GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT

My old friend and collaborator Alex Budovsky genius author of Bathtime in Clerkenwell, Brazil and many other wild and wonderful creations moved from New York to Bogota a little while back.  "What's a Russian doing in Columbia?" you might ask a little suspiciously.  Well, amongst other crazy things he directed this delightful little animation by Olga Gonina.  They very kindly asked yours truly to contribute both the music and the voice over and yours truly was pleased to accept.

TUNNELS, TELEPORTATION AND THE EXPLODED HEART

My investigations into the Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi and the London teleportation system seem to have provoked some interest and have been bearing unexpected fruit.  Thanks for the messages - especially the one in heiroglyphs.

A recent correspondent who wishes to remain anonymous put me on the trail of Bonomi's sponsor the gambler and occultist Lord Kilmorey (also known as 'Black Jack' Needham).  Black Jack became infamous for eloping with Priscilla Hoste who although once his young ward, became the love of his life.  Although much younger than he, his love appears to have been reciprocated but the scandal of the affair or the strangeness of his arcane rituals (which had seen his separation from two previous wives) proved too much of a strain on her and she died. Whether she expired during one of their love rituals or not, she certainly passed on prematurely of an 'exploded heart' - cementing the reputation of Black Jack as a demon lover.

Wracked with grief and guilt at his loss, he consulted with his fellow occultist Bonomi in the hope of finding a way to re-animate the dead girl or at least to be able communicate with her.  Bonomi instructed the architect Henry Edward Kendall in the construction of an Egyptian mausoleum and covered it with heiroglyphs dedicating it to Osiris concerning the journey of the soul through the afterlife.  The mausoleum was initially constructed in Brompton Cemetery near the Courtoy tomb described beneath but extraordinarily, the whole edifice was subsequently 'moved' - first to Chertsey and then to the grounds of Gordon House in Isleworth where it stood hidden for many years.  Whether this movement was by means of horse and cart or was a successful example of Bonomi and Warner's teleportation techniques,  I leave you to decide.  

It has been speculated that the mausoleum was intended to be a 'master' teleportation chamber which somehow controlled the grid of other chambers located in each of the cemeteries which ring London.  Certainly Black Jack had a hidden tunnel built linking it to Gordon House and was said to dress in white, lay in a coffin and be wheeled by his servants through the tunnel to be left with the deceased Priscilla. Whether he did this so he could attempt to communicate with his dead love or to teleport on a discreet journey into town, who now knows?

TEAR US APART

The Real Tuesday Weld have produced a new film - and again it is by their old friend and collaborator Alex De Campi.  This time it is a rather wonderful stop motion fairytale featuring an archetypal hero (the spaceman) and an archetypal heroine (the fairy girl).  There is also a strange dream sequence with a wolf and a deer.  You will have to talk to Alex if you want to understand more about this but I understand that it is her interpretation of the song "Tear Us Apart" from the "The Last Werewolf" soundtrack.

The song seems to me to be an inversion of the normal romantic lyric which blames love for the pain we feel in love affairs - "love will tear us apart", "only love can break your heart" etc - putting the blame firmly back on the lovers themselves - or the dark secret lover, the evil twin, the monster inside each that cannot resist causing trouble or destruction.

You can see the film here

This for me is the metaphorical message of the werewolf myth.

And you?

A STITCH IN TIME

Speaking of Egypt and time travel and being rather long lived myself, I have long been fascinated by the notion of time capsules and in particular the one hidden in London's 'Cleopatra's needle' on the Victoria embankment. The needle itself is obvious but few people know about the time capsule.  It was placed there by the occultist Joseph Bonomi (see below) just before his death in an early attempt at Cryonics.  

Amongst the collection of typically odd time capsule items (including photographs of the good looking English women of the day, a box of hairpins (why?), tobacco pipes, a set of weights, a baby's bottle (why?!!), some toys, a razor, coins, a picture of Queen Victoria, a history of the strange tale of the monument, a translation of its inscriptions, a map of London and various daily newspapers), Bonomi included a vial of his blood and possibly and rather gruesomely, a piece of his flesh in a cigar box together with magical instructions written on vellum.  It didn't save him - in fact, the reputed curse of the needle may have precipitated his untimely end almost immediately afterwards but he firmly believed that beings would exist in the future who would be able to re-incarnate him from his tissue. This may seem ludicrous but many people who are not blessed with longevity are still doing this sort of thing.  You can visit the Cryonics society here. 

I like the needle - it is one of those London features that we pass many times without noticing.  I recently visited its twin in New York's Central Park.  When people talk about the special relationship between the USA and the UK, they rarely realise that if this exists, it is entirely because of the symbiosis between these two monuments.  There is a third - erected in Paris in order to foster further harmony -  but in fact it does not match - which perhaps explains the odd, slightly antagonistic relationship between our countries and France.  Of course all three were plundered from Alexandria where they had been buried in the sand for thousands of years.  The story of their transport is remarkable - the plaque on the London needle records the names of the six men whose lives the curse claimed on its journey here.  Bonomi's Clerkenwell colleague the psychic engineer Samuel Warner may also have been involved in the journey and the amazing mysterious means of movement of theses giant objects.

There is no prescribed date for the unlocking of the casket in the London needle.  How will we decide when it is time?  Perhaps we won't be here at all.  I would be interested to know it there is a similar casket in its New York counterpart.  Do let me know if you know.  And if you too are interested in time capsules, there is an entire society devoted to them at the Crypt of Civilisation.

A WEREWOLF ABROAD

I am very much looking forward to visiting the US next week with Glen Duncan for little shows in New York,  Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The shows are listed here. along with various others with The Real Tuesday Weld

Glen will be reading from The Last Werewolf and I will be performing some (stripped down) excerpts from the soundtrack to celebrate the release of the  US hardback and the album which will be released digitally everywhere on July 12th.

A very special edition of the album with written pieces by Glen, artwork by Catherine Anyango and exclusive tracks will be released by Crammed discs in Europe in October.

It has been a while since Glen and I did any live stuff together - not since the days of I Lucifer actually - but we do hang out and talk bollocks fairly frequently.  He is a very good reader, particularly of his own work,  so do I hope you get chance to hear him.

We are also looking forward very much to going to Disneyland with friends in LA. It has been a long held ambition of mine to get a squeeze from Donald Duck.

TIME, SPACE AND THE CITY

The recent upheavals in the middle East set me thinking of the various curious ways that London has been influenced by the 'cult of Egyptology'.  For instance, along the embankment, if you look closely, you will see cast iron camels and sphinxes supporting the benches that line the river.  Such architectural influences abound.  Hawksmoor's churches are full of them - check out the strange pyramid on St George's Bloomsbury or the sombre elevation of his St Mary Woolnoth.  Both of these have the heavy psychedelic gravity of a pharoahs's tomb.  The Victorians were nuts about ancient Egypt and of course looted many of the treasures they found on their archaeological forays.  Cleopatra's needle on the embankment is probably the most prominent example and the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum are stuffed with such plunder.  

From Hawksmoor onward, various English visionaries were not only influenced by the architectural styles of ancient Egypt but also by its occult belief systems.  The nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the flowering of that peculiar hybrid of science and magic which gave rise to many strange stories and characters.  I've written about one of them before - Austin Osman Spare (Phil Baker's excellent biography of the man has now been published by Strange Attractor press). And of course there were the more famous Aleister Crowley, Ouspensky, Blavatsky and the like.

An earlier Egyptologist was Joseph Bonomi - pictured above.  He traded as an archaeological artist but is thought to have been a tomb raider.  He is also generally considered to have been the designer of the Egyptian styled 'Courtoy' tomb in Brompton cemetery which was ostensibly intendd to be the final resting place of 'three spinsters'.  An interesting legend has grown up around this mausoleum because it is the only one in the cemetery for which there is no record of construction.  This, together with Bonomi's obsession with the afterlife (reflected in the heiroglyphs on the tomb), have been held by some to be evidence that it is not a tomb at all but a Time Machine and that the three spinsters, if they existed at all, were in fact his time travelling sponsors.

This is a lovely fantastical idea but unfortunately it is incorrect.

In fact the tomb is one of five 'teleportation' chambers designed by Joseph Bonomi and built by his occult partner the Clerkenwell inventor Samuel Alfred Warner.  Amongst several other inventions, Warner claimed to have developed a mysterious missile capable of destroying  ships from a distance.  The Royal Navy were convinced enough by his demonstrations to pay him to develop this new weaponry but proved unable to reproduce his results independently. This was because what Warner had allegedly discovered (with the help of ancient knowledge gained by Bonomi in Egypt) was an occult way of  'teleporting' a bomb a short distance - I suppose you could call it a 'psychic torpedo'.

The Navy withdrew funding.  Disappointed but undaunted, Warner and Bonomi found a new sponsor, Lord Kilmorey, who encouraged them to attempt to use the occult method of teleportation in a much grander but still hopefully commercial way.  They conceived of the idea of a transportation grid around London to reduce the time taken to travel the large distances of the vast, congested metropolis. To this end they built  seven Egyptian teleportation chambers in the most suitable places they could find - in each of the  seven new cemeteries that had been built in the capital from 1839.  The chamber that people mistake for a time machine in Brompton cemetery is just one of the seven and it is sadly rather dilapidated now (although it did give rise to the idea of the Tardis in the Doctor Who stories).  Whether any of them actually worked as intended is now of course a moot point.  If you like, you can go to see some of them (and try them out for yourself suppose).  The ones at Brompton, Highgate and Kensal Rise are pictured here.  

Some of the seven appear to have entirely vanished, as did Samuel Warner himself, although whether this was as a result of the normal processes of time or by becoming lost  whilst teleporting who can say? Bonomi took his secrets and his knowledge to his grave - a rather modest one  - in Brompton cemetery.

Ironically, of the several ways of now getting quickly around London, one of the ones that has become more popular is 'The Brompton' - a fold-up portable bicycle.

L.A.NOIRE REVISITED

Quite a few people have been asking how I got involved with writing for L.A. Noire. It seems it's a massive success with advertisements everywhere and amazing reviews, including some substantial pieces in the the more highbrow newspapers.

I have never played computer games and I don't have a television so I had been quite unaware of all the fuss.  

This is how it happened: my US publishers Primary Wave got in touch just before last Christmas to ask if I would be interested in writing a song in a 1940s style.  Of course I was interested and we had a conference call on Christmas Eve with Ivan the music supervisor at Rockstar Games.  We hit it off musically  because I loved all his references - Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald and so on.  The brief was to write a song sung in the nightclub scenes by the character Elsa, a heroin addicted possible arsonist.  Lyrically, many songs from that era follow the same pattern - they are either straight out love songs or love songs wrapped in some metaphor - food, gardening, dancing, moonlight or whatever.  For L. A Noire, obviously that metaphor would be be 'Crime'.  (Actually, there are many songs already like this  - 'Murder, she said', 'Pistol Packing Mama' etc.).

Anyway, I ended up writing four songs - three of which were actually used: "Guilty', '"Torched Song", "(I Always Kill) The Things I Love".  Writing songs is actually my favourite activity (apart from collecting taxidermy obviously) and these came quite quickly.  Actually, 'I Always Kill.." was already in progress. My own version of it is on "The Last Werewolf" soundtrack to be released in July.  I demoed the songs with my friend the Scottish singer Pinkie Maclure and we sent them back and forth with Rockstar until we got the musical and lyrical vibe that suited the character best.  Here is 'Torched Song':

TORCHED SONG

Well I need something to soothe this pain
To cool the lava you pump through my veins
'Cause I'm burning
I'm burning up for you

And I need someone to quench this fire
Before it becomes a funeral pyre
Yeah I'm burning
With yearning so much for you

You struck the sparks
You fanned the flames in me
And now my heart's a blazing ruin
You say that you were only foolin'

Don't walk away, don't do me wrong
Don't leave me singing this torched song
When I'm burning
I'm burning up for you

You're love's a drug

I have to drop

It hurts me so much
But I can't stop
I can't stop burning
I'm yearning so much for you

You struck the sparks
You fire the flame in me
And now my heart's a blazing ruin
You say that you were only foolin'

Don't walk away, don't do me wrong
Don't leave me this way singing this torched song
Don't leave me burning
Burning up for you

------------------------------

You can hear it here.

I recorded the songs in London with a traditional jazz production - double bass, brush drums, upright piano, Gretch, sax, trombone or clarinet, no reverb.

Rockstar wanted the vocals sung by Claudia Brucken of Propaganda and Act. I had never met her before - but it was a real pleasure to work with her. In the end we used the takes recorded by Claudia's partner Paul Humphreys of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.  They have been working together for years and Paul knows Claudia's voice very well.  I sent stems (meaning the mix as seperated parts) to the Rockstar sound guys and they placed them in the game as they needed with a suitably vintage aged sound.

You can buy the songs on the official soundtrack from the usual places.  I was a bit surprised to find they just used my basic demos but still, they sound pretty good.

There is also an album on Verve with various remixes of some of the original 1940s songs used in the game. I wasn't involved in that although I have done remixes for Verve before. I have actually been backing off the electro-swing thing a little of late because so many people are doing it but it is always a pleasure to work with such amazing music.

Roll on 'L.A.Noire II' or 'London Noire' - even better.

L.A.NOIRE

Here is a clip "Elsa sings' from the very stylish Rockstar Games Blockbuster 'L.A. Noire' with "Torched Song' - one of three songs I wrote and recorded for the game sung by Claudia Brucken of Propaganda.  The others are 'Guilty' and 'I Always Kill the Things I Love'.  I am not a gamer myself but I am a fan of Elmore Leonard and of course the period itself so they were a pleasure to write.  All the reviews of the game I have read say it is amazing  so I am contemplating getting in a take away burrito and hunching down with a console myself to solve some murder mysteries soon.

TIME OF THE MONTH

Here is the Canongate trailer for Glen's book. Music by yours truly - although that isn't me singing of course. That's the very lupine Joe Guillotine from Lazarus and the Plane Crash. He gargles with ground glass.

It is a curious idea isn't it - a trailer for a book? I like it. We did this one too a little while ago for a Stephen King book collection. Quite disturbing I thought.

Whatever next - a trailer for an a record? - Oh yes, we did one.

The Last Werewolf album is done. As ever, it grew into something bigger and hairier than will fit on a disc or an overnight bag and like the moon it has a dark side and a light side.

I will share some of it soon.  In the meantime, I would appreciate any strange moon related anecdotes or facts from my friends here -  or any pointers to beautiful moon imagery.

JAKE THE NIPPER

Now, I don't know about you but I intend to be wearing one of these guys every full moon from now on.  Our dear friend, the very eccentric Ms Za Za made him as a limited edition for Antique Beat to celebrate the publication of Glen's wonderful novel The Last Werewolf.

Handmade with a gold plated fastener, he's gonna grab you by the throat and sink those vicious teeth in.  He's not quite the last but he is one of a select and dying breed.  He will be joined, or perhaps mourned,  by his girlfriend Tallulah in the autumn when the paperback comes out.

You can get him from the antique beat boutique where there are also a limited number of hardback copies of the book signed by Glen himself.

But most importantly there is a preview of the new The Real Tuesday Weld album 'The Last Werewolf - a Soundtrack'  It is called 'The Moonrising Suite' and you can hear it and hear more about the whole thing here. The album will be released from July around the world - but more on that soon.

"My, what big teeth you have Grandma.  And what big eyes you have.. "


For my friends here, for a limited time there is also a special sneak preview of a wolf song I made with my friend Little Red Piney Gir
at this place.  Shhh!

"If you go down in the woods today, you're to sure to get a surprise"