Skies Burnt and Lessons Learnt March 2008
1. Manipulative Honey - A shameless blues rant after some cow stole my debit card
2. Sugar and Cream (feat Kelly Brownell) - Inspired by the love triangles featured on Trisha
3. Pedestal - Mini song of expectations written years ago
4. The Predicament of Pan - Concerning what happens when everyone around you grows up
5. Fly In The Gin - Written on the bus back from the bank. You get my drift
6. Better for the Sugar - Big Blues hangover song
7. Carnality - He stalker song, an ode for those who love too much
8. The Water and God - Religion and me
9. Beacon
10. The Colour of his Eyes - A brief fling at Leeds fest.
11. London - Composed on a train back from the city engrossed in disappointment
12. Carnality (Remix)
13. Beacon (Remix)
14. All These Miles (Acoustic) – For Andy
Credits and Thanks:
Acoustic Guitar, Vocals – Verity Burton; Additional Vocals – Kelly Brownell; Lead guitar, Ebow – Andy Mackin ;Drums – Andy Wyke, Nick Rezen (Better for the Sugar); Percussion, Mandolin, Double Bass, Triangle – Andy Mills; Bass – Kurt Kurtis; Piano – Nick Gladdish; Harmonica – Dave Burlton; Saxophone – Paul Gowland; Violin - Patrick Lawrence.
It’s finally done, a year in the making and largely due to the efforts of a large number of people good-hearted or drunk enough to contribute to the work of a ginger. Aren’t they lovely? Yes, yes they are! Here follow the thank you’s.
Andy Mills@Elipse: A very patient engineer, talented, generous and philosophical many thanks! Andy Mackin ; I love you loads puppy thanks for sticking around all these years and miles; Andy Wyke; morning pisshead! You are a loads more hardcore drummer than that Meg chick. Dave Burlton; the smartest most lovely, harmonica-ist, I’ll have a baguette, haw he haw! Ian@Elipse Zappa wishes he was you; Kelly Brownell , sugar would have been bran flakes without you, tasteless and boring! Kurt Kurtis ; mon amour! you get a gold star for being a veteran but not for trying to sell me a fez. Idiot. Nick Gladdish; you’re like Geoffrey Rush in ‘Shine’ put the chair down and dance for me! Nick Rezen thanks so much for stepping in and for the advice; Patrick Lawrence ; your playing is beautiful thank you; Paul Gowland; you made everything sound wonderful and cans disappear! Patrick Snape, Thanks for your above the call of duty scribbling and designing; Simma, and ‘Acoustic Circus’ who look after so many songwriters and make good things happen.
Also, thanks to everyone who has encouraged this project; Bob Fischer (dude, I heard you died – faker!) Mr Ian ‘Land Baron’ (who likes to rock the party?), Stef (and her cakes), Mandy (knows all the songs!), Dec (and the Siam pony club), Liz (for lending her support, Guffaw!), the ladies @ Moorepay (DAMN THE MAN!!!), Ace copydisc and everyone at Elipse studio!
Finally Mam, Dad, Corrie (pigeon), Matt, Gran and Grandad (who never miss the Bob Fischer show!)
All songs recorded at Elipse Studio (myspace.com/elipsestudio) except ‘All These Miles’, recorded by Steve Stubbs @ Bright Pink Music.
Days in Diamond White March 2008
1. The Day Everyone Got Married
2. She’s Gonna Change the World (Live)
3. What A Thing To Do
4. Song For Corrie
5. Orange Peel (Live)
6. All These Miles
7. Solomons Temple (Live)
8. Sharing Her Jewels
9. Orange Peel
10. Manipulative Honey (Live)
Recorded @ First Ave studios, Live tracks from the ‘Red Launch’ @ The Bridge Hotel, Summer 2005.
'Red' - August 2005
One day I decided I'd write a blues song, having no idea how to play blues at all. Red was the result (I thought naming a blues song Red might be hilarious but I was young and foolish, you be the judge). It came from one line I made up during a jam session; 'Red's your favourite colour when its on my lips'. I played it at a gig in Sunderland the same night and having come to the conclusion that both me and the song were crap and undeserving of free jamaican beer, I didn't play it again for almost three years. It wasn't until Andy Mackin asked me if I had any other songs he could play slide guitar on because he'd just learned to play it that I eventually said 'Well, I have this song called Red but its shite'. He made me play it which I did begrudgingly and it wasn't so bad. I found the more people that played on it, the better it got. So now, seven people get up to play Red and it sounds better than I imagined.
The Day Everyone Got Married
I suddenly found myself single before the Leeds Festival 2004 but resolved to pull a stranger in a tent somewhere on arrival. It became very clear very quickly that it was not to be as almost everyone was coupled up as if it were a school trip. It occurred to me as I was stumbling comfortably drunk back to my tent 'When did everyone get married and why am I single for it?' I wrote TDEGM the October after -having actually read about how to play blues. Its my favourite one on the E.P. and I still get single people coming up to me going 'Play that wedding song. I need cheering up'
Buddy Come Home
My mate Dave the Happy Singer announced in the summer of 2003 that he was leaving for Germany which left me with a vacancy for shoulder-to-cry-on. I coped without him quite well until I lost my job, got threatened with eviction and had to walk in a blizzard to sign on the dole. It was at that point that I decided he should abandon all happiness in Germany with his teenage girlfriend and come home to me so he could make me feel better. Selfish? Yes. I wrote Buddy Come Home the following August. Dave didn't even hear it till he was homeless on my sofa 3 months later. He tried to write one about me in return but it turned out to be about tea bags.
It Was Me
I constantly got told off by my parents because, as a child, I was evil. I would steal Christmas presents and kill tadpoles. However, as soon as I stopped living at home I realised owning up to stuff was better. Its easier to say 'it was me' than make up an excuse. Its my ska song - which I didn't notice until I was in the studio recording- and is basically a list of all the very silly things I have done.
Song for Corrie
It sounds soft as shite but I love my little sister (She's 22). On holiday in Ireland we would lie in a tent and quote Hunter S Thompson at each other whilst annoyed Italians screamed at us (I also confessed that I stole her Christmas presents). This song is all about Corrie, her humour and her tomfoolery. Its also an apology for treating her like my bitch for the first ten years of her life. The song in a stupid tuning which involves tuning the G string two tones up (insert joke about G string here). She cried when she heard but then she had had a bottle of red wine.
'Gravity is the Reason' - June 2004
For my 22nd Birthday, my ex bought me three whole sacred hours in First Ave recording Studios.
Although excited at the prospect, it also scared the hell out of me because I'd never recorded my own
stuff before. I only meant to record a couple of just me and guitar songs which I didn't hate, but after we broke up I kept going back whenever work and the bank would allow. Hence, 'Gravity is the Reason' was made over 7 months and the following June I accidently released my first EP. The launch was in my backyard with a barbecue and a bottle. Thanks Rach!
She's Gonna Change the World
I used to work in a well known coffee shop with a lass called Bob who was the chef and liked flambeing things. She and I would open the place at 7:30, drink coffee, smoke tabs and occassionally serve people eggs. During
this time she'd tell me all about her late night debauchery and how she'd set the world to rights. I'd listen and laugh and think, 'this girl is gonna change the world!'
Orange Peel
Basically, I set out to write the most complicated riff I could think of in a damp student flat on a guitar made of MDF. I was in a relationship at the time made up of one sided communication (help me Trisha)
and feeling like there wasn't any point to it. I kept getting the line 'I don't see it happening' over and over in my head so I wrote the whole song around it. It's about craving a kind word, wishing you weren't the kind of person who needs a kind word and then realising you never will be.
What a thing to do
Everyone kicks up such a song and dance about love (Oh my god I said the 'L' word watch em run!). In Shakespeare, no one booked themselves in for therapy or told their mates they had a stalker if some
brave soul with an honest bone said 'I love you'. These days you'd fare better by saying 'I kill fluffy bunnies and enjoy homicide'. So this song is partly about that. Saying 'I love you'. What a thing to do? Run for the hills like Iron Maiden.
Gravity is the Reason
I came up with 'Reason can't give us what gravity can and gravity is the reason it never goes to plan' in my student flat when I was 19. Ironically then, it was to persuade me into the very relationship that this song is about leaving. Yes Trisha, your right. I've made my decision and I'm walking out of the door alone (audience cheers!). Its about admitting to yourself when it really is time to stop and having the balls to say so and leave.
Sharing her Jewels
What can I say, this is for my gran. The warmest and brummiest woman that ever there was. It's my oldest surviving song, written when I was 16 shortly after she died. We returned to the house and her jewellery was in the kitchen. It was divided between me and my sister and there were a lot of memories in every stone. It was strange, sad but necessary.