Crimson City - Oh God, Are We Morris Dancers?
Coming up:
- We have a CD of our record and it’s really cool
- News about other projects we’re involved with
- We’re working on new music
But first, join me in my ongoing existential crisis brought on by attempting to make art.
Doing “the band thing” is weird.
Being in “a band” in the sense of modern popular music is an odd thing. I swear the balance of having an awesome time creating music while being part of a community of artists and audiences, and complete fucking drudgery and pain… can be skewed.
Before Shaun chimes in and tells me I'm being melodramatic (Shaun: taps the stop being melodramatic sign), I first remind you, I am an artist, and should be paid to lie on couches having beautiful and tragic thoughts. Secondly, let me explain.
I’m not averse to “Type B Fun”, I can delay gratification, learn and hone, understand that the art is imperfect and strive to be a little better each time.
But hoo baby, the peripheral horrors we must engage with as part of having a band are truly A Trial. The social media, the self promotion, they suck. Literally. They clamp on and suck the life from you (Shaun: wiggles eyebrows up and down suggestively like Ronnie Corbett), but that’s what these systems are for, greedily vacuuming up your time and attention. And as a band promoting our stuff, we’re supposed to not only participate in it all, but get good at it.
There is some oft repeated conventional wisdom, “just do music for yourself”, and yes of course I do that, as do very many people - singing while you load the dishwasher, learning a piano piece you like, screaming along to something violent in the car to survive a commute. All legitimate, all important, all ways to do music.
But music for self enjoyment isn’t the only way to do it. It’s only a small part of things; folk music played for celebrations and important events, hymns sung in churches for worship and community, singing a song at the millennium stadium while Wales lose in a vain effort to get some momentum going (Shaun: cause we live in Wales now we have to pretend we love egg ball, otherwise we’ll be lynched). All different ways of doing music where one absolutely does not do it purely for themselves.
Releasing the record. Doing the gig. Going to someone else’s gig. The communication and community of doing shows. These are important parts of the musical tradition that I value. And not only does it now seem you have to be a marketing and PR expert to get to participate in this tradition nowadays, but it can also feel like it’s in decline in a more general sense.
While “the rock thing”, “the 20th century popular music thing” was shaped and fed by 20th century industry - hit records, A&R, cigar chomping executives - it was never just that. Now in the second century of recorded music, it can feel a bit like the tradition may be losing some of its precious connection to the best parts of reality, losing the venues, the people who run them, the promoters who champion live, real and scrappy music in favour of a polished digital existence.
Our first show was at The Moon, that’s gone. It reopened for a bit, then it closed again. Now it’s empty, hoping for a buyer. We recently played the North Star pub, that’s shut down too (Shaun: the only explanation must be that we’re cursed). These are far from unique occurrences and we all know why it’s happening: high energy prices, high business rates, just the overall cost of survival. (Shaun: nah, it’s definitely “the curse's” fault, I’m going to start putting it in quotation marks as that makes it part of our canon. “The Curse” ® ). These are headlines, but far from the full story.
Seeing real material decline in the infrastructure for seeing or participating in the music I love leads me to the very edge of the abyss. Whereupon I look into the darkness and ponder: are we vainly attempting to keep a folk tradition alive?
Are we Morris Dancers?
(Shaun: click, nonny nonny, clack, nonny nonny, hey! Oh wait… You’re saying this is a bad thing? Sadly removes ribbons and flower crown)
Of course, it’s great to create something, and if I didn’t think there was something vital in the rock thing, if we didn’t still believe that electric guitars and drums had things to say, we wouldn't be doing it. There is a lot of fantastic stuff going on. It’s just a weird time.
The upshot of all of this is basically: thank you. Thanks for being a supporter, thanks for believing, thanks for your time to read this. We are all of us together trying to escape the neo-corporate digital marketing sarlacc pit that is social media.
If you can think of anyone who might be interested in our music or ramblings, please send this to them. And now, in the spirit of commerce and capitalism (Shaun: drill baby drill), some news and things you can consider buying.
Crimson City, On Compact Disc
If you would like a souvenir of our EP (Shaun: it’s not just an expensive coaster, you can listen to it on a Compact Disc Player Machine!), to have a version of it with very cool artwork in physical form. You can now buy our CD. You can get it on Bandcamp, or, just email us here or grab us directly, and we can save a bit on Bandcamp fees.
A Lack Of North, live
Our Elle is now up to about 4 cool bands (she collects them), and A Lack Of North, are playing a cool show at Porters on the 4th of March, I can attest this lot are great, and well worth getting to see.
Glomstriden
Ok, this one is more niche. In 2019 I released a record of Dungeon / Fantasy synth called The Faded Kingdom. I think it’s pretty cool, weird melodic synth music with brushes of film soundtracks from the 80s and prog rock from the 70s.
LONG story short: I made some tapes, sold most of them, then my tape machine I used to dub them broke, then I got a new one SO… To celebrate the 6th birthday of this weird little thing
You can now listen to the record on Spotify
The tapes are also back up for sale - through Bandcamp! Again, a fun item to collect if you like a nice thing with nice art (Shaun: or you have a guest round and you need a second coaster)
Crimson City Record #2
We’re in the planning stages of our second EP. Some of you will have already heard a couple of tracks off it at our recent show at Fuel - and we’re hoping to get on recording that ASAP. It will be more epic and, let’s be honest, a bit grimmer than the first (Shaun: excitedly reopens box of ribbons and flower crowns, sees James shaking head, sadly closes box), but still interesting, melodic and with great tunes. Hoping we’ll have some interesting news on prep work for that in our next dispatch.
Thanks for reading
This will be over soon
