the earth is flat

 

On a gloriously sunny afternoon back in May 2022 Andy Wood, Tyneside experimental music paterfamilias and editor of the wondrous TQ magazine, introduced me to Chris Bartholomew, genius composer and electronics wizard. This meeting, which involved a passionate discussion of the life and works of Cornelius Cardew, resulted in an agreement to collaborate on sounds and words that gave birth to two live performances, at the Lit & Phil in August 2022 for a TQ Live event and The Lubber Fiend on Easter Saturday 2023 (attendance: 2), as well as the Dresden Heist CD and a track on the Wormhole World Christmas 2023 CD compilation, under the moniker of BARTHOLOMEW cusack. We recorded the tracks for the CD in Chris’s back bedroom, my front room, and his studio space at the John Marley Centre. While I proved the words and guitar noise, Chris did the real heavy lifting, creating electronic soundscapes and producing the final edit of a CD that, amazingly, sold out. It is a period of my life that I look back on with tremendous fondness and a real sense of achievement, inspiring me to further creative endeavours.

My previous musical career was both brief and inglorious. For Christmas 1976, aged 12, I was given an acoustic guitar. Having just fallen in love with Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, I was delighted by this gift. I taught myself a few chords, but never, ever learned to play any songs, mainly on account of my utter inability in any accepted sense, but that didn’t bother me. Christmas 1978 saw me up my sonic assault strategy when I received a Woolworth’s telecaster copy and a beaten-up amp from Santa. It was time to form a band, which I did with friends Chris Dixon (guitar) and Rob Gosden (bass), augmented eventually by Andrew Wilkie (drums) and Carol Rushbrooke (voice and occasional saxophone). After initially calling ourselves The Modernists and Panic in the Park, we settled upon Pretentious Drivel as our name. During our 3 years of existence, we wrote a series of songs that reflected our evolving post-punk influences, from The Mekons and Gang of Four when we formed to Orange Juice and The Bunnymen when we split up but were mainly dull and derivative on the whole. Andrew and Rob were brilliant musicians, but the rest of us weren’t, which is what eventually drove us apart. Sadly, I have lost touch with them all. I hope they have had happy and productive lives.

After this, I was in a couple of short-lived experimental noise outfits that never went anywhere, before heading off to University in 1983, where I spent 3 years making a terrible racket in Exodus of Farmers, with Maggie Donnelly (bass), Roy Ballentine (drums), Eunice Patterson (keyboards) and subsequent Cassandra Complex and That Petrol Emotion bassist John Marchini (saxophone). When, with graduation looming, we called it a day, saying our goodbyes with a riotous version of The Velvet Underground’s We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together in The Derry Hotel, Portrush one Friday in mid-June 1986, it subsequently occurred to me that there was no point in me continuing to play guitar in any conventional way. I simply didn’t have the ability to be a “rock” guitarist so, with a couple of minor recidivistic episodes, I eventually gave up, sticking my guitar in the back of the wardrobe and concentrating on listening, voraciously, obsessively (that will never change) and writing, sometimes about music, but sometimes not.

I wouldn’t say I rediscovered an urge to compose, record and perform, as such ambitions never went away. Even during the 35 fallow years that followed the demise of Exodus of Farmers, it remained a longstanding dream of mine to eventually get back involved with music, at some level or other. I even bought myself a cheap bass and amp from one of my son Ben’s pals to mess about on, as I harboured a desire to somehow release a 7” single. As yet, this has not happened, but following the completion of the BARTHOLOMEW cusack project, I knew I had to record a solo album, which is why, 45 years to the day since I formed The Modernists with Chris Dixon on the 87 bus from Eldon Square to Newbiggin Hall, I have released The Earth is Flat. I’d like to tell you something about it.

Being in awe of Chris’s stunning array of gadgets and technical knowledge, I thought I’d need to invest in some new hi-spec gear to record it at home, in the shape of an iPad, pre amp, Shure mic and stand, not to mention the full Garageband programme. A quick skeg on line made me aware that I was talking the thick end of a grand for these new toys, which nearly knocked me sideways. A couple of quick conversations with my musical mentors and firm pals Paul Flanagan and Lee Dickson put my mind at rest. All I needed was to record stuff on my phone (I am the last known Blackberry user in the world) and download Audacity to mix the stuff, so that’s what I did. As a result I’ve made a no-fi, experimental noise album containing 9 songs and lasting 50 minutes that, while it could be better, is something I’m quite proud of.

1.      they killed my hair: Recorded in my back bedroom, this one dates back to memories of a forced haircut in February 1979, when the lyrics were written. I performed this on a broken toy ukulele that was put out of its misery with a hatchet and burned on Lee Dickson’s open fire in December 2023. I’d love to play this one live. 

2.      universe of life: The words for this piece were written in 1998 and published by Jim Gibson in Hand Job magazine in 2013. I came up with both the guitar and bass parts in 1982. Andy Wood hates one, but I think it’s my favourite on the whole album.

3.      where is bryan connors? Bryan Connors is a pal of William Florio, but I don’t know either of them. This piece was written in 2020, as a parody of the kind vacuous pretentious bollocks that passes for press releases in the New York art world. The backing was me messing around with the sound of a musical doorbell from my late parents’ old house on Audacity.

4.      richard richard richard: A friend of mine from my postgraduate days, the late, wonderful Steve Potter, was a cut-up obsessive. He’d do it with words and, latterly, with sounds. The words here came from an unknown Radio 4 play, broadcast in May 1988. I’ve no idea when I wrote the bassline, but it could have been back in 1981. My step daughter Chloe loves this one.

5.      usa: Thanks to Paul Flanagan for this one. He rescued the original loop of my voice and the opening bars of Springsteen’s Born in the USA, which I’d committed to cassette in July 1988. I spent an enjoyable Sunday manipulating this on Audacity.

6.      francis robson: Francis Robson is a musician, painter and cricket afficionado, living out in the back of beyond down the Tyne Valley. He composed, arranged and performed the music for this piece, and I augmented it with a Minions fart gun toy. Being honest, I wish I’d left it off the album for another piece, Words are Dead, but there you go. I sincerely hope to collaborate with Francis again in the future.

7.      tri amhran: The title is Irish for “three songs,” which is what this piece is supposed to be. Andy Wood loves this one. A musical backing of bodhran, lilting and Amhran na bhFiann slowed down and stretched, accompanies my attempt at sean nos versions of Wexford, Rocks of Bawn and Spancil Hill. It’s dedicated, with love and respect, to Pecker Dunne, Joe Heaney and Shane McGowan.  

8.      women: Other than Bloody Revolutions, this was always my favourite Crass song. I don’t regard this as a cover version per se, but as an interpretation of or homage to the original.

9.      you are my sunshine: My partner Shelley has a beautiful voice. Here she is demonstrating this at the end of our Christmas Lunch. Sorry I join in to spoil it.

So, there you go. If you’d like a copy it’s £5 via PayPal to iancusack@blueyonder.co.uk or you can get it from my Bandcamp account, https://bartholomewcusack.bandcamp.com/album/the-earth-is-flat - if you add an extra couple of quid, I’ll send you a copy of my poetry and fiction booklet Violent Heterosexual Men as well.

What I’d love to do next is play live. Getting gigs has been almost impossible since I started making noise again. I also intend to do another album at the end of this year (I turn 60 in august), which will feature field recordings and AI voices.

Thanks for reading, now please buy the thing…