6 January 2005

'An Average Sadness'

Trevor Jones: 'Beads...' got me thinking about my sister Kerry, and the 'black dog' of depression. It's pretty obvious that our disposition is brighter in sunshine, for all kinds of psychological and chemical reasons, but those of us from northern climes are denied sunshine and are more apt to hibernate and suffer depression. Is this a genetic thing, are we all 'born to the sun' and react to the lack of it? These thoughts, and a title borrowed from a beautiful short story/essay by Ameni Rozsa (which is the last story in a fantastic collection 'True Tales of American Life' edited by Paul Auster) led to me writing 'An Average Sadness'. I think that most would crave a vivid life, but ultimately compromise, settling for the 'golden mean'. Those who don't, are blessed and doomed to suffer the extremes of the human experience. I played guitar, Marcus's Taylor I think. Marcus thinks it

sounds a bit like a 'campfire' song, so we might exaggerate that...maybe a farting solo...

Out for curry (in preparation of afore mentioned solo!) which is the Miracle Mile Xmas party. Me, Marcus, Baajis and Beer. It's a glamorous life. Back to Marcus's flat, where he plays me an instrumental piece that he's working on called 'Sunday'. Strange moment because the flighty arrangement immediately makes me think of flying gliders as a kid with my Dad, thoughts uppermost in my mind because we are doing a song tomorrow called 'Paper Planes and Ponytails' which comes from the same set of memories.

Marcus Cliffe: The guitar and voice were recorded as before,AKG 451 and Rhode classic into the spl gold channel,it’s a combination that works well after some trial and error. ‘Sunday’ was actually written on a Saturday but at the time it felt like a classic Sunday,which is strange for me as I don’t work a ‘regular’ job and so quite often Sunday is the same as any other day.Its an orchestral piece and Trev found it by accident. I’d left him asleep that morning and gone down to the studio early, Trev got up and found the cdr which had a mix of an earlier track as well so he put it on for a listen.When he got to the studio that morning he told me he’d heard it and I could tell it had sparked something off!

7 January 2005

'Paper Planes and Ponytails'

Trevor Jones: This song came from the same place as 'Beads...', a nostalgic list that "leads me back". We double track an acoustic strum on Marcus's seventy quid wonder, and do a vocal. There is no middle 8, just 3x verse and chorus. This adds to the immediacy of the song. There is an intro melody that, again, has us thinking of brass...maybe french horn; we'll have to beg another favour!

Marcus Cliffe: the ‘70 quid wonder’ is indeed a guitar that cost £70 its some Korean Gibson J45 copy but it plays and sounds great .My old friend Brendan Croker from the Notting Hill billies found it in Leeds and brought it down for me while we were doing some charity concerts at the shepherds bush empire.

09/01/05 was my birthday which was celebrated at Pierreluigi’s fantastic Italian restaurant in Beckenham.It was a bit of a drive for Trev and Di but they made it and a good time was had by all!

21 January 2005

'Secret Fold'

Trevor Jones: The piece that Marcus wrote as 'Sunday', is now 'Secret Fold'. After his gift, I wrote the following and just spoke it as a narrative over the music. We only did one take, so that's it...warts 'n' all.

THE SECRET FOLD

DAD WAS A FLYER. NOT A PILOT, A NAVIGATOR. HE SET THE COURSE,

KEPT THAT THING IN THE AIR, AND BROUGHT IT BACK SAFELY.

HE MADE GLIDERS FROM BALSA WOOD, THEY HAD A SIX OR SEVEN FOOT WING SPAN, WITH A SLINGSHOT SYSTEM THAT HE INVENTED,

WE’D CATAPULT THEM INTO THE SKY, AND STARE IN SILENT WONDER

AS THEY LOOPED AND RETURNED.

THERE WERE CRASHES AND TEARS, BUT GENERALLY, MIRACULOUSLY,

THEY’D GLIDE TO THE HORIZON, LOOP AND RETURN,

LANDING WITHIN FEET OF US, A MIRACLE OF MY FATHER’S DESIGN.

ON OCCASION THOUGH, THE GLIDER WOULD JUST KEEP GOING,

AND I’D BE HEARTBROKEN, NOT AT THE LOSS,

BUT AT THE INEVITABILITY OF THE LOSS.

IT WOULD TAKE AN ETERNITY TO LEAVE US. WE’D WATCH HELPLESSLY AND I’D

FEEL THAT ACHE IN MY THROAT, AND THE TASTE OF METAL IN MY MOUTH,

THAT I CAN STILL ONLY REMEMBER FROM CHILDHOOD.

SO, I MADE PAPER PLANES. PERFECT AND INSUBSTANTIAL.

ANY PIECE OF PAPER, SOMETHING FROM NOTHING.

THE TEST WAS TO KEEP THAT THING IN THE AIR,

AND TO MAKE SURE OF THE LOOP, THE RETURN JOURNEY.

I HAD A TRICK, A SECRET FOLD THAT ASSURED THIS.

I KNEW WHEN I’D DONE IT, BUT WAS ALWAYS FORGETTING

OR COMPLICATING THE DESIGN.

THE PLANES DIDN’T LAST LONG; EATEN BY THE DOG, OR SET AFIRE BY A

JEALOUS FRIEND, BUT I KNEW THAT THINGS COULD BE REPLACED.

STRANGE THAT YOU CAN REMEMBER WHAT YOU CAN’T RECALL:

A BROTHER’S TRUST, A SISTERS TEARS,

FATHER’S HANDS, MOTHER’S BREATH...THE SECRET FOLD.

Marcus Cliffe: I knew Trev had had an idea for ‘Sunday’ so I was curious to find out how it would be.I was slightly apprehensive when he said it was a spoken piece but I put up the mic, pressed record and sat back . All my apprehensions disappeared as soon as Trev started to speak, the words rolled beautifully around the piece as if they’d always been that way, it really is very poignant.

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