Long Live Rock

I had a long and very deep sleep earlier this afternoon. It was so good to catch up on some rest. The past few weeks has been absolutely flat out and a few days ago, I started to come down with something nasty.

All hands to the pumps at the moment. The Who Convention 2010 is taking off and hitting London next weekend. Sounds terrifyingly exciting, doesn't it! I met up earlier in the week with the Chief Executive of the Teenage Cancer Trust and Angie Jenkison who recently organised The Whodlums show up in Newcastle for the charity. They were very supportive and have taken a few headaches away from me.

I have some time to really focus on this event over the next few days without kamikaze late nights sandwiched by long days at work. This is good and will really help me stay sane.

We are well set. There will still be hiccups along the way but I think that we are going to deliver a great weekend. People are coming in from around the world for this show. Its crazy, but it says something about rock n roll and its ability to bring people together. The thing is, "convention" is such a geeky title for it. I could have sexed it up - I always loved the title they had in the states of Wholapalaza - but in the end, a convention it is and a convention it shall be.

There won't be much rest for me until a week or so.

Aside from The Who Convention, I am also helping organise London's Biggest Pop Up Art Exhibition at 210 Pentonville Road for the Cross My Art Exhibition. The Private View is this Thursday. It came about very quickly, I linked up Art & Escape Gallery, who have masterly put together this show in a very short space of time with the building, which we have got for free. I maybe could have stepped away from it there but it was too much of an opportunity not get more involved with. I decided that I wanted to learn how to do an art exhibition. I'm not very keen on his stuff but we've got Damian Hirst's work there.

You see, all of this is experimental for me. Its all lessons. All learning. I would explode if I didn't push myself out into these places. I need to know how to do it. Its very important for what comes next with The BoHo Scarecrow and The Light Gate opera.

I better go now. Much to do. Long live rock!

The Dead Tide

SITTING here, about three weeks to go until Convention day, I am in a strange mood.

A friend of mine once said to me that we are tied to the memories of the past and that over a period of time we process things. Part of this is how we diffuse past trauma through the on coming wake of life.

I must be going through something like this at the moment. I feel quite distracted. Panicked, even. I know why this is happening. Two years ago, I was in Seattle. What a huge trip that was and how terribly burned I was when I came back from it all. I was in a relationship that collapsed and all these things that I had been building my life up on for months disintegrated in a matter of days.

It really was the most traumatic of experiences. I am slap bang in the middle of the second anniversary of this fall. So, I found this time of year, last year tough and at the moment I seem to be going through a relapse.

The timing is appalling, as right now I need to working on all things Who Convention orientated. It seems to be stripping me of my confidence, just as I need to be on top form.

If I remember correctly, this time last year I performed my mini opera in London's Regent's Park to close the Treehouse Gallery.

So, I am little sketchy at the moment. I just need a little bit of Rocky style tenacity to make it through the next few weeks and the fortitude to dig a bit deeper in the discipline stakes at the moment.


Its tricky. Very tricky. I have stuck my neck out with this whole thing. It was never going to be easy but it gets harder when my head gets clouded. This seems to happen every few months. I have to question what it is that I am actually doing with my life and find out how I get to where I really want to get to. I absolutely detest mediocrity, particularly in myself.

Anyway, here goes...we are approaching the line.

Calm Before The Storm

I have about twenty days until it all happens. At the moment I am packing in as much as I can into The Who Convention 2010. Its looking really good. What a journey! This has been nine months of my life.

What is it?


A two day celebration of The Who in London with the ultimate goal of raising more than ten thousand pounds for the Teenage Cancer Trust and the Meg Fox Kids Educational Trust. Saturday is at the Good Ship in Kilburn and the main day, October 3rd is at Dingwalls in Camden.

Who will be there?

Bands include Who's Next, Who's Best, Who Are You?, The Beatbrothers, The BoHo Scarecrow (me), The Dukes Jetty, Thunderclap Newman and The Wholigans.

I spoke a couple of weeks ago with Keith Moon's mum and the Moons should be there in force. Also, Thunderclap Newman have Josh Townshend on guitar, and there will be quite a few other special guests.

Why?

The Who are The BoHo Scarecrow's favourite band. I was master of ceremonies at the legendary 2006 event. Nothing has happened since then, because all the organisers from that one have done their bit. I took this on in January. I'll tell you why.

I briefly hooked up with someone who was doing a couple of days a week for a cancer charity. At the time, I was still struggling badly with a failed relationship that was too recent. I woke up one day and thought, "fuck this...I'm going to inject some positive karma into the economy." Most of all, I wanted to do something for my friend Meg who died a couple of years ago. Aside from being a massive Who fan, she was a spectacularly positive personality, but tragically left four kids with no college fund and terrible American medical bills. If you come along to the event and have a good time, please don't thank me...thank Meg!

What next?

So, The BoHo Scarecrow. What is this? Where is it going? Why has it been distracted?

The Who Convention 2010 is a test for The BoHo Scarecrow. It is an experiment. It is hard, it has been immensely challenging but the lessons learned will pave the way for a variety of BoHo Scarecrow projects into the future.

The models are changing. The world of music and the arts has become unrecognisable. This is not an issue to BoHo Scarecrow, as it was never a part of the models that were in place beforehand. The BoHo Scarecrow has not yet even scratched the surface of experimentation.

This is not a new type of art form. This is a new form of interaction. This is the development of the experience, to facilitate accessibility, engagement and legacy of the creative experience.

The BoHo Scarecrow believes in popular/public art and the creation of a model in which a multiplicity of practitioners and audiences can co-exist. The notion of the self-existing artist is a fallacy. All artists are dependent upon audience. Otherwise the art does not exist.

The BoHo Scarecrow is interested in developing new works that cling and reach simultaneously.

After this project, The BoHo Scarecrow will complete The Light Gate: An Opera. The BoHo Scarecrow is dependent upon its audience to realise this in performance and will deliver a crowd sourcing experiment to realise these goals.

Your friend,


The BoHo Scarcrow

Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky

I have just had some sad news about a friend of mine, who for the moment, we shall call 'Syd'.

Syd is dead. I remember dancing with Syd in the underground caverns of night club when I was at University. When they played Break On Through by the Doors, Syd literally did try to break on through and clawed at the white bricks in the walls. It was a magnificent moment.

Syd had the courage to speak his mind and often did. Syd was a mystery. He was my rival. He was a legend in his own particular duck pond. He was brilliant. A bright diamond. He could have been very brilliant but I don't know if he ever managed to end up delivering on it all. Syd was charismatic. Truly. Syd was my friend. He could inspire and frustrate me in equal measure.

He was one of the few people who knew my friend John, who died six years ago around this time. I've actually been trying to cut a video version of the song that I wrote for John over the last couple of days. I remember being able to speak with Syd when John died. He understood it. He really did.

So, its a sad day. I'm quite numb from it all. It hasn't sunk in. I have no idea how I feel. I am listening to Pink Floyd. It seems so appropriate, as my Syd always seemed to have a quasi spiritual link with the soul of Syd Barrett and everything associated with the idea crazy diamonds who shine too brightly then get extinguished. I question my own mortality. I see myself make leaps and bounds, wondering what is missed between each step.

Shine on, Syd, shine on...I will be remembering you.

Tech-No-Notice

HAVING an absolute nightmare uploading the promised rehearsal video to YouTube. Like 2.5 million people in the UK at the moment, it doesn't work.

But in other news, I have just recorded a video demo of, "What's Your Poison?", which I am quite happy with. I wrote the music today. Nice song. Nice? Is that a word we use in rock n roll? Not a fucking clue. Its semantics.

Still a bit rough around the edges, but once I've got it together, I'll record a proper version and post it up here.

Spent yesterday having a BBQ here at home with my housemates. Lovely day. Lovely? Is that a word we use in rock n roll? Not a fucking clue. Its being pedantic.

Beautiful rain today, at 9am. Which I saw, smelt and revelled in because I stayed at home last night. I am finding spending time at home at the moment really quite enjoyable. Enjoyable? Is that a word we use in rock n roll? Not a fucking clue. Aren't I supposed to be suffering for my art? A tortured soul?

I don't care. I like it.

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

Trapped In The Head - Video Rehearsal

SHORTLY before my last show in Camden, I filmed a few songs that I was rehearsing. Today, The BoHo Scarecrow presents to you a song originally written in mid-2008.

I had written the words as part of the original burst of activity some time before, I think in late 2006, when I was in the middle of moving house from Camden to Shoreditch, whilst deciding that I had to follow up my mini-opera, Attack Of The Chevron Action Flasher, with a full blown meisterwerk that was called The Light Gate, and would be the biggest and brightest thing ever to emerge from rock n roll.

Such ambition. Such desperation.


Direct Link To Trapped In The Head Rehearsal From BoHo Broadcasting House



The music though came from a very different place. When I picked up a guitar and came up with the tune, I was feeling very inspired. In the midst of the first couple of months of a new transatlantic relationship with another musician who had made me come alive again as a writer. But despite being dizzyingly in love, I was becoming increasingly isolated. I had some quite terrifying physiological symptons manifesting, bits of the body going numb and all sorts of other maladies such as frequent, intense panic attacks.

My life was spent revolving around work, music and daily phone calls. It felt really quite wonderful, and I would have recitals of this warm, beautiful american acoustic folky music by my then girlfriend and her troupe most nights of the week down the telephone whilst she rehearsed. This was a salient, dream like period of time but I was very unwell in many respects, drinking heavily and on the verge of an inevitable breakdown that finally blew up and consumed me a few months later.

For some reason, the good period though flicked a switch in me and wrote the music for this song. It has changed since, I beefed it up a bit when recording it at the splendid studios at TVU in Ealing to break it up a little and give it more punch.

What became very interesting in terms of how The Light Gate project developed was that it was only during the breakdown, that I finally was given a label for what I had suspected was wrong, which was post traumatic stress disorder.

So, who is trapped in the head? The writer? Our fictional hero, Edward Sun? A dear friend of mine, another ex in fact, pointed to the writer the other day. I can understand what she was driving at, it could be true. It isn't really for me to clarify for you. You can guess! That's what rock demands of its audience. Use your own instinct and intellect to decide, if you can ofcourse be bothered.

But in the case of The Light Gate, it is about how we internalise our pain, our fear, our terror, frustration and confusion. We let all these things go on and on, until it becomes like a prison cell with a big red flashing warning light. You are going to die! You are in danger! You better scream, scream, scream and hope that someone out there will help.

It takes a lot of courage to scream.

All sounds rather heavy, doesn't it?! Well, that's just my take. I'll leave you to make up your minds on it. Writing takes us musicians to strange places. We write things of which we are not conscious of at the time. We find things in our own music and writing, that we didn't know were there. Putting this up for you today, with above description, with this highly personalised and auto-biographical context, feels similar to one of those dreams when you are inexplicably naked in front of your peers. This is easy for me. It is second nature. I'm cool with it. Seriously.


The whole of The Light Gate, is for me, some kind of therapy. A kind of emergence. It is liberating. I have played this and other songs of a similar context many, many times in public but I love, and I mean this sincerely, love the fact that it always seems to give me some kind of connection with a bit of me that would fester otherwise. It is the most tremendous blessing.

Looking forward to posting more content here for you very soon. God bless. Take care. Keep in touch to all those who keep in touch.

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

Trapped In The Head

I heard you praying,
That you were dead,

You were complaining
You’d been easily led,
begged hungry,
As their lies were fed.
Bleeding, bleed until,
Your bile is bled.

How did you get trapped in the head?
Its like a prison cell,
And the lights turned red.
Now you’re trapped,
Trapped in the head.


You walked,
Walked the line,

Pretending that
All was fine,

But wasn’t it easy,
To swallow their wine,

Whilst getting crushed
By the goosestep of time.

How did you get trapped in the head?
Its like a prison cell,
And the lights turned red.
Now you’re trapped,
Trapped in the head.

Apres Moi, Les Deluge (After Me, The Storm)

YOU will find embedded in this post two videos of a new song, written recently, with words from lyrics written in late 2008.

In the Light Gate opera, this song is about one man splitting into two halves. It is the moment when, Edward Sun divides and his alter ego, Edison is born. For me as a writer, it is about someone who I loved, love, beyond comprehension. Its beautiful. Tragic. Reassuring and terrifying simultaneously.

And when I wrote the words, I was in deep stuck. I was literally dreaming of tomb stones covered in moss. I think that it was the first bout of serious depression that I had ever truly experienced. I thought that I was going to die.

BUT lets fast forward to today. I am fired up like never before at the moment. In the last couple of weeks I have been working hard to resurrect myself from the end of the above and its working. I was going to post more of the last show in Camden here, but I really feel quite uncomfortable about how far down Pie Alley I had gone and so will post just one of the songs here for you.

So you have today, In The Eyes Of The Storm. A rehearsal and a live version. I hope that you enjoy them. I am really tremendous form at the moment. I am going great guns on so many fronts. Managed to finish in the top half of the field on the Finsbury Park 5km run on yesterday, I play tennis a couple of times a week, football too and running most days.

Direct Link - In The Eyes Of The Storm Rehearsal

Direct Link - In The Eyes Of The Storm, Live In Camden






My confidence is back. Its tremendous. The dates and venues for The Who Convention are about to be announced and we are hoping that it will be at Dingwalls.

The music used to introduce the rehearsal video was one of my Lifehouse Method portraits from Pete Townshend's interactive music project, that uses harmonic composition based upon the golden mean to generate musical portraits of individual sitters. I was one of the twenty Beta testers, who first tried out this software, and I think that from memory this was the first Portrait that I generated. I woke this morning with this playing through my head, again and again and again. Its rather beautiful.

After me, the storm. There is a new benign storm brewing from behind my eyes at the moment.

Did you know that we can fly?

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

The Uneven Keel

We got shafted tonight by London Transport. This city can be impossible sometimes. Wears you down in the day and shafts you at night.

So, no Powers Bar show for me. I've disappointed the promoter, which I don't like one bit.

I'm sitting here in my room. Red light on, with a lava lamp cascading green blue light across the room. I have a guitar on my knee. I fear sometimes where things will go. Such big stakes out there. And for some reason, as I waited for the non-existent rail replacement bus from Crouch Hill, my mind was elsewhere. Surrounded by memories.

How did we get to this place?! Keep on pushing. Don't give in. That sense that deep down in your bones you are right. For every knock they give you, give them twice as much back! Get back up on that stage as soon as possible. Whatever it is. Whether its boardroom, a bedroom or a small bar stage.

I need more time. I think that I need to let myself get well again. I need a drummer and I need some bass. I need a walk in the countryside without a hip flask. I need to stop smoking. I need to stop dealing in fakes. I need to deliver. I need to score.

I had my confidence stripped in the last three months 2009. I have had a tremendous resurgence in the last couple of months. Some really great stuff is happening. Nights like tonight are moments when I look back down from where I am and get a bit of vertigo.

See you on April 7th in Camden Town.

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

Will You Have Some Tea At The Theatre With Me?

THE last few weeks have been hugely busy and tremendously successful. The first BoHo Scarecrow Tea Party is going ahead this Saturday and tomorrow I return to Powers Bar in Kilburn to play a show. Last time around, I had a great gig there. So much has happened since then, I am a different man.

The contract came through for playing the Camden Head today on April 7th, so I am booked up.

I have also set up BoHo Scarecrow Media a film production and social networking project, that delivers hyperlocal video content filmed in full HD to location based services. We have also now produced two films and there are several projects in the works.

One of these involves The Who and is tied into the 2010 Who Convention, which I have started organising having been Master of Ceremonies at the 2006 event, which had appearances from Roger Daltrey, Simon Townshend, Bruce Foxton, Irish Jack Lyons and unforgettably – Keith Moon's mum. We raised £7,000 at the last event for the Teenage Cancer Trust. I want this year's event to raise £17,000 for the TCT and also the trust set up for Meg Fox's family to cope with the terrible medical bills that they were left with.

Its got me absolutely flat on the floor at the moment, but its paying off. We are aiming for the last weekend in September, with two events running simultaneously next door in Kilburn on the Friday (at the Good Ship and the Luminaire), featuring the ultimate, most authentic Mod club possible. The main event on the Saturday will be at a major venue in London with some rather famous names on the bill.

Having searched my soul and originally deciding not to play it, I had a lot of people asking me to and have decided in true Townshendian ambitious style to debut The Light Gate: An Opera there with a full band and film projections.

Organising this event has also introduced me to a number of Who associates, including Doug Sandom, who was the band's original drummer. Doug bought me a few brandies last Friday in Ruislip, and I put an idea to him about filming an interview. He was up for it, and I am now working on doing a whole series of interviews to put them together for a film to sell on DVD at the Convention. It will also feature myself in the pub with Keith Moon. Trust me on this, wait and see.

I am hoping that we might get a film from Pete Townshend too, to include. It will be BoHo Scarecrow Media's most exciting and ambitious project to date. Entirely feasible. Will hopefully raise some good money for charity and I will have a blast making it.

I'm particularly proud that in the day job this month I have closed three deals, which is the best start to a year that I've ever had. It is surreal to live this double life but increasingly, I am feeling rewarded. A great love of mine had this amazing ability to get on and do things. To refuse pontification. A remarkable woman, she managed to book seven dates for my first US tour for me as an unknown. Like all inspiration, you have to grab it when it comes and that's what I am doing. I have turned away from the headfucks, I have my head down and pushing like hell.

So, hugely busy. Excited like hell. Aware that I have to keep on going, that I will persevere and as my friend Meg Fox used to tell me I would one day do, make something great.

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

P.S. As part of my bouncing back from multiple heartbreak oblivion, I have developed the ultimate chat up line. Amazingly, this has had a 5 out of 7 success rate. I demonstrated it to a random that I met last night down my local, in front of her husband and with his permission, I might add (the MoJo was not loaded). She gave it mixed reviews. Turned out that it was Lisa Stansfield. Had no idea. Nice lady. They have lovely dogs.

What's Your Poison? (Scratch Lyrics)

I started writing this on my mobile a couple of days ago. Yes, even BoHo Scarecrows have mobile phones, mine doesn't even have a cable to plug into BT!

These are just scratch lyrics. Early starting point. Its about addiction and self-obsession. There's a bit of these in all of us, I figure. I deliberately chose to take an insular line on the profile of each protagonist.

I'm not going to write anything more now. I'm too tired. I need to sleep. I've been writing quite a bit, including a short story about honesty as the defence of the dishonest. Its made me dig quite deep. Graves. Bah!

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow

What's Your Poison?

She works at home in the death of the night,
driven by the fear of her fading light,
there's no threat of delay,
or husband to fight,
Praying she can tick a box,
Or find a plot,
that'll make everything right.

What's your poison?
What's your poison?

He sits by the side,
of the public bar rail,
washing away his pain,
with London Pride Ale,
He'd retrace his steps,
to when he first so gingerly crept,
but he's too drunk to find the trail.

What's your poison?
What's your poison?

They could be hiding together,
on the municipal park bench,
savoring the lost seconds,
of other lives they'd spent,

And on another day,
these moments,
they could've passed away,
but in themselves they're addicted,
And instead they're separately entrenched.

What's your poison?
What's your poison?

She sits and talks to Mary Jane,
safe and hidden from the north western rain,
Laying down the tracks,
oblivious to the oncoming trains,
Dreaming of lost loves,
and the brief touch of fame,
until they are both one, both the same.

What's your poison?
Whether its in the heart,
or in your head,
What's your poison?

What's your poison?
Got to find a way to restart,
or soon you'll be dead.
What's your poison?

What's your poison?
Whether its in the heart,
or in your head,
What's your poison?

The Only Ones Who Can Really Hurt Us (Are The Ones We Truly Love)

I've been writing. I've been busy. Shortly after the last post I went to ground for a while. Then came something of a moment of inspiration and now I'm in the middle of a maelstrom of meetings and emails about a fundraiser for the end of 2010.

In the meantime, I've started working on some new tunes. I played one of them, "In The Eyes Of The Storm" to close my gig at Phibbers earlier this week. It was tremendous. I sung it for the first time at the soundcheck. Literally. Then closed the set with it, and my God, it all came flooding back. Love runs deep.

Something prompted me on Sunday to think about how the ones that we truly love are the only ones who can really hurt us. So, I had a hook. Then something else triggered the rest of the words this evening. And now we have a song, here are the lyrics:


The only ones who can hurt us (Are the ones we truly love)

It isn't about money, guns or blood,
The only ones who can really hurt us,
are the ones we truly love.

It isn't about money, guns or blood,
or whether you can ask,
“did I try enough?”,

We lose friends and lovers,
like reeds swept away in the flood,
because in a single word,
they leave us in mud.

It isn't about money, guns or blood,
The only ones who can really hurt us,
are the ones we truly love.

Because they stand by us,
when push comes to shove,
then fall from our grasp,
to comeback wearing gloves.

It isn't about money, guns or blood,
The only ones who can hurt us,
are the ones we truly love.

We tear down walls
to let them into our hearts,
only to find their editing pen,
has deleted our part.

But it doesn't matter
if they turn us to stone,
they remain even once,
they have flown.

It isn't about money, guns or blood,
The only ones who can really hurt us,
are the ones we truly love.

Some crave beauty,
wealth and fame,
But I'll keep their love,
and its ice and pain.

It isn't about money, guns or blood,
The only ones who can really hurt us,
are the ones we truly love.

You can't hurt me no more,
no one can hurt me no more,
won't let you hurt me no more,
no one's gonna hurt me no more.
The only ones who can hurt us,
are the ones we truly love.
The only ones who can hurt us,
are the ones we truly love.

Escapades In Brixton With The BoHo Scarecrow

THE BOHO SCARECROW now has a splendid new movie camera capable of shooting in Full HD.

I headed down to the indoor market today at Brixton Village for the Spacemakers event to film the day. Everything was very new in terms of familiarity with the equipment but the progression in the DV technology is remarkable. Even mid-range cameras have a huge amount of cleverly minaturised technology packed into their neatly designed bodies.

I enjoy filming immensely. This type of job isn't the kind that you can plan in too much detail for because things change quickly and all you really need are one or two random subjects to crop up to get on camera, and you're streets ahead straight off.

For those of you interested, I will be editing through next week and should have the first of the three scheduled versions put together by the end of next weekend.

On the tube ride home I had a moment to think about what comes next. Its been years since I finished my film degree at Canterbury. I simply haven't had the technology at my disposal since then, because I've spent the money on recording studios, guitars, amplifiers and capos.*

I am already thinking about bigger projects. Particularly my own music projects. We have converged in the digital space, musicians and film makers, that is. I can do both, and its a little like a bomb going off with all these projects that I've wanted to do for years suddenly being tangible.

Its quite simple. Ken Russell. Here is a man who has had budgets ranging from a few coppers to the biggest of all time (circa 1974.). All the man ever needed was a camera and the rest comes together. Ofcourse, people either love or hate Ken, but Michael Powell did the same. Film is balance between content and apparatus. Content is generated within the constraints of one's budget, but the budgetary constraint actually can be a blessing. You just need to be more inventive.

As for sound, you should ALWAYS overdub dialogue in narrative film. If you can't afford a boom or even a simpler arrangement, then you can go for overdubs or non-diagetic sounds. I am a fan of non-diagetic sound. Film is not reality, it is a projection. Quite literally, ofcourse.

So, film is where I am taking The BoHo Scarecrow project. It was always part of the DNA of how things would develop. Still early days and the learning curve is steep, but expect some boho brilliance in the near future.

Your friend,

The BoHo Scarecrow.



*Capos cost about a tenner a go, and I seem to lose them immediately. As I like using capos and play a lot of gigs I have lost a lot of them, often immediately and rarely without finding them afterward hence they have probably cost me more than the cost of a small bungalow in the Outer Hebridies that would be the perfect home for my parents.