It’s the fourth day of the 2018 High Fives series and the contributions from songwriters and performers are starting to come in. it’s always good to have something from Graeme Wheatley, bass player and songwriter with Deep Blue Sea and all-round nice guy. It’s great to see that Graeme has completely embraced the High Five brief – just five of absolutely anything. And there’s even some Shakespeare for you as well. All photos courtesy of Laurence Harvey.
What subject can I pick? Allan will have the gigs sewn up for sure. I think I did albums and musicians before. I guess my answer is easy – it’s what I am doing right at this very moment. Or rather, it’s what I should be doing – but I am letting Allan’s request for an article distract me. Song writing.
I first thought I’d write a note about my favourite 5 songwriters – but none of them have written anything new this year – and it’s 2 years since Leonard decided to write no more. So I thought I’d write a little about some Deep Blue Sea songs – it might be self indulgent, it might be a bit arsey? But surely it’s not as bad as scoffing an entire tin of Quality Street tho of course, I might do that too.
2018 has been a year of writing songs. Deep Blue Sea started to write as a unit when Dre and Amanda joined Iago and me in March 2018. In the space of 3 months we got together, did a few gigs and then recorded a live album featuring 5 songs that were written in that 3 month creative burst. Since then we’ve probably written about 15 more and we’re in the studio over December and January recording them for a new album in 2019.
Seems like a good idea to take a look at the 5 songs we wrote over that 3 month period. I’m hardly qualified to go into great depth on the music – and the lyrics are totally open to interpretation – but here goes a few words of waffle and title tattle – feel free to disagree. One over-arching observation. A band is a relationship. Relationships start with an intensity. These songs happened fast and are part of the glue that we’ve created – part of the DNA of DBS. I hope you like this little tale –
“A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Rock Star Status
Oh. Look at the stars up in the sky – My oh my
Look at the stars waving goodbye – Bye bye bye
Everybody here gets Rock Star Status – There’s no point now cos everbody’s famous
It’s nobodys fault But everybody hates us – It’s nobodys fault But nothings gonna save us
Everybody here gets Rock Star Status – A little applause and admiration
15 seconds of adoration – A lethal dose of adulation
Oh. Look at the stars up in the sky – My oh my
Look at the stars waving goodbye – Bye bye bye
Everybody here gets Rock Star Status – A pocket full of dreams and a ticket to Vegas
Hold on tight, you’re making the papers – O/D-ed celebrities are coming back to plague us
Everybody here gets Rock Star Status – VIPs in the Palace of Gratis
Take a little taste of the breathing apparatus – A finger on the pulse of the phallic operators
Oh. Look at the stars up in the sky – My oh my
Look at the stars waving goodbye – Bye bye bye
All we ever wanted was Rock Star Stuff – Everything now and it’s still not enough
Keep it coming cos we’re Rock Star Tough – Keep it coming til we choke on the stuff
Oh. Look at the stars up in the sky – My oh my
Look at the stars waving goodbye – Bye bye bye
So, Iago had this little Stonesy type riff- except as always with Iago – the chords were weird, wired and inspired. I’d been to an art exhibition in Dulwich and there had been a painting I really liked. Couldn’t afford it of course, but there were some postcards of the painting free – so I took a couple. Got home later that day and looked at the picture. Surreal dreamscape with horses. Turned it over and the title was “All I ever wanted was Rock Star Status”. I knew I had a title. The lyrics flew onto the page – it was a job stopping them. When Dre started working on the melody she noticed nothing really rhymed very well. There’s the language barrier for you. You say Status and I say Status!!! We compromised. What’s it all about? You tell me. I’ve been wondering. Oh, by the way, the artist, Kate Pritchard, who painted the picture, came to see the band at our gig last week at 100 Club!!! Circle complete. That was a total new experience for us both – and a really good one. Life eh?
Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Dark days take pride of place – For the little girl with the smiling face
A smile that hides – uncertainty
If her face seems so serene – Her hands betray a silent scream
And doubts about – her sanity
Worlds of distorted noise – Distraction drinking drowning boys
Shaking shame – and regret
Touch and hold and then let go – Of something in her overcoat
One thing not – broken yet
The manic pixie dream girl is swaying in the breeze
Washed by winds and tossed by tides from all the seven seas
The manic pixie dream girl is shaking like the leaves
Crossed by stars and chained by dreams of
Never being free
Black clouds hang down the face – of the little girl with silent grace
Reaching out for – sanctuary
Beneath the stones and dusty bones – words are falling all alone
To mourn – dignity
Might have seen might have beens, hopes are only dusty dreams
Bitter pills – memory
Moments passed nothing lasts, out of reach fading fast
Time kills – vanity
The manic pixie dream girl is swaying in the breeze
Washed by winds and tossed by tides from all the seven seas
The manic pixie dream girl is shaking like the leaves
Crossed by stars and chained by dreams of
Never being free
She’s
Thrown in all directions – blown by recollections
The manic pixie dream girl is swaying in the breeze
Drawn to all confections – torn by rare infections
The manic pixie dream girl is shaking like the leaves
The manic pixie dream girl is swaying in the breeze
Washed by winds and tossed by tides from all the seven seas
The manic pixie dream girl is shaking like the leaves
Crossed by stars and chained by dreams of
Never being free
“I have almost forgot the taste of fears; The time has been, my senses would have cool’d To hear a night-shriek.”
Trev Turley writing a review of this song in Blues In Britain called the groove “invisible reggae” – I dunno what it means – but I like it 🙂
I was driving along in the old band van awhile back, listening to the radio. There was a book review programme on and people were talking and I wasn’t listening until someone said “oh, her, the classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl, it’s no more than you’d expect.” I knew I had a title for a song, but I didn’t know what the person meant by “no more than you’d expect.”
I got to thinking about a friend of mine who I am very happy to say is on the other side of the tunnel from her period as a manic pixie, but there was a time when several friends and I worried about this frail and beautiful butterfly. We saw her floating, we saw her shine and shimmer but we couldn’t do much to shelter her from the storms inside. She was fighting battles we had no weapons.
I wanted to try and capture the idea of a moment in time with her – where words don’t always mean what they appear to mean, where things tail spin off into other moments – the uncertainty at the core of a person in turbulence. I’m so glad she’s still my friend. And in the weirdest ways the manic pixie dream days are not over but no longer laced with the threat of a long, long night.
The Thrill of It All
The little girl doesn’t know
If she’s alive anymore
No sense of fun – nowhere to run
Once there was a time
Happiness was no crime
Now she’s in a cage – No passion or rage
As the light starts to fall
She’s walking on the edge
Of everything unsaid
It hurts just to feel, doubt what is real
Standing by the side
Of the days of her life
See the falling tide – what’s left behind?
As the light starts to fall
I know she recalls – I know she recalls
I know she recalls – The thrill of it all
I know she recalls – I know she recalls
I know she recalls – The thrill of it all
Here under the Sun
Hopelessly undone
How can feelings grow – From seeds she didn’t sow
Mem’ries made of pain
She cannot explain
A hand in the flame – the nameless game
As the light starts to fall
know she recalls – I know she recalls
I know she recalls – The thrill of it all
I know she recalls – I know she recalls
I know she recalls – The thrill of it all
This song grew in the playing. Iago’s guitar solo can take us off anywhere. When Amanda got into the song and the feel of it – she started to push things and take risks. If you listen to the live album, there’s a few moments where we could all really fall on our collective bums as we get perilously close to the edge. I think that’s the one of the great things I love about playing in the band – we are a band. And I think we all love the risks. Nobody stays calm – we’re all in it together. Dre’s melody to the chorus transformed this song. It would not have been on the album if she hadn’t have lifted something special out of the void. I co-wrote the lyric with Emma Holman. I think she put some truly heartfelt emotion into the words and thank her for sharing.
Hole in your Soul
It’s only when u get here u know this place exists
you’ve taken the wrong turn round every bend and twist.
u finally hit the bottom you have one more thing to learn
no going back, this is the point of no return
When love has lost
There’s a cost
There’s a hole in your soul
When the vital spark of life in ev’ry leaf and tree
Is passed un-noticed By eyes that do not see
You look into the darkness – seek solace out of light
Cut out all sensation – Taste and touch and sight
When love has lost
There’s a cost
There’s a hole in your soul
I climbed the highest mountain and looked down to the sea
I saw the miracle of life spread out in front of me
I look on all the beauty of night becoming day
When I saw that nothing moved me, I turned and walked away
You turn away from friends turn away turn away
Close down your heart. Nothing more to say
When love has lost
There’s a cost
There’s a hole in your soul
I climbed the highest mountain and looked down to the sea
I saw the miracle of life spread out in front of me
I look on all the beauty of night becoming day
When I saw that nothing moved me, I turned and walked away
When love has lost
There’s a cost
There’s a hole in your soul
“I begin to be aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.”
It will come as no surprise to anyone who vaguely knows me that I am a massive Bob Dylan fan. This lyric started life as a Bob type song. The bridge part “I climbed…” – it’s not often that I will say something like that – something I haven’t done. I haven’t climbed the highest mountain to look down to the sea – and I’m prepared to wager that Bob hasn’t either – but it’s something he would claim to have done. So if you are going to tell a porkie – tell a big one, like Bob 🙂
Lyrically, for me, it’s a dark night of the soul song. Make of it what you will. Sara (our previous drummer – from The Pearl Harts) liked this one a lot – said it reminded her of Muse. The line “This is the point of no return” was meant to have two meanings – but I realise one meaning is far more obvious than the other and unless I add an explanatory note, no one will see it. And who would be so tedious as to add an explanatory note? Duh!!!
All Our Yesterdays
Welcome to the great escape
No one’s gonna stop this big break
There’s a raging battle
Every single night
Someone’s give me half a chance I’m gonna set this place alight
So long to my sad old days
Don’t look back to those old ways
There’s a storm inside
Burning up my soul
Someone give me half a chance to make my life a whole
And the radio plays songs from a different day
Sing that song all night long wash your blues away
And the DJ plays All our yesterdays
So we say This one’s for the runaways
Welcome to this point of view
Somethings changed somethings new
Now we’re out the dark
Out into the sun
Some will stay and fade away but we are gonna run
And the radio plays songs from a different day
Sing that song all night long wash your blues away
And the DJ plays All our yesterdays
So we say This one’s for the runaways
And the DJ plays
All our yesterdays
So we say
This one’s for the runaways
So we say
This one’s for the runaways
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.”
This wee tale started life as a song I was writing with the ace guitarist Chris Walker while Chris helped keep the band afloat for a year or so, for which I am eternally grateful. It wasn’t easy keeping things going – but we had commitments to honour and he’s a great guy. We also had a dear friend Louise Davies making sure we kept the flame alight – she didn’t give either of us any other option. I nicked my own lyric to drop into Iago’s infectious confection of rockabilly roll. A song called All Our Yesterdays with a rock and roll groove seems to be made for each other and it’s kind of as close as we get to a bit of light relief. This is Dre’s favourite dancing song – which is great for her – cos she can dance – but the other two people standing on stage beside her both have 2 left feet!! We try not to fall over. That is the lesson for today folks. Dance, laugh, be happy, it could be so much worse. Keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the floor and…..try not to fall over.
(all the quotes are from one small page of Macbeth
– the Scottish play – a nod to the McKay:)
It’s always good to shoot the breeze with Graeme Wheatley from Little Devils and it’s great that he wants to share some of the highlights from 2015 with us. It’s been a chequered year for Graeme and Little Devils with a superb album to get behind and some recently-announced personnel changes; the Riot Squad are looking forward to the 2016 line-up. Graeme makes an unnecessary apology towards the end of this piece; whoever we are and however we do it, we’re all trying to promote music we love and there’s a place for all of us. So, let’s get on with it and hear what Graeme has to say.
Well, the time is upon us – the end of the year draws close and it’s been a topsy-turvy world for Little Devils – so if I may take this offer of writing a “High Fives” article – I will draw a veil over the low fives – and stay positive and mention 5 good things that happened this year.
Gigs
We had many great gigs this year – really enjoyed Doncaster Blues, Norwich Blues, Maryport, Colne and lots more festivals and lots of gigs – but if I had to pick out one gig, it would have to be Dock Rock in Hartlepool. This festival is organised annually to celebrate the life of a good friend of mine. Peter “Dock” Oliver. It’s organised by his wife and one of his close friends and it’s been my privilege to play there the last two years. It keeps Peter in my mind and gives me a chance to meet many mutual friends, play for them, chat and remember our friend. So, my heartfelt thanks to Gillian and Neil for giving me this chance.
“The Storm Inside”
We recorded “The Storm Inside”, pressed it, released it and toured to promote it all within the first 5 months of 2015. It was amazing to see it reach No 1 in the IBBA play lists for May and to stay there for June! We were knocked out at the reception. We put heart and soul into the music. Belief in what we were aiming at, commitment into getting it as good as we could make it. The art work was our concept, every word and very note was sung and played knowing we were doing the best we could, the mixing, the mastering, the tea making and the mixing of the G&Ts – we did it all – especially the G&T bit.
Louise Davies
I dunno where she came from! Back in January Louise Davies didn’t exist. Simple as that. There wasn’t a person called Louise Davies in our world. Then I met Bill Mead of The Sharpees. Bill can talk for England, and in one of his monologues about what I needed to do to move the band forward he mentioned this person he knew who could maybe help a bit if she liked the music (and if I somehow passed her “human qualities” assessment). A tentative “friend request” was extended. Then the storm broke – and it was a hurricane. How such a small person can generate so much activity I dunno. Whirling dervish springs to mind. Within maybe two months Louise was championing the band, playing our back catalogue on her radio show on Radio Seagull, promoting us at our gigs, speaking to agents around the world, telling everyone we were actually better than sliced bread – not just the best thing since – and in every other way – looking after us. We were honoured she accepted when we asked her if she would manage us. Since then, I have been given my instructions on a daily basis, I am kept in check, advised, encouraged, praised and slapped in equal measure! Louise is another pintsized powerhouse – I seem to be drawn to them! This, for Little Devils, has more than anything else, been the year of Louise!!! We are eternally grateful for the support, belief, advice, efforts and tireless bloody-minded hard work she has put in – long may you run.
Blues Matters & all the music supporters
Now this is a bit cheeky, praising a music magazine in a music blog! But, come on. We are all grown-ups and it’s a wide world. I just wanted to say a big thank you to Alan Pearce for having a lot of faith in Little Devils. He signed us to Kross Border Rekords, promoted the band, booked us at Colne and Skeggie and on a regular basis, calls me up and chews the fat. The guy is dealing with health issues, but through all of that stuff, he keeps his enthusiasm for music burning bright. He’s juggling a stack of different things that would tire a fully fit person – but he’s battling on with determination, energy and commitment. And I just want to take my hat off and say well done Alan. We are Spartacus. (And of course, there’s a load of space for Blues In Britain, The Blues Magazine, Music Riot, Blues in the South, BluesDoodles and all the other believers and dedicated enthusiasts of music – we are all in the same boat – let’s get rockin’).
Little Devils
I am not going to say anything about the hard times we’ve had. This is high fives – and so – even tho’ this is kinda a review of 2015, I am going to have a sneak peak towards 2016. Last night, the new line up had our first rehearsal. Now, I dunno how people are gonna react. We are going to walk out on stage next week and introduce Mags Supel on vocals and Chris Walker on guitars with the usual suspects, the Pintsized Powerhouse, Sara Leigh Shaw on drums and what’s his name on bass. Mags has a thousand and one lyrics to learn, melodies, arrangements, dance steps, choreography and conjuring tricks (no – obviously not – but it must feel like that!) and Chris has 11 notes to learn – all of which, he assures me, he’s played before. At least once. It is a daunting task. Frightening. But listening to Chris play last night, I smiled. Listening to Mags getting her head around the vocal and then adding her own touches, I nodded. Yes, it’s going to be good. It’s going to be great. So, out of the ashes, in December 2015 into the brave new year, Little Devils rise. Having new people come in, full of enthusiasm and commitment is, in itself, energising. Two days ago, for the first time in maybe 4 months, I had to jump out of bed, grab a guitar and quickly get down a new song that had just been delivered to my head via wherever. This is how it starts….
