frankie machine has been shipwrecked on a desert island

Long-term visitors to IASB (as precisely nobody is referring to this website) may remember that four years ago, shortly after the birth of my daughter, I played keyboards and guitar for my friend's band, Frankie Machine, at the IndieTracks festival.

In the months prior to that gig, we'd rehearsed like I never have done for any other band. Point being, it's so much easier to just blast your way through things when you have the cover of the LOUD pedal. The thing about these songs is, there's really nowhere to hide - we're all playing delicate acoustic guitar parts, the keyboards are the same - so any mistakes really stick out!

(It has always reminded me of this Morrissey / Vini Reilly outake)

Anyway, after rehearsing the songs for a couple of months we did the gig and the plan was to record the songs super-quickly while they were fresh in our minds. But then real life got in the way - for good and bad - and the recordings stalled.

Rob (aka Frankie) lives 'round the corner from our old house but we still sent files backwards and forwards via DropBox as if we were taking part in some kind of transatlantic COLLAB - the upload speed was often so slow that it would have been quicker to walk to his house with the files on a USB stick.

The songs gradually started coming together and I spent a good portion of the intervening years badgering Rob/Frankie to finish them off, even offering my services as half of a cack-handed two-man drumming option as that seemed to be a sticking point. Plus I offered mixing assistance/unfounded opinions.

I'm really pleased to say the album is "coming out" (it seems very grand way to put it when it's self-released, mainly through Bandcamp but still). It's so nice to hear these songs finally finished and I'm really proud to be involved.

After years when I was the bossiest bugger (aka creative driving force) of any band I was part of, it's really cool to just turn up, add some little bits, and then leave it to someone else to write the damn things. With Johnny Domino, it basically took me SEVEN YEARS before I ceded any level of creative control! Fun for all the family.

Listen to the album in full (you can even Pay What You Like for it) here. 

As well as the songs which we learned up for the gig, Rob always likes to include a few little instrumental tracks and there are three on this album. In my mind, I recorded all my bits for these on the same night, which doesn't seem likely at all.

But when I listen to them, I'm downstairs in the study of our old house. Mrs. D is out for the night, Little Miss D is sleeping upstairs and I'm recording in the cold room of a house which is making us all fairly miserable. I've seen enough episodes of Classic Albums to know that environment can't help but have an influence on recordings in some way.

Even though listening to those tracks takes me right back, on the (almost) anniversary of us selling the house they might be my favourite bits on the album.

We've come a LONG way, baby.

nothing to see here

Well, no news is good news.

My MS seems to be behaving itself on the whole - which is great obviously, but doesn't make for a massively compelling blog.

Some you win, some you lose!

The weirdest thing which has happened recently is I've found myself thinking more and more about our old house and our delightful neighbours. I know that Mrs.D is feeling the same - she even had a dream about it last night.

I guess that this time last year we were right in the middle of it all [literally] - and we're so much happier where we are now. We have lovely neighbours on both sides, about whom we know only the barest of details - which is exactly how we want it.

We moved into our new house in November, after which we went straight into a family wedding and Christmas. It's odd but this is probably the first bit of down-time we've had.

And in a way, the whole situation was so awful, it's almost like we have a mild version of PTSD - I don't like looking at photos of us in the house from last year. Even the happy ones, I think "oh yeah, that was just before THAT happened".

To have to deal with that level of upheaval and disruption in the last year before our little girl goes to school... it just makes me furious thinking about it! To be honest, I think it's amazing that our marriage survived, never mind the fact that I didn't have some kind of MS episode.

On a recent weekend we went to see my parents before they went on holiday and it reminded me that around this time last year, my parents were away so the three of us went and stayed at their place - just to be out of our house and to get a guaranteed decent night's sleep!

Last week we were at Center Parcs in Sherwood again - I have more to say about our break later but this will be the last time we won't have to pay the frankly ASTONISHING prices which they charge during the school holidays.

When we went there last year, it was at a time when we thought that SHE was going to be evicted - when we returned it was obvious that this was not going to happen.

I know it's not healthy to focus on this stuff but it's amazing how raw it still is for us all. Consider this a cleaning out of my closet.

Having said that, I might re-upload some bits of this blog which I removed in the run-up to the house sale - I know that some of you JACKALS will get a kick out of that..! And I might find it a little cathartic, too.

Onwards and upwards!

all fun and games until someone loses their mind

So we've all had a good old snigger and giggle about the Oldest Swingers In Town, who - if you need reminding - are now a couple, living in the houses which are either side of us.

Oh, they get drunk and flirt, and have brutish (if short-lived) sex! How very hilarious!!

Well, things have taken a turn for the more serious - last weekend we had to call out the City Council's Noise Pollution Control people on a Saturday night because of RIDICULOUSLY LOUD MUSIC from Her at 1am. Although the music stopped as the council people showed up, they did hear it as they got out of the car, so the following week they wrote to our neighbour informing her that a complaint had been made.

Which is why it was so surprising to have to call the council again last weekend - are they really that stupid or are they just incredibly vindictive? Again, the music stopped as the council pulled up outside.

Our neighbours know that we have a toddler and they know about my MS. Furthermore, I've been explicit with Him about the fact that, if I have a bad night's sleep, my level of disability dramatically increases on the following day.

Basically, they might be having a laugh but they're genuinely harming my health.

So why would they continue to do this, unless they just really don't give a shit?

This last weekend we have set up a bed in our downstairs study and have continued to sleep down there - it's pretty cosy but at least we're both sleeping well.

(DON'T WORRY: Obviously the monitor linked to our Daughter's bedroom is cranked up super-loud when we're downstairs)

My wife and I have been irritable and snappy with each other. And we're starting to hate living in our house because the late-night discos are continuing most days - now with additional shouting .

Rubbish.

Meanwhile, in other news, I FRICKING LOVE THE INTERWEBZ.

From when I was growing up, one of my favourite bands ever has been Throwing Muses. They were on the 4AD label and toured the UK with Pixies in the 80s.

Obviously Pixies went on to become this big (you could say "Gigantic"... but don't) culturally significant thing, while Throwing Muses continued to plough a lonely furrow - possibly because they were a three-quarters female rock band in a predominantly male scene, mostly because they were writing joyously gnarly and twisted art-rock songs which depicted the internal world of Kristin Hersh, a teenage single mother who had bi-polar episodes leading to at least one suicide attempt before the age of 20.

Sounds like fun, huh?

Well, I LOVED them - the songs were constantly changing gears, so clever and inventive and not like anything I'd ever heard before. Wherever I went after that I always carried with me a C-90 cassette tape with Surfer Rosa on one side and House Tornado on the other - that's a stone-cold STEVEDOMINO FACT.



Anyway, Kristin Hersh continues to be a force for good in the universe, so she's one of the 'famous-ish people' I follow on Twitter.

The other day she posted a funny little statement and I responded - in what I thought was a charming and witty manner:

She must have agreed because she FAVORITED my tweet (that should be "favourited" obviously, but we'll let it go for the sake of Twitter).

Obviously I kept my reaction super-cool:

And I got a LOL (and a kiss and a hug) from one of my true musical heroes - it was a good day.

Made even better when my first blog for MultipleSclerosis.net was published later that evening. This is something which the legendary Jackie Zimmerman had put me up for, and even though it's an American site, they liked my stuff enough to let me have a play.

My first post is called The Anniversary Waltz.

Be not afeared: posts to this blog will continue in their own irregulary lackadaisical fashion.

damn fine

When two separate evens occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object in enquiry we must always pay strict attention.
- Dale Cooper 

God, I loved Twin Peaks - in the UK it was broadcast on Tuesday nights and I always remember that every Wednesday we'd all pile on to the college bus saying "did you see it? what did THAT mean? what did THIS line mean??" Excellent music, too.

Happy days - anyway, there is a reason why the above quote popped into my head.

Where we live, we have two neighbours - they're both (fairly young) grandparents and they live alone. A couple of weeks back, in the intense heat, they got together to sunbathe and to indulge in some pretty  high-octane flirting.

Now I'll stop you right there! I have no problem with older people flirting and getting jiggy - it was just that they were so awkward and plus they got HEROICALLY drunk while they were doing it. They could've been the youngest, buffest, most beautiful people in the world but still, there's nothing worse than hearing drunk people of any age trying to cop off with each other.

Anyway, we don't judge. And even though we have a child, we're not like Grandma Moses or anything - we don't mind a bit of noise, it's only natural. But the walls are thin and there have been a couple of occasions when it has gotten ridiculous.

CASE IN POINT: earlier this week - on WEDNESDAY (the international party night), they were playing music ridiculously loud to the early hours. They stopped when we banged on the walls (and no-one likes doing that, do they?) but I'm struggling to stay focused at work as it is (as you can tell by the fact that I'm typing this at 4pm on a Friday...).

But the lack of sleep turned me into a basket case the following day and my legs get incredibly immovable when I've had a stressful night.

Aside from anything else they both know about my health and have seen our daughter - so they know what we're dealing with. With all that, their selfishness was the most upsetting thing about it.

So imagine my surprise when I saw this article in my Twitter feed, about how sleep plays a key role in the production and repair of Myelin.

"Disturbed sleep may aggravate perhaps the symptoms of [Multiple Sclerosis], in a vicious cycle"

Now it's not rocket science that rest and recuperation can play a part in maintaining our health and it's a particular type of sleep that seems to be the most beneficial but still, it's interesting so I thought I would share with you.