Tag Archives: writer

A Nostalgic walk to the Record Store…

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rattrapDo you remember the first single you ever bought? I bet you do. And probably the first album too.

The first single I bought was Rat Trap by The Boomtown Rats.

I remember saving up my pocket money and walking with my friend down to Mastersound in Haywards Heath, the only record shop in town, and looking through the singles charts until I saw it there and asking for the number (ok, I can’t remember the number it was in the charts) single it was. He handed it over, I paid my cash, and we walked home.

I played that single to death. Over and over again, and the B side too, that ‘something extra’, the hidden beauty on the reverse side of the record. I mean, when I say played it to death I really mean that. I put it on, played it, lifted the needle back to the beginning, played it again, and again, and again. And I know from talking to other people I wasn’t alone in doing this.

Back in the day buying music was a journey. I heard songs on the radio, or on Top of the Pops. If I couldn’t afford the single I sat by my radio listening to the top 40 being played on a Sunday evening, finger ready to press the record button, and when it came on I recorded it from the radio. Dreadful recordings, but I had the song!

The same was true for albums. The first album I bought with my own money was Strangers in the Night, the double live album by UFO. I saw them playing Doctor Doctor on Top of the Pops and this time bypassed the single and went straight for the album.

I played that to death too. I still have all of my albums, but they are in the loft – no vinyl record player in the house any more.

I’m not bemoaning the transformation from vinyl to CD. In truth I hated vinyl for its fragility. It seemed I could just put an album that had no scratches away fine, and when I pulled it from the sleeve next time it had either warped, or been scratched. I loved the CD. It was smaller, yes, but I still had that sense of journey when buying it. It still had sleeve notes and cover art I could read, and look at, whilst listening to the music. The recording quality was also amazing.

But as with the cassette tape and vinyl record, we have sacrificed quality for convenience. Along came the MP3. Napster, iTunes and peer to peer file sharing have changed everything. Now when I want an album I just open the iTunes app on my iPhone, find the album, and download it. I have it in seconds. I do like the convenience, but that sense of journey has gone. I wonder how many people value those MP3s in the same way that they value a record or CD collection?

Am I just an old dinosaur? See, to me, something has been lost forever in the way we now consume our music. I can also see streaming services like Spotify and Rdio being used more. Services where we take out a monthly subscription, and then have access to an almost infinite number of albums and songs to ‘stream’. Albums that we can also download to an app for ‘offline listening’. But we could spend £120 a year for the rest of our lives, and not own one single album from spending that money… And if the music service changes their policy, increases their price, or goes bust, we lose all of those playlists and ‘offline listening’ albums, maybe having spent £120 for 5 or 10 years. I find that passing over of my own choices a little weird.

I understand ‘progress’.  I can see and experience the convenience of downloading music from iTunes etc. Things have moved on. But with the demise of HMV and other music stores I can also see something I loved as a young boy disappearing forever. I liked the experience of buying music from a shop, and think we are a little worse off without it for our children and grand children.

But there we go, things move on.

The January Man – Making of Antlered Crown and Standing Stone

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Continuing the series of short ‘making of’ videos, this one tells the story behind the only cover version on the album – The January Man.

The new album, Antlered Crown and Standing Stone, is available here

Previous videos can be found here:

Antlered Crown and Standing Stone

Under a Beltane Sun

Brighid

Branwen’s Lament

Sons and Daughters (of Robin Hood)

The Dreaming

Sons & Daughters (of Robin Hood) – the making of Antlered Crown and Standing Stone

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It seems right that this video should be uploaded on the eve of the USA Presidential elections. Here is the inspiration and story behind the song Sons and Daughters (of Robin Hood) from my forthcoming album Antlered Crown and Standing Stone due out on 17th November and available to pre-order now from my website at www.paganmusic.co.uk

Enjoy!

The other four videos are here:

Antlered Crown and Standing Stone

Under a Beltane Sun

Brighid

Branwen’s Lament

The Peace of Autumn’s Gift

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As Autumn digs its heels in deeper I find myself mentally slowing down with a deep sense of peace. I love it that the season’s energy also matches my own.

It’s been an amazing and busy year with music and travelling, the Spirit of Albion movie launching, and the recording of my new album out next month. All of the music has been recorded and I’m now at the stage of fine tuning the mixing and mastering. Each day I’ve been listening again to the mix I had created the day before, and each day I’ve heard stuff I want to adjust. But with each passing day those changes have become less and less, until now I’m just adjusting the fine detail most listeners won’t even notice, but it’s important for me that it’s right when it reaches your ears. I’ve even remixed the free download I gave out last week, so I’ll be uploading a new version soon.

Like I say, I’m probably the only one who will notice the changes.

So soon it will be sent off for pressing. I’m sending it at Samhain. Very apt.

Once the master has been sent off I’ll be making a little video, telling the story behind each new song. I thought things were slowing down. Well they are. Apart from the video, Witchfest, the tour with Spiral Dance, the OBOD Winter Gathering, more gigs, a new songbook…

I love my life.

The Blessings of the Wheel

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I love the way our Pagan Wheel of the Year works its magic. It lies at the very heart of my spiritual life and I’m sure, like many other Pagans, the more I have worked with it, the more my own life has changed to reflect the turning of the seasons. So now, as the nights have drawn in, and the leaves have fallen once more to the ground to nourish next year’s growth, I too can feel the busy-ness of my own life changing. But just as the birds and animals are still busy searching for food, so I am searching for the Awen to inspire new songs, and to bless me with the insight for the arrangements of the songs I’ve already written.

I’m heading back into the studio to record a new album – the first album of my own songs since The Cauldron Born released in late 2008. I have a couple more concerts this year, and a couple early in 2012, but I have consciously created a space for that Awen to enter. And as I look outside at the late Autumn day I can see and feel that the energy is right.

The origin of some people’s inspiration is action, from friction and intense activity. Some people find their spiritual connections also come from that space, from drumming and dancing, screaming and chanting. I love that too, but I also know that the foundation of my inspiration comes from stillness, from peace. And that is another reason why I love the Wheel of the Year. The Spring and Summer are times of activity, when I am out playing at festivals, dancing around a burning Wickerman, running through a labyrinth, losing myself to the fire and power of the Pagan drummers. So when Autumn and Winter arrive I am ready to welcome their energy too – energies of reflection, and peace. I know that my spiritual life is enhanced by these changes. If all I knew was hot, how could I fully understand and appreciate it if I never felt cold? If all I knew was light, how could I fully understand and appreciate it if I never knew darkness? So if all I knew was wildness, how would I fully understand and appreciate it if I didn’t know stillness and peace? 

The Ancestor is standing at the Threshold. The woodland is still, and filled with the aroma of decaying leaves. And I am now ready to approach the Ancestor, to seek entry into the Grove of Reflection, to sit in stillness with eyes open, and to allow the woodland to accept my presence. Only then will the Faerie come out once more to dance, to show themselves to me, and allow me to hear their music.

The Strength of our Roots help hold the Tree

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I’ve heard it said that a tree doesn’t benefit from having its roots dug up, and this is true, but every now and again I feel the need to take stock and look back at what brought me to the Path in the beginning. To make sure that my roots are still secure, as sometimes they do need some kind of repair.

So yesterday I stopped looking forward, and placed my gaze firmly on the past, yet from this present moment. I got out my old Grove Books that I wrote during my studies with the Occult Church Society, and then the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids. I read what I’d written for the first time in probably 8 years.It was lovely to read my own words as I set out on this path, a time when I had no idea how my life would change. I hadn’t yet written one Pagan song, so all of it lay unknown, in the future.

One beautiful thing that came from this was a great sense of re-connection, of getting back to my own roots, and it was wonderful. During one of the rituals I wrote that I believed I had met Brighid who had told me that the “source of my poetry and song lay in my own Spirit”. When I asked what that meant She just kept on repeating the same words, over and over again. There were other beautiful messages about the future hidden within the text, and a couple of times I couldn’t help but have to dry away a few tears.

There is a lot of sense in working with the Power of Now, especially if we have a tendency to live in a perceived future when we believe all will be better. But every now and then, and particularly as Samhain approaches, I think it does me good to look back and acknowledge the ancestor of my life today. To water the roots that keep my feet on the Path, and to be able to then take a new step forward, held by my life’s experiences.

Spirit of Albion movie film diary day 7

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Here’s the latest film diary!

New Lyric – Brighid

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A couple of years ago, during an Imbolc ritual, I made a promise to Brighid that I would write a song for her. Last week I made good on that promise and I hope that

She is pleased with her song. I’ll be playing it at my forthcoming concerts over the next few weeks, so I hope you all like it too!

Brighid

(Verse 1)

There’s a tree by the well in the woods that’s covered in garlands,

Clooties and ribbons that drift in the cool morning air,

That’s where I met an old woman who came from a far land,

Holding a flame o’er the well, and singing a prayer.

(Chorus)

Goddess of fire, Goddess of healing,

Goddess of Spring, welcome again.

(Verse 2)

She told me she’d been a prisoner trapped in a mountain,

Taken by the Queen of Winter at Summer’s End,

But in her prison she heard a spell the people were chanting,

Three days of Summer, and snowdrops are flowering again.

(Verse 3)

She spoke of the Cell of the Oak where a fire is still burning,

Nineteen Priestesses tend the eternal flame,

Oh but of you, my Lady, we are still learning,

Brighid, Brigantia, the Goddess of Many Names.

(Bridge)

Then I caught her reflection in the mirrored well,

And looked deep into her face,

The old woman gone, a maiden now knelt in her place.

From my pocket I pulled a ribbon,

And in honour of her maidenhood,

I tied it there to the tree by the well in the wood.

(Chorus)

Goddess of fire, Goddess of healing,

Goddess of Spring, welcome again.

(copyright Damh the Bard 2011)

Spirit of Albion Film Diaries – Day 2

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Last Saturday filming began on the Spirit of Albion movie. It was my first time on a film set and I found the whole experience really exciting. We shot my appearance in the film, Pagan Ways, and Green and Grey. It was really very emotional seeing Green and Grey unfold before me complete with Horned God and Priest exactly as I saw it in my mind when I wrote the song.

Here’s the diary of a great day’s shoot!

The Winter King – Where it was written

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A couple of weeks ago I played at the PF Devon and Cornwall conference, a gig I love to play each year, and a great reason to step foot upon my home county of Cornwall. On the Sunday after the conference the Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft opens for that one Sunday, so many of the people at the conference descend upon the town to see what’s been happening at the museum.

Now I cannot go to Boscastle without walking to the top of the cliffs to look out upon the mightly Atlantic ocean, and it was here, about 14 years ago that I heard the refrain that opens my song The Winter King in the sound of the sea as it struck the cliffs below. So this time I took some footage on my walk up to put into a video to go with the song.

It’s VERY shaky, but it does show the beauty of the place, and the inspiration behind the refrain, and the rest of King Arthur’s song. I hope you enjoy it, despite the wobbly videoing!