i power kexp

i'll be honest: i've never been much of a charitable giver.

i can't think of one point in my life where i've called up a charity and said "hey, i like your cause, count me in". don't get me wrong, i give to numerous charities but this process always begins with being cornered by a lady - and it is always a lady - with a clipboard on a busy high street. i don't know why it's always females, perhaps men are just poor at getting unsuspecting passers-by to give them money. i guess if they bat lashes in the same way it probably wouldn't have the desired effect, and in your more homophobic regions it could even lead to a crowd at the gallows old-school style or the mass exodus of all hetero-penis from the town pursued by some flouncing anti pied piper..

i digressed. back to the point: i'm a tight fisted bastard. but this all changed this week, when i finally got off my butt and, in this time of financial uncertainty, i made the decision to get involved with Seattle-based radio station KEXP for their summer pledge drive.

i do feel a pang of guilt for giving to KEXP when 6Music is facing the axe, but my reasons are simple:

a. you can't give 6Music any money. fale.

b. i pay my licence fee so i already do, technically, give, although i also give to a whole bunch of shit i don't like and don't watch/listen to. just think about that - you're all technically giving over money so they can make The One Show

c. KEXP has to hand a fantastic back catalogue of streaming archives from their live guests, accessible at the touch of a button, and we're talking both the cutting edge and the time-weathered heroes, from Death Cab and MGMT to Bright Eyes and Los Campesinos!. it also run block parties, music festivals and is home to the single best radio show anywhere in the world: Jon Richards' Jon In The Morning, some effortless mix of the old and new alternative, who'll regularly play, on request or otherwise, stuff from Seattle's own Long Winters and Harvey Danger, plus the likes of Black Keys, Arcade Fire, Joy Formidable, Sam Amidon, Future of the Left, The National, Sufjan, Elliott Smith and the list goes on and on.

there is no other site like this, it is truly one of a kind and, in the current financial climate, i think it's about time i stepped in, albeit with a paltry donation.

with the needle currently sat at just under 50% at time of writing (about $300k short of their target), it's not too late to chip in. at the very least, spend an hour with them a week and improve/expand your music taste (yes yes, regardless of how good it is now, i know yours is great already).

http://www.kexp.org

an evening at the ICA

it's always fascinating, for me at least, to see a songwriter with a band. the endless questions like, how do they write together? do they write together or is that one man responsible for everyone's every move? and which comes first, the song on the record or the song being blasted down into your eardrums at 115dB?

welcome to the ICA. well, not right now but recently. Wednesday night in fact, when i cashed in the ticket given to me by my parents on my 29th birthday to go and watch Matthew Houck's Phosphorescent, famed (in my head at least) for gentle heartbullying country/blues/folk.

but that's deceptive. what that description above doesn't tell you is that your country-blues-folk will be served to you on a platter of psych-rock, elongated with the musical rolling pin that is guitar solos, garnished with the permission of a rather serious-looking curly haired guy from Atlanta. this spindly creature, Houck himself, will wander from centre stage at any opportunity but not forward to bask in any glow, but backwards or sideways to let the band do the work.

i guess for anyone who knows me well the question is simple: you hate drawn-out wig-outs. why the fuck are you there?

simple. Matthew Houck has a voice which, for some reason, i regard to be the perfect voice for the style of music he plays; it breaks, it warps, it sounds out of control but it can't be because he hits the same notes in the same places every time. it's a perfect example of order from chaos, that happens to hit its peak at the most important part of any band: the vocals.

so why the band? in the encore it's clear that a lone Houck can deliver a stunning song himself, as first Pride star 'Wolves' and then Here's To Taking It Easy also-ran 'Heaven, Sittin Down' are given solo treatment, the former taken from its original ukulele-laced slow-burning arrangement, and the latter given new purpose away from its full band country hopalong style, both gleaming in the stage spotlights that night, the lack of any other interference a clear benefit.

but i guess a counter argument can be made, as those two highlights make up only two of the four heart-in-mouth moments at tonight's ICA show (the ICA, incidentally, is a beautiful theatre and venue, albeit one i sadly have little time to explore). a big fan of willie nelson, Houck and band punch out Nelson's 'It's Not Supposed To Be That Way' (released on their Nelson tribute album To Willie) and recent-album highlight 'The Mermaid Parade' to great effect, the main man looking decidedly more relaxed at both these points, taking the microphone from its stand, lead draped over his shoulders, roaming to the front of the stage for once to bask in the sheer heartbreak that, for the Willie Nelson cover at least, just isn't present on the record, and that second verse in 'The Mermaid Parade' gets me at the best of times but tonight it makes for a lump in the throat.

I guess then whatever Houck does, there's always potential for the magic touch. I'll be honest, tonight wasn't the greatest gig ever witnessed by humanity which, given my short attention span isn't surprising when you're dealing with songs forcibly extended to six, seven, eight plus minutes, but Phosphorescent are a band who are more relevant now than at any previous point in its existence, you should check out 'Wolves' and 'The Mermaid Parade' on iTunes and get the free mp3 from KEXP below (more on them soon).

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/phosphorescent

Free MP3: http://blog.kexp.org/blog/2009/05/14/song-of-the-day-phosphorescent-wolves-live-on-kexp/

nearly..

hi all

further to recent site trauma, the relaunch is nearly complete, though sadly it is at the cost of the forum. nearly six years of embarrassing onstage shots and setlists down the drain, although the traffic had tailed off recently anyway.

in the meantime links should be fixed/updated in the next few days, and hopefully all will be well once more.

i'm playing down at 21 South Street Arts Centre this week, Saturday 22nd, entry about £3 i think, and it's entirely acoustic (no PA at all!) so it'll be one for the Novelty books.

see you soon.
b. x

it's the end of the site as we know it

.. and i feel fine?

sure as shit, my webhost today announced an unprecedented loss of data.

benmarwood.com will be down until i'm told it's ready to not be down anymore.

i have a backup of most of the site on my laptop, but inevitably in situations like this i'm sure there'll be something i've forgotten to back up.

something like my forum, whose various backups existed on the same server as the original data. you'll have more news when i do.

thanks,
b. x

a change of Heart. wear.

regardless of whether you're a solo artist or in a 20 piece choir, i still think you need running buddies. people who you can turn to and rely on when you're out and about in foreign towns, when you're sick of the company of your band or, in my case, yourself.

with Turner abroad, Mr T-T enjoying more success than ever before (and rightly so) and Mssrs Lockey and Thief warming up for a UK tour this week, tonight i had to say goodbye to my running buddies as a collective for the last time. tonight, the Heartwear Process refomed for one night only just to properly split up, all under the excuse/umbrella of a 30th birthday party.

not mine i hasten to add.

i think of these people like my music family. i was there at their first show back in 2004, and i was there at there last tonight. in the meantime they've spawned a great offshoot in Quiet Quiet Band, we've formed a record label, destroyed countless stages and, to my knowledge, i've never argued with any of them.

so tonight we gather together friends of the band, most of them shared with me, as well as Damien A Passmore and the Loveable Fraudsters, the three acts present at their first gig, and we went hell for leather until the flanel shirts were sweaty and the tears were in our eyes. and i did see some grown men cry tonight.

i shall miss these people as a band with all my heart.

mp3: Ben Marwood - No Name #1 (Elliott Smith cover)
http://www.benmarwood.com/site2/nn1.mp3

T minus 1

"Driving one day, a Catholic priest hits a frog hopping across the road.

Horrified at his actions, he pulls over to the side of the road and picks the frog up. Hurt but not seriously, he takes it home with him and feeds it Fly soup.

"You must get your rest", the priest tells the frog, "and in the morning, when you're recovered, I shall take you back to the wild". He turns to leave the frog to rest.

"But", speaks the frog, "I cannot sleep without being tucked in tightly".

The good priest tucks in his injured guest and turns to leave.

"But", speaks the frog, "I cannot sleep without a story".

The priest again honours the frog's request, and reads him a bedtime story until his eyes grow heavy. The kind priest again heads for the door.

"But", speaks the frog, "I cannot sleep without a bedtime kiss".

The humble priest smiles and, after a moment's thought, decides to grant the frog's request, leaning over to kiss him softly.

The frog turns into an 11 year old boy.

And that, your honour, concludes the statement in my defence."

the horror, the horror

the end of today brought with it a chilling fact - i have three evenings now to tie up the remaining parts of the album.

not three days, three evenings. fifteen hours maximum, not even factoring in time for the optional extras like making dinner. still, things are shaping up okay, i have a couple of minor adjustments to make to 'Toil' and i still have to try and make 'Singalong' sound vaguely good after a couple of grumbles from the crew now affectionately known as Team Grope.

speaking of the Gropers, shame on me for doubting Kev and Jacqui, they had it in hand the whole time. just three more days to go and their work will be done, and their names forever written onto the plaque of gratitude that hangs in some imaginary hall somewhere in a mansion i don't own.

i'm shitting a brick.

so i'm going to distract myself, having just finished for the day at 1am, due to resume tomorrow. if that's not a horror, then consider this:

i recently got a chance to finally watch Paranormal Activity, until recently my brother's choice of shriek-inducing horror. i was excited given the reports. here we go though: film achieves cult status, filmed on a low budget, won some critical awards, mostly video camera footage, a lot of hype, 'human' (read: unlikeable) characters, otherworldly plot, suspense building to six or so seconds of excitem--

i could be talking about the Blair Witch Project, and you can remember how that turned out. yep, shitty. for five seconds of PA i was totally sold, then the credits rolled, all the best bits prior to that being the stuff i knew was going to happen thanks to the trailers.

rather embarrassingly, do you know what the scariest film i've ever seen is? i kid you not, but it's The Grudge 2. no, not even the Japanese one, the Hollywood one, widely regarding as a steaming pile of crap (see IMDB: 4.6/10 - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433386/). the reason for my liking it is probably people's main reason not to like it: it has no point whatsoever.

the first Hollywood Grudge film was a straight (and shit) remake of the japanese film Ju-On - same director, i think, just changed for the mainstream. Grudge 2, meanwhile, was a mixture of bits of Ju-On 2 and the proposed but never completed Ju-On 3 which was sacrificed in order to get G2 done. the result is a plot which makes no sense, starts weird, continues weird, ends weird but scares well. the supernatural beast is the same we got to know in the first one, but in this film it branches out to levels that are just never explained. contrast that with PA's demon and demonology, and at every step there's a clear reason for what's happening. there's no mystery, there's too much reason. since when have demons been reasonable.

also Sarah Michelle Gellar dies in The Grudge 2, which is a fucking brilliant idea that should happen in every single film.

honourable mention then goes to a film i saw shortly afterwards, The Mist. it's based on a Steven King novella, which guarantees nothing. it's a low budget, quite poorly acted b-movie masterpiece again featuring the supernatural, with little explanation at the start as to what the hell is going on, though we're fed a tiny part of what's happened later on. but again, merciless beasts that don't seem to obey reason or have purpose, coupled with an ending that switches from supernatural horror to a much more emotional horror, and then smashes you in the mouth with an ending that would be gutting if it wasn't so hilariously brilliant.

okay, okay, i'm overselling it now, it wasn't brilliant, but it was solid and i like its style. so what have we learned? that sometimes good horror comes from not understanding why the horror exists, what it's up to or what it wants.

which brings me to not a film, but a book: House Of Leaves. i finished reading this recently after it crippled the minds of [edit] radio's Kev Lawson and nu-folk's own Jim Lockey, as well, i found out later, as my buddy Steve Sharman, who works in a mental institute and sees some scary shit. if you look into his eyes you'll see it. once i saw what it did, i had to know why, but half of the book's power is not knowing why. it takes the idea of a supernatural beast and replaces it with a house. yep, a house. no, not a haunted house, as such, but an entity that is a house. maybe. it's never explained, that part.

i'll try and explain, it's a book written from the viewpoint of a character, going through the notes of a deceased old man who is explaining the events captured in a documentary that he claims doesn't exist, which itself documents a house which doesn't obey the laws of basic physical space as we know them, and may or may not be possessed, or serve a purpose. footnotes are scattered everywhere as the tales spin-off onto a tangent, followed by some textbook-like theory, followed by snippets recounting the documentary (which is told like the 'story') which will then give you just enough information about the events which are either about to happen or will eventually happen, only not enough information to piece together a) why this is happening, b) how this event concludes or c) when down the line it occurs.

it's a masterclass in storytelling, and undeniably rewarding, even if the continued
manipulation of space and time will leave you genuinely wondering
about the intentions of your own house, not
to mention incredible art direction
where appropriate descents
are represented
literally

not to mention

disjointed

events

skipping

around

merci

less

ly

all too often leaving you with endless burning questions as to the whys and hows, which quite remarkably by the end you won't mind if they're answered or not, such is the twisting experience along the way.

so:

true horror. it's all about the lack of understanding, the inability to comprehend the nature of its existence and the complete uncertainty as to whether there's a way to master the threat.

which all ties back to my progress with the album quite well, don't you think?
x