latest news...

Dear all;

Hi there! How are you all? Sorry for the slight delay in getting back to you, but as you may have guessed with it now rapidly approaching Christmas time, like most of you no doubt have - I have lots of Christmas shopping to do and precious little time for anything else.

But there has been some news for my website fans (of which I am sure one or two of you exist at least - lol) I have just posted a excellent new interview with Glasgow based band called Magdelena and the interview can be found here... http://www.geocities.com/aen1mpo/mag.htm

I have had two more interviews also recently returned to me by Holly Lerski and Bella Emerson - I am aiming to sit down over this week-end and get working on them too in addition to more stuff happening too.

One of my friends has also been asking me to post some new poems on here also, here is a brand new one which I think is about to appear in a magazine also...


For my Unborn

Would they have my eyes?
Would they smile in
The same daft way
With a half bit lip
And slightly crooked teeth.

Would they lean against fences
While waiting for buses
Like bored teenagers
Even when they reach
Their 30s
And still look
Impatiently at the floor.

Would they think long and hard
About everything
And still stumble
Over ever word
Like I sometimes do.

Would they stay in the shadows
And look at me
With envy and then pity
Or would they just
Wait in the queue.
And smile with a slightly crooked smile.

Let me know what you think...

Andy N xxx

Johnny Depp monologue

Dear all;

Another bit of fun writing.. Did this for my writing group (http://www.boltoncommunity.co.uk/haulgh-writers-group) which some of you know I go to frequently as a laugh a week or two ago.

What we had to do was do a monlogue on a famous person and place them in a unusual situation... I decided to do mine on JD of course, but place him in the situation of in a Job Centre / Employment Centre (Not sure what it is called in America or anywhere not in England) having to try to find a new job, and the monologue in question is what happened when he was asked what he had done for a living previously….

Let me know what you think if you like...

Andrew


***********************
Notes taken from an interview with an Advisor during a New Claims Interview at a local Job Centre

(Taken 1st November 2004)


What have I done for a living?

What have I done?

God, where do I start?

Well, firstly I was in a band. God, were we shit hot, well occasionally but usually just more shit to be truthful. I can remember us once writing a song about Michael Stipe. Yeah, him from R.E.M, which is just plain sad if you think about it to yourself, in particular if you heard their last album or two.

I’ve been a construction labourer, a gas-station attendant, a car mechanic but I was useless at that, which is ironic considering how cars I’ve broken down in and then got going afterwards or like the time when I played Edward. Nearly cut my bloody throat open with those bloody scissors every time I had to attach them onto my hands. I must have spent almost as much time oiling them as actually putting the bloody things on.

So I’m an actor?
(Laughs)

Well, I suppose you could say I am, although when I played Edward it was debateable if you would call that acting. Believe me, it hurt like hell every time I moved in that sodding black cat suit, but I had a hoot making it, almost as much as when I made Ed a couple of years later again with Tim.

Ed?

Sorry.

Ed Wood.

You’ve never heard off him? He was just some crackpot director in the 1950’s who made some of the worst films that were ever made.

Plan 9 from Outer Space?

You’ve never heard of that. Now that is honestly such a bad film, it is actually quite good. He used Bela Legosi who is / was some 40’s horror legend akin to Boris Kaloff if my memory is correct to play some role in the film and the bugger actually went and died during the production of it, and he replaced him with some bloke who was about 6 foot 5 and looked absolutely nothing like him and got him walking around for the full film with a cape covering his entire face, so nobody could make out what he looked like.

Yeah, I know it sounds completely crazy.

It is.

What sticks in my head however for the full of that film was the fact I ended up having to wear lady underwear for large chunks of it. It still freaks Vanessa out about that. Every time she mislays one of her pairs of knickers or her bra, which usually one of the kids have moved she still blames me “You’ve not been trying my knickers on again, Johnny have you?”

Women…

(Laughs)

I give you. You can love and hate them at the same time sometimes, but back to your point…

What films have I starred in? Christ, where do I start? Savvy…. Did I say that? I end up saying that sometimes without even realising even since I did Pirates.

I had a couple of kids say that down at Convent Garden the other week to me. I nearly dropped my cup of coffee when they said to me. “You’re Captain Jack Sparrow aren’t you, Savvy…?”

I love kids honestly. Well, sometimes apart from when you have to change their nappers and you have to explain to them that chocolate factories don’t exist. Mine can’t wait until I play Willa Wonka, although I can, as I’m already sick to death of eating chocolate. If I have to eat any more chocolate sauce, I can tell you honestly I will honestly pop, but that’s a story for another day, but to answer your question, I’m an actor – done loads of films, some of which you may know, others perhaps not.

What would I like to do now?

Sleep…

July Skies Review

Dear all;

Here is a little album review for you from an album which has been lingering in my CD player for the past month or two...


ARTIST: July Skies

ALBUM: The English Cold

LABEL: Make Music (label address: www.makemusic.co.uk)


There are often a variety of ways you can always review albums. Some journalists will listen to an album quickly and write the first thing that often comes into their head, which in some ways often reflects their first impressions and little else. Other times, you need to constantly listen to the album and let the album reveal itself to you in its own pace and time before you can begin to get a feel of what message the album is trying to say.

Anthony Harding who is “July Skies”‘s second album “The English Cold” is an album which reveals itself to you in such a way. Where his first album from 2002, “Dreaming of Spirals” was a hazy summer album with sounds, which made me think of a variety of child hood memories from the 1970’s. “The English Cold” in contrast goes further back with a dedication on the front of the album “for lost airmen 1939 - 1945” and stories contained within just on the sleeves for example:

“We got used to ploughing by moonlight, and when there was no moon we worked to a special system of lanterns hung in the edge. It was a strange business; it had their eerie beauty, which so much nocturnal wartime activity possessed. Like searchlights, firepaths, the floating stars of night flying aircraft, our lighted tractors were but part of a new pattern.”

The music that is contained with the album is beautiful and haunting, sometimes within the same breathe, choosing to reveal itself slowly through memories than traditional music of the time.

Songs like the first track “Farmers and Villagers living within the shadow of Aerodromes” or the title track “The English Cold” carry an almost Durruti Column sound in places. However, where the Durruti Column are almost classical music, July Skies is more about mood and memory.

This is shown in particular on tracks like “August Country Fires”, where Anthony’s occasional use of vocals bring to mind perhaps “Slowdive” (from which a dedication to Neil Hadstead, their former vocalist is listed on their debut album), in the way the reverb is used to fade out the guitars and in places also the vocals itself, where it’s message has to be listened to over and over again before finally being revealed.
Several tracks also feature members of Epic 45 (with whom Anthony has guest starred on their current album “Against the pull of Autumn), in particular tracks like “Waiting to land”. “Waiting to Land” is a particular interesting track which starts off with programmed drums and a looping keyboard which is then slowly swallowed by reverb laced Guitars and Basses which is the sounds that may appear in your head when you are landing in a airplane rather than the music itself, which in a way perhaps sums up “The English Cold”.

And perhaps makes ideal sense on a cold November Night looking out of my window.

the usual whaffle...

Hi;

It's late, too bloody late. It's 1.35AM in the morning and I am sat up still sitting at my PC typing away any old stuff that flies into my head.

I have just arrived back from going to the Cinema from going to watch Neverland, the new Johnny Depp film which is a incredibly sad but beauitfully shot film. Certainly well worth a few hours of your time going to watch without doubt. Johnny Depp as nearly always is really good in the film, but the real jem in the film is a young actor who played one of the sons, Peter. Didn't caught his name, but it was interesting to notice because of his performance in the film, Johnny Depp persuaded his mentor, Tim Burton to cast him in the main role in Johnny's new film "Willie Wonka", which should be very interesting after a excellent performance like that.

I am going to start posting some good links for mp3 music over the coming weeks also, here are a few today for you to consider looking at for yourself...

http://bootserv.com/ra/ra.audio.php - Ryan Adams live and unreleased

http://www.indiepages.com/postalblue/sounds.html - Portal Blue mp3's

http://www.rawbw.com/~aelison/555/mp3/ - 555 Records mp3s

I'm back to my Christmas shopping now. Did write a few new little doodles / Christmas Poems. Will post some of them on here when next on...
Have fun

Andy N xxx

Welcome..

Welcome to swamp heart land - my blog page. I am going to use this page as a personal diary page, which I itend updating as much as I can.

It will include:

1) Elements of my writing, my thoughts - bits and pieces from my poetry, maybe some short stories I have wrote and if I ever finish them off, my novel (s).

2) News about my life in general and if you know me, that will be pretty mad as usual..

3) Latest news and developments about my website "Setting Sun"....

4) and whatever else comes to mind...

Have fun

Andy N xxx