There is something pointless and meandering about making an album when there isn’t a specific deadline to work to.

One spends hours, days, weeks, months and, I’m ashamed to say, years toying with various arrangements, satisfying yourself that you’ve realised and recorded the perfect guitar parts, only to return to the song a few months later to decide that they were poorly conceived and badly executed, and your new improved guitar parts should replace the existing ones.

This of course, is a dangerous cycle and makes finishing an album virtually impossible.

Somewhere along the way, through sheer exhaustion/boredom with the tracks/external grief from those who give a toss, the decision is made to complete the thing, and during that lasted concerted push towards the end, one again convinces oneself that the correct decisions have been made, and that the songs in their finished, mixed state, sound as close to perfect as is possible.

Of course this is an equally stupid observation since inevitably, after not hearing the old albums for years, on the rare occasions I can bear to listen to them again, all I notice is the flaws; the song lyrics that are a little clumsy or lazily rhymed, the musical and vocal parts that should have been better performed, and the sounds and balances between the instruments that could have been improved with a few more tweaks.

Conclusion? Nothing is ever finished. Ever. Not in my head anyway.

Can you imagine how irritating and dull that can make life?

Well I’ll tell you. If nothing is truly ever finished, then life becomes pointless and meandering.

And as pointless meanderer’s go, I guess I’m going.

Willie

p.s. I am convinced that the correct decisions have been made, and the new tracks in their finished, mixed state, sound as close to perfect as is possible.

Album by late spring? It’s possible I suppose.

o I’ve come out of hiding. Not for long . Just thought I’d taste the air.

Thought you might want to look at videos we made for Gramophone Logic.
We shot Happy and King For A Day and I hope that by the time you read this, they will be accessible at “You Tube” or something.

Maybe on our website, I don’t know how it works.

Rob will point you in the right direction. [They are on YouTube - Rob]

“Why now?” I hear you grumble. ” This makes no sense at all” you continue.

Well. The answer which makes no sense at all, (you were right all along) is that several months ago, we started a new album which is nearing completion.

So I thought you’d like to see the videos we shot for the last album since virtually no one ever has. Just plain forgot to do much about them.

See. I told you it made no sense at all.

If there seems to be an erratic nature to the way I’ve made music over the last ten years or so, think of it as a metaphor for how daily existence is for me.

I don’t mean that in a ‘hand to mouth’ ’scraping the pennies’ sense, but more in a self-indulgent, pompous, ‘too much free time given to disappearing up ones own arse, while contemplating the universe’ fashion. My aim this year is to join up the dots a little and unify the effort. Of course it will never happen. I know him too well and we’re not to be trusted. Either of me.

I’m writing from a barn in France (more of which I’ll tell you another day), and viewing Britain from a short distance has been an interesting experience. It is said that even the most reluctant Englishman succumbs to some smallest of patriotic fervors when spending time abroad. Can’t say that’s ever been my experience.

All I can tell you is that it seems a nonsensical idea to think of ones self as anything more than a human on planet earth. I try and think of all towns, cities, nation states, races and religions as equally abhorrent. This way I’m rarely disappointed.

Not the healthiest view of the world I grant you, but at least it makes sense.

I’ll be bothering you again soon.

willie