Creation (of) Records

 I've been busy lately, releasing a CD and publishing a chap book. Read all about them here...

Early last year, I was stuck fast. Enveloped in a noxious miasma of despair and doom, I seemed trapped forever in a world without hope. Speeding towards 60, it seemed as if my life was starting to end. And then, courtesy of the efforts of my wonderful partner Shelley, I escaped. Or rather, should I say, she helped to free me from the choking quicksand of mental and physical ill health, putting me back on the path to a promising future and able, for the first time in decades, to savour the enjoyable present. Since May 2022, I’ve dropped a couple of stones, continued to play cricket (however poorly) for Tynemouth 3s, reawakened my love of Percy Main Amateurs and, finally to the point of this article, pushed the pedal of my creative overdrive to the floor.

Half a century ago, I hatched my twin artistic ambitions: before I died, I wanted to release a record and publish a book. In a few weeks I turn 59, so my initial target, as well as the revised one of before I turned 60, both have been met. Last year, not coincidentally around the same time as Shelley and I got together, I found a whole new circle of friends, ironically including loads of pals I’d known off and on for over 30 years, among the no audience underground scene, mainly involved, either closely or tangentially, with TQ magazine. Andy Wood, whose brainchild TQ is, put me in touch with Chris Bartholomew, a multi-instrumentalist polymath whose compositional and organisational skills leave me completely in awe. After a few sunny afternoon pints late last May, we hit First Avenue rehearsal rooms in Heaton, to thrash out 3 instrumental improvisations and 3 spoken word pieces, with Chris’s astonishing electronic wizardry in the background. These became our set for TQ Live at the Lit and Phil last August and, following the substitution of 2 different spoken word pieces for one that was too silly and another that was too brutal, our debut album Dresden Heist. You can get this direct from me via PayPal to iancusack@blueyonder.co.uk or via Bandcamp at the following link: https://bartholomewcusack.bandcamp.com/album/dresden-heist  From both sources, you can get the thing for a fiver. If you want the CD; hurry up as we’ve less than half a dozen left.

I’m incredibly proud of this release. It is, without a doubt, the realisation of a dream I’ve harboured for almost my entire conscious life and, without being arrogant or boastful, it isn’t half bad, as it certainly does what I wanted it to do; showcase Chris’s incredible compositional skills and my bizarre verbal imagination, as well as hiding my incompetence on the guitar.

As regards being a writer, back in 2010, I achieved the status of being a published author when Village Voice, my account of Percy Main FC’s 2009/2010 campaign hit the shelves. If you missed out on this magnum opus, drop me a line: I’ve still got plenty left and you’ve welcome to one, free, gratis and for nowt. While being pleased with both the final product and the reception Village Voice received, I soon realised that however much I enjoyed seeing my factual words in print, it was in the realms of fiction and poetry where I sought most to make my name. Hand on heart, I don’t truly feel I have a novel within me. My stories are about characters, not events and not ideas. I write about people and places; some real and some based on reality. This means, mainstream publishers probably have little or zero interest in what I have to offer. Hence, unless there is a sudden spark of my imagination that sends me off on the route of long form fiction, self-publishing is the only route to go down if I want a collection of my own work to appear.

This became a burning desire, equal to that of putting out some music, as I longed to go beyond the situation whereby I have been able to present my poetry and fictional prose to the wider world via a series of magazines and periodicals over the past 25 years. Indeed, I also edited and published the lit zine glove for 10 issues from 2015 up until last year. Sadly, a foul-up with my printer, who somehow failed to produce the booklets on time, saw the time specific issue #11 rendered redundant. This was, in my opinion, a sign that glove had run its course and consequently, it was time for me to publish my own collection of poetry and prose. Consequently, I am now proud to announce that Violent Heterosexual Men is now available for £3 via PayPal to iancusack@blueyonder.co.uk

Containing 4 previously published pieces and 19 hitherto unseen compositions, Violent Heterosexual Men leaves me in the curious position of having literally zero unpublished poems and short stories in my creative locker. However, I do have a plan for the future and that doesn’t just include a short story about taking the 22 from the Fossway to Byker Morrison’s to get some shopping in for Unpopular Fat Simon, but one that involves the purchase of an iPad and the subsequent creation of a solo album. At the moment, plans include: a version of You Are My Sunshine, sung by Shelley and I, accompanied by a music box, recordings of the musical doorbell at my late parents’ house playing The Star Spangled Banner and La Marseillaise on the day I handed over the keys as backing tracks for spoken word pieces They Killed My Hair (written in 1979, incidentally) and Where is Bryan Connors? A hideously mangled recording of my spoken word piece Universe of Life is a definite, while I hope the two rejected BARTHOLOMEW cusack pieces My Name is Diana and Gary & Julie can be resurrected and repurposed. Finally, an Irish themed piece that includes my sean nos versions of Wexford, Spancill Hill and Rocks of Bawn is something I’m absolutely dying to record. However, all this will wait until I’ve bought an iPad, downloaded Garageband and sold the remaining copies of Dresden Heist.

After that lot is out the way, my next project will be completing my set of all 42 Scottish league grounds. Only 16 left, with Dundee on the horizon…