Give Me Wings To Fly On My Own

Just as Paul McCartney needed Wings to record his best work, so too I cannot record alone. In preparation for this evening I have laboured many hours on guitar solos and come up with nothing worth burning to disc. I need the dudes.
Fortunately you are all coming over tonight, but unfortunately I am not in the position I thought I would be (which is having all the bits recorded so we can just mix). I have got myself all in a tizzy. I even think I have gone backwards on Mrs Bun and now yearn for some of the long ago deleted early takes.
I may have to put off firing the rest of the band until this problem passes. I will call Billy Corgan later for advice.

Possible lyric idea:
Don't be such a cheap prick and record in a studio next time.

the hinnymoon is over...

And soon the rock will recommence. Two weeks in the sun and doing all that young couples do has recharged this young squid, who heads into married life with not one but two new Stephanie Alexander Cook's Companions, a bunch of salad servers, a lovely tagine (courtesy of the singer songwriter), some aged plonk from paddy-squid and a fig tree from crafty and Mrs Craft that has probably been killed by our delinquent house-sitters during our absence. Borneo was nice, though the breakfast buffet suffers somewhat in a muslim, non pork-eating resort context. This must be what they mean when they talk about the 'clash of civilisations.'
We learned the strange delights of products such as 'beef bacon' and 'turkey ham' not to mention the 'chicken pepperoni' on my pizza. Already a song is forming in which I shall rhyme 'beef bacon' with 'love makin' perhaps also employing the slogan painted on most restaurant windows in Sabah: 'Serve No Pork!'

Maybe:
Serve no pork,
in the honeymoon suite,
serve no pork,
you know you are what you eat...

It's with excitement that I learn of the impending gig and resolve myself to three hours of gruelling fretboard practice each night in the interim. And thanks to all who made Feb 3rd a very squiddy nuptials...
The hinnymoon is over baby!

Some songs

With the help of a vegetarian pizza with pineapple, a thunderstorm and a three-year-old niece, the guys met at Park Central last night to dash off a three song demo.

Gonna Hear My Sound is a groovy little number dominated by Doug's guitar riff and by Dave's change of gear at the end of the first verse. We whacked on some harmonies because I threatened to quit the band if we didn't. That's Dave and me singing those — and while I'm doing the song credits I'll add that it's Doug and me singing in turns and that Doug wrote the song. Mastering was by Nero.

Hinny has a quirky little verse with all of us playing different rhythms. Is Dan's guitar mixed too quietly? Probably. He left the country so this is his punishment.

Mnemosyne is a song that's cracking good fun to play. Doug wrote it some time back when he was in the UK. We play it in F#. The two rhythm guitar parts should be identical. Plenty more thrilling trivia to follow.

The Barleycorn Gig

Squid Ink are not only cultured music critics, ready to bring you informed opinion of the odd local show around Melbourne Town but are also, it turns out, impresarios able to bring performers together to make the crowds flock.

UT and I enjoyed the performance of the 7 Day Fools on Friday. They, in case you've not caught them yet, offer some well crafted soul-groove and, unlike us, feature a fine-looking horn section (it's our percussion section that is fine-looking).

The 7 Day Fools feature a pair of magnificent lasses singing out the front and the only thing better than that, of course, is a posse of hard men with guitars and we have plenty of them.

The good news for you is that next month you get to compare the two at the one show.

That's right, sportsfans, put it in your diaries now: 7 Day Fools and Squid Ink at the Barleycorn Friday 30th. Still six weeks away: we're still working on the demo and the album and still waiting for the rescuers to locate one of our guitarists lost in a Malaysian rainforest but we'll keep the world updated on the lead up.

Welded Squid

Well...the lord has moved in mysterious ways once more and prevented us from recording tonight.
However this blow was tempered by the welding of a squid to a woman. It's an experiment we have all be working on here in the Ink Labs and many thought wouldn't take but we were all on hand to to eat greek food and make sure it happened.
At one point the woman tried to make off but Paddy was quick to offer the proceeds of the famed Empress gig (wrongly attributed, in the widely circulated bootleg, as the "Brunswick Club Hotel gig") so long as she settled down with Writer Squid for life...no doubt it was hard to say "no" to such riches. It was cemented when Crafty reminded her that he "owned" Yarraville and he could make life fairly unpleasant if she didn't take it upon herself get on that flight to Borneo.
For my part I dressed Writer Squid and was surprised to find his naked form was exactly as a groupie had once described it...complete with nubbin. JVG refused to look most of us in the eye for having snubbed his radio show but rose above it to perform a fine ceremony.

Adversity

Three weeks with no guitarist as he is off getting his tentacles around a new wife and monkeys for a well earned honeymoon.

2007 has already thrown up many challenges for the squids. Lombago impededed a rehearsal. A power outage prevented further work on the album. Wikipedia deleted my entry because we weren't notable in any way and it looked to them as if I was just after some advertising (it is, indeed, a fair cop). That said, Paddy has his car back, we have a new song and we have three clear weeks to complete the demo and the album.
Perhaps 2007 will be a year stained by Squid Ink after all.


Lyric ideas:
Laid low with lombago,
Can't get my guitar out of the attic ah
because of my sciatica,
grey water bucket in my fist caused my back to slip a disc.


I walked through sleet and snow
to fetch my car from sydney road
The car in Brunswick limbo
with empty tank and broken window
The crooks should be admonished
As the car has been in long need of a cut and polish