FOR RUSSIA WITH LOVE

I just returned from Moscow again. We were playing at the Golden Mask Theatre Festival - a very wonderful thing and a great pleasure to attend. It was probably one of our best shows - with Jacques back in the saddle and Eyal creating a magical dream world around us. The Berlin artist Jim Avignon joined us on stage for some live action painting and a whole posse of Alex's friends from the animaiton studio came to hang out.

On Saturday, our friends Marina and Serezha had asked us to play an acoustic show at a hospice for the terminally ill. So we arrived at a very peaceful little building on a quiet street somewhere as the snow started falling. It was an unusual event - no samplers, no projections, no electricity. There was a small audience of patients and staff from the hospice and some little birds in a couple of cages. Some of the patients were in beds and barely concious - one man in particular sounded as if he was about to go at any moment. When Jacques started to play 'La Bete et La Belle', the birds joined in too. I felt moved - just to be there at all and have the opportunity to do this sort of thing - although I confess felt some awkwardness at singing these songs, many of which refer to death, in a situation where mortality is very present. There were a couple of kids there and that really tore me up. Afterwards, just before we had tea and biscuits, I completely lost it for a few minutes in the loo. How do you tell children they are dying? - how do they understand that and how can they still smile and be so pleased to see you?

Back on the street, with the city noises and the snow falling more thickly, we wandered back into our lives and that stupid feeling that it couldn't happen to us - death is for other people right?! Despite everything that has happened, I find it really hard to not imagine I will somehow go on for ever. Anyway it makes you think doesn't it? - and one of the things I always think is how connections with people matter more than almost anything.

So, hello to all friends - but particularly this time to my Russian ones - old, new and however brief..

FISH

Now mad Al Budovsky and I have recently been doing our bit for the welfare of the world by working with Lillipip - a Seattle based educational company producing animated teaching aids for small beings. Here is an example. Very sweet I think you'll agree. The rest of the original text of this post has been CENSORED..

Hope all is going swimmingly for you...

THE GHOST HOUSE

I went to the Tate Modern last night. They asked me to contribute music for a 'Tate Track' - a piece written to accompany an artwork in the collection. (The Chemical Brothers have done Epstein's 'Rock Drill' and the Klaxons are doing Cy Twombly's 'Quattro Staggione' and there are various other peculiar combinations).

Whilst there we watched the Christian Marclay videopiece which is absolutely extraordinary. If you haven't seen it and get the chance, try to check it out - they are about to remove it I think. It's very, very clever and beautiful if you love music.

Whilst wondering home, I remembered the little house which used to stand at the edge of the western entrance forecourt and the time a few years ago when I lived there briefly. When I first came to London, I lost my innocence for a while in substances and I started to go rather down hill. One morning I got a bit bored of it all and signed up for some classes at the CIty Lit Institute in Holborn. There I met Martyn from the Tiger Lillies and Sophie his muse and manager and we became firm friends. They lived in a flat in Berwick Street in Soho but one Sunday evening on returning from a trip we all took to the country, they discovered that their landlord had burnt the whole building down. (We found out later that he did it to force them out and to get the insurance). They lost all they had - clothes, instruments, years of recordings, photos and letters. Everything. Anyway, a friend who was squatting in this little house in Bankside let them go to stay and they ended up being there for a few years.

It was a peculiar place which contained six little flats for workers from the time when the Tate was still a power station. It was very curious with a central iron staircase and one bathroom for every two flats. There was just Martyn and Sophie and a little old man who lived down below. It was spooky and felt rather out of time. I believe I once saw a ghost on the stair - although maybe that was just the wine. I can't remember how many times I walked down to the river from St Pauls and over Blackfriar's Bridge to see them. I do remember there were rats by the river then.

And I don't know why they knocked it down - there is nothing there now but an unused area of ground.

HiGHLAND FLING

I'd almost forgotten about this - summer seems so far away now doesn't it? The Future of Cinema? I don't know about that but it was really fun - and very stylish.....

The Show Must Go On

I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas present this year from George and Monica at Giant Squid Eye Productions. I really don't know what I 've done to deserve it or any of the other wonderful things that keep happening - but thankyou....
just check it out

The Real Queen's Speech

To all my friends: I have been dreaming of you in the depths of this Scottish castle and so with tape and an old gramophone, some wires and a transmitter, I am broadcasting out a signal to greet you through the ether. I hope you can hear me ... and, I hope we meet again - someday, somewhere, soon....
with love
TCK
turn on the radio to listen

Free (love) Jukebox

Here is Alex Budovsky's latest - to a lovely, little tune by the Berlin artist and musician Jim Avignon
play the jukebox

Love Amongst the Ruins

Sometimes it almost feels as if London has entered a Golden Age. The increasingly benevolent climate, the sparkling near mineral-water quality of the Thames, the clean white buildings, the concrete, stone and glass all cleaned and polished up by money. We've been purified by wealth, flushed and depilated, scrubbed and sanitised. There is electricity and light and music everywhere. Traffic wardens, and CCTVs shepherd and watch over us. Generally, ugliness and obesity - like poverty - have been banished to the provinces. Nearly everybody I see looks passable these days and often they look stylish, hip, smart, groovy and skinny. The cracks and crannies are gone (or have been papered over with banknotes at least).That often feels good I think - but with it has come a strange sense of vulnerabilty or foreboding. Do you feel that too? We have so much to lose now don't we? And worse, we are so ill-equipped to deal with any loss at all. Is this how Rome felt at the end? - this beautifully civilised leaning on the edge of things? Occasionally a wailing ambulance irritates with a reminder of birth, sickness or death and now and then the odd police car speeding south or east disrupts our sang-froid a little, but generally we seem to have become 'comfortably numb'.

Speaking of which,on Saturday, we went to see Battersea power station for the last time before its redevelopment begins. It is as magnificent in its ruin as it surely was in its industrial strength glory. Neglect has not really harmed it at all - well, not in the way that say Starbucks, Gap and Tesco Express shortly will. From the publicity material, it seems that it is destined to be filled with advertising 'creatives' (sic), oriental investors getting their money out while there's time and mortgaged-to-the-hilt aspirational young couples. Would J G Ballard approve? Probably. He recently said that he would like to see London erased and rebuilt in the manner of the Heathrow Hilton. I was sad for that - I have long admired him but it seems he has been reading his own press and gone all literal on us. But I was much sadder about what is happening to Battersea. Every age has its losses and the city has never stood still but of all the things that could have happened here, why have we settled for something so weedy? Could we not stand to leave one glorious ruin?

Well. if we don't teeter over the edge before the work is complete, you never know - it could all turn out nice again ........

......and pigs might fly

Coming Home

We're leaving for Russia tommorow - to play in Moscow and St Petersburg courtesy of the delightful Serezha from the equally delightful Bad taste Records (the Russian home of our friends the Tiger Lillies). I had bought a new (fake) fur hat in preparation but was dismayed to hear that it's actually very warm in St Petersburg at the moment. We are very much looking forward to the trip despite that disappointment.

Then we shall come home.

Speaking of which, if you click on the 'Coming Home' title above you will be connected to a remarkable piece on the subject by my friend and colleague, the all round musical polymath Clive Painter. Clive, as you may know, has lent his wonderful abilities in various capacities to The Real Tuesday Weld over the last few years - whether it be studio wizardy, his beautiful evocative guitar playing or hosting our many recording and rehearsal sessions at his strange rambling house. We produced 'Dreams that Money can Buy' there over several months of laborious needlecraft.

Anyway, this lovely piece is by him in the guise of Wolf. He has also released many records with Martine Roberts as 'Broken Dog' - a long time favourite of the late great John Peel. It features Cibelle, Tracy Lee Jackson, David Piper, Glen Duncan and yours truly amongst others

Enjoy and love him

www.brokendog.co.uk

Wanna Buy a Dream?..

Joe enters his newly rented room

NARRATOR:
"Well. It’s a room anyway Joe. Better than a tent.
But there’s the minor complication of the rent.
Take inventory son:
Assets: none
Liabilities: none
Prospects: none
Well, that’s the list.
Wait! There's one asset you missed –
The paternal watch that ticks away your life minute by minute."

Joe gets out an old-fashioned watch and looks sadly at the photograph of a girl in the fob

NARRATOR:
"Look! There’s a liability in it –
The dream girl. She resigned from the dream – why not?
She wasn’t so dumb –
You are a self appointed bum.
Hey look here!
Are you shedding an old fashioned tear?
You don’t cry nowadays.
You live or die nowadays.
Things could be be tougher –
And after all, an artist has to suffer.
I guess it must be a grain of Italian dust left over from your last campaign
Or put it down to eyestrain."

Joe takes a mirror down from the wall and looks at his reflection

NARRATOR:
"Look at yourself - you’re all mixed up
Snap out of it. Get yourself fixed up
Even if poets misbehave,
They always remember to shave."

Joe suddenly sees the image of the girl within the reflection of his eye’s pupil

NARRATOR:
"Say, what’s the matter Joe?
Something gone wrong?
Is your head on wrong?

No! It’s terrific! Here’s something on which you can really pride yourself
You’ve discovered that you can look inside yourself
You know what that means? - You’re promoted
You’re no longer a bum. You’re an artist!
Remember a poem you once read?
“The eye is a camera” it said
Suppose like a film it could retain
The images that glide so secretly through your brain
Have you ever tried to see the shadow world inside photographed by the retina and held suspended in its memories?

This is one of the more unusual talents – and it’s yours it seems
Maybe this could revive your bank balance. Remember, everybody dreams Joe , if you can look inside yourself, you can look inside anyone
Customers? There are so many, one can’t count them
What’s the population of the world?
Almost two billion. A potential of two billion customers
All with a dream to untangle
You’ve figured out a new angle
Get it? Dreams on the instalment plan!
You’ll be in the money man!
It’s a miracle – just as you were a complete bust
Re-adjust!
Wait ‘til you’re in the chips
Then watch the dream girl warm up those chilly lips!
Get on the phone
Make a small financial loan
Convert this tomb into a consultation room
And go into business on your own!"

STEPHEN:
"It's finally done. Phew!"

Check out the podcast "Dreams That Money Can Buy for a listen or click on 'Wanna Buy a Dream?....'