This is my second piece for ‘Hey Man!’ put out via Good Grief records. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Alternative, and heavy music in particular, is still an old boys club. I’m sick of it, and forever ashamed on behalf of my sex for it. So I wrote some stuff down, in the limited print space available to me. Hopefully it strikes a chord with someone. Somewhere. Or encourages someone to strike a chord somewhere. I’m sold either way.
Listen to the sound of the horizon
The first of today’s witty one liners
To slap the stars on the cheek I kiss
And bring out the sun’s melancholy smile
Suit up! Now’s a perfect time for a dramatic pose!
Best captured in the pale light of a shattered lens.
I tend to find the image is much sharper,
When I can feel the sharpness of the tears
That fall from behind her eyes inside my hands.
I use them so I can trace the words inside the book,
So the world can see all the words outside my head.
Drowned by the applause of the masses.
Awash in their own synchronised individuality.
They fall to their knees beside the moving picture.
They’re sure to have their mouths wide open.
Just imagine if they spilled a single drop…
Mind you, who doesn’t want to watch an ocean overflow?
This was just an exercise in free writing with no particular inspiration or purpose but I like the images it evokes.
Don’t feel guilty in the morning
After we’ve made our modern art
If we turn the bedroom into a theater
Then you’re taking the leading part
I just want to show you
My mouth knows more than words
Give us a little time
We can take each other apart
Cupid’s aim must be off
We don’t need the light
We dance better in the dark
When we use our hands to see
and every time you gasp
I’ll catch your breath
Your nails down my back
Make the best kind of sparks
Baby I’m all out of lines
But your curves fill in just fine
We’re drowning in fireworks
This is a favorite of mine. It’s a song I collaborated on with Michael McCormick, otherwise known as Lost Cosmonaut. It was my first foray into ‘song writing’ really as I wrote the lyrics and arranged most of the vocals and melodies with help from Shaun Couper, who engineered the vocals as well, and David McGeehan who performed them. Michael recorded and wrote all the instrumentation on the track as well as producing and mixing it. We recorded the vocals in my bed room and give that I think it turned out great.
Check out the finished track below
Here’s a review I did for the release from one of the biggest buzz bands from my (more or less) home town music scene. The band themselves are great so I loved getting the chance to review them. Not only that, but I really enjoyed the feeling of getting in on something special while it was still at the grass roots level. Here’s hoping it isn’t the last time I work with the band.
I swear the coins in last summer’s jukebox
Were worth a hell of a lot more
The melodies much softer than before
And beats fought back much less
Quite when the speakers blew is anyone’s guess
But round about then the feeling of above
Became much less intense
We’d dance the floor to ash
Drop a coin, raise a glass
Turn the sunset into a strobe
And never get old
Just think of the few months of four years difference
How much it taught of forgiveness
How little it prepared our hearts
For the start of our own tragic static
What kind of song is this?
We’d dance the floor to ash
Drop a coin, raise a glass
Point me the way home
I need somewhere I’ve always known
This year I’ve foresaken radio
Because the past is only a hole
The moon has long since had its turn
I gave up on it and its tides
In favour of taking all my time
We’d dance the floor to ash
Drop a coin, raise a glass
Turn our eyes from the past
’cause the future has a damn fine ass
This was something that began as a poem that just kind of ran but it one night became a song written by myself, Shaun Couper and David McGeehan. The lyrics were mine, Shaun and David sang/rapped it and played the guitar for it. I’m not sure where the recording ended up but when I find it I’ll embed it here. That was a special night, for a piece of writing that has stayed pretty special to me.
Essentially its just a reflection on good times, and the change of view time brings to the bad times. That and a bit of cheap innuendo and in-jokes.
Hit The Floor Magazine are stupendous people working on a fantastic thing. I’m privileged to be allowed to write for them and to know those of them that I do know. The confidence boost they’ve given me, and all they’ve taught me is unquantifiable.
This is one of the first reviews I wrote for them, which received a lot of positive feedback from my fellow staff, the internet community and the band themselves, which meant a whole lot to me.
Hopefully you can find something there to mean something to you. Because this record means a whole to me.
This is the first piece I wrote for ‘Hey Man!’, the ‘zine produced by the guys at Good Grief ( a Glasgow based independent record label). I’m forever grateful to Kenny Bates of Good Grief for his support for my writing, and Post-Blog as F**K! in particular. The man is a true gentleman. His label is a wonderfully exciting thing, and ‘Hey Man!’ is a great idea for a modern twist on an old punk rock ideal. Find your free copy scattered across the hipest joints in Glasgow today.
Anyway check it out. I like the sentiment of this piece more than the writing itself.
The Real Home of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Though I could, and I will, watch the wax
Trickle down the bottle neck for hours, much like bottles down mine,
It’s in the minutes that brought me here that I’m lost.
By that I mean the time I took and why I took the time.
In a city like this nothing is quite so present as the past.
So much so that I doubt it even has a future.
Statements like that are as old and clichéd as the dusty brick
And the drowning cobbles that inspire them.
Or maybe it’s just that so many of us are just as old.
It’s hard to hold onto your youth when you live
In a city that holds the entire world so close to its heart
Even if, now and again, the beat is skipping. For better,
For worse. But at the very least its beating.
I guess that’s why we all write so many books.
Albeit half of them on walls.
This one is a piece I wrote at a creative writing workshop while at University that I then got asked to contribute to a collection of creative writing being published by the University. Unfortunately I didn’t give the piece the re-working that it deserved and so as result didn’t make it past the final editorial board. But that’s my own fault, in truth I was so scared if I worked on it more it may well not get through so it was less of a risk to put it in unedited. Which is of course incorrect, but I’m a troubled artist. I cant be expected to act rationally. Otherwise what would I write about?
The work for this collection was to be inspired by the city of Glasgow. So I thought of Glasgow and wrote this in 15 minutes. It is what it is.
I am forever thankful to Glasgow University writer in residence Louise Welsh for re-awakening my interest in writing though. Her support, surrounding this piece in particular was a bit of a turning point for me.
In her voice I can feel the taste.
The water trickles over her tounge.
And then we all gasp…
She’s the first drop in the ocean.
Or so she’d have us believe.
Shhh…quiet…feel her ground.
Touch the pulse, watch the sighs
Watch us all gasp…
Ears are useless here. For you.
For her…they’re everything.
Oh your God! The water is so wonderful.
Oh herself! The greatest way to drown.
For she never gasps…
No matter how many are on the river bed
Even in such company…alone.
This one is just the expression of a feeling. Specifically to being lost in a particular moment which in time, is a moment you’d give anything to return to.
Have you ever felt anything as beautiful as a finger tip?
Its the very definition of distance between hearts.
The distance between hearts and minds. Thiers and mine.
Sweet God! Its so calming. Just like the centre of the ripple.
It feels as deep as the ocean. Only with the breadth of a puddle.
Thus there’s more than enough to drown in.
Given you aren’t breathing anyway.
You know the difference between minutes and years?
Minutes are infinitely longer. You can measure them,
Measure them in finger tips. The space between lips.
Fuck man! Thats deep! Just like she said. So Wilde rolls.
It feels just like a puddle again. Just with the illusion of a horizon.
Thus we all learn to tread water. They’re all too scared to swim.
A whiskey drenched, Glenfiddich twelve year if you’re asking, stream of consciousness run about not understanding the attitudes of other people and how frustrating that can often be. Issue dependent of course.
