hesitation.

Hesitation.

It haunts me.

Hangs in the air beside me, an apparition that seldom leaves me.

Holds me, holds me back.

I hesitate.

welcome to my life.

welcome to my past.

or perhaps a former present.

whatever way you choose to view it, Anubis Horror, to me, is a memoir. it is a certain time, transposed and reproduced via music.

and music should be all about interpretation, which has left a question mark over how far I should go in explaining my own motives and my own decisions when creating this music.

it has been a long, strange journey, and one thing that I am certain of is that the Hunchbakk saga is not up to date, in an alternative reality, the Hunchbakk album would have been completed a number of years ago, I'd have found the time to work on the music and wrap it up quicker.

as such, when sourcing the spoken word material I restricted myself to trawling through poems from a very specific time frame, Open Myself Up and Teenaging had already been written and recorded, so I simply flicked through the pages until I found these among my original scrawlings and worked my way forward, taking notes of the passing years, as noted on occasion by my past self with great foresight

thankfully, by february 'project resurrection' had excavated a total of ten tracks, each in differing stages of completion, leaving my plans for a twelve track album not so far out of reach, it was then matching these up with my words, what to leave as instrumental, what needs adding, what needs changing and what needs completing.

now, if my memory serves me, then there are no lyrics/poetry on my album that were written any later than 2008 or possibly 2009, and of all the music, every single track on the album apart from one had its genesis in the same back bedroom that I wrote all my poetry in.

the time spent crafting it and moulding it to its final shape has felt like a certain form of regression for me, casting my mind back to my old self, my old bedroom, in my old home, I think the lyrics and the music reflects who I was, and now I'm wondering who it was that I left behind, and who I have become.

living in the past hasn't been easy, and the release felt like an absolution of sorts, a chance to start being me again, right now.


perhaps I shall break down the album further in a handful more posts, but for now, allow yourself to wallow in the past that I couldn't put to rest until recently.br>

Saul searching, part three

much like the sold out spoken word set at Bardens Boudoir, Saul Williams gigs tend to be the type of things that you find out about too late to actually be able to get a ticket, on numerous occasions I have been left in the dark and left ticketless when Saul comes to town.

to date, there has only been one time that I have witnessed a Saul Williams gig.

promoting the 'honesty box' style released Niggy Tardust album, Saul Williams swang by the Scala in Kings Cross, resplendent in coloured feathers nestling in his hair like an Indian head-dress, glittering and face painted, like a black Bowie beamed to the U.S of A via Mars.

I had played the new album over and over, and the force of nature that blasted through Kings Cross prompted me to further into his back catalogue, and follow the motions and movements of the man they called Black Stacey, and yet still I found myself hearing about gigs in the years since always too late.

I think after his stint at Cargo, supported by Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip that I had not caught wind of until the night itself that I figured following Saul Williams on twitter may be sensible.

and via twitter Saul William spread word of a new project of his, a literary project, a literary mixtape that he would be looking for contributors to.

that literary mixtape is now published, with my own poetry included.

and that was a strange journey, through drum and bass tracks and minidisc recordings and missed gigs and odes to alcoholic spirits that has lead to the point I am at today.

did it require three rambling blog posts, who knows.

did it take three rambling blog posts, yes.

will normal service be resumed now....


what counts as normal around here?

Saul searching, part two

read part one of Saul searching here


finally, the Internet age was upon us, and was integral in the shaping of musical scenes, new music was now just a click away on MySpace and it was possible to connect directly with an audience.

one of my many, many, many musical discoveries was an Oxford based band called This Town Needs Guns (and yes, it is true, I often did choose who to listen to based on how entertained I was by their name) whose 7” vinyl I bought and whose t-shirt I still wear.

it was via a MySpace bulletin that I found out that This Town Needs Guns would be supporting Saul Williams at a spoken word set at Bardens Boudoir in Stoke Newington and I was full of excitement as me and my best friend that I had dragged along descended into the decadent basement venue, grabbing a loose flyer as we paid our entry fees on the way in.

we watched a couple of rather oddball acts, one involving fast forwarding and rewinding a dictaphone, both very unique, I looked at the flyer and presumed that one of them must have been Cats And Cats And Cats, perhaps I'd check out their myspace... but I wasn't sure who the other guys had been... and then the crippling truth hit me, and hurt me, that we were actually a day late for the Saul Williams date.

I felt pretty stupid, and bloody disappointed, and I cursed myself for not even being stupid enough to have been a day early, at least that way I could still come back the next day, but until I finally invent my time machine I'm just gonna have to live with my silly mistake.

thankfully our paths would cross later in life, and I would actually turn up on the right day for a Saul Williams gig, but who would have thought that missing Saul William's evening of poetry so narrowly, I would be included in his poetry anthology and actually be invited to join him on stage as his latest spoken word tour hits the road.

(except so far it has only hit the United States, I'm keeping my fingers firmly crossed for an English tour)

Saul searching.... part one

so what has lead me to the point that I am at today?

it certainly is a strange and twisted journey.

I guess it starts with xfm maybe? possibly The Remix show? I can't really remember now

but I heard Krust's Coded Language and it was like nothing else I had ever heard, a high tempo piece of warped industrial electronica that appealed to my tastes for music to be a little different, to challenge my expectations of what music could be, and all of this was heightened by the commanding VCR performance that graced the track.

it was poetry like I had never ever heard it before, a delivery that wasn't quite rapping, and it was this inclusion of spoken word overlaid atop a pulsing breakbeat that blew my mind.

I presume I must have picked up the single from one of a number of nonexistent record shops that had previously flourished in central London, it would go on to feature on the first ever (poorly) mixed DJ set that I ever recorded alongside my other left field musical choices and Coded Language remains a benchmark moment in my love of music, arriving at a time when I was straying from the mainstream and working harder to find what I truly loved.

my next experience of Saul Williams was purely accidental, as my taste for the more obscure, delving into up and coming music, led me to record Steve Lamacq's 'Lamaqc Live' on a Monday night and then listen back to it on my minidisc player (yes, minidisc player) on my journeys to and from work... Saul was not featured on this show, but as I would set my stereo to over run (a trick I had learnt from my mum when he wildest the video to record something off the telly) I had caught a little of Mary Ann Hobb's even further out there Breezeblock show, on which Saul would be appearing as Mary Ann Hobb's sung his praises, talking of his slam poetry.

this was a time when I did not have proper Internet access (we really are getting quite throwback here, with music stores, minidiscs, vcrs and lack of Internet) so to hear the name Saul Williams again was a revelation to me, it was a name I had not forgotten, and a name I was eager to hear more from....

but it would be a few years until the name would once again present itself to me....



ok, before this tale gets too tall, I have decided to split it down the middle for the sake of those with short attention spans....

reciting faithful chorus

this is certainly a rather momentous occasion for me.

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...

in the ever so changeable month of September, in the year of somebody's Lord, two thousand and twelve, a book of poetry was published.

a book that features the work of 100 poets, chosen by Saul Williams.

and in this book, on page 127, is a piece of poetry written by my good self.

.............


it is still strange and slightly dizzying to consider this, that my words are actually appearing in an actual, proper published book

a book that is available on Amazon, and at the time of writing only has one copy in stock (so it appears that people are definitely buying it)

a book that is published by MTV books, via Simon & Schuster (pretty big time if you ask me)

a book that was headed up by Saul Williams, a man that is an absolute inspiration to me in terms of his words and his music, and perhaps this is what makes me feel proudest of all.


Saul had made his intentions clear, via the big bad world wide web, that he was going to create a literary mixtape, that anybody's voice could be a part of, he would take submitted poetry to craft one long collaborative poem, so I picked through the handful of poems of my own that have stuck in my mind as being something like my favourites and then had to give careful consideration to what would be the one sole poem I would submit, I chose The Whiskey Trail

it is a poem that dates a while back, it is a poem that I once performed at an open mic night in Chingford if my memory serves me correctly, and it is a poem that I can still pretty much remember word for word if really pushed to do so, and if it stuck in my own mind, why should it not stick, or at least lodge itself temporarily in the minds of others....

I could not possibly comment on the creative process of selecting a fraction of poems from those that had come pouring in for the consideration of Saul Williams, I know that he was certainly not alone in this Herculean task, but I do know that at some point, for some reason, my words were chosen by a man that I have a lot of respect and love for.

and I am certainly in good company, 99 others, Saul himself included have contributed to a New Testament of New Voices, and it will be read the world over.

I know that the Internet can reach far and wide, that my blog has been to countries that I have never even set foot in, but to be published in a book that will be read the world over is just such a massive milestone for myself, because it is a book... a solid physical piece of created art that can be held and cherished and will sit in people's homes... I love the fact that I have been published in a book, cos I'm old skool like that.

from my bedroom at mum's house in Enfield, to a small bar on a Thursday night in Chingford, to the world....

my Whiskey Trail has taken me places I never believed it would, thank you Saul.



.

Type Writer

I find a certain sense of freedom in writing, the chance to empty my brain, regardless of if anyone bothers to read my outpourings or not.

and my current writings are freer than ever

the last post I wrote on the floor of my spare bedroom, I was in there putting clothes away and the thought struck me to write, so I did

and this post is being beamed into the Internet from on the can, after having just endured watching David Cronenburg's Naked Lunch. it bored me terribly.

perhaps it is films about writers, I didn't much care for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas either, something about both films (and Hunter S. Thompson's book) just left me feeling cold

but the use of typewriters intrigues me still.... I used to use one when I was younger, it made me feel like a real writer, probably because I was told not to play with it, so I didn't play with it, I wrote with it, and I still have a handful of pages of a Batman story I began writing knocking around somewhere at my mum's house

I have a lot of scribblings, a lot of poems, jotted down on scraps of paper and in A4 paper refill pads, some I may have shared here and there, some will probably remain unearthed for a very long time

and now, in more recent history I have latched onto blogging, taking the time to sit at a computer and publish my thoughts, except that lengths of time away from a computer sometimes leaves nasty gaps in my continued online journal

now, and now I blog with a greater freedom than ever, from my girlfriend's parents sofa, from the spare bedroom floor or from the bathroom

maybe a I shall even have a crack at my next novel on this dandy little gizmo

and maybe it will be better than Naked Lunch and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or maybe it won't

what draft? first draft?

ok, i'm sticking with this writing theme for just a little longer, until i get distracted by reading comics or something at least.

and i had been asking what happens next.


when i first discovered the notion of NaNoWriMo, it was on a BBC Breakfast feature, with a couple of authors sat on the couch next to the hosts.

they talked about the lost opportunities of all those that had ever considered writing a novel, and i counted myself among them, and they talked of using these 30 days to just write anything, just to keep writing, and i did, and they talked about taking that first draft, and giving yourself a break from it, and returning to it in january to edit your first draft, create a second draft, possibly edit that later in the year, and so forth, until it if done.


first draft?

what?


yeah, ok, i guess it is.

but keep whittling away at it, time and time again?  i have conceded to the idea that it will need editing, it was slapped together so hastily that, above all else, it does need a second look to eliminate all spelling and grammatical errors (unless they were intentional), but i've been giving more thought to this...

i may change my mind, but i'm unsure if my 'novel', my NaNovel if you wish, really needs 'editing'.

i think it may well go through a number of changes if it is called for, and some of it most certainly is a bit of a mess, but it is my mess, and maybe, just maybe, i'm a messy worker.

some of the thoughts that spilt forth from my mind, splashed across this novel, may have no real place in modern literature, but why should i let a little thing like that stop me.


this is not my money-maker, this is not my retirement fund, this was a writing exercise, thas was fun (sometimes), and rewarding.  and i may even self-publish it.

but i like it the way it is.


my writing has always existed that way.  almost like an impulse.
to be acted upon.   and then that is it usually.

i read Roger McGough's autobiography a few years back, and was surprised to read that he writes poetry and revisits it and revises it accordingly, working on it until it is complete.

and i was shocked.

not once had i tried to write my poetry this way. i had never even considered it.
so i tried it.  and i didn't really like it.


and last year i wrote my first ever 'short story'.  in one sitting.  and had no desire to change a thing.


perhaps i am foolish for considering my work finished.

or perhaps that is just my style.


perhaps i'll find out in january when i attempt to re-read my very first 'novel'.

Enfield and I

I am fiercely proud of my home town,
Enfield is part of who I am,
I am a part of Enfield,
And an attack on Enfield,
Is an attack on me.


As the tension mounts,
And ill feeling hangs heavy in the air,
I can't shake the involuntary feeling of excitement,
Mixing with sickness.


Tonight we make history together,
As I pray that everything historic,
Everything beautiful,
Everything and everyone I love,
Doesn't burn down to the ground.


It is all eyes on us tonight,
As we bunker down in our homes,
And make it a night to remember,
With our updates and our outrage,
Trending, reporting and cowering,
As the same four clips of footage,
Repeat over and over on Sky News.

stunted

it is far to easy to sit around and fester with stunted creativity, i'm stuck at work and feel that i haven't achieved too much today, despite penning a poem as a contribution to my family's hub of impulsive output, byford365, and now i sit here as i allow my mind to wander and string a few sentences together to form a worthwhile blog post.

what i am thinking about now are ways that i can be creative once i get out of here at 4 o'clock today, i am also wondering if i'm gonna get an absolute drenching between work and home as i watch the rain crash down outside.

i really need to pull my finger out and get working on my music and musical experimentation again, as me and my girlfriend chilled watching David Cronenburgh's Scanners yesterday, i felt inspired by a quote in the film, and shall probably fire up Acid when i get in (and possibly dry off) so that i can rip the audio i need, and then perhaps i shall just go back to basics and slowly build up something resembling a tune from the various sample packs and oddities that i have accumalated over the past few years.

so keep your eyes and ears peeled for that one hopefully some time soon.

and i also intend to finish off the fourth track of a five track set, under the guise of Giles Babel, the other four are already floating around in the ethereal realms of the internet, yet i want to gather them together and proclaim them to be a specific and titled unit, existing within the same realms of one another, instead of just being loose clumps of sound that rattle around harddrives and mp3 players with no real cohesion.

this fourth track may take a little while tho, i know how to make it, but the gathering of relavent resources is proving time consuming, and frankly rather boring, but i shall persevere, so that these five tracks may be classified as a collection, or perhaps an EP if you will.

and now i shall fill the remaining time til 4 with paperwork.

march 17th: in memoriam

.


everytime i see a famous person's name trending,
i wonder if they've died.



.
this seems to be the culture we are living in now, where snippets of news can be garnered from search engine and social networking trends.


rest in peace, Nate Dogg and Micheal Gough.


written by Glen Byford, March 17th 14:46pm

finding inspiration

i haven't really made an awful lot of noise about the couple of other blogs that i either have on the go or am involved in, the first is still a little bit of a work in progress, while the second is more personal, although both are in plain sight for all to view if they know where to look

but lets shed a little more light on the second one shall we? the more personal one.

it is something of a digital trinket box perhaps, online, that me and my brother (and hopefully sometime soon, my dad) can all contribute to...

as all three of us are afflicted with the curse of spending time thinking and not spending enough time doing, i thought that it could be used as a prompt to spur us each into action, attempting to find or create something, anything, each day and share it

from my own perspective, i know that i often write either poetry or features, or sometimes have photos that i want to post, but i find that the timing is not write, not wanting to bump something else off of sitting at the top of my blog if i feel it needs to hang around a little longer to garner more attention, and ultimately not wanting the kind of blog that moves so fast that within a few days of being away so much could have been missed, it is these strange invisible limitations and restrictions that i wanted to free myself from...


and lo and behold, has it been an interesting experiment so far! i'll readily admit that some days i have had to purposefully look for my latest contribution, but more recently ideas have flown more freely, not only that, but the latest photo added by my brother (along with the few others posted on his own blog) were actually the catalyst for my latest poem, inspired by the desolate and intrigueing images of discarded memories and dumped furniture

(and yes, you are stepping on my toes slightly, but i'll forgive you.... this time)

the day we found grandad had been flytipped

it was just under the flyover that we found him

upturned and half-out of his usual chair

along with a handful of belongings

and photos that had addorned walls

he looked dazed, confused by it all

the poor old sod

with remote control in hand and a furrowed brow

eyes fixed on the same telly that had seen him through the past fifteen years

now smashed and propped upon a pile of breezeblocks

and he greeted us with very little fanfare

merely stating that the reception for channel five was the worst it had ever been

Freewheelin' once again

last week, the Enfield Advertiser ran my little feature on my mate Dion last week, the atricle has been spruced up by the editor a little (as is his want), and we also saw the return of the exceptionally bad headline!!

and since it's not very often i'm playing catch-up with the paper, here is the feature in it's former glory

The Freewheelin' Troubadour
or as the paper tilted it
Troubadour pulls power wheelies...
(groan)

a man with interests very close to my own heart has been following his dreams and desires to creatively produce works for anyone willing to pay attention to them.


The Freewheelin' Troubadour's latest venture has been publishing a collection of poetry accompanied by visuals contributed by a select number of artists.


made available for free, "Freewheelin’ in Monument Valley & the American Offerings" can be downloaded as a pdf, with a limited number of books also circulating, thanks to the genorisity of those that donated towards the costs of publication.

the project was helped to fruition with a fundraising gig in august, and the finished article was celebrated with another night of music and poetry in october, both gigs curated by and featuring readings from the Troubadour himself, held at The Victoria in Mile End.


Originally hailing from Enfield himself, by his 20s Dion Power had been displaced in Cheshunt where he began conversing in the musical circles that were enriching the current Hertford scene, eventually finding himself managing bands and DJing.


When The Freewheelin' Troubadour persona originally surfaced it was of a poetic soul, and his prose was featured on his own myspace blogs.


but owing his adopted namesake to Bob Dylan and surrounded by local musicians, such as The Knaves and The Black Tricks, it would not be long before these ideas were realised musically and a sole CD  entitled '10 minutes of darkness' was composed alongside a number of borrowed band members and was distributed in 2007, before a similar vision found form in late 2008 when the Freewheelin Troubadour began fronting his own band that sadly proved to be shortlived.


What followed was a soul searching road trip across america that found creativity reaching new heights via an amassed sense of freedom and an abbundunce of new found inspirations, and it is the poems from these few months that make up the short collection, "Freewheelin’ in Monument Valley & the American Offerings".


His return to London began with a search for somewhere to live, continued with looking for willing collaborators, and with the book now launched, The Freewheelin Troubadour is still searching for means and ventures to make his voice heard, whether it is through spoken word readings, organising gigs or an upcoming documentary that will be a testament to everything achieved so far.

to download your own copy of the book, head to to the funpowder plot

and as an extra treat, here is also a rarity for you, my own remix of The Night That I Die, the original of which was on the 2007 CD '10 minutes of darkness'

The Freewheelin' Troubadour - The Night That I Die (Hunchbakk Remix)

facsimile of me

looking in the mirror was like seeing a facsimile of me
recognising something of my original self
among the blacks and whites and pallid shades of grey

if this could all end

and welcome back to Hunchbakk - music and musings, the music blog.

except it isn't today.

i'm very excited about bringing you guys even more new music and have hopefully got something real special in the pipeline, direct from from one of Enfield's brightest hopes, but for now we're gonna take a slight diversion from revelling in past glories and the posting of mp3s.

i've stalled slightly on the poetry front lately, perhaps i am too content, perhaps it is other things that have meant i have not put pen to paper.

sometimes when i do put pen to paper there is neither a pen or paper involved, just typing and my blog, since it is there when i needed it and i could get my thoughts down quick.

i got my thoughts down quickly the other day, so i thought perhaps i should post it now, i don't think there is much more that needs saying about it really, i don't always like giving poetry an introduction, and i'm not going to take it upon myself to explain my own poetry, as i am now sharing it and want people to make of it what they will and take from it what they feel, i just thought the fact that i am posting poetry deserved a little mention for anyone that has been tuning in recently since Bushfest set the Enfield community ablaze and perhaps wasn't expecting such tender thoughts.

enough.









sometimes it feels like the world could end


there is no panic
no fear


but there is a pounding of anxiousness
knowing it will be over


and i can't squeeze the minutes out of the day
nor the fingers in my ears
nor the words out of my mouth
and my head


it feels like a scream
yet it lives in silence
buzzing round my head
and gripping my throat
clutching my mind




if this could all end
if the sky would drop
if the earth could crack
it would all be over




but it never is




it never is








.

curtain twitches

instead of hiding away from the rare patches of glorious summer-like weather that England is prone to get i decided that i would free myself from staring at a computer screen a week or two ago, i thought i'd take a walk to my dad's house, but i'd take a long meandering walk with no real sense of direction or urgency, finding myself taking all manner of twists and turns before eventually walking along the river towards Waltham Abbey and then back to Waltham Cross.

and what a journey, i hadn't really had time to reflect on it as it was so tiring, not only did i manage to make a fifteen minute walk last a good two and a half hours, but i also found and photographed a stray sofa and wrote a poem on the journey.

all of this was acheived in flip flops too!

(while also staying safe and liberally applying sun tan lotion)

i think the poem is fairly self explanatory, just trying to imagine a different point of view, and i wrote it in my phone as a text message while i let my flip-flop clad feet carry me away from the strange old lady that had been staring at me from her window.




the curtain twitches and cold dead eyes peer out.
any sense of soul has long since departed.
the only thing left is a clammy distrust of everything.
 the sun turns up the temperature on the streets,
yet she traps herself in her mausoleum.
life has been moving on without her withered existence,
life moves on on the other side of her curtain,
her home now a crypt from which she keeps watch,
life has moved on,
and anything she sees moving she hates.




.

an eternal arc of never really knowing

there are so many more things that i want to be than i ever find the time to be, ever such terribles nuances such as normal life and abnormal life just keep getting in the way of my life.

frustrations both within and without me.

i need to learn more of the things that i don't know.

and maybe it would be nice to forget a few things too.

i need a new home

for thoughts and words and everything that lies beneath.

i already have my new name.

but my deviances and dallying with a patchwork portal sometimes seems to prove detrimental to my truths.

and i guess i'll find a way, even if i don't tell anyone.

even though i would like you all to listen.


please

keep your ear close to the ground and you might be able to hear where i have buried my heart.

confusing times

as promised, a little more poetry. and before the week is out i shall try and have a little more writing up on here, including a new review and i should probably be thinking about sharing some new(ish) music on this blog since sonically it has become a little bit barren.

but for now, just a short one.





these are confusing times
when yesterday was fine
and today is uncertain






.

(willy and possibly nilly)

.



i am most likely
to be sat here

waiting





for anything
or for everything


or for nothing


the rambling mind
does not echo
the stillness of my body

attention darts
back and forth
to and fro
(willy and possibly nilly)
lacking direction
and without result




.

a starbucks coffee cup in the rain

It's coming down heavy,

it's all umbrellas and

sheltering under soggy

newspapers or just

accepting that you'll

get soaked through

And as it comes down

heavier still

it drums a solemn

discordant refrain

on the crushed plastic

of a starbucks coffee cup

in the rain