poets and... review

Poets and… Review

Our third event as Poets and.. ran on 29th April 2009
and I felt was certainly the best one we had done so far
and helped set the scene for the future.

Featuring the beautiful and fantastic Kylyra from
‘Dark World International’ – perhaps for the first time I felt
showed the potential what our Poets and.. night could do.

First started off in November last year, I was reminded
When looking at the DVD shoot off the first night (which
I received only in the post the other day) how
Far we had travelled in a short space off time.

Our first one I felt looking back at the DVD certainly
From my perspective and my co-setter up, Gary – both
Of our works had increased in confidence so far it
Was interesting to look at.

Certainly from my own perspective – the third show was
The tightest yet, despite some minor problems with the
Sound which I know caused some problems.

I think the audience was the joint highest we’d had so far
(with the first one) and certainly had the most varied
night we’d so far with Antonnonni doing a improvised
piece with my musical buddy, Jeff and Rob Goodier
also cropping with a song among some of the excellent
poets we had on board.

Me & Jeff did three pieces for our proper set, and
Despite a slight slip in our first piece ‘Don’t be Cruel’
The second and third pieces ‘Return to Kemptown’
(done jointly with my noise buddy, Matt Dalby) and
‘A Love poem for my shoes’ were a lot looser
and I was generally really happy with it.

Highlight of the night of course had to be Kylyra’s set
For me. Brimming with confidence that can be only have
Come from hours and hours of practice – she purred
Across her set with a Grace Jones diva quality with
a mixed backing that ranged from Beat Jazz to industrial
and completely engulfed the attention of the audience.

She even dragged me onto stage to help her out with
a piece called 'Not for the hair' which was a hoot.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the chance to do that piece
with Ky at somepoint in the future.

3 x brand new short short poems

Dear all;

Here are a couple of brand brand new short short poems.

Cheers

Andy N


The Poem is a limited edition (I)

It’s certainly not
Buy one,
Get one free.

**

The Poem is a limited edition (II)

It’s so limited
Nobody else
Will see if
Apart from you.

**

The Poem is a limited edition (III)

Which in a way
Summed up your love.

latest poetry updates and views

Dear all;

Here is what I have being up to recently poetry wise (and a few honest
notes with each performance) and what is forthcoming etc:

Just done…

1) I appeared on second ‘Scratch Poets’ event on 8th April 2009
where I gave a debut performance off ‘Return to Kemptown’ minus
any involvement from my band ‘Words and Music’ or my mate the
soundscape poet ‘Matt Dalby’ (more on that later on (which we had
being rehearsing for a good month or so before this was done). Hard to
judge how the piece went down, but it felt comfortable reading it out to
people and I like to think it went down quite well. I also read out
‘Fire like Love’ a slightly older piece which I felt was a nice contrast
although I did stumble a bit with that.

2)I did a couple off poems at ‘Freed Up’ on 16th April 2009 where I
performed my first reading off ‘Don’t be Cruel’ and ‘Purple instead
off Blue’. If I am honest I don’t think this was my best ever reading
as the sound on the mike was quite poor and didn’t get spotted until
afterwards. I know some poets would have being quite upset about
that, but I wasn’t that upset I must admit as I was happy with the two
poems I read out – both off which will be making appearances elsewhere
in due course.

3) I then next appeared at Muta Poem on 23rd April 2009 as a
favour for my pal, the soundscape poet, Matt Dalby
(http://santiagosedeadwasp.blogspot.com/) with my pal,
Jeff as ‘Words and Music’ and fellow poets, Alex and Antoniononi,
(Tony). The night was a odd night all in all, but certainly the set
me and Jeff did we were very happy with them although I got
the feeling from other blogspots for example we weren’t
everybody’s cup off tea. Personally for me on the night however
I particularly enjoyed the concept off Matt’s night where he tried
to get people to remix other people’s work on a creative exchange
and perform them and then also for the second half do some pieces
inspired by what had being seen before.

Memorable events of the night for me were Antoniononi (Tony)
wrote a long poem and asked Jeff to jam along with him on the
spot, which I thought worked really well. Alex did a partly
improvised poem on Bros, which involved him in some cases
rolling up and down the floor, which was spell binding, and
completely off the cuff. Matt also was also first rate in particular
with a piece that he said was completely off the cuff. He also helped
out Jeff and me as ‘Words and Music’ which I think also went
pretty well (I did some good feedback from a number off
people over it).

Next up:

4) Firstly on Lit Media Reviews (www.blogtalkradio.com/litmediareviews)
tonight on 26th April 2009 I will be doing a short interview
at 10.30pm. Don’t know what I will talking about here yet but it will
include all of the above and what’s next.

5) Second, ‘Poets and…’ on Wednesday 29th April 2009 the
third off the open mike nights that I help run. I am hopeful this
one will be our best one yet. I’ll do four pieces with
‘Words and Music’ on this and cropping up elsewhere during
the night too (More to be revealed of course).

6) Third, 6th May 2009 for Amenity International I will be
appearing at a fundraising event for them reading out poetry
about Children in Conflict. I have two pieces done for this and am
trying to get a third done in time for the night also.

7) Fourth, 16th May 2009 – As part off ‘Words and Music’
we will be doing a couple off songs at Bolton’s
‘Poets and Acoustic’ night at the Blue Boar in Bolton.

8) Fifth, 17th May 2009 – I will be popping up during
Chorlton’s Art Festival at Lloyds Hotel during their annual poetry
reading. I loved it last year and am hopeful this year’s will be just as good.

9) Sixth, 21st May 2009 – I’m back over to Freed Up again for another
short set off stuff I haven’t started sorting out or writing yet.

10) Seventh, 18th June 2009 – I will be performing at
Manchester Museum (more details to follow)

Further a field:

11) End off June – will be doing the 4th one of ‘Poets and..’
with special guests to be announced nearer the time (I hope)

12) 11th July – Poets Express in Bantry (Southern Ireland) for Ky
which will be a major thing for a simple Manchester Poet like me.

13) August / September – perhaps sorting out a reading
on L.S.Lowry at a venue T.B.A.

14) End off September – will be doing the 5th one of
‘Poets and..’ with special guests to be announced nearer the time.

15) Autumn time – arranging a charity do for a selected charity
(Gary knows more about this than me)

16) End of year – doing a Trio Writers play.

As you can see – all go! This won’t include other open
mike nights here and there maybe at Scratch Poets
or Write Out Loud.

New Music update

After a lull off activity on the music front for me – it has picked up again with a bang.. And I mean a bang!

Owning to PC problems – everything has being on hold for over two months but it looks likely that everything is back to normal now, so over the week-end just gone – I had a play around.

First off all, Andy my voice in M.A.N. sent me over some new vocals which are not suitable for the forthcoming ‘From a Boy’ CD but could well make a great EP, so I did most off that over the week-end which I jokingly called it’ One Week-end Stand’ EP.

Also managed to squeeze in a few new Grey Ear, White Noise tracks which takes up tracks for the forthcoming album for them to about five or six tracks now. Need to let Pete, my voice in that band hear them.

Rehearsals are also going good for my new band ‘Words and Music’ – this is completely different from anything else I have done, and dare I say it reasonably commercial! We’ve done two gigs already despite the fact we had only wrote 4 songs by that point (We now have a working set list off 8 songs with another few to follow).

No plans for an album yet, as this is going to be mostly a touring band I reckon although I do have some good live rehearsal recording ). Will keep you advised of course.

Have being doing loads off poetry readings, but I’ll tell you more about next time.

Matt Dalby: Tare & Matt Dalby: Fight (CD Reviews)

I first became aware off Matt Dalby through his
interaction at one of Manchester’s open mike poetry nights last
year called Freed Up.

I forget the night in question, but I always remember Dom
One of the co-hosts of the night describing it as ‘Sound Poetry’
And I can always remember thinking to myself – it’ll probably
Be something experimenting with the language of poetry a little
But it wouldn’t be anything too different.

I was totally wrong.

I’d never forget when he came on stage with his own little amp
And effects pedals and spent the next four minutes blasting the
Heck out of the audience’s eardrums with some good old fashioned
White noise and looped vocals and surprised more than a few people.

I’ve done this over the years with a lot of my studio projects (and also
rarely in the live circuit) and when I heard it, it made perfect
sense to me.

Since then, I’ve seen Matt appear at a number of other events
and he has guested on both of my ‘Poets and..’ nights (and
most memorably had Gary’s brother asking him ‘is that Poetry?’)
and he has never ceased to surprise me.

So of course, releasing CDs is now a progression step
for him after spending a year or so on the open mike poetry
circuit. What is surprising however is the plan
for him to release one CD for every month in 2008
And sell them for the sum off £3 (Sterling).

The first one ‘Tare’ released in January 2009 is a
seven track mini album all with short title tracks
such as ‘hum’, ‘tier’, ‘tare’ to name but three but
each track even if there were 6 minutes each or 2 minutes
carrying layer after layer which in some cases took me five
or six go’s to get my head around, which is as good a
recommendation as you can get.

The second one ‘Fight’ released in February 2009 is
quite a different beast altogether with it being just
four tracks – the longest ‘House of Violence’
clocking at nearly 17 and a half minutes. I’d got tracks
like that most memorably pieces by Flying Saucer Attack
who go on like that, but I know they were mostly done with
guitars laced with feedback – this however was very different
considering I know from a conversation with him how he did,
and certainly listening to it is a challenge, but a
challenge I enjoyed listening to – how the hell it would
go down on a poetry open mike night is a different
question altogether.

I know Matt describes this as ‘Sound poetry’ and
this is perhaps something he needs to think about for himself
as certainly at the moment it is not really poetry in the
sense of Ted Hughes but not really experimental music as it goes
off in a completely different direction, which is my
eyes is always a good sign, or as I like to think
‘21st century poetry’

I recommend it and certainly advise you to pop over to
http://www.myspace.com/sonicobnox just don’t expect it
to sound like Ted Hughes.

Forgotten

Dear all;

This was first debuted at ‘Poets and…’ last week.

It was recorded with a piano backing me.

When I get chance - I'll upload the recording from it!

Enjoy!

Cheers

Andy N

Forgotten

Remember those buried
In your hearts
And also your thoughts.

Remember those buried
In other countries
As well as those
Closer to home.

Remember those buried
In mass graves
And those who were
Buried alone.

Remember those were
Lined up against the wall
And butched with no mercy
As well as those
Who died
And were not
Found for a week.

Remember the death camps
And their hollow
Starved looking eyes
As well as those
Who died while watching
TV.

Remember the deserted streets
That had being bombed
Seemingly endlessly
By planes
And events much closer
To home
Which haunts you
Like a ghost.

Remember those who you see
On TV
Being blown all
Over the place
Like snooker balls
And friends who you
Will never see again.

Remember, remember
Those who are only here
In our hearts now
And whose words
Blow like fragments
In the wind
Before flickering out
In the distance.

Think of the last time
You saw them
And then when you
Say goodbye
To them
Think to yourself
With a content smile
You’ll see
Them in a week or so
But you never do,
You never will,
You never will.

Think of their faces again
And their casual smile
‘Aye, I look forward to it’
And think afterwards
But what if?

What if
You had being there?

What if
You could have
Done something?

Would the effect
Still have being the same
Or would it have being
Like forgotten memories
Trudging on landmines
On a journey
That would have
Blown up anyhow,
Somewhere, somehow.

Would the effect
Still have being the same
Or would it have being
Like a row of forgotten dominos
That would fall down
In a chain reaction
No matter what you do
Somewhere, somehow
But never forgotten.

Monkeyrack Writers and Spotlight Lancaster

One of the great things I have discovered while
advertising the event I co-host 'Poets and...'
(http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56414263840&ref=ts)

is other interesting events and similar-ish sorts
off nights that are run by other groups.

One which I encountered recently on myspace
are 'Monkeyrack Writers' a small but certainly
from what I can see welcoming writing group based
in the Lancaster area off Manchester.

A lot of their back history is contained on their
myspace page but it kind of reminded a lot off the
history off 'Trio Writers' (which formed in 2008,
but was previously known as 24 Hour Arty People
from 2003) . Like us, they have also gone through
a few homes and also produced a few collections
over the years, and from what I can see are also
involved in a cabaret night held regularly (which
is something our own Poets and... night could
head into before you know) called 'Lancaster
Spotlight'

I recently spoke to Moll from Monkeyrack, who
I guess is also involved with 'Lancaster Spotlight'
recently who recently mentioned to me at the
start of each of these nights which is held on
the third Friday of every month a open mike
element of their night but also in February
there is going to be a open mike poetry night.

If I can con, my pal Tony into driving down,
we could be making a trip down that way for
February.

It could well be worth a visit.

More details are:

http://www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk/ (Spotlight Lancaster)

http://www.myspace.com/monkeywrackwriters (Monkeywrack Writers)

Music for One - The Red Thumb (Review)

What I love about listening to a variety off music is the fact

sometimes you honestly never know what you are going to.

On Christmas Day for example I set my music matchjukebox

on my PC to play some tracks at total random, and it

pulled out some tracks which threw me a little certainly.

First up it brought up some post disco music from Blackpool called

‘Little Boots’ which was then followed up with some mood music

from the last but one Nine Inch Nails album ‘Ghosts’, which was

then followed in due course by a couple of tracks from one of

my bands DIH (off it's forthcoming album) and then suddenly it

threw out some tracks I didn’t know.

I had a look further into this and jukebox didn’t say who the

track was. It just said audio track 2, which said to me it was

probably something I would have ripped from a CD or CDR to

drop onto my mp3 player. Either way, it was beautiful instrumental

recorded just an what I was getting with a guitar with a primal

hunger that I had heard since Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ album.

The music was mood music certainly with a timeless hunger that

could have recorded in the 1930’s or 1940’s but had a feel to

it that suggested to me it sounded like it had being recorded

recently. I looked into the mp3’s further and traced them to

a folder on my PC which told me the name of the artist

was ‘Music for One’ and the album was called‘The Red Thumb’.

Without offering tons off whaffle, I first met Canadian

born Sherry Ostapovitch aka Music for One at a house

party concert in Levenshulme in 2005. I’d never forget

that set as she played a frightening guitar set which mixed

crunching solo guitar with effects and delay pedals which

left both me and my mate stunned for a few days later.

This album is a lot softer and completely different in

tone, as interestingly on the sleeve notes it says it

was recorded on a 2 track tape recorder in a handful

of hours in Spring 2007 with no multi tracking

or editing. Certainly from listening to the album, the tone

is certainly suggestive of a night time recording with

songs in a complete change in tone from the first time

I saw her.

Songs here since certainly seem to be reaching back

to the past, hence the reference to Nick Drake

before but also touching to old, old blues records

which probably makes sense considering a cover

version of Skip James’s (Devil’s got my woman) is

at the end of the record which could be slight

reference to her own guitar playing with the title

alone.

Either way, the playing here is ghostly and on

some songs for ‘The wind from the Irish Sea’ the guitar

is so faint, it almost sounded like it was almost recorded

in another room in places, but played so subtle when

you get into the album, it is a difficult place to pull yourself

out off.

Recommended.

For more details – contact Sherry directly on

musicforone@riseup.net

OR go to this page on her page which has a couple off mp3's

available for sampling (they are lovely)

http://www.musicforone.com/recordings.htm

Helloooo 2009

Dear all;

Perhaps I should try and write a poem welcoming 2009 to all off us,
but frankly I can't really be bothered at the moment.

At the moment, I am still coming to terms with the end off 2008 if I am
honest, and now 2009 is with us, I am working slowly but surely towards
the end of the next ‘DIH’ album ‘Metamorphosis’ which I completed the
10th track for it earlier on today. Current plans are suggesting somewhere
around the 14 to 16 track mark for the album, which will take it
somewhere towards the 40 minute mark.

Don’t expect this to happen over-night as this itself has taken the
better part off 2 years to get this far.

Writing wise, after I finished off Poets and Pasties at the end
off November 2008, I took a somewhat quieter approach to
reading and performing afterwards.

I did do a reading at the The Cabaret Formerly Known As Bucket
(http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=23454554933)
at the end off November (just after Poets and Pasties) where I did
two short sets off poems ‘Voices on the Phone’, ‘She’, ‘Confused Identities’
for the 1st set which went down well and ‘Ten and a half lies’ and
‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ which went down really really well in the 2nd half.
‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ was great fun in particular as I got the full of the
audience up to help me out with the chorus for the poem, which
gave me a real real buzz if you know what I mean.

December wise, I did a six poem set at ‘Write Out Loud’ in Sale,
which gave me chance to try out another poem under my alias as
the Feedback Poet where I did a poem called ‘Seven’ as well as two
poems from my ‘Nothing to Save’ poems (Part I and III) which
are really more page poems, as well as one of my Xmas poems
‘Christmas Present Thank you letter’ and two kids poem
‘Brian likes to poke the bear’ and ‘My mum makes Christmas
pudding pasties’ which I enjoyed doing although it did worry me a
lot how under attended the night is. I think the night in question has
got a lot off work to do to keep going, as sadly there simply
isn’t a demand for it I think from the number of people who are
attending. It’s not really my place to say why it isn’t working,
but speaking from personal experience in marketing and P.R.,
if things ain’t going the way they should be going after a few
meetings, a change in thought somewhere.

The following night, Tony talked me into going along to another
open mike poetry night called Inn Verse based in the centre off Manchester (http://www.facebook.com/s.php?ref=search&init=q&q=Inn%20Verse&sid=0cb921d5ee8fd39812c919c8a6c93e8c#/group.php?gid=15047779703)
- this was a bit different to Write Out Loud which was a very serious
atmosphere by being very laid back, and certainly I think it
reflected in my own performance where I read out four poems
’12 Days after Christmas’, ‘Snow Ghost’ (A poem co wrote with a
pal, Audrey ages ago, a cover of a poem by David Rollibard (which
I forget what off the top of my head since) and a oldie called
‘A Lesson in interesting writing’.

I hadn’t being to that event before, but it was nice to
be spotted by the organiser, Simon who introduced me
(even though I had only seen him maybe once before in passing).
It settled me down a lot and I enjoyed reading there. Am glad
I stayed off the beer thou as I saw the effect it had a few other
people who got their poems back to front or in some cases forget
them altogether.

Otherwise, in December I did two radio sessions for my pal,
Coll at Literaryspot for Blogtalk Radio, firstly on 21st
December 2008 with Justin Blackburn which I performed
generally more serious poems, the poems in question being
‘Christmas Poem (2008)’, ‘The Snowman came alive’,
‘Nothing to Hide (I)’ and ‘I found’.

The second interview on there also featured among
others my pal, Kylyra from Dark World International and
my buddy, Gary from Trio Writers and it was a hoot doing
It. On this one, I performed two brand new poems
(which I haven’t performed on the live circuit)
‘Send in the Clowns’ and ‘On the Booze’ with ‘A Lesson in
interesting writing’ thrown in at the end to catch
everybody out.

Now 2009 is here, it is now time to get thinking about
what I am going to do this year. At this moment,
Poets and .. (Formely Poets and Pasties) will be doing
their second event in February 2009, which will take some
work as well a third one probably in April 2009 and I will also
be doing two other performances (I think) in March 2009 and
May 2009, but more details will follow on that soon of course.

I still need to get to the finishing point off ‘The End’ my
novel, which I intend doing a bit more work on over this
week-end (I think it is now 140 pages and around about
40,000 words) but it is looking good.

I also have a number of music projects to finish this year
(See mention to DIH before), but the DIH one will probably
be first I will aim to finish, and then I’ll think about Grey Ear,
White Noise and M.A.N.

All in all, it is going to be a busy year as normal! No change I know!

Keep Rocking

Andy N

Setting Sun – http://www.geocities.com/aen1mpo

Couple of Christmas Poems from a few years back

VIEW OF WINTER TREES (2002)

And leaves which have
Fell off the
Trees like peeled logs.

The image still sinks
In your mind,

Like childhood games
Lost in
Dunes of snow.

The image still sticks
In your mind

Like a view of
Trees asleep
In darkest winter.

****

Christmas Poem (2005)

On Christmas day
You held a snowball in your hand
Before dropping it
Down onto the ground
Laughing
When I ask you
What you are doing?

I can see
The smile in your eyes
As the wind
Brushes your hair
In your face
As you look
Down at the ground
And whisper amazing.

‘What’s amazing?’
I ask puzzled
‘You are’
and reply
and kiss me
and then hit me
on the back of my neck
with a snowball.

2 x New Poems

Dear all;

Here are two new poems 'Nothing to Hide (IV)' and 'Nothing to Hide (V)

Enjoy!

Andy n

NOTHING TO SAVE (IV)

Tell me again
What you mean.

Tell me again
Stood at deserted
Train stations
With snow sweeping in
From nearby hills
All over our hands
And our feet.

And when the snow
Turns to slush
Making us feel
Like we are children
On the run from Narnia
Tell me again.

And then let me go

***
NOTHING TO SAVE (V)

Look at the moon
which in the mis
throws down
a spotlight
on our frozen shoulders
and tell me again
you love me.

Look at the petals
in the fountain
which are sinking
further and further
into the water
and look at me
nervously shaking.

Tell me again
and stop walking
away into the distance.

Poets and Pasties opening night

Some of you may know I recently helped co-run as a trial

Basis, a poetry open mike night called ‘Poets and Pasties’

As a test to see if the demand was there to start one in the

New year on a more regular basis.

The idea came about from discussions with Gary and

Amanda, my collegues from ‘Trio Writers’ simply because

It could be fun to try and do one as we had all being to

Those on a semi regular basis over the past year or so.

Despite some reservations on my side, owning to the

Distance of the venue, which I thought may cause people

Some problems tracking down, we agreed to go ahead

With and even set up a date for it to start on 26^th November

2008.

I set up a few pages on myspace and facebook advertising

It and Gary did some P.R. on his side and we set up what

We could.

And off the top of my head, we attracted 25 people including

The bar staff.

Now I know there was a few people who were disappointed

By the turn out, but I must admit it was pretty what I expected

Firstly for a first night and secondly I knew from similar

Events being held in the local area what they had being

Attracting, we pretty got what I expected.

As for the night itself – me and Gary were pretty busy

Organizing and sorting things out and even at more than

One point re-scheduling orders, crossing people and when

Some people turned up we weren’t expecting to turn up,

Re-adding them back on.

And then the food… Home made pasties! Now that I

Believe was when the real fun started as I know Gary

Had some major problems with it, and Amanda I believe

Ended up taking over in the kitchen when they arrived.

Respect to her, she pulled them brilliantly as I have had

Loads off good feedback since then.

The event itself? Well – on the whole, it worked

Quite well! We will need to get more people in

For the future certainly, I felt for us to survive

But considering it was a trial run, we pulled it

Off fairly well.

I managed to persuade a few pals along

And even used a multi media section off the gig

Where my pal, Matt Dalby did his standard

Experimental poetry set, which I then followed

By doing one myself, and at the start of the

Second half, my friend from County Cork,

Kylyra which I know surprised some people.

I’m not going to name all of the acts there as

Love and respect to everybody for attending

As I loved you all.

Three lovely girls from MMU recorded the

Full gig and I am hoping to get a recording off

It in due course off them, but I did also take

A audio recording off it, which I aim to share

In the next few days online.

Cheers to all who attended of course (You

Know who you are!)

Snake Poem by Elise (Reprint)

This actually is a reprint of a old poem by my god daughter, Elise

from a few years back which I published on a old blog which

I discovered the other day and thought I would share it with you.

“I look to see the
slithering snake
and he starts
hissing
and gets into
a poisonous snake

It turns
Me into a snake”

A snake poem
By Elise aged nearly 8.

2 x new poems

Dear all;

Here are two new poems for you all to enjoy!

Two parts of the same puzzle, or maybe not?

Enjoy!

Cheers

Andy N

Nothing to Save (I)

The petals fell into the fountain

At sunset

As I watched you

Walk into the distance.

The petals fell into the fountain

As sunset

As I watched you

Turn back

And shout I love you.

The petals fell dripped into

The base of the fountain

As I watched you

Stand there

And start crying.

And when the petals

Soft as the bed in the earth

Started to reflect

In the moonlight

I almost wanted

To run back towards you

And hold you in my arms

One more time.

But I disappeared back into

The shadows.

Nothing to Save (II)

There is nothing to rescue

When I see

Petals drowning

In the fountain

At sunset.

There is nothing to rescue

When I see

Tears start to form

On their slight frames.

Perhaps if I'd got

There earlier

I could have reached

Out and held them in

My arms.

But like my memories of you

Perhaps it is best

To let them drown.

New FREE download from 'Deemed Psychotic'

Running ‘Setting Sun’ as I do

frequently involves besides all of the trudging and constant

updating that you have to do with websites do occasionally

involve some nice surprises which often come out of nowhere.

Take for example, the new recording by Dark World recording

artists ‘Deemed Psychotic’. Instead off going through the usual

procedure that many acts go through with releasing records and

stuff have instead released NINE tracks for FREE download from

the official darkworld website (http://www.darkworld.com/10page.html)

Describing themselves as heralding back to the days of the 70’s

super bands of rock for example ‘Heart’, ‘Ted Nugent’ and

‘Led Zeppelin’.

Deemed Psychotic previously released an 8 track album in 2006

called ‘The 1^st’. The forthcoming album due for release in 2009

called ‘2^nd take’ includes according to the band the addition of

a Deep Purple-esque organ to their rhythm section and

more serious lyrical content than their first release.

According to Kylyra from the band ‘It’s not all dark and

gloomy. There are a few lyrically lighter songs on

‘2^nd Take’ including 'Smile on Delivery' and

'The Lighter Side of Life', both of which we wrote in the

studio."

Speaking from a Setting Sun perspective, while there

is certainly all of the above mentioned, the sound is not

straight-forward as that and I picked up all kinds of other

influences and little bits in their sound that certainly don’t

make it sound like a progessive rock tribute band and even

from a few listens to the 9 tracks have got enough variety

to hint at a major force at work here.

Why not check them out for yourself?

Pop over to http://www.darkworld.com/10page.html

It's worth it, believe me.

Creative Writing week..

Just to show you how some weeks go, last week was

one of those weeks without any shadow of doubt creative writing wise.

Monday first off all, I ended up with my fortnightly visit over to

my buddies in Trio Writers, my writing and performance group

(http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=6340&post=46484&uid=15947196131#/group.php?gid=15947196131&ref=ts)

where besides doing our usual writing discussion, we also did a bit more

work on our forthcoming creative writing open mike event ‘Poets & Pasties’

(http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=6340&post=46484&uid=15947196131#/event.php?sid=64f460e90e720b9fa56b8ba22e13fb1c&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fref%3Dsearch%26init%3Dq%26q%3Dpoets%2Band%2Bpasties%26sid%3D64f460e90e720b9fa56b8ba22e13fb1c&eid=35871106458) which will happen on 26^thNovember 2008.

We did a writing excerise or too, which I produced one or

two new pieces which gave me a laugh doing, but certainly

not something worth posting here shall we say.

Tuesday night involved another trip over to another writing

workshop I have recently joined called ‘Animal Writes’ which

is run by the lovely Dominic Berry

(http://www.facebook.com/s.php?ref=search&init=q&q=Animal%20Writes&sid=d2322ec84a944d49ba5a893ac8de69db#/group.php?gid=24158377235&ref=ts)

Dom hosts this at the On the 8^th Day café bar which is on

Oxford Road near Oxford Road train station.

Dom started this group off the other month and I had such a

good laugh, I came along to the second meeting.

The group this time truth be told was a bit smaller this

time and we couldn’t sit where we sat last time which

didn’t make life easy sometimes with the level of the noise,

but it was good fun and the writing workshop we did

produced a poem which was a good first draft on a Ode

to Geri Halliwell (More on that later).

Wednesday Night ended up popping over to Poetica

(http://www.myspace.com/poeticamanchester) apoetry

discussion group.

I used to be a regular member off until this autumn

until I got dragged into other things. Was nice to be

back although I do know now aside from the next

meeting, it is unlikely I will be back until next year. What

was pleasing was there was a lot of new members there

and quite a few I hope will return over and over in the

future. As I may have mentioned in the past in cases like

Animal Writes and Poetica, the group need to keep attracting

new members if they hope to survive etc and certainly from

looking at all of the people in Poetica I didn’t know, this

looks like the case.

Thursday involved another night to a major charity

event for Poems called ‘How many poets does it take to

change a light bulb’? (which I did a nice little poem slot

featuring my love ode to Geri – see mentioned above

and another poem called ‘She) with my pals Vicky and

Tony!

If I am honest, I didn’t really enjoy the event so

I was glad I was one of the first few people on and it felt

like at least the audience bothered listening to me which

they certainly didn’t for some of the later people!

What was amazing was the people in there that

were from all over the country and the praise I got

from some people which was brilliant! Gave some

good confidence that!

I took a recording off this reading for those

interested and it can be downloaded for

FREE from

http://www.archive.org/details/andytonyvickyhowmanypoetsoct08

Friday by this point I was knackered, ended up

popping over after work to see Dominic Berry

at the Royal Exchange straight after work in

a nice evening show, which was a good show

too as I felt Dominic looked so confident in that show.

I took a recording of that show also..

It can be downloaded FREE from here

http://www.archive.org/details/domberryroyalexchangeoct08

Saturday I was over a mate’s doing things not creative, but

Sunday despite the fact I was knackered I went out to a

Write Out Loud in Middleton and had a great time there.

This oddly enough was recorded and downloaded

FREE here also

http://www.archive.org/details/andynalexhtonywriteoutloudoct08

By yesterday I was totally knackered as you

may have guessed and I then decided to have a week off

after week and rest!

So I am…

(Picture is a facebook drawing of me performing at

How Many Poets?)

3 x new poems performed at Freed Up

Dear all;

Here are three x new poems as performed at Freed Up Poets,
Manchester last week!

BRIAN LIKES TO POKE THE BEAR

Brian likes to poke the bear
with a little white stick.

Brian likes to poke the bear
and pull big faces at it
before calling it thick.

Brian likes to poke the bear
and he boasts it is scared of him
before again taking the mick.

Brian likes to poke the bear
before giving it a big hard stare.

Brian likes to poke the bear
but when the bear snarls at him
then cries out 'THAT'S NOT FAIR'



BLAIR'S MEGADETH BURGER

I couldn't believe it
when I read on
the internet
It was probably
the hottest
takeaway
In the world.


I couldn't believe it
when I read on
the internet
it's burgers
were reportingly
so spicey
it was recommended
you wore rubber
gloves
when you ate one.

What was it's
secret ingredent
I asked myself
to make it so hot
it would almost
make your fingers
melt
if you tried
to eat one
without wearing
rubber gloves.


STOLEN BIKINI

You say you cannot believe
somebody stole your wallet
and used your credit cards
to buy two machine guns
and three automatic pistols.


You say you cannot believe
somebody stole your wallet
and used your credit cards
to buy some explosives
and some designer sunglasses.

You say you cannot believe
somebody stole your wallet
and used your credit cards
to buy a bikini from H & M


And then post it to you
from Brazil
once it had being worn.


(Image borrowed from
http://api.ning.com/files/lZ4SC6CFu36xzkxEm*8RoDBzsJ*hSgzPGOADVEdzh49w-XV0RiMX51rr-0oiTajn-uc09G902TUx878BwCnq0lMDSI6xG4Ah/poetry.gif)

Poets & Pasties - New Poetry event

Dear all;

Here are details of a new poetry event I will be involved
with on 26th November 2008

Cheers

Andy n

Poets and Pasties

Hosted By: Trio Writers
When: 26 Nov 2008, 19:30
Where Bolton Rugby Club
Avenue St
Bolton, BL13AW
United Kingdom

((http://events.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&eventid=466865.71272&Mytoken=5933DEA9-E35C-4C88-979FC80E0FBE4764101976173)

OR

(http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?compose&ref=mb#/event.php?eid=35871106458&ref=mf)