2024

Who’d a thought! ... the ecology of the planet continues to go to hell and back and it still needs kids to tell the UN to DO SOMETHING... too little too late I fear... and now they’re being ignored.

We’re out of  the pandemic, which left a real social legacy. We’re still loaded with a government of self-invested, arrogant profiteers who insist on putting their pockets before the people they are supposed to serve. They engaged in free-form eugenics by ensuring defenceless people in care homes were culled on the altar of ideology and have pursued that agenda into the community by de-investing in Social Care and diminishing the available workforce. Can’t have Jonny Foreigner coming over her and looking after granny or the sick. The NHS is now dis-invested, underfunded and compromised. The low hanging health care fruit has been handed to the private sector and the crippled remainder limps on with no hope of improvement.

They continue to asset strip at the slightest opportunity without any for of taxpayer redress, and we just sit by compliantly letting it happen. All of the previously privatised industries are now struggling to deliver and costs have escalate atrociously. It was stated last week that a standard return rail fare for a couple and their 2 grandchildren from Newcastle to Southampton was £989. How is that even remotely possible when an equivalent journey on high speed, comfortable railways on the continent would be approximately £50? It would be cheaper to fly or travel by taxi in this country.

Now we don’t have a single safe river or beach in the country. We are wallowing in shit and due to run out of water, after £70Bn has been taken out of the infrastructure by shareholders without an significant investment. A key cornerstone of the original privatisation mantra espoused by the thrice-damned Thatcher and her acolytes. And, even Labour are now singing her praise.

We are rapidly slipping into a world-wide fascist government, run in the main by unelected SPADs fronted by buffoons.

BUT, on the other hand I’m still kicking my heels relative isolation with legacy locked-in syndrome... that’s summat I suppose  Why I still remember when this was all fields... 

I think I missed the revelation that there has still been no punishment for the Cabinet members and SPADs who indulged in ritual cannibal dinners on Thursday evenings before breaking up to return to their taxpayer funded manses in GlousterWosterHamptaCotswoldshire. There to pick up on their infuriatingly interrupted ptarmigan and peasant shooting pastimes, with their lizard families before giving their offspring (neatly stashed in a publicly-funded, private indoctrination creche) their weekly 10 minute phone call. It’s not surprising really given the death grip that the ruling elite now have on the mainstream media - spearheaded  by good old Aunty Beeb.

I’m either beginning to despair or I’m cracking up - not sure which - but I digress.

 We went into lockdown earlier that the announcement from the blibbering buffoon, because we saw how the scientific data looked and we had vulnerable old ‘uns to protect. We have since lost those people and have both become orphans. The wheel moves on.

 Even more of my bits have stopped working altogether and the remainder continue to seize up quite nicely thank you. Mentally I remain in the late 90’s. Even more of my contemporary musical colleagues have dropped off their proverbial twig. Sad but inevitable? I still wonder how many more of these pages will I be putting together in future? I hope I’ll manage at least a couple more.

The house project that we took on is now complete. Music is firmly back in the front of my list most of the time and I’m still frantically trying to catch up.

It remains a productive period musically, despite the lack of live gigging. The difficulty was always finding like-minded musicians with the time and willingness to perform for minimal cost and maximum fun, locally. I’ve now given up on that search

I recently released the final Phoenix Rising based album. It is called ‘After The Fire - The Music of Phoenix Rising’ and was essentially the studio versions of the Phoenix Rising material completed by the Pig’n’aif musical crew. It sounds superb on headphones. Go to the Phoenix Rising Bandcamp site and listen to it

That’s it for Phoenix Rising now. I will not be re-visiting that project. It was fun and a bit of a ride over the years but now back to Pig’n’aif.

I recently put together a video to accompany the song
’Down ‘n’ Out’ taken from the album ‘The Jester... Thinks...’. The song asks the questions “What would you say if you had the chance to sit down with your younger self? What advice would you give them?.”... If only eh?.

 The lead vocal on the track is provided by my long-time colleague and collaborator, Mick Shedd. Once again under the Pig’n’aif banner, I played the other instruments in my various guises.

Check it out and let me know what you think. There’s always the Pig’n’aif Bandcamp site of course

Prior to that there was the video to accompany the song ‘Stolen Moments’ taken from the album ‘The Jester... Thinks...’. It is one part of the trilogy of songs ‘Lady of the Song’, ‘Stormbringer’ and ‘Stolen Moments’ that I composed about the Michael Moorcock character, Elric of Melniboné. The lead vocal on the track is provided most expressively by my long-time colleague and collaborator, Mick Shedd. I played the other instruments in my various guises. I particularly enjoyed playing the guitar on this track. I think it is both articulate and emotive. Some of my best work. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I am now back to actively working on ‘Musicalis Grumpiosa’ (Grumpy Music) which is a project very close to my heart. It is progressing alongside the ‘Electronicalis’ project but is now taking prority. It’s yet another one that I really need to get finished and released in order to clear the decks for new material. But I’ve got to say that the material on this album really does make me laugh. It has a very wry perspective on life. Probably, definitely, based on hind-site.

Please click on the
pictures below for details

As always, there are sample tracks and a video nasty or two on the Discography and Video  pages.

My primary recording gear was bolstered by a Kemper profiling amp which immensely simplifies the workflow around guitar recording and brings the added bonus joy of re-amping (or second guessing, depending how you think about it). The amp sources continue to be my rack mounted Mesa Boogie TriAxis and Simul Class 2:NInety valve amps. I use these with Palmer load DI boxes and Impulse models of my stage rig on the second channel of the TriAxis output. The second channel of my power amp is used on the Axon Guitar Synth setup. The whole thing is incredibly versatile but I still use my Orange rig or Vox AC10 occasionally (especially for live blues based stuff) just for sheer simplicity and fun. Of course I have taken to opportunity to model of these into my Kemper - sweet...

For guitars, I switch between my vintage Gibson Flying ‘V’ my custom-made Phoenix ‘V’ which has a beautiful, powerful character all of its own and is a joy to play live. Looks good as well eh? (Click the image for a better look) I also use a Variax alongside the others for a bit of variation. I am currently recording with a very nice sounding Les Paul, kitted out with 490s and ‘Jimmy Page style’ multi-tap wiring. Very variable tonal quality and is an excellent foil to and a real change from my beloved ‘V’. And then, there’s always my 70’s Strat for those glassy tones and my Fender XII for the chime. Enough said.

I’m still thinking that maybe I’ll finish that novel this year? The problem is getting the uninterrupted time to sit down and think about it. Every time I do that I get a new riff or lyric idea and have to put that down before advanced senility wipes it from my head or the arthritis makes it impossible to play (even more frustrating). But, I would like to see how the novel turns out...

Please feel free to click on the mug shots on the right for some potted history and links.