19th January 2020
19th January 2020
I am feeling very pleased with myself this evening having been to the gym 5 times this week! Also haven't drunk any beer for 2 whole days in an effort to lose some weight. It has been a very enjoyable weekend. Went for a nice walk with Phil and Debby Helmore in Babbacombe yesterday morning. In the afternoon had a very good recording session with Bridgit England. I have recorded her singing on 3 more of my songs. I think the best one is the Mayflower song. At the end of the afternoon found out that Torquay United had won away from home which put me in a very good mood indeed. The day ended with a lovely evening celebrating Jerry Brimicombe's 60th birthday. Andy and Bridgit England played a great set of songs for Jerry. It was really good to see lots of old friends like Steve Honeywill and Steve Rawson. Lord Z was there as well with Jon Blackstone the bass player of the Prophets of Zarquon.
12th January 2020
12th January 2020
I've recently been reading about the bread riots which took placed in Torquay in 1847 and 1867 and this gave me the idea for some lyrics to go with a new tune idea I had. There was an interesting article which mentioned the bread riots in a local magazine called the Beach Hut. The article was written by Jack Critchlow about Torquay Museum and having read this it sparked off the idea for a song. The idea for the tune came from watching a tutorial on youtube about playing a country and western style steel guitar riff. My tune idea sounds nothing like that style of music though.
Here is a link to some information about the Torquay bread riots
https://www.torbay.gov.uk/media/8996/the-bread-riots-1847-and-1867.pdf
The harvest was so poor
The price of bread it would soar
The potato crop and failed
Hope for the poor had not prevailed
There were riots in Torquay
In Union street like an angry sea
It was Eighteen Forty Seven
Great discontent for the poor in Devon
The price of bread so high
Could this the baker justify
A mob in Union street
The Constables had to defeat
There were riots in Torquay
In Union street like an angry sea
It was Eighteen Sixty Seven
Great discontent for the poor in Devon
A sharp rise in the price of bread
Led to a riot the newspaper said
It was bonfire night when the shops were trashed
Broken into, ransacked, trashed and smashed
5th January 2020
5th January 2020
Well it's happy new year 2020 and the sound of that feels like it is something to do with science fiction. I can remember reading 1984 in the 1970s and that future year seemed like the far future and I can still recall thinking about it walking up Shiphay Lane in Torquay and also thinking that in the year 2000 I would be nearly 40 and how old and far away that would be. Now that I am 58 being 40 sounds quite young!
It's been an interesting start to the year. I went to a new years eve party and I think I am finding it a struggle to party until midnight and prefer being at home reading a book if I have to stay up late. Yes I know I'm a boring old fart! The next day I saw Torquay United lose at the Theatre of Pain with my very good friend Jerry. Back to work in my office in Exeter the next day after being on holiday since 13th December 2019, but seemed to cope with it and getting up early in the morning in the dark. The next day on Friday felt very very tired and it was time to say farewell to Nico02. He liked the A to Z of Ashburton that I had written out for him where he will be working. This included A for Ashburton and B for bus stop etc. Absolutely hilarious if you work in my office but undoubtedly not so if you don't!
Met up with Graham Moores after work in Exeter on Friday evening and finally got around to paying him for the Thrilling Blunder Stories artwork. We talked about our music which included when Graham recorded some of the songs of Iain Smith who I was at school with at Torquay Boys Grammar School. I can still remember parts of the first day at that school quite vividly. Queueing up in the car park outside the school first thing in the morning with Nadi Jahangiri a little further along in the queue. He had a brown satchel over his shoulder. Nadi would later be the guitar player in a local punk band called Das Schnitz. This link with information about his band is very interesting.
https://www.boredteenagers.co.uk/DAS%20SCHNITZ.htm
The drummer of Das Schnitz was Kevin Perry also at the same school and in fact I was also at Sherwell Valley junior school with him. I remember being sent to detention once at that junior school and Kevin was there in the same room, also on detention mucking about with some pencils that were on his desk.
One of the other things I remember about my first day at Torquay Boys Grammar School was sitting next to Iain Smith and when I got home after seeing Graham I found this on youtube, which is one of Iain's songs which was recorded by Graham
December 29th 2019
29th December 2019
My good friend Andy England happened to spot that the name of one of my old bands, The Morrisons, is shown on the cover of a fanzine called Blast Off. He says that he spotted it on the website of the Go Betweens. I presume that this fanzine was printed in the late 1980's when The Morrisons were featured in several fanzines after Listen to Your Heart was played on Radio One by John Peel.
Here is a link to the flexi disc of the Morrisons song Listen to Your Heart
22nd December 2019
22nd December 2019
This week I finally got around to changing all of the 12 strings on my Rickenbacker electric guitar. The last time I did this I changed 6 of the strings and then couldn't face changing the other 6 and that must have been a few years ago! In fact the guitar was down to 11 strings because one of the top E strings had broken and all of the other strings were very rusty. To prepare myself for the great string change I watched a tutorial on youtube on how to restring a 12 string Rickenbacker guitar:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr5MKbOTaWY
At the beginning of the tutorial Terry of the Guitar Works Ltd ( Illinois ) says “Today we're going to do the most daunting restring that there ever will be for any guitar player and that's a Rickenbacker 12 string”. This confirmed what I had often suspected having owned my Rickenbacker for about 19 years. The tutorial is great and showed the easiest way to change the strings, most of which I had previously already worked out for myself through trial and error. Mind you changing all the strings this time still took me 4 hours and I wouldn't recommend it as something to do for the faint-hearted.
15th December 2019
Here’s a little Christmas number for you to add your own vocals to.
Sir Ian is writing a Christmas song for Lord Zarquon
(Ha Ha a bit sad this ha ha. The editor)
ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS IS A MELLOTRON
SO I'VE WRITTEN THIS SONG FOR LORD ZARQUON
THE MOODY BLUES HAD ONE AND HE WANTS ONE TOO
THOUGH THEY'RE EXPENSIVE YOU KNOW THAT'S TRUE
HE'S GOT LOTS OF KEYBOARDS BUT YOU'LL HEAR HIM COMPLAIN
THAT THE PRICE OF A MELLOTRON IS RATHER INSANE
PLEASE CAN LORD ZARQUON HAVE A MELLOTRON
HE'D PLAY THE DAMN THING ALL DAY LONG
THE MOODY BLUES HAD ONE AND HE WANTS ONE TOO
THOUGH THEY'RE EXPENSIVE YOU KNOW THAT'S TRUE
HE'S GOT LOTS OF KEYBOARDS BUT YOU'LL HEAR HIM COMPLAIN
THAT THE PRICE OF A MELLOTRON IS RATHER INSANE
DEAR MRS ZARQUON YOU COULD TAKE OUT A LOAN
OR PERHAPS A LARGE MORTGAGE ON YOUR HOME
A MELLOTRON YOU COULD THEN AFFORD TO BUY
AND GREAT TEARS OF JOY YOU WOULD SEE HIM CRY
ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS IS A MELLOTRON
I'M SINGING ALL ABOUT IT IN THIS SONG
THE MOODY BLUES HAD ONE AND HE WANTS ONE TOO
THOUGH THEY'RE EXPENSIVE YOU KNOW THAT'S TRUE
1st December 2019
1st December 2019
Inspired by the story in an article about metal detecting I have written another song. I have also learnt how to spell archaeology without using spell check or looking it up in a dictionary.
https://archmdmag.com/how-i-started-metal-detecting-and-archaeology-by-dave-sadler/
My Dad's C Scope 600
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
Metal detecting, archaeology
When my Dad passed away it was passed to me
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
My Dad was my hero
He looked after me
Took me on detecting trips
Such fun he could guarantee
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
Metal detecting, archaeology
When my Dad passed away it was passed to me
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
My Dad and my uncle
Out there in a field
Dreaming of what we might find
What might be revealed
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
Metal detecting, archaeology
When my Dad passed away it was passed to me
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
Beneath our feet we never knew
What might be concealed
When we dug into the mud
What might it yield
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
Metal detecting, archaeology
When my Dad passed away it was passed to me
My Dad's C Scope 600, oh what a memory
When my Dad passed away it was passed to me
24th November 2019
24th November 2019
On Thursday evening I gave an interview for a metal detecting podcast which was good fun. You can hear the interview via this link
https://www.spreaker.com/user/archmdmag/the-big-metal-detecting-podcast-with-the
There's a long section of silence at the beginning of the interview because the presenter forgot he had the mute button on. I talked about my songs which have a connection with metal detecting and archaeology. Richard III is discussed and I also mentioned my new song about Torquay United.
17th November 2019
17th November 2019
I spent Tuesday evening looking through lots of old family photos that my cousin Joanne had given to me on a CD. There are lots of photos that I hadn't seen before, several going back to the 1920's of my grandmother, grandfather, Mum and Dad etc. The ones of my cousins, my sister and myself from the 1960's brought back memories of a very happy childhood but for some reason by the time I went to bed I was feeling quite melancholy. Maybe it's a feeling of longing for all those carefree days before the worries and stress of adult life arrived and missing members of the family that have passed away over the years.
I have recorded some bass guitar for another tune composed by Graham Moores and it's got a lovely melody and I have now got some lyrics to go with the tune after thinking about the old photos.
Old Family Photographs
Looking at this old photograph
I have to say it makes me laugh
Those underpants that Rob had on
To Uncle George did they belong
A happy childhood so carefree
Leaving me with pleasant memories
Sometimes they make me feel sad
Despite the fun times that we had
The photos are black and white
Smiling children with great delight
Eating ice cream on a holiday
A faded happy yesterday
A happy childhood so carefree
Leaving me with pleasant memories
Sometimes they make me feel sad
Despite the fun times that we had
Old family photos
Old family photos
10th November 2019
10th November 2019
I have made some good progress with the recording of my Fastest Own Goal song. I have recorded the rhythm guitar, lead vocal and Guy Bolt singing a harmony vocal on the chorus. Lord Z has created another masterpiece out of a song called Teign Valley. The music for this song was composed by Phil Swann and I wrote the lyrics. There are in fact two masterpieces as there is also an instrumental version of the song.
Graham Moores has been exchanging emails with me on a fairly regular basis recently and he tells me that he has made good progress with the Thrilling Blunder Stories album artwork. I have been working on some guitar parts for one of his instrumentals and I spent most of Tuesday afternoon doing this.
On a less happy note I have been kicked out of Facebook. I think that my Facebook account was hacked but it doesn't look like a straight forward process to get myself reinstated on Facebook. My main concern is the Facebook pages for the Legendary Ten Seconds and Richard the Third Records which I use to promote my music, so I am not sure what to do about this at the moment.