Credits

The following text is taken from the credits on the insert for the album 'Heathcliffian Surly'.

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The making of this record has been a long and arduous process, spanning at most 5 years, if you take into account the oldest songs that appear here. I have had plenty of personal crises during this period that have undermined the drive behind the record, some of which are documented here, albeit abstractly. The songs have been recorded in many a bedroom, studio, boat, and field. Even the band that contributed musical parts to these songs have undergone many line-up changes over the past few years. In fact the only constant on this whole record is myself, perhaps appropriately so, as it is a faithful expression of my character and no other, as it was in this period.

I wish to thank the following people for their help, advice, support, and inspiration that made this record possible. Thom Ntinas, a masterful engineer who has captured the sound here. Naomi Doran, a fiddler that introduced me to an entirely different kind of music, and can be heard very faintly on “All of Me”. Peter “Old Timer” Hall, who is missed dearly on this side of the Atlantic. Rebecca Jade, who better not remain dead to the world, if there is any justice in it. To Citizen Helene and Jennifer Hatt, for still talking to me. The King of Hearts, John Patterson, who lent his fast licks to “Life Can’t Get Any Better”, and for the relentless barrel of laughs. Paolo Bertagna, who plays drums with an exquisite light touch on “No Tomorrow” and “All of Me”. My old friends Greg Duncan and Odel Jeffries, who played guitar and drums on “Odessa” and “This I Ask Of You”, respectively, your legacy lives on! Marti Bowley, the longest standing member of my band, a fine double bass player and great friend, your role in this cannot be overstated, many many thanks my good man. The newest recruits in my band, Peter Maidens on guitar and banjo, Andy Marvell on drums and Sonia Gurdjieff on piano, all of whom have a remarkable ability to learn quickly, and most importantly able to suffer this fool’s whims without issue. Chancery Blame, who lends his searing violin solos to “Give Me Detumescence”. Nicole Brant-Zawadski, for the invaluable insights into how the modern world of music works. Daniel my bludda, for all the teenage giggles. Madeleine Brangwen, for doing the dirty work. Tom “the pen” Harris, for the album cover artwork. Dan Smith at Finyl Tweak for mastering. James Bowman, for giving me Sondheim. Aysha Ahmed, for giving me Lawrence. All at the Islington Arts Factory for being so accommodating. Ultrasound, still the best band that ever walked the planet, and without whom I should not have embarked on such a folly as this. Will E. Hogg, for being there for me in times of great emotional hardship. Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth, for posing the questions that no other dares to. My dear parents, for not knowing they even owned a copy of “Young Americans”. Leeland Crane, for your unfaltering support and insistence that I get on with it. Alex “Lemond” Reece, for the exposure to pop music, Scotland, and Musgrove Road parties. To Russia, for Pushkin. To Holloway, for The Prince. To those bastard aspidistras that never give up, and finally, to B.S. Eliot.

We Fucked It Up

Sobriety descends, you pull the covers up to pretend,
That this was a mistake, that I am to blame.
Well that’s not how it felt when you were screaming my name…

We fucked a flame into being, as our senses were leaving us, to the act of creation and eternal damnation. We fucked. We fucked. We fucked. We fucked it up.

Deep in my arms, you struggle and then are calm.
On the tip of your tongue “Oh god, what have we done?”.
I’ll tell you just what we’ve done…

We fucked a flame into being, as our senses were leaving us, to the act of creation and eternal damnation. We fucked. We fucked. We fucked. We fucked it up.

In that flash bulb of orgasm, I feel you buckle in fits of passion.
It’s a pornographic zoetrope, I grope, you groan in mock agony.
Two bodies beating in sympathy.

We fucked a flame into being, as our senses were leaving us.
The poor innocent parties and their imminent heartaches weren’t big enough to stand in our way…as we fucked a flame into being, as our senses were leaving us, to the act of creation and eternal damnation. We fucked. We fucked. We fucked. We fucked it up.

Written by Marmaduke Dando Hutchings

WOOD

How tired and grumpy I am right now, like a battered old shoe still thumping along with a ragged foot inside. If only I could pass out and sleep for one hundred days, alas, no, I am still up and writing. It seems much more important that I relay the experience of the weekend past to the unfortunate masses that couldn’t be where I was.

Wood festival 2010, was the source of my ultimate joy this year so far. A small gathering of about 800 people, camping in meadows in the middle of nowhere. It couldn’t have been further from any festival experience I have previously suffered. No one was in my way at any point, there was distance between bodies, no officious high vis jackets, and no angry voices. Even the naked toddlers running around causing mischief, which by the way I haven’t seen since the 1980s, could mar the feeling I was experiencing. In fact, I might have even thought that children weren’t so bad after all, funny little blighters.

Now I know it’s just camping, but really, why do we not do more of it? Why is it a novelty, a past time, when it was once daily life? Emancipation from the elements, a higher standard of living, always moving away from that shabby floor that ultimately sustains us. What thanks we give it.

I puzzled over the constellations above me while Cate Le Bon was wafting softly around me, my head was spinning, but I wasn’t ill, quite the opposite, life couldn’t get any better. But then it did, I took her place on stage with my own band, and we played an incensed set to an appreciative sun-baked crowd. The final word of the festival was from Timber Timbre, who sounded like Roy Orbison trapped in a shower banging, in time, on the door to get out. In and out of consciousness they took me, and set me up for a massive fall.

After 2 days in the pure unadulterated countryside, waiting for the bus back to Oxford, stood on the highway, maniacs in cars shot past us, ruthlessly slicing all my joy. By the time I was in the plastic box watching the sunset on the fields I was not a part of anymore, it had been shredded irreparably to bits. Back to the city, back to someone’s so called “civilisation”.

Sigh.

The Art of Decay

Every day a deeper breath,
I don't know how much I've left,
In me, I've lost the will,
To live, now all is still.

Every day another step,
One foot closer to my death.
It's the art of decay,
Better to burn, than fade away.

Every day is like the next,
I can't help but regain consciousness.
No one to devote it to,
That someone, it once was you.

Every day a deeper breath,
I don't know how much I've left,
In me, I've lost the will,
To live, now all is still.

Written by Marmaduke Dando Hutchings

The magic of radio persists

Even in this day and age, what a phenomenon.

I shall be on Resonance FM this Wednesday from 9.30pm - 11pm Greenwich Mean Time, playing a few songs live, and a cover from 1964. You can listen on the airwaves in London at 104.4FM, or online for those who are too far away http://resonancefm.com/listen.

Hold Everything Dear

After a long run of Huxley novels, I’ve finally broken the chain with John Berger, recommended by one of the Dark Mountain founders. The book Hold Everything Dear by Berger is a collection of essays on resistance and survival, which opens with the following poem. It struck me as acutely relevant, so sad and beautiful, I had to reprint and share it.

Hold Everything Dear

for John Berger

as the brick of the afternoon stores the rose heat of the journey

as the rose buds a green room to breathe
and blossoms like the wind

as the thinning birches whisper their silver stories of the wind to the urgent in the trucks

as the leaves of the hedge store the light
that the moment thought it had lost

as the nest of her wrist beats like the chest of a wren in the turning air

as the chorus of the earth find their eyes in the sky
and unwrap them in each other in the teeming dark

hold everything dear

the calligraphy of birds across the morning
the million hands of the axe, the soft hand of the earth
one step ahead of time
the broken teeth of tribes and their long place
steppe-scattered and together
clay’s small, surviving handle, the near ghost of a jug
carrying itself towards us through the soil

the pledge of offered arms, the single sheet that is our common walking
the map of the palm held
in a knot
but given as a torch

hold everything dear

the paths they make towards us and how far we open towards them

the justice of a grass that unravels palaces but shelters the songs of the searching

the vessel that names the waves, the jug of this life, as it fills with the days as it sinks to become what it loves

memory that grows into a shape the tree always knew as a seed

the words
the bread

the child who reaches for the truths beyond the door

the yearning to begin again together
animals keen inside the parliament of the world

the people in the room the people in the street the people

hold everything dear

19th May 2005
Gareth Evans

No more fiddling around

I have some sad news to report this week. My good friend and band mate, Naomi Doran also know as Naomi De Kleined, will no longer be playing with the band. She has decided to call it a day with my rabble in order to dedicate all her spare time to her own art work, which has been causing quite a stir in recent months. She has been a delight to play alongside these last few years and her influence on me has been in no way slight. My sincere best wishes go out to her.