Wednesday 29 June 2011

Weather Report


"The storm was visible from some distance in the approaching dawn, moving in a white wall towards us. Robinson waited in tense anticipation, sober now and alert, no longer the drunken wreck that had sat with me downstairs. The others watched with a mixture of fear and wonder, their faces lit pale by the first bolts of lightning. We should have seen this storm as evidence of forces larger than us, though no-one did. Each of us believed - I could read it on our faces - that we were the cause, that our ritual ceremonies of the last week had invoked it, and this deluge was the dramatic result of our efforts."

Christopher Petit, "Robinson"

Since summoning Robinson in Cambridge yesterday during rehearsals, I've started to wonder...

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/Chaos-as-homes-and-rail-lines-struck-by-lightning-28062011.htm

ThE FrequencY TraP: Your Best Place

ThE FrequencY TraP: Your Best Place: "Rowan Coupland is a writer/singer/multi instrumentalist whose work focuses on the depths of situations, real and imagined. His voice has gar..."

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Mr and Mrs Samuel Kidd Live

A first post. Next month I'll be playing a "solo" show at The Underbelly in Hoxton for Folk and Dagger.  Piano accompaniment will come from Sam Tannenbaum and probably other members of The Devils will join us.  As 'Mr and Mrs Samuel Kidd' we'll be playing some brand new songs and new arrangements of things you might have heard before.

The new songs take up the Robinson myth via Celine, Weldon Kees, Chris Petit and Patrick Keilor.  I'll be posting about Robinson more in the coming months as the collection develops.
The Decline of the English Murder Ballad Pt 1 Demo by The Devil May Cares

I recorded this demo with Nick from The Devils on a cassette four-track in his bedroom a few weeks ago. 'The Decline of the English Murder Ballad' finds Robinson and I committing an increasingly debauched series of murders in search of better subject matter for songwriting.  But as the murders become more depraved, we find that both they and the songs slip into self-referential vulgarity.