Frost* Music

Ladies and gentlemen, the time draws near…

Sorry sorry sorry! I know I’ve been missing in action for some weeks now. There’s been much to do both at home and at the coalface and, as usual, the clock is starting to tick on what now lies in front of me. Autumn is always a pressure time because the world gets back from it’s hols and get focussed on the run up to Christmas. Sounds weird I know, but in meedja-land, we’re virtually breaking out the sherry and mince pie job sheets from the moment September gets her voluminous skirts into position.

In last weekend’s Observer mag, dear old Nigel Slater was already opining the onset of Autum, albeit at 6am in his Islington garden via his nose. Seems that when we finally do get a reasonable summer, we then can’t wait to get shot of it so we can get the bonfire going and have some warming soup. Fine by me. It’s one of the reasons I could never live somewhere like L.A. I need the seasons. They mark time like nothing else.

And then the random hoves into view…Completely out of the blue 2 weeks ago I got an email from Mike Keneally (him guitarist out of Zappa’s “Broadway The Hard Way” era and subsequent sower and then harvester of some epically individual and spine tingling music) to ask whether I’d be interested in playing keys for Joe Satriani for two shows that he couldn’t make in the UK.

Turns out he’s off to play keys at the Steve Vai festival in Holland in October.

With Steve Vai.

So this is a guitarist. Who played with Zappa. Now playing keys for Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. Keys!!

Like playing the guitar isn’t bloody hard enough with a band leader like FZ, Mike has the headspace to also play full on keyboards with two of the most influential guitarists of the last two decades. Co-incidentally Nick d’Virgilio was in the Mike Keneally band for a while in the 90’s so I was able to get a vibe from Nick on the great man. Suffice to say he told me to not only bite his hand off, but also his arm and most of his shoulder physiognomy too.

Turns out it was Dave Gregory, ex of XTC and co-collaborator from Big big Train’s excellent album “The Underfall Yard” that very kindly put my name forward. I owe him quite a few beers I reckon. Dave, if you’re reading, name a time and place mate. Hell, I’ll even throw in some quality scran.

So to get the call has been a compliment of the highest order really and something I didn’t even for a minute even think that I could seriously think about turning down. I LOVE a challenge as you know and I will throw every centimetre of my being into not just landing this plane, but making sure it’s washed, valeted and every single passenger goes home with a goody bag filled with bespoke curly wurlys and Hugo Boss trinkets before delivering said plane to the hangar full of fuel, food, love and smelling of something lovely like Zooey Deschanel or a freshly opened box of Earl Grey Tea. Something you know is just as it should be, but at the same time is fleeting and should be treasured. I’ll be playing Glasgow on 22nd October and Brum on the 23rd with the boys. Why not pop down and yell “What-Ho!” at me during the quiet bits?

Bring it on!

In other news, I finished and delivered my Losers mix of “Sirenna (Today We See Colour)”. I’m shit knob banana horse chuffed with it and hope to get more involved in that scene again after a fairly long hiatus. Electronica, IDM or whatever you want to call it has been a very longstanding passion of mine. Indeed, it was the reason I lost touch with prog for 15 years in the 90’s and early 00’s. Musically it has the same sense of progression and adventure that prog had had in its heyday, but it actively and enthusiastically embraces modernity at the same time. I’d argue that it still has more pioneers like Jon Hopkins, Tim Exile, BT, Daedelus and Noisia for example, to lead the way than prog has at the moment and I am very much a card carrying enthusiast of my other musical passion.

Tonight is also the last night of my holiday. My two weeks off has felt like about 7 hours. I can’t believe I’m back to work on Monday. That said, I’ve had a minty mint time and despite being more knackered than I was before I took some time off (those of you with four kids under 5 years of age also on holiday with you will know what I mean) I do feel mentally refreshed and looking forward to the work ahead.

Not least of which is 1976 which I’ll get underway now. Then there’s the programming and pre-pro for the Summer’s End show – more on that in a later posting. Simultaneously, I’ll also have to get to work on Satch’s stuff whilst keeping an eye on prep the Frost Christmas shows. We have some very new and cool stuff lined up for those three December shows so I would and do urge you to nail your tickets soon if you’ve a mind to come see us. I know that most of the world’s drummers are coming down to catch Craig’s debut with us as a full time member plus those very nice chaps from Roland UK will be coming along too. In addition to this, l’il Johnny Mitchell has told me that My Passion are big Frost fans now and will be coming down to see us as well. I’m rather blown away by that to be honest. I’m hoping that we can support them for a few of their shows next year too all things being equal. I’ll get back to you on that one…

But with that in mind, regardless of the current turnout, I’d love these shows to be rammed so tell everyone you know who might be up for it to come down as well. Hopefully we can make them nights that get talked about in hushed tones for years to come.

Then we’re into 2011 and the new album and hopeful subsequent tour. So you see, it’s pretty much a full on run to the finish line this year and then headlong straight into the next bit of the story. Frost 3 – at last!

So. Deep breath, and…

Off we go…

It blew a farking gale here last night. I just needed to put that in writing for posterity. My neighbour came round to give me back my garden parasol that had apparently leapt 40 foot into the air, clean over the house on onto the roof my Wife’s car. T’was a shame that when he arrived I was wearing an old style nightshirt and a bowler hat at the time. He was cool about it.

Anyway, warming to the subject of bizarre texts from strangers, this morning I’ve been installing a plug-in for ProTools called Speakerphone. I had to show you this because I think it nicely sums up how we all feel about computer software. This is genuinely from the Speakerphone manual –

1. To install the Speakerphone samples please double click:

When the DVD samples installer gives an error, please create a folder on your desktop called DVD and then copy the entire content of this DVD (except for the audio ease movies folder) to the folder on the desktop and then run the installer from there. When this does not solve the problem please contact Audio Ease support.

Indeed.

My dear friend Nellie, my erstwhile Frost management cohort and all round proper proper good egg, whom most of you know I’m sure, sent this email to a US cookie cutter manufacturer for an asterisk design so that she may continue her fine tradition of making delicious progressive biscuits to be consumed at Frost/Esoteric gigs albeit in a slightly more bespoke way.

The following email exchange is 100% real I assure you –

From: Nellie
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010
To: rcpoulson@…
Subject: Custom cutter

Regards…
————————————————————————————-

“We look forward to hearing from you”…

I love it that a company can sincerely quote $130 for a cookie cutter. It makes me glad that there may still indeed be, albeit in a slightly strange way, some hope in the world.

Blimey, has it been nearly 2 weeks since I was last here? It feels like about 25 minutes. I guess it’s good to be busy and al that, but I have a feeling that I’ll suddenly look about me one day and realise I’m 65. I’ve got 2 acres of flowers here and I really do need to make more time to go and smell the f*ckers else this whole gig is for nothing isn’t it?

Well, my Mum’s been here for the last week. That segued into a big family wedding this weekend on Wife’s side of the family. Myne Wife has a family as large as the BP oil slick and when they decide to get into formation, it’s a formidable spectacle. We had people over from Italy, South America, Camberley… One guy was just getting over dengue fever. The groom (Wife’s cousin) is a renowned wildlife cameraman and is forever spending months in the most obscure and remote places filming strange and dangerous creatures mainly either shagging, beating the shit out of each other and then shagging or getting eaten by other larger creatures who then go on to do some shagging and/or fighting. He and his mates are forever picking up exotic diseases on their travels as a consequence, but they’re very cheerful about it. It’s a joy to behold really, they’re all dead posh, but dead hard, “This? bah, t’is but a scratch”, they opine as their mutilated leg falls from it’s socket…

It’s sort of like going on tour, only with more casual sex and mindless violence. This being prog, the most dangerous thing I ever got given was a stripey cup. Dangerous insomuch that if I dropped it, it might break and I might cut my finger on a sharp bit picking it up again. Prog. This is living on the edge people.

So yes. Been plenty busy. Setlists are pinging about us all for Summer’s End although Pete’s gone a bit quiet actually. ProTools sessions from the Kino album are allegedly winging their way Godfrey-wards so that I might pick them apart and incorporate them into the set. I’ve always wanted to get that little bit of radio noise at the then end of “Losers Day Parade” in there for live as well a few other choice moments. I kind of felt that Kino never quite got the live airing it deserved so I plan to really pull out the stops for this gig. The others are well up for it so I think we should do well on the night. As I mentioned before, we’ve also got a couple of choice Marillion tracks to do as well as 3 or so Frost* standards. All in all, I think those that come down on the Friday will witness something truly unique and very very special. A fair few Frosties are getting properly into the spirit of things and procuring WWII kit to wear. I completely love and admire that kind of commitment and above all, sprit of fun. These kind of gigs are the the ones that bands really really look forward to, a chance to play about, play some songs they might otherwise not get a chance to and to really be in partnership with the audience for the evening. There’s no “us and them”, it’s everyone together. The stuff of dreams really.

Speaking of “us and them” some of you will have noticed that our version of “Fanfare For The Common Man” failed to get on the cover CD. More to the point, the cover CD failed to get on the cover CD. This is because some pallid little men in non bespoke suits decided that money was more important than fun. Ironically these are the same people who go to festivals, simper about in their corporate hospitality enclosures and expect to be entertained by the very people who’s music they withhold from bands like us and magazines like Classic Rock Presents… who are only doing this with the best of intentions and with love and enthusiasm. It’s deeply small minded and utterly pathetic.

Furthermore, the Aaron Copland Estate have apparently made it clear that Fanfare For The Common Man is not to be covered in any way, shape or form and so I’m effectively legally banned from ever ever EVER playing it to anyone ever. So that’s nice. That’s a week of my life I won’t get back.

Anyway, on a cheerier note, I’m now gearing up to start work on MCMLXXVI. Hopefully it’ll be ready by the Autumn. All ten minutes of it…Then we can play it at Christmas!

Altogether now, “Summer breeze, she is…like a flower, I pay…by the hour and I like how it feels…”

I buried a chicken today. One of the Somerset 6 decided she’d had enough last night and carked in her box. She never laid a single bloody egg all the time she was here, so I guess it’s no great loss to the egg mayonnaise industry. The weird thing is, when I found her in her box, she’d spontaneously shed loads of feathers which I thought was an odd thing to do at the point of death. It’d be like humans suddenly having their hair fly off at the last minute. Great wigs of hair leaping into the sky just as the big man fixes you with his skeletal glare and shows you the exit. It would certainly make death a bit more entertaining to the casual onlooker and indeed aid paramedics greatly. “Is he dead?”, “Nah, still got the syrup intact, he’s going to be fine Mrs Stephenson”.

So I dug her a hole and lobbed the chicken in. Sayonara Señorita. I felt like one of the Krays. I did think about filming it as part of a Frost report whilst talking about something completely different. but I think that may have weirded some people out even though it would have been gloriously surreal.

Maybe next time…

In other news, the lovely Shawn Bishop at The Dividing Line has agreed to let me host my own show. A one-off, 2 hour affair due to be broadcast in about 8 weeks time, I shall take you, dear listener, on a journey around the kind of progressive music that floats my boat and indeed, led Frost to where it is today. Some of you will remember that I hail very significantly from a radio background having worked at BBC Radio 1 for a large part of my twenties, not to mention a stint at Virgin Radio as Production Director. I won a Promax award and a couple of Sonys in recognition of my contribution to UK radio in the 90′s. It was also where I learnt a great many things about girls, drugs and girls with drugs. Suffice to say I was a very very naughty boy indeed, but we’ll not go into that here…

I have spent many many hours in broadcast studios watching the DJ do his/her thing so it only seems fair and just that it’s finally my turn to spin the wheels of steel. Already I have a cracking playlist drawn up and I shall, of course, be doing my own jingles. Prog-a-doodle-mungous-grade-bade.

Thanks too, proper serious heartfelt thanks, must go to all the lovely people who have bought The Philadelphia Experiment. I hope very much that you like it. We’re now onto out second duplication run so it’s gone very well. The CD/T-Shirt offer pretty much sold out in 48 hours so I’m delighted that you’ve not forgotten us. Thank you all for your continued support chaps, it really does mean an incredible amount to me. This whole thing means bugger all without you all so I think it’s important that you know that I never forget that and that I’m very grateful you take the time to be my and the band’s friend. Thank you all very much indeed.

Which brings me nicely onto another bit of news, albeit slightly contradictory. Next year will see the 3d studio album from Frost released. It’ll be released on Inside Out. I shall still be recording music to release online, but there will also be a full length CD album to have and to hold by the end of next year or thereabouts. I don’t really have much more to say currently as I’ve not begun writing it yet, but it will signal a return to more Milliontown type output, albeit with a slight twist… My current feeling is that the new album will be comprised of three twenty minute pieces broken up into sections within themselves. The idea being that the additional tracks not on the album also form part of the storyline.

To some it might seem odd that I’m going back to the ways of the record company, but I’m actually utilising the best of both worlds by combining our release strategies. My aim is for Frost to reach out to new audiences and there’s no denying that Inside Out have open doorways into universes I can’t hope to reach from here. This new album is going to be quite ambitious so I need all the help I can get really. It also means that we can gig more next year. I want to get us back out to Europe and the USA to hook up with our friends there so if anybody is in touch with RosFest or Calprog or same such, tell ‘em I WANT to come and play at your festival in 2011.

Before that however, I shall be starting work on recording “1976″ for release in the Autumn. It’s shaping up to be about 10 minutes long and we’ll be playing it along with The Dividing Line at the Xmas shows. It’s all part of the album’s story thread, so in many ways I’ve already started this new album.

I’m also just getting stuck into my remix for Losers. It’s going to be a filthy little sonic ditty and no mistake guv’nor. Any fans of my alternative mix for Tina’s track Deep Ocean should find plenty to like I think.

But before any any any any of that will happen, I will go to Reading tomorrow with Nathan King, John Mitchell and Craig Blundell to drink wines, hang out and get planning. It’ll be day 1 for a brand new Frost* and there’s a whole world out there we’re bang up for taking on.

And we don’t want to hang about.

Words reaches me that far away somewhere, some young men who earn something like £80,000 a week are standing in a grassy field wondering what on earth they can do with it in order to directly benefit our nation.

I must say, farming sounds like it’s in rude health! Hurrah that finally the government are spending good money on bolstering UK exports and doing something positive to help the economic recovery.

And hurrah too for the cooking and sheep farming industry, from what I’ve seen on the front pages over the last few years, these young chaps like “roasting birds” and are surrounded by “wags”, presumably the happy playful puppies that will soon become an essential part of one of Britain’s oldest and most valued businesses of mutton husbandry. And who doesn’t like a roast on a Sunday eh? It’s part of our culture.

Anyway, back to things closer to home and I’m now getting started on planning for the Defence Of The Realm gig to be held in Lydney on October 8th, 2 days after my 39th birthday.

Yes, I know the whole shebang is 3 or so months away, but planning these things properly is important. For a start we need to make sure Pete Trewavas is comfortable with everything. He’s The Don after all. This is Pete Trewavas we’re talking about here, it’s not, to quote Douglas Adams, bloody Martin Smith from Croydon. Then there’s Craig “J” Blundell who’ll be making his debut in our world.

He’s currently running a brilliant competition to design his drum kit for the upcoming shows and for all future Frost gigs in 2011 (of which I plan for there to be a few btw…). Mapex have given the go ahead to allow Al Murray’s fantastic company Pimpco to customise Craig’s Mapex Orion kit. Sadly my “Penis With Balls Of Fire Atop An Iron Unicorn In The Representative Shape Of Steve Howe Commanding All Sea Beasts” has been ruled out due to my professional relationship with the drummer.

Shame really as it was a f*cking belter…

Here’s a new shot of us lot taken a few weeks ago. It was a lovely afternoon spent mucking about on Mitchell’s boat with the excellent and, more importantly, highly affable Tom Barnes.

The previous night we’d spent dressed as monks in Johnny’s mediaeval banquetting hall after a lavish and splendid BBQ put on by Eleanor and shared with those nice young gentlemen from Pegasus Bridge. We also had guns. You’ll see all this in the next instalment of The Frost Report…

It’s somewhat ironic, that as we’ve now got Craig aboard, we’ll have to do it all over again soon…

By and large at the moment, however, I’ve been doing a lot of waiting.

On the plus side, it’s given me time to think. And I’ve decided that I’ve been a right woose. “Woose”?. Is that how it’s spelt? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that word written down before. Weird…

Anyway, yes. I used to pride myself on being an early adopter. I was among the first people with ProTools to really embrace softsynths, back when all we had really was that terrible Digidesign thing – SoftSampleCell, was it? And Turbosynth!… Sooo beloved of Trent Reznor at the time and sooo very able to only really make angry “RRRrrrrrrrr!” noises after about 90 minutes of thinking about it.

And marvel at how attractive it was! –

Oh I just used to LOVE powering up that beauty for some more “RRrrrrrrr!” sounds every now and then.

Anyway, as you know I’ve been the poster child for Roland’s later Fantom synths. Hell, they even got me to plug the new one at one point. They went strangely quiet after that. I think it was something to do with screeching “PROG!!” in the middle of one of their product demonstration videos… Or it might have been when I did a little rhyme about Peter Vetesse “who’s house is quite messy” during another.

Actually Peter Vetesse hasn’t spoken to me since then either, but that might be more to do with a terrible remix of a Voice Of The Beehive track I did for him in the 90′s…

But I digress, as of a couple of days ago, I’ve decided to sell my Fantoms, V-Synths and other weighty devices and part company with hardware once again. For the Autumn and Winter gigs, I’m going to do ‘em on Mainstage which is a super cool bit of software that basically means I don’t have to lug bloody great flightcases with bloody great synths in ‘em up great flights of stairs anymore. Or into the backs of splitter vans. Or, God forbid, the holds of aeroplanes.

All I need is a laptop (or in my case, 2 laptops – one as backup), an audio interface and any old bloody keyboard knocking the place about and I’m good to go. When we did RoSFest, the amount of hassle poor George and Co had to go through to get me a V-Synth GT. I think they had to actually buy one in the end and then sell it on afterwards. Very sweet of them, but madness really. This was I can blat my MacBooks into my rucksack and take my rig with me. Hell, I can even do some last minute tweaks and practice on the flight.

We’re planning on upping the gig count next year and taking in some more foreign climes, so this kind of transportability will be essential.

And I’m not the first, Robington Reedsby of Magenta has been running 50% of his rig from his laptop for at least a year and I’ve recently been chatting with lovely Ronnie Brown from Pallas, he’s running his whole rig from a wee 13″ MacBook Pro and LOVES it.

So I reckon it’s time. I’ll bore you shitless about it some more at a later moment. Most likely on YouTube.

In other news, we now have a Band Camp site. There’s bugger all to see there at the moment, but in the coming few weeks, I’ll be uploading The Dividing Line and tracks from The Philadelphia Experiment along with other items of sonic interest. This will be the main portal of digital delivery for us and I’ll be looking to stock it with new and interesting things as time allows. I know there have been quite a few requests to buy Milliontown from our shoppe, but the price Inside Out want to charge me per disc is absolutely mental and counter productive. I’d actually end up making about a £2 loss on each sale!! I get the rights to Milliontown back in 2013, so after that all will be well. Until then however…

Right best be off. This waiting and thinking lark is thirsty work and there’s a cup of tea out there with my name on it.

Well well well,

I thought it was going too smoothly. I can’t really put it better myself so here’s an extract from the email I just got from Rob Reed –

“We paid extra,got them delivered on time….
I un wrapped the CD …
It looks great..3 discs, clear trays…lovely artwork…
Stuck it in my car…DISC 1…..
WTF??!!!!!!
Disc 1 went into disc 2′s audio !!!!!!!!
Gobsmacked.!!! Double checked……!!! SH** !! It was true….”

There has been a bit of a major production problem. Turns out the repro company have put disc 1′s audio on the disc with disc 2′s artwork on it and vice versa. So the whole run is ruined.

The turnaround time on this has been as tight as tight can be so we only actually received them at lunchtime today and had planned to get them out for last post this evening. That’s how “of the moment” this whole thing is. It’s only when Rob checked the CD this afternoon that we found out.

So…I can only offer my sincere apologies for this, but we’ll have to postpone shipping for a few days. It’s a problem that’s absolutely out of our control. The repro guys are profoundly sorry and will have to start again. Hopefully, it won’t take more than a week to reprint and resend so we can get them out to you ASAP.

As soon as I have more news, I shall put it up here and on the blog.

I’m truly, truly sorry about this.

Rob, Nellie and I are as pissed off and as disappointed as you are, but we’ve been dealt a total pain in the arse left hander out of the blue. These things do happen I guess. Rest assured though, we’re working on sorting things out as quickly as we humanly can. Thank you for your patience and understanding in advance.

Sincerely, Jem x