Hello there. Been a few months since the last blog and I just wanted to reassure you that it isn’t because I’ve become all content and happy and at one with the world around me.
Nope. I still think that we live in a world that flips chaotically between incredible beauty and pillock-infested puddles of stinking pustulent piss and that a large amount of the world around us seems intent on turning us into unthinking consumerist drones with brains of addled pink mushy goop. We still have awful politicians, greedy banks, pointless wars based on who has the best imaginary friend, horrendous diseases and Jessie J. I still spend much of my time shaking my fist at the sky and raging against the sheer stupidity of it all. This is, of course, pointless on many levels and at best could be seen as counter-productive. My justification for this is the many hours I have spent proving that you don’t catch more flies with honey than shit. You do get funny looks in the ‘Pickles and Preserves’ aisle of Tesco, however. Apparently I’m no longer welcome there.
So I’m sure I’ll have a pointless online rant again at some point soon - although it is almost impossible to find anything to rant about that hasn’t already been ranted about. And don’t worry, you don’t have to read it. I look on it as therapy so I’ll do it regardless of whoever is looking. It is far cheaper than actual therapy although my paranoid brain assumes that Google must be collecting data from my blogs and forming a character profile that suggests I may be likely to purchase a Sherman tank and drive through Harlow screaming obscenities at anyone capable of understanding words of more than one syllable. Admittedly this wouldn’t take long which is handy considering the fuel costs.
But this blog is not going to be one of those rants. I’m not going to get angry about anything. I will try to limit my swearing to a few buggers, one fuck and a couple of arses.
Yes, I want this blog to be a positive, happy, uplifting, cheery one. The kind of blog to put a smile in your step and a spring on your face. And the reason is that our new album is here!
The tracks on the album go all the way back to the very beginning of Donkey. The first track on the album is Piano Test, which is the first thing we ever wrote. It is also the reason that the rest of the stuff we do exists. If Piano Test hadn’t gone well then I probably wouldn’t have bothered carrying on with the project. I’d still have to write tunes, but they would be 15 minute experimental instrumentals that nobody would listen to, written purely for the purpose of stroking my already massively over-inflated ego as I sat back marveling at the complexity of the chord structure and the clever way it changed key every 7 beats. Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view - which you are entirely entitled too even though it might be utterly wrong) the writing and recording of Piano Test did go well and over the next couple of years we carried on writing and releasing. Some of the stuff became EP’s because sometimes you hear a few tracks played together and they just seem to have a theme or a certain vibe about them. Yes, we do actually think about this shit, you know. We’ve also got a bunch of stuff nobody has heard yet which will undoubtedly form another EP or two as we carry on working. But some of the tunes we wrote seemed to sit well as an album. And I like albums, partly because of the word bums.
Now I’m well aware that many people don’t buy an album and listen to it all the way through. Although a few people I know still do this, they are in the minority. I think this is a shame because some of the best known and most enduring music has been an album with a story or a progression to it. A set of tracks not just randomly shoved together but a collection of tunes that fit together and take the listener along for a ride. I’m not for one nanosecond suggesting that our album fits alongside such fluid and wonderfully structured classics as Dark Side Of The Moon or Sergeant Pepper or Pinky & Perky Sing The Blues or Captain Wazzo and his Magic Flying Harmonium. But I do think it is an album that has a flow to it. We tried to design it that way.
And of course, I have to send some thanks to my fellow Donkeys...
Daryl’s lyrics and performances always make me smile. Several people who worked with me in the past have listened to our stuff and said things like, “Yeah, this guy really gets what you do” and other similarly nice comments. I think what he does fits so well with what I do that I think I’d struggle to write a song that I was even remotely proud of anymore if he wasn’t a part of it. Before I met Daryl, I tried writing lyrics and singing my own stuff. It wasn’t pretty. At least I didn’t rhyme “air” with “care” or “fly” with “sky” but I did cobble together a couple of songs that, once finished, I could barely listen to without wanting to swallow my own head. So Daryl, if you’re reading this and god knows why you would - you have PS3 games to finish so I can borrow them - I would like to take this opportunity to say, “you owe me a fiver, you bastard”.
And it would be incredibly rude of me not to mention everyone else who contributes to the Donkey noise. I am incredibly rude, of course, but I don’t want anyone to find out which is why I wander around coated in a wafer-thin veneer of geniality and helpfulness whilst secretly wanting to throttle half the people I meet and explain to them exactly where they’re going wrong. Anyway... In no particular order.
Ben Holmes, who provides the odd bit of guitar (usually something that’s too complicated for me to play so I have to ask a proper guitarist - see Seen Better Days on the album) and sings the odd song. Sometimes you’ll hear him in the background, sometimes he does the main vocals (see Dog Head from the Rides Again EP, for instance) - and all this on top of doing stuff with his own band People Are Things. Mostly he just sends me files that, once added to the track, make me grin and dribble slightly in the manner of someone who had a nasty bump on the head once and now stands at a funny angle on street corners in a stained thong, occasionally burping into a crisp packet and calling everyone Marjory.
And so on to the lovely, funny and talented Cara Winter who frequently puts her beautiful voice on to our parpy thumpy beepy noises. Oh, and she plays a glockenspiel on one of the tunes as well, which is nice. The tune is “Do You Know What She Did”, in case you were wondering. Her stuff is also really good so go buy some.
Then we have Stuart Pringle who is definitely a leading contender for the title of nicest man with slightly saggy trousers in the music industry. He hits things for a living and he does it very well to the point where he always seems to be busy. Yet he still finds time to pop over to Donkey HQ and bash stuff and use our toilet and show me silly things on his iPhone. His percussion is all over Small Black Box and the addition of him at our gig last summer turned something that could have been average into something that I thought was genuinely great.
Lastly, but not leastly, is the ever cheerful Martin Case. Also an accomplished writer and performer who spends a lot of his time trying to make society better by encouraging people to make tunes not war. Or something like that. I may be oversimplifying. But his vocals adorn a few of our tunes and we’ve also got a few other things in the works where he has contributed funny noises and words to something.
So from me to them, a big thank you. Your talent, time, biscuits, beer and stupid jokes are an endless source of joy. Although my studio toilet roll bill seems to have doubled. Swings and roundabouts.
And now to the rest of you, go on iTunes or Amazon or something and type Hot Donkey into the search thingy. The album is called Got Monkey and it has 12 tracks on it. It’s not very expensive but it will never wear out and worst case it might annoy your neighbours.
We put a lot of time, effort, tea, coffee and love into it. Hope you enjoy it.
Next week: Aren’t kittens great?
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