So says I, "it's been a funny old month",I says. It's been a funny old month I says, for, everything changing, funny things keep happening, and funny voices occupy my head, and I find myself the sad clown captain of the sad clown ship. But you know what folks - we just keep on truckin'! Despite me being plauged by voices, living in total squalor, and having the worst mental episode I've had in several months, we just keep on truckin'!
Admist the madness of March, Four Blokes recorded and released a BRAND NEW SINGLE for your fabulous Four Blokes 45' collection - this is a standalone release that doesn't appear anywhere in the secret multimedia audiovisual experience we're working on, although both filming and recording for that occurred in March too. I also made some significant BUSINESS VENTURES towards a Four Blokes stageshow in London - aka I actually talked to the people in my band and realised they don't all secretly hate me. It's a hell of a life being a manic depressive, sometimes I spend days unable to function at all then when I can't get any lower I SPRING TO LIFE! But that's enough about your old friend Harry... what's going on with fabulous rock band "Four Blokes" ......?
March 2nd - I arrive at the studio early in the morning with vague ideas for 2 new songs. I know what they're about - "أعظم الشر" covers America's war with Iran, and "No Known Cause" is an account of the Moorgate Tube Disaster of 1975, the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground, as told from the perspective of the driver. Perfect hit material! Well, I taped the drums - I had no words or melodies, only structural ideas, so I had a lot of freedom with what I played - and then grabbed some Bongos as well. My way of working has changed massively this year - a lot more improvisational, a lot more acting as inspiration strikes, making things up on the fly. Recording the drums with only the vaguest idea on what I would play over them.
March 4th - Recording again, but of a different sort - I was situated in the corner of the computer room, armed only with a little 2-octave midi keyboard. On the day in-between sessions I'd found some chords I'd liked for أعظم الشر, and for the lead part I used a vintage Mellotron flute setting. For a bit of Persian Gulf flavour, I played arpeggios with a Santoor. The digital age, hey, we are living in her and she shall claim us all. She shall feed on us. These kind of thoughts went through my head as I fiddled with Logic's ES2 Digital Analogue Synthesiser (seems like a contradiction in terms to me but hey-ho) to add some futuristic ambience to Robot Samba. One last little thing - i redid the Harpsichord part for Monstera to sync it up with the Flute score I'd written. Speaking of which...
March 8th - while back in Southampton for my cousin's baby shower (THAT'S ROCK N' ROLL LIVING FOR YOU!) I popped into Caitlin's, as she's a trained flautist. I've written all sorts of scores for brass, strings, and sitar, but this is the first time I've had a classical instrumentalist in front of me reading from my sheet music. It’s incredibly gratifying to watch a little melodic idea you once hummed in the shower actually be realised. I'm working with dichotomies on this new project a lot. There's this old Baroque song with woodwind and jaunty melodies, then there's the hard synths, the industrial clang of metal. The Beauty and the Horror, someone once said. Also went into a little side room and put bass on Monstera, still using the short-scale Fender Mustang.
March 10th - Studio booked, just a short little session to add vocals to No Known Cause. I left it til the last possible moment to come up with the words, they just weren't coming, til the clock was about to strike... then on the banks of the Thames inspiration struck. I added a load of sinister whispering out on the left and right channels, and in the last section it switches from a first person account from the train driver to an autopsy of the crash scene.
March 11th - the final session for the single. The whole bloody song is just on G, so I just got a load of weird sounds out the synths and faded them in and out. I guess the horns are the lead part? Different keys played different parts of the horn section... I verged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Bit of flute Mellotron never hurt anyone, then I went on the ES2 and maxed out all the settings to create "a Wave of Doom". It's a bit buried in the mix but there's also something that sounds like wind chimes - that's the Sculpture Synth, set to "Wood". On the way home i made field recordings of the Tube and dubbed them on, at the start you can hear a fella open a packet of crisps.
I then had an extremely bad episode, had 111 phoned on me which worked out in the end becuase I'm no longer on a 14 month waiting list and actually getting support! Woohoo! I was in a very dark place that day, I don't know how i would've pulled myself out that low if I didn't go to a birthday party in a disued warehouse and take MDMA. I have to say - since the episode the voices have mostly gone away. Maybe it just needed to get to absolute breaking point first, who knows. I had to go and get my wounds checked, purely aesthetic, no tetanus jab required. I'm generally doing a lot better, certainly up and down but I'm not suddenly going to be well overnight. I've started making soup.
March 20th - Four Blokes release their new single أعظم الشر . I do believe it's the worst a Four Blokes release has ever performed but I don't mind too much - I understand that how many streams we get is directly tied to how much we're playing live. Out of sight, out of mind, y'know? When we get gigging again the streams will go up, I'm sure. Oh well - I had a lot of fun making it, and when more people find us in the future it'll be there for them to go back to. There's still 1 or 2 people listening to us every day and that's exponentially more than 0 so I'm still very thankful.
At the end of Feburary I expressed fears and worries that Four Blokes Live in London would never happen and that everybody was secretly plotting against me and that everybody secretly hates me. Since then, postive talks have taken place and I can confirm the people who willing joined the band actually want to be in the band - for the first time, tangible plans for a gig are being discussed,I would be remiss to mention specifics at this early stage but it's very exciting for me.I don't want to jinx it, but it's likely we'll start rehearsing in April too. It's all gonna be very queer, I can say that much.
I generally think everything will go wrong all the time, and time and time again things have gone wrong - as much as the story of Four Blokes is a comedy with lots of japes and gags along the way, it's also the tragedy of a mentally ill man who just keeps losing and failing. Just once - please just once - let me be happy. Please, God, let me be happy.
Anyways!
March 31st - with the single all wrapped up and released and my episode somewhat dealt with, I returned to the studio with fresh ideas. First I tackled my musical adaptation of the East German novella Siblings by Brigitte Reimann - next, my Porno song. I left the studio with a 34 minute tape of different takes - the first of those songs I had a bassline and a structure for, the second is a LOT looser and I have no idea what I'm going to end up using. Each take is so different. I do kinda have 2 verses, and i have lyrics for the waltz bit I kept coming back to, and I know I want Saxaphone on it. Get it on, girl, I've got to get it on...
I should also add I got such incredible gender envy over a bass player at the Windmill it's convinced me to get a left handed one for my 21st birthday in May. A left handed bass that is, not a left handed woman. I think that's about everything for March - looking forward to April... if everything goes right for once (PLEASE! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO I'M PRAYING TO, BUT I'M PRAYING WITH FERVOR) you shall see many full colour photographs of me and the gang rehearsing for a concert appearance. At the very least you'll see a full colour photograph of me all alone in a studio. Only time will tell - you know, whatever else, at least we'll have some scrummy Easter Eggs.
Best wishes and love to you all - and one for all and all for one, and every little thing she does she does for me, ooh
Harry
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