The words that go with the track - History

I was trying to work out when I sang the recorded vocal track for History. I know it was probably around Christmas 2014. I know I was feeling utterly exhausted. And I know I looked out of the window at a sunset over the green fields and thought about what I was singing about before I sang it.

It was the first time ever I'd done eight straight takes in a row and kept the last two after my voice had warmed up. And it was the first time I'd been completely happy with a vocal since recording with a duo called Kaikoura in 1997.

Meeting Marta Canellas in Preston, the cellist from Cataluyna, who plays on the track History was a real blessing for me. Not only did  I find her playing sensitive and sometimes enjoyably delicate but she was a truly pleasant person to spend time with. I was sad when she went back to Barcelona in January.

She has been the one musician in my life who has come round to my flat reliably week after week, over two years,  until we worked out the arrangements for a mere four or five tracks. We played a few gigs to some half interested audiences, along with some enthusaistic friends,  and that was that. Most people talked through us without even listening, without even giving the music a chance.

Though we did play History together at the Sweeney Astray single launch in December and at a support gig for the Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band (backed by Trembling Bells). It didn't feel like enough.

When she'd said that I should come over the Catalunya and we should make her film I jumped at the chance. And I'm so glad I went over and did it.

It proved to be a unique experience which involved  Marta taking me on a grand tour of Barcelona and meeting her family and staying in her family home. Again, to people living there it might seem ordinary, for me it was a once in a lifetime experience of a different culture - Montserrat mountain and monastery, the arictect Gaudi's famous adn awe inspiring cathedrale familia segrada, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

It's easy for you to say 'cos it's not you
It's easy for you to lie, but it's not true

Woah I, I need you to know
I'm not the kind of man to let things go
The cold north wind will blow through both our bones

It's easy for me to drink 'cos I am me
Easy for me to buy that trick as liberty
Early morning and we're leaving our home
You're not the kind of person to be owned
So step outside into the deep unknown

CHORUS:

The trouble with me is I still believe
in something much bigger than us...
and here we are...
upon our separate roads
going where it goes
but between you and me, there's history

It's easy for you to smile, 'cos it's not you
And here we are in the wreckage of a truce

Oh and I'm rolling the boulder up and down the hillside
Sailing the seas of concrete with an understanding
Until we fade into the distance without warning

SECOND CHORUS

The trouble with me is I still believe
in something much bigger than us
and here we are...
upon our separate roads
going where it goes
but between you and me there's history
between you and me there's history
between you and me is there love?

Song Lyrics: There's Always Tomorrow

The view from my flat window, second floor, Avenham, City of Preston, North of England

There's Always Tomorrow

It's written on your Face
And I don't know what to say
Same old story - he let you down
And the world moves on its way

Girl, believe me, they've broken my heart too
But it's not, the sunset on our love
There's time left, always time left for you

CHORUS:

Girl don't cry, there's always tomorrow, always tomorrow
No, don't cry, there's always tomorrow, always tomorrow

Don't look at me like that
I can see your sorrow shine
When you dig up all your hurt
You dig out all of mine...

Repeat pre chorus and chorus plus...

I'll believe in everything when I hear the angels sing
I believe in everything when I hear, I hear the angels sing

Mike Kneafsey Copyright March 2015

Tonight I'll be playing a set at the Acoustic Sessions and sound engineering for various musicians at the New Atrium Cafe at the Castle in Clitheroe, Lancashire.. (March 20th).

Here's a couple of tracks recorded earlier...
https://soundcloud.com/mike-kneafsey-songwriter/when-the-whistle-blows

http://www.reverbnation.com/sweeneyastray

Sweeney Astray will be playing in Brighton tomorrow night (March 21st).

Auschwitz and Jeremy Clarkson

THE CURRENT suspension of popular and wealthy TV Presenter Jeremy Clarkson for "allegedly hitting a producer" (BBC sources) invites a kind of bubbling fury in me personally.

Yes, he is popular and yes he personally makes money for the BBC through the popularity of sales and so what? The man is an unprofessional, arrogant bully with a tendency to blurt out nasty insulting remarks which reveal casual intolerance of social groupings which he perceives, or declares,  to be inferior and inadequate in some way. He also expresses his intolerance of his personal notion of the criminal and idol. Certainly, this is just another incident which reveals his "out of control" petulant ego.

So why have 350,000 members of the public signed an online petition asking for his reinstatement. They obviously don't need more evidence of his inappropriate behaviour (I will enjoy listing some of his discrepancies below). Have they have just decided he's amusing and it doesn't matter, or do they agree with his intolerance. It makes you wonder.

Either way, it matters to me.

2008 Clarkson makes a joke during an episode about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes, which attracts more than 1000 complaints to the BCC.

2010 Jokes made during the show about Mexicans, which include them being branded "lazy", "feckless" and "flatulent", spark controversy and prompt an apology from the BBC to the Mexican ambassador.

2011 During a 10 minute India special a car fitted with a toilet in the boot is described by Clarkson as "perfect for India as everyone who comes here gets the trots."

2012 Clarkson is found to have breached BBC guidelines by comparing a Japanese car to people with growth on their faces.

2014 Clarkson appears to use the N word while reciting Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe during filming.

Jane Martinson, The Guardian, Wednesday March 11th, 2015

The BBC has received more than 21,000 complaints over Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson's remarks that striking public sector workers should be shot.

He was censured with his comments on The One Show and Unison called for him to be sacked. He later apologised.

Unison said it welcomed the apology and invited Clarkson to spend a day with a healthcare assistant.

Out of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.

2 December 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15997820

Recently, by coincidence, I purchased  a DVD entitled "Auschwitz" made by German director Uwe Boll, in an attempt to counter the fading memory of one particular Nazi death camp in a world where younger people were beginning to trivialise and overlook the crime of systematic mass murder of perceived inferior social groupings and races (jews, homosexuals, bohemians, gypsies, trade unionists, communists, criminals, people with learning difficulties and/or mental health problems, socialists, anarchists, transgender, slavic peoples) and lose sight of its significance.

Boll wanted the film to concentrate on the everyday running of a well organised, efficient extermination camp run by ordinary people with a causal disregard for the lives of others, whom they believed to be part of an inferior grouping, who deserved to die. Most of those people working the camp did nothing to stop it. He didn't want to make another romanticised portrayal of heroic saviour as in  "Schindler's List" when the reality was more straightforward and grim.

Personally I was struck by the fact that the Nazi  system may have been politically engineered racism and  mass murder but it also revealed something very important that is essential to our well being as a society. 

The lack of compassion and empathy towards others. Compassion towards others and empathy is essential in a fair and just civilised society. The idea that other people were just some kind of scum who did not matter and deserved to suffer for being weak and inferior. That is the kind of roots to fascism which I feel so angry about. The politics of casual hatred which the German population willingly took part in. Gassing a room full of innocent people and then having a casual cigarette afterwards with a private joke.

I can't help feeling that when the likes of Jeremy Clarkson express snide humour aimed at racial groupings considered inferior that he isn't some kind of part of this lack of compassion and empathy. Definitely he could be described as a nasty right wing big expressing his innermost desire to eradicate the weaker members of society in some form or other, to punish them and put them to work at least,  or at least embrace the snotty notion of giving weak minded people a "kick up the arse".

And it doesn't surprise me that this is popular and amsuing to tens of thousands in the population. 

Like it is no surprise to learn that one of our most popular newspapers Daily Mail openly supported fascism in the 1930s and has spent the rest of its time as a newspaper attacking perceived inferior and feckless social groupings along with perceived hypocritical and weak "lefties" with stories that former employees  claim anecdotally to be part of an overall ideological strategy.

Or that, Clarkson's stunning mix of self righteous petulance and belligerent arrogance is mirrored by the likes of the Duke of Edinburgh with his history of public guffs (click below to read a list of them published in the Mirror on his 93rd birthday) http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/prince-philip-turns-93-cringe-3667124

Personally I fear that kind of popular blind hatred of groupings whether fuelled by the media or popular presenters like Clarkson, be it people on benefits, foreign workers, lefties, trade unions, the notion of an Irish stereotype, any of it. I consider it dangerous and threatening.

I fear writing this blog for the nasty reaction it may produce or the quiet social exclusion and lingering resent that may be held against me because  it challenges the personal morals of individuals I've met who enjoy bullying and nasty banter. 

I know that I'm dealing with people who present a view of reality which suits their own lack of morality and concern for the well being of others. One in which all left wing activists are hypocrites, all trade unions are corrupt, all Labour leaders are incompetent, teachers and social workers, catholic priests are paedophiles and people on benefits are wealthy, cheating scroungers.These are the traditional prejudices and part of the long term anti-liberal smearing media campaigns of the right, now so generally popular in the UK.

I think I have a real case to say that Clarkson is some kind of nasty fascist bully, a right wing bigot at best, and the people who like him must have some of that in them too. Because I don't find his nastiness funny, so I cannot understand who does. And it feels as if he personally reflects an undercurrent of politicised nastiness prevalent in our everyday life.

As for the association of fast cars and bullying power seekers. Well you can mull that over yourselves and make up your own minds.

Art For Art's Sake (news and views,gigs and songs)

I came across this definition (see below) of the modern artist on the walls of an art gallery in Barcelona, which I think is fitting for all the musicians, painters, photographers, theatrical types, comedians and film makers, that I've met in the north west of England, particularly Preston,  over the last few years.

It was in the midst of a historical and cultural tour of the city being given by Catalan musician Marta Canellas, a friend and a cello player. I've been gigging, practicing and recording with over the last few months and feel lucky to have met her. She took me to the Museu Nacional D'Art Catalonia in February and this description was in my favourite modernist section .

  "The modern artist defines art as a religion –art for art’s sake– and himself as a non-conformist opposed to the conventions of bourgeois society, although the truth is that art is an essential part of a market in luxury goods for which the bourgeoisie are the only clients. In marked contradiction to this, the life of the artist comes across as bohemian –in other words, someone who identifies with the fringes of society. The modern artist comes across as a Gypsy (which in fact was the original meaning of the word ‘bohemian’), drifter or actor in a play featuring fools, visionaries or madmen, beings seemingly possessed, like him, by inspiration."

taken from a statement on "The Rise of The Modern Artist" at the  Museu Nacional D'Art Cataluyna

http://www.museunacional.cat/en/new-display-modern-art

Francesc Serra, Clarasó, Rusiñol, Casas i Canudas, 1890

Although as a full time music "worker" doing a bit of this and that - or being versatile and flexible in the market place if you prefer to define it in positive free market terminology- I actually think it'd be more honest for me to fit people like myself into the self parodying sociological category of blank collar worker (see below).

If you earn money through the likes of gigging, running music nights and teaching guitar (as I've done for the past eight years), painting, poetry, arts venues, whatever, you tend to drift if you don't get a grip on the creative exploration (and hideous isolation...and the poor pay). 

NB: Having said that, I know plenty of people who deeply resent placing themselves in this category as it denies their everyday consumer dogma of individualism to have any aspect of their being categorised  as being part of a measurable flow of people (it works perfectly well for the marketing and advertising departments which promote this mainstream notion of consumer individualism in mass produced products, it has to be said). 

This defintion below does it for me. And it made me smile.

Blank-collar workers (n) The new post-class class. They are a future global monoclass of citizenry adrift in a classless sea. Neither middle-class nor working-class – and certainly not rich – blank-collar workers are aware of their status as one unit among seven billion. Blank-collar workers rely on a grab bag of skills to pay the rent. By the time they’ve died from neglect in a badly run care home, they have had 17 careers, none of which came with a pension.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2015/feb/22/glossary-for-extreme-present-online-world 

Blank collar worker or  artist or musician, or entrepreneur, here is a list of gigs and projects, or is it work, that I'm doing over the next few months? Either way I'm not invovled in arms dealing with dictaroships and never have been, music feels generally benign if not ricidculously pretentious at times, but let's get that straight...

Filming In Catalonia

Having recorded an acoustic version of the song "History" with Marta Canellas on cello, I decided to make this the soundtrack for a music video

(engineered and mixed by Elliott Dryden).

Cellist Marta Canellas

I flew out to Barcelona and we drove to the town of Artes. After a night's sleep, we then got up at 6.30am to catch the morning light and film ourselves splaying on a rocky overhang to a backdrop of the snow covered, spectacular spiked peaks of the Monserrat Mountains and a wide valley.

The cloudless blue skies, exceptional light and fresh air made the whole thing a pleasant adventure. Let's hope it looks as good as it felt and who knows when it'll be up on youtube but I'm looking forward to having a decent film. Especially after Blackburn College lost the last film Sweeney Astray made having promised to edit it for us it us for two years.You never know. I have to admit Imagine it'll never happen. Can you blame me?

And just to let you know...I'm still gigging, writing new songs and teaching the guitar, all genres to students of all ages and all levels, in and out of schools,  who want to have some musical fun and learn something new (for lessons phone 07760888050)

Forthcoming Gigs

  to listen to the music, just click on the links below

 https://soundcloud.com/mike-kneafsey-songwriter
 http://www.reverbnation.com/mikekneafsey
http://www.sweeneyastray.co.uk/

---

Acoustic Spring Sessions. at Preston The Attic Roper Hall

Date of concert: Wednesday 11th March 2015

A live music gig taking place at The Attic Roper Hall upstairs Artists include Rev. Chunky and Mike Kneafsey of Sweeney Astray. 

 

Ticket Agency	Buy Tickets Link:	Event
	Prices from: £4.00 Status: Available	Acoustic Spring Sessions. Acoustic Spring Sessions at Preston The Attic Roper Hall 12344979

http://www.thewonderwall.com/tickets/event/2015-03-11-Acoustic-Spring-Sessions-at-Preston-The-Attic-Roper-Hall.html

 

Venues and times tba for Leyland Live on Friday March the 27th and Saturday March the 28th

Plus...

1. "Guest performer" at Number 39 Hopstar Brewery Tap Darwen on Thursday April the 26th 

   https://www.facebook.com/pages/Number-39-Hopstar-Brewery-Tap/100163583416336

And...Live at the Grand Clitheroe on Saturday April the 25th

Event Info

Marc O'Reilly & Special Guests

Information

25 April 15

Genre:

• Music

Ticket Type: 

Standard

Price: 

£8.50

Tickets: 

£8.50 advanced ticket (+ BF)

Book Now

Marc O'Reilly is a budding sensation of Irish acoustic roots music. His debut album "My Friend Marx' was included in many 'Best of 2011' lists and his superb follow-up, Human Herdings (2014), revealed a more electric-inspired tone, bringing a full band to the fore. His spellbinding guitar playing and emotive vocals make him a must-see live performer. He appears with full band and special guest support from Sweeney Astray, The Remedy and Nyima Murray
 
Doors: 7pm
Stage: 7:30pm
Price: £8.50 adv +BF
Seated (unreserved)

Catch you sooooon

Mike Kneafsey

PS. I am also going to be involved in helping to run and play at a couple of small Lancashire festivals in June, I'll give out more details nearer the time...