Ayup!
I have booked myself back into the studio for a couple more recording sessions before the end of the year.
In September I am heading in to record an EP of tracks I wrote for the Travelling Band Project. (Here is some background on the project) They will be real simple acoustic tracks. Just a guitar and a vocal.
As soon as they’re done, I’ll pop them all up on Spotify and Bandcamp so you can have a listen.
I’ll be recording Red Brick Heart (Belper), Like A Wagon On A Roundabout (Ilkeston), The Great Pretender (Ashbourne), Little French Cars (Ripley), and High Peak, How Are You? (Wirksworth).
We’re currently waiting on Arts Council approval, but hopefully we’ll be able to extend the project further afield and work with communities across the entire midlands, before the end of the year.
I’m also back off up to Scotland in November to record three more tracks to follow on from Campfire. It was a real different style for me, and I need to go through my tracks and see which new one’s will work in this way. I’m hoping Red Brick Heart will work, because out of the entire Travelling Band Project, that was by far the strongest track in my opinion.
If you haven’t heard Campfire, and the particular style I’m referring to, have a watch of the video.
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Ayup!
Just a heads up that I am now on a social media site called Minds.com. It’s a pro free speech, anti censorship platform, so right up my street.
Give us a follow if you like – www.minds.com/garethicke
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Oi Oi!
Finally, here is the video for my new track, Campfire. It’s a bit different from my usual sound and I know that might not be to everyone’s taste. I’m not trying to reinvent myself like Cher or anything, it’s just a natural change that came in the studio.
Me and my pal Steve (the one I’m bullying in the video) took a drive up to Glasgow to record with my pal Jono. There was zero preproduction. We had a basic acoustic track that I had written and toured a little bit around Europe, but that was it.
We sat up eating Italian food and drinking whisky, and this is what we got. I hope you like it.
It’s available at all the usual culprits, but best of all is my Bandcamp page. They rob less off me!
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I think we can all agree that Donald Trump isn’t your every day, run of mill President.
See Presidents, Prime Ministers and indeed politicians in general, are taught never to give an honest answer. Swerve the question, lead the interviewer away from the original subject, or answer a question with a question. Whatever you do, don’t give up your genuine motives. Especially if they are clandestine.
You learn all this on day one of school. And while much of the population can see through this technique, as often a Government’s sinister agenda is viewable from space, at least they make the effort to conceal it.
American foreign policy has come under much scrutiny over recent years, and rightly so. An Illegal war in Iraq as well as enormous bombing campaigns and attempts to topple regimes in Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and now Syria, have left people putting together a link between the nations the United States invades, and those countries with large oil and gas reserves.
While America does pillage these nations for their natural resources, whether that be opium or gas and oil, that’s only part of the story, and is certainly not their sole purpose for being there.
The project for the new American century was published in 2000, and goes into details about what nations the US planned to topple. They are quite a way through the list already, with Iran and China on the horizon. This swift gobbling of nations has been helped considerably by the events of 9/11.
Almost a year to the day that the project for the new American century was published, New York City was attacked and the war on terror was launched. If you remember correctly, the same day the towers came down, killing over 3000 people, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described this horrific massacre as, “a good day for Israel”. For once, Bibi wasn’t wrong.
Donald Trump describes himself as the most pro Israel president in history, and given he has already moved the US Embassy to Jeruselem, something even ultra Israel supporters like Bill Clinton and George W Bush couldn’t bring themselves to do, and more importantly, he’s thrown out the Iran nuclear deal, he’s certainly living up to his self given title.
Yesterday Donald Trump met with Russian president Vladmir Putin, in Finland. The much talked about meeting was surrounded with media furore and screams of “Traitor!” from journalists and congress alike. After all, Trump is Putin’s puppet isn’t he? If some media outlets across the USA are to be believed, Donald Trump has been an asset of the Russians since 1987.
What slipped under the carpet though, was Trumps glaring admission of his Israel first policy. Especially when it comes to the United States role in Syria.
The media is happy to parrot the unproven line that Trump and his US policy are controlled from Moscow, but no one seems, despite the clear evidence of his actions, to be able to able to take a look in the direction of Tel Aviv in search of puppet strings.
When asked if the USA and Russia would be working side by side in Syria, the Presidents answer seemed, to me at least, extraordinary.
He replied: “We’ve worked with Israel long and hard for many years, many decades. I think we’ve never – never has anyone, any country, been closer than we are.”
Who asked about Israel, Donald? We’re asking about Syria. Were you not paying attention in POTUS school? Never answer a question honestly. It looks to me like you’re saying your military presence in Syria, a sovereign nation, is at the behest of Israel. That true?
He went on: “President Putin also is helping Israel. And we both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu, and they would like to do certain things with respect to Syria, having to do with the safety of Israel. So in that respect, we absolutely would like to work in order to help Israel. And Israel would be working with us. So both countries would work jointly.”
Not content with giving Israel $38 Billion of US taxpayers money, they are also happy to send American troops into Syria, to die for the interests of the Israeli state. American citizens are being sent to kill, and be killed, for a foreign government. What happened to “Make America great again!”?
I think this unprovoked admission of foreign involvement in policy and decision making, makes Mr Trump far more of a “traitor” to the American people, than a sit down dinner with Vladmir Putin.
Here is he transcript (from @leftiblog on Twitter)
The Travelling Band project was an 8 date UK Arts Council project. Different songwriters and poets from the Derby area, were taken to a particular town or village, and given the task of writing a song in a couple of hours, and then performing that song to the people of that town or village, that evening.
Here are a couple of clips from day one in Belper, Derbyshire.
And here is the track, performed live… while reading lyrics from a sheet. My memory is pretty good, but it ain’t that good.
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So, as part of an Arts Council project, we’ve been all across the county of Derbyshire, and now we’re ready to come back home with our songs.
For those that aren’t aware of this project, it’s the brain child of Alex Blood, and features artists such as myself, from the city of Derby. We travel across the county to different towns and villages, rock up around lunch time, learn about the history of the place, sink a few beers with the locals, and then write a song about it.
It all sounds pretty simple so far, the difficult part is that we need to perform that song, to the people of that community, that same evening.
We’ve been to Belper, Ilkeston, Ripley, Ashbourne, Matlock Bath, Wirksworth, and now we’re coming back to Derby, to perform all the tracks in our home city.
The show is on Thursday 31st May at The Maypole in Derby, and is free entry.
Feel free to come along and have a few beers with us, and listen to what we’ve managed to concoct in just a few hours.
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Oi!
It’s only in an alpha level of testing, but there is a brand new social media site called OnStellar. It’s been set up as a one stop shop that will provide everything that all the other sites provide, but in one place.
Come say hello. I’m at alpha.onstellar.com/garethicke
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