when does it begin?
horsemouth hears 'at home he feels like a tourist' by gang of four on the radio and gets a guitar for his 15th birthday. he's started listening to punk and reggae on john peel as well as his parents record collection pentangle, the beatles, the moody blues. he can't play. he can't tune the guitar, it is in any event barely playable. ps. he also gets the bert weedon play in a day book as well. his friend robin is talking about getting a synthesizer and eventually does. they are all listening to a strange mixture of punk, ska, prog and hard rock. while horsemouth is at school mod happens but he's not much interested in it. in truth the main influence on him is hawkwind (the first band he ever sees live - on the live 79 tour) and science fiction.
it being south wales at school horsemouth is always surrounded by people who can sing (but conversely he is always told he cannot). also there's no history of music making in his family (as far as he can work out). it is here that it is first suggested that horsemouth should be in a band - that he should be a bass player and that floss should play lead guitar - presumably doing something similar to led zeppelin, motorhead and thin lizzy.
... and then horsemouth moves away on his 16th birthday to darkest herefordshire.
at college he meets other musicians - he gets a bad yashima les paul copy and an utterly ugly 50 watt amp and begins to practice with bill glover, alan and the others (sorry dudes I've forgotten your names) - the band might have been called shadow factory. they practice lunch times at college (she's lost control by joy division and wardance by killing joke) but it doesn't get much beyond that. the others being a year ahead of him go off to university or to local jobs. horsemouth thinks bill played in band called outbar (which eddie reader was in at one point) thereafter he does not know.
horsemouth survives what he thinks of as his rural purgatory (though in retrospect it wasn't that bad) and goes to university in london (this would be 1981 or so).
the great wen
there, on perhaps the second night he meets jez from newcastle who can really play (and even better has a good ear) - and meets a number of other people who want to be in bands. he goes out to a number of folk gigs - pentangle, bert jansch, martin carthy - and he discovers reggae and anarcho-punk with ross and richey etc. he sees reggae musicians play too - barrington levi, misty in roots, aswad...
he plays one rehearsal with ross in the CRB band practice room and he begins his tragic involvement with anarchist politics - horsemouth comes up with the cunning plan to start a band with ross to distribute anarchist propaganda but with more interesting music than most of the anarcho-punk on offer. he goes to see blyth power play a lot rather than conflict etc. the college disco plays white lines and the message a lot.
in the summer 1985
- he moves to hackney.
he discovers hackney record library - tons of reggae, tons of african music. he wants to build a band practice room in the basement of his house so that he can be in a band and practice and by the third house he actually manages it. he studies african guitar (briefly) under folo graff (who played in the UK-based african band orchestra jazira) at jenako arts on balls pond road.
a friend finds him a bassist (andy), andy, ross, and him play - they record 3 tracks as a 3 piece at a studio in norwich(?) this would be about 1987, ross sings on one, horsemouth and andy rap on one, one is a soca type instrumental, and then... andy goes off on holiday for a year, then ross goes off travelling. rave happens...
eventually they come back, andy meets a singer noma on the train to ipswich - (thank you noma for putting up with us) they find a percussionist (pete), ross's girlfriend (elsie) gets then their first gig (1990) supporting the levellers at city of london poly. needing a name for the poster they pick the band name bush house (horsemouth's suggestion) - but nobody is very keen on it. they play the gig- horsemouth plays - but is to scared to turn round - he thinks a cassette tape exists of this somewhere. they get a manager sten.
bush house
the band play lots of benefit gigs and lots of pub gigs (the george ropey etc.), mostly north of the river, some south of the river, working up towards support slots to the likes of back to the planet, senser, dub the earth, one style. they are quite well regarded but not the mainstage. nobody on the alternative/ anarcho music scene has their world set on fire by them. nobody is interested in their (frankly merely post-punk) mixture of punk and world musics - basically their sin is trying to invent brooklyn afrobeat in hackney in the 90ies.
meanwhile andy is working as a roadie (for jah wobble and then for the shamen) and there are a number of stand in bassists (thank you denny, nick and the kid from bournemouth) as the band continue to gig 20-30 times a year to ten people and a dog.
there are various attempts to record - the first at RAK studios where nick was working as a tape-op, but recording sessions are always rushed and everyone in the band is nervous and lacks technical ability and confidence so they never sound quite right. the band never releases anything on cassette so that fans can hear what they sound like between gigs, they never tour.
they have a showcase gig, they play a gig upstairs at the dome to the world (it seems like) - and 3 songs are videoed and then stuck in a bank vault somewhere the tape uncopied. they work with mickey mann (pressure of speech) a lot and record 4 demo tracks in a studio in south london with him - they then get a DAT recorder and try integrating working to click and backing tracks into their live set. just when they were beginning to get some traction with their original direction... they change direction. they practice a lot (like once a week for years on end) - first in the basement of horsemouth's house, then in the basement of andy's house and then in music practice rooms. but they never make it - they don't have a DIY ethic, they are waiting for a record company to come and feed them and it never quite happens.
with andy's roadie work increasing and the band stalled noma decides to leave to concentrate on her acting. she gets regular, tv, theatre and radio work, and in 2006 she wins the laurence olivier award for best performance in a supporting role, she appears in doctor who too.
horsemouth plays on lush 3.1 by orbital (he comes in at 2.57 under some doubletime hi-hats). andy subsequently goes on to play on a number of orbital tracks and tracks by pressure of speech and has a very successful career as a tour manager. ross played drums in a number of bands the most commercially successful of whom were probably the ecologist - a few years ago horsemouth found an artwork made by the main guy in the tate modern. horsemouth plays on crow road by pressure of speech and sniffs around various other bands.
but before this the band decide to reform but without pete - pete plays percussion with one style MDV a few times. he then goes travelling to India and dies while there of hepatitis A. everyone is gutted - he was a lovely guy.
meanwhile
aiming to become more electronical - the remnants of bush house spend a year working on backing tracks on a c-lab, s1500, mixing desk set up round ross's house (paid for by ross and andy) and try out a number of women singers (dil, katz - again thank you). in that time the girlfriends of band members form a band hormone rage (which draws comparable crowds) released a split single with another band ross was in and an electronica record is made on ross's set up by lee walker as the mellowtrons - various bush house members get co-producer credits on one track or another.
boomclan
through friends they find leroy from distant south east london who can rap, toast, sing and human beatbox - as boomclan (leroy's choice of name) they play a number of gigs and do some recording with andy peak. again no-one is entirely happy or more accurately quite knows what to do with them once they've got them.
they record a few attempts round a friend of sten's house (Clive - thank you) of some tunes of Leroy's - they sound pretty good.
a 12inch single is made of one of the least commercial tracks- though with two very good remixes (one by pressure of speech one by the mellowtrons) - the band decide they don't want any cover on it - they want it to be a white label. leroy is erratic about showing up to practices. ross admits that he's had enough, andy wants to continue, horsemouth decides to call it a day.
end of the band.
by now it is 1995. horsemouth falls in love and gets a job and moves out of hackney (he abandons anarchist politics also) - he works briefly as a roadie, he works briefly as a web designer. he has the guitar riff for the devil song and starts working with a new bassist over in west london- also called andrew (and a drummer who was formerly in crisis - bill(?)) - but the bassist's production design work picks up again and the drummer loses interest. shame -it was all sounding quite good. he also tries to blag his way into the co-creators new project (which would be his ideal gig really) but it's a no.
he abandons playing music and gives away his (thoroughly battered) yamaha guitar amp.
he starts reading the wire and becoming enthusiastic about drum and bass - he starts going out clubbing, goes out to metalheads rather a lot.
he falls in love (again). his girlfriend sings in a balkan choir and likes drum and bass. horsemouth gets a PC for work. he tries out to be a guitarist in an indie band (but his heart isn't in it). he rehearses, playing bass for a live set of a friend's project called lumo. he dj's a bit round friends houses when drunk (mostly graham's).
horsemouth and goatboy
some years pass and the relationship ends -it's about 2000 - iona's brother duncan proposes they work together, he wants to be called goatboy, so our hero (on the spur of the moment) becomes horsemouth. horsemouth insists that they be an acoustic duo just to make it a bit more manageable. in the summer of 2002 they record 8 tracks round sam's - they play 2 gigs at the foundry - they fall out and part company.
goatboy puts 4 tracks up on myspace.
horsemouth's description of these tracks can be found here.
meanwhile horsemouth starts recording round graham's on his PC - the majority of his songs on myspace come from this period, but initially his plan was to burn them to cd. he records with denise ishaque - he puts these up on myspace too and on two CD of music made by members of the housing co-op they are in featuring tracks by horsemouth, goatboy, denise, rust, gertrude, ayesa, iona, jj, steve corr - these he co-curates with howard.
when on holiday with denise and johnny (and sometimes graham and iona) he often plays guitar a bit round the campfire, fed up with being limited to just the solo guitar he starts to sing. (he has changed his guitar style around to make it possible). he starts reading (translating) music - doing old folk songs and french piano pieces - he starts researching music - records and puts some tracks up on myspace..
2004 - he plays live once at the wild hare club in stretton sugwas in herefordshire - it goes well he enjoys it. ps. this was his favourite guitar - ryan air made him abandon it at stansted airport.
horsemouth and rust
(aka idiot soup or
evolutionarycul-de-sac)
the spread of music recording software has made the whole process of recording much easier - and the arrival of myspace (2006 or so) makes it look like music distribution is similarly going to be affected. sometimes he records round at rust's - he writes the lyrics for and sings on a song of rust's 'gentleman john', mixes and produces a number of tunes (notably 'blueskies' with iona singing) but rust wants to do it live. and in any event eventually his PC dies.
horsemouth buys a microphone and records a few tracks on his PC - previously he had mostly recorded elsewhere and then painstakingly edited on his own computer.
apparition
and theonics
he buys a set of cheap record decks and a mixer - he starts a DJ duo with a friend alex DJing drum and bass. once (when alex is ill) he DJ's disco to a roomful of italian women. they play a number of people's birthdays, the odd housing co-op party, they record a few mixes and stick them up on myspace. but while horsemouth's musical ideas are quite good his mixing isn't tight enough (and besides drum and bass is already moving away from its golden period). horsemouth loses interest.
horsemouth moves back up
to stoke newington
and meets his old friend nick on a bus - horsemouth records 4 songs round nick's (two of which make it up onto myspace partie de campagne (a long slide guitar piece) and picardy - though with picardy horsemouth adds iona playing recorders and oboe round hers). possibly the last thing he records round his for this project is fanfare for the common mule, the cherry tree carol, in 2012 he records a duet of himself and robert lee playing violin on a version of hear us o lord (from heaven thy dwelling place) while at their place in bridport on holiday.
meanwhile
the snatch foster band
nick also wants to play songs by his band live - after trying out on guitar horsemouth decides it would be better if he played bass, and gets rust in on 2nd guitar. with clive (the drummer)they play 4-5 gigs in the space of two years 2010-2012, there's some work (about 5 minutes) on doing the devil song with the band or in doing versions of some of rust's songs, they do a version of gentleman john and once (at a christmas gig) they do a version of in the bleak midwinter and then they fall out variously. horsemouth enjoys playing bass (and would gladly do it again) - but it often left him with blood blisters on his bass-playing finger.
the snatch foster band can be found on soundcloud here (though horsemouth isn't playing bass on any of these recordings) - they also played some covers, elvis costello's (could you still love) a man out of time (which pretty much is the band in a microcosm) and wire's outdoor miner (great fun to play live).
he continues to sing at parties - either with rust or on his own (or once with maria on la pistola y el corazon by los lobos). the devil song becomes popular and ends up being sung when horsemouth isn't even there.
at iona's birthday party in 2012 horsemouth, with rust playing guitar sings 3 songs - golden hair (by syd barrett and james joyce), gentleman john (by himself and rust, with nick singing a backing vocal), and the devil song (written by his good self).
the musicians of bremen
howard takes up playing ukelele, singing and writing songs, they put videos of the two of them playing two songs on youtube (I'm sad and I'm lonely a DJ shadow cover and paper moon by harold arlen). they record most practices on their phones. they are scheduled to play live (as the musicians of bremen) but howard gets ill and horsemouth ends up performing two songs on his own (the devil song and a la luna yo me voy be eliades ochoa). for a while it looked as if the band would be a trio with masumi playing violin but domestic pressures put paid to that.
the story so far right up to the present day...
howard writes a lot of songs and can sing harmonies and to put it bluntly he has a nice voice (which horsemouth does not have). for this horsemouth is mostly playing nylon strung guitar. they borrow a 4 track cassette recorder then buy an 8-track digital recorder and howard begins recording in earnest. the results can be heard on soundcloud here.
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