Village Green Machine

A couple of Nembutal and then bed

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 18:35:25 +0000 GMT

I have just witnessed a most disturbing thing. A young lady ran out into the rain, only to run straight back to the man she was with. How romantic I thought, at which point she set about him hitting as hard as she could, with the words "you effing bastard", as if he were responsible for the rain, perhaps. This outside the hotel bar. The tone of the place has gone down terribly in recent times. Mind you, I was embarrassed years ago when Diana, Princess Of Wales visited the place. It has chandeliers purchased in bulk from Woolworth's lighting department, with glass bulbs which emulate melting candle wax, but end up looking like something else entirely. I recently congratulated them on their serving of food in an original fashion (they serve burgers and chips on slate) but said that serving it rubbed into the chairs was perhaps going a little far. I complained about a number of things, including the piped music, which is a nullifying blend of pan pipes and trance. The manager Mr Patel replied that it is chosen because it appeals to the widest audience possible, I replied back saying that on the contrary, it was so bland it was bound to offend absolutely everyone. Having sent this email I realised it is in fact Asian music, oh dear. I said as well that it had probably alleviated the rodent problem by boring all the mice to death. Still, I told him I was looking forward to a session on the sofa he tells me has recently been re covered.

Earlier in the week I visited ****** Park, a place where the most extraordinary things occur. Nobody believes me I suppose when I talk about the people who chant furiously in the woods, in ever intensifying rumination on some matter of esoteric significance. No, it's not a My Bloody Valentine concert. I have seen one kneeling down, I think in front of two others while one of those standing jigged up and and down as though a lightening bolt were passing through him, all three incanting while dressed head to foot in white robes. I hid behind a tree peering out from behind it with alarmed fascination. Then they all drive off in a Ford Sierra. The park, over the years, has been a place where I have seen all sorts. There is a deflated female doll abandoned. It's some of what is written on a fallen tree which opens my eyes. In the hollow of this tree I noticed a magazine with 1960s style lettering on one of the pages, the print style very much resembling the Village Green Machine logo I have been toying with. http://villagegreenmachine.com/ On closer inspection I found it to contain the most profane (vintage) images, including some of "ladyboys". These are of course men who have grown breasts, or are they women who have developed male genitalia? I really don't know. I have also noticed little square packets with the edges torn off, and an empty blue and white tube of toothpaste. At least that's what I think it was. Police are known to ride on bicycles through these woods. What was that song, about the hunter being captured by the game? ? ? I've heard about these police, some of them don't know when to stop. I also, and I swear this is the truth, saw an enormous pair of women's psychedelic frilly knickers strewn across a bollard, left as if to be rediscovered by their owner. I could think of a number of people to whom this expensive, tasteful item of attire could belong, some of them women. Other surreal sightings have occurred over the years...

A man regularly walked there who always held his hand up, I mean all the time, like a policeman stopping traffic. Then there was the lesbian dog training class, I know you think I'm making this up but I'm not. At least army fitness training takes place there, to add a semblance of normality. This did not, however. prevent a man from skipping in Wellington boots the last time I was there. He had short, bright copper coloured hair and a dog on a lead. Turning away from this rather surrealistic vision I saw a 4 by 4 being driven from the park by a dalmatian dog.

Actually it didn't have it's paws on the wheel but that is the only lie I have told.

Mark Lemon

Village Green Machine

A couple of Nembutal and then bed

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:36:16 +0000 GMT

One thing I don't do is bullshit to get what I want. I hate slick operators, or at least I hate that manipulative agenda which lies behind what people put forward of themselves. It's slimy. Best to be real. We all want something, that is undeniable. I am tired of obsequious people. Gushing displays of "love", which are in fact nothing more than self serving platitudes to secure what the person offering them requires. Falsity stinks like a plastic sheet used for yesterdays bunk up. Of course, good intentions do exist. There is someone at the moment, who is offering me and my band Village Green Machine, unconditional support, I like that so much. And I am asking for that support, and it is coming and it just reaffirms my faith in human nature, the human nature of a few who have the propensity to give. Thankyou to the good fellow, he's in a cool band who are on the rise.

I made a lot of records after the Village Green Machine album England's Dreaming Spires. There is a considerable body of work, it is like a visual artist adding the final touches to a hundred paintings, as since the first album I have been recording and producing all the time, with the support of David Taylor who always engineers my production and recording ideas. I see this as celebratory, it is an achievement. It has been 4 years since we got the first album together. Bearing in mind we have worked constantly on music, a lot has been achieved in that time, and very little has so far been released, but it will be.

Making these records as they were once called, I have had to start from the bottom, ie writing a decent song. Then, what is the drum rhythm to be? Ok, the groove goes like this, the bass drum goes like this, it has to be spot on. Now, what about the instrumentation? Maybe, put some 12 string acoustic down. Where are the hooks on all the instruments going to be placed in the track? I have to think on my feet. Making a record is all about judgement. Sometimes, on recent recordings, I have gone for an easy formula. Put the 12 string rhythm acoustic down, then fill in between the vocal lines with some rock & roll hooks, this approach gives a Kinks influenced result, as it seems this is what Dave did with Ray's songs. But of course I don't copy Dave's -parts, I just follow the idea he had. I think I did 2 songs along these lines, The Likely Girls and the song about the Elvis impersonator. It's a simple format which works, but with so many other possibilities for making a successful piece of work, I wouldn't stick to this formula. I don't think the records I make are dull because there is so much experimentation, which is as it should be.

Every recording is a battle. I know very well the great music i have to compete with, and aim to match it. I do the best I can to reach the high standards of the old pop records I have always loved. It's always a challenge. But I won't settle for less than my best. I wasn't here to piss around, music is my life, I love great popular music and aim to match it. Someone sent me a card saying "you're the greatest", it touches me but I can't go around believing that, if I did I could get complacent and we all know the effect that has on the once great. Many of my heroes sank, I hate naming names but the greats really churned out some stinkers. It's betraying the art. If it is below par, don't release it.

Mark Lemon

Village Green Machine

http://villagegreenmachine.com/

A couple of Nembutal and then bed

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:21:30 +0000 GMT

I have flirted with the idea of open honesty. Whatever one may think of him, the recently deceased Michael Winner was not reticent where personal honesty was concerned. I quite respect him for that, not a man to keep cards close to his chest, more someone who spoke without censor. Another honest man who edited little from his personal proclamations was Tory MP Alan Clarke, I read his diaries, he was "a character" as all who know who I'm referring to will surely agree. I remember years ago, he had had it off with a judges wife and both (I think) the judges daughters, which caused a furore when his diaries were published, the irate judge storming through press cameras at the airport, returning to Britain to confront the mess. It amused me that in the foreward to his diaries, Mr Clarke said in stony faced seriousness that certain episodes had been edited from his diaries in order to protect the feelings of certain individuals. Lord only knows what he left out, what he didn't was hair raising enough. He didn't set out to be likeable but as he said himself, the diaries were truth, evidently this itself was a true statement and in a world of artifice I rather like this.Alan Clarke interests me as a person, in as much as he had the resolve and courage not to tow the right wing Tory line at the expense of his true feelings and beliefs. He was "a toff", but unusually, idiosyncratically, stood firm for animal rights and was vegetarian. He adored Margaret Thatcher, he found her an erotic figure of great power, approaching her on the matter of stopping the fur trade. He was a right wing man, the most powerful person in the country perhaps to be able to tackle the then Prime Minister head on on the issue. She didn't listen to him, but he had a go. Clarke was a walking outrage not because he was particularly outrageous perhaps, more because he allowed people to see who he actually was. He could be a shit, as his bereaved wife said. But I never lost respect for him.

I had a firm following for my blog which ceased a couple of years back. Of course, I am a musician, songwriter, a mid 60s garage/pop/mod/folk rock/psychedelic music influenced person. It could well be asked, what has a blog like this to do with the music I make with Village Green Machine, my band. Well, I have no idea.

Another overlooked part of the tapestry of British eccentricity, that most unfashionable of things, was the old queer Quentin Crisp. Not drawn to the company of overtly effeminate males, I was drawn to Crisp as was my friend Dave Kusworth, rocker extraordinaire. Dave liked that Quentin said that cleaning the house was a waste of time, and that after all the dirt gets no worse after 4 years. Like Crisp, he has always worn velvet jackets, which somehow are an extremely good thing to wear, especially if they are black. Anyway, Quentin was a genius of depth and humour, not outrageous merely for his openly gay stance but, once again, for his uncensored expressions of true opinion. A sage, a genius in my opinion. Not for the intellectually challenged or immature. In 1935 he walked the streets in gold open toed sandals with painted toe nails, courageous in the face of violence. He wasn't the last of the great eccentrics, though.

:)) I like to write a blog. I don't know if my views are necessarily of interest, but I hope the reader derives something worthwhile for time invested in reading. What if, just if, I say absolutely anything I want to say, without worrying for what purpose, or if my views are acceptable? Give me courage Lord, you see if we did actually turn ourselves inside out, wouldn't people find that more interesting than out current state of revealing merely what is considered appropriate? Also, in these extremely politically correct times, many are snipping themselves down to a new kind of self, an acceptable self. I find that sinister. I call it mind control. I don't like it. I can think for myself.I am going to BE MYSELF.

My brother Keith Lemon (yes really) is a good example of outrage through personal authenticity. The police never understood him. As a boy, aged 27 he put lighted fireworks on a neighbours front room window sill, and claims that he stole their car and drove it around the block, getting it back on the drive before they found it missing. An MS sufferer, I saw him spread the legs of a Cindy doll, ramming it to his groin declaring "we mustn't hide our true feelings". He, incipiently disabled, I saw staggering around his flat in his wife's size 9 stiletto shoes. He has kept money in his fridge, and...this is where the Village Green Machine bit comes in...once bought around 40 crystals and shoved them down his underpants, believing they would increase the size of his tool LOL. You don't believe me do you, or do you? I wrote a song about this. It sounds like Syd Barrett, no actually Van Morrison, singing an early Monkees/Neil Diamond song, it's called Mister, Plug over.

Keith has always been interesting. Sentenced briefly to a spell in respite care, he came back with impersonations of some of the people in a really bad state there. "Aaaaahhhwroughaaaaaaahhhhh" and that's just when they wanted more milk on their cornflakes. He says he thinks the Para Olympics are sick. He thinks a certain broadcasting organisation is run by a politically correct elite. And the trouble I've had with him at the supermarket...he snatched something and smuggles it through the checkout...also insisted on me going in the wheelchair while he attempted to push, I fell out in the path of an oncoming car, it's brakes screeched to a halt as a horrified pedestrian ran to our aid. A subject like Keith, my brother, is simply too good to pass up, as a realist songwriter. He complained about the first 20 rows of car parking space being reserved for the disabled " are they expecting a coachload from the cripples convention". Honestly.

Mark Lemon

Village Green Machine

Inside Out

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:24:31 +0000 GMT

How much of what we perceive of our rock & roll idols is real, how much is actually the manipulation of our perceptions, by them, by photographers, and by other image makers involved in their marketing? How much of our perception of others in general is manipulated by their deliberate endeavours to create a perception? I have seen all these poseurs. It loses me. Maybe one's artifice is the reality. (I hope I'm wrong). "It" has to come from within. I think some performers in music emanate something real, certainly in music. They seem to be the best ones; nothing substantial can come from anywhere other than within.

Maybe it gets interesting when a performer concerns themselves no more with appearances, and is true. There have to be many examples. Some, I suppose, are very good fakers. And actually I respect those who admit to adopting a persona; David Bowie was very transparent, admitting to creating characters, and even admitting he got them muddled up in the end. But I still think he was a great artist. Freddy Mercury, that was a stage persona. I could never stand it, but at least he admitted it was a persona. It is just no good getting up on stage and trying to fake anything, if one adopts a persona that is a different matter because that is honest, in as much as the performer admits it is an act. I think Bruce Springsteen did this. So it seems we either have to be real or adopt a stage personality.

Lou Reed said he had had enough of his junkie faggot trip, and later said he loved the character on the cover of Transformer, but that it was not him. Actually, like many of us, I always absolutely believed in the Velvet Underground, and still do. I think they were too young to cynically contrive - they wanted to look great and did, and told true stories. Every serious musician wants to look great. There are some who feel presentation is unimportant, ok I respect that, but in popular music, no. The look has to count, and it is no good if it is insincere or worse stuck on by some image making dept. If it is manufactured, let it be good. I think The Monkees sometimes looked great, I hate those damn button up red shirts, but half the time they looked great. Surely, as hip young men in a Beatles influenced America, they would have dressed pretty cool anyway. So maybe there wasn't much manufacturing in their look. Maybe the friends I thought were lying in their image presentation were and are actually telling the truth about who they are, presenting true identities.

The mod identity is a carefully observed thing, but most mods, know the rules. Some may be DNA Groove orientated dandies, others suffice with stylish Fred Perry polo shits. Maybe a nice Harrington. I know there is true identity in this. But I also know some rockers as well, half those people were just dressed up and along for the ride a little bit, i'm sorry to say. In fairness maybe all sought an identity outside the mainstream. Of course the dichotomy has always been, something like this. It's late at night, I've had 4 drinks, but i'll try to explain this. Rock & roll musician rebels against societies values, but wants to make lots of money, now NOBODY surely to god is going to buy this. There probably aren't any thickos reading this, but just incase there are I'll elaborate. Rock & roll is a vehicle of rebellion. So one jumps aboard. "Fuck money, fuck society and it's shallow values". ok. But then of course it is simply impossible to escape the need for money, and the attraction of having plenty. Ie, wouldn't ot be nice to buy this or that. So forget rock & roll, not an anachronistic term incidentally, as a vehicle for rebellion against the values of our secular materialist society. I think the points I am making are banal to some reading, but not to all perhaps.

Actually a lot of the cooler musicians are probably staging an aesthetic rebellion, an artistic rebellion and of course making sometimes profound artistic statements. Miles Davis springs to mind. Yeah that's 100 years ago but you know me, I look back. Now, I expect he wanted a cool car and overcoat. Picasso, universally highly regarded bohemian, had at least 50p in the bank. So could it just be, that musicians could make extraordinary music, music of validity and current energy, maybe break new boundaries, or as in the case of my band village Green Machine drag everyone back into the future, without rebelling particularly against society. You know I can't stand these cheesy people who pretend they are rebelling against societies money orientated nature but are really straight, they really get right on my tits. I'd love some money. You are really, very nice looking, and likeable. So bear with me one sec while I find another drink, and ~I might have to have a little ciggie as well which is really bad news as someone incredibly cool, talented and famous is ringing me tomorrow and it's nearly 4. am. Hold on where's that drink and fag. It is here. Paul Weller made a point in line with the one I am making, re Syd Barrett. He said that people perceived Syd as the figure on the cover of the first Floyd Lp, not sentient of the pain he went through. I don't know Paul but, i think he is an example of someone who turns his insides out while making sure his outsides look good too, this has to be the way to go. All music has to be soul music or it counts for nothing. x ML

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