a Guardian newspaper article about a Palestinian family who lived their lives beneath the level of a window ledge for fear of one of them taking a sniper’s bullet. An extended, spontaneous live version was created in Ali Karim’s studio during a jam session and included on the album as ‘Jamssendam’ (Madness Jam in reverse) because of our previous experience with Dry the Life. Apple Music (or iTunes as they were then) arbitrarily reduced the EP selling price from £7.99 to £5.69 because there were three very different versions of the song each with Dry The Life in the title on the EP. Dry The Life was later stream-ripped off one of the major platforms, because it later appeared on Amazon passing off as me at the further reduced price of £4.63. Thus is 2017, I took all my solo music off the major streaming platforms!

For the EPs gig on 30th May, I am reinventing one or two of the songs from each work, partly to give them a new lease of life and partly to make then fit for solo. Some of the songs have sounded better live with the backing of The Folded Arms. Others have always been able to hack it solo. It was during one of these ‘reinventions’ that I finally found an instrumental thread I can use for the new album “Elevation”, for which I now have 12 sets of lyrics. There will undoubtedly be more, but the album will eventually comprise the ten I feel fit best together. So there has also been method in my Madness.

MONDAY 30TH MAY 6pm BST

Please do bookmark the time and date, and please do encourage your friends and families to look in. If you need a conversion from BST (British Summer Time), then you will find it at https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

Peace.

John

Not Just a Problem for the Developing World

Posted on by bsa_mar

There is no doubt that Climate Change is here. When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s we had seasons. Winter was winter. Summer was summer. Spring was spring. Autumn was Autumn. For certainly the last twenty years, possibly longer, the seasons seem to have fused or slipped, or both of those things. We have had as many warm winters as we have had disappointing summers. We have had excessive winter rainfall, and now the driest of summers. It is clear that industrial activity across the world has contributed to this change, and there is an overwhelming breadth of science to support that view.

I have been banging on about the real and present danger of water shortage for as long as I can remember. The Ethiopian famine that spawned Live Aid in 1985 highlighted the extreme of water shortage through drought and reminded us all that water is very much a finite resource in developing countries, but even back then we were accustomed using grey water for our plants and we have never owned a power washer so, excepting a few lazy moments when I took the car through a commercial car wash, it has always been washed with a couple of buckets.

When I wrote #DryTheLife in 2016 the need to conserve water was already firmly embedded, and while its imagery mainly describes the irony of drought in the shade of desalination plants in Africa, it also hints at the impact of our own usage on this vital and exhaustible resource. So when that same year I learned of a neighbour having their roof washed, I felt a deep sense of frustration that humankind is simply not getting the message.

Millions of gallons of water are wasted in this country every day, rain or shine. There is system waste, commercial waste, and consumer waste. The water companies that were privatised by Margaret Thatcher are frequently hauled over the media coals for their inability to reduce leakage from our water mains, but this was also a systemic problem when they were in public ownership. While the level of leakage remains wholly unacceptable, it is also convenient for successive governments and their poodle media to lay blame at the doors of private industry.

Commercially much has been done around the world to reduce water consumption in production processes but the picture is still clouded by those companies who continue to be profligate in its use. The blame for the continuing pollution of water courses is largely to be placed at the doors of agriculture and industry, and the water shortages I’m talking about refer to clean, safe drinking water. That is what the human race needs.

Here in the UK, we continue to think water shortage is someone else’s problem. We are unable to understand that because the country has suffered a number of severe floods in recent years, that water as a commodity is running short. This is not the only summer since the fabled heatwave of 1976 that we have been threatened with hosepipe bans. In 2016, our own Environment Agency conceded that the water courses of South East England were drier than parts of Morocco. London is a drier city than Istanbul. Worldwide there have been severe droughts in California, South Africa, and Australia. Water shortage is very much a problem for the First World.

Floods are not only caused by excessive amounts of water falling from the sky. If you pour water down a clean plastic drainpipe it will run fast because there is little or no resistance, no blockages or absorption points along the way. If you fill that pipe with loam, it will largely be held back until the loam becomes saturated. That is crudely how deforestation contributes to raging lowland floods.. The removal of trees and their absorptive root systems from highland areas means that water is free to flow downhill. One large tree can lift 100 gallons (500 litres) of water out of the ground and into the atmosphere in a single day. A small power washer uses 500 litres per hour.

“So when you cash you shares, or turn the tap upstairs” consider how you use water in your own household, and what more you can do to minimise its use. Between 60% and 70% of our bodies are made up of water, so the need to conserve it is a responsibility none of us can afford to ignore.

Buy Dry The Life at https://johnreed.bandcamp.com/album/dry-the-life-ep

 

 

And so to Hebden…

Posted on by bsa_mar

…Hebden Bridge that is. Fresh from two solo and two band gigs at Chorley Live, we are delighted to be opening proceedings for Oxjam Calderdale at 2pm on Sunday 29th October. This is about more than just the music. It is humbling when music you have created can be used as a vehicle to encourage people to support good causes, especially at a time when funding for a whole range of community and charity activities has either been paired to the bone or cut altogether.

Oxfam itself is a global movement that fights poverty and campaigns to improve the lives of the world’s poorest communities by supporting them with the provision of good sanitation and clean drinking eater, better education, in times of crisis such as drought and other natural disasters, and in times of war and conflict. The Oxjam movement started in the UK in 2006 and raises money to help Oxfam to continue their good work. You can find an Oxjam gig near you here http://oxfamoxjam.nutickets.com or you can even start your own!

   

We were really pleased to be invited to play the opening set at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge for Oxjam Calderdale, and have chosen Dry The Life as the opening song. Dry The Life is about world water shortage. It astonishes me that more people are not acutely aware of it. It is the biggest threat to human existence. California has suffered five years of drought, South Africa has become a nett importer of foods that until a few years ago it grew itself, the water courses of south east England are drier than parts of Morocco and Tunisia (that is from the UK Environment Agency, not me), and London is drier than Istanbul.

Water shortage is not a problem solely for the developing world, and in recent years multinational companies have recognised that this vital human resource can also be used for commercial gain. The desalination plants that are peppered around the drier parts of the world are frequently used to sustain industry and agriculture or to service retail malls in preference to providing the life force that might keep local communities alive. Water has become commoditised, and we are at the top of a very slippery and potentially disastrous slope. We may already be some way down it.

The answer to insanitary drinking water is not bottled water. That is just a temporary fix, and actually contributes to this growing problem. It is a little known fact that according to the bottled water industry itself, it takes 1.5 litres of water to make every plastic litre bottle of water. Some environmental organisations believe that actually the figure is ten times higher. You can argue which of the two camps is right until you are blue in the face but the inescapable fact is that its production is largely a nonsense and that bottled water should only ever be a temporary solution to the problem of water shortage. Clean, safe drinking water should be an absolute human right for us all.

      

So “Come along and join us…” in good time for our set at Oxjam Calderdale. Listen to the music and its messages. Come and have a chat and support this amazing event and all the other fabulous performers who are giving their time, energy, and talent for free.

Tickets: https://www.ents24.com/hebden-bridge-events/the-trades-club/oxjam-calderdale/5062791 

 

 

 

I’m a Poet but I Don’t Know it

Posted on by bsa_mar

This morning I have a small insight into why ‘Luvvies’ prostrate themselves on couches and chaise longues, mopping their brows with lace handkerchiefs, and snorting snuff (or worse) because they ‘can’t possibly go on’. Having previously wanted to inject them with 40,000 volts I now realise that actually they probably still wouldn’t have moved!

Yesterday was the culmination of a lot of practise and planning and a small financial speculation. I say ‘a lot of practise’ but actually the five musicians in yesterday’s video shoot at Todmorden Unitarian Church had never all played together in the same room. Four of us (plus Ali) had been able to put together a couple of short Tuesday evening rehearsals, but with Matt living a three hour drive away this was the first day the group of us had been able to play together. Having rehearsed only twice with him and Jad (Rajendra Jadeja) before our gig last November I was pretty confident Matt would slot in well. He did.

Frank Roper from Local Sound Focus put me in contact with Jo and Rik at Todmorden Unitarian Church a couple of months back. He had kindly put my name forward as a possible artist for the Todmorden Folk Festival and while the festival had already booked its artists for April, I saw that one of the venues for the festival was this fantastic church. Ali and I had been promising since about September to hire a church hall or small chapel for a video specifically for The Smile, but we thought a space of this size would be way out of our league. Well if you don’t ask you don’t get! As soon as Rik showed us into the church last month we knew this was a perfect venue for what we wanted to do

Ali and I arrived at the church early yesterday – by 8:20 in fact because there was no traffic. We used the time between then and when Rik came along with the keys to take stills and videos of the exterior of this extraordinary place. There is something different to feast your eyes at every corner of the building, but it’s when you spend time inside a place like this that you realise how much there is to see. Well we had our small bit set up by the time the rest arrived with their amps and guitars, voices and Sunny D just before 10:00 and the first recording is timed at 11:01. Apart from an hour’s break to recharge the equipment, eat pies, and thaw out, we recorded solidly until 3pm, knocking out not just the one song but two! That’s pretty efficient.

The Sun Goes Round The Moon keeps throwing out surprises. The first was that Ali didn’t expect the original to turn out quite like it did, and both of us were totally happy with it. The second was that unbeknown to us, Emma & Kate had spent a bit of time rehearsing it and when we let them at it in the recording studio it was more on the basis that ‘we’ll use it if it’s extraordinary’. Of course they nailed it, and made a track we were already totally happy with better! The third was when Ali and I drove to Poulton to meet Kieran and the girls to discuss rehearsal days and times ahead of the gigs in May, and somehow we ended up knocking out an acoustic version, all because Kieran was trying to work out the chords on Kate’s semi-acoustic guitar. And the fourth can wait until the video from the church is released, but it just reaffirms why we are so lucky to be working with them there girls!

I don’t think I properly thawed out until this morning, and when I woke in the night and looked at the clock thought it said 7:04 when it was actually 1:04 so had a cup of tea. A few hours sleep and a short dog walk later Ozzy is sat closely observing me in my semi-recumbent posture as I wail and moan things such as ‘I simply can’t pick up an instrument today’ and ‘will my voice ever recover?’ while simultaneously glaring at me in a ‘listen mate, if you think all that posing around and wailing is going to absolve you from taking me for my lunchtime walk, you are sadly mistaken’ kind of way. So nor a ‘Luvvie’ nor a poet can I be.

The videos for live versions of The Smile and The Sun Goes Round The Moon will be available soon. Getting the material is one thing, sifting it is another, and then there is the video production to do. Soon can mean anything!

Meanwhile there is the small matter of forthcoming gigs: Friday 5th May Sound Control Manchester supporting Headsticks and Under A Banner; Thursday 25th May is your chance to experience the fabulous interior of Todmorden Church with sets from me and Duncan and our guests from Canada The Lewinskies; Saturday 27th May is our experimental ‘invitation only’ day long music event at The Fuse. We will release full details of each soon and look forward to seeing as many of you there as can make it along, to one or all.

The Unseen Star of The Sun Goes Round The Moon

Posted on by bsa_mar

I never thought I would use three astronomical references like that in one headline! The timing of the video shoot for The Sun Goes Round The Moon was deliberately set to coincide with two interlinked natural events: the tide being mainly out on Bispham beach, and the sunrise. When I checked tide times at the turn of the year I realised there was a window of opportunity to do the filming within a few days, so I collected Ali at 6am on 5th January and aimed to be walking on the beach as night transformed into day.

I had decided to take Ozzy along, for three reasons: first, it meant he wouldn’t be on his own for the best part of a day; second, he loves rolling in the sand; and third, rolling in the sand and immersing himself in salty puddles seems to condition his coat and stop him from smelling like a dog!

We sat in the car at the end of Montpelier Avenue waiting for the right time to walk out on the beach. The official -2C degrees felt more like -10C in the slight but bitter breeze so we didn’t intend to be out there too long, and we probably only waited ten minutes until the sky began to show signs of lightening. It was perfect timing for what we had set out to achieve.

Queen’s Promenade was still waking up at 7:15am so we crossed both that and the tram tracks to the cliff tops and descended the dog leg slope, across the upper and lower promenades, arriving on the sand just as the lower part of the sky was beginning to change from pink to rust. So while there are some filtering effects on the video, most of its colouration is absolutely natural.

I set off walking towards to shore lights of Cleveleys with Ali following a few paces behind with his steadicam, and Ozzy circling me constantly because he knew I had biscuits in my coat pocket. I think we probably saw just one other dog walker in the 40 minutes we were out there. The tide was almost fully out having receded way past both Carling (sometimes Carlin) Stone and Penny Stone rocks, so this was a very low tide. It was bleak. It was atmospheric. It was perfect.

Penny Stone Rock is about half a mile out and tradition says it marks the spot where The Penny Stone Inn once stood, where a tankard of ale sold for a penny. It is reported that the rock had an iron ring attached where travellers would tether their horses while they had a beer or two. The two rocks were apparently part of a stone circle called Carlin and the Colts that in the 16th Century lay within the boundary of the village of Singleton Thorpe, protected from the sea by a bank of dunes. The story goes that the village was  inundated by a tidal wave in 1588 and abandoned.

So after half a mile of so walking towards Cleveleys, this two men and a dog film crew turned back towards the south and as the leader of this freezing motley crew I headed straight towards the two rocks, with Carling Stone distantly visible at the end the video of The Sun Goes Round The Moon. It was incredibly atmospheric, not least because of the sheen from the sand from the low angle of the rising sun.

And as if to shatter that calm and mystical imagery, Ozzy, continuing to circle for his rightful biscuit and getting nowhere with his persistent badgering, decided to take extreme action and lift his leg for a piss right in camera shot and directly in my line of walking! There is only ever one star when Ozzy is about the place.

The Sun Goes Round The Moon is the fourth song on my Dry The Life EP, available as a download from all the usual online stores, or if you want a physical copy just whizz me an email to info@waldeaux.com and that can be arranged. And here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuKuP-Z8UAg 

 

I Am Almost Never Speechless…

Posted on by bsa_mar

Not long after we first recorded The Smile, I decided it could work both as a simple folk song, and as a more vibrant Gospel-style number. So Ali and I talked several times about hiring a church hall, and we put the idea last year to the rest of The Folded Arms who seemed to think it was sound. At that time we envisaged hiring a hall with a bit of character that would not be too expensive to hire, and while we had our eyes on places in both Fallowfield and Sale time just ran away with itself and became clear that it would not happen until this year.

The last few months of 2016 got busier and busier to the point where I had to draw a line at the end of Friday 16th December, deciding that whatever happened I would not work again until January. Incredibly, apart from a couple of small tasks on 19th, I stuck to that. The holiday period passed very quickly and there wasn’t sufficient recovery time before it all kicked off again. It has taken until this week for me to feel human again, so I have had a small taste of what it must be like for people who have long term illnesses which drain their energies to zero. So the meaning of The Smile came alive for me for a few weeks, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.

Late in the year I sent a copy of Dry The Life to Frank Roper at Local Sound Focus who had kindly agreed to preview the EP. After a few exchanges and a stunning preview (it even exceeded his review of Moorscape last year), Frank asked if I would mind if he recommended me to Todmorden Folk Festival. Naturally I was delighted to be recommended. As things turned out I was too late for this year’s festival but will be considered for next year.

One of the venues for the folk festival is Todmorden Unitarian Church, so I asked if he knew who to contact about hiring the space to shoot the video for The Smile. I honestly thought it was a very long shot, but he found me the right person to contact and after a few emails we spoke on the phone and agreed a fee for a full day video shoot. Having seen the photographs from their website https://todmordenunitarianchurch.org.uk I felt pretty pleased with myself, and set about the task of trying to find a weekend day that everyone would be able to manage.

Well we got there in the end and agreed a date, but with Jad and Duncan unable to attend. Neither of them had played on the original song so while it is a shame they can’t join us on the day, it probably worked out right. Anyway, neither of them can sing notes as high Emma and Kate can! And so I arranged for Ali and I to visit the venue this morning, to check the space and hear how my cittern sounded there.

It was a rare thing indeed to hear no sound coming out of either of us when we walked into that beautiful space. It is absolutely stunning, and one of the few church interiors I have been into where it seems to have retained its architectural integrity. While the pipe organ no longer works (and would be too costly to restore to its former glory), it is still a work of art, and the wood and stone carving is exquisite for a church that isn’t a cathedral. The acoustics in the building added to the choral sound of my cittern, without making it echo too much – it might even be a perfect match.

Then we were given a tour of the bell tower, which incorporates the clock tower. The ingenuity that lies behind the engineering of the bank of eight bells, and the four-sided clock tower is staggering. Most of the main features are original, because they were incredibly well made back in the day, and while I am sure there have been a few hitches along the way everything still seems to work well. So a big thank you to Joanna and Rik from the church for their hospitality, and interest in what we do.

As well as recording the video for The Smile there in a few weeks’ time, we have also arranged to play a gig on Thursday 25th May, when we will be supported by sets from Duncan Reed (yes he is my son, but his Hypnotize album is released in March and I can promise you it is worth waiting for!), and The Lewinskies who are flying over from Nova Scotia to join us. These are exciting and fulfilling times! That week we have organised three different events, with the final one being an experimental Music Showcase at The Fuse on 27th May. More details will be released nearer the time but it will be by invitation only, as a family and friends event that we hope to build into something bigger (but never following the usual commercial model) in the next year or two.

Watch this space!

 

 

 

An Inspirational Morning on Bispham Beach

Posted on by bsa_mar

I have been taking photographs of the skies around Britain for ten years or so, because they can be stunningly beautiful, often transient with only minutes between the spectacular and subdued, and different on different days and at different times of year. We British often talk negatively about the weather, and recent heavy rains and severe flooding have given some justification, but I absolutely love its diversity and its challenges.

Ali said some weeks ago that he had ideas in his head for a video to The Sun Goes Round The Moon from the imminent Dry The Life EP, and he said it with such devilment and determination that I just gave him his lead. I think I can generally tell when he knows he’s on to something really special. His vision was of silhouettes against a rising sun and fading moon, with colours not dissimilar to those on the Dry The Life video we filmed with Kieran on Midsummer Night.

We needed clear skies and for the tide at Bispham to be almost fully out. That meant it had to be at the start of a day where the tide was compliant. We wanted to do the filming this week so were keeping an eagle eye on the weather forecasts, in so much as they can be believed. With Friday looking like an overcast and probably rainy day and with business commitments stopping me from getting out there earlier in the week, this was probably our only opportunity for a couple of weeks.

This morning was no Midsummer Night! It was -2 degrees on the beach at Bispham, and the slight breeze coming from the sea made it feel much colder. How Ozzy could dive into puddles or sit in them in those conditions I will never know – and I severely doubt he knows! But with extreme cold weather can come the most stunning of skies, and the pastel colours we shot this morning were up there with the Aurora Borealis. I could tell before Ali opened his mouth that this was the backdrop he had envisaged and hoped for, just as mine was when we were about to shoot Dry The Life in Heysham.

I was born and brought up in a three bedroom semi-detached house on Norcliffe Road and as kids we spent a lot of time on the vast expanse of Bispham beach. Bispham is to the north of Blackpool and far enough away from the former throngs of tourists to retain its peace and quiet. Most of the resort is quiet now, even in the middle of summer, and the deck chairs that once carpeted the sands between the piers have long since disappeared.

While central Blackpool beaches may have changed, Bispham’s has largely remained the same. Although it will never be my home again it still has a feeling of home, or at least familiarity. I wanted to shoot a number of videos from my hometown because of the memories, because some family and friends still live in Blackpool, and because I have witnessed many times before the tranquillity of the northern beaches very early in the morning, at times of stress or sleeplessness, or just because I took a detour there on the way home from pubs or parties.

I collected Ali from his house at 6am. If you track back from that time I had to take Ozzy for a short walk before the car journey after he had been fed, put a cover on the back seat so he didn’t leave half the beach on it, de-ice the windows and warm the car up for that first 20 minutes of my journey. I’d had a lousy night’s sleep, and slept through the initial 5am alarm. I love the early mornings so I am not normally so averse to dragging myself out of bed but this morning felt like an imposition. However, when you suffer for your art you generally achieve amazing results, so that cruel awakening plus Ali’s hands freezing in charge of a Steadicam while we were on the beach were both well worth it.

We took some incredible footage, both photographs and video, as the dark of the rust red skies mellowed into graded pastel hues from a cloudless, uniform, mid-blue canopy. What we got was precisely what Ali had envisaged, so all we have to do now is edit the footage and splice it all together. That will take longer than our frozen early morning adventure, and we will do that in a couple of weeks once we are properly thawed.

 

The Dry The Life EP is already available on Bandcamp and as of 6th January is also on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Play Music, Deezer, and Shazam! https://johnreed.bandcamp.com/album/dry-the-life-ep 

Can We Have a Year of Being Human? Please?

Posted on by bsa_mar

Automation is a wonderful thing in communication if it is used well. There is probably no right or wrong way to use it, but I do find myself constantly irritated by people who seem to think life is all about numbers: how much you’ve got; how many followers or friends; how many times etc. It’s about quality not quantity. Anyway, if you were to walk down a street in any city asking people if you could be their friend, or if you obsessively follow people around, you are probably in for a good smacking. So why is online different?

Social media trainers. Where did they all come from? How did they acquire their skills? Where were they trained? I have been on a couple of social media courses and picked up a couple of useful tips from each, but really it’s only one person’s common sense rubbing off on another. It really isn’t rocket science. I really hate to explode the myth, but none of this stuff is! Ultimately it is always useful to take a range of views other than your own, but only you know what things drive your business, your art, your sport, or your person. It’s your show, and how you sell it is entirely up to you.

Just as one trend peters out, a new trend takes its place. So to be on top of everything all of the time would require skills we don’t possess and more than a humungous slice of luck. We should all set our sights high, but let’s keep things real. I am forever dumping Twitter followers who have clearly just learned about the existence of social media management platforms like Hootesuite. You can spot them a mile off, either because of multiple messages all timed at exactly the same time or miliseconds apart, or because their comments are out of synch, or because they repeat things in a way that seems robotic.

Left to Right: Emma Perry & Kate Ferris (Vocals & backing vocals), Rajendra Jadeja (Tabla), Kieran Heaney (Electric & bass guitars), Me, and Matt Steady ~(Violin and Uilleann pipes)

 

We are not robots. “Are we not men?” We are human! In spite of the occasional irritation, I have found Twitter especially to be a good platform to support my music. Without Twitter, I would not have met up with Ralph from Cherry White and Akara Etteh in a vegan café in Pimlico, Matt Steady would not have played on the Dry The Life EP, I would not have connected with Adam Broadhurst from Under A Banner, I would not be looking forward to welcoming Kristen and Matthew from Nova Scotia (The Lewinskies) to perform at a festival over here in May, and I would not have persuaded my accountant that he should not charge me ANY fees for 2013 – it’s a long story.

Matt and his family joined us on the Moorscape walk last April, and he very kindly played live with me and Jad at The Fuse on 30th November. Matt has also recorded with my son Duncan. He is also about to treat my daughter Jenny and her partner Phiz to a day of stick-fighting down in Leicestershire because he is a world champion stick fighter. I am hoping either to record or occasionally play live or both with some of the others. So social media has largely provided a very positive experience, apart from the fact that it also facilitates saturation usage, and worse Auto-Replies!!

Dry The Life will be released on 8th January 2017.

I have never liked ‘Out of Office’ message replies to my emails, not least because many who use them also forget to disable them. Some seem therefore to be permanently on a beach in Antigua. Perhaps they really are? Then there are the auto replies you get especially on Twitter that might as well just say “Hi. We don’t know you at all, but here is everything we do and everywhere it’s available, and we want you to listen and buy it right now but that doesn’t necessarily mean we are going to follow you back, because actually we just want your money”. I generally reply to say I am not a fan of auto replies and that has led to some nice messages from real human beings. At the end of it all, people interact best with other people, and it will be an absolute joy to have a group of us in the same space playing the same stage in May.

DRY THE LIFE is now available at https://johnreed.bandcamp.com/album/dry-the-life-ep and will shortly be uploaded to iTunes, AmazonMusic, GooglePlay, Shazam, Deezer, and Rdio

 

 

Let’s make 2017 the year of the human, whatever Trump, May and co chuck at us! Meanwhile, check these artists out when you have a few spare minutes:

 

 

 

Akara Etteh: @akaraett   https://www.facebook.com/AkaraTheMusic/?fref=ts

Cherry White: @cherrywhitegigs   https://www.facebook.com/cherrywhitemusic/?fref=ts 

Matt Steady: @MattStoicSteady   https://www.facebook.com/groups/BloodIsThickerThanGold/

Under A Banner: @underabanner   https://www.facebook.com/groups/1867273550168765/

The Lewinskies: @thelewinskies2   http://www.thelewinskies.com