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Klezmik - Neotopia

Despite the intrusion of an enormous hornet at the beginning of our second set - and the power cutouts caused by engineers repairing wires nibbled by nearby sheep, our recent gig at The Horseshoe Inn at Bridges in the remote corner of Shropshire proved a massive success.

Friends, fans and family all converged on Shropshire's worst kept secret for a night of our kind of music. Whatever our kind of music, actually is. We thinks it's jazz, but then it's also reggae, funk, blues, psychedelia and even Afrobeat.

Here's what we played:
Paris
5 More Minutes
We Can Be Together
Phoenix
Klezmik
Frankly, My Dear...
Freefall Fireball
Feline Eyes
Break
Coming Over
Overwhelmed By Stimuli
The Real Deal
Turkish Delight
Zombie Empire
High Ideas
Driver
Extra: Freefall Fireball (Again)



The venue was packed and we think everyone went home with a smile!

Some of the standout moments of the evening for us included the relief that our newer songs like 'Paris', Turkish Delight' and 'High Ideas' were so well received. In fact, the latter brought a silent reverence down on the gathered audience. That really was a special moment.

Let us not end here without showing some appreciation to friends who contributed to our own efforts in making this such a lovely evening: Rob Dunsford (a very talented singer/songwriter in his own right) for sound supervision and hornet wrestling(!), Mo & Bob for not only giving us a chance - but also asking back to do it all again, Richard Foot and Jamila Walker for capturing key aspects for posterity with their crackshot photography - And of course, all those people who despite their SatNav's advice to "Turn around when possible" endured cattlegrids, badgers and buzzards to find Neotopia.

Respect

xx

Our tracks, as you've probably noticed, are a bit lofi. This is because they're just recorded in a single consecutive live take. We are intending, one day to do a proper studio recording. But, for now, all of the music that we keep replacing every week has been done as we jam and improvise. Live.

If you're interested in how we've arrived at our ad hoc methods; we have two Samson USB mics that plug directly into an old Apple G4 iBook, running the freeware application Audacity. Each mic has a separate input for a direct feed. Effectively that gives us an ambient room recording of everything and a clean D.I. signal that we take from a line-out socket on the back of an amplifier.

The two mics give us a total of four tracks to mix from: Mic A - picks up mainly one side of our little room, with a bias on Stuart's speaker cab and perhaps more of the right side of Nick's drum kit. This mic then also takes a clean separate bass guitar track. Mic B - Another room recording maybe with a slightly different side of the drum kit and perhaps a bit more spill from Beatnick's keyboard amp and a separate cleanish input track of Laura's vocal - D.I.ed from her little PA system.

The four tracks are then mixed in Audacity the next morning by our fuzzy headed drummer, Nick. No overdubs, just a bit of EQing and clipping to remove the chat from the beginning and end of the song.

Listen.

Well, I very nearly lived up to my 'Kid Calamity' monicker this weekend. Just thinking about what might very nearly have happened just makes me shudder.

At the Sonic Rock Solstice weekender, on Saturday night - whilst utterly spannered, I launched one of my lanterns.

I wanted a little time out from watching the music, back at the campsite. The folk in the next tent to us were lighting technicians who'd traveled with Aurora (one of the bands on the bill) and were doing a lovely laser display on the overlooking trees, now it was dark.

So, to further augment the lovely vibes, I unfurled one of those tissue balloons I often have at hand for such occasions and soon got the wick burning... Before long it was ready to release and my compatriots who were helping support the thing as it inflated all let go. Up it rose, in the still night air... up, up into the night sky. The flickering flames illuminating the paper envelope and campsite beneath it, with a lovely glow.

Higher and higher it went.

Then...

(And this has never happened on any previous occasion) The paper balloon caught fire. I suddenly felt a sobering shudder, as I realised the whole thing, paper and wax wick now burning strongly was falling back into the campsite. Most of the tents would be uninhabited as everyone was watching Earthlab on the main stage. It would at least destroy a tent or at best ruin the paintwork on a car... There would surely be a big fire.

Mercifully, as the flaming mess hurtled back to earth, a slight breeze diverted its descent and the lantern fell into the branches of a large oak tree that overlooked the site. Relief was brief however, as onlookers now worried whether the still strongly burning wreckage was going to ignite the tree itself.

In silence - and with my hands to my face - I stood transfixed waiting for the fire to eventually die out. Which finally it did. Phew.

To celebrate my relief and getting off the hook, I went and got drunk.

The end.


The next day, we played.



Neotopia - Sonic Rock Solstice June 2009 1













Sonic Rock


Photography: Jamila and Harry C.

Well, our open-air summer gigs started with the Bearded Theory Festival in Derbyshire. As reports have no doubt already informed you, it was an utter mudbath. Organisation for the Campfire stage on the Friday was almost non existent, too. Further adding to our worries. Chin up though! We were still in a bouyant frame of mind, still full of beans following our very encouraging gig at Platform in Shrewsbury, just days earlier. Some friends from there were camping with us. It would take a lot to bring our moods down.











This was the first year of the event going mainstream. It was hosting a bigger bill than its previous formative shows. 2009 had the likes of Hawkwind, The Dreadzone Soundsystem, Saw Doctors and Neville Staple & His Special Friends headling. However, the promoter had been badly let down by key crew members not turning up on the day, without warning.

We were booked to play a late evening set on that Campfire stage. There was no sound engineer present - or even a stage manager.  The bands had to watch the length of their own sets, helping each other loading and unloading gear to the itinary. And even try to supervise the sound mix out front. An inexperienced trader stood in on the mixing desk but did an admirable job.

We got our tents up in the backstage camping area and awaited our slot.









And then it started raining...




The ground around the stages quickly turned to soup. A very thick minestrone soup, in all but taste.  As we went on at 10pm the heavens opened - and dropped any remaining water in heavy, wind propelled showers onto any audience that had gathered as we struggled with our volunteer roadie to mic up the kit and backline.




We had very poor onstage sound and really struggled. But at least we weren't being rained on whilst we stumbled through our songs, watching each others hand for telltale clues as to where the heck we were in our semi improvised songs.






After a thorough soaking as we broke the gear down we retired firstly to a nice chillout tent, but on finding there was a midnight music curfew, we squished our way through dark and sloppy maze of tents to our own corner and got drunk.

It was as we drove back home on the Saturday afternoon, exhausted and damp - wondering whether the friends we'd left on site would finally get some better weather to rescue the weekend that we heard that the main stage, open-mic marquee and other catering structures had been destroyed by a freak wind. It was later reported on the television news that it was quite possibly a tornado.

We will be maintaining this web portal as our main point of contact with the outside world - and indeed any other worlds that are receiving our regular updates and musical adventures. However, in order to reach people who perhaps aren't as websavvy or just prefer to more calm atmosphere, we've launched a Blogger website.

http://neotopic.blogspot.com/

If you run a similar site, why not connect to ours?

On May 7th we played at Shrewsbury's regular Platform evening.  This is a monthly arts night where local artists' of all media get a platform on which to publicly do what they do. This, in the past, has included poetry, burlesque, monologues and performance art. Fine art works are projected onto a huge screen for a regular competition and of course there is plenty of live music.


Photo: Richard Foot

The team of volunteer organisers clearly have a passion for making every Platform night the best it can possibly be. We had played for them before (details can be found in our blogs). This time round though, we airing all new songs and introducing the new line-up.


As before, however, we were cooking. All our songs were well received, despite our concerns that we can flit from music genres with each song. New regular favourites such as 'Overwhelmed By Stimuli' and 'Frankly, My Dear...' were as popular as songs like 'Klezmik' and 'Five More Minutes'.

Following our set, it was so flattering that so many people were eager to find out about future gigs in the pipeline as many wanted to bring friends along to see us, next time. The new Shropshire fanzine 'Feral' conducted a short, but lighthearted interview with us before we played - and we'd like to use this opportunity to wish them the very best for its success.

Here are some lyrics that are being used in a few of our songs.


Stripped of their gold
And raped for its fruit,
Cowering, lost...
At the hands of a brute.

The rivers are dead,
Where we once fed.

From forests lost
To the sands of time,
The children will feast
on the fruits of your crime!

Greens and blues
In the seas and the trees
- But black in the heart
As the chainsaws start.

Poisoned fish
On blackened shores
By blackmailed workers
For corrupt white whores.

______________________


The rivers are dead,
Where once we would feed,
Now cold and grey
For a sterile seed.


______________________


Covering my drawings
And hiding my words,
Deleting these songs
So they can never be heard.

In an anticlockwise world
Where two wrongs make a right,
We can be together
(well), just for tonight.

______________________

Hiding in my bedcave
From the world outside,
Clinging to this moment
Sat still against the tide.

I’m in my placid world
Bullet-proof to your pain,
While everyone outside
Gets dissolved by acid rain.

______________________


I’ll be your secret
If you’ll be my lie.
Avoiding suspicion.
Avoiding their eye.

Hiding in shadows
Like a fox on the run,
We’re just stealing moments
Making life fun.

It’s a risk and a thrill
It’s a new kind of game!
When borders and rules
Just aren’t the same.

We’re bound to be caught
- Destined to fail,
Your inbox! Your guilt!
Someone’s reading your mail!

______________________


We won’t give an obvious answer
It’s neither truth nor a lie
Not really sure what we’re saying
Not really sure quite why.

Let’s forgive and forget
Press the reset
It’s hard to restart
If I’ve damaged tour heart.

Time moves across the face
Around tick the hands
And through my fingers
Runs centuries of sand.

______________________

There’s a place in my heart
Where the daylight don’t go,
Like voodoo it’s dark
Where I’m the me you don’t know.

Down the stone steps
To where everything’s red,
Where the music is king
And comes out of my head.

It’s away from your world
Where we’re righting our wrongs
We’ll fight for our rights
By writing our songs.


Don't be a sad sack and pinch them. if you can't write your own, then you shouldn't try and pass your self off as a writer. Be true to yourself.

©2009 NEOTOPIA

Back in March we played at Worcester's Llama Lounge. Here's a short clip, filmed by Jamila on her digital stills camera. Needless to say the tiny built in mic struggled to cope with the volume and room acoustics, but at least it's a souvenir of what happened that night.

Llama Lounge Worcester March 2009

Unfortunately, we were a man down for this gig, as Dr. Beatnick had just become a daddy - and was an utterly spent force.