Music From The Middle Room liner notes

A new album of library music has just been released by Bleak House. So, who or what is Bleak House, and just what does it have to do with Keshco?

Well, it may bemuse you to learn that we have two bands on the go. Bleak House is an alter-ego; in fact, one of many (not to clutter this post with the history of, say, Guivarsh) and probably the longest, having begun gestation in the market city of Leicester, England, back in 2001, with a note attached to a student union messageboard. At first, Bleak House was the folk-rock sister of Keshco, with a catalogue of jaunty kitchen sink pop tunes and occasional sci-fi/thriller narratives. Then life happened, in its unassuming way, and the House went quiet, just another name in the tattered old band directory.

In 2004 we, that is Andy (your blogger) and Luke, started a tradition of yearly recording holidays down in Exmouth, where Luke's mum keeps a whole arsenal of musical instruments. There's an upright piano, a stash of various recorders, thumb-pianos, a Casio keyboard, some percussion, and we had our guitars. The recordings we made were mostly pretty instrumentals, fairly sparse and sometimes quite haunting. Of course we did nothing with these - what did you expect? Instead the years rolled past, and increasingly we went out in our other guise of Keshco. These yearly recordings continued though, until we had quite an embarrassment of moody incidentals.

Fast-forward to this year, and the overflowing pot of potential projects was far too heavy to lug around, so in a manner completely unlike Prince going back to his vault, we cautiously crept back inside the Bleak House. The 2006 collection seemed particularly ripe for harvesting, and after a little gentle augmenting and editing, the collection I am about to describe appeared, courtesy of Moldovan netlabel Silent Flow. We're determined to record for a netlabel in every country, and are up to our fourth now...

This album, "Music From The Middle Room", is divided into two suites for ease of listening, each roughly half an hour long. The first, "Through The Witch Window", opens with an 11 minute number called "Highway Acrylic", where Luke's electric guitar figure morphs glacially against my pitter-patter piano, and some extra acoustic guitar. It's a deliberately ponderous start, with a good 30 seconds of room ambience, to bring you into the right frame of mind for listening. Slow down, and take some time out.

Our second track is the autumnal "Barometer", with a mantra-like guitar around which several chordal possibilities are hung. You'll just make out some wobbly crackly tones from the Yamaha VSS-200 voice keyboard.

Some of these tunes benefited from being rerouted through Jeskola's Buzz tracker, the first of which is "Oil Burner". It's also the first track to feature Robert's drums, here tubthumping against our clanging guitars until a gas cloud of reverb boils up, swamping the listener in a dreamy steamy fug for a good three minutes.

Track four is the wonky "Insect Trap", all a chattering and clattering tangle. It leads us to "Skirting Boards", a simple, almost Neu!-like sunrise melody on Luke's guitar confirmed by deep piano notes and occasional twinkles, to which a dexterous stereo stampede of toms has been added. Five minutes of this give way to an ascending spiral of harmonics, like dust motes rising in fresh sunlight. The side ends with "Antiseptic", a sound collage from the end of a 4-track that owes some extra thanks to Goldwave, the freeware audio editor.

The second suite is titled "Behind The Cellar Door" and it opens (after your moment of grace; you did pause for an ear-stretch didn't you?) with a guitarless piece, "Coloured Lead Crayons". The electronic tones and arpeggios of the VSS-200 share centre stage with the aching piano and a gently delayed Casio keyboard. Behind the first few minutes you will note some humans approximating a choir. This was one of the recent additions, with I think five Roberts and five Andys improvising to their heart's content.

Next we hear Luke's tumbling delayed guitar figure of "Biology Slides", glitchy and scratchy, against my simple piano melody. Probably the most intense track on the album, building to a teasingly-warped coda.

"Praise Book" is almost as open, simple and timeless as it sounds. Then, somehow, we take you a few years forward; Luke's organ meditation "Everything Is Broken, Or Intact" comes from the Autumn 2010 session, and for me conjures up a Twin Peaks air of unspoken menace. What exactly happened here last night?

Another question: What have those darn children been up to all this time? Well, I can't say, as there are no children in the Bleak House. But there is something moving in the "Toy Cupboard". This rather jolly piece was saved by Robert and a lapful of tiny instruments - two xylophones, a harmonica, pitch pipes, a thumb-piano. Soothing sounds for adults?

Before you can escape the cellar, you have to shake hands with the tactile epiphany of "Coloured Lead Fingers". Luke's keyboard part holds steady whilst my piano plays across and around the rhythm, and Robert's violin adds a frisson of expectation.

And there you have it. Twelve tracks from the dusty heart of the Bleak House, laid out for your relaxation and enjoyment. Any film-makers in search of backing tracks for documentaries, dramas or deconstructivisms, please do get in touch.

How to play our version of "By This River"

World Oceans Day takes place each year on 8th June, and for the last three years we've contributed tracks to special CDs curated by the aquatically-inclined Notebook Of A Mermaid. For the 2011 CD we offered our version of "By This River", a Brian Eno song originally from the album "Before and After Science" (Amazon UK; Amazon US), released in 1977.

Here's how I played the main riff, originally a piano part, on my Washburn D10SCE acoustic. Note: this is the first time I've put tab online! It's not very exciting tab, as the part is very simple - all that changes is the bass note.

Capo 3 

Bb

e|3-2-------------|----------------|

B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|

G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|

D|----------------|--0--2--4-------|

A|----------------|----------------|

E|3---------------|----------------| 

Gm 

e|3-2-------------|----------------| 

B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|

G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|

D|----------------|--0--2--4-------| 

A|----------------|----------------| 

E|0---------------|----------------|

Eb 

e|3-2-------------|----------------|

B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|

G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|

D|----------------|--0--2--4-------|

A|3---------------|----------------|

E|----------------|----------------|

Gm

e|3-2-------------|----------------|
B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|
G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|
D|----------------|--0--2--4-------|
A|----------------|----------------|
E|0---------------|----------------|

 

Luke's lap steel was tuned to an open G chord, and Robert played his recently-constructed percussive frame from which hang a multitude of cheap wind chimes, keys, washers, random sections of metal etc etc. Robert and I sang unison lead vocals, and then Luke added a melodic flute part during the middle and ending, to top the whole thing off.

We recorded the song on our 8-track, and then ported it into Buzz where I added plenty of the Sonic Verb plugin to give a bit of distance.

You can watch the video for our version of "By This River" on YouTube here.

Record Store Day

So, did you spot any?  We were both excited and amused to put together a special single release for the annual Record Store Day, and with luck an indie shop near you will have held a copy or two of "No Sale!". The single features, on the A-side, one of our very oldest songs, "Welcome To Our Corner Shop", dragged kicking and squawking into the modern era, and as its flipside, the newest thing we've written, "Orange Nightmare Record Fair", a distinctly trippy instrumental.

No worries if you missed out - we've got a few copies left of the 200 here and will have them for sale at our upcoming performances, or you can drop us a pound.

Accountants By Day liner notes

A gentle welcome, dear friend. You may be pleased to learn that we have recorded another EP for that lovely Swedish netlabel, 23 Seconds. It's called Accountants By Day, has eight tracks totalling 21 and a half minutes, and it's fair to say it's a cracker. Some of our best tunes committed to binary. It'll fit on a sleek 3-inch CD (a sleeker but not cheaper option, despite what one witless reviewer assumed), although you may prefer the vanilla option of a full 5-incher (do you not care about clutter?!).

Some thoughts about the recording and mixing process. All of the tracks were written in 2010, well pretty much; "Enlightenment" started as a single phrase a few months earlier but was completed on Sunday 10th January in the dark. It stems from a plan to write a sci-fi themed EP; what better sci-fi to write about than Doctor Who, and what story more suited to songform than Peter Davison's "Enlightenment"? The sci-fi idea is still percolating; expect more in the coming year. It's only a gentle thematic reference; the rest of the lyric a playing-around with amateur astronomical themes. The Sky At Night is a great programme. Can't believe I didn't latch on sooner. The last bit recorded was Luke's flute solo, with its triple trill finale.

We shoot forward to a transitional piece, "All I Never Wanted". We reckoned a little mood-shifter was necessary, and Bob's zither and cymbals did the rest. I think a collection of library music would be a good diversion for us, freed of the tyranny of lyrical narrative. You may beg to differ. Our long-suffering mixing program, Jeskola's Buzz (why am I writing that? It's the mixer, i.e. me, who suffers, bent-backed at the desk for hours trying to alchemise whilst everyone sleeps off their curry... woe, woe, woe) ...features a fabulous reverb plugin, Sonic Verb, crafted to resemble a pricey reverb of the early 00s, and which features on all the tracks on the EP. Here it's cranked up. I love the shiver-down-the-spine of the zither. Not sure if we can replicate it now Bob's bought a tuning key.

Have you ever hated your boss? Ah, but have you ever committed those thoughts to wax? Nor have we, but we did use our new-ish Korg D888 digital multitracker on this collection, and one of its first wriggling specimens was Bob's "Below The Waves" (Song For A Bastard Boss). A bluesy belch of bile, its instrumental break sees several badly-played quiet guitars going through a dozen effects boxes. I'm enjoying playing slide guitar these days. But oh! the luxury of recording the basic band track in the same room at the same time, with multiple mics on the drums.

Sex tourism is go! "Abysinnia Next Week" began life as another song of Bob's called "White Darth Vader"; I picked out the underlying filth in its semi-nonsense lyrics and added some suitable lines. (The original synthpop version is still to come, on another EP, someday...) The backing track was mostly recorded in Exmouth at Luke's mum's house, where there is a great selection of recorders. Freak, man!

After all that rampancy, you need a comedown, and here we have "Fly By Night". It has something to do with being persuaded to volunteer at an adults' charity ball, and having a miserable time. Rigsby comes to mind: "The permissive society? It doesn't exist. And I should know - I've looked for it". But of course, it needs to be looking for you. Listen out for a fierce and wonky guitar solo (ha!) and a fierce and wonky melodica (double ha!). This was the last thing recorded for the EP - we kept it standing around in the corner until December wearing only a simile.

"Wafternoon" also hung around for a little while, until its silly lyric had infused through the music properly. It was prompted by a wobbly moment on the south coast. The middle section features two kazoos (never underestimate the kazoo), woozy slide from Luke and a kitschy keyboard solo by myself.

It's reverb to 11 on the penultimate track, a riot of stereo percussion which includes coins spun on drum heads, a wind-up plastic robot, a wooden metronome, wall chimes, and a metal Beatles wall sign struck like a gong. It's named in honour of the daft comedian Marty Feldman, and nearly had the suffix "Emergency Ambulance". Imagine a fierce storm in an English village, trees coming down in people's gardens, slates sliding off roofs, and Marty riding through the sheeting rain, perhaps wiping the windscreen with a hanky when the wipers get stuck.

We end the EP in solemn territory. Having first heard it after perusing Elena Filatova's Chernobyl photos, "Son of a Systems Engineer Manager" conveys such an air of weary resignation, that it's quite possible to believe Luke went and sabotaged a power station the following day. The protagonist's hopes are allowed to pick up briefly in the psychedelic middle 8, before coming back to the present with a distorted klaxon (having dozed off on the night shift?). You may be amused to note the rumblings over the final minute are provided by my washing machine, which just happened to go onto its spin cycle at the right moment. Who needs BBC Sound Effects CDs?

Kesh in the summertime

So, my boylets and girlings, are you bouncing freely in these lovely sunstreaked days? Remember, tanning is indecent.

I thought I should bring us all up-to-date on what's been going on these last few months, before it all escapes my brain in a slow twist of early-onset Alzheimer's sieve action. (Always hate the fast spin cycle on our old washer-dryer.)

Your friends at Keshco (Mr Kesh has a Company, remember...) have not been so idle in the first half of the year. Firstly we completed an EP, "Lego Of Me", at the start of March, just missing our self-imposed deadline of Valentine's Day. Could have been an Easter release I suppose. But it's still in the record company vaults! I am given to understand that these six tracks of pure gooey chocolatey goodness are to be unleashed any week now. Here's the track-listing:

She Knows Disco / More Deserving / James Harries / Decadent Robots / Inhale / Advert From Heaven

Next, we turned our attention to recording a track for this year's International Ocean Day compilation, curated by the delectably fishy Notebook Of A Mermaid. The theme this year was ocean covers, and so we hit upon a version of "Oceans In The Hall" by the Ladybug Transistor. This song (all six minutes of it!) can now be downloaded from our MySpace page, but there should be a home for the whole compilation somewhere online, soon.

We completed an interview for a video project by our friendly Swedish label friends at 23 Seconds, all about free music and free culture. That was fun and then Johan, and also John from stablemates Azoora, tagged along whilst we wobbled around Tesco making a video for our "Crimes Of Casio". Pop-tastic!

The last thing we put out was our brand spanking new football anthem, "Penalty Shot!". I hope you've already checked out the video on our YouTube page. The song should find a home in a forthcoming EP...

...of which there should be a few! We've got at least three more of these little releases in mind, and have a hope to put out a netlabel EP on each continent over the next year. "Keshco - The Continents Collection" - doesn't it sound fab? If you know of any suitable labels, particularly outside Europe, please get in touch.

In other video news, Johnny Cocktail's trip through the dreamscape (started in 2004, would you believe) is still in a morass of editing, though creeping towards its end stages.

A couple of live shows are tentatively planned, which we think will be more acoustic.

That's enough to be getting on with for now. I'll wish you a good morrow and let's be in touch a bit more often, hm!

Music for films

We're going to update this section on the main website, but for now...

Keshco are keen to provide music for films or other video projects. If you're looking for music for your project, please contact us and provide as much of the following information as you can:

* Genre, run time and summary of the work
* Projected deadlines (for editing, etc)
* Required delivery date
* Estimate of the amount of music required
* Budget (if any)

Much of our music is now made available under a Creative Commons licence; you are very welcome to use it providing a suitable credit is made. Of course a little optional donation would be graciously accepted - we would suggest £3 per piece if you can afford it.

Echo! (Echo!)

Reverbnation is a pointless site. It has not gained us any friends or plays, despite numerous exclusives - but it has sucked up an awful lot of time. People go to MySpace or Last.fm, not Reverbnation. Nobody wants to click on its silly widgets, which it encourages you to stick all over the net. It spams us every few days with emails saying "you are about to lose chart positions at Reverbnation" - how we ever gained any is beyond me, seeing as nobody clicks through to the site. Sometimes, the twinkly sites really are not the best sites.

In other news: the second Keshco album, "The Seeds of Wom", is now completely free to download via archive.org. It's been ten years now since its release. I hope you'll help yourself. It's released under a Creative Commons licence, so you're welcome to remix the tracks, should you be so disposed.

This is what Autumn does...

Darkness encroaches, even forcing me to use hated striplights at work. How do we save the "Task" video, with its imagined lush N4 ripeness? Cycle around inside the garden centre or what? Shall I employ chromakey leaves? Rotoscope the whole thing? Ah well, best finish off a Johnny Cocktail or two. See our Youtube page for previous examples.

Back in August, we recorded a cover of acapella ditty "Coma" by fellow WM Recordings artiste Bacco Baccanels. This has now been featured on the anniversary WM 100 album, which is a free download (ooo yeah!) from http://www.wmrecordings.com ...oh go on, have a click.

Is there anybody there?

THIS IS AN APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE KESHCOLOGIST SOCIETY.

"Evolving in the dark". The words of Muldaway McDoon, scientist and scholar, at the Trolley Crash of 1st April, when he interrupted his talk on Darwin to make a point about the continuing fortunes of Keshco to his minimal audience. Sadly, this is still how it feels. Our radio plays on last.fm have steadily decreased ever since they introduced the new revenue streams in the spring (another nail in the coffin, hurrah!), and nobody external to our friend group has expressed any interest in Dak. Yes we are fed up. It's just impossible these days. More and more music is piling up, everywhere, and it seems that even the modest ambition of getting our songs out there (and we're not even talking about "making it", hell no, not in this century) is unattainable. No gig offers, no radio plays, no sales, no nice comments by all the people who downloaded our songs or watched our videos - it's just tedious. (Apologies if I've offended one of the few people who've actually left a comment these last few years, they have really cheered us up.)

It's not all doom and gloom. A few waterbeds in the desert: the delightful Vombat Radio, and... well, actually, that's it right now.

I hate biorhythms.

Dak is deforested

So, the new album is finally out. Isn't it exciting? This bunch of songs has been hanging around for a long old time - some of them go back to 2002! - but we've tried to give them all a flavour of This Year's Keshco. It's been a much more collaborative effort this time, and I hope the richness of the sound reflects that.

Our problems are now manifold. Who should we try to send the CDs to? Should we approach indie music shops? Do we need a barcode? Is it worth getting a whole run professionally pressed up? If so, shouldn't the thing really be mastered by a proper engineer first? But how would we trust them to do the master we want? I well remember the time I helped out on keyboards for an alt-rock band in Leicester. They made a 7-track EP - part recorded at a studio above a Tae-Kwondo hall on the high street (OK apart from the recording guy refusing to undertake any complex overdubs), and part in a local college. Eventually, through gigging and scrimping, they got enough cash to stump up for a mastering job. Unfortunately, the bloke doing the mastering made a few bad choices (e.g. bringing up first take vocals, mixing hard left and hard right) and then they were stuck with it.

Anyway - how the heck is someone else meant to master stuff that's been done on Buzz, at home? Nary a mixing desk in sight. I've done my best with my faulty ears and my faulty stereo. Please don't be like the trench-coated dullards in Leicester city centre who once tried to sell me a faceless-looking synth album with the immortal line: "it's completely clean, there's no hiss". Yes and what about the quality of the songs, huh? No hiss. Shitehawks.

UPDATE: You can still buy Deforestation of Dak through Amazon UK (it's cheaper to buy direct from us, but hey if you're kind enough to click through and buy another product of your choice, we get a few pennies via the affiliate thingy. Hurrah!). Remember, it's on CD, not vinyl. Not vinyl! Please don't go buying what someone's mistakenly listed as a vinyl copy.

H before C (and only one K)

At Christmas, I was made aware of "I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways To Remember Stuff", a little hardback book that started something of a trend in retro education guides for adults worried they may be losing the skills they picked up as kids. It got me thinking...

VISITOR: What, is he going to ditch the music and become a teacher at last?

This whole business of band names.

VISITOR: Ooff!

I once played a bit in Leicester with my friend Dominic who goes under the search engine-defying name of w/trem. We were hoping to be billed as "w/trem meets keshco", a potential nightmare for bookers if we'd kept it up. Instead they billed us as "Dom & Andy", a minor if typical cop-out.

But really though. This week's Time Out announces that there will be a gig on Sunday by a band called Kescho. I'm not sure who this band is but they've been following us around. Almost every gig we do, they show up, always when the signwriters forget to put our names up. They must have been to 70% of all the gigs we've ever played. There's that other band too, Keshko. They've been billed in our place more than a dozen times now. If I ever catch those double-K charlatans...

As for Keschko, well that's just a South London attempt to make us Communist.

There is one and only one accepted variant - Eshco, our own tribute band who for reasons best known to themselves have chosen to focus purely on our 1990s output.

Anyway, ladies and gentles, I hope that, should you find yourself engaged in writing the name of our band down in the near future, you'll think of our loosening grips on sanity, and recite the following:

H before C
and only one K

It doesn't rhyme, but it might just work.

Anxiously awaiting your response

Nowadays we're (finally) pretty regular at this whole gigging lark, but back in the early days of 2006, something like this was the only request we were getting. Heh. The scam element appears to be that they send you a cheque/CC payment for the fee, then tell you the gig is cancelled and demand you pay them the money back ASAP - their original payment then bounces (of course) so you're left out of pocket. I rediscovered this upon a bit of spring cleaning, and post as a warning in case anybody else is still receiving the same scam.

- - - - - - - -

Tuesday, 31 January, 2006 2:53 PM
From: "David Irons"

Hello,

I am pleased to let you know that i will be requiring your services and expertise for a My old pa birth day party.Please let me know to what extent you can be invovled in the party affair,the charges for your much needed services,the logistics invloved and your general organisation setup for my consideration.

Please do get back to me in earnest with answers to my inquiries so that we can set it up.

Below is what i would be needing your services for:

1)Live set performance
2)sound sytem
3)3 pieces band

And below are informations you need to know about the party:

1)Date:14th/15th March 2006.Time 12:30 P.M
2)Venue: our residence in London,Lea Brigde Road clapton pound E59 qd.
3)Adult birth celebration/Get together Party.
4)size:not more than 100 people
5)Its an in door party,which floor is 100 capacity.
6)Hours of playing 3 hours
7)No other band performing but you.

I would like to make it clear that the party is going to be a low profile party,we do not intend to exceed £1700 as budget for services you will be rendering,£200 for transport expenses and contigency.Please note that if you needed to be accomodated before the date we have a guest house you can stay so there will be no need for adding accomodation fee.

consequently,we would need you to give us a quote for the things we need you to take care of and your service charge so that we can arrange for payment to reach you asap so that preparation can begin in earnest as it's obvious that time it not on our side.Please be assured of our open-mindedness in our resolution to work with you.Also if there is anything we have not included to make this day a memorable one.please feel free to let us know as we require alot of your expertise and professionalism.On your arrival if you are will be performimg.

Please do get back to me in earnest with my questions and concerns,Because i have little or no time to arrange for the party because am travelling on a business assignment which i would like to make the deposit before living for my trip in other to avoid any setback in the upcoming celebration.

I am anxiously awaiting your response.
Cheers
David

2014 update: I note this post is still quite popular, and so if you're coming here to research dodgy emails, an interesting book on scambaiting is "Dear Annick", by the Bowrunner, which is wildly funny and available from Amazon UK here.

Keshco Wiki entry, 2008

What follows is the text of Keshco's entry on Wikipedia. It lasted about nine months, which I suppose is some sort of minor victory.

Keshco is a name used by a group of English artists and musicians to encompass various creative projects. These have included music CDs, short films, verse and artwork.

Keshco was formed in the mid-1990s in East Anglia, by Andrew Brain, Gareth Monger and Robert Follen. Luke Sample joined in 2006 after playing in offshoot band Bleak House.[1] Early projects included scam-baiting, notably an investigation into the business practices of The International Library of Poetry. In response to newspaper adverts making promises of fame and fortune through poetry, Keshco sent off several dozen pieces of flimsy verse, all of which received the same congratulatory letter suggesting each poem had reached the semi-final stage and would be an ideal candidate for publication - at a price.

Musically, Keshco write in many styles, including folk, electronica, psychedelia and outsider music. They display an interest in found sounds and have employed tape-splicing. Their lyrics have been recommended for their combination of grim honesty and surreal humour.[2][3]

They spent the late 1990s mainly home-recording, apart from two seasons of summer busking around East Anglia in 1998 and 1999. Their first full-length collection of music, "Earlobe Holistics", was an experiment in tape-splicing self-released on cassette with individually hand-drawn artwork. This was followed by a CD, "The Seeds Of Wom", released via mp3.com in late 2000. A third collection, "Saplings Of Sop", was self-released in 2002, followed by "Softened Fingers" in 2006.

In 2006, six Keshco songs were featured on the soundtrack of "20,000 Little Reasons", an hour-long gangster film directed by Andy Wilton and produced by Once Upon A Tyne Productions. This film received showings in the North-East and on Sky channel 244.

Live performances were often backed with projections, and from 2005 the band switched to primarily electronic performance. They began to showcase Robert Follen's interest in costume and mime. Independent reviews in 2007 displayed dismay at the gap between Keshco's creativity and stature within the industry.[4] A review in London's Time Out, published on 30 January 2008 compared Keshco to White Town and Lloyd Cole.

Short films made by Keshco include various episodes of Johnny Cocktail, a series about a "lifestyle guru/private investigator", and stop-motion animations. These have been shown at film nights around the UK.[5]

Outside projects include Gareth Monger's paleo-artwork - he is a commissioned artist for Oxford Natural History Museum amongst others[6]. Robert Follen's project to amass television footage featuring himself has led to appearances on (among others) Trisha, Look East, and Secret History: Boy Soldiers Of WW1.

On 16th February 2008 Keshco recorded a live radio session for London's arts station Resonance FM[7]. They played three tracks: 'Climate Dance', 'Think Alike' and 'I am Broken, I am Alba.' A short interview followed in which Keshco were quizzed on past and forthcoming appearances.

As of August 2008, Keshco's fifth release, "Deforestation of Dak" was close to completion.[8] An 22-minute EP "Trolley Crash" on Dutch label WM Recordings appeared in mid-2008.

Gazza's Super Soccer

NOTE: This is one of several reviews I wrote for a fan book of Speccy games, but lazily didn't get round to sending in. Autumnal inertia. Tonight I see the book's been finished. Ho hum!

GAZZA'S SUPER SOCCER (Empire, 1990)

English football was enjoying a brief resurgence in 1990 – two clubs allowed back into Europe, the semi-final run at the World Cup – and the star of the moment was cheeky, chubby Paul Gascoigne. For a while, he was everywhere. In addition to the rap singles, the board game and the coaching video, it was inevitable Gazza's name would be appropriated for a computer game. Sadly, or perhaps madly, this was the result. This slow, clunky, muddled game appeared in front of my eleven-year-old eyes, and I was horribly transfixed.

There's a limited management section that's simple enough – allowing you to name and endow (oo-er!) your players and choose their formation. You can enter a cup competition or a full league. The proof of the pudding is in the arcade action, though; and it's here the true horror of Gazza's Super Soccer is unleashed.

From the kick-off you notice a motion system that's unresponsive, often erratic and this is coupled with unintelligent selection that means you can wait long periods with no player under control. The rule book is torn up - players can take throw-ins from the middle of the pitch and even score direct from a throw – also, the throw is usually awarded to the side who kicked it out. Hats off for trying a new visual perspective – action in the centre of the pitch is side-on angled a la Match Day, but around the goalmouths changes to a head-on view, usually causing your player to lose the ball inbetween screens. The randomly-loafing players all suffer from the same poor posture and unathletic style that an uncharitable reviewer might ascribe to the game's titular star after a night on the razz (though, in Sweden, this was repackaged as Anders Limpar's Soccer – I don't know what he did to deserve this). Oh, and why does every team you face bear the names you've invented for Player 2 in friendly mode?

Sometimes players get stuck in their throwing sprites and run around with their arms behind their head as if cheering. There are times when the legend “Goal kick” appears, but play continues anyway. It's near-impossible to turn and keep possession, forcing you into the kind of hoof-fest that incumbent English boss Graham Taylor would probably have loved. In a fairer world, it would be his name attached to this unappealing, unskillful game. Yet, despite (or maybe because of) the multiple deficiencies of this bug-ridden travesty, it almost takes on a weird addictiveness as some kind of random-generator football you play in order to see how else it can be broken. Gazza On A Bender's Super Soccer.

Really though, it's this kind of latter game that hastened the demise of the Speccy – lazily coded, presumably rush-released, and with little to recommend it. There was a superior sequel, Gazza II, but that's for another day...

Read more about the astonishingly comprehensive Retro Gamer magazine (can there be a subject they haven't covered by now?), or Paul Gascoigne in his own words here (yes these are Amazon UK affiliate links - by clicking through, you can help sustain this band! Hurrah!)

Ugh - he's SAD

Good afternoon, winter Keshcologists. I trust you're making good use of today's remaining daylight; I'm holed up in a nasty air-conditioned office under striplight.

The colder months are upon us; pish and plops! I used to tolerate winter, when I was younger and warmer-blooded; now I actively dislike it. In fact I'm thinking of writing a stiff letter.

Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to me a sane response to insane conditions. Only four months ago (2 August) we had seven and a half hours' more daylight to frolic in. This time of year is depressing anyway, with the only-slightly-apologetic Christmas push (I don't want more things, I want more headspace to use the things I have). The knowledge of how much time was wasted in the summer gets more painful each year.

My friend Drew Walton came up with a fine piece of magnetic poetry once. It started: "Mooning a cold universe chills my bottom" and ended "tonight we slap the kipper in a saucy dance". I find philosophy, for the most part, depressing and self-defeating. Sad songs do me no good these days, and I suspect many of our audience feel the same. Is it good to wallow? Is it sod. Let's make merry. It's a good time to write to your friends.

Under the bonnet

The world of electronics can often feel like a closed shop to the uninitiated - all those chips and wires and blobs, how on Earth do they all fit together? Well, we Keshcologists have been making some inroads into this, through the rather yummy art of circuit bending. Circuit what, you may ask with a raised eyebrow. The art of circuit bending is basically the art of the creative short circuit. It involves taking the back off of electronic toys and testing out new connections between parts of the circuitboard, with the hope of uncovering features never intended by the manufacturer. It's a good way of learning what all the constituent parts of a circuit are there for (and which ones to avoid if you want to keep your equipment intact). People have done it with synthesizers, toys, Furbies, video game systems, but I have stuck so far with cheap keyboards.

Reed Ghazala is a king of home electronic noise mayhem and his well-detailed book Circuit-Bending: Build Your Own Alien Instruments is available through Amazon UK.

The kit you need for successful circuit bending is simply a few tester leads (the ones with crocodile clips at the ends), some wire, a soldering iron, and a few variable resistors. We'll come back to those.

On Sunday night I took out a bag with a Poundland keyboard inside. Taking the back off revealed that the circuitry was pretty minimal - one board about the length and width of a Fry's Turkish Delight, upon which were a couple of resistors, eight connections for each of the eight keys, two triggers (one for demo, one for normal play), and a little chip hidden underneath a black blob. This has the demo rhythms inside and works the same way as a musical Christmas card, i.e. they weren't demos at all but just something else that makes a tune. For one thing, the demos had three-voice polyphony whilst the actual keys can only be played one at a time.

It was really necessary to operate as a two-man team for this. Attaching one tester lead to the first resistor, we explored all the other connectable points on the circuit, and found two potential bends - one that sent the pitch and speed up by about two octaves, and one that had a kind of crumbly volume control. This is where the variable resistors come in. I had bought a grab bag of 20 from Maplin, which were all different strengths. They act as a controller for your effect, and different strengths of variable resistor will act in varying strengths. (If you want to have the option of turning the effect off completely, you have to solder in an on/off switch before the variable resistor.) After experimenting with a few of these we found a good one that could take the pitch up from merely quite fast to ludicrously quick, quite nicely.

We then tried putting a second variable resistor after the first. This was a bit of a waste of time, although the signal occasionally started wobbling as if through a chorus pedal.

Leaving that connection, we tried attaching a clip to the second resistor. There were a few possibles here. We found three connections that added harsh overtones that increased in intensity as you moved the variable resistor, until it sounded like the speaker was going to pop. Each added subtly different overtones. We then found one that dropped the pitch and speed right down into the depths, to create a great "systems failure" noise.

The soldering began at 12am and didn't finish until 2am. This was partially down to lack of practice (it's been a while) but also to the dynamics of an unfamiliar soldering iron. It took ages to heat up and needed a good clean. Also the titchy circuitboard kept moving around.

Anyway. The next step is to decide how the new connections should be housed - whether to make holes in the existing case, or to transfer the whole thing into a new case, as it would fit into a little box quite easily. I'm certainly tempted to cut off half the superfluous plastic around the edges.

Pics and video to follow...

Keshco is elsewhere

I note, with not a little concern, that this blog is on the first page of Google results for the name Keshco. This despite a new post not having been added in the best part of two years. Well, time to rectify that! Or pull it down.

A lot has happened since last we spoke - well, I typed; you told me I was becoming aware of my surroundings and left your phone number. Not exactly a conversation but it'll have to do.

You know, there's a much more frequently updated blog over at the Keshco page on MySpace. Probably much more worth your while. Bear with me (or rather, go somewhere else) whilst I try to decide what (if anything) this blog is actually for. There is a place for navel-gazing, and it's silver, is page-a-day and came from WHSmith.

Selling England By The Pound

Friends! Thought you might be interested to know that there's a copy of "Softened Fingers", my band's most recent CD, available now on eBay for £1.00 (plus another £1 for P+P). You can view the listing here. Will anyone feel suitably curious?

Holding on with clenched teeth for the start of Spring. All is transitory.

A Sunday Swing in Hackney Wick

If you find yourself in our fair and crisp capital next Sunday, the 20th November, may I suggest that you check out the latest belated Creative Swing. The smell of bagels and a walk of stars will bring you to The Lord Napier, 25 White Post Lane, E9 5EN, wherein you will find all manner of earthly delights - spoken word, dance, knitting, and general arty gubbins. No bagels though. As part of the evening there will be some sort of Keshco performance, presumably involving the singing of certain words and the playing of certain melodies. There may also be a new episode of Johnny Cocktail, for the truly fearless. Best of all, it's entirely free! How could you resist...

UPDATE: Ah, alas, the event didn't happen. Are we surprised? No, we are not. And it would have been a solo performance, which I don't even like doing. But we shall console ourselves, with today's music recommendation - the dense, downbeat Gravity Pulls, by Echobelly (Amazon UK). They're still out there, doing their thing. As am I. As are you. While we can.

Socialism of the Heart

This weekend I find myself attending a get-together called Socialism 2005, in the resolutely grotty surroundings of ULU. The bulk of the event is a forum whereby campaigners and activists of a particular left-leaning persuasion can share experiences and ideas (and, for the lucky, maybe fluids) with the aim of forging a powerful alternative to the pisspoor state of mainstream politics. There would be, you might think, more that unites the diverse factions on the left-wing than divides them. Can greens and reds work together, in a new workers' party capable of seizing the popular imagination? Given the confrontational tone of some speakers today, I fear that, although two into one may go, its only chance is at the cost of much deeply-entrenched ideological pride. And as certain recent political vanity projects sadly remind us, pride can be a stronger political motivator than reason. A united party of the left may provide the public with a coherent name on the ballot sheet as opposed to the rag-bag choice they are currently faced with; but how long before it tears itself apart through infighting? Compromise, as a wiser man once quipped, is a stalling between two fools. Any foolishness in this case, it seems to me, stems to a great extent from this dogged adherence to ideology. But what do I know? I've not even read Marx. Maybe I'm missing out on a perfectly logical and workable grand scheme. I just know that the system ain't going away any time soon, no matter what some may hope. The Socialists and the Greens would obviously fare better under a system of Proportional Representation. But that's clearly not on the agenda either. A pooling of resources could be just the ticket, in my humble late-night opinion. And with the global environmental meltdown in mind, the left had better get it together soon, or their ideology will count for very little.

That's not meant to sound patronising. My contribution to the political struggle thus far has mainly consisted of singing pro-NHS diatribes to the already converted. There's no inscription on my guitar proclaiming "This Machine Kills Fascists". But I like to think I have a little socialism of the heart, at least.

Of course, if you want to hear that phrase set to music, you should probably grab the warm and wise LP William Bloke by Billy Bragg, which is available from Amazon UK here... and you'd be helping sustain this band in the process. Hurrah!