Between Dog and Wolf - New Model Army

Between Dog and Wolf is an excellent documentary about New Model Army, following the band from their early days in Bradford to the current day and with many of their best tracks packed into the soundtrack.

I'm always struck by the band's refusal to compromise their artistic or political integrity and their ability to channel their anger about social and environmental issues into powerful, engaging music that keeps winning them new fans 30 years on. Their sound, which started off as post-punk rage in the 1980s has mellowed over the years, though the political engagement is as strong as ever.

After seeing the film the other day at The Filmhouse, we bought the CD album Between Dog and Wolf, which proves very clearly that this is a band that is not content to rest on their laurels but who are continuing to produce brilliant music, most notably the title track and the powerful protest against environmental destruction Tomorrow Came 

As we slashed and we burned and laid waste to it all
to the glory and the vanity of rock and roll
Saying I want it all, give me more and more
As our children stood in silence and watched us
And now pray God they'll forgive us

And given that I'm reading a lot about wolves at the moment, I just love the whole concept that is summed up in the phrase Between Dog and Wolf - the space between domestication and wildness, between our best friend and our greatest enemy.

Excellent film and a great album from one of the best bands around. 

The film is showing tonight at the Star and Shadow Cinema in Newcastle. For future screenings, check out the New Model Army website and scroll down.

New Model Army are also a great band to see live (we saw them a couple of years ago) and if you want to see where they're appearing next check out this page.

Worth also mentioning the band's close collaboration with Joolz Denby, poet, tattoist and artist, who creates all the wonderful artwork for the band's CD sleeves.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more. 

New Arrivals Volume 5

I love music but rarely blog about it, but New Arrivals Volume 5 gives me a perfect opportunity!

NAV 5 is the latest in MPress Records' compilation series, which showcases established and indie artists while raising funds and awareness for worthy causes. 100% of all funds collected from the sale of NAV5 benefit three NYC-based charities that are still continuing to provide Hurricane Sandy Relief: The Red Hook Initiative (Brooklyn), Project Hospitality Staten Island Hurricane Relief Fund (Staten Island), and Graybeards (The Rockaways).

Hurricane Sandy was the second costliest hurricane in US history, killing at least 286 people seven countries. Devastating storms like this are likely to become more common across the world as climate change continues to disrupt the world's weather systems. 

Of course, musical compilations can't stop climate change, but they can raise awareness and they can help to support people whose lives have been devastated by extreme weather events.

^NAV5 features a variety of tracks from international indie talent including: UK folk-pop artists Polly Paulusma and Stephen Langstaff; NYC singer-songwriters Lucy Wainwright Roche and Ari Hest  and a bonus track by Grammy® Winner Paula Cole. I didn't recognise any of the artists, but that doesn't matter as I always enjoy discovering new music, particularly when it's for a good cause and this is a very listenable album. 

<sup>You can buy NAV5 or any of the New Arrivals compilations here. NAV5 is available digitally from tomorrow (29 October) and physically on 14 January 2014. Alternatively you can pre-order a physical copy of NAV5.

Cross-posted to my website. 

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post, Mpress Records contacted me via Blogdash. 

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.</sup>  

Getting musical on Etsy!

I've just added two new items to the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop:

a descant recorder and a vintage handmade wooden Polish flute.

To complement these I just put together a musical themed Etsy treasury of music related items made by other Etsy sellers.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Poetry in the branches of revolutionary trees

Normally I go to at least a few events during the Edinburgh Festival season, but this year I hadn't gone to anything. Today though I won a ticket to an evening of Egyptian poetry and music at Edinburgh International Book festival.

The poetry came from Amin Haddad and the music from Eskenderella (you can see some of their music videos on YouTube here). Eskenderella are one of the foremost revolutionary bands in Egypt and they perform musical settings of many Egyptian poets, historic and contemporary but for tonight they performed solely their settings of Haddad's poetry.

The poetry was in Arabic with English translations (by Professor Marilyn Booth) showing on the screen behind the musicians. The opening poem was about Bread and this was a theme that wound through the rest of the poems, along with the blood of the martyrs and themes of solidarity and freedom. I was fascinated by the walking, talking trees, a seemingly silly piece of whimsy on one level but a powerful metaphor for political freedom on another level. Likewise the flying horses that gathered children to safety. All through the poetry, trees, moon and sun seemed to be participating in the creation of poetry and there were many beautiful phrases.Thanks to Edinburgh International Book Festival's Twitter feed I can rememeber at least this one:

Poetry is the startled heartbeat when the danger siren goes

Powerful rousing music to accompany the words. Played on ouds (a pear shaped instrument related to the guitar), a wonderful variety of drums, with bass guitar and keyboard.

There was a standing ovation and, possibly for the first time in the history of Edinburgh International Book Festival, an encore.

Eskenderella have an album coming out soon, it will be worth checking out, but if you ever get the chance to see them live, take it.

Thanks to Edinburgh International Book Festival for my ticket for this event, which I won via a competition on Twitter.

Unthinkable Skies CD launches!

The CD of Unthinkable Skies, which features my poetry set to music by Belvedere Mountain Express is now available as a download from CD Baby, or as a home-made (and beautifully packaged) CD-R from here.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Unthinkable Skies - the musical

On Wednesday, I picked up a sample copy of the CD of poetry from my chapbook Unthinkable Skies with music from Belvedere Mountain Express. It looks pretty good, doesn't it? The cover photo is the same as was used for the cover of the book and currently also features in the header of this blog, although it's a different detail of the photo in each case. It was taken in Caerlaverock in Dumfries and Galloway. You can see the original photo in this post. Howard of Belveder Mountain Express has done a great job in recording and mixing the CD (as well as composing and playing the music) and in designing and making the packaging (which includes the words to all the featured poems along with photos I've taken. The CD will be available from Monday 20 June from CD Baby, probably only as a download.

for Weekend Reflections

Meanwhile you can still buy Unthinkable Skies, the chapbook here.

Plus, I've had a couple of poems published recently:

Photo Album on Generations of Poetry (you probably need to scroll down to read it)

Alpine on Four and Twenty

Summer Courses

You can now book for my two summer courses at the Office of Lifelong Learning, University of Edinburgh!


10am - 4pm Monday 1 August Creative Writing Inspired by Nature to be held at the Water of Leith Visitor Centre. You can find out more and book a place here.


10.30am - 3.30pm Monday 8 August and Tuesday 9 August, Introduction to the Water of Leith. You can find out more and book a place here.


In other news, I'm delighted that one of my haiku (you can read it here) has been set to music by Tom Cipullo as part of his Insomnia cycle, which will premier at this concert of the Mirror Vision Ensemble at the Weill Recital Hall in the Carnegie Hall, New York on 24 May.



As ever, text in red takes you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Cauldstane Slap

Cauldstane Slap is the new CD from Belvedere Mountain Express and very good it is too! The first thing you notice is the cover, which features stunning photos of the snowy Pentland Hills near Edinburgh. In fact the area where the Cauldstane Slap Pass passes between the East and West Cairn Hills.

The cover photo complements the music perfectly, which is itself quite wintry in feel (of course this is complemented again by the current weather!). The music is a wonderful mix of accordion (which despite reminding me of the soundtrack of a South American film still manages to feel wintry here) electronic music and odd noises, including a rather manic sounding ticking clock (or possibly metronome) on the track Fireflies. All the music is performed by Howard Goodman. Some tracks feature the ethereal vocals of Becky Rose Fisher.

The title track is rather menacing in mood, which evokes the history of Cauldstane Slap - a drovers road that used to be known also as "The Thieves Road”. Border Reivers, Moss Troopers (bandits) and robbers galloped through the pass on night raids. Wrapped in their plaids and armed, drovers slept with their herds and flocks, to defend them.

The last track on the album The Last Livonian features a recording of the last native speaker of the Livonian language (formerly spoken in Latvia and currently being revived) complemented perfectly by the music.

Cauldstane Slap by Belvedere Mountain Express can be bought here.

As ever red text contains hyperlinks where you can find out more.

Monday Bunny - Mocca the Musical Bunny

Mocca is the resident bunny and mascot for Belvedere Mountain Express. She is a large and friendly French lop who lets me play with her and talk to her before I record my poems. Mocca isn't allowed in the recording studio itself, all those wires, but waits patiently outside. I'm impressed how agile a bunny she is for one so large, she enjoys leaping onto the sofa where she has a special blanket that she digs at and chews.

I had hoped to take some photos of Mocca when I visited, but my camera broke so here's a link to Howard's gallery of Mocca photos on Flickr.

I have been recording a number of poems recently with musical accompaniment that Howard specially composed for the launch of my poetry chapbook Unthinkable Skies. We're hoping to make an EP featuring musical settings of some of the poetry from the chapbook. Three poems have been set to music specially composed and two have been set to pre-existing tracks. You can listen to the latter two on the Belvedere Mountain Express Myspace Page (scroll down a bit in the musical box to hear them).

More about the Musical Collaboration

All the poems that I recorded with Belvedere Mountain Express are now up on Myspace (you can find them here - you will need to scroll down to find them all!). I thought this would be a good opportunity to say a bit about how we worked on the collaboration. When I joined Myspace, I noticed that Belvedere Mountain Express (an electronic musical project of Golebnik, who sometimes comments here) were 'looking for a female vocalist or poet'. I've often liked the idea of working with a musician. So I listened to Belvedere Mountain Express' music and we met up to discuss how we could work together. At that stage, I was thinking 'this is music I could really work with' but nothing more specific! I knew though, that I must be able to work with the track 'Aux Champs des Lapins' (In the Fields of the Rabbits), so I gathered together all my rabbit haiku and scattered them through the music. I also thought about the titles of the other tracks and tried to match them with existing poems of mine, to narrow down the poems I would try to fit in the music. From there it was a process of listening to the music over and over and fitting the words in. City Empire is an existing poem and I just fitted it to the track, whereas A Vow in the Blue Belltower was the existing title of the track and I edited a poem I was working on to fit it.

The greatest challenge was how to fit short poems into long musical tracks! We're both very pleased with how it all turned out, and judging from comments here and on Facebook, so are several other people! While you're visiting Belvedere Mountain Express on Myspace, do listen to their other music, they've got some excellent tracks!

Green Music

I don't blog about music very often, but anyone who knows me over at Myspace knows that I love music!

Since joining Myspace I've found it much easier to keep in touch with whats happening in the local music scene, just as I have strangely not found it to help me to keep up to date with my favourite artists from abroad. As I've been going out more regularly to small venues, listening to local bands I realise that there's something environmentally friendly about this. The local band is likely to travel a relatively short distance in a minibus rather than halfway across the world in a private jet or even in a regular plane. Small venues can't afford energy intensive lighting and special effects. Many small venues in Edinburgh serve a selection of local brewed real ales rather than just imported alcoholic drinks.

Going out to see music means you can switch off your heating and music centre at home and share the venue's heating and sound system. It's even better if you walk to the venue or get the bus.

I then got to thinking about other aspects of the music business, these thoughts come straight from the top of my music collection, I'm sure there will be many more artists out there doing similar things:

Some bands (such as Sigur Ros and Indigo Girls) have packaged CDs entirely without plastic or have greatly reduced the amount of plastic in their packaging

Some bands (such as Indigo Girls and Bruce Coburn) sing environmentally themes songs

Some bands (such as Sigur Ros and Green Day) are involved in environmental campaigning.


for Think Green Thursdays