Yes, yes, it’s been a little quiet on the update front from the Layers of late. What can I say? We’re busy chaps, in demand.
One of the things that we have been busy with, however, is new songs. Next one to debut live (possibly even this Sunday if we’re lucky) is ‘Kiss the Girls’
In case you’re making a study of our lyrics for your English coursework or as part of a legal petition to have Neil sectioned, here they are:
Kiss the girls
Done up in glitter and her angel wings – high on tequila and adrenaline
You don’t want to know the things she’s seen, or be alone in places that she’s been
She’ll kiss the boys… and make them cry
Captivated in a single beat; the smell of perfume and the taste of meat
She might not drink your blood
But she’ll take your soul anyway
Pumped up to music from their mobile phones, full of Dutch courage, doused in pheromones;
But every evening ending all alone, ‘cos you’re the only one who’ll take her home
You’ll kiss the girls… and make them cry
But in the morning when you wake up there to the stink of spermicide and cold despair
And those blue pills that you take
Can’t take away that cold ache
They don’t need sports cars of a chat-up line, can smell a broken heart from half a mile
Just a cocktail and a knowing smile: three parts loneliness and one denial
They’ll kiss you once… make you cry
And you’ll have something to remember this, morning after pill or syphilis
And they’re not after blood,
They’re just misunderstood.
Here we are, folks… for those of you that take an interest in this sort of things, the lyrics for Different Footprints.
The days are busy, being filled up with emptiness.
Occupied, always doing more to feel less.
Another packed day that she can’t tell from the rest:
pre-packaged Saturdays and crowded loneliness.
And she can still hear
his laughter ringing on the summer breeze.
She can still be
happy in her memories.
So happy…
Different footprints on the beaches where we played,
the castles washed away, the child inside remains
in the places we’ve come back to; the pilgrimage we made
to drink to absent friends, to all the rest of us that stayed.
We can still hear
his laughter ringing on the the summer breeze
and we can still be
happy in the memory.
So happy…
No one’s ever lost –
everything we treasured;
love endures:
we will remember.
We can still hear…
___
And yes, I realise that those of you who’ve chosen to offer analysis of our lyrics before will point out that it’s not the most cheerful of subject matter. No surprises there – but I’d like to say that this is not a downbeat song. It’s saying that even if someone’s gone from our lives, we can still celebrate the joy that they brought us. This is a song about joy and hope, not about missing someone. So there…
It seems more appropriate to post these lyrics now than when I wrote them, oddly. Not only has the music kind of come together – hopefully a sign that we’re gelling ever more surely as musicians – but also some of the topics herein have become more topical. Tonight, I notice, there’s a documentary airing that expresses some concern that our nation’s youth are obtaining their sex education from porn movies. Hmmm… I don’t see any problem there: we’ll just have a nation of young people who think that turning up to fix a washing machine is considered foreplay (an improvement on a lot of men, am I right, sisters? {whooping from studio audience}) and moustaches may come back into fashion. And perhaps there will be a funk revival.
At the same time, as we’ve gone from credit crunch to slowdown, to recession, climatologists have offered their bleakest warnings yet about the state that our rapacious pursuit of profit is getting us into whilst their voices are silenced beneath the weight of banality, ill-informed opinion and thinly-veiled racism that constitutes the vast majority of news in this once green and pleasant land.
So, as a savoury relish to this smorgasbord of despair, I present the lyrics to IHNMYIMS, as it appears on setlists. Enjoy.
I wish I had the strength of character to tell you how I feel,
wish you had the sense to look behind the censor on your screen,
when all I ask for is that we reach out for the things we see in dreams
but this machine is just too big: I have no mouth yet I must scream
Catch the stink of something rotten here-
Don’t you think you deserve more?
Can’t you read the writing on the wall?
Don’t you see that this means war?
I see your vacant stare at bodies locked together on your screen;
desensitised and listless – paralysed by your pornnui,
deafened by the sound of moaning – missed the tolling of the bell
while all this crap they’re selling you will drag you straight down into hell!
Catch the stink…
When every headline that you read is breeding something to abhor-
they’ve sold their principles, they’re not invincible, they are just whores.
Ignore the consequences? – Let them stretch the long reach of their hate?
How many innocents must bleed to feed the jackals at your gate?
It’s been a while since the blog was updated, for various reasons, but regular readers should (aside from getting their heads examined) not worry: all is relatively well at Layers HQ. There was a short period there when it seems that we would be without a drummer but we’re delighted to report that Roo is back in the back-seat driving position of percussionist extraordinaire, new material is taking shape (or at least being beaten into a shape other than ‘pear’) and we’re looking forward to a festive gig this Saturday.
This brief missive, though, is triggered by a friend who looked up a word from ‘I have no mouth yet I must scream’, thinking that I’d made it up. I have indeed, made up the word ‘pornnui’, it’s a portmanteau of porn and ennui, I’ll let you leap to your own conclusion about the meaning. This little addition to the language, though, has had the effect of pushing The Layers way up the Google search results. Look up ‘pornnui’ and, as it turns out, there we are, result number six or seven.
So, we might not have any current plans for world travel at the moment, but it’s good to know that we’re still pushing back the frontiers, even if it’s just by making up words.
When the band’s not all there. Great as it was exploring the sights, sounds and (frequently garbage-tinged) smells of New York, it was never going to feel quite right without the rest of the band there. It came as some relief, then, when another expensively-crafted text message manifested itself to say that Caleb and Paul had arrived and that Sheena and Lorraine were eager to experience all that New York had to, er… sell.
Whilst Doug and I had been picking up a few essential supplies, such as inoperative voltage converters (more on that to follow) Caleb and Paul had been trying to find the seediest bar near their hotel. They’d done a reasonable job, too. No matter, once Doug and I had struggled through the downpour and had a beer in our hands, all seemed right with the world again and we felt like a band.
I’d been vaguely concerned that Doug might feel like an outsider – in himself and to us. Roo has always been such a big part of what we do and who we are and we knew that the trip wasn’t going to be the same without him. One beer was enough to allay my fears; whilst we still missed Roo’s presence and energy, Doug was very much a part of the band, taking the piss and joining in with the good-natured character assassination, persecution and verbal belittling that is The Layers on tour. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
It as an early exit to New Jersey for the two of us, as we’d vowed to spend a little quality time with Jeff, our host. We purchased some imported English beer and got in just in time to watch the Olympic gymnasts defy logic and gravity and not have one single inappropriate thought about the young ladies in the spandex outfits. Not one. No siree.
Finally it was gig day. There was a touch of tension in the air. Doug and I said goodbye to our hosts and made our way into the city. We’d decided to splash out on a hotel for this one night – easy transport and a comfortable night’s sleep would be much needed. We couldn’t find anything in reason on the island but found that the hotels in Brooklyn were strangely affordable. It was with some trepidation that we made our way there – only to be immediately upgraded to a rock-star suite (had the heard of The Layers?) in the Brooklyn Bridge Marriot. It was huge, folks. We immediately ditched our afternoon plans in favour of a swim, spa and power nap. Then, pausing only to hurl a tv through the window, it was time to get to the gig.
Bar M1-5, in the Tribeca neighbourhood, could well be mistaken for a shithole from the outside. Half-way down a grim, graphitised street adorned with skips and piles of garbage. Inside, though, we were pleasantly surprised to find a lively, friendly bar.
Jigsaw Soul were already setting up on stage – a great bunch of guys, as it turned out, and a fantastic band. They put on a performance quite unlike anything that we’d ever seen before, complete with dance, special effects and some great music. Clearly local favourites, they were going to be a hard act to follow.
With the stage very much set up for the preceding band and only a rudimentary PA set up, we had some struggles with this one. Some songs were pretty good, others sucked. The sound on stage wasn’t great and we had trouble hearing each other. We came off stage not dejected but very much aware that it wasn’t the greatest gig we’d put on. Typically, that was the gig that we were having filmed by Caleb’s old friend Meredith – who’d come all the way from Washington DC to do the filming. We knew we had better in us and so we did what any great band would do and went drinking.
Dawn broke over New York… we completely ignored it, having only got out of a burlesque bar in Greenwich Village an hour or so previously. Noon broke and found us stumbling about our rock star suite with the stoic and uncomplaining Meredith, who had decided to surf the couch (which, as we discovered, folded out into a full-sized bed – seriously, we do highly recommend the Brooklyn Bridge Marriot. You could get six people in that room easily)
A traditional American breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, syrup, burgers, corned-beef hash, more pancakes, sweet potato fries and we were ready to… well, sit around and belch, really. Then we had a last day in New York before reconvening and heading to Kenny’s Castaways in the heart of Greenwich Village.
Kenny’s is an entirely different set up, a quality sound system, manned on the night by Zack, who demonstrated great finesse on the sound and was a huge help. It’s much more a dedicated music venue with a touch of our ‘home’ venue, The Vaults about it, and we immediately felt more at home.
Still, some concerns raised their heads. A little like the evening at the Moira in Utrecht, the preceding acts were all pretty laid-back. First Soren Anders – theatrical, soft-spoken and quintessentially Greenwich Village, played piano with a cello accompanist and treated us to warm, witty songs with immaculately matching intros. Then it was Radio Free Carmela and the Transmitters – acoustic Americana. Very easy on the ear. Carmela herself is fantastic – friendly and energetic and delighted to meet other musicians. Finally Darren Ockert – an Englishman in New York himself, treated us to a set of slightly theatre-influenced songs, full of clever lyrics, piano, bass and drums.
We took the decision to chill out the set list a little and hastily rearranged it with the light, acoustic material at the start and some semi-acoustic, laid-back versions of some of the others gradually leading up to the ear-bleeding material that we usually inflict on our audiences. It was a gamble…
…that paid off. We got a warm reception and the set tied together beautifully. The acoustic start was relaxing for us and the audience alike – a good thing, because the lead up had been a panic of missing equipment (thanks to headline band Furmurthur and to Zack for helping out with that) and inoperative guitar effects. In the end Caleb had to do without his usual computer-controlled, liquid helium-cooled, turbo-driven effects unit and go old-school with nothing but a borrowed distortion unit. He was, as ever, brill, of course.
This time we were tight, the sound on stage was good and we got into our groove. We really felt that this time we did ourselves justice and warranted the invitation to play over in the US. It was a great experience and, as an added bonus, Meredith had delayed her trip (in her hangover-addled state it took little in the way of arm-twisting) home to film again, so there is actually some footage of us playing well.
As Furmurthur did their thing we were congratulated, hugged, slapped on the back and generally approved of by the other artists, the crowd and even Zack, the engineer. Praise from a house sound man is always a good thing – these guys get to see the best and worst of live music.
Then it was time to piss on the dogs and crawl in the fire (I’ve never understood that expression) as there was a jet being filled up with aviation fuel, piss-poor meals (and infectious diseases, as it turns out) and whining children at JFK. Caleb and Sheena displayed the patience and tolerance that will surely see them through a hundred years of happy marriage by allowing me and Doug to shower in their hotel room and then, still slightly pissed and very tired, it was back to the airport.
As I tried valiantly to sleep through the whiny little arsehole kicking me in the back on the way over the Atlantic, I had some time to reflect (in a sleep-deprived, mildly hallucinatory fashion) on the week. It was a very different experience to Europe. Perhaps if they had allowed us to fly the aeroplane ourselves under the command of a bossy sat-nav unit… It was less of a road-trip and more of a holiday with a couple of gigs. Not a worse experience but a less intense one. Certainly the gigs themselves were different; the crowds were less focussed on the artists and more there to party with their friends – a more similar experience to playing in the UK. New York, too, for all of its pace and strangeness, is obviously not as foreign as the places that we drove through in Europe. It was different without Roo and different because we weren’t so dependent on each other. Nonetheless, I dozed off with that familiar, dopey smile on my face. We are still The Layers, even when we have to fill in again, even when we’re hit with adversity. We can still rock, we can always laugh.
Next? We’ve got the UK gigswap, songs to finish, songs to record and Carmela really wants us to go and play in Florida in March. Sounds like a pleasant alternative to the early spring drizzle of the UK, I have to say…
From the city that never sleeps to the town that doctors say may never regain full consciousness. It’s quite a come-down, I can tell you. There are really two parts to this story, so I’ll do a bit of regaling now and fill in the rest when I have some pictures.
On Sunday the 10th of August, Doug and I were getting ready to fly to New York. All was not well; at the time we still had no place to stay, no guarantee of a backline and had only the flimsiest idea of what was going on. Unlinke the European tour, nobody had been able to get out there and check out the scene; we were flying blind.
Undaunted, Jops and I packed our trunks and, pausing only to go and do a little acoustic cameo at the Nelson, set off for Heathrow airport. I’d opted for the cheap parking option, meaning a detour via ‘Purple Parking’, an operation that asks you to leave your keys in the car. This does provide a few lingering suspicions that even as you pull away in the minibus, your mileometer is being disconnected, minicab plates being fitted and the interior being carefull photographed so that all that will be there when you arrive is some suspicious tyre wear and a lingering smell of ‘feu orange’…
The customary horrors of airport security and airline food breached, in what felt like no more than 96 hours or so we were breathing the fresh clean carbon monoxide of New York. With no idea of what was going on, we checked the e-mail inbox and were overjoyed to find the offer of a couch from Jrff Ruhle, of New Jersey. To get from JFK to Morristown, New Jersey means travelling on no less than three different rail systems, each with different pricing, mapping and ticketing systems, to travel a physical distance of around 40 miles.
Jeff was putting us up at his parents’ place, a lovely, timber-framed house out in the woods. We were phenomenally lucky to have a twin room to ourselves. We made ourselves at home and went back into the city with Justin and Kurt, two college couch-surfers from Tennessee.
New York is an amazing place to eat. All human life is there, explaining the crowds, the smell and, fortunately, the cuisine. We dined well in Greenwich Village and marvelled at how little it cost. This was a theme for the week – giant portions of fine food at rock-bottom prices; Caleb was in his element.
Lady Liberty - trenchant satire or an idle moment with a marker?
For Doug and I, there followed another two days of walking the streets of the city. There’s a lot to see and a lot to do. New York is so big, so full and so busy that it seems to distort time, somehow. perhaps, like mass distorting Einsteinian space-time, if you cram so many busy people into one space, time gets shortened, contracting like a watch approaching the speed of light; the sheer speed of life in New York seems to compress the seconds. The days flew by.
We were surprised by a lot of things in New York – it feels like a safe city (or Doug and I are just oblivious to peril) – even at three in the morning in some fairly seedy districts, we never felt intimidated or endangered. Even when a huge guy came over and accosted us, all he wanted to do was give us his hip-hop CD. Finding out that we were musicians from the UK he was thrilled to bits, shook our hands and offered to promote us!
In spite of what I’d heard, it’s a friendly city. Almost everyone that we met was open, talkative and interested to meet us.
It’s an exhausting city. Between the heat and humidity (which we were informed was mild for the time of year), the crowds and the size, getting around really weras you out. I slept like a log in New Jersey at night, lulled by the army of cicadas making an industrial noise outside.
As much fun as it was to wander the city, we both new that the trip wouldn’t really begin in earnest until Caleb and Paul arrived.
Yes, of course you’ll know by now that we’re playing in New York this August and that we’re very excited about it.
Latest news is that a second gig has been added to the itinerary, we’re playing in Greenwich Village in Kenny’s Castaways, a venue which has hosted Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith and a host of other illustrious musicians.
As he’s joining the band on a short-term secondment, it would seem only polite to introduce our adoring fan to Dusty Jopling: thinker, drinker, tinkerer and drummer extraordinaire.
Jops enjoys a rural cuppa
Born Dusty Jackson to a showbiz family, a swift escape in early childhood and a change of identity bought Doug to Preston where he swiftly gained qualifications sufficient to propel him to the hallucinating spires of Loughborough University. There he played drums with the Waterpistols and met a young singer called Neil. A meeting that was to have grim consequences for both men and for music in general.
Doug’s meteoric (i.e, plummeting rapidly from a great height) career then led him to Birmingham where he manned the skins for SwampManGirl between bouts of design work in the exractor fan industry.
After several depressing years of having to earn a living, the two were reunited and shared a house in the bucolic, antique-trading backwater of Tetbury where, in between drinking excessively, offending neighbours and freaking out houseguests, they found time to write ‘Multiple Choice’ and ‘ShadowPictures’.
Doug’s fate then led him to the USA, Malaysia and finally the tropical paradise that is Leeds, where he took up the sticks for The Revelator Band – a pirate blues-rock outfit that sadly foundered in stormy seas recently. On the plus side, this freed their drummer up to fill in for the Layers in the USA, so every cloud…
Nobody knows where Doug’s life will lead next, apart from an old Gypsy woman who read his palm at a fete a few years ago but she refused to tell him the details after he tried to pay her with Monopoly money. She was later killed by a bus that she hadn’t seen coming.
We’re delighted to have Dusty as a temporary Layer and hope that it won’t sting too much when we have to rip him off and discard him.
Welcome to The Layers’ sparkling new blog. Yes, we’re gradually trying to get away from the social networking sites (perhaps we’re just old) and stand on our own two (well, eight if you’re going to be picky) feet.
Or is it ten? Because, as ever with The Layers, drama and excitement are afoot. That makes eleven if you’re keeping track…
Those of you that make it a habit to follow our adventures from your private rooms overlooking the tranquil grounds of various secure institutions will know that we were recently invited to play in New York as a part of the CouchCrash festival. Unfortunately, due to staffing crises galore at his business, Roo is unable to make the trip. On the bright side, at least this time there’s no Blues Brothers-style coach chase through Austria and Slovakia…
On the more fortunate side, we are privileged to have secured the services of the great Dusty Jopling, until recently sticks man from The Revelator Band. Jops joins Duke on the illustrious list of Layers drummers; the Mexican did well in the hot seat – can Dusty top him? We wait with baited breath…
I’ve been trying for a while to write something more considered than the blogs that I kept on tour.
What I’ve ended up with is more of a personal musing and so it seemed appropriate to stick it in my own blog. The views expressed herein do not represent, etc…So if you want my two pennies-worth, it’s right here.It’s a bit of a marathon.
Anyway, I’ll try to stop going on about it now, I think I’ve got it all off my chest.
