On Grand Themes

Our attempts to race album number 2 have halted for a variety of reasons. My non-band activities are largely to blame but there are many additional reasons. Another that springs to mind is the slight paucity of material, and in some instances sub-squid-standard material.

What we did manage to record is at once encouraging and discouraging...and ultimately not enough. Sometimes I listen and I hear gold, sometimes I listen and I hear lead.

What does strike me is the, I believe, inadvertent partial move from my randy sex lyrics to addressing the big issues. Contained within the short set of songs we cover euthanasia, abortion, illicit (gay, if Silky is right)love, slave trade, indentured prostitution, Uri Geller and scientific animal abuse. Birth appears to be absent and I am planning to address this, although I feel Pink Floyd's Embryo says all there is to possibly say on the subject. Perhaps tax free superannuation contributions is another hole in the story? What about an eliotesque Key To All Mythologies?

Not wishing to be too National Times about things by ending with a few questions but are missing anything else? Or have we covered all possible grand themes?

Treading On Toes

It's an awkward situation. I so rarely post but here I have several possible posts and I don't want to slam them home all at once for fear that they will drown each other out. Let us hope I remember them for a few days. I could have done them as drafts but then they may remain like the two drafts still in our list of posts, tantalisingly unfinished (What on earth had Paddy been pondering? In the midst of my wounded, emotional bleat, what had stung most in the plain panoply of possible hurts and barbs? Do I have a gear other than wounded,emotional bleat? At least Paddy toggles between pondering and furious rage).

So to this post. I feel odd about posting my proposed lyrics to Pink, or Play The Bass as it is now called because I think both sets of lyrics that exist are excellent and I do not intend this to suggest that these lyrics are superior. I just liked the idea that the song be about playing the bass...something I don't do. So I will not be in the least hurt if they are ignored, or butchered, or re-cast in excrement and left at my front door.



V1
Give me four strings and a single coil
put me stage right and I'm on the boil
Makes my bowels slack and my muscle tighten
Play me thunder and give me lightening
You want guitar with some decent heft?
You'll never find it on the treble clef


You can keep your b, your top e
it's all a disgrace
Play the ace
Play the bass



V2
Four live wires makes me go too far
My Bass guitar wants to kill your ma
Play so low that it makes you bleed
It's the only good thing about Paul McCartney
All I need is a precision in hand
you'll never need two of me in the band


That lowdown rumble
it makes my blood race
Play the ace
Play the bass



V3
A split humbucker to unleash my rage
A skeleton suit on a festival stage
A pen nib beard gives you N.I.B.
I don't need anesthesia when I'm pulling teeth
Give me a lead break, I'll give you a B flat
See Roger Waters rip a new hole in Guy Pratt



Coda

Just guitar and drums?
what a mistake
Play the ace
Play the bass


The White Keys and Black Stripes
What a waste
Play the ace
Play the bass

On Waiting

This is a period of waiting for the Ink, both collectively and individually, both temporally and teleologically.
We all wait for the album. The bits so far sound encouraging and also half-baked. I wait for my next son who is over staying his welcome in the womb by a good 3 days now. We all wait for Crafty's next post...though this is taking on a beckettesque feel. The wait is over for Silky's elevation to celebrity blogger pending pithy, multi-meaning (and no doubt, at least some of them, smutty) title...this will be in sharp distinction to Paddy's direct call-to-arms/cri-de-couer that is the title of this blog, which will now feel like Silky's more humble beginnings. The small town girlfriend before the exciting, exotic romances to be found in the big city.

We can and will get back to the studio but until this little monkey shows his wet and purple head I am in, to quote one of the greatest songs ever written, suspended animation, a state of bliss (the second half is not entirely accurate but lots of songs have suspended animation in it....in fact I might write one).