Some days this blog will just be something like "Hey, have you seen The Fatal Glass Of Beer?"

Don't go round breaking people's tambourines.

 I'm still dithering about what to do with my Wednesdays, but even if I haven't yet committed to reviewing my W.C. Fields box set I've still been enjoying re-viewing it, so here's the"short" that first got me into him. It's not necessarily typical of Fields' comedy, he's spoofing virtue here rather than flaunting corruption, but all his best work was gooey with a juggler's disdain for melodrama, and I still find it delicious a century later, despite having no idea what was originally being parodied. What could be typical is the pacing, slow but restless, the kind of thing that might generate exponential waves of giggling in a live audience, but play quite differently to someone watching alone. Rewatching it I also now notice a strong influence from his dulcimer-playing upon my own musical output. (There's at least as much W. C. Fields in Mirrorboy as there is Buster Keaton.) Enjoyez.

Reeling

 The world has got so unfaceable, fortunately, that this week saw me finally forced to ration my twitter and facebook use and get on with actually making something. Here is the result:

 I had a lot of fun doing this, partly because I got to recut things I was in so that they were more about me, obviously, but mainly because I finally get to put David Shire's score for "The Conversation" over footage of me skulking around a city, something I think everyone should try for themselves at least once.
Youtube love here. (Warning: now includes footage of me from later than 2004.)

Minimalism's all I'm capable of, which keeps costs down.

"Take what you've got and fly with it." Jim Henson said that.

My mate Paul Thompson also said something along those lines, and equally pithy. I was talking to him about how I wanted to make an album before the year was out, even though I couldn't play a musical instrument. We were crammed into the Players' Bar. Paul's a musician, but we've known each other from the London Dungeon for seven years or so. Here's something of his:

He'd asked me to appear as a post-apocalyptic clown (plus sundry other supporting characters) in a play he'd written for the London Horror Festival back in October. (I based my performance on the video at the bottom of this post, of Max Wall dying in Germany). It was Paul's first play as a writer, and it read like a dream in at least two senses. I reckon musicians are good at dialogue. Rehearsals involved a trip to his flat, a few ideas on how we'd perform these lines - who'd take what, and when - then just running this through, script in hand. Then having something to eat. The next rehearsal we'd try it differently... It was a very nice way to work, and when we finally came to perform "It's Only A Matter Of Time" in a pleasingly packed Etc Theatre a number of the things we attempted on stage had never been rehearsed.

 Photo by Lanna Meggy

But not so you'd know.
Anyway, as the pianist at the Players' launched inevitably into Rocket Man and those people finally left that table, Paul and I talked about making things and - I guess - mininalism - or at least the Mirroboy video, and how I only played two notes on the guitar and how that was one of the jokes, and he put something very important very succintly:
"It's about making it matter."
Well said, Paul. That's exactly it. Whether it's Galton and Simpson and a Sunday afternoon, Shakespeare and the verb "to be", a bowl of fruit, a wicker chair, the colour blue, or four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence and waiting for Godot, it's just about making it matter.
That's why I wanted to make an album in the first place, I think. I like writing lyrics. There are fewer words, and they matter more.
So I'd better get on with it.

Speaking of not much, shall we look at the rest of that aborted draw-a-monster-a-day project? Yes, they're dreadful. Let's get that out of the way.

 

 

 

 

Oh well.
Here's that video of Max Wall then.
Who knows how these things happen?

Hey, hey, I'm the Monkees.

 Remember how I occasionally went on about that film I wanted to make of "The Secret Agent"? Well this isn't it, but it has a tang. Presenting: Mirrorboy –

 

 

Embiggen.

  Gerard suggested making a video for this song after he saw it performed at the fundraiser where my friend Katy broke her fist punching a fish which is why we have rehearsals. He also suggested the locations, mixed the track, and kept the camera rolling as I attempted to restage some happy accidents. So we had a hoot, met some Father Christmasses, and fourteen months later, here's the finished article. Enjoy responsibly.

 (And if you liked that, or even if you thought "seven bloody minutes???" there's more of Gerard's magic here, featuring a robot, Nick "Colonel Dalby" Lucas, and a proper song from possibly London's Last Londoner.)