My Gang

In anticipation of the latest Eisenhowers album (Judge a man by the company he keeps) going double platinum, I somewhat optimistically pressed 2 million CDs. In spite of one decent review on Unknownindielosers.com, we’re still only 0.00085% towards our target sales figure. There is definitely room for improvement, so the PR team at Waste of Point records have organised a ruthless publicity campaign which involves me ‘putting out’ a series of live acoustic performances of various songs from the album. Below, you'll find a link to ‘My Gang’, a song about political polarisation. The most noteworthy detail of the music is that the song (absent lyrics) was written, more or less, in the time it took to play it.

My modus operandi when composing is to sit and strum, pluck or plonk with no particular aim in mind, other than to go in the direction the music seems to want to go. Of course, this will be influenced by how I'm feeling, whether I'm playing loudly or quietly, whether I'm forming chords or picking out single notes and so on. On this occasion, once I found the opening chord and a rhythm that felt right, the forward momentum became irresistible. The sequence and structure arrived within a couple of minutes because the 'song', even in its nascent form, knew where it wanted to go. Within moments, I had a working title and an idea of what the lyric would be about. The subject of political polarization interests me and I wanted to explore a landscape wherein dialogue between opposing sides isn’t just frowned upon or rejected; it is taken to be undesirable. 

There are other ways to write songs; I’ve got material that has been in development for years because I don’t know how to finish it, or haven’t devoted the energy necessary to achieve closure. But this one was signed, sealed delivered in a very short space of time. I believe ‘My Gang’ is a well-written and a well-executed song. It’s not original and it’s not going to change the world, but in three minutes or so, it encapsulated some of the things I wanted to say about what passes for political discourse in the 21st century. The video was splendidly produced, as ever, by Eddie Macarthur at Stealth Studio in Glasgow. 

So … here’s the next blow in my continuing war of attrition with the record-buying public. 2 million CDs (a) take up a lot of space and (b) weigh a ton. Please buy one, because structural damage to one’s house is no laughing matter. ‘Judge a man by the company he keeps’ is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes, CD Baby and all the usual sources. 

 

Song of the week: Asleep at the wheel

This is an acoustic re-working of a song that, in an ideal world, would have been made famous by Gum.  It was recorded for their 2003 ‘Low-flying Kites’ album, then later given a lush makeover for single release.  

The original demo was a little bit 'down and dirty' before the band transformed it into something in the folky-electronica vein. This version is probably closer in style to my original demo of the song and the slightly bitter tone of the vocal seems to suit the subject material.  

Stripped right back to basics, this acoustic version manages to retain the kind of condemnatory vibe befitting what is -in effect- a piece of character assassination. As usual, the names have been left out in order to protect the guilty.

Asleep at the wheel