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A brief disclaimer before we start. Straight face, he said; “don’t make more friends, make more art.” So the following’s approved, with third-person removed, I swear that everything yr going to hear is true. Or once was. And I promise, pretty eyes, I did my dues. Documented drama, all those diamonds saved and used. To sing you something new, a full racked record stores worth of regrets; I think they missed a few. So let’s let demolition win. Say speeches, prime the charges and begin. But before the wrecking balls roll in, a sad habit I can’t shake, I have a few complaints I wish to make.
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So many kids in bands have got it wrong, always hanging out in gangs when they could be writing songs. I guess it’s just a question of balance, and how you never wanna cockblock the talent. I’m not saying, that’s explicitly what you should do. Just cos you can write her a love song; don’t mean that you have to. So many kids in bands have got it wrong, got the parents and the privilege to pay for when they bomb. This ain’t a poverty means purity snob thing, just, the poor can’t afford to sustain being boring. I’m not saying money don’t help the musician. Full time high horse, part time position. Fuck it. Go faster. Hit the best chords harder. Stray further. Be the most explosive. Be the loudest, worstest, proudest mess you can. Be the sound that slays us, screaming Damn the Man. So many kids in bands have got in wrong, they’ll be backstage sniffing lines when they should be going on. How the cocaine fosters the fomo, but no-one’s missing out on yr solo. So many kids in bands just suck. Average Bitter Creeps Doing Endless Filler Guff. If it’s not the kind of thing you can teach then throw guitars in the green bin, take those dreams and shoot them. I’m not inciting you to actually kill a man. But songs outlasting people, that’s an undeniable problem. So many kids in bands get it right but they quit when it don’t happen overnight. So many kids in bands get it wrong, it’s the ego that keeps them carrying on. That’s us. Fuck it/Damn that Man.
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3. |
Hardly Tokyo
03:09
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Don’t get fractured, get plastered and paper the cracks that the parties have caused. Peeling stickers off the gaps in the walls, you never learn. I have been cherished, embellished, enmeshed, for so long. You never learn. Skylines change with the season. And this is the city that paved Paradise, underpaid half of us, unfinished and glorious. Where you can be anything that you choose. Cos this is the city that tears down everything, rebuilds on a whim. Don’t get fractured, be actors and actresses, stress that the script still needs work. It’s not yr fault that the dialogue hurts, you never learn. I have been written as smitten and smote, you never learn. Where you can be anything you (one two) choose. If you can’t decide it here, I don’t know where. Cos this is the city where the parks are parliament, the graves are government, on the edges of everything; this is the city.
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4. |
Worldsworstcurse
02:56
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I’m not inciting you to actually kill a man. I’m not inciting you to actually kill a man but we both know you could. I’m not inciting you to actually kill a man but we both know you could be convinced by campaigns and trained to hate. For egos and empires. I’m in that middle aged terror phase taking stock of all that I’ve achieved. Oh I used to dream. I know enough to know I’ll never know enough and knowing that’s enough for me. I don’t hate to say I told you so. So I told you so. I’m not saying yr political opinion is wrong. I’m not saying yr political opinion is wrong but it is and you should acknowledge that. I’m not saying yr political opinion is wrong but it is and you should acknowledge that leaders lie and the media manipulates. Egos and empires. Always being right is the world’s worst curse, always being right is the world’s worst. Always being right is the world’s worst curse, always being right. Fuck it. I don’t hate to say I told you so, but you got sold.
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5. |
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So we hit that bong with sorrow, maybe tomorrow will be the day I leave the house. I don’t mean to spoil yr session. My concession to those tomorrows running out. Sometimes, it just hits you. And in those bleached bleak weeks that follow, the smoke we swallow under plastic ceiling stars. WritingthisisallI’vegottotryandblockthesadandkeepthestressin, call it confession but it’s the only cut that scars.
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6. |
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Came here on my eighteenth. But really I’d been coming here for weeks. I was too pleased to get Id’d; pulled out my passport, got called an asshole, but I still got my free drink. Saved £1.50 on some shotglass promo mix, some syrup shit, man, those were different times. They say you never forget yr first pint. Well mine was a vodka and lime and I don’t remember the rest of the night. Got told I puked on the staircase, but I have thrown up in every corner of that place. Fell in love at every other table. Found kinships, formed friendships, fought hardships. What I’m saying is; I am not impartial. Let’s talk about the bands; from the nineties till now, maybe you can name three of three thousand but each one of those fuckers owes this place a debt. I’m too scattered for the scene now, but I still hear it when I’m down. That full room sound, you don’t forget. I’d rather have a drink than a memory. I’d rather not fight to have community. I’d rather not namecheck an enemy, but I wrote those letters like what I said mattered and he was two steps ahead. Will Adams playing chess. White Horse moves two and left, and every letter back read just like press. You are released from yr culture. You have succumbed to nostalgia. This scene moves with or without ya…. And proceeds to name ten alternative venues, seven of which had closed in the year since that list was made. As if to prove on demand, you can’t damn the man with kids in bands. They’ll build apartments here, they’ll build apartments here, and everything we built before will disappear. They’ll build apartments here and we will be gone. Build smaller flats, big council tax, they’ll build apartments here and we will be gone. Staged a wake with a year’s extension, but dead men don’t care what you think of them. Ghost ships don’t give no shits, give yr bookings to a predator and pipe dream that Editors will save the day with a benefit gig. That’s the year my girlfriend quit. Said “them banners came out too quick, yeh this was neat but I have to move on.” You can’t Damn the Man, but you can Save the Empire.
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7. |
Teambreaking
06:02
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AND THE EARTH WAS RENT ASUNDER, it was a codeine kind of dream. Shook awake by trucks and tired trackway screams. Sleeping in shifts, pick up the slack when the other sags. Some nights the guilt hits, but you can’t help but think that yr selfish. Well it’s not selfish if it’s self defence, it’s not selfish. And which one’s worse, losing yr brain or yr body first? Hey Holly don’t go back to the doctor. He’ll only repeat what he told ya, yr body can’t take all the trauma. Hey Holly don’t go back to the hospital, they’ll only fix you up if it’s physical, and sometimes we don’t come back out at all. No-one needs to get home as much as you.
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8. |
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Martin and Sophie were tropes, so Moseley; the muso, his muse with the money. If you’ve had those kind of friends then you know how this ends. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Martin and Sophie were snobs, the cool kind. We’d get wrecked and recommend records. They said the best music grows where the mainstream won’t go. Said they don’t even listen to the radio. I did not say, so how would you know? Martin wrote Sophie this song. I can’t lie, I cried every time that he played it. Showed so much faith, so hopelessly misplaced. But oh, what a melody to waste. Cos Sophie shed Martin like skin. The last perfect song unrecorded. The best bands are ones who break up when they’re bored. I heard, her parents owned this bar abroad. One of those ex pat sun drenched strips. One speaker radio grinding the top 40 hits. All those mainstream and mass market songs. Still here when yr gone.
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9. |
Porthmaddog, dog
04:27
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Cardiff I got nothing for you, just that vague valley diaspora, I’ll never win with drinks or poetry. See, you were always Wales to me, you or maybe Aber (but we don’t talk about that, ever.) Out on the coast I swear that time is broken, that the scenery crept up while we were sleeping. (but we’re not sleeping) Where the bleakest and most beautiful relate; I take drugs to get to that place and I’ve never looked that pretty. (both several hours and centuries apart.) Cadi cut her hair and it’s all I can think about, Cadi cut her hair. I’ve been staying on the caravan fringes, where the green gives to sandy beaches, I take drugs and keep missing the light sweetches. Off season middle importance morally compromised crew; say we’ll come back, but we never do. And Damn The Man but god, I’ll take his money. Receipt the fuck out of these taxis. (so drive slowly.) Or take the train and watch the window like a movie, 30 stops till the right country, the whole film stops and it’s yr city and you walk out like “real life could never look that pretty”. This view hasn’t changed for a thousand years, constrained by coastline. The year I was changed by a single view, I was coasting on contrite. Cadi cut her hair and it’s all I can think about, a trim to keep the fringe out. Cadi cut her hair and it’s all I can think about, it wasn’t even special just a trim to keep the fringe out, Cadi cut her hair and it’s all I can think about now. Cadi cut her hair and it’s all I can think about and I am scared to sleep cos I don’t want to dream about how I can’t cope with the things I really care about now. Cadi cut her hair.
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10. |
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So we’ll be hypocrites too, I guess we can’t afford not to. There’s a compromise in policy when you compete for agency and we’ve lost worse to darker deeds. Seen smaller shots succeed. I bet that Man feels pretty Damned tho. Empire! Let the queues run round the block. Lines of desperate men. Getchoo one who can do both, an apology that don’t. Lines of desperate men. So many kids in bands have got it wrong, and those kids ain’t kids. After days of dark debate I asked a friend on higher rate, would you take the stage or stage some loud withdrawal. She said, “if it weren’t for tainted shows, I swear we’d get no shows at all”. Empire! So easily replaced. Lines of desperate men. Cold comfort when the call comes; you can shame him, you can sell yr side till he can’t hide where the blame lies, but he won’t call them lies. Eulogise on misplaced trust, imply you both messed up, is seven paragraphs enough? Someone get this man a thesaurus! Fuck it. Only contrite once they’re caught. Lines of desperate men. And not even the president believes you. Not even the president believes you. “Yah and I won’t judge him till the courts do” Not. Even. The. President. Believes you. So we’re all hypocrites, too little too late to admit that we were wrong. I bet that Man feels pretty Damned tho.
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11. |
The fucking Iliad
06:19
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YOU USED TO TOWER OVER US ALL NOW LONDON MAKES YOU SEEM SO SMALL
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Yr Poetry Birmingham, UK
Yr Poetry. The Band
Alexei: Guitar
Junior: Drums
Damn the man.
Save the empire.
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