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12/14 ESCAPISM: ‘I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me’

I’m sorry for the delay in posting this article. In the time since Emrys last wrote regarding ‘Where We Go Next’ we’ve released ‘Escapism’ to the wide world. You can download a digital copy of the album right here on the site by clicking on the link in the menu. You can also buy the album on Amazon or iTunes by typing ‘The Eleventh Hour Initiative Escapism’ into the search bar on each respective site. You can even get a physical CD from Amazon!

We’re trying out the idea of making a podcast every now and again. Yep, a real proper podcast with guests and everything. Why? We thought it might be interesting and funny, and most importantly, fun.

For all the amount of times we shill our album and all of this stuff, it’s because we want to connect with you. Buying the album, commenting, and all of these seemingly small things tell us you’re listening. I joke about how poor I am all the time, but in truth, it’s not the money, it’s the recognition and connection that keeps us going. All of the kind and good words people have said to both Emrys and myself since we’ve released this album… that’s why we do this. It’s not about being the most popular, it’s about making meaningful connections through things we love.

You need to make many moves to position yourself properly to connect the way I’m talking about.(No I’m not referring to sex) I mentioned in my last post my struggles with the almighty band bio. Well something odd, and yet helpful has turned up to assist me in this undertaking.

What does this have to do with ‘All These Secret Things’, you ask? Well if I told what all my secret things were we’d have to call the song ‘All These Plainly Known Things’ and that kind of takes the fun out of it. Anyway, my help with the band bio is kind of secret, in a way.

I was getting ready to go to work today when I noticed a guy dressed straight out of the 1940s hanging out in a tree outside my house. He even had a really antiquated camera and he was taking pictures through my window!

Seriously!

He looked kind of like this: 

I yelled, ‘What the hell are you doing?!!!’

He made a sound, it kind of sounded like he said ‘Gadzooks!!!’ and he fell out of the tree and ran away.

…but he dropped something.

It looked like a file of some sort. It was a manilla folder with “The Eleventh Hour Initiative’s debut album ‘Escapism’ and the Possible Threats it May Pose” written in large, black letters across it.

Leafing through it I was amazed! It seemed this guy had been spying on Emrys and I since June of 2010! All kinds of awkward pictures, jotted notes and phone transcripts?

I’ve begun trying to transcribe some of his notes down to give to the authorities, but I figured I’d share a bit of it with you guys/girls. You see, I think this guy may have written our band bio for us!!!

Have a look for yourself…

‘Submitted per Request and for Your Review: The Eleventh Hour Initiative’s debut album ‘Escapism’ and The Possible Threats It May Pose.’

Band: The Eleventh Hour Initiative

Members:

Bill Ryan(NJ, USA)- Vocals, Music

Emrys Hughes(Plymouth, UK)- Music, Vocals, Production

Known Whereabouts:  http://www.eleventhhourinitiative.com

Current Album Under Review– ‘Escapism’

Contact: eleventhhourinitiative@gmail.com or the lamp-post by the corner store

Message sent by Agent H. Fat and decoded by Agent 070278W.  B=E

Message Reads:

I have been observing William Ryan(alias: Bill) and Emrys Hughes since they began work as ‘The Eleventh Hour Initiative‘ in June of 2010.  Both singers and multi-instrumentalists in their own right, they seemed to hit it off quickly despite that fact that Bill lives in the U.S.A. and Emrys resides in the U.K..  In fact, as long as I’ve been conducting surveillance on them it seems the two have never sat in the same country together, let along the same room.

A mistake I initially made, that you need to be wary of, is to discount them because their songs are written, recorded, and produced through the internet.  It has certainly been observed that most music recorded on computers, even if ‘real’ instruments are primarily used, is harmless and awful, and yet something is different with these two.  Despite their pretentious illusions of grandeur and their love for bands such as Radiohead, Pulp, Blur, and yes, even Coldplay; there seems to be something honest and heartfelt about their music that has so far connected to the dedicated following they have garnered on internet sites such as Soundcloud.(http://soundcloud.com/confession/sets/the-eleventh-hour/)

This is all despite the fact that the band have performed little or no promotion to this point.

Listeners have said the band reminds them of ‘Bloc Party‘, or ‘New Order’ with Foo Fighters‘ riffs‘.  I try to remind some of these listeners that there is no room for heartfelt musicians making melodic indie rock that is both innovative and yet nostalgic at the same time.  The listeners don’t seem to care.  They say it makes them ‘feel good‘ and the band is quote, ‘class‘.

Listening in on the band’s conversations, it seems they wanted to make a true album ‘like they used to make on vinyl‘.  At times, ‘Escapism‘ even seems to skate the line between a thematic collection of songs and full-blown concept album!  They are obviously stupid and misguided as we live in a singles oriented low attention span environment, but we must watch for the ‘refreshing‘ label which could easily slip these two under the radar.  Be warned, these are not mediocre songs lazily sung concerning nothing!

All that being said, I must also admit to the addictive quality possessed in this album.  This is especially true in songs like Pitfall, Escape Plan, and Mean Machines.  I find myself waking up in cold sweats humming the choruses and daydreaming about things like space and ninjas.  I need to perform more tests on this album for subliminal messages.  Frankly, I need more time to sit and study this album!  I also need a second opinion, and this is where you come in.

I warn you, be very careful with ‘Escapism‘.  This can not be emphasized enough!  It will catch you when you least expect it and for the love of God it will not let go!  If these songs fall into the wrong hands…well, let’s try and prevent that while we still can.

I have included my notes on the fourteen songs that make up Escapism here.  Read, or destroy, at your own discretion.  For more info or assistance the band can be reached at eleventhhourinitiative@gmail.com .  I can be reached at the flickering lamp-post by the corner store.(I will approach with the phrase ‘Has the mail arrived?‘ and you will reply with ‘King Felix is on the move!’)

Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Agent H. Fat

Posted by  |  September 17, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

11/14 ESCAPISM: ‘One Last Song’

We have been writing a series of articles in the run up to the release of our debut album “Escapism”.  You may have noticed?  To be fair, the majority of the world is unaware of our existence at this specific moment.  We hope to change that… but it is likely that these 14 posts will be read in retrospect by a lot of people hoping to get a bit of background on the album.  I can’t think of an example of such a wealth of material being written by a band in relation to an album.  It may have happened, we may not be unique… but we are certainly trying to do something a little different!  When/if these posts are ever read back to back they will be the greatest set of liner notes in history!  Ha ha!

I have been given the task of writing about our song “Where We Go Next”.  For starters this was the very first song that Bill and I worked on.  It was kind of a toe in the water… and it led to a whole year’s work on a full album.  I do understand that the album as a format is currently dead and buried.  However, I do not have to go with the flow.  The idea of a set of songs telling an overall story, or a collection of songs that flow thematically and have enough time to breath is a concept I hold close to my heart.  I admit this is probably due in part to the era I have grown up in… but I have a feeling that what goes around comes around, and the ‘album’ may yet rise again.

Vinyl sales are on the increase and I have bought more LPs in the last month than I have CDs in the last year!  Although downloads are the new King and are here to stay… I have a sneaking suspicion that, given a number of years, even the kids of today will warm to the idea of “more than one song in a row”.

And so it was that “Where We Go Next” started the process that became ‘writing a whole album”.  And “Where We Go Next” became such an apt title!!!  Where we go next?  Where do we go next?  Where we go next.  Was it a question or a statement?

I’ll say right now that the album is available for purchase from Monday 12th September 2011.  You will be able to buy the album from iTunes or Amazon – this is a proper album launch!  However, you also have the option of simply clicking the BUY link that will magically appear on Monday on the right-hand side of this site.  It just says ‘share’ right now but it will say ‘buy’ too.  (Hey, and while we’re on the subject, feel free to spread the word on our behalf!!!)

Anyway… I digress.  If you were to buy the album from this site by clicking on the BUY button you will also get the Digital Booklet that comes with the album.  And within this Digital Booklet is a little Eleventh Hour Initiative trinket.

Let me tell you the story of the trinket.

Rewind time a little.  Picture me as a solo artist.  I had asked Bill if he wanted to collaborate with me on a song.  I then went to Africa and took with me a Moleskine notepad.  I took a posh notepad ’cause I thought it would encourage me to use it.  My mission was to write a song, without a musical instrument to hand.  To write a song by just noting down ideas.  I found the sun, palm trees and sand – the change in scenery – conducive to songwriting and I tried my best to get something scribbled down so I could get to work on the “new song” immediately on my return to England.

… Then a volcano erupted and stranded me in Africa.  The airports of Europe shut down and I had an enforced African songwriting stay.  And so it was that I wrote the skeleton of what eventually became “Where We Go Next” in that little black notepad.  I had an idea for the melody of the song.  It was based on an idea I came up with in my youth.  An idea that I never properly recorded.  I did however use the chords and structure for a song called “Out of the Low Times”.

It always bugged me that I had never used the original melody though.  So when I was sitting in the sun in Africa I thought it would at least be interesting to pull the melody from the dark recesses of my mind.  I sat there, drinking lagers next to the pool, avoiding the attempts by the natives to get me aqua-dancing to some disco bollocks.  I thought it would be cool to bring an unused idea from the past kicking and screaming into the present.  And you know what?  It didn’t kick and it didn’t scream.  It came quietly and appreciatively.  Musically, in my mind, it began to take shape as a companion piece to “Out of the Low Times”.  You must remember that this was before Bill and I were the Eleventh Hour Initiative.  This was the origin story!  At this point it was going to be an experiment to have Bill collaborate with me on a song.  We weren’t sure it would work (but I had a fair idea that it would!).

On my return to England I recorded the song as set out in that notepad.  I filled wine glasses with differing amounts of water and played them as chimes.  I shook a packet of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes as a shaker and I beat boxed the drums.  The song on the page was brought into being.  I breathed life into the monster.  I then sent the music to Bill.

Bill came up with the most fantastic lyrics.  Certainly lyrics worthy of reading – just don’t read them at the same time as listening to the song.  Sometimes you shouldn’t multi-task even if you can!  The song became “Where We Go Next”.  The song became our statement of intent.

In the Digital Booklet I have included the original pages from my Moleskine notepad.  This trinket makes interesting viewing for anyone with any interest in seeing how a song takes shape.  And if you don’t have those kind of interests then you can at least mark me on my spelling and grammar!

“Where We Go Next” may be proved by a future society to be a landmark song.  But for now I will just hold it dear as the song that reignited my spirit.  The song that brought about the “Escapism” album.  And therefore, perhaps the most important song I have ever written.

I thank you all.

Posted by  |  September 10, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , | 5 Comments

10/14 ESCAPISM: ‘1. This post is important! 2. This post is not important!’

“Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation — the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

F Scott Fitzgerald- ‘The Crack-Up’

Holding two ideas that contradict each other, and considering both to be equally true, seems to be the only way to cope in the world, at least to any healthy degree. For example–my system, or way of seeing the world, is that anytime I try and put everything into a neat little box there will always be an infinite amount of contradictions that crop up and destroy, or outgrow, my little box.

In other words, I have a system that notes that having a system is futile and useless. See the contradiction? I’d note the term ‘uroboros’, but that would make an already pretentious post unbearable.

The universe, in my eyes, is infinite. If I lived forever I could come up with a million theories to explain everything, and immediately a million counter theories would crop up to contend against it. Again, I’d point to the term ‘dialectic’, but we’re already behind the 8 ball!

…Philip K Dick would love this post!…

A person who leans to a more Buddhist view of life might say the solution is to become nothing.(nothing to contradict)

Someone else might say that the solution is to become everything.(contradiction is contained)

Perhaps they are both right.

Perhaps in becoming nothing you become everything, and perhaps in becoming everything you become nothing.

Confusing, isn’t it?

Confucius say what?

I think most of us, whether we realize it or not, are stuck in the middle.

In order to stay sane you need a plan of action while at the same time you need to realize that things probably won’t go to plan.

Let me repeat…

1. You need a plan
2. You need to realize that your plan has failed the second you created it.
3. Both 1 and 2 are necessary

I think all of our lives are a bit like leaving early for an appointment, and then your car breaks down anyway.

Some say, ‘Don’t drive to the appointment at all! Don’t bother! You won’t get there on time!’

Others say, ‘Leave early and believe that your car won’t break down!’

The OCD’s say, ‘Perform Maintenance checks! Change your oil every blah blah blah miles! Take a GPS! Don’t forget to charge your cell phone!’

…Then someone else, who didn’t do any maintenance checks, gets a flat tire and rear ends them.

In the end, you can say, ‘…but sometimes people make their appointments! Sometimes things go exactly to plan!’

I’d point out that sometimes things don’t, and though I don’t know the equation for chaos theory, I can say that you can never quite predict the hows, whys, and whens.

Some might say that if you were really, really bright you could calculate probabilities that would help you to be successful more than not. For my money, the possibilities are infinite, and indivisible. You know, like Pi and the Pledge of Allegiance.

For my money, and hope, the two statements…

1. We are heading to Nothing

and

2. We are heading to Everything

Are both true, or at least in the end, whichever way we’re headed, we’ll eventually arrive at the same place.

However, If what I’ve been talking about is true, there are probably an infinity of problems with this theory that I have yet to foresee ; ), that of course doesn’t mean I’m not right all at the same time! It might just prove that I’m right!

Do you have a headache yet?

I think it’s kind of fun …’Chasing Chaos’

: )

Posted by  |  September 9, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

9/14 ESCAPISM: ‘The Devil and the Angel’

Wales v England.  Always a difficult one for me.  Welsh blood English heart.  I can’t remember the last time Wales beat England in the football.  Rugby… now that’s a different matter – but for some reason Wales just can’t pull it together in the football.  Ranked between Haiti and Grenada apparently… and that’s not good!  So it’s always with faint embarrassment that I watch Wales play football.  And although I support England at every sport it is always a tug of the heart-strings when they play Wales.  Like two sides of my soul competing in battle, ripping each other apart and yet coming together as one when the whistle blows.

Those two sides… the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other.  The devil telling you to write simple, easy on the ear songs and the angel telling you to always write from the heart.  Or is it the other way round?  Anyway, they both have a point.  The devil just wants you to succeed and earn a lot of money.  He just wants you to write that hit song – that song that’ll earn you a million dollars.  He just wants you to write simple songs that the general public can relate to .  He wants you to write a “Yellow” or a “Wonderwall” and then have an Adele-like album success story.  He knows you have to eat and he knows what you could do to fill that stomach.  You don’t even have to sell your soul to him… you just have to stick with the melodies, stick with the McCartneyisms, write “The Bends”.

But the angel tells you that the hits aren’t important.  The angel says that you have to follow your own path and write music that you can be proud of forever more.  Music that is artistically satisfying and sod the money!  The angel wants you to write “Kid A”.

For a songwriter this can be a tightrope.  I should qualify that!  There are some songwriters that will never experience this dilemma for there are many out there who couldn’t write a great song even if a friend travelled into the future, stole an almanac of classic songs then travelled back in time and placed said almanac under said songwriter’s pillow.

But for a lot of songwriters the devil and the angel are an issue.  In fact, the score right now is England 1 – 0 Wales.  England play in white, Wales play in red. Hmmmm… relevant? I’m serious.  The devil and the angel do indeed often come out to play.  The songwriter wants to be considered an artist you see.  An artist – fancy that!  The musician wants to be considered clever.  Ha ha!  He wants to write ‘clever’ music.  He wants to dumbfound and even alienate his audience.  For alienation can be satisfying.  Alienation can even be rewarding.  The devil struggles with this… but if you get it right you can alienate your audience and mesmerise them.  You can seduce them with an agile twist and turn.  The devil appreciates “Ok Computer” but is unsure of exactly how it happened.  The devil would rather you didn’t entertain such thoughts.  Forget it and listen to “Angel” by Robbie Williams a few more times.  Then the devil decides that suggesting you listen to “Angel” is a bit contrary and he suggests “Highway to Hell” instead!

The switched on songwriter knows you have to strike a balance.  Whether that be across the range of songs on an album – i.e. have a couple of singalong singles and a few deeper songs…  or internally within the song itself.  For a song can be clever and catchy – the perfect balance perhaps.  And sometimes songs that sound simple and catchy are actually clever and catchy but disguised as simple and catchy.  McCartney was perhaps the king of the simple and catchy (but really clever and catchy) song.  There are many exponents out there including one of my favourites, Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks.  Many of those songs that you think are just throwaway pop songs actually have an intricate, delicate structure hiding beneath the surface.  Or you were right in the first place and they are just throwaway pop songs!  Do you know which are which?  Do I?  Do you care?  Do I?

I think that a lot of songwriters want acceptance from their peers.  They need other musicians to acknowledge their talent and fulfil their want of worthiness.  And this exploration for the lost chord, the sound that will cause all others to down tools and proclaim “God-like Genius”tm status, can so often be their downfall.  I can think of a whole host of musicians that have at one time or another fallen into this category. It’s not important to name them… but sometimes just because you CAN play notes only a Golden Headed Langur can hear, doesn’t mean you have to!!!  (Steve Vai, not naming any names… but I am pointing at you!).

So when you find a band that gets this balance right you tend to fall in love.  Most of the bands I adore strike the balance.  They live with the devil and the angel and survive the conflict.  When one of these bands gets it right it moves you.  When the Flaming Lips released “the Soft Bulletin”, I felt that power.  That album was clever and simple.  It was the album Goldilocks would have chosen had the house had three record players rather than three bowls of porridge.  A close to perfect album.  I could have picked a whole host of albums to represent examples of ‘devil and angel’ albums.  I could have picked “Revolver”, “His ‘n’ Hers”, “Grace”, “Pet Sounds”, “Silent Alarm” or “Is This It?”.  Albums that reach the parts other collections of songs cannot reach.  And often the very same bands will start to prefer the advice coming from one shoulder over another.  They veer too far away from the line of balance – with various degrees of success.  They can be lucky and still produce an album which is loved… or they can be unlucky and create an album that becomes a source of amusement and derision.  I think the Flaming Lips, Lennons and Radioheads of this world have all veered from the path and enjoyed the positives and the negatives of the experience.

During the writing of “Escapism” I have walked that fine line between pretentious and commercial.  Every artist wants to have a commercial success… don’t let any of them tell you otherwise.  However, if you can achieve that success whilst never abandoning what you believe in then all power to you.  I think Bill and I have pulled off a sweet yet clever album with “Escapism” and I’m sure the song ‘A Thousand Steps’ was a contributing factor.  We chose to document every second of the songs creation – from the moment I first picked up the acoustic guitar, until the moment I finalised the mix.  As we worked on ‘A Thousand Steps’ I was fearful that we might be creating a song that satisfied us as writers but left the public cold.  But I’m pretty sure we took the advice of the devil and the angel and in many ways Bill and I actually become the devil and the angel during the songwriting process.  One of us will make a decision and the other will flag up its potential pitfalls.  A battle always rages.  A friendly battle… but a rewarding battle.  The outcome for us has been songs such as ‘A Thousand Steps’, ‘The Calm and the Storm’ and ‘Where We Go Next’.  Songs that don’t shy from being intellectual, and yet have that commercial appeal that the public crave… we hope.  However, please note that I will never confuse having an element of “commercial appeal” with being a producer of  “coffee table album”s.  Don’t fret… I could (and probably will) wax lyrical about coffee table albums in a future post.  😉  For now my friends, I leave you with track 9 of “Escapism”… A Thousand Steps.  Oh.. and Wales lost.

Posted by  |  September 7, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

8/14 ESCAPISM: ‘How Do You Feel?’

With the release of this album I’ve been trying to force myself to write some sort of short, concise band bio for reviews and such. As much as I talk, and write, these three paragraphs have been extremely tough.

We have to compartmentalize don’t we? There is just so much out there! We need to be able to easily fold things so they can fit inside of our glove compartments. How do you compartmentalize yourself? How do you fold it all into a neat square with smooth edges?

I didn’t want our songs to all be one feeling or tempo. I didn’t want it to be a ‘heavy’ album, or a ‘sad’ album, or an ‘experimental’ album, or…fill in the blanks. I wanted to be able to capture a time period with all of the strangeness and contradiction that entails.

Are you always sad? mystical? angry? love-sick? goofy? irritated? Me neither. I tend to float around all of these emotions and ‘feelings’ as the days go by. Right now I’m in a deep mood as I listen to ambient soundtrack music, but tell me a good fart joke and I’ll laugh and be out of it!

We’re all like this, albeit as individuals with different extremes, and different ‘nominal settings’. Then why is so much of our music one note? Why should I be always ‘THIS’ way, when that’s not who I am? I like a lot of different bands and artists who have different styles and traits, but I honestly can’t think of one where I go, ‘Yeah, that one there!’ Their is no musical genre or club I want to join. For me music is a means more than an end. I write when I feel something, and I try not to limit what ‘feelings’ I can cover.

That probably puts me in a club I don’t know about yet.haha

Somebody check Pitchfork!

I understand the necessity of it all. We’re bombarded with all of this stuff and the only way to organize it all is to be able to say ‘this covers THIS emotion’. Imagine Slayer making a ballad? Imagine Sade throwing down! Ridiculous you say? You don’t think Sade gets pissed? Ok, maybe the guys from Slayer, yeah maybe that’s for a reason. : )

I tend to just go for what a song makes me feel. To a degree, I don’t care what style. I don’t care if it’s a guitar or a synth or a violin. It depends on the day, and it depends what I’m focused on in the moment.

No, I’m not trying to make myself out to be some sort of revolutionary changing the face of music.

I mean, didn’t we make this album to be cohesive?

All of our songs certainly sound like us.

However, take three songs of ours, ‘Pitfall’, now listen to ‘Where We Go Next’, now listen to ‘Feel’. If any one of these was your first experience with our band you’d get a pretty different impression of who we are and what we do. Chasing Chaos? Now ‘Where the Start Begins!’

Truth is, we’re all these things. File us under those that are not easily compartmentalized, I guess. Who knows though, maybe I’m just in one of my ‘think about things too much’ moods and I’ll change my mind soon.

We’ll see how I ‘Feel’ about it tomorrow…

hmm wait, I still have to write that damn bio!

(irritably looks for Slayer’s ‘Reign in Blood’)

Posted by  |  September 7, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , , , , , | 4 Comments

7/14 ESCAPISM: ‘Toupee Or Not Toupee?’

‘Mean Machines‘ was a surprise. An experiment gone wrong and yet so well.  When Bill and I decided to make our collaboration a ‘band proper’, ‘Mean Machines‘ became the second song we recorded.  We had to follow the majesty of ‘Where We Go Next’.  Not easy to top a song that had so much slavish effort put into it.  So I sat in my studio, exactly as I am now, and stared at the blank screen.  I do a lot of staring at blank screens.  Don’t get me wrong, I do fill my days with other things too!  It’s just that staring at a blank screen is an activity which the modern musician cannot avoid.  In the old days I suppose the equivalent would have been staring at blank studio walls – or watching paint dry in a rehearsal room.  But now we have computer monitors to take some of the burden – to take the weight off our shoulders.  Staring at a computer screen can feel more fulfilling.  Ha ha!

I remember the day.  Some guys were in the house changing my old boiler.  I’m not referring to the girlfriend… I genuinely mean my old boiler (joke Dani xxx).  And I was in my studio staring at the blank screen.  Then I layed down the first beat.  And then the first bass roar.  In a couple of hours I pretty much had the song complete… in its most basic form.  One of the men changing the boiler expressed a bit of interest and would chip in with words of advice!  Ha ha!  But like I say… I had the bare bones of the song completed very quickly.  I’m actually quite proud of the music of ‘Mean Machines‘.  It is quite heavy and persistent.  I also really like some of the orchestral flourishes.

I sent the music to Bill with the title “Mean Machine”.  Yes, I did indeed name it after watching a Burt Reynolds film, but I always assumed the name would end up being changed.  Changed like an old boiler.  But Bill took the spirit of the music along with the temporary title and sold the concept to the world.  He owned that title.  And so with the addition of an ‘s’ that is how it stayed and will always stay.  The song is a grower.  In fact the song has become an entity bigger than Bill or I could ever have imagined.  In hindsight ‘Mean Machines‘ was actually the perfect song for us to work on after ‘Where We Go Next’.  It was a blast and proved that we had something in us to be able to pull off a song really quickly.  The song confirmed that the match of my music and Bill’s lyrics was not a one-off fluke.  And most of all it made us determined to produce a whole album of work.  Along the way we would often look back at ‘Mean Machines’ as being a defining moment and yet not a defining song.  Perhaps as people listen to the album they will decide for themselves the significance of the song.  Now… come on everyone… grow moustaches and stick your toupees on… we’re gonna have a party!!!

Posted by  |  September 2, 2011 | Categories: escapism, song discussion | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

6/14 ESCAPISM: ‘You Can Fit a Lot into a Sacred Cow’

Have you ever wanted to laugh at a really inappropriate time? Somebody is talking. The room is hushed. The mood is deadly seriously. An airplane flies by with a sign attached to it that says,

‘It Would Be Highly Offensive and Inappropriate to Laugh Right Now.’

This makes you want to laugh even more. You suppress it, which makes it even worse. A sound jumps out of your mouth like a death row inmate who found a hole in the prison fence, and you try to stop it with your hand as fast as you can. Everyone’s looking at you now with their best, ‘How dare you?!!!’ look.

A woman faints.

A crying baby goes silent.

Then, you …just…let…go…

… and it feels soooo good.

All of a sudden, everybody starts laughing with you. Those same people who were indignant a second ago are roaring like baboons, and the more you laugh, the more they laugh. The more they laugh, the more you laugh.

Ok, well the guy or woman who had everyone’s attention is usually furious at this point which is suddenly very, very funny.

It is my opinion that the world needs more people to crack the hell up at the most inappropriate times. We live in a world full of pink elephants that everyone ignores. We need to laugh at those elephants! We need to laugh at the absurdity of it all!

Imagine this…

It’s the presidential debate…

Some soul-less, moron pundit is asking the most general question you can possibly imagine like, ‘how do we fix the economy?’ After he asks the question, he reminds the car salesman…err I mean politician…that he has 30 seconds to answer this question…

The audience erupts into sustained and uncontrollable laughter…

Finally the laughter dies down. The pundit’s face is red and he finally volleys to the brand spokesman…again, sorry…i mean politician

The politician says a catch phrase like, ‘We are the people’s people!’ or something. You know, they’re always saying general crap like that. Words that seem to connote something good and yet they really don’t mean anything at all. Come to think of it, a politician talking is a lot like a McDonalds hamburger. It kind of seems like what it represents, but you just know that the ingredients are manufactured and not natural.

Someone in the audience yells, ‘We are the people’s people!!!!’ and then everyone starts cracking up again…

Hell, I think they should put a laugh track on these things. It would change our entire perspective on the debate. It would also be a truer view of what transpired. Whenever spin doctors come on cable tv shows you just hit the laugh track button every time they say anything. We could even get Charlie Sheen and the girl from Friends(what are their names?) to host CNN to fit in with the already sitcom-like vibe.

Yep, I am ranting, and that is partly what ‘Ready, Set… Explode!’ is about for me. It’s about reaching a point where you’ve just had enough and you just want the water to boil over already.

I’m picking on politics because it’s an easy target, but it could be any number of things. I’m saying that I feel like when watching 95 percent of anything ‘serious’ on TV I think the only natural response we should have is to just laugh and laugh. Maybe if we did, maybe if we laughed right away we wouldn’t get to the point where we have to face the consequences for all the farces we see on a day-to-day basis.

You laugh and then you politely ask them to please sit back down. You suggest coming back when they want to be serious.

Having different views or ideologies is not what I’m talking about. Intelligent, honest, and well thought out ideas aren’t that humorous. When you lose your home, it’s not funny. When you can’t pay your medical bills, it’s not funny. The Patriot Act? Well the name is kind of funny in a contrarian way, but you get my point.

All I’m saying is that, at this point, we need to question everything, and no sacred cows allowed! Remember that story about the Trojan Horse? Well lets just say you can fit a lot of things inside sacred cows. I want to live in a world where we’re not afraid to point out something like one of our civil rights hanging out of a cows ass. ; ) …no matter how ‘sacred’ it is.

What I’m asking is the next time they trot an elephant or a cow on-stage, I’m begging you, please!!!!

get ‘Ready, Set… Laugh!!!’…. ; )

Posted by  |  August 31, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

5/14 ESCAPISM: ‘A Graph of Plotted Points… or Little People in Jars’

Sometimes you have to take stock and regroup.  Step back from everything you are and everything you do – from everything you have become.  You are defined by what you do.  Not always by your actions… but by what you do.  When you meet someone for the first time they will ask “So… what do you do then?”.  And you will answer with your job title.  And that then defines you in their eyes.  At least for that moment in time.  This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  A cycle.  Sometimes the assumptions are right, sometimes the assumptions are wrong.  But they are our means of putting people into boxes.  Putting people into jars.

Music is defined in the same way.  When I listen to a new band I immediately associate them with similar artists and categorise them accordingly.  When I heard Gene I thought Smiths.  When I heard Editors I thought Joy Division.  So it’s always a pleasure to hear a band that sounds fresh – where the links to the past aren’t immediately noticeable.  The roots are always there… but they may be buried deeper than others.  Fresh music… Black Sabbath, Blur, Oasis, Portishead, Flaming Lips, Jeff Buckley, The Chemical Brothers … the list is actually pretty long and you can substitute your own choices.  Of course… this music all becomes jaded in the end.  It’s actually difficult to remember how fresh Oasis once sounded for example.  And the welding of dance and rock has become commonplace.  We have probably reached an era in which it is more tricky than ever to sound genuinely innovative.  Yet there are still breakthrough acts which prick the ears – through being the future, or being engagingly retro.

I’ve now lived through a few ‘eras’ of music.  Metal, Grunge, Brit-pop, New Wave of New Wave, Emo, Nu-Rock, etc etc.  An important factor for me has been to keep my musical ambitions pure.  Okay, we can all be swayed by current fads… but I believe I’ve always stayed focussed on what I want to achieve.  Individuality.  And I’m not equating individuality with originality.  Individuality can involve originality… but they are completely independent concepts.  I’m talking about individuality of spirit.  Knowing what you want to say and saying it.  Not veering.  Even when swaying… swinging back to what is important to you.  For we all have something to say.  Some don’t have anything particularly interesting or profound to say – and luckily they therefore don’t venture too far into the artistic world (although when they do they produce some god awful bubblegum blockbuster, or a nice coffee table album!).  But those who do have something meaningful to say are a far more exciting prospect.  And those who have something to say and the means to say it are the reason music lovers love music.  That’s why we worship our Radioheads, Morrisseys, Buzzcocks, Beatles, Stones, Gorillaz, Cures...  Again, the list is a long one.  Individuality of spirit.  The most difficult of concepts to follow through with for it is all too easy to jump on a bandwagon.  To become a Northern Uproar or a Menswear.

To have complete individuality of spirit is however a double-edged sword.  For every person who ‘gets’ you, there will be a handful who don’t.  And that handful of people are often the most vocal.  It is for that reason that some of my favourite bands, films and albums are often neglected by the masses.  A lot of people prefer the glossy-Hollywood-remake-cream-cake to the authentic-slice-of-the-original pie.  And in some ways this is for the best.  It is great that some of the best music is not mainstream.

Life Will Be the Death of Me is probably my favourite song on ‘Escapism‘.  Musically, it embodies my notions of individuality of spirit.   I am on a journey and this song feels like a constant.  A fixed point in time and space.  A point on which all future work will be compared.  Will I ever again produce a piece of music that so perfectly defines who I am now? Where I am now?  No.  But the journey is like a graph.  A graph of plotted points.  Fixed points.  And I’m now living life until I can see that next waypoint.

“Hello… Um.. so, er… what do you do?”

“Well… I observe an individuality of spirit”

“Hmmm… sounds a bit pretentious to me!”

“Well… actually you might just be onto something there;  But I’ll stand by it. And life will be the death of me.”

Posted by  |  August 29, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

4/14 ESCAPISM: ‘The Calm and the Storm’

I sit here with a bowl of mint choc chip ice cream and stare at an empty screen.  A screen I know I’m supposed to be filling with insight.  With wonder.  With mesmeric prose.  And the ice cream is melting.  But it is good ice cream… because it hasn’t crystallised – you know, when you let it melt and then you stick it back in the freezer.  It comes out with ice saturated through it.  Ice cream with ice.  NO!!!!  I want my ice cream with no ice!  And that’s what I have.  So I am relatively happy.

To write about a song called “The Calm and the Storm” should be so fitting at the moment.  Bill is experiencing some of the sentiment of the song literally.  And while he ponders why the storm always has a girl’s name… I sit here eating mint choc chip ice cream.  Rum and raisin is probably my favourite flavour.  But I can certainly learn to live with mint choc chip.  Anyway, this relationship is not going to last.  The bowl is emptying steadily.  Well… sporadically… in between fits and starts of typing.

I sit here in my studio and recall the writing of “The Calm and the Storm”.  The album was progressing beautifully – plenty of hit singles in the making.  Things were in danger of becoming too easy.  I felt compelled to throw a spanner in the works.  I embarked on a song that couldn’t possibly, conceivably, ever be a single.  When I toyed with the Les Paul I was trying to choke out notes that would cause the listener to furrow a brow rather than tap a foot.  I was messing with time signatures and messing with the concept of what an Eleventh Hour Initiative song should be.  And when I finally sat back in my chair and surveyed all that was before me I realised that I had accidentally recorded perhaps our defining moment.  It was with a sense of trepidation that I sent Bill the music for “The Calm and the Storm”.  I so wanted him to like it… but for so many reasons.  I needed him to like it… because the song had become an important statement of intent.  The song had become a symbol of how strong my music could be.  How strong music could be.  full stop – /period . . . Like an obelisk surrounded by apes.  I had thrown the bone to Bill and I hoped the jump cut would work.  And it did.

Bill understood where I had taken our music and reciprocated with some tremendous lyrics.  Not only that, but he also added more to the music and made the epic more epic.  We could seriously state that our music was cinematic.  The song projects images into my head.  Static, moving, flickering, full colour, black and white.  The song is a true journey.  The song is a pivotal moment for the album that has become “Escapism”.  If we were brave before, we came out the other side victorious warriors.

I feel we need Bill’s input on this one.  For he talks so eloquently when the subject of this particular song arises.  And I think this song justifies a second talking head.

Oh.. and the ice cream has been eaten.  Everything is good.

‘Non Submersible Units’

So we’re sitting here now, I have no idea what time it is where you are, but let’s pretend it’s 3 in the morning. We need to talk clearly with this post, and as I’ve said, there is no better time.

I want you to think about some of your favorite daydreams. Are you there yet? Now imagine yourself. Who do you see yourself as? I don’t mean where you’re at right now, I mean where you’re going. Who is that person? How do you see the world? Again, not as it is, but as you think it should be. What about all those mysteries out there? What are some of your theories about them? What do you believe?

Don’t worry, we have infinity to do this, remember?

It is my belief, feel free to agree or disagree, that in order to be truly fulfilled you need to take all of these things out into ‘the harsh light of the noon sun’.

As I said in my last post, some things will be utterly destroyed, and yet that same destructive power will give other things life.

‘Why do I need to throw all of them out there?’, you ask.

Well, ok, not all of them. Just the ones that are important to you. ; )

It gets a bit more complicated though. You see, if you’re throwing everything you deem worthy out into the sun, well some of these things are going to be part of the core of who you are. Some of these things are going to be what Stanley Kubrick would refer to as ‘non submersible units’. These are your anchors. Destroy these things, and your whole internal world comes crumbling down.

Why risk it, then? Why throw something so important into the unforgiving sun?!!!

Because as awful and hard as it is, it’s a bit easier when you choose to do it. If you don’t, at some point, life will do it for you.

Trust me, life always hits harder…

Sometimes, whether you did it willingly, whether you saw it coming, or whether you were blind-sided, one of your non submersible units gets obliterated by the sun.

Some people refer to this as the death of the self. If you’re Christian you may have heard it referred to as ‘being put on the cross’. Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell would call it the death/rebirth archetype. Poets? They call it ‘the dark night of the soul’. If you asked the guy next door, he’d probably just call it deep, dark depression.

If you’re wondering if you’ve ever experienced this, then you haven’t experienced it yet.

Your entire inner world is utterly destroyed. Nothing remains. I mean nothing.

There is no quick recovery from this if it happens to you. Usually, at first, you need to mourn what you’ve lost. You want to hold onto that dream so bad!!! You fight, you struggle, and then, finally, …it dies.

What needs to happen at this point is you essentially need to be rebuilt from the ground up. Unfortunately, Rome is never built in a day, …or so I’ve been told.

It’s been my experience that you don’t have any blessed clue how to do this, how to remake yourself. You don’t want to. You don’t want to do anything! Then some time passes and all that fury of emotion settles into sadness, then cynicism, and finally apathy. You usually get one direction then. Call it intuition, call it what you want, but it’s like a quiet and calm voice, not audible, but you just know.

It says, ‘go here’

You say, ‘go here?!!!’ ‘why?!!’ ‘What’s going to happen?.’ ‘is this going to help me?!!!’ ‘i want some answers!’

It says, ‘Ok.’

‘go here’

So after you fight it, doubt yourself some more, and then fight it some more…. you get tired, and finally

you go ‘here’.

‘Here’ is not necessarily a physical place. It’s more about starting again. Everyone has a different ‘here’.

Once you get ‘here’, that same feeling leads you to go to another ‘here’

You ask all the same questions, and the process repeats itself, until you stop asking so much and you just go. I mean, at this point, what better thing do you have to do?

It takes a long time, but at some point, things start to feel ‘new’ again. There’s no other way I can describe it. Then you find that after another great long time you look back and you realize that you are a really different person than you were. You’re a better person. You come to terms with why that particular dream had to die. Something new and very real tends to take its place. The experience itself just changes you.

There is no moment I can put my finger on and say, ‘that’s when it happened!, Resurrection!!!’. I guess it just happens at some non-descript time when days are blurring into days. Maybe part of it is that you’re no longer thinking about it, so you don’t notice exactly when it happens.

I’m sure some of you have no blessed clue what the hell I’m going on about. This is for those of you who do. Even if you don’t, their may come a time in your life where you’ll get what I mean. When that happens…trust me,

‘Go here’

Posted by  |  August 26, 2011 | Categories: escapism | Tags: , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

3/14 ESCAPISM: ‘In the Harsh Light of the Noon Sun’

When I was younger I used to believe that everyone, deep down, saw the world exactly the way I did. I mean how could you not? Just look around!

I was also a talker. If I was a car salesman in the 1950s people might just refer to me as having ‘the gift of gab’. It was my theory that all I had to do was talk to a person enough and I could get down to the heart of the matter. I just had to peel away all those social layers and then deep down, we’d be the same.

that simple…

I mostly made this mistake on girls. A pretty girl would walk into the room and I’d already be projecting all kinds of wondrous and mysterious things onto her personality. Sure, she may seem shallow, but deep down I could get to the real her! I would just hit that rock with words, like Henry Plainview in ‘There Will Be Blood’ and eventually I’d strike it rich!

Imagine my surprise to find out this wasn’t the case.

You set up the diving board, jump off full of excitement. you do your best trick, and you find the water is only 2 feet deep. You end up with a concussion, and a lot to talk about.

How dare she not see the world exactly as I do!

How dare she not love everything I love!

Depending on how stubborn you are, you may have had to jump off of many diving boards till you figured things out. You grow, you adapt, you learn to appreciate the different perspectives different people have on the world.

How often does something like this happen in a person’s life? How often do thoughts you have that seem so natural turn out to be utter, embarrassing nonsense in the light of reality?

In my recent post on ‘Try and Get Some Sleep’ I talked about the magic that is 3 o’clock in the morning. How many ideas do you have at 3 in the morning that just seem foolish once the next day rolls around?

A character comes to mind from David Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’. Her name was Dorothy and she was played by Isabella Rosellini. Throughout much of the film she is a classic femme fatale. Dorothy is beautiful, mysterious, dangerous, sensual, magical, etc. etc. A funny thing  happens though, at one point in the film Dorothy ends up naked and beaten on the main character Jeffrey’s doorstep, in front of Jeffrey’s parents and girlfriend! In an instant, everything that was once sensual and mysterious about Dorothy suddenly becomes awkward and embarrassing in the light of day. It’s as if real life had stripped her, pardon the pun, of some sort of magical power and now we were viewing her as she really was.

How many ideas are like this? They are mysterious and powerful in the night of your mind and then they become instantaneously ridiculous in the light of day. Perhaps it is for this reason that many of us deem it wise to keep our inner most thoughts and dreams to ourselves.

However, reality isn’t just a harsh, unforgiving force. A funny thing happens sometimes. Sometimes an idea, a thought, or a creative work can spring out of your mind into reality. The sun eyes it up and gives it all it’s got. Then, instead of melting like the witch in The Wizard of Oz, the idea becomes purified. The sun gets rid of the dross maybe, but what’s underneath passes the test. It is deemed worthy and suddenly it exists as a real thing, clever thing that the sun is ; )

So maybe you’re sitting there tonight and you have this idea. Maybe it’s just a thought of who you’d like to be. Maybe it’s something new you’d like to try. Maybe it’s a song that you want to write, or a movie you’d like to make, or a business you’d like to start, and on and on. There is always the fear that the sun, being very strict, may mock this thing you want to bring into being. It may destroy it utterly. You may be embarrassed!!!(the crowd shrieks!) However, just maybe,

… it may be found worthy.

It may become something very, very real in your life.

Is it worth the risk?

That depends on how you feel about your life? Are you happy? Are you right where you need to be? Is there anything you truly wish to do, but are afraid to?

I say life is short, and I’ve been embarrassed enough to realize that the world doesn’t end when falling off of a limb. In fact, not too long from now, I have an ‘Escape Plan‘ that has a scheduled audition with the sun. Don’t worry about me, even if I fail, I’ll still have Isabella Rosellini

Well, you get my point!

Posted by  |  August 25, 2011 | Categories: escapism, song discussion | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment