THE WATERCATS & ALL THE THINGS

GROWING UP.

2012-01-13T11:29:00.000Z

Sounds strange doesn't it? A thirty odd year old saying things like, 'growing up', in the present tense. For those who aren't in touch via facebook, my last post sparked off a massive undertaking for me. I decided to start up a new once monthly event for original music and spoken word. We visited the landlord of our local (the pub we go to on the rare occasions we go out) and he was more than happy to give us his upstairs room to use AND we can do it up how we want it. BONUS.

I have spent the last week setting up a facebook page, a new blog, leaving adds on various forums looking for bands and contacting artists directly, in an effort to attract quality attention to the gig. Unfortunately I can't pay bands, but I'm hoping to create such a nice, appreciative, open atmosphere, with people in it, that the performers will be happy to travel to play there and get themselves exposure, and sell some CD's.. and there will be a bucket for donations from the audience at the end. You can follow THE MEDICINE SESSIONS if you like.

Anyway, doing all this has sparked off loads of positive things in my own persona. I have managed to completely obliterate all my past cynicism, I realise now that I was merely projecting my own frustrations so that I didn't have to look at myself. I have completely lost my need to smoke, I haven't touched one since before Christmas and don't even miss it. I have completely lost my appetite, or at least the need to eat food as a sort of comfort to my shitty feelings. My brain feels renewed, I feel confident and driven... of course I still get momentary lapses of self doubt, but I'm managing to keep it at bay.

With all this change I've been contemplating the future of The Watercats (as a band, not our relationship!) I've come to the conclusion that I think maybe "The Watercats" as a name has run it's course. It came about in a drunken kitchen evening, before we had even played live anywhere, before we had proved to ourselves we could do it. I was still learning the guitar, nothing was taken seriously. Over the last while I've always had it in my head that 'The Watercats' need to be a happy-go-lucky sounding band, that's what the name implies and where the name was born from, but we've moved on from that now. I would like to incorporate more of my poems (by their nature darker and more serious) into our sets, but feel like the name and the material just don't go.

So, it's a possible name change time. In reality, we haven't achieved an awful lot musically under The Watercats name and those that we have, have been fairly local affairs. We will probably keep The Watercats as a local name, but I will feel more confident asking for gigs elsewhere with a more grown-up title, which better reflects how we sound now. We thought, what better name for a band, than our own.

BATTESON IND

A nod to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Chaz and Dave, Pinky and Perky, etc....

what do you reckon?

BRING IT ON.

2012-01-01T12:36:00.002Z

I have to admit, last year I was struggling. Struggling with all sorts of pent up self afflicted gripes and reservations and bitterness. POOR ME syndrome. I was even starting to bore myself with my own perceived inadequacies. I gave up writing poetry because I thought that thinking too much in that direction was bringing on all the self blehness, even though I've written poetry since I was a kid and it had always acted as a medicine to head worms.

My light bulb moment came whilst I was reading Patti Smith's book "Just Kids". I can honestly say that it has sparked something in me, genuinely. It is inspiring that she never doubted the fact that her path was that of an artist, it was not something to be ashamed of, ridiculed, put into competition with, sold, or denied. Success isn't the point. You don't need success to prove to yourself that art (whichever area you dabble in) is what your natural path is, even though society would have you believe that success is everything and you are shit if you don't have it.

I've been fighting something. I've created this image of myself as the under-educated, over-aged, over weight, skint, cynic. Why? Fuck knows!? I've been afraid of going into those quiet dark places that crop up every so often, instead of embracing them and using them to spill ink on pages and wallow in all the beautiful creativity that melancholy brings. In Patti's book she mentions about her naturally rebellious nature, and about how she curved her tendencies to destruction by channeling the energy into creating art. In my case, I've been channeling all my anger into myself, or blaming the world in general. Claiming "everything is shit!".

Last night, I lay prone on the sofa, a huge fire blaring, a raging temperature, my lungs burning like sandpapered knuckles, watching Jools Holland's Hootenanny *HOOTENANNY!... (sorry) The New year rang in... I half expected an earthquake, or just be obliterated into dust by an anti-big-bang, but no. Something tweaked inside me though, I think my eyelid might have twitched and everything. I'd had enough. Enough of all my bullshit. Just do the thing. I don't know what the 'thing' is yet, but I know I must do it. I must have faith in my own path, or calling, or whatever the fuck it's called. If I stay forever skint, then so what, at least I will have created something, for someone.

And while I'm waiting for this to happen, I am seriously planning on creating a scene. If we cannot go to Dublin to all the cool open mics and spoken word-a-me-jigs, then I shall make one here. I'm half afraid of the logistics of organising it, I want to not bother, a voice keeps telling me it will be a failure, no'one will want to travel to a small village in West Waterford to sing or read, that someone will interfere and ruin it, that I'm not qualified enough to run it, set it up.. blah blah blah.. But I know now that that is just SHIT. Nothing ever happened by doing nothing... no wait.. doublenegatives.. shit.. .. Everything never happened by doing nothing..?... bollocks... erm.... .....

GREAT THINGS NEVER HAPPEN BY DOING NOTHING. .. now. someone tell me who said that?

I KNOW I WASN'T GOING TO MOAN ANYMORE. BUT....

2011-12-15T20:37:00.000Z

I lied. I need to get this off my chest. You know I mentioned a thing about a competition in the last post? Well, I succumbed and enquired about it. I wish I hadn't bothered and stuck to my guns about doing no more competitions.

The e-mail reply went something like this;

Hi Vick.

We'd be delighted to include you in the competition. We have a p.a, we just need you to be available on an allotted night and to do a thirty to forty minute set, although it is a competition for songwriters, we'd like it if you could include two or three pop songs as part of your set, something for you to put your mark on. You can have one person accompanying you, as we are running a battle of the bands separately.

Hope to hear from you soon. Skinflint landlord with zero actual interest in promoting original music, but wanting free entertainment in his pub for a few weeks. (that's not his actual name by the way).

POP SONGS!... What the proverbial fuck!? A songwriters competition that strongly urges covers!? Is there any hope left at all? This is meant to be a fairly good music pub too.. Or not, perhaps, unless you love listening to endless chewed over cud music. I have nothing against cover bands, some of them can be even better than the originals and fair play for their patience in actually learning someone else's stuff. My gripe is that competitions such as this are no better in their intent than the spam churned out by reverb nation, luring in naive bands, desperate for a gig, in the pretence that they are actually listening to their songs. The reality is of course, that times are tight. How many pubs have the money to fork out on paying bands for their time? An easy option is to organise a competition, drag it out over three nights a week for three months, offer a prize of five hundred euros at the end, but you've saved an absolute fortune in the meantime.

This sort of shite is even putting the cover bands out of business! And makeing the songwriters amongst us feel like we need to sell bits of our souls just to be heard. Well, this one at least has been there done it, not won and spent her own money for the pleasure.. And I'm not doing it anymore.

Why does everything in music feel like its a Weird competition anyway? In fact, there are various competitions in all the arts? Why is this? Why are we made to feel like we're competing against each other? You don't get competitions in the cleaning industry, or for IT workers ( though I may be corrected by a code of ye). You don't get shelf stackers having to prove themselves in front of judges, or council workers competing against each other for golden brooms. You'd think the arts community would encourage and embrace everyone's work, not bitch about it or feel the need to make a hierarchy out of it... Oops.. Think that's what you call a tangent.

DECISIONS DECISIONS.

2011-12-09T11:40:00.000Z

I hang my head in shame at having neglected my blogging lately. To be honest, I think it's because I haven't had much to say, particularly regards to anything musical. Myself and The Ronald have been doing our usual thing of only vaguely contemplating 'the next gig'. I tried to get a few things sorted earlier on, but none of them came to fruition.

My attitude sways from extreme dislike of the idea of playing 'proper gigs' to 'why should we not get paid for doing it', a typical Vicky contradiction.
On the one hand I feel that being booked to play a gig for money, ultimately ends up a bit of a damp squib when the gig actually comes round. For all the hours I put in making sure the set list is right, learning the words and worrying about doing a good job, the gig rarely leaves me feeling absolutely elated. Most of the time people couldn't give a toss what you were doing and ultimately, the tiny bit of money you do receive for the gig doesn't go very far. I enjoy it, but I'm not left feeling particularly rewarded.
On the other hand, all the times we've played in small pubs, with a group of friends, for nothing, I have been left feeling warmed, contented, inspired and happy. There has been no stress involved, we're free to sing whatever song we feel like at that moment and oddly, anyone who happens to be in the pub at the time actually listens, enjoys and is drawn in.

I have thus made up my mind that, I'm not going to exert loads of energy and effort into chasing gigs. I would rather sit in a pub once a week with our guitars and just jam away quietly in the corner over a pint and, if the barman wants to chuck us a few freebies for entertaining people, then so be it.

I also swore that I wouldn't be entering any more competitions. I think it's too easy for pubs to use them as a way of getting in free entertainment without having to pay the bands. BUT THEN, something like a songwriters competition comes up and I can't help but feel a competitive edge creep in, some primeval need to prove that we're better than everyone else (or not as the case has been). Despite saying I won't do them again, the fact is I quite enjoy performing at them, the audiences are normally up for listening and I love the feeling when you know you've got them. BUT THEN, as The Ronald points out, we should be aiming for better things than competitions now. we should be aiming to get our name out there so that we can be booked to BE THE BAND OF THE NIGHT, not one of the bands of the night....

God it's all so complicated! Do you and should you, give your time for free? To me, there's a lot to be said for enjoyment, fulfillment. BUT... GHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Hence the reason we've been hiding in the mountains crippled with inertia.

IT'S OH SO QUIET..

2011-10-25T13:31:00.002+01:00

But not quite as mental as Bjork. Things in The Watercats camp are very quiet at the moment. I'm happy to see that our last lovely song went down well, which proved to me that, yes, actually people do like light hearted and feel good things. Perhaps I need to focus on playing more D chords instead of always getting sucked in by the allure of E minor (the chord I think my soul is tuned to).
After we put that song up we were approached by a couple of lovely people. One of them, most of you know very well (but I'm not going to say anything more on that in case they change their mind,) the other person was a young person (a 25 yr old tyke). He hails from Dungarvan and we've met him a few times in local open mics. He managed to get a band together and they go by the name of LYRE DYCE, clever lot they are too. Ross Stack is the guys name and he does the singing and guitar stuff, he also loves arranging and recording, so got in touch to know if we fancied jamming and doing some recording with his gear..

A proverbial no brainer really. So we got together, found out that he also plays drums, very well, made the songs sound fantastic! We recorded a couple of songs which he is currently tweeking and putting drum tracks onto. Very excited about how they will turn out, Ross has a very similar idea to us about the sound and vibe of the songs, which is immediately a good thing. So at some point, we will post up the results (if I didn't fuck the singing up irrevocably).

As for gigs, well, we haven't been chasing much since Dublin, the lazy feckers that we are... I think we have to realise that, despite our obviously as yet undiscovered genius, the people will not come knocking our door down.. that we need to get off our holes and go pimping ourselves out.

We went to see this gig of Lyre Dyce and very good it was too (the young bastards! ;-D )

US!?.. DO A LOVE SONG!?... well, go on then...

2011-10-06T19:11:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I'd like to appologise AGAIN for not replying to comments in the previous post.. our computer/google is properly conspiring against us and keeps eating my comments. I've tried everything and have concluded that I need a Mac more than ever.. (god rest Steve Jobs, he was an incredible fella by all accounts.)

After a recent minor dissapointment regarding a competition that we didn't get finalised for.. I concluded that people seem to love love songs, proper rhymy, simple, happy ones and if you can put a bit in there about children too then all the better. So we did one, and even made a lovely video to go with it...

*in the words of a cheesy D.J;
"This one goes out to all you young lovers out there, this is The Watercats with Happy Ending.."

THE WEIRDNESS OF IT ALL

2011-09-29T15:31:00.006+01:00

Lots happened last week-end. Lots of small things and moments noticed, like the way a particular leaf was illuminated by an orange Dublin city street-lamp, and the midnight people watching from our room, of the disgruntled Polish kitchen staff stomping in and out of the back yard (where our room overlooked), swearing in tongues about their hateful manager (who we saw smoking in his suit before storming into the kitchens and shouting and slamming pans). But there was one thing that happened that has stuck properly... it's a potentially defining moment of life.. not in a death survival way, or a giving birth way, but in a way that adds to my disillusionment.. sort of.. let me explain...

Growing up, I had a soundtrack, like we all do. Songs and artists that I held in high esteem, that became anthems for my time. Among these were a band called 'An Emotional Fish'. They weren't that big outside of Ireland I don't think, but they had some fantastic songs, and their best album was worn to death on my cassette player.

Fast forward to 2011. Friday 23rd September. RDS. The headline act that night was a band called Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club. Yes, the lead man from An Emotional Fish's new band. They were great. The reception for them was poor really, but then, the week-end was all about beer, not bands. They had their own sound engineer and everything. The reality was though, they were playing on the exact same stage as I would be the next day. The fact as well was though, that I was horrifically drunk and danced embarrassingly with him and the Ronald. I think your childhood heroes are meant to remain inaccessible aren't they? They are meant to forever stay untouchable mythical beings.

On reflection I'm sure he's equally pissed off at the idea that he's now doing gigs in places where bands like us use the same stage too! I suppose everyone has their day, and everyone has to grow up..

BOOOOOO..... sure, never mind Ger!

THE ROCKY ROAD TO DUBERLIN WAN TOO TREE FORR FIYEV

2011-09-26T22:07:00.003+01:00

Well, you may remember (see last post) about our brilliant news about appearing in the Capital, in the ordee'ess no less! We did it. We don't have any actual documented evidence, only really here-say. We were called The Beercats for the day, and were written on the fancy booklet as such, and the on-line pdf document with the break-down of entertainment had a couple of sentences saying;

"The Beercats are a soft folk duo from County Wexford"... so there's no proof there of us either. (We're some sort of blues thing from Waterford).

We don't even have photo's, because Dublin was too far a stretch for our handful of fans to get to to take any pictures and I suspect the in situ beer festival photographer has few if any pictures of us, let alone any inclination to e-mail us any free of charge.

So, there's just our word for it really.. and this photo of The Ronald looking slightly concerned about one of the pictures in our hotel room...

Friday 23rd September. 2011 A.D. 10.10am.

The Watercats left their home in a black 1.2lt Opel Corsa borrowed from a relative due to their own vehicle committing kama kaze in the days previous. They crossed the mountains and met the main Dublin road somewhere around Cahir and proceeded thus for a couple of hours at high speed. They provoked the sat nav somewhere on the Naas dual carraigeway and encountered their destination at about mid-day. (The city folk have trains that go in the middle of the road... some class of a sci-fi affair if ever there was one).

After booking into the swanky hotel and encountering a mischievement of visa card details which led to a severe detriment of bank fundages, they continued to their room.. consternation was met when finding it was non-smoking and had three millimeter wide window opening spaces... but.. jubilation was met on finding it had a bath.

The Watercats soon left for a near-by pub, soon after, dying with aghastment at a ten euro bill for two mediocre pints. (apparantly more city sci-fi affairs).

Some time around two The Watercats blundered into a side door of the RDS exhibition hall; A large long vaulted ceiling venue, to stake out the next day's gig site; a large stage with a large sound system and fancy looking technical equipment... they were met by the band guy, given wrist bands, a parking pass and a hand-shake.
By three p.m The Watercats were well on the way to being very drunk on various craft beers, particularly those hailing from Dungarvan Brewing Company. (we love them).

By Friday evening, The Watercats could be mostly spotted in front of the stage dancing embarrassingly in inebriated manners, with far too much abandon.

SATURDAY 25th SEPTEMBER. 10.00am.

The Watercats awaken and need food. No food can be found except pastry things. They eat pastry things and shake and drink tea and retreat back to bed.

2.00pm.

The Watercats awaken and realise they have roughly two hours before their BIG GIG. They bath, pack guitars, shake and feel wobbly and make their way to the RDS. They spend the two hours or so trying to sobre up and keep up-right.

4.25p.m.

The Watercats are standing on the big stage, several hundred people below them. They break into their first song.. and get away with it. A pulse of adrenaline begins to trickle into their clogged arteries, the second song begins and ends and sweat is starting to cling to their backs. A spotlight focused on Vicky's leg begins to burn... Third song.. The Ronald hits a couple of bum notes, Vicky glances over to see him standing glazed eyed, and grey skinned, pre diabetic coma headed, a guitar lead wrapped several times around his leg.. he catches her eye and does a grin before expertly unravelling himself and suddenly returning to his normal peuce colouration.. third song ends.. a jovial mumble to the crowd, adrenaline soaking every pore, on a roll.. too relaxed! A verse is forgotten and left to the gods to worry about, an improvised middle eight instead... alls well.. into the next song after more cajoling and banter.. woooooop! ALIVE ALIVE!.. no'one can touch them, hang-overs forgotten, forced away by the fun of the things and the joy... the guitars clang and crash and beat their way through the set, Vicky wails and stamps, The Ronald bends strings and over-drives like a mentalist.. and all too soon it ends.. shirts drenched.. a great weight lifted.. job done...

more drinking. bagels eaten. retirement to hotel room. bath. bed.

SUNDAY 25th SEPTEMBER. 10.00am.

The Watercats check out. hit the road and away back to the mountain air. Drop into home to see the animals and have a cup of tea, then head straight back out to the kid and good friends. A beautiful afternoon is had in a tiny secret pub, full of old songs and stories and lost verses shared, colloquialisms satiated, old friends remembered and children playing and crisps at the bar and logs on the fire, brown ceilings and concrete floors and big kitchen tables, fiddles and mandolines and whistles and flutes and belly laughs in the dying light of the day. It brings it all home....

The magic is in all the things... big stage, small corner, it's the doing it, the sharing it, the learning and the memory... and it's a week-end we'll remember...

LONG WET SUMMER

2011-08-23T11:23:00.000+01:00

We're back! Well, sort of. This summer has been a proverbial head-feck all round.

We almost considered moving into council housing,

We've had to re-home several of our animals.

We've applied to have songs included on an RTE series (no news yet).

We've also sent songs off to be considered for RTE radio grants/competition (no news till September)

I almost went busking in England, but the two free days were torrential rain.

We got drunk on a few occasions and I almost caused a fight on one of those with a friendly remark that someone looked like the fella off the Go Compare add. Another of those occasions I played a vintage EKO Ranger guitar (a massive love of mine) that I found leaning against a washing machine and had a guided tour of a B&B... another of those occasions included a run in with some poiteen/home brewed polish vodka and a strained ankle tendon and the Ronald falling down behind a mobile home..

The car only broke once.

All our coats went mouldy.

I've read about six books, three of which were utter shite.

We didn't get booked to play a local festival (they will regret that next year when we're plastered all over the radio)

I bought one new vest and have worn it twice.... in England.

Oh.. and we are booked to play at the all Ireland Craft Beer Fest in the RDS in Dublin at the end of September... (will put definative details up when we get them)

Cheers!
P.S whatever the hell is up with blogger, I cannot leave comments on this site and a handful of others. I have deleted my browsing history including cookies and it still tells me mt account is not authorised to visit this site and sends me to the sign in page! I'm extremely annoyed at this stage, so if anyone has any ideas on how to get back to normality, let me know! :-D

in the mean-time, enjoy some photos of what our summer has consisted of.

August vegetables

the pond and my stone walling ;-)

veggie patch

guinea fowl or, skeksy

incubator full of eggs

bus trip in Cheltenham

baby chicks hatched in July :-)

Ron's gardening corner

FOOKIN ELL

2011-07-05T09:36:00.002+01:00

It's been a while since we were here. Days just seem to blend into a miriad half glimpses of themselves and one day, small moments of them will eclipse my aching joints and cataracts while I'm sat in a comfy chair in the sunshine, vaguely recalling 'the old days'...

There's no need to go on. Some of it has involved making chickens, making vegetables, tending the vast estate in our crazy, eccentric multi millionairre sort of way (by making gardens with ponds in and multi-wheelbarrows). Some of it even involved music, well, the noise we make that we laughingly call music.

We even had a gig the other night, in 'The Hotel'. It was o.k. We did it to test out our new/old P.A and as a personal experiment in staying focused and involved (as the hotel is the sort of soul destroying venue you here of in legends) and because we were getting paid.
We were asked to do covers and it was hinted that we might get a regular spot there if we did... Don't get me started on this. Don't you think we'd be advertising ourselves as a cover band if we did FUCKING COVERS! It takes time and effort to learn songs, even your own songs.. why would I spend all those hours learning whats already been done to death when I could be honing our own tunes... someone will say "because of the money".. because of the money...

we gave them some covers:
Man of Constant Sorrow- slowed down and changed to girl of constant sorrow
Rocky Mountain High- slowed down, changed chords, and rearranged.
Ride On- hardened up, speeding slowly up to an angry guitar pounding, fuzz box crescendo.
The NIght They Drove Ole Dixie Down- more or less the same but chords changed slightly.
Girl from The North Country:completely differently, but just about recogniseable
Raggle Taggle Gypsy- slowed down and finger picked.
The Deadwood Stage from callamity jane- included a kazoo solo.. they weren't expecting that one the fuckers.
and the remainder of two hours after that were all our own babies.

We concluded that;
1: our new/old P.A works well
2: The hotel is possibly the wrong place for our stuff
3: A pub that leaves the T'V on when a band is playing has it's priorities a bit arse-ways.
4: Wide inch television screens in direct eyeline flashing sky news headlines whilst your trying to sing is REALLY FUCKING DISTRACTING!
5: We can switch off our obvious soul distruction and 'do our job'.
6: €130 is €130 whichever way you look at it.
7: I'd rather the fuckers had just given me a washing up job there when I applied though.

Heave Ho!

SEE... NOW TRY SINGING A SONG

oh, and just to add, whatever is up with google/blogger at the moment, I can't log in to leave comments. It keeps booting me to the sign in page, though it lets me put posts up!!?? if anyone has a clue, let me know! cheers for all ye're comments by the way. :-)

A SONG "PERTINANT TO THE AGE WE LIVE IN"

2011-05-23T10:31:00.001+01:00

Back in the gloomy depths of last year, whilst we were in the middle of, probably the highlight of our musical careers (actually playing gigs), we received a review from the fabled Jackie Hayden. He is one of the better music journalists of Hotpress magazine here in Ireland. As well as doing proper music journalism, he keeps a little column tucked into a sidebar of the earlier pages of the magazine where he writes a paragraph review of new albums. In fairness, ours wasn't even an album... it was a Lidl's C.D with seven songs on it and 'The Watercats' scrawled on it in black marker. We gave it to him as a gift, for his garden (they're great for a scaring the birds off of vegetables).

Anyway. I wrote all about that at the time. It wasn't a bad review, all things considered. But one of his comments bugged me. He said we needed to be "more pertinant to the age we live in".... Who is this 'WE' business?.. YOU? ME? .. WHO?..

Presumably Jackie Hayden lives in Dublin, where there is lots of traffic, arse-holes in tracksuits and white runners and a particularly large Debenhams and spends his days neck deep in the vibrant, youthful 'music' industry, swanning about to record launches, being courted by the record labels, his fingers, elbows and armpits firmly on the pulse of the economic, cultural, philosophical and theoretical state of the country.

I however, live at the bottom of a mountain, seven miles from the nearest shop and spend most days picking up horse shit, or sweeping endless gravel from out of my kitchen.. and drinking lots of tea.. and smoking... A lifestyle that is pretty outdated by Dublin standards....

As for YOU?... well you could be anything, doing anything, living anywhere! You're 'pertinant' age is going to be something entirely different to my 'pertinant' age...

I concluded that,

1: either Jackie Hayden meant that we needed to don some skinny jeans and hammer out barely in tune guitar riffs and grunt into the mic about political unjustness and student rights in the format of an angry love song...

2: I needed to wear a nice frock and sing predictable lines about how I got dumped by my boyfriend for being too fat..

3: Get the Ronald to be front man and we all wear mod clothes and play attrocious shite just because we look old enough to have been THERE.. when IT happened...

4: That jackie hayden wrote his article in about seven seconds and spouted any old shite that you can apply to a music review, like, " If it smelt of oranges, jesus would love it".. or, " these guys play like a teabag infused with pity".... or " the point of this band can be heard in their lyrics on the song 'Festooned at sea'.. "

So there. But I did attempt to be pertinant to the age WE (myself and the Ronald) live in... ... and here it is. For ye're enjoyment.. or not.. depending on what floats ye're boats, so to speak... :-)

ANNA MULE.. SINGALONG

2011-05-15T10:19:00.000+01:00

Anna Mule (c) The Watercats 2011 by vickyguns

Any Americans out there, we're only getting our own back for the decades worth of bad english and Irish accents down the years :-)

ANNA MULE

She was battle-axed and beautiful
A scar across her face,
Had a hound so dutiful
Followed her around the place.
She stood two feet taller
Taller than any man,
If she was the correct colour
She'd be a Amazonian
But she was paler than a white horse
Pounding on the shore,
Hair ginger as a biscuit
Near as darned it to the floor.
Anna mule.

You could find her every other night
In Rose's West End Bar,
Towering over pool fights
Dressed like A Russian Tsar,
Hound around her ankles
Growling like prayer,
She'd roll her sleeves above her bangles
And set her sights up for a stare.
The last man standing
Was the first man down,
There was no'one more demanding
Than when Anna was in town.
Anna Mule.

She had fists powerful as Jesus
And eyes like lead,
Purely just to please us
She could knock a man dead.
She had a mouth set square
In a face so wide,
Complexion like a paper bag
With the devil inside.
Her birthplace was a mystery,
Her accent thick and deep,
It was runoured that her history
Started somewhere on the streets,
Anna Mule.

Her demise cam suddenly,
No'one seemed to know.
The weather went to buggery
The town was drifted up with snow.
A child found some size twelve footprints
Heading out towards the hills,
An empty bottle of whiskey
And a trail of pills.
There was no trace of old Anna
Though we searched for miles around,
It was a strange co-incidence
That we never found the hound of
Anna Mule.

There's not many of us left now
Know the legend of the lady,
But if you treat me to one or two
I'll tell you tales of her for ages.
there was no finer specimen
On this planet made,
She was a woman who put better men
Than me to utter shame.
I have often seen her
Sillhouetted in the sky,
Hands on her hips,
her growly dog by her side,
Anna Mule... etc.

EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE BOOK IN THEM

2011-04-28T17:11:00.001+01:00

I've recently been pondering this statement, whilst reading leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers (which I'm enjoying greatly).

Sometimes, in the small hours in between sleeping and wanting to sleep, I have magical achievments.
- I write a brilliant song that ends up being discovered and either bought for a million pounds, or ends up with me getting paid to write songs...

-The Watercats end up on Jools Holland, the same night as a list of particularly shit 'other' bands, which makes us the highlight of the night.. either that or we're on the same night as Patti Smith, J.J Cale and Frank Zappa (it could happen) and they think we're so good they insist on joining the band and we all end up jamming out a song.. THE BEST SONG IN THE WORLD.

-I win enough money to build myself the perfect shed and write a best selling book, one which spills easily from my meagre collection of literary knowledge and one which is thought about deeply by scholars of the english language and heralded as a 'masterpiece' and a 'classic of our times' and I will be said to be an author with a 'fresh and vibrant young voice'... I will know this because these statements will be included on the perfectly shabby chic, brown papered dust cover.. the book will be dedicated to 'all the people out there with at least one book in them'.. and I will wax lyrical on intimate, arty talk shows about 'the process' and 'the inspiration' and 'the inner voice'.. and 'my editor and publishers who helped make it all happen and were utterly brilliant in their support.'

- Sometimes I just imagine my glorious vegetable patch, flourishing and packed with ripeness, full of no weeds and a distinct lack of rabbits.

Anyway. For now I have this to share.. whilst I'm waiting for my AWESOME MUSE to come and kick my arse out of poverty in a way best suited to one unqualified, with tendencies to grate on discipline and looking smart....

Avoid The Crows (c) The Watercats 2011 by vickyguns
ENJOY!

IT ENDED WITH A PFFFPT...

2011-04-21T22:58:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since the week-end. The Watercats have been busy digging and planting and humming and planning how to word the blog whilst the fella who owns the P.A found out that we broke it.

Saturday dawned white clouded and warm, the suspense of possible scorcher on it's cusp, though it never fully realised itself. As we pulled into Dungarvan, we passed a few ole fellas on the quay, one wearing a piss-pot bycycle helmet, discussing the latest shenanigans. A mist was collecting just off-shore and dispersed itself against the harbour walls. We parked up with a slight degree of difficulty and un-loaded our gear into The Moorings pub garden. An assortment of humanity swarmed beneath the tarpaulin roof and mingled itself between the tables and potted palms, smoking, screeching, laughing, mumbling...

We began setting up, later than anticipated and found that the plug sockets in the allocated place didn't actually work. The fellas from Dungarvan Brewing Company smiled their hello's and chucked us our first couple of pints. Somewhere amongst the hubub of making things work and doing things, a tall lady wandered over.
"Hi" she said in Cork tones
"I'm Niamh from the blog"
I was caught unawares... not used to meeting, until now almost fictional characters, I blurted out something stupid whilst I shook her hand like an ole fella, something like;
"how're you doing!... how're you finding fungarvan *laughlaughlaugh"
Then went on to mention in a genuine flabberghastment how tall she was...

I concluded from our far too brief encounter that she is a lovely person who deserved to be talked with more.. but The Watercats are rarely on a proper wavelength and the moment was missed, though I did wink and nod at her mid song as she left... again, in a rather ole fellery sort of way... The Ronald was on a totally wrong wavelength and missed the meeting completely, the moment only kicking in the next day where-by he walked up to a lady with a belly, patted it, asked if she'd popped yet and walked off, leaving her astounded.. (and me shamed...)

The gig went well, beer was taken full advantage of, and many nice things were said, and, we were loosely invited back next year :-)

Sunday dawned in a similar way, but todays gig was something a bit different. We had had a total of about five hours rehearsal time with our friend Ormy. He had asked us if we'd do a gig with him in the garden of a local resteraunt called Nude Food. It would be a fun filled collaboration of some of our songs, some of his songs and some covers. I would be called on to do harmonies (a thing I'm not so confident doing).. it could go either way. We had the first half planned and loosely rehearsed, the second half was a half written mystery.. but we were booked.. and people were queing up outside the door as we tried to locate an extension lead that reached the end of the garden...

Half an hour later than planned, The Watercats, Ormy and a last minute drummer called Kevin, began the evenings music. Would you believe, but it went extremely well. Kids jumping about, grown ups laughing, wine being consumed, an absolutely brilliant buzz filling the air, myself and the lads having an absolute ball. The first half ended well and myself and Ormy used the time to write out the second half and decide what each other should do for each song.. this was performance by the seat of your pants!

Half-way through the second half was going well, until we launched enthusiastically into begging time.. and everything went dead, with a soft plopping noise and a blatant suspension of loudness.... the gig was over... a ghost in the machine had fried something fundamentally important.

Not to worry though, the crowd was in great form and a cold, damp mist was begginning to move in from the near-by ocean. Ron joined in with the crowd for an impromptu 'swing low sweet chariot', until, eventually they moved on, a few tables foolishly leaving some half bottles of wine laying about, which the Ronald decanted into two full bottles, which he then drank with Ormy, who later swang himself off a lamp-post in a joyous manner.... if the summer is going to be full of gigs like these, then.. bring it on!

The sun has been shining ever since.. life is indeed, excellent... :-)

we do have a video, but it's taking an estimated two hours to upload to youtube! ffs!

UPPY UP UP..

2011-04-11T14:15:00.002+01:00

Who would have thought it.. The Watercats being hunted down by people? Can we do a Beer event? How much money do we want? and the offer of free beer? In a beer garden where we can smoke?... FUCK YES!

FIND THIS BEER.. OFFICIALLY ENDORSED BY THE WATERCATS :-)

DUNGARVAN BREWING COMPANY

Can we play on the main stage again Sunday for the food festival?.. uuuhhh.. OF COURSE WE CAN!

Oh.. and here, just another recording machine exploration :-D

SCRIPTURE SAID (C) The Watercats 2011 by vickyguns

KNOCK, KNOCK,

2011-03-29T22:11:00.001+01:00

late night monday jamming... says it all by vickyguns

It's Monday night. The sun had been set for the last two hours. It had been a hot day and The Watercats had been busy digging in the virgin dirt and whittling. Their backs ached and some deep boned tiredness was creeping up under their flesh. A sick looking dog flopped down on the kitchen floor as they lifted mugs of tea to their faces and discussed the new pony delivery with it's owner. A mangy looking kid hung about in the kitchen doorway and talked about horses and the fact it didn't want to go to bed.

Outside a thick mist moved in from over the fields and brought with it a damp cold. Rain was coming. A hateful neccesity. The Watercats lit a couple of cigarettes and ushered away the youth. An astounding weariness descended over them.

Then a face appeared in the window, illuminated by the kitchen light spilling from the pane. It was a guy called Matthew 'two tees' Tull and his friend, a tree surgeon with a penchant for collecting fine guitars and singing Neil Young. They had come to jam. The Watercats had forgotten that the Thursday night jamming sessions had moved to Monday. They summoned some recessed bouts of energy and opened the door. Beers and wine were opened, more cigarettes partakened, tea brewed, news exchanged and new instruments coo'ed over. Tonight there would be a mandolin plucking.

As often happened, the moment was reached during the night where all energy was replaced by a circle of chords. Each person drifting off into a deep cushioned trance, their fingers moving over strings with a second nature. The moments became inpercievable as time and lapsed into an other worldly thing, beyond rational thought. Heads nodded, eyes closed and all musical ability fell into a childlike, topsy turvy clumsyness. It mattered not.

The Watercats night ended as predictably as an open mic night. With a terrible version of 'Knockin On Heavens Door', played with guitar, mandolin, harmonica.. and kazoo... half asleep, half cut and a mile out...

They made a scratchy recording way back then. They just don't make em like they used to...

T'WAS IN ANOTHER LIFETIME...

2011-03-27T15:57:00.000+01:00

one of toil and flood, that The Watercats wandered into the City and almost awed some people there. Since then, they have been busy digging vegetable patches, building walls, making ferret hutches, shelves and bunk-beds, planting seeds, and tending to sick dogs.. .

Reality suggests that, as they suspected, the world that used to exsist, i.e: the one where everyone was looking for songs, and wanting to see live original music is dead. The human instinct to gravitate towards a smokey tavern, with a single minded doggedness for self destruction whilst being entertained by a couple of jobbing guitar players, has been well and truly obliterated by uber-p.c euro regulations, mind numbingly high taxes and millitant policing... The age of hedonism is deceased. The lands of our fathers, were far richer in creativity, humour and social happiness than any that us poor deprived children have to live in.

Last Friday, The Watercats played live in a bar in Dungarvan.. to a crowd of about ten. We knew about eight of them. Falsely hyped up by our recent Cork city gig we began the night guns blazing, up for the Craic, relishing some banter with a happy, tipsy crowd of legendary Irish wits. Alas.

We played to an almost mournful emptyness, a couple of ole fellas at the very far reaches of the pub even putting the t.v back on half way through. Our friends did their best to show some enthusiasm, but then, it's not quite the same when you know what's coming.. I ploughed through the second half on automatic pilot, whilst the Ronald concentrated on getting as many shorts in as possible whilst hamming up his songs in true Music Hall fashion...

Ahhhhh.. win some, lose some.. tis true enough! Have a feeling it's the wrong age to be living in when you have any bit of joy to share...

ahhhh.. lucky buggers!

POETRY BUS! THE CHALLENGE IS JUST THE BEGINNING!

2011-03-10T14:21:00.014Z

So here you go folks. Despite Eejit's panic that we might have forgotten that we were driving this week, (we remembered all along honest), here we are.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it it thus.

1: PROTEST

2: IN A FOUR LINE POEM

3: WITH A RHYME THAT HAS A RHYTHM SUCH AS THUS;

     dum dum dunm dum dum dee dum
     dum de dum de dum dee dum
     dum de dum de dum dee dee
     dum de dum de dum de dee.

(or something).

My part of the process there-after is to turn (try to turn) alll.. (or as many as possible) of ye're verses in to PROTEST song... (this may or may not happen as quickly as I would hope).

So off ye go, no pressure like :-D

all your poems will remain the property of yerselves, should it become an unbelievable worldly successful hit, ye will all get two euros ;-).

Leave your link in this comment section and I will post them as and when they arrive, and as and when our interweb connection works! CHEERS!

And on a personal side note, please think about donating to The Hope Foundation via our sidebar and take a free download of The Blinding in return. Double Cheers!

THE BUS OF REBELLION RIDERS

DON'T FEED THE PIXIES

JINKSY (see comments below this post)

THE BIG GIG

2011-03-08T22:51:00.000Z

So, last week, we ventured to the big shmoke. Cork City for the Sound it out competition, our gig was at The Roundy House, a fantastic pokey roundy pub with the most amazing vaulted ceiling thing going on. I have to say it was one of the best nights we've ever had. The whole thing was very professional feeling, the sound-man Chris, made a great effort to make us sound perfect and bent over backwards to get Rons dodgy amp making the right noises.

THIS IS WHAT WATERCAT SOUNDCHECKS SOUND LIKE

We found out that we were on first, which was a relief, because to be honest we were feeling slightly intimidated by the other two bands set ups and they both sounded fantastic in the sound checks. We were looking forward to ploughing through our set and nuzzling some pints down for the rest of the night.

RON FLASHES HIS GUT FOR MR TULL

I had been planning some banter all week to add to our 'performance' and was delighted to find that waffling about any old crap in between songs goes a long way towards dispelling any nervous energy. The crowd were fantastic, one of those perfect audiences, attentive and wanting to be entertained and giving lots of appreciation along the way. It helped that there were a few pals in the back somewhere too.

PRE GIG RELAXATION

After about what seemed like only two minutes and an interval where the ronald had to blow his nose, our set was complete. Job done and some lovely comments uttered as we took our guitars to be put away.

THE BRILLIANT ROUNDY ROOM

Second band up were an amazing experimental, edgy group called Meadbh Boyd and M.A.S (the mutual appreciation society). they basically blew the room away with complex rhythms, fantastic singing and supremely groovy looking band members. The place was hopping with the tunes they created.

MEADBH BOYD AND M.A.S

Last up a band called Daphne in the Attic, they also had the place hopping with grungy folk tunes. We were loaded with our beers and good company and had a boogy.

DAPHNE IN THE ATTIC

All too soon the night was over, where-by we got taken home by our friend Brendan and stayed up with him until silly hours buzzing and drinking vodka.

ALL DONE

A couple of days later we saw the review of the night and were completely blown away! Meabdh Boyd were the band who deservedly got through, but reading the review and having the memory of the night, is enough for us to be going on with for a lifetime! to read our write up, click here :-D

THE BLINDING

2011-03-07T17:19:00.001Z

This is my nephew. He is sixteen, likes rugby, cricket and girlfriends. He has mockable hair, a penchant for pointy shoes and designer belts. This is him in India recently, where he went with The Hope Foundation.

He is now a sixteen year old who is trying to get his head around how fucked up the world is and how he fits into it.

I wrote this song for him after listening to him try and articulate the stuff in his head. All the things...

THE BLINDING (c) The Watercats 2011 by vickyguns

check out Ronald 'Slash' Batteson on geetar...

PRICELESS!

2011-02-25T16:45:00.001Z

Imagine being supremely skint most of the time. Skint enough that you haven't been on holiday anywhere for more than six years.. skint enough that sometimes you haven't got petrol to get into town and back again... that when you say to people "we haven't got a penny" it isn't just a turn of phrase.

It's not very often we do special stuff together, like have a meal or go for a day trip or go shopping for just 'stuff'. It happens rarely...

But back in January we thought fuck it, and spunked some of the bill money on a special thing for the kid. A kid that never whines about not having stuff, a kid who freely gives away stuff that she does have to her friends, a kid who doesn't want anything more from life than to be able to wander out into the yard and cuddle her smelly dogs and listen to her favourite music.
Imagine then, after keeping it a secret right up until walking into the venue, sitting in the very front row of a concert with your ten year old daughter, who's face is alive with utter awe as she realises she is about to see one of her idols perform less than four feet away from her.. imagine turning to your other half as they rip into the first song.. imagine your eyes meeting and each of you seeing each others face.... and seeing faces that reflect the thing each other is thinking...

And imagine being a ten year old kid, who walks out into the city lit streets, after seeing one of your idols, clutching her set list and guitar pick.... with the River Lee full to bursting under the bridge and the soft muffle of Sunday night streets and the sky the same colours as the show still running in your head....
cheers K.T :-)

PERFECT CONDITIONS

2011-02-22T11:37:00.001Z

The home in which you perfect your art must be above freezing, preferably at least 60 degrees.

It should have an abundance of comfortable, roomy chairs and also, space adequate to stand if need be.

It should always be fruitful in the area of tea baggage.

It is pleasing if there is an assortment of shaky, rattly things at quick disposal.

Electrical plug sockets should be conveniently and easily accessible.

Amplification modules should be strewn equidistantly throughout the chosen area.

There should be some, assorted breed, of canine wandering idly, or laying placidly about.

Sometimes, it may be necessary to consult a word sheet. In order to allow for such an outcome, all booklets should be neatly stacked within the chosen area in a concise, orderly manner.

Smoking is encouraged.

A bar should ideally be located within the chosen area, but if funds do not allow for such an extravagance, compact tins of alcoholic beverage can be easily placed within a near-by cooling device for their quenching properties.

It is advisable if sharing the space with other people; i.e: those who have visited your premises and do not frequent them constantly; that you (a) be courteous and (b) make sure they do not inadvertently return home to their own premises with objects previously belonging to yours.

In the unlikely event that you become massively famous beyond all expectations, it is advised that you keep some form of recording of all your chosen evenings. Either in photographic format, sound format of diary format. This way, your children's children will have access to a priceless and valuable stash of memorabilia.

Under no circumstances should the process of practice be undertaken without all of the above regulations being enforced.

Thank-you.

DONE IT.

2011-02-15T16:31:00.001Z

You would not believe the mental torture that goes into my preparartion of a set list before a gig. I have several must haves when it comes to it.

1: A suitably dramatic, opening song.

2: A nice mix of tempos.

3: At least one with a harmonica.

4: An end song that will really stick in people's heads.

I am paranoid about singing the 'right' sort of songs for a venue though and because our next gig is for this competition in Cork, I have decided by gut instinct that;

Because it is in the city, the songs must be stronger and less twee. No Granny or Ocean songs.

Because it is a competition for original music the songs must be lyrically strong, but not too self indulgent.

And because it is an arty type of a place, it is probably unwise to sing cowboy songs.

This pretty much wipes all of the songs in our repertoir out.

I have also discovered that I need to ban myself from using E minor when writing songs, for at least a year.

Despite this though, I have beaten my self doubt and loathing and hashed together half an hours worth of songs. The set mentions the ocean once, touches on cowboys, has a harmonica song and is only a little bit self indulgent. It does have a song about suicide, one about the character Chief Broom, and another about the clap.. so hopefully it should be fairly "pertinant to the age we live in" and equal these things out....

BACK TO BASICS

2011-02-11T16:55:00.000Z

The guitar hangs limply. A dead weight of taught steel and beaten wood. Fingers hang tentatively, occasionally running quietly over a string, waiting for some kick of inspiration, some deep embedded rhythm. A clock ticks. Rain clatters on the kitchen window. She watches as the day goes by in the form of weather.

In her head she sings loud and brave in front of the perfect audience. They have bright faces that smile up at her while their bodies sway and feet tap. They rise dust from the floor of the perfect pub, a pub with some obscure almost forgotten reputation, worn brass fittings and low light, some aesthetically pleasing object placed on the main wall which belonged to some legend with a plaque beginning with the words;
"In the year 1857".

The slow twelve bar strum awakens her. Everyone loves a twelve bar. But the words won't come. Only cliches about the sea and troubled ladies. She yearns for drums, a hook of epic proportions with the power to sum up all of the worlds' ills and render them pointless. In three words. All that comes... is... "All that comes"

AND ANOTHER THING.......

2011-02-06T13:17:00.000Z

In other news from the realm of Watercat, *insert appropriate breaking headline jingle

THE WATERCATS' CHICKENS HAVE STARTED TO LAY.

The actual attainment of real, fresh layed eggs most mornings in the nest box came as a real bonus after five years of poultry keeping. They said;

"We are stunned, we can't bloody believe it! Normally the hens go off somewhere in the ditches to lay and occasionally dissapear and return with thirteen or so chicks, so to actually be able to harvest the eggs and eat them is a real treat!"

THE RUIN NEXT DOOR IS TRIFLED WITH.

On a sadder and more disturbing note, the ruined house immediately next door to The Watercats place of residence has recently been undergoing some form of development. After many years of neglect, the small ruined cottage and it's surrounding gardens have been cleared and some of the trees felled. It is so-far unclear as to what the intentions of the owner of the property is. The Watercats are slightly concerned that the site will be sold thus putting an end to their hermit like lifestyle due to shared access issues. They were quoted as saying;
"Having someone driving regularly through our working yard will be a real pain in the arse as will knowing there is someone else in close proximity to our own dwelling house. I can't see that anyone would want to take a chance on buying it, but you can never tell and since most of the population of the world have huge wanker tendencies, our life could soon be unnessesarily complicated. Now, more than ever we need a hit single, or failing that, a lottery win!"...

THE WATERCATS GET THROUGH TO A COMPETITION.

Again on a good note, The Watercats were delighted to hear that after sending an mp3 of one of their songs off to a competition, they were chosen as part of the shorlist of 36 bands to play the first round of Sound It Out. The contest will be fought in Cork City between the 21st of February and the 16th April, with three pubs hosting the events. The organisers are part of The People's Republic Of Cork website and designed the competition to help showcase original emerging bands.
If The Watercats are successful in getting through to the last three bands, they will be given the chance to perform a set at numerous festivals around Cork City and County, including any media coverage that comes with it.
"We were shocked and delighted at being listed in the 36 bands. We can't wait to get going! though we have googled some of the other bands on the list and there is some seriously good talent we'll be up against, which isn't surprising since Cork has a University of music! Anyway, We're up for the challenge, it's nice to have a reason to get off our holes again and perform live, a thing we need to get back into before we get much older than we already are... laugh laugh laugh laugh!" The band said.

More details on the competition can be found here;

SOUND IT OUT CORK

BEGGING TIME & PODERATIONINGS

2011-02-03T14:50:00.001Z

What is the purpose of making music? Why? What is it about performing and sharing a song that is so rewarding? Are we merely adding to our own egoes by doing such things? Or is there something more complex going on?

I watched a programme about Mark Knopfler the other night and he explained how he feels about song writing in the most perfect way. He feels his songs are little people, he delivers them into the world and does his best by them and then they go off and do their thing, live lives of their own. I found that sentiment perfectly articulated.

For me, writing of any form is a process of alchemy. I love creating worlds, characters, scenarios, from nothing. I love stories, in as few words as possible. Even in this novice, dabbling musical ability, it never ceases to amaze and delight me how songs actually live and breath. The words are written, then the rest is up to the song, particularly now we have the capability to overtrack. I learned some simple keyboard especially so that the songs could have another voice, Ron's got his head round bass so the songs can have a heartbeat, I try to add drums (as best as I can) so that the songs can dance... I'm in love with being held to ransome by songs.

After laying down the initial rhythm guitar track, we add the vocals. After that stage, anything could happen. We don't have a single clue before-hand what the end sound is going to be. Somehow we are just guided by some un-known element as to what happens next. I sit at the keyboard and listen to the song and muck about with a sound.. I maybe have an inkling that the song wants strings, or organ.. then BAM!... the right sound sings out and the song leaps up and says, "THAT'S ME!" and almost straight away the riff is playing itself and there's no turning back.
The same happens with all the other sounds after that.. we are open to what the song demands and the song always gets it's way....

I wish I could make a living doing this stuff....

Begging Time (c) The Watercats 2011 by vickyguns

100 earholes to the person who recognises what eighties kid's programme the bass riff sounds akin to on this :-D

SOME MORE WATERCATS RECORDING BOX PRODUCTION

2011-02-01T17:38:00.002Z

So, it's official, I'm no drummer, or sound engineer.. but between myself and the Ronald we're having a lot of fun experimenting with our new toy. It's a great feeling to take a song which is normally constrained by the two guitars and voice thing and be able to hear some of it's potential. Try and imagine this song played with a proper drummer and keyboard player on board, oh and the Ronald can't play bass and guitar at the same time, so there'd be a bass player too.. oh and Daniel Lanois on board as a producer.. fanks :-)

Also, had the melody for this song kicking about for ages but had shite words for it, so yesterday asked the Ronald to come up with a character and a scenario. He came out with the name Remus Jackson.. who ended up writing himself as a dissillusioned preacher... who turns renegade vigilante.. got to love a murder song! You get to hear the Ronald singing on this one too! enjoy! (please excuse the blatant missed drum beats... am going to re-do them at some stage, but Remus insisted on being made public ;-)

Remus Jackson (C) The Watercats 2011 by vickyguns

CUNNING PLAN # 7122

2011-01-27T11:26:00.000Z

And our current plan is to;

1: record ten or twelve half decent songs half decently.

2: Burn them to Lidls' C.D's.

3: Print off some C.D stickers and album covers.

4: Commence a busking campaign at least thrice a week.

5: Sell C.D's from guitar case at €5 a pop.

6: Make so much money as to be aghasted.

OR

1: Spend the occasional evening shouting expletives at the recording box, eventually get some tracks down which are lacking in even basic recording quality and at best only dimly entertaining.

2: Forget repeatedly to buy C.D's from Lidl, eventually get them and spend hours shouting expletives at the computer whilst trying to burn them.

3: Swear expletives repeatedly at the computer whilst trying to utilise free C.D sticker template program.

4: Commence a busking campaign which actually consists of diving in and out of rainshowers on the beachfront of a sleepy fishing village somewhere about three times over the summer.

5: Give away a handful of un-printed, Lidls' C.D's containing four songs from the guitar case.

6: Actually come out at a loss, wet and wondering what the point of the excersize was...

FUZZY WHITE NOISE....

2011-01-24T13:48:00.000Z

Well, to begin with, I just want to say that I'm really sorry for not coming round visiting people lately and to thank everyone for still visiting me !... I've found that recently I've become a bit overwhelmed keeping up with all the goings on in blogland and I've been putting myself on unnecessary guilt trips about the fact I haven't visited people.. ridiculous I know!... god damn my parents for bringing me up with the 'think of others before yourself' mantra!

As a result I've dealt with it the usual way, which is thus... 'RUN AWAAAY!' Every time I sit down to write a post I can't bring myself to say anything. So here I am, saying to you all that, for a while I'm going to be a bit vacant from visiting. My creativity has gone to shit because of my own worry that I'm not abiding by fair blogging rules (you visit me I visit you .. I follow you so there-fore I must visit you at least once a week etc)

I hope this blatant selfish behaviour doesn't offend anyone and if it does, please don't bother telling me about it because I will go into a paranoid state of ruin and remorse.

I'm going to try and bring this blog back on track to where the aim of it was also, which was to chart The Watercats musical exploits. Although I love the whole poetry thing and am truly delighted to have been a small member of a giant amazing movement (EEjit's bus), I realise I'm not really a poet, so I'm going to step back from the poetry side of blog-land for a while too. I need to get my music head back and get out of poetry mind.. they are both two different places for me... one is intense and liable to feck deeply with my emotions and the other is more lighthearted and dream-like, I'll leave it up to you to decide which is what!

So here we go. As from now, I re-launch this blog;

THE WATERCATS & ALL THE THINGS The Blurb Of Band In Obscurity

That's better.... oh, and please be reassured that I will visit ye at various points when I get a chance, but may not have the time to leave comments (another thing I feel obliged by the universe to do)...

Cheers guys!

REASONS WHY WE ARE SO QUIET IN THE BLOGSPHERE LATELY

2011-01-18T22:30:00.000Z

The Waltz (C) the watercats 2011 by vickyguns

MOST RECENT RECORDING ON NEW DOOVERY.. demos

Look down (c)the watercats by vickyguns

EEJIT'S POETRY BUS. IRIS DRIVING.

2010-12-31T12:13:00.001Z

Well, I went with option one and this happened and probably sums up my feelings about New Years and birthdays. Imagine! Some people think I can be a moody, fecker.. I just don't know where they get their ideas from!

YEAR

Waking with a barely written line from tragic pen,
Blinking, clutching at a stomach of loose ends
I know another moment swoons the sea
of time and place and sweet monotony.
Prying free the boards in futures floors,
Dangling in the darkness made from words,
The scuttle of the vermin left to hide
In dankest corners of a future yet to slide.
Picking up my head watch the sky spin
In on itself, the lesson never wins
Nor sees the time of day for what it's bred,
The monsters of a life lived but half dead.
Downward, downward clutching for the edge,
Digging heels into the frozen puddles that are pledged
As remnants of a year in which we froze,
Only time flowed on, there's no stopping one of those.
Dripping softly through a cloud of exhaled dreams,
Stepping lightly on a wheel spun soft with reams
Of laughter, lapping wetly at your skull,
Which hangs in silent contemplation.
Never knowing, never caring never there.
We dwell so swiftly it's only barely fair,
All clamouring to knock out our intentions
On a world half mad for designer life extensions.
Sit I, sat down on mossed and coiling branches,
Fallen in the last winds where the chances
Of winning swept above the slate and chimney
Yelling out, "it is too late!.. you'll never win me!"..

AND A SMALL CABIN BUILD THERE...

2010-12-29T11:37:00.000Z

I need a little shed. Warm and snug, with a table in it, an open fire would be nice, room for my guitar, plenty of black Biro's and a kettle. A little snug shed, just for me to lock myself in and be able to submerge into the dregs of any creative juice I have left. (if any).
Not only that, but I need someone to tell me;
"Vick, go into your little shed now, and be there for at least six hours"
and I would go there, happily and enjoy my space there, listening to the muffled sounds of the world through the thick wooden door and occasionally stamp out a stray spark from the fire that lands on the colourdy rug. I could linger for hours, watching from the small window at the weather and it would only add to things if it was horizontal rain. There would be me, the ethereal realm of blank paper, and a big pouch of rolling tobacco.

How many things I would create there! Some days it would be songs, some days sad, lingering poems. Some days I would submerge myself into a short story or perhaps, even a the murmurings of a whole novel.. All the lovely words would come back and plant themselves easily on the tip of my mind, they would run together and I would barely know where or what or whom was writing.. I would stop at the end of my day, blinking in the half light as I stumble from the thick wooden door of my lovely little shed and I would walk, bleary eyed to the house, just in time for dinner and the laughter of the child.
The next day, I would read over my work from the day before as if it was the first time reading it... and begin again... begin again....

Alas! despite having numerous sheds, none of them are sufficiently warm enough to warrant sitting in for more than five minutes at a time and even at that you need at least five layers of arctic fleecewear.
Instead, I have a computer in the kitchen and a house that always has someone in it. This is lovely and we all get on unbelievably well, but sometimes I need a shed. I can't shut out the moment.. and that's sort of what I need to do to be creative.. knock myself slightly off centre, step away from reality, skip sideways to the need for a sandwich....... mmmmmmmmm sandwich...... salami or cheese... or both!.....

Sure look at the state of me for the want of a small shed........!

WATERCATS CHRISTMAS DECORUM

2010-12-13T16:07:00.000Z

I'm happy to announce the up-putting of this years Christmas tree. The Ronald massacred a thirty foot Scotts pine so that he could cut the top off of it, he is special like that. In a few months, we'll go back and hack into the corpse of the rest of the tree for the fire. The tree is looking marvellous, though has a traction device strung up in order to keep it's tip straight.

This year we added to our Christmas decoration department by making elephants for the kitchen... they are things of beauty!

At the moment I have a cold and my car's broken and we have very small nothings amount of money and not a murmer of a gig to be seen, but, I'm bored of getting pee'd off about it, bring on the jollyies! lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalallalalalala....

Oh, and was wondering who the hell let these things get through the initial drawing board stage for Iceland supermarket.

Myself and The Ronald have a few names for them, including,

Minge pies

Labia batters

Clit cakes

and lastly... (sorry, look away now if you're tender hearted)

Cunt muffins...

If only we had Iceland Supermarkets in Ireland, this dish could be centre table at our Christmas pre dinner.. yum!

POETRY BUS WITH TITUS.

2010-12-12T11:20:00.000Z

Brilliant prompts this week. I watched the small film that was set as the first challenge. It was a very clever piece of film/dance thing and although I found it a bit predictable, there's no denying there was a lot of talent went into making it and I'm sure it was magical to watch live. Anyway, for some reason it made all this stuff come out. Not even entirely sure what it's all about, apart from the fact I'm being borderline maudling lately and can't think of anything creative to write about.. I've written loads of posts and not published any of them because of appearing too glum. But feck it! This ones going up. It might break the habit! cheers!

Is it any wonder, hung just above the washing machine noise is death.
That book I read and the dream I had and the nose bleeding threat in a child.
Always, lingering in the soft moments, my primal fear; that I might achieve, nothing.
Languid oozing surface water nightmare meteor falling thunder storms of large intentions.
The rhythm of my cells goes unnoticed, crawling into spaces like crumbs.

There is nothing to say now, it is morning and almost Christmas and it rains.
Our little island founders in it's oceans and the child cries for tinsel and trees,
Humming delightedly, repeatedly, incessantly in my right ear as the yellow dog chews a bone.
What is there to be done? The washing waits for the dry frontier of the dry line.
Hours lap the edges splinter short planks to ever shorter dimensions.

I warm my shoulder and cramp my leg and wreck my head and watch out.
Suppress the slow panic rise of time and let things pass and swear and bend and breath.
Keep breathing. keep breathing. keep breathing. keep breathing.
It's all the creaks of the house, the animal smells and the love that keeps melancholy alive.
There should be more. There could be more. there would be more. If only.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN... BACK ON THE POETRY BUS WITH ENCHANTED

2010-11-22T11:26:00.000Z

This weeks challenge has been a good-un! It left me with no option but to dive in and examine my current state. This is what came out this morning...

PARTICLE ADVENTURE

In the mist laden mornings,
I decide to remain enthroned in duvet.
So much to be done, just beyond windows,
That gaze expectantly into a world.
In the scheme of things,
We are just a collection of quarks,
Thrown together by physics
And a complicated set of equasional concepts.
I just about understand the pictures..
But I always was shit at maths...

MAGIC BOX = NEPTUNES DAUGHTER (NEW SONG)

2010-11-18T12:44:00.000Z

Well, we've had the new magic box for a week and last night (until 3.30 this morning), decided to conquer multi-tracking without clips (where the things are set too high and make the speakers crack)... (or something)...

Anyway, wrote this thing the day before yesterday.. had an image of Russian submarines, but it turned into a pirate dirge... AHHHAAARRRGGGGHHHHH....

We're quite chuffed with this as our first ever self recording excersize, there are a whole FIVE tracks on here.. clever!?... who knows.. but for now we're wearing eye patches and pretending to have wooden legs and the Ronald is walking about with a stuffed crow on his shoulder.. ...

ENJOY!

Neptune's daughter by vickyguns

DON'T LOOK DOWN

2010-11-16T13:08:00.001Z

Midnight. A silence descends. Like a soft blanket, cold at the edges. Outside a slow smoke meanders from the chimney becoming lost in a rich, navy blue, star strewn sky. Not a breath. Just a lung burning cold. Herbivorous mammals masticating somewhere close, their breath defrosting molecules around them. Standing.

In the heart of their home, The Watercats exhale smoke and intoxicate themselves with the quiet. Two simultanious sets of dreaming, overlapping occasionally in the form of words. Soft chuckling. Everyone has gone home. Fuzzy Irish Cream fleece settles on their faces, affecting their eyes, rendering them soft and lazy. Finger tips burn with guitar string memory. It's been too long......

The Ronald sighs. One of the dogs snores. Vickyguns ponders the exsistence of perfect happiness and decides in positive. Ireland crashes.... but there's a freezer full of venison, three guns, laughter and a roaring fire.... it's enough.

YAY!.. FREE CHEESE!

2010-11-08T11:28:00.002Z

CUNNING PLAN # 1278

2010-11-04T11:04:00.001Z

The creative process when it comes to songwriting is hit and miss. I am not an accomplished artist in this regard, nor ever likely to become one, but since this is a blog about 'The Watercats' and we are a band, I thought I'd write about it.

My technique goes something like this. Tinkle with the guitar using some or all of the seven or so chords I know. Arrange the capo in varying places along the neck along the way. Let whatever rhythm happens that day happen. Sometimes I fall into something which sounds nice and I formulate a structure. Then I 'lalalalala' a harmony for it. Then sometimes, a story appears and I write it down within the structure of the tune.

Thing is, I'm stuck now. Everything I am capable of doing, I've done. All my words lately are pathetic and mean nothing. I am stuck in a process. It is the easiest thing in the world to write a song, particularly about love, unrequited love, the sea, or death. It is far too easy to fall into cliches, and spew out any old crap. Sadly a fact I've given myself over to on occasion just to get a new song in the book. But I want to write things with guts... chunk... stuff with words to be proud of (even if to others they're shite). But I'm bottle necked by my own limitations.

So, the new plan is.. to let the Ronald come up with the music. I'm looking forward to this idea. The Ronald is not limited by his ability, or at least he has a lot more ability than I do on the guitar. He plays completely differently to me, structures things in a completely different way to me and is capable of constructing much edgy'er sounding things than me.

With the help of a recording device (a camera set to video).. I will let him loose while I'm happily asleep, and I can listen back the next day, get a harmony and be inspired for words without putting myself off by my limited guitar playing. That way, the Ronald gets to utilise his insomnia, I get to do something new and we come up with a load of new, brilliant songs!... and make the proverbial millions! Easy peasy!...

STATS LIFE....

2010-10-26T13:14:00.001+01:00

That's what all the people say... or perhaps not. Recently, I discovered that you can view your blog stats. This came to me as a revelation! Imagine, I thought, the power this can give me! I can figure out which posts get the most hits and tailor make a post to become a billion hitting blog writer!

According to my stats, the perfect blog title will read thus;

TALLOW HORSE FAIR SWINE FLU MIDDLE AGED LOAVES.

It's a given that this no brainer blog post is the secret to all my future blog success.

It also came to my attention though, that you can also view traffic sources *sniggers delightedly...
including search words that have been used to get people to your blog... GENIUS!

CHECK OUT OUR LIST! FECKING EXCELLENT!

EEJITS POETRY BUS.. ARGENT SPECIAL MEETING

2010-10-24T10:51:00.000+01:00

I am endeavoring to climb aboard the poetry bus.. the ole brain is rusty as! I've never been to a meeting.. so I have no idea what it would be like, except for the fact I've seen them on t.v occasionally, so they must be like that.. (boring, tedious, soul destroying wastes of life)... mind you I was watching them on the t.v, so that must be worse than all of those things because I wasn't even part of it and it's wasn't real!... or something!
Anyway. Here ya go lads, cheers!

there would be a picture here but they're not loading!

MEAT.

Her smokers cough announced the end of days.
Ms too much parfum steels her blue eyes against the wall,
Her lips, a firm red etch stuck on her fake nut face.

Then someone said something about something possible.
But was shot down, down by a sliceing white smile,
A jarring blushed cheek elbow in the face.

Silent room. Windows gaping in light.
Like drowning fishes in the air, flopping and bulbous,
Eyes glazing out of perfectly evolved faces.

She sets her shoulders against invisible weather.
They look at her. Worlds wrecked in an instant,
What about the what if's we have to face?

Her smokers cough kicks in again.
Pleghmatically pronouncing todays new schedual,
It was nice to speak to you all. Face to face.

They leave for the nearest sorrow drowning hole.
Footsteps clapping a final fuck you on the way,
They find solace in the fact... she always was an ugly bitch!

MUST HAVE.. CUP.. OFTEA...

2010-10-22T10:03:00.000+01:00

Is it enough to say you have spent this last month and a bit contemplating the wonders of the universe whilst simultaniously balancing a goldfish bowl on your head night and day (complete with a goldfish and his tiny castle in).....

because I haven't. Or anything like that. In truth I have had a catastrophic failure of creative ways of having anything to say. Braindead would be an understatement. Instead I have been filling my days with, smoking, not eating bread, and building and pointing a chimney in our new post office extension. It's not done yet because I've run out of sand.

The Watercats band has decided to sell out. It's a no brainer really. I'm quite partial to cheese, especially in the guise of cowboy music, and the entire County of Waterford are deep lovers of very cheesy country music. I reckon myself and the Ronald could handle cheese nicely and even do a convincing enough job to get paid?... who knows.. but I'm planning on buying some rather nice western shirts anyway. Wondering whether to change our name for this cover band though and become CROWBAIT... just to seperate it from THE WATERCATS brand... f.f.s! *rolls own eyes

I'm still feeling slightly braindead.... but had to come and post to thank all you guys who have sent messages of concern and worry and obscure kidnapping scenario themed 'where are yous'... a few of you who sent messages I was even un-aware exsisted! It has been very soul niceyfying to think there are complete strangers out there who notice your absence.... and I have been reading all your comments... just been too goddamn fecking blaaahhhh to reply. You are all great and lovely beings for giving even the tiniest iota of a shite :-D

Finally... erm.... oh!.. THE POETRY BUS MAG... It's fecking great ain't it!... well done EEjit and co for a sterling job, I had particular fun reading everyone's biog... and I hoped everyone would realise the irony in my 'superior band'... and not think I was a horribly over inflated twat.... though the latter is probably true on occasion also... oh GOD! the frustration of the self deprecateur... (sounds disgusting)

Also... so far as the not eating gluten thingy... I do actually feel a bit better. Not so tired and dare I say it.. a bit stronger.... but I'm still feeling like a moody bitch despite everything. Am inward facing at the moment.. trying to hatch cunning plans, summon lottery winnings from the power of my mind alone, plan an award winning short story... write at least twenty three songs which will go on to be brought by mainstream awful people who will then have number ones with them and thus make me a billionair over night.... am also about to write the perfect television add theme music song. It's a fool safe formula...

1: pick a happy chord.. say D (see it smiles and everything)

2: play it in a slightly jerky, naive sounding way.. not too fast.. not to slow..

3: start to whistle in a slightly off pitch naive sounding way.. something quirky... quirky is key..

4: then start to sing in a slightly off pitch naive sounding way... something like...

"car car, get in my car, it's a good car a very fast car... more whistling for two bars...
phone phone, I love my phone, it's good at home and in my car..." etc

5: manage to weave into the lyrics products and industries including; dating, cholesterol friendly butter, yoghurt, cars and phones obviously, the perfect holiday, a fun chocolate treat, .... also add more happy chords, like C and G and perhaps an A.... and you might like to "lalalalalalallalla" somewhere too.. quirky is key..

6: have a non commital chorus, something not about anything, just something positive and uplifting, mention how good you feel..
"lookin at the sky I think of you and all the lovely things, you say and do... lalalalalalala"
this is because the add mens will blast this bit out whilst showing you their product, after mixing relevent verse in at the start of the add.. like thus;

add opens... there is a shiny red car driving up a leafy suburbia road.. a child playing with a baby rabbit in a garden looks up as red car gleams by... music for this scene

"car car I'm in my car, it's a good car a very safe car... *whistling"...

then the man tells you about his product in a friendly but commanding voice while the instrumental part of your song is played in the background... then end of add shows child with rabbit running up to greet his daddy who has just parked in the drive in the red car.. he is happy.. the car has made him happy... all is well with the world.. the chorus is playing here and the logos are shown...

I'll shut up now... It's too early.. I need a cup of tea... cheers lads!

LOAVES AND VICIOUS....

2010-09-14T19:44:00.002+01:00

Day four of being gluten free. Dear God.. I think I'm going to die.. on day two I woke up with the hugest cold-sore ever known to man.. this is not an exaggeration... So far, nothing to report health wise (except possibly feeling 'lighter' on the inside and an overwhelming desire to eat a large bowl of pasta smothered in crusty bread)... At least I can still eat chocolate, *takes note of the six pack of cadbury's that has now spontaniously disappeared)... my smoking habit has upped a notch.. so has my tea drinking reached proper addiction levels... still cannot bring myself to eat gluten free bread without it first having been nuclearated by toasting... think new (bordering on fad) health kick might make us even more skint.. a tiny loaf made by pixies for elves, costs four euros!.. can't help but think that said 'bread' does more damage through plastic poisoning via it's packaging....

Vicky contemplates how to convince the local business owners to give her a job... any job... even toilet maintainence... contemplates going in all said premises and asking for a job in a foreign accent... Vicky decides it is futile, as;
1: she is unqualified even for the most menial of tasks (you need at least a Phd).. and

2: she has a worrying habit of lapsing into talking about herself in the third person.. and

3: she has the biggest cold-sore known to man stuck on her face.. and

4: does not partake of gluten enriched carbohydrate any more, so obviously is some sort of eccentric wealthy person who can afford to buy uber-small loaves of inapt substance for four times the price of normal people food, so there-fore does not need a job.. and also

5: she is crap at pretending to be foreign, especially for more than five minutes, thus an obvious drawback if said job was granted, leading to potentially embarrassing situations...

*lights cigarette #267.. drinks tea # 346.. tries to control twitching right eye-lid.... wonders about the chances of gun point train robbery... it's such a cliche no'one would ever expect it.....

YOUR MONEY, A JOB, SOME PASTA SANDWICHES, OR YOUR LIFE! MOTHUFUCKAAHHHH!

PLAGIARISM.. ?

2010-09-13T14:15:00.000+01:00

PLAGIARISM... ?

EXAMPLE ONE: 2010

EXAMPLE TWO: 1968' ISH

ADD EXAMPLE THREE ALSO: 1968' ISH (regards lyrics)

? F.F.S!

Crosswords by Rosy Tin Teacaddy

2010-09-10T21:27:00.000+01:00

Crosswords by Rosy Tin Teacaddy

THIS ALWAYS MAKES ME FEEL A BIT BETTER :-)

and a bit envious that I didn't write it!

I GOT A THING!

2010-09-10T10:25:00.001+01:00

Despite being stuck in a great big dissillusionment bubble.. I got given a thing.. a versatile blogger thing.. you have to love that title, it can mean anything! It has corked and bottled ta space in my soul of gulf oil leak proportions.. I have waited so long for this award.. I'd like to thank my producer (the little man inside my head that whispers incessantly), the crew, the good people in centra, the man at the garage who fixes our cars at cost price and lets us pay off the bill weekly, my family, people who make cowboy films, god/the devil/all the other lads and lady deities out there.... and finally YOU.. our legion of doting fans... some of which are still yet to receive your c.d's! (this is due to my personal lack of getshittogetherness!)....

I have to tag some blogs I like... and write some stuff about myself that will never be heard anywhere else!

so here goes;

1: I used to eat raw oxo cubes.

2: I have an overwhelming fear of meteors.

3: thunderstorms make me skittish.

4: I find ninety percent of the people I meet horrendously irritating.

5: I once almost choked to death on a washer that fell off the top bunk of a bed I slept in as a tiny child.

6: I have never taken class A drugs.. (except that once)

7: I wash everything on a 40 degree setting.

There.. I know how enriched you must all feel now by knowing these things about me... but this is my job now folks... to dazzle and entertain you with my incredible wit, and glorious smile.. and this hair.. I'm actually flicking it for you all right now and it's backlit splendour is just stunning!.. you'll have to wait for the pictures of my frock, no amount of creative writing could do it justice.

Blogs I would like to pass this onto, and which you can find in the sidebar, are;

DELUSIONS OF ADEQUACY

DON'T FEED THE PIXIES

WRITERQUAKE

WHERE'S MY EFFING PONY

DOMINIC RIVRON

so now!

MIND THE GAP...

2010-09-07T23:38:00.003+01:00

UUUGH!.... The Watercats impetus is waning... AGAIN! After our initial amazing uppy up up-ness at the start of the year, through the summer things diminished and petered out. A couple of mediocrely recieved gigs and we're beginning to step back and wonder what the next move is... This is how myself and The Ronald work... with everything.. ...

STEP ONE: Learn something, get pretty sufficient in a bluff worthy sort of way.

STEP TWO: Get brave enough to try it out on people we know.

STEP THREE: Get reaallly pleased with ourselves and secretly know that we are probably worthy of changing the entire face of music.

STEP FOUR: Go out in public and do the thing..

STEP FIVE: Get a really big buzz, make loads of plans decide this year will be the year..

STEP SIX: manage to bluff our way onto a couple of big stages..

STEP SEVEN: Convince ourselves entirely that this is the greatest feeling since mankind discovered self manipulation...

STEP EIGHT: try to get some paid gigs...

STEP NINE: try to get some paid gigs...

STEP TEN: try to get some.... paid ... gigs?..

STEP ELEVEN: ... gigs?....

STEP TWELVE: decide actually it's all a load of old bollocks and that no'one is happy unless you play a keyboard with four hours worth of pre-recorded garth brooks based backing tracks on it...

STEP THIRTEEN: Say bollocks to it all... decide we're probably crap anyway.. and move on to deciding what thing we should learn next...

STEP FOURTEEN: Read countless evening course leaflets, contemplate learning stained glass... then decide to start a new blog with the theme of 'I'm climbing a mountain for a year because I'm bored and on the verge of some sort of dissillusioned breakdown'....

STEP FIFTEEN: laugh hysterically....

STEP SIXTEEN: Continue laughing.. ad infinitum...

PLEASE CLICK ON THIS MAN'S PICTURE BELOW...

PURELY FICTIONAL EEJIT POETRY BUS!

2010-09-05T20:00:00.004+01:00

Transformation!.. with before and after pics! who could not be inspired by such a thing. Turns out this poem ended up going somewhere completely unexpected!.. lol! I love the bus!. JUST A NOTE: You have to read this poem in a benny hill voice, aka Ernie the fastest milkman in the west stylee :-)

TRANSFORMATION

The moment came and swiftly glided
As albatross to sky.
Eyes open wide, I quick decided,
To do.. or else to die.

Now or never forever better
For being the decider..
A mind at rest, a pleasant bet
Laid on the rank outsider.

The traps swung up, the dogs ran out
Sand flinging out behind em,
Fawn number four, with squeel and shout
Laid bare the field beside him.

Ears laid flat and eyes set firm
The hare had nothing going,
I watched and then began to squirm
As the six dog came up showing.

The final lap, a heated flap,
With a dog of large proportions..
But the bit of flack rose up Four's back
And set him to contortions.

The little dog stretched all his might
No six was going to get him,
He knew treats came after a fight
And a firm massage and petting.

My do or die let all hell fly
And doubled up his paces,
100/1 .. I almost died,
When I laid a pony at the races.

TALLOW HORSE FAIR AND THE LAST SUNNY DAY!

2010-09-04T11:10:00.002+01:00

It's been a year already since the last tallow fair that I posted about. I love this place! You can see all manner of things, good bad and just plain odd. I only had the kid's camera this year though, and my mind was preoccupied with finding the perfect feminine poultry.. (I have one hen left who has the uncanny ability of going broody, twice a year without fail, bringing back large clutches which ALWAYS grow into cockerals)
Anyway! here are a few clicky clicks taken as I walked along.

one man and his goat

the lads

a million shticks

that's what you call a 'hunt seat'!

And yes, I did manage to find three lovely ladies for our delux hen house. Two Sussex and a Blackrock. I haggled with the fella and almost the hand smacked off me when he spat and did the deal. A good day all round... and if tomorrow morning the 'ladies' start crowing.. well, I wouldn't be the first to get done at the fair!

NEW BLOG

2010-09-02T14:24:00.000+01:00

As part of my pre-mid-life-crisis I have started a new blog, which you can follow/not follow at your own leisure.. I will not hold it against anyone who chooses not to, as it is even more self indulgent than this one! Imagine that!.. It's not anything to do with our mediocre music though, so that's a bonus! :-D

Brand new and shiny hot off pressness..

THE MOUNTAIN 365

IFONLY BAND MEMBER #3

2010-09-01T10:34:00.000+01:00

O.k.. This is someone I've had the privilige of meeting a few times as she is an inahbitant of our town. She is strictly not a musician, but posesses such an inimitable spirit, she ranks highly in the rock and roll stakes.
Dervla Murphy is a travel writer and I shamefully have only read one of her books. She travelled exclusively with her own company and her bicycle 'Roz', who now resides on our local library wall.

My most recent meeting with her was at the kid's end of term barbeque, an event she frequents every year. We happened to sit at the same table and the Ronald got into a banter with her about the joys of smoking and good whiskey. The conversation wandered onto animals and I mentioned I had a mule, where-by Dervla's face lit up. "I adore mules!" she said and continued to tell me she had travelled round South America with her daughter with a mule... who she fell in love with so much she wanted to bring her back to Ireland.
"My daughter rode her for the first few hundred miles, but then the mule started to get lame, so we led her the last few hundred miles"... I said what an amazing adventure that must have been, and enquired how old her daughter had been at the time; "eight" she said..... AWESOME!

There is far too much amazing information about this incredible character for me to be able to do justice to here, but here is a particularly good recent interview with her

clicky here

for wheels within wheels, a book about her early years, click here

Dervla can be in our band any day, as pure ferocious drive!

EEJIT'S POETRY SCHOOL BUS, BY DRIVER KAREN!

2010-08-29T18:24:00.000+01:00

School.... a touchy subject with me and anything that is touchy is worth writing a poem about.

A parody of life. Waiting in a yard of twats and do-gooders and beautiful ones.
All of us in damp coats and self conscious footwear and the shivering of youth.
Then there were the teachers. High on power and the self loathing of their middle years.
Bags. Heavy, pendulous, weighted with knowledge, the sort you can only read about.
In truth. I loved the learning.. mind sponged and dripping with plans, ready to lather life.
But the system stole my enthusiasm. I bucked and plunged and grabbed the bit and ran.
Prefabricated ambitions. Damp classrooms. Jacket clad lessons. Like a fucking third world!
Who could blame you for wanting to get out of there?

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME THIS EVENING IN ANOTHER DIMENSION

2010-08-26T22:56:00.001+01:00

Laughing in an overtly jovial manner, the man leaned back in his large red leather lounge chair and raised a half eaten cherry bakewell to his lips. On the table a fat bottomed tumbler regarded it's own, suspiciously brandy looking contents silently. Somewhere from the corner of the room a soft pink noise emanated, the end of the record. The needle hummed ever onwards and backwards over the unpressed vinyl terminal.

Vick lit a cigarette.... and inhaled deeply. She didn't think she could take another hour of this. The man smelt funny due to his rangy appetite for marzipan based treats and besides... she had other places to go to. Important places.. and words to learn.. important words. She regarded the man from beneath a deep fog of smoke and decided there and then. She disliked him intensely.

"So you're telling me, you want three hundred thousand.. up front?"
The man laughed again, his fat- reduced eyeballs twinkling in his barely haired head.
Vick nodded.. stony faced and blatantly pissed off.
"You're living in a dream world lady. Even lady Gaga didn't expect that sort of money for a first deal!"
Vick looked down at her hobnailed booted feet, old jeans and black linen suit jacket. She decided she indeed, did not look like Lady Gaga and cursed the fact it was against the law to carry weapons of any kind.
"and I want a band"
"You want a band!... " the man raised another confectionery to his rancid face.
"I want that drummer bloke who plays with Mark Knopfler sometimes, I want Dr John on keys, Emmylou Harris on backing vocals.. along with Patti Smith.... and I want the album produced by Daniel Lanois."

The man looked aghasted and choked faintly, sending a small avalanche of crumbs cascading into his crotch.
"You better get out right now! You're crazy!... I never heard such crap in all my life!... "
Vick pulled herself wearily out of the chair and walked calmly over to the man's leather topped desk. One last cake sat in the centre, the icing perfect and the cherry so beautifully red. She pulled the cigarette from her mouth after taking one last, delectable drag.... casually and with glazed eyes, she proceeded to stub out the remains into the centre, the icing making a pleasing squishing noise as the hot tip melted into it. She stood back a little when she was finished and regarded her work. Then she walked slowly over to the record player and lifted the white vinyl record from the turn table.

"Fuck off so!".. Vick said.... and left the room.

A NEW SONG... FINALLY...

2010-08-17T00:19:00.000+01:00

Back last summer we had a visitation from a drummer and a bass player, both guys from a thrash metal band, I think I posted about it. With them they brought a posse of yoof, each one with groovy hair, perfectly unkempt, army jackets, big boots and massive utilitarian ideas. They even had a collective 'bank' which each of them put money in to save up for things when they went touring.. in the painted up van with a big C.N.D sign on.. which incidentally none of them knew was called 'C.N.D' as time had morphed it into the 'peace' sign.. anyway... One fella, called Alan (the owner of the van) had a huge appreciation of anything by Woody Guthrie, yes, he really was that predictable.... he had an old Takamine guitar that he asked all his friends to carve their names into. He also, unfortunately, learned to play harmonica, just one, tuned to C, which he played to every song, come G or E.... he had an almost punk style of guitar playing.. very hard and fast and enthusiastic. He came up to the house a few times on his own to run past a few songs he had written, I believe he had a small reverie going on for The Ronald, him being a bonafide relic of the actual sixties and all. His songs were pretty good, his voice had a cool edge on it when you could hear the words and voice... and even the out of tune harmonica had a certain charm to it.

Well, Alan took himself and his girlfriend to drive round europe in his van. They would live by busking and feeding themselves out of the bins outside supermarkets (which I believe is quite the rage now). They survived anyway and returned a couple of months ago. We met up with him when we went for a guitar jam with some friends in the local pub. We imagined, with the experience of playing every day busking, that he might have honed his craft.. but we were flabberghasted when it appeared he had actually got worse! It seems folks on the continant must be at least partially deaf as they actually gave him paid gigs, which appeared to have given him a rather large ego to add to his 'you're all thick for being part of the system and I'm brilliant because I live on waste' philosophy... at one point he told us he was about to play house of the rising sun, which one of our friends prepared himself to join in with only to be told; 'ahhh.. I play it a bit differently to most people'... it was executed in the exact same way as everything else, hard fast, loud and out of tune....

I heard the other day that his van was up for sale because he's going to South America.... lets hope he gets to grip with pan pipes slightly better than harmonica..... This song's my cynical take on the whole 'modern day hippy thing.... (please imagine the ronald.. he's in england, so his guitar magic is missing!)

ENCHANTED POETRY BUS RIDE......

2010-08-16T11:27:00.001+01:00

Just lately I've been on and off teh boil brain-wise, hence the complete lack of discipline when joining the bus. Sometimes I have to just stand and watch it dissapear over the horizon and wave my hand limply for it to stop.. But anyway.. it's not a personal thing towards any of the drivers I've missed, just to clarify...

Onwards to the challenge this week, one of my favourite things, old photographs and seriously thought provoking ones at that... here goes..

Time lapsed and lined and dug a hole. A million holes.
A hole for every thought a person ever had. Or didn't have.

In the faded remains of an era romance dwindles. Then falls.
Falls into the void vouched never to be forgotten. but fails.

Perhaps pianos rang through her windows once. Clear and calm.
Calm as the mystery of terror that crept up. Ruining her fingertips.

IFONLY BAND MEMBER #2

2010-08-14T11:48:00.001+01:00

Now, of course, the main man in this is Lonnie Donegan, but to be honest, his whole band could join the Watercats. It's everything.. I love his voice, I love his pissballing about, something you don't see very often in bands any more. So for all these reasons, Lonnie Donegan is one of my ifonly band members....

AURORA BOREALISING

2010-08-05T16:54:00.000+01:00

11.00 p.m. : The Watercats and The Kid compile themselves into the Ford Fiesta. They have been told to look North, but due to the strategic placement of a large mountain, they must drive to a secret location in order to gaze in said direction.

11.25 p.m: The Watercats and the kid reach secret location and park. Conditions are intensely dark and cloudyfied. There is one gap of sky that reveals one star and normal coloured darkness beyond. Tipperary stretches out below them. Several large tractors with silage trailers pass them. The Kid believes the Fiesta will be blown off the side of the mountain. The Ronald cracks open two bottles of Sol beer. Silence fills the void.

11.25 p.m: Vick is pretending the gap of sky between the two bulks of cloud is another landscape and imagines she is sat on a horse on the great plains looking at a twilight horizon of another place. The Ronald tells her she must never EVER partake of the substance known as acid.

11.30 p.m: A large black square shape drifts across the gap of sky coming from the direction of the mountain. It floats down into the open fall of the mountain. Vick temporarily exclaims "what the fuck is that!?" before realising it is a tescos carrier bag. The Kid is worried it is an alien thing. Surreal moments... this is one. Every little helps...

12.00p.m: The small gap of sky grows eyes and looks like a giant bandit watching them through his mask. The kid sees a man with a claw hand peering down from the edge too. The Ronald is contemplating the idea; 'what if everything down there just spontaniously dissapeared.. poof!'... Still no indication of the Aurora Borealis.

12.15: The Watercats and The Kid make up a new song;
"waiting on the mountain in the ford fiesta for the aurora borealis..." more lyrics to be announced....

12.30: Vick decides Mother Ireland has sent down good old Christian clouds to shield us from the heathen spectacle of magnetic storms...

1. am: The Watercats and The Kid arrive home. A light drizzle has descended. The Kid complains that now she will have to wait until she's older and have to go all the way to the arctic to see "the heathen aurora borealis".....

IFONLY BAND MEMBER #1

2010-08-04T11:02:00.001+01:00

Due to band life being exceedingly quiet lately.. we're talking tumbleweeds and lonely prairie noises... I've decided to start compiling a collection of perfect band members. I don't know how long this will last, I might get bored of it in a week, or it might become a ridiculous obsession, such is the knife edge possibilities of my brain....
Don't be surprised if the next few weeks are full of non-sensical crap vomited from the small primitive area of my brain that starts murmuring every so often... I've even started wearing my glasses again... this could be serious!

Anyway... IFONLY band member #1 is a lady.. Actually, she wouldn't be part of the band... I would be her.. so technically, she would replace me in this band, only she'd think and stuff like me... My brain in her body type thing.. or something... (because all these people would be part of The Watercats and if I was still around with this lady in the band I'd be relegated to tea maker and jumper defluffer) and we couldn't have that!
I've actually put this video up before.. many months and months ago, before I even had such things as very many followers... but, the way I see it, every blog should have at least three videos of Sister Rosetta Tharp in them somewhere.
better than sex whilst eating the best cake in the universe!

EEJITS POETRY BUS.. NANU NANU!

2010-08-01T12:39:00.000+01:00

This challenge just had to be given the Stanley Unwin treatment.. this particular track from The Small Faces album Ogdens Nut Gone... fecking ace!.... (see video below for Stanley track)

Sat here eating chocolate limes I'm remembering and feeling sort of torbit for the time when all was snedene and we went playing ghihars in the woodsmap.... All was genttle likke back then.... at night would come the batis all velstral like flapping above our hedef and I would shout to my friends; "ecomped" and we would watch all encomped as the stars appeared in the strosa oveho and my friends would sit repling; "pialecul" they said; "everything is pialecul".... good days inddeayd...

KITCHEN SESSIONS

2010-07-27T20:37:00.000+01:00

Sometimes evenings happen that are delightful. This whole week-end has been one of visitations and new found thingy-tudes. It all began on Friday.

The long and the short of it goes thus.

FRIDAY
Bloke called Tom arrives. He plays guitar and bass. Some friends call up, one with a bloke who is having a mid-life crisis and has decided to deal with it by living in the woods for a while. 4am finish.

SATURDAY
Tom bloke stayed. We all go through our songs. Tom becomes a Watercat on bass. My brother comes up. 2am finish.

SUNDAY
Bloke Tom stayed. Figures out bass riffs for a good load of our set list. Reckons he can get us gigs no problem. We all decide to branch into some good quality covers in order to get more gigs and thus perhaps make some money. More visitors with kids 2.30am finish.

MONDAY
Tom stayed. Has almost all the songs worked out on bass. Sounds deadly! Ron is told the van is officially dead. Mourning is entered into. More people come with guitars and amps and pedals. The music emanating from the kitchen sounds better than any old shite you'd hear on Jools Holland. I decide I want a drum kit.

Below is a pictorial representation of the kitchen session. One day it will be sold as primitive folk art for one meeeelllion euros.

BACK ON DE POETRY BUS WITH NIAMH... :-0

2010-07-25T11:23:00.000+01:00

To be honest with you, I didn't understand the challenge at all! something about infintessimal amounts of understanding or something... me is expert at that... I know a lot about nuffink! :-D here goes: Thanks to lydia's link to a band for the title :-)

HEADFUKC

About a million billion years ago the planet popped out of nothing.
Along with all the stars, and other planets and worm holes and dwarf giants.
From there on in, molecules descended on each other and formed coherent entities.
With a bit of an added bonus from the odd meteor smash, the earth began growing things.
At some point the amoebic first ancestor of humankind popped into being in some puddle.
Evolution saw to it that it eventually grew lungs and legs and crawled out, along with a million others.

The popular belief is that the earth is just an accident, placed in the goldilocks zone.
A zone happily, accidentally created from nothing.. nowhere... non exsistance...
The universe unfolds itself ever outward, speeding up even at the edges into yet more, as yet, nothingness.
Life on earth carries on in it's delicate balance, just... still evolving, new entities growing to eat old ones.
The water in our cells probably has the same molecules in it as the water that was contained in the first blobs.
Despite all this, I can still never make my mind up..... Do I want a kitkat?.. or a curly wurly?

HURTLING TOWARDS MIDDLE AGE.....

2010-07-21T11:57:00.003+01:00

Last night myself and The Ronald sat in the kitchen, as we often do, listening to the sounds of the house and dissecting the intricacies of life into infinitely smaller and smaller pieces. We decided to try and find some medicine on youtube, only to be horrendously confronted with reality. After stumbling upon countless videos of young, energetic, bouncy, carefree, trendy, young bastards, we had to admit that we are exceptionally old to be trying to become a good band.

Ron had a minor cider induced breakdown as he realised the full extent of his age differential when compared to most current lead guitarists and I had to non-chalantly accept, over my cup of tea, that I was just an overweight thirty-something. I love a good cup of tea. You can't love a good cup of tea when you're in a band!

We fell silent again. Smoked. Looked at each other across the table. I sipped my tea. Ron sucked the dregs of his glass.

"bloody hell!.. look at the time already!"..( I was genuinely surprised;)

"It's half one in the morning!"

Ron looked behind him at the clock....

"fuckin ell!" he said.

Blame this lot for our self pity.. we love these guys though, they deserve to get signed (which the last I heard they weren't)

ROCKIN THE CATS BAR...

2010-07-19T20:54:00.001+01:00

Mount Melleray is famous. It has a scout centre there, a big church, a shop that sells joke things and religeous paraphenalia and crisps, a real grotto, complete with proper apparitions and The Cats Bar. The Cats was a one time legend in West Waterford as being the venue for ferocious hooleys and I almost got my first shift (kiss) there at a dishco (but I chickened out). It is also the place I remember, I discovered the power of proper dancing, the art of losing it. I borrowed my friend's dad's bowler hat, wore a pair of multi-coloured trousers my brother brought me back from Nepal, donned a bright red denim jacket (a bolero cut) put my body top on (remember those awful things?) and decked my feet in a pair of beeoootiful immitation Dr Martins.. and blew everyone away on the dance floor with my superior moves.. anyway, I digress...

The cats is a mighty place. During our venture into talent competition land earlier in the year, we got talking to the fella who owns The Cats. He and his missis asked us if we'd play there some night. To cut a short story shorter, we said yes. Last night was the performance.

I have a new thing to add to the list of things to know about when you play live. Never start playing before ten P.M. We had our best songs on the set list, a good hour and a half set... only, with the adrenaline that comes with playing and the complete lack of banter between songs (people seemed to be happy talking amongst themselves and I didn't like to butt in), the songs became about three minutes shorter and the set was done and dusted by half ten... we started at quarter passed nine. People began appearing at about the third last song.

We took a long cigarette break and tried to summon some not practiced relics and figured out we could probably get away with repeating a few ( the good thing about doing original songs is that people normally will immediately forget them). The atmosphere in the bar had picked up a pace, with a fine collection of farming types with their wives, some younger crowd playing darts in the back bar, a gaggle of ole fellas who had pulled up stools right in front of our corner and were settling themselves in for some entertainment. A family with a young kid who had been boogying earlier to some tunes saluted us on their way out and said thanks a million, ye were great...

We launched into our salvage set. The voices picked up a pace, the laughter rang about the corners and rattled the pictures of Waterford Hurling teams and cats drinking pints and kittens in mugs. The ole fellas whispered to each other and applause rang after every song. One song short of closing time... I looked at The Ronald and told him we were doing The Train Song.. a very old song of ours which we had semi written off because we could never play it convincingly. I decided we could probably do it in a twelve bar... so we did... the words blessedly appeared as and when needed and it turned out to be the best song of the night, the ole fellas rattling their pints, middle aged fellas tapping their hands on the bar, their wives tapping their feet in time and smiling and a huge applause when we finished... we felt weak when the landlady leaned across the bar and said "one more"...

We laid into 'Mind of a Magpie', one we hadn't done for ages.. I prayed my voice would hold out for the high notes.... the ole fellas sat silent, the middle aged fellas peered into their pints, their wives looked whistfully at the waterford Hurling pictures and drinking cats and kittens with flowers...

The night ended.. we went out for a smoke. A downpour of bibllical proportions belted the roof of the smoking area and flooded the car park, the ole fellas came out and said how much they'd enjoyed the music, the young darts fellas said it was great to hear some new songs, the middle aged fellas said how great it was to have music in The Cats again, their wives smiled at us warmly. One fella and his family said "ye were great, tis not the sort of stuff we'd usually hear, but ye were very good in fairness to ye", and we got talking to a fella called pat who M.C'd with his keyboard at one of the Talent competetion heats we'd been at. He had a heart condition, was fairly well inebriated, handed us his card and said ;
"I'm in de mushic bushinesss myshelf.. ye're fablus... I can almosht see ye're house from my house.. shure I live up de road dare.. we're neyboors and everyting...and I never noo it.. UNTIL TONIGHT! (throws his hands to the heavens and the rain) ti's a rare gift... a rare gift.." and himself and The Ronald broke into maniacle laughter... he gave us his card; "Country Ceili" it says, with a picture of himself and his best grin and keybord and a young fella with a neat haircut and accordion, standing on a green hill with a blue sky...and their contact numbers; PAT and MICK...

It's nice to be back again... if we spend our days playing local pubs on dark nights in torrential rain storms, we'll be happy with that... Just knowing these places still exisist is good enough for us.. being part of them for a while is even better reward.

THE SIZE OF COW...

2010-07-08T17:00:00.000+01:00

Forgot about this song... will be back as soon as possible, cheers!.. oh.. and miffed I've missed some seriously cool poetry buses.. weirdly, found a Tom Waits song which fits with the write stuff on something challenge... enjoy!.. catch you later :-D

EXCUSES AND HOT PRESS REVIEW...

2010-06-19T11:32:00.001+01:00

Firstly.. the sun is shining here and life is being maniacle as we try to make tiny amounts of dosh doing work and also try and eradicate all weeds from our sprawling palatial property... thus we are a bit absent from bloglanding at the moment... I vow to get visiting everyone as soon as we get a decent rainy day that ensures no work can be indulged in... this is Ireland and the kids break up from school next week, so I'll probably see you around then....

I just had to catalogue this epic thing though... remember I posted about going to that music industry workshop thing and that we gave the fella (Jackie Hayden) our c.d just because... well, he went and reviewed it! It's an alright review too, considering!

"Waterford based The Watercats are an acoustic folk duo, with vicky Ind on guitar and voice and Ron Batteson on mainly guitar and harmonica" ( Vick here: interesting how people naturally assume the bloke does the harmonica playing)..
" Their live c.d opens with 'Wolves', a standard folk song to which Ind applies her appealing voice. 'Bendejo' is more urgent, with the twin guitars weaving around each other to fine effect. They then sing about the 19th century US outlaw 'Jesse James', as if there aren't enough criminals, gangsters, liars and thieves in Ireland to "celebrate". The Watercats bring an authentic old-timey feel to what they do, but they could make it more pertinent to the age we live in"

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAA!!.. I love that last line :-D

Will catch up with ye all soon... cheers for any comments I haven't got round to replying to etc.. and sorry for missing the poetry bus... will endeavor to get aboard this Monday!... fingers crossed...

THE ADVENTURES OF A SOUPER GROUP

2010-06-12T22:01:00.000+01:00

€13.14 later (half an hour later) and Annie Lemming and Rory Cauliflower decided it was time to pack up.. Annie's thumb had begun to blister anyway and the general public had all meandered off to discuss the various travellering writers who were gracing the quaint village for the IMRAMA (ivavuu) festival.. (of travel writers)

They decided it was time to drink wine, so, after spending several large moments packing up the various implements of their trade, they ambled back to the tour bus.. (this time it was Annie's ford fiesta.. in racing green). They had had a dashing day (half an hour), full of excitement, chaotic adventures and hilarious rock and rolly antics, the like of which they could impart as legendary stories when they were old and grey, to various small children... except that Rory Cauliflower already was old and grey.. but he still managed to terrify small children with witty tales of guitar rock god legend proportions.

The SUPERmarket hailed them to it's comforting isles and two for one offers on superior wine. Annie curtailed and bowed down to the great Gods Ben and Jerry and secured a litre tub of PHISH FOOD icycream.

Then they returned home to their mansion on the hill, basking in the delight of all things great and recommendableing... and skint... again... "SUPERMARKET MY HOLE!" Annie Lemming said.

STEPS TO BECOMING A PAID/RECOGNISED PERFORMER

2010-06-09T11:47:00.000+01:00

1: Sell your soul at a crossroads. (It is optional to use an American one)

2: Accept any class of a gig offer, i.e: funerals, christenings, parent/teacher socials, farming events.

3: Do these gigs for free (because you are always told they can't pay you)

4: Write a vaguely popular blog.

5: Sell your soul at a crossroads.. again... just for good measure.

(we were actually very happy to be at this particular event!)

This week I have been trying to locate venues to play. There is a danger, particularly when you have the combined drive and ambition of a sandbag, to sit back on proverbial arses and let the music thing fall by the wayside again. Just as we got going, the impetus failed, everything died away.

It is clear that we need to move further a-field. West Waterford is a fickle place, where landlord's find it difficult to part with cash for something they see as a service that should be given away for free. In some respects I agree, but then, as has been pointed out to me, writing songs and creating an atmosphere etc takes up time and effort to do. how many years does it take to learn the guitar as opposed to pull a pint?

Anyway. We have our eyes set on Cork. The People's Republic. The home of a proper University, a University of music, a university of art, a metropolitan atmosphere, a free, easy, chilled out, witty culture, four music shops, vibes and scribes art supplies and book shops, Andica Peruvian clothing shop, the English market, the river lee.. and the fella who sells the Echo (now he's moved up and sells the Cork examiner though)... It is the place to be doing music things, other than Galway and Dublin.. and it's only an hour away from us.

So far I have found three possible places that might have us. well, one is definite, because you turn up on the night, the other two are slightly more 'proper' and I felt a bit stupid e-mailing them even. But sure, you never know. All are for open mic type nights.

Fred Zeppelin's (the certainty)

Crane lane Theatre (fingers crossed)

De'Barra's Folk Club Clonakilty (unlikely)

If anyone knows of any other Cork based open mics, or even Dublin ones (sure we'll have to think about getting there one day!).. cheers lads!

EEJIT'S POETRY BUS.... DRIVEN BY THE WEAVER :-)

2010-06-06T10:33:00.000+01:00

This week... to look to nature, in all it's glory under the June sun/rain.. (sun so far touch wood) :-)

JUNE

The calf sits, half cocked, it's head.. bloodied.
It's eyes wide and sleepy, it's buds... debudded.

At the bottom of the paddock the remnants of my sheep,
The unmistakable odour of decay, shallow buried in the heat.

And, for the third day, I will venture into the acre,( unstocked)
With a packpack, packed with chemicals.. to kill the fecking docks!

DUHHHHHH!

2010-06-03T12:50:00.002+01:00

Sometimes we know we do stupid things. We admit to ourselves and, occasionally others, that we've been stupid/done stupid/lacked conscious ability. Sometimes these things are hoooge big things, like relationshippy stuff e.g: Yes I snogged the fella who sells us gates, but it meant nothing and it was only to get a discount on that beautifully constructed galvanised twelve footer... or... life changing moments of stupidity stuff, e.g: look whilst I text this and cross this very busy road for heavy vehicles only.

Most of the time though, thankfully, most of us only make really silly, bordering on Women's Institute BOOORING.. mistakes.. eg: oh my! How silly! I put raisins in the scones instead of sultanas!... a hahahahahahahaa!!..

I made one of them.

What troubles me is, for how long I made this mistake for! and that no'one else spotted it either.. and that if they did, no'one had the balls to tell me about it.. thus, secretly laughing at my humiliating public display of inaptitude!... what also troubles me, is the manner in which I finally noticed the PHAIL!... It screamed out at me, all of a sudden, as if some veil of awareness had just been lifted from my eyes... I imagine the sudden, illumination, neigh, GODLIKE, illumination at which it shone out at me, is akin to how pilgrims feel when they see some face of Mary in a sock or something....

HOW COULD I (or any of you for that matter) HAVE MISSED THIS.. FOR SO LONG!

FEEL THE SHAME!... (why didn't ye tell me! for the love of god!!) :-D

EEJIT'S POETRY BUS, DRIVEN BY BIG BIRDY BILL..

2010-05-31T10:47:00.001+01:00

Alchemy was needed this week. Like trying to make gold from bits of twigs and sticks and the odd bit of coal. Anyway, it was an interesting way to go about things, (check out the usually confined blog).
Here's my effort.. pants! :-)

Hay, when the sun shines,
Lays like a million tears.
An old man tears up a song,
A million coins echoing in his miserable cup...
Miserable things happen when you know what's coming,
What's coming is a shape
An easier thing to make
Than a moment.

The best I could do.. t'was a tough one that needed focus... (something I don't do well, lol) It's been cool though :-)

REALITY NIGHTMARE!

2010-05-30T13:11:00.002+01:00

You sometimes wonder how you end up in these situations.. At nine pm you turn up for the gig that you were told starts at nine thirty'ish and are confronted by a big screen with 'DE MATCH' on it... it is eveident that nothing's going to happen until 'DE MATCH' is over...

When 'DE MATCH' finally ended, a tall, shaggy haired barman who was too skinny for his skinny jeans, got up and wound the screen up. (he evidently hated football too). He went straight to the jukebox with about twenty euros from the till and put some choons on... Some shaggy haired barman stuff, sung by fellas too skinny for their skinny jeans.. and some vintage stuff.. Nirvana.

At about eleven twenty a small fella in a shirt and bald headed came out of the bar as we loitered outside smoking and debating if we should just go home. He said in an overtly jovial voice about the heat in there, and how dark it was 'but sure me baldy head picks up enough glow from around de place!'.. *insert boom boom. He was evidently the M.C/main act of the night. We listened to his extreme cringe worthy banter as he set his stuff up. It was like stepping straight into an episode of 'Hi Di Hi'...

Not that we can complain, it was our own fault for entering Bras Of Our Tsars! The fella who owns the pub asked us and the other girl who was representing him, back to play... How could we say no really?...

We brought our gear in and gritted out teeth.

At about half eleven (yes, that used to be closing time!), the small baldy fella started playing.. he played both kinds of music.. country and western (best line in a film ever), that was after he made half the bar leave by putting on Phil Coultier... "I likes to wind up de young fellas, sure they're used to all dat boom boom music in here".. he chuckled....

After another half an hour, we finally got called up to play. Imagine the scene;

1: the pub is about twelve feet wide but very long.

2: It is fairly packed and there is a fire lit.

3: The small fellas keyboard is about eight feet long, the P.A speakers take up about two feet and are about one foot in front of the keyboard.

4: The microphone needs to be behind the P.A speakers.

5: The door, in and out of the pub is on the same wall as the 'stage'.

The Ronald has his electric guitar and own amp. The small fella moves the microphone over the other side of the keyboard. I am stood in the doorway. The microphone tightening system is broken so it will only just about balance dead upright. It's height adjustment is also broken and it only gets about three and half foot high.. I am five foot six. The microphone is about level with the P.A speakers.
The first minute of the microphone being live results in feedback PROPER feedback.. as in.. " help me DR.. I think my brains are bleeding from my ears" feedback.

The small fella panics behind his keyboard at the levels shouting "FUCK IT! FUCK IT!" thus paralysing himself from actually doing anything.

When everything is just about working, (the small fella is leaning across his keyboard and holding the mic still)
We lay into the set. It is all a blur. No'one could really be arsed about what was happening at this stage, a few people came in through the door directly behind me and more left. The Ronald had to lift his lead up for everyone to duck under and I had to do a Shadows style manouvre so as to stay stooped in range over the four foot tall mic.

We did five or six songs, then had to go. We had to get up for a workshop the next morning.

Yes.. a workshop! About the music industry.. all the way to Waterford City again! It started at 10 am.. on a Saturday morning! How many real musicians are going to be awake and able to go to that!?.. we were and so was Ormy (who by the way has a new blog.. HERE he plays jazz.and writes with a beatnik sympathy). :-).. The talk was given by Jackie Hayden from hotpress magazine and a fella from the WLR F.M radio station was there too. (big fella, with a muslin shirt)... It was interesting to get an 'industry perspective' on how to go about things. But impractical for us, with a kid, a rented house, responisbilities etc.

And guess what!... you have to be a business genius to get anywhere in the music world.. who knew!
Oh.. and we were advised against giving our music away for free... so.. I need a tenner off of all of ye!...
or ye're souls or something.. oh.. and we gave the Jackie fella a C.D anyway, just so he can scare a few more birds off of his veggie patch.... like the D.J told us he does with a lot of the ones he recieves!.. which was nice to know ...

Oh.. and we were advised to make friends with the press.. keep a friendly banter going with them... treat them with respect... and it never hurts to say thank you once in a while... As a singer/songwriter of orginal music, I would say, it doesn't hurt to get paid gigs either!.. but unfortunately, unless you've had an award winning album, or been given a decent amount of airplay.. you're fucked!... you become trapped in a circle of free gigs, just to keep your name out there.. then pubs know they get you for free.. if you did ask for money, they tell you to 'feck off'.. only if you draw a massive crowd... and if you don't play... your name isn't getting out there.... oh the irony!

Of course.. you could be getting nowhere because you're shit!.. :-D

(this photo is from an open mic night, not from Friday.. fella called Mo O'Connor playing mandolin with us)

INERTIA IN THE HIGHEST....

2010-05-26T10:30:00.000+01:00

Limbs.. heavy. Head... heavy... eyes.. heavy... thought processes.. slow.. appocalyptic dreams (which involve either plumetting hot air balloons or skies filled with space ships.. actually quite cool).. extreme can't be arsed'ness... BOOOOOOOOOORDOMMMMMM... complete... unlike 'bordom' in that it actually feels like; "BOOOOOOOOOOORRRDOMMMMM"....

there's only so many times a pony will let you groom him a day before he gets pissed off and only so many times you can feebly stroke the strings of your guitar and wait for inspiration before you feel like throwing the thing in a fire... and only so many cups of tea you can make before you feel bloated and fat... only so many hours you can sit in the sunshine getting brown before you get too hot and nearly pass out with a huge headache...

Anyone who posted their address on.. things will happen soon. All C.D's are burnt, covers made.. they're just waiting for parcelisation and postageing.. being posted, as opposed to after old age.

oh.. and look at this.. it's us semi cuddling John Spillane (the poor fecker)

EEJIT'S POETRY BUS VIA TERRESA

2010-05-24T10:00:00.001+01:00

Our mission this week, as set by the vibrant being that is Terresa :-)

write what occurs from this image.. here goes!

Who could have known?

That small frame in the doorway

Narrow in white

Delicate fingers snatching air

Igniting oxygen molecules just by being.

IF WE MAY DRAW YOUR ATTENTION

2010-05-18T21:08:00.001+01:00

In the side-bar at right you will find our reverbnation player. Newly up-loaded recording of our set from the other night. Feel free to listen at leisure, record with the aid of a freely downloadable streaming recorder.. or, alternatively, you can e-mail us your address and receive a real, actual, personlised C.D.. for free, in a real package and everything! call it a gift for being nice blog followers :-)
The songs are still being tweaked on Ormy's machine, but I was impatient, lol! As per usual with us, this is far from perfect, but.. well.. we're Watercats, and that's what they sound like :-D

EMAIL: thewatercats@gmail.com

So, there you are, drop us a line. For real. One day they might be worth a fortune :-D

ENJOY!

BEEP BEEP.. RUNNING LATE FOR THE POETRY BUS! :-D

2010-05-18T10:42:00.000+01:00

Late for the bus this week, but with a prompt like this I couldn't let it go without a fight! Cheers! :-D

"I got down on my knees and smelled the new linoleum"
A latent, latexed, lithugy of longing while the kettle sang.
Cup awaiting tea, stoically pressing it's arse against formica,
Plastic coated, food dripped details on cupboard doors,
Spills from a thousand saucey suppers.. microwaved goodbyes.
Under the fridge a lost thing, dull and dinted,
Linted corners, grease splashed back back splashers. Silent.
And then there's you. I see your feet. Still. In the doorway.
Hands dangling, fingers straight, my hot cheeks waiting,
I feel it fall, smell the fumes. Your gaze petroleum.

SPILLANE AND WATERCATS EXTRAVAGANZA!

2010-05-15T12:02:00.000+01:00

After spending half an hour choosing which pair of trousers I was going to wear, myself and The Ronald packed up the guitars and sundries, loaded up the van, got in the van, drove to Ormy's. Waited for several long moments for Ormy. Ormy got in the van, we made it to the hall for six thirty, after stopping on the street to meet John Spillane, making his way to the local radio station... (firm hand-shake, always an excellent sign)

We un-loaded our gear onto the proper stage. Did a sound check (a thing which we have no idea about!) and then set our guitars to the side of the stage. Later we sat quietly as Hisself did his soundcheck, learning how to do it properly. Apparantly there are such things as levels and muffled vocals and "up a bits" and "take the top off" and "maybe bring the reverb down".... when all was completed he set his guitar up, complete with a pure white towel.... and went to get some food with Ormy.

We mooched about, had three quarters of an hour to get food, found a place that did food, got food, which by then I couldn't eat because of the adrenaline beginning to sneak up, plus I get hiccups after eating sometimes, so didn't want to risk it.

We got back to the Hall for eight o'clock, people were beginning to arrive and partake of the complimentary beer from our brewery mates and wine from a local wine sellers. We mooched about.. mooched about some more.. paced... scratched our heads, loked at each other in mild concern....

John Spillane's geetar (and ours in the back)

Ormy appeared and introduced us;
"First up, we have The Watercats... they recently got as far as the County Finals in Stars Of our bars... pause.. I don't know what else to say about them.. they're great!"

We get onto the stage, plug in, lights dazzling, hot, crowd vague sillhouettes. I begin to say something about Wolves, but realise I'm babbling so tell myself to shut up and sing. I do. We do Wolves, half way through when it begins to pick up a pace I relax and get an overwhelming urge to trash the stage (a disturbing feeling that has occured on the few occasions we've been on proper stages.. it feels the right thing to do)
I supress it and stamp my foot instead.
applause....
Bandejo.. I say how it translates as "asshole" somewhere in the world then see a couple of kid's faces in the crowd and appologise for the language.. decided our set would include a few of our heavier songs, but more of our easy going ones.
applause....
Jesse James.. I find my harmonica (a cheap replacement for our old hohner one) is about to break and wrestle to make it do what i need it to do..
applause...
I say cheers to everyone after each applause, introduce the next song, a romantic version of Tallow Horse Fair.... quite complex picking/strumming (for me).. Ron joins in on the chorus by squeezing into the mic with me... we end up making faces at each other..
applause (bigger than the others)
Next, a song called Girleen, about a Victorian prostitute (again I cringe at the kids being present, there's a line that goes "I'll take you for granted I'll ruin your plan and I'll probably ruin your trousers"...) sigh...
applause (on par with the last)
Introduce the song about my Gran, Conversation... there are a lot of muffled coughs half way through, nervous, awkward coughs....
Large applause (a few people come up to us afterwards and comment that they were almost crying and absolutely loved the song)
Last up, a new one called Perfect Weather.
Applause... we get off the stage and the man hisself gets up... and proceeds to do the job properly!

What a performer he is! It was an absolute joy to watch him.. and not what we were expecting. We were expecting a slightly twee character, but he is funny in a very self deprecating, piss takey, ironic way. You just wouldn't get him out of context of his live performance (listening to an album or whatever).

He had a dig at de english, before doing a set of Irish language songs, announced how they were in the mother tongue and not the tongue of the oppressors and looked over at us, we both laughed and gave him a thumbs up.. this is normal pub humour and nothing sinister.
We got his autograph for the kid, he said our songs were great, but I had to watch the guitar playing because it sometimes drowned out the words, and singing is all about the words.. (not the first person to comment on the guitar loudness). He gave us a shout out at the end, after holding the entire audience in the palm of his hand, got everyone singing, mesmerised, he was truly an inspiring person to watch and learn from.

Job done, packed up the van, off to the pub for some pints, where-by ormy got agressively pushed by a dreg of society and we were all told "Ye're allll queeer!" (queer means weird round these parts). Luckily the fella picked on one of the most easy going humans on the planet, or it would have ruined his night!

Happy bunnies this morning.. oh, and Ormy recorded our set, so there may be some decently recorded live audio up for exclusive grabs on this site soon (if it turned out all right), lol

If John Spillane is playing near you.. go see him.. it is an absolute must!

BIG GIG CHECK LIST

2010-05-14T11:57:00.000+01:00

(You'd swear we knew what we were doing!)

1: Vicks acoustic. check

2: Rons acoustic. check

3: Ron's electric. check

4: Vick's harmonica (in the key of A). check

5: Vick's harmonica rack. check

6: Set list cellotaped to guitar. check

7: Capo x2. check

8: 10ft guitar leads x3. check

9: Fender champ amp. check

10: spare string sets x2. check

11: Guitars straps x3. check

12: Guitar tuner. check

13: Spare 9v battery. check

14: digital camera with charged battery. check

15: Gig clothes washed and laid out....

16: Songs learnt unfailingly......

17: Venue located and known......

18: Start time known..........

19: Van taxed, insured and full of diesal.......

20: Ample supply of cigarettes and beer. Check.

SUPPORTING JOHN SPILLANE... :-D

2010-05-11T16:01:00.002+01:00

Guess what!.. was asked very nonchalantly by Ormy at the school gates if we fancied supporting John Spillane... THIS FRIDAY!!!!.... At the town hall in Dungarvan... and there was me thinking it was going to be a boring week!... *runs away to practice and make a set list! :-0

here's the lad his-self.. oh.. and you can now officially like us on facetube/myface/bookface.. (click on link in side bar!)

EEJIT'S MONDAY POETRY BUS.. NOLAN STYLE!

2010-05-10T10:04:00.000+01:00

Pick a number.. 12
Go to flikr page and select twelfth photo commons...
Mine was some obscure place in Norway.. lots of pictures of only vaguely interesting sepia people who played pianos and the odd advertising blimp picture over a warehouse.. and this!

GOBLIN KEEPERS

They keep you.

The elongated people wrap you around their lies

Smiling at every quaint thing you say

And prey on your mistakes.

They touch you.

Every now and then softly on the head

Murmer to you; "that's alright"

Then fight you for words.

They smile too.

Deep and broad and teethy moist and fat

Genuine lip lifting grins

But their chins betray them.

They dress to kill.

Colours patterns shapes and texture perfect cuts

Tailored to perfection seams.

Made from your dreams.

They lock you in.

Working for the warehouse weary sweat

Peer through the cracks

For the backs of passing birds.

They know you.

Just like you know them inside out and backwards

A mile off as far as you can throw

You know they know you know.

GAME OVEEEERRRRRR....

2010-05-09T10:35:00.000+01:00

Well, travelled alll the way to Waterford City, (a dismal place at the best of times!) Managed to park right in front of a back door. Big stage.. big room .. sat maybe 5/600 people. We found out we were on VERY LAST. number 13. Usually a lucky number for us, Ron being born on that day.

The night began. We had made the decision to do Wolves, only a beefed up version. Ron brought his electric guitar, if we were going to be booted out, we'd do it at least knowing we'd done something completely us...

After watching countless generic kareoke/wedding singer girls and two blokes doing a red hot chilli peppers song (how you imagine teenage boys do in their bedrooms at home).. it was our turn. We turned it up to the proverbial.. and did our ting.

Third place came.. the lads from the red house (our local pub). I'm delighted for them, because at least they had a guitar.they got 250 euros.
Second was announced. One of the generic kareoke/wedding singer girls.. 500 euros...
First place.. another of the generic kareoke singer girls.. 1,000 euros...

game over for us. A bit dissapointed to be honest, as the kid's birthday is over the weekend... oh well!

I just think it was a bit of a shame the judges played it so safely. basically, three acts went through with girl singers who have almost the exact same voice and sing similar types of song....

Glad to be knocked out though.... we'd have spent a grand just getting to the next lot of heats, they're in places like Carlow! f.f.s! :-D

RETURNING FULL CIRCLE.. AND REALISING YOU'RE STILL NOT QUITE THERE!

2010-05-06T16:04:00.000+01:00

So last night we returned to Clonmels New Music Club, the place we did our very first live performance a little over a year ago. It was great to return there, void of nerves and looking forward to playing. It's a little pub, with an intimate audience... we sat talking to guy called Rory, an Aussie chap who'd travelled down from Dublin.. we had a chat about harmonicas (he plays them too) He also had a few foot pedals...
Then a whole band turned up.. full drum kit, a MAAHOOOSIVE Fender amp, bass player, lead singer with guitar AND a chappy with a PROPER pedal steel!... they set up, laid into their set, blew everyone away (bass player in particular was fablus! we were planning to poach him)

Then they packed up and it was the Aussie chaps go. He did the first song, nice acoustic with a harmonica and excellent words... another, told like a story... then third song, he unleases his foot pedal tricks! The fecker had a loop pedal, a whole band formed in about two seconds! and by fuck did he know how to use it to good effect too! He managed to make a fuller sound than the whole band!.. he did this song, check it out!

(the fecker!)

Next up.. us!.. no pressure!.. we were shite in comparison. The Ronald brought his electric guitar at least, so we over compensated by doing a particularly grungy version of Wolves, Jesse james, Bandejo, Beast and a new one called Perfect weather (which you haven't heard yet)

Last up was a girl who did some really fecking great songs, and had a really breezy, warm, inviting stage thing going on, which was very engaging to watch.. there was a seriously high standard of musicians last night, which made us look like the rank amateurs we are!

night over... we packed our gear up with our tails slightly between our legs.. then when we went out for a smoke, the barman told us a fella had travelled just to come and see us because he'd remembered us from before (a year ago!)... that sort of thing really gives you a boost!.. we met the fella after, who asked if we had a C.D.... alas!.. but we promised to send one to him when we get one done...

We've got a lot more to learn.. thank god!... :-D

PROPER ORDER!... and cheers to everyone on the poetry bus (post below this one)

2010-05-04T17:15:00.002+01:00

Outside, the lean -to corrugated plastic roof shelters forty plus smokers, all huddling together in mutual respect and support. The evening is becoming chilly.. the fake tan girls in their skin tight lurid dresses totter on heels of varying degrees, they hug themselves while the near-by ocean breeze flicks their straightened hair-do's into comical episodes..... The evening is almost starting... The Watercats lean against the wall of the sports pub, inhale deeply and continue to people watch, picking out likely competition.. you can tell them... they are pristine. Wipe clean. silently mouthing lyrics whilst poker facing all around them.
Inside, the pub is heaving. At least three hundred hot and expectant bodies push against each other, the back room with the pool tables and dancefloor sweats human. Four flat screen t.v's post the names of all the contestants and the bars they represent through the entire building.

THE RED HOUSE: somebody Ormande

DILLONS: Sarah something

DOWNEYS: The Wild cats....

and nine others.

Everyone takes their turn to soundcheck before returning into the arms of their respective fans and supporters. The Watercats/wildcats soundcheck. Then leave the stage to try and find a place to put the guitars in the snooker room.. where they decide to try and stay... they make faces at each other in support of themselves...
The contestants are all called to the stage where a draw takes place of their names. Girls squeek as their names are called and teeter into the crowd flapping hands. A couple of older women breath deeply and groan.. a couple of couples remain stoney game faced as they retreat to await their turn. The Watercats are pulled tenth.. from twelve. They look at each other again and laugh.. and declare; "fuck it!"

A baldy fella begins to do mash ups of popular songs on his pre-programmable keyboard. He sings like Vic Reeves section in 'shooting stars'.. name the song sung in the style of a pub entertainer. There is also a very small man M.C... complete in tux and dickie bow, who insists on telling very bad jokes before he introduces each act and insists the audience give each contestant something called "good order".. he seems obsessed by this expression and repeats it on a regular basis.

FIRST: A big girl sings Fields of Barley with a small bloke on guitar accompanying.

SECOND: A woman and a bloke on guitar do an original song with harmonies. She knows how to use a mic and sways as she sings...

THIRD: A girl sings an obscure cover with a backing track.

FOURTH: The sarah girl sings a U.2 song, very well.. again with a backing track.

The speakers around the bar break and a half hour delay occurs. Everyone clamours for the outside to top up on nicotine.
When the evening begins again (minus the monitor speakers), the whole pub is close to mass inebriation.. seemingly, there are no drivers tonight...

FIFTH: A girl plays two tin whistle songs, extremely well.. but accompanied very badly, by the fella with the keyboard.

SIXTH: A girl sings a dixie chicks song, very well, with her guitar.

SEVENTH; A woman sings a dreary 'womans heart' album song.. which sounds like the chorus is saying "arseholes" in it.

EIGHTH: The Watercats make their way to the bar for more pints and miss it.

NINTH; A fella who wished The watercats luck and then added "like fuck" and spent the night fretting with his guitar, accompanied a big girl, doing a version of the killers song..... The watercats watched from the snooker room windows and downed their pints..

TENTH: The Watercats eventually push their way onto the stage. A large table of girls in lurid skirts and fifteen inch heels are screeching just to the left of the stage. The Watercats cannot hear a thing they are doing due to the monitor speakers being broken.. The watercats are thankful for having performed the song so much, they don't need to hear themsleves doing it.. but get a sneaking suspicion it probably sounds utterly fucking awful!... The entire pub ignores their perfomance, but for a small number of new friends formed in the smoking area and a man who owns a pub.

ELEVENTH: A skinny girl does another version of Fields of Gold with a backing track this time.

TWELFTH: A young fella gets up and sings accapella Raglan Road chanelling the voice of Luke kelly from his lungs. The whole pub is blown away and stoney silent, then explodes with adoration when he's done.

The evening is done. The little M.C tells some more horrendous jokes and the fella on the keyboard does some dance versions of well known trad faves... such as dirty old town, Irish Rover.. and Athenry! Dancers fill the dancefloor, waltzing, moshing, jiving... Giving it good order!

The judges take an age to reach a conclusion as to the acts to go through to the County finals, not before giving some sage advice.. like; "lads, make sure ye use de microphones properly like.. and don't be singin like udder peeple"....
1: The backing track version of fields of gold.
2: the sarah girl with the U2 song.
3: the older woman who did the womans heart song
4: the first lads to do fields of gold
5: the lads who did their original song with harmonies.
6: The wildcats....... (the watercats look at each other and are amazed! sure that wasn't in the plan at all!)

and the judges decided to put a wild card through in the form of the reincarnated Luke.

(spot The wildcats.. and the small fella M.C)

After two more hours of photos, drinks being brought by the pub landlord they are representing, The watercats left Dillons bar, quietly amazed.. weary and surreal feeling. The following Friday they will have to travel to the City of Waterford for the County finals and a chance to win a thousand Euros....

Now that would be proper order!

THE BUS JOURNEY STARTS NOW ..

2010-05-01T10:33:00.014+01:00

And so we begin... the quick off the markers, early birds and on the ballers are beginning to file in for the ride, the rest of ye have the usual day to complete it by (and a bit after if extra time is needed), this is after all a bus ride of anarchy and all things cool. Check out the bongs that come complementary with every seat, the shag pad in the back and the sound system.. what a sound system! I tell you! and none of this i-pod millarky either, you can only play vinyl on this bus!

Anyway, enough of the waffly crap, TO THE TALENT!

JEANE IRIS it's not only rock and roll..

RACHEL FOX tripping lighty...

NIAMH B Walking through the wreckage...

POETIKAT Gets sandy and randy :-)

DOMINIC RIVRON Being literal..

THE BUG Lost in music..

TOTALFECKINEEJIT Guts and blood.. and rock and roll

KING OF THE CAMELS Coughing and attitude...

ENCHANTED OAK A rockin tribute

KAREN Rocks!

DONT FEED THE PIXIES Spaced!

SANDRA LEIGH Better than sex..

TITUS Hedonistic heroism..

PETER GOULDING Lost mayhem..

ARGENT Ballad of a rock minstrel (and not the chocolate ones)

P.J NOLAN A killer!

O.k .. here's mine... please excuse the very dodgy hybrid weirdo accent and not good at reading poems poetry reading. I found this excersize VERY obscure! lol..

POETRY BUS.. ROLLING by vickyguns

IT IS MY HONOURED MISSION .. TO DRIVE DE EEJIT BUS OF POETRY!

2010-04-27T11:17:00.003+01:00

Hold on to your hats, kiss ye're arses goodbye. sick bags are placed in the pouch of the seat in front of you. All of you fantastic lovlies out there (some of which I don't get round to too much and I appologise for that); it's with pleasure, grattitude and honourable doodlings that I assign you my prompt/prompts/missions in poetry.
Since the watercats are soon to go absolutely epically global, and we are such a fantasticly rock and rolly rock and roll group (please note the irony), I thought this weeks mission would explore these time honoured rock band ethics;

I would like you to write on one (or all) of these following topics;

1: SEX

2: DRUGS

3: ROCK

4: ROLL

Easy peasy... BUT as an extra assignment, for those of you who can or are willing to try, I want you to record you reading your beootiful poems and post them to your page... are you scared yet!... ? I am!
I know a few of you have the ability to do this and I reckon it brings a whole new depth of life to the poems to hear them being read by their owners/guardians.

I have found a couple of sites that may come in handy if you wish to experiment with downloading recording software. I have used the Audacity one quite effectly and easily by plugging a microphone straight into the mic jack in the computer.
Alternatively you can record yourself on the video setting on your digital camera and convert the file to mp3 in the Switch doovery.
I have found a file hosting site which will enable you to post your sound files on your blog if you get that far!

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT WHEN YOU'RE DONE SO'S I CAN LINK YOU UP :-)

AUDACITY : free download audio recording software.

SWITCH : free download file converter (to convert video files to mp3 should you need to)

SUPLOAD : Free file hosting site to post audio files to blog. (upload mp3 file copy and paste "embed code")
haven't actually tried this site but it looks fairly simple, if not then there are loads of other sites if you google "file hosting sites).. THIS ONE MIGHT BE BETTER: SOUNDCLOUD

CHEERS LADS! HAVE A BALL :-D

POETRY BUS RIDE... WIERDO RELATIVES.. I HAZ DEM!

2010-04-26T11:03:00.001+01:00

Well argent is being a spiffing driver.. I just love hand brake turns :-)

My entry this week is a bit of a cop out, but it sort of fitted with the prompt. I'm posting a new song with lyrics that I put up yesterday, it's a cowboy song, but from the viewpoint of a bitter old woman..
with some pretty heavy guitar by the Ronald and dodgy singing (I'm still figuring out what to do with it).

cheers!

CROW BAIT

Listen up now my children
Though you are many miles away.
I haven't seen you for so many years
But I will say this anyway.
I haven't shown you too much love
Like other mothers do,
Johnny you know my feelings
but there's no talking to you.
Caroline I know you love me
And in my way I've loved you well,
But we are far too different
You are light and I'm darker than hell.
You know I still miss Davy
You know he was my favourite one,
He knew how to stand his ground
And died with both eyes open.
Your father left me as a bitter wife,
All the best men leave to soon,
They leave behind old women
Writing letters by the moon.

CHORUS

I'm almost dead now
And the proverbial hour is late.
Don't lay me in no holy ground
Just leave me in the hills
As crow bait.

You know me well enough to know,
Even if you don't care
How long this life of mine has been
And how little I have spare.
You can burn this place to the ground
There is nothing here to do,
At least i bared you to the world
To stand alone and do for you.
I could have done things better
or at least i could have tried,
But my heart has always beaten cold
Even before I died.
Yes I have some regrets,
But i'd do it all again,
I might have left some memories
For you to cry at now and then.
By the time you read this
I'll already be gone.
I'm heading out tonight
It's already been too long.

CHORUS.

MOODY COWBOY SONG

2010-04-25T12:59:00.001+01:00

Have been writing a few new songs lately, we sat down last night and mucked about with the newest one. I've been wanting to write something with the reference to 'crow bait' in for a while and this one wrote itself... she's a horrible old bag :-) But I kinda like her.....
How much would we love to make a proper record now!?... VERY... try and imagine all the right levels, and at least three beautiful big gospel singers at the end.... *dreams deeply................

PICTURE POST....

2010-04-21T09:56:00.000+01:00

GOTTA LOVE PORRIDGE

THE VIEW FROM THE STAGE

SOUND CHECK AND INTRO'S

BLOODY HELL!

PIG COLOURDY STAGE PIG

OUR MATE BRENDAN'S BAND

'THE MOORINGS' TABLE

NICE....

GEETAR HANDS

And that's it folks... have lost all abilities to write. The stage was big and scary, not the back of a lorry with palletes that we were expecting, the sound ended up fairly bad though, guitars went out of tune and soundman didn't turn my guitar up enough... never mind!. Playing somewhere every week at the moment and getting to the point I'm going to go visiting some hotels to ask for paid gigs.

Blahhh.. at the moment though... will come back to things in a while.. hope everyone's good!

:-D

MORE NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF WATERY CATTITUDES...

2010-04-13T12:29:00.000+01:00

Apart from single handedly saving the planet, twenty two times, from imminant destruction at the hands of Venom Man, things have been busy enough on the music front. AND guess what! The stars of our bars thing had been cancelled the week we didn't think it was on, so we got in this week AND, we got through! WOO HOO!.. no money yet though. Next round is the regionals, or something.. everything is very vague.

From what we can gather the irish Vintners Association thought of a cunning new plan to bring people into the pubs for a while, made some posters, put up some money for it, told their members, then left them off to organise everything themselves! So from one pub to the next, rules, judging, dates and everything is completely different! Still, at some point, relatively soon, it'll be the regionals..

ALSO, this coming Sunday afternoon we'll be performing on the stage at the Waterford festival of food... No pressure.. !.. (Ghhhaaaaaaahhhh!!!) there'll be BIG speakers and monitors and everything!

We've painted the van up specially for it :-D

EEJITS POETRY BUS TOUR.. ONE FOR DUBERLIN PLEESE!

2010-04-12T09:56:00.001+01:00

This week as you all know, we're on Niamh's bus.. it's beootiful, thought I reckon that dog of hers has been at the seats (Mine's a bit mauled anyway.. but I don't mind.. ).
This is my attempt at the epic challenge :-D Monday brain... nuff said!

perhaps this is you?!!!!!

I would love to know who the feck you are!
You with the unpronouncable name and scarily digited number,
You who squats in between Dave and Mumsy Podge.
I can't remember what class of a hazy night was endured
When you entered my portable directory,
I can't even recall a vague sense of who you should be?
You seemed to appear sometime after I broke the car,
Just in time to stumble across in a beer induced slumber
Whilst squintily trying to text Ron a witty wadge.
You could be Spanish? Though the vowels in your word
Are suggesting possible Welsh ancestry...
All I know is I don't know who the feck you are, "AEWROOIRY"

WELL, NOW... LET'S SEE...

2010-04-10T11:20:00.000+01:00

It's been a weird. busy week and I will be visiting everyone as soon as possible (I always feel guilty about this, lol).

Firstly the week started off by being my birthday (which I generally hate), so we spent the day shopping for nice things, which of course never exsist when you have money to spend on yourself, so the kid ended up getting some new gear (there were loads of cool kids clothes!)....

Wednesday we had a phonecall from our mate Brendan asking if we'd play with him at the launch of a new local micro brewery beer on Friday... ..... ... that was basically the proverbial no brainer answer!

Thursday... my birthday partay... some muso's we've met along the way including the nearest thing to a young christy moore you could find, a french girl, our mate larry and brendan and his missis... a good night was had.... and many beers, vodkas, wines, songs, venison and curried veg helpings were consumed.. :-)
(sadly we failed to organise cameras...) and ron put his back out moving furniture for someone!

Friday... the day of the beer thingy... due to a four A.M bed time the night before we were all a bit slow, hadn't figured out any form of musical thingyness at all... we met Ormy (brendan's other name) about an hour before we were due to leave to rehearse some stuff together!... by that I mean we mumbled about nonsense for a while, him and ron jammed out some jazz.. I sang north country girl, then we packed the van up with the P.A and left...

DUNGARVAN BREWING COMPANY

The place was dead swanky!.. held in the vegetable garden of The Tannery cooking school in Dungarvan... we set up on the clean gravel, next to the bar with it's real ale tap on and bags of hops and grains (the nearest thing to heaven for the Ronald)... we were the first plebs to get some of the shiny new beer, all three kinds.. for most of the evening... Myself and the Ronald started with the songs, which were going down fairly well, tripping around the vegetable beds and between ladies in frocks (trying not to break their tiny ankles walking in stillettos on the gravel) and fella's in pink shirts and deck shoes...

It was clear when we finished up the first half for the brewers speeches and the Mayor's usual good wishes, that we had done what was needed as people were talking about the beer to the lads and mingling and they were aiming for people to move down to a pub for the launch of the other beer for the night, it would have been uneccesary to start playing again, so we walked about soaking up the atmosphere....
Sometimes we kick ourselves at how things go.. there we are, skint as arseholes, dressed up in our best shabby best, drinking artisan beers, after entertaining the eliter members of Dungarvan society... It's all bollocks of course, but sometimes it feels good to know you can get away with it!
Oh, and we were introduced to the head honcho of the west waterford food festival person... we may be playing on the big stage next sunday!.... WOOOO HOOO!

Later on we played with Ormy in the Moorings again, which was like a really nice, mellow, knackered jamming session, complete with a visit from a drunken slapper who sang something trad and told ron to "shuddup dat shite on de gitarr" when he tried to accompany her...

Another late night, by which time Ron's back was wrecked.. so today he's in bed, doped up on painkillers!

EEJITS POETRY BUS TOUR.. TO SOMEWHERE SWISS!

2010-04-05T12:15:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update on the stars of our bars for those of you who sent kind thoughtlings.. It all went pear shaped at the last minute. Basically couldn't get hold of the bloke, or the pub, or anyone else and managed to convince ourselves that Easter Sunday probably wasn't a likely day that anything would be happening in a pub and that we'd probably got the wrong end of the stick. Anyway, ended up that it was still on but by that time we'd lost the baby sitter. Last night was the last night of heats too.. so never mind.. maybe next year!

Thanks to all of you who spent valuable time thinking about us wally's! :-D

Right, onto poetry matters...

Orbiting some vague and cold planet. Them and us.

Or perhaps slowly focusing in on tiny microscopic things.

The universe within and without the universe. Spinning.

Or maybe the lidless eye of a great being. Some creator,

Some destroyer of dreams. The skeptic's adversary.

This could be a world through a pirates lens. Land ahoy!

Rough and lonely and full of brazen heathens ready to eat.

An egg. Fat and full of embryonic division, dangling onto life,

A fine thread of fate allowing it to float in a watery soup and miss the spoon.

Then there is a marble degraded by a fuss.

Obviously circular, a line endlessly rotating.

Some indiginous soul's story prop, smooth from schooling.

Insides of a beer top, another brain cell's exterminator.

It could be you. Or me. In metaphoric hilarity,

Or life or death, with crosses, girl or boy.

A plate of deliciousness, plumply waiting at a feast.

The circle of a binding. The man bethroths his wife.

More to the point. It is just a moment.... spent gazing at the moon.

BRAS OF OUR TSARS.. OR.. STARS OF OUR BARS...

2010-04-02T12:19:00.000+01:00

Either one is fine and both, we will be entering this sunday. Reason?;

1: We could do with a chance of winning a grand.

2: It's suitably naff enough to have fun entering.

3: We know one of the judges.

4: One of the judges told us to go this Sunday for one of the heats.

What is stars of our bars?

It is a competition set up by the pub people to try and bring back customers. A number of bars in each county will host a few nights of heats and one night of a final. The winner of the final will then go through to a regional competition then a final final.. or something..
The point is... We might win some dosh, if we got lucky!

You can enter to do anything! It's like Britain/America/belgium/everywhere's got talent, but on a localised scale. It'll be a laugh anyway!

SOMETHING ABOUT LIFE.. THE VIDEO!

2010-03-30T15:42:00.000+01:00

Here tis!... the poem/song from eejit's monday poem last week. Finally got round to recording it.. roughly... oh how we would love money enough to give our songs a band (drums, bass, fiddle etc) and slick album production.
We can hear them in our heads.... alas! methinks that's as far as they will go.. apart from you guys :-)
Just try and imagine them with Daniel Lanois treatment, and a layering like the Laura thingy song the other day... *sigh.....

Anyway, here it is... complete with mosslingtontude hunting imaginary things (possibly fire fairies)

SOMETHING ABOUT LIFE

A cloth covered carpentry cupboard once marvelled,

Bending and bloodied and silently scar filled.

Sawdusted, sandwiched in dusty corners

All dovetailed and detailed and beautifully ordered.

Bags full of flotsam and things on the shelf,

Memoried moments remembered by self,

Days dashing downward forging affairs

With the maidens with ribbons all combing their hair...

This is life

I travel on, listen lewdly too loudly

To ladies who betray their ages too proudly,

Mocking the monsters who sit at their feet,

Collecting the crumbs from the food that they eat.

Aging like this doesn't take very long,

Sighing, delighting, wondering in song..

The gentle guitars that mumble replies

To the questions asked of them by over-fed thighs..

This is life

Crowds and companions, carrying cares

Of distant dillusions, of grandeurs and aires,

Throw back your head, let your lungs roar

To a heaven that doesn't need God any more.

Lock up the lead painted soldiers and go,

Forget all the furry soft bodies you know.

Settle back in to familier good-byes,

Wave forlornly back at your lonely toys...

This is life

Sitting and shading and salving a tale,

Knitted together with wax and details,

Headlong into headlights, everything goes,

Like a bomb into battle on top of those homes.

Settle don't wrestle with words and regrets..

For something of nothing is hard to forget.

POETRY BUS TOUR TRIPPY TRIP!

2010-03-29T12:19:00.000+01:00

So here we are.. s'nice here!.. (unsure of the shagpile carpet though.. is that normal on a bus?).. anyway!.. to write of my favourite word! There are many... but I'm going for this one;...........

It's not a word.
Spoken with light
Brought to life
With intent.
It's not a word
Broken in spite
Deeply satisfied
By moments.

It's not a word
Of colour
Texture, odour
Or of sound
It's not a word
Of something other,
Reaching over,
Looking round.

It's not a word
dwelt dark
With sparks
Of day.
It's not a word
That starts
With silent parts
Or ends that way.

It's not a word
That signifies
Or even tries
To win a war.
It's not a word
Who's whispered
Letters inspired
Romantic muttering bards.

It's not a word
That trips quickly
Pausing sickly
On the tongue.
It's not a word
That stops neatly
At the beating
Of some drum.

It's not a word
Who churns guts
And swiftly cuts
A throat in two.
It's not a word
That typifies
The best surprise
You ever threw.

It's not a word.
Purely starkly
Reassuring, hardly
Muttered any more.
It's not a word..
It rests forgotten,
Gently rotting
From the noise... for it is not a word at all.

Thanks for the spin Rachel!.. :-D

OPEN TUNING... AND THE BEST SONG I'VE HEARD IN CENTURIES

2010-03-28T11:52:00.001+01:00

have just discovered open guitar tuning... (a whole universe is an understatement)...

AND FOUND THIS... she's twenty... and fecking amazing!!! (the cow!) :-D

This is the first song for at least ten years that actually moves me to tears.. and for one as cynical as me, that is no mean feat.... This is an album I'm actually going to buy.. and cherish... I can tell :-)

THINGS I'VE NOTICED LATELY.

2010-03-24T10:04:00.001Z

Since our rise to highly colloquial repute musically, I've discovered some things.. some things that puzzle and intrigue me. Who'd have thought the following!?

1: Even at the very tail end of the musical world (open mic/small gig land), there are LOTS of very strange
    and large, ego's....

2: Everyone who plays in West Waterford at one time played with, was friends of, managed, produced,
    knitted jumpers for, wrote songs for; Liam Clancy....

3: Small town rivalry and competition between pubs, is a fact of life. The clientelle loyalty to each of the
    places is strong and it WILL be noted if you're spotted playing at ANOTHER place with comments
    like; "so lads, ye were over in *********** were ye?!"...

4: Girl singers are rare enough... and it is a given they will be put on after each other (by that I mean, I, will
    be put on after an audience wowing uber folk, virginal, vocal, female sweet girly performance)...

5: In the above situation.. always.. ALWAYS.. sing something that involves a harmonica and shouty'ness..
    or you WILL fail in comparison studies.

6: Always tighten harmonica rack.

7: Have a banter with the crowd, even if they're not listening.. (that's what I tell myself anyway!)

On another note, this week we've been playing dress up for my brother (the one who paints, front left).
He wants some new painting fodder, so we dressed up vintage like and did some walking around. That's the Ronald leaning on the tree, and my nephew kneeling. The kid took this photo and just happened to catch everyone looking like this.. Imagine the following page from an over priced clothing catalogue;

This Season's mens wear.

bottom left:
uber black working slacks; €423, white roll sleeve searsucker; €203, Bushman's hat: €167.

middle:
Tan, cow hide treads; €456, olive worker pants; €1,267, The best waistcoat; €444, night blue shirt; €23,000
black trilby; €tenner.

far away:
Horse fair steel toes; fiver, retro fit charity jeans, 2 quid, grandaddy grandad shirt; 78 million cents, blarney waistcoat; €98, brass rim specs; free from national health circa 1962.

EEJITS MONDAY POETRY BUS... GGGGRRRRRRR!

2010-03-22T09:43:00.003Z

It's all about protest. To be honest, I've been compleetly braindead recently, but I have this song, which is pretty angry, in an obscure way... I don't really know what the point of it was in the end, I just remember I was miffed at the time of writing it.. at the world in general (It happens sometimes would you believe!) :-D

SOMETHING ABOUT LIFE

A cloth covered carpentry cupboard once marvelled,
Bending and bloodied and silently scar filled.
Sawdusted, sandwiched in dusty corners
All dovetailed and detailed and beautifully ordered.
Bags full of flotsam and things on the shelf,
Memoried moments remembered by self,
Days dashing downward forging affairs
With the maidens with ribbons all combing their hair...

This is life

I travel on, listen lewdly too loudly
To ladies who betray their ages too proudly,
Mocking the monsters who sit at their feet,
Collecting the crumbs from the food that they eat.
Aging like this doesn't take very long,
Sighing, delighting, wondering in song..
The gentle guitars that mumble replies
To the questions asked of them by over-fed thighs..

This is life

Crowds and companions, carrying cares
Of distant dillusions, of grandeurs and aires,
Throw back your head, let your lungs roar
To a heaven that doesn't need God any more.
Lock up the lead painted soldiers and go,
Forget all the furry soft bodies you know.
Settle back in to familier good-byes,
Wave forlornly back at your lonely toys...

This is life

Sitting and shading and salving a tale,
Knitted together with wax and details,
Headlong into headlights, everything goes,
Like a bomb into battle on top of those homes.
Settle don't wrestle with words and regrets..

For something of nothing is hard to forget.

THE EVIDENCE :-O

2010-03-17T16:02:00.003Z

Here we go, we uploaded the video evidence of Monday night, and were surprised that we didn't sound as completely shit as we thought we did. Of course, all the levels are wrong because we're a skint band with no P.A system. It's a shame you can't hear the fiddle man more, but lucky you can't hear drummer man singing 'harmonies'.
Please excuse the video quality, the place was so dark and our 'broadband' is narrower than a ant's arse, so I had to compress things infentessimally.. (is that even a word?)

Anyway, just to give you a sample of the atmosphere. These three clips were taken near the end of the set when everyone decided to come in from the beer garden for a bit of an oggle. I'm glad we managed to leave the set on a good note.

First up, here's Sweeping, a song you guys haven't heard before. It's the first time we managed to get it recorded. Thought you might like an ole listen.

Now here's Jesse James, taken for a spin, and a banter with one of the lads.. The buzzing is Ron's dodgy amp.

AND... the best till last, my brother managed to get a shot of Leprechaun man giving it some mean piano to bandejo. want more audience members like this, take note all of you! I'm actually so chuffed this guy was getting into our stuff, a drunken man has a soul for all to view, but if you can touch it, it's a true honour.

WIN SOME LUH'HOOOSE SOME....

2010-03-16T15:46:00.004Z

Ah lads! You should have been there last night... it was fecking BROOTAL!
The Meeting Place hasn't changed, it's dark and beaten up and all painted gloss and band posters from years gone by and I think the same people who were rolling about pissed when we arrived were the same lads I remember seeing rolling about pissed when I used to drink there (a million years back).. only they're fatter and older and have small kids at home while they're drinking the dole money.. anyway...

There were about ten of them lads and an ole fella who was fantastically drunk, more drunk than I've seen a living person in years and still managing to stand. He proclaimed to us, after insisting we all shared his chip supper, that he was indeed in a pub, like the fact had just happened upon him in a moment of clarity, and that he also believed in the land of the leprechauns... was in fact, KING of the little fellas! He spent the night playing a mean air piano and shouting "I'm in a pub!?" every so often.

What can I say, but I had an inkling it would be a tough crowd. A Monday night two days before Patricks day is in itself dodgy enough, the only lads in pubs on that night are going to be HARDENED regulars... who want to hear THINGS THEY KNOW... It's not an idea to showcase your original, slightly folky songs in a pub of lads who practically have coital relationships with Rory Callagher posters after a few jars.

Feedback swayed between, "Ye're like Bob Dylan.. but more complicashted" and, "Ye've no soulll astalll.." We finished well enough though, had a bit of friendly banter going with a couple of the lads, but handed my guitar over to them all to have a go, which was the best bit of the night, a jamming session went on well into lock in time and I watched whilst wishing we had a couple of quid for a fecking pint!

The final kick happened in the beer garden when a fella walked up and said,
"jeez dat was a great gig... I loved dat Tom Waits song ye did..."
"but we didn't do Tom Waits" I stupidly replied,
"Ahh.. noooo.. not you love, de fella you gave your guitar to..."

I turned the subject to clockwork jesus toys... it seemed the right thing to do.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and it's good to play to a hard crowd.. it makes me more determined to do things better, being a stubborn fecker, I'll go back there one day and blow all the fuckers away!

The photos my brother took look fecking excellent though! :-D

OH!.. and we got forty quid each... shame it was as we were leaving, I had a wicked thirst on!

EEJITS MONDAY POETRY CHALLENGE :-D

2010-03-15T09:21:00.002Z

Firstly, I'd like to say to everyone, I will be round to see you in the next few days, things are MAD busy here what with the giig tonight and open mic booked on Thursday and now, another PAID gig on Friday!!! wooo hooo!! anyway, I'll be off trying to remember words and chords and capo placement after this, but I will be round to read everyone.. I swear! Here's my maniacle effort to do EEjiti's words justice :-D

"She wears Stella macartney,
He drinks stella Artois"
She hates him when he gets sarky,
He loves her, she looks like a star.
Another few bottles at bedtime,
He imagines them entwined in bliss,
But all he gets is cold shoulder
And silence... there's something he missed.

It started as fatal attraction,
It ended in catastrophe,
It could never work, interaction
Was decidedly dodgy.
Now he never trusts girls in designer,
They all get pissed off in the end.
You can't love a girl who loves shoes more,
Than she loves her drunken boyfriend.

HAVE A GOOD UN LADS! CHEERS!