Do they know it's Christmas?

With Christmas about to engulf us all, it has been on my mind about the plight of the Syrian refugees many of which will be spending life in a different type of hell in refugee camps around Europe with barely anything between them and the unthinkable.

So this is Christmas eh? Do they know it?

With the news services dominated on whether or not to bomb more of the Syrian population, it is our turn it seems to show our brand of barbarism. ...
With that in mind and a feeling that I want to do something (non-violent) no matter how small, I just wanted to suggest that all profits from my Christmas CD single this year, should you wish to buy it from here http://steve-drewett.com/steve-drewett/physical.html… will be donated to one of the Charities put forward by the Guardian Syrian appeal. If you want to donate and not buy the single that is fine too and you will find the links below to help you do so.

http://www.theguardian.com/…/guardian-and-observer-refugee-…

let’s turn to love not hate!

Final Newtown Neurotics gig at the Square Harlow July 4th, not final Neurotics gig though.

I'm off  to play Glastonbury solo on Friday at the Leftfield stage at 3pm but I thought I'd just flag up the next gig the Newtown Neurotics are doing. It will be the last gig the Neurotics will ever do in the Square as the venue is closing down at the end of the year.
If you've ever seen us at the Square, why not come and enjoy that experience once more, for the last time. And what a gig it is going to be!!!! More acts to come... Solitary Confinement and Living With Unemployment on the same night anyone???

https://www.facebook.com/events/894706433885387/

A statement from Steve Drewett on the passing of Colin Master aka Dredd on behalf of himself and the family.

Below is a piece written for the people who have responded on Facebook. Realising that not everyone uses facebook I have reproduced the piece below so that we can keep as many people in the loop as possible. If this is all news for you, go to the bottom of this thread and read upwards.

At this point, now a little time has passed from the loss of my dear friend Colin, having communicated a very personal account of my part in some of his final hours, and of my devastation at his passing. I must take a moment to give a little perspective on this.

I want to pass on thanks from myself and Colin’s family, to everyone who has posted their thoughts about him on Facebook. The response has been truly amazing, only now are we able to get an idea on how much he and his talent was revered both locally and globally, both by close friends, distant friends, fans and the famous. He name is legend.

And the thing is, he would be even more amazed, because he had simply no idea about this at all. Colin was one of the digitally excluded; he had no PC, no tablet, no internet, only a dumb phone which he rarely turned on.
In contrast to me, where I could luxuriate in peoples appreciation of our music through Facebook, day in and day out. He had little idea. Of course I would tell him every opportunity I could and sometimes show him a bit on my PC, but we wanted to spend our time together talking not looking at a screen.

He had no idea.

Again, I would like to thank you. I have been amazed how considerate and sensitive everyone’s contribution on Facebook has been. On what appears to be thousands of messages, only two perhaps have asked what he died of. Your respect for his privacy has been inspiring.
The omission of this information was put into place to respect Colin’s feelings, and was a measure intended to help prepare for his future after a major operation. As he sadly did not survive that operation, I can now reveal some details of his misfortune, both because you have all deserved it and, to prevent speculation that he may have had Aids or Cancer etc. Any speculation is understandable, I do not criticise it, it is a part of being human.

Since my intense and close friendship with him changed when he left the band, we of course kept in touch. As he forged himself a new life without the Neurotics, it was one I knew little of. When we had the chance meet up, we always had a blast remembering the old days and that invariably left little time for his news. Also, Colin was always intrigued about what everyone else was up to rather than talking about himself.

In recent years, ill health began to have a greater impact on him. Asthma plagued him every year, pleurisy finished off his ability to remain in the Neurotics, he then suffered deep vein thrombosis and finally diverticulitis, a pernicious condition where in some cases (in Colin’s case) your waste is able to enter the upper digestive system.

You throw up shit basically.

He was treated for this but not cured, it returned, as it often does, causing a fresh bout of abdominal pain. Colin was once again suffering acute discomfort and was in and out of hospital until recently. Eventually, he was kept in while doctors tried to fight massive infection within his body.
They threw everything at it, but to no avail. The only option left was to remove his colon and try to flush out what infection that was left. Once opened him up it was worse than they thought, they removed his colon, this spleen and probably some of his intestine too. After the operation, he fought for a week to recover, but the toxins in his body were too great and Colin too weak to fight it. Eventually, the doctors ran out of everything that might improve his condition except morphine, and that would just make him as comfortable as possible until the end. He died of toxic shock.

It was little wonder that in the last few years, he became more and more private, almost hermit like, insular and hard to contact. He also had to deal with signing on every day and at one point having his benefits stopped, leaving him penniless. I have no idea how much discomfort, pain and misery he suffered on his own in his little flat, but that would make anyone unwilling to get out and about more.

The thing is though, he wasn't alone. Since he left the band, he forged a relationship with a woman who would become a fantastic friend, a soulmate even. Her name is Val and she has loved and cared for Colin as a friend since 1988.
Every step of his deterioration she was there to support and comfort him, every hospital visit, she was there for him, she was his rock.
Because he had become so private, he didn't really want people to know whenever he had to stay in hospital, and so I didn't find out myself until very recently. By then, I knew he was going in for the opp and after he had it, I left it a few days before seeing him so that he could recover a bit before having visitors.

My point here, and it is a very important one, is that by the time I arrived on the scene, Val had spent uncountable hours supporting him in and out of hospital, I, made a couple of visits and then rushed to his bedside as he started to fade. I had the honour of spending his last night with him whilst Val caught up on a bit of sleep; she was with him when he passed away whilst I was catching up on mine.

My role was very small, Val’s was unmeasurable.

Colin Masters' funeral is at 1.00pm Wednesday 3rd June Harlow crematorium CM19 4SF
Drinks afterwards at the Greyhound pub 12 School Lane CM20 2QD
All welcome.
Please spread the word to people you think knew Colin but are not on Facebook.
There will be 'a celebration of Colin's life' event put together in a couple of weeks time or so which will enable all those who hear late about Colin's passing or cannot make the funeral/wake to be able to attend and we can then get friends and family and fans together for a big do.

Just putting it out there, we are beginning to put together an evening at the Square on Sunday 7th June for friends, family and fans to remember Colin. We are sort of thinking of displaying images of him, playing some of his favorite music and maybe some short solo accousitc spots.
This will help those that were not able to attend the funeral and/or wake due to other commitments a chance to say goodbye, and it gives us all another chance to enjoy our memories of him together. All welcome! Check your diaries and watch this space

Like · Comment · Share

Acoustic magazine is seeing the good in me!

One of the surprises of releasing a solo acoustic CD after a career of releasing punk rock albums, is to be included in AcousticMagazine’s first ever cover mounted CD to be released on January 15^th 2015. The track of mine to be included is ‘If I Should Ever Let You Down’ from my kuJenga Society album. To be on a 'cover mounted' CD of a  national magazine devoted to acoustic guitars seems a strange thing to me and I am not sure how many new fans I will get from this, as anyone intrigued by my track will get a shock at the nature of my other material. However, to reach beyond my usual fan base, to appeal to the sensibilities of a national music taste that can be so much wider than it used to be, could produce further surprises, and it is that which intrigues so about this opportunity.

Looking to next year, the Newtown Neurotics will be back with a two thirds original line up as Simon Lomond is back in the drum stool.   Not that there was anything wrong with Dave Walsh’s contribution to the band, as that was considerable but Simon showed interest in playing in the band again for a while and this was an opportunity to play with my old comrade again and was not to be missed.

So solo and band gigs next year? Yes indeed, the biggest of which is the Rebellion Festival in August in which I get to play in the Neurotics and perform in a solo acoustic role as well.

Full details of up and coming gigs for either the Newtown Neurotics or Steve Drewett can be found here...

Steve Drewett and Newtown Neurotics live

Finally, thanks for taking time to check this blog out and I would like to take a moment to thank you for your support through 2014 and to wish you a Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year.

I will leave you with my Christmas song 'It's Christmas Time! (Oh, yeah, NaNaNa), please play and hopefully enjoy and if you do, please share the video with others. Hope it gets you in the Christmas mood!

When my life flashes before my eyes, I have trouble keeping up!

It’s very strange but on the lead up to the release of my kuJenga Society album I undertook (as can be seen in this blog) to revisit my past work and write a little about each song.
Now that kuJenga Society has been released, I received in the post yesterday, a vinyl copy of the Neurotics first album ‘Beggars Can Be Choosers’ which is due to be released in Italy in the new year.
Albums were not generally shrink wrapped during the time when it was first released in the early Eighties, so this was the first time I held, what now seems like, a huge piece of artwork in my hands with the knowledge that because it was shrink wrapped, it was virgin and had never been played.

It felt lovely, it looked like a marvel in my hand and I didn't want to spoil that, however another part of me wanted to rip the wrapping off and stick it on my record deck and rack it up real loud.

And it was that part of me that won out, and as I listened in rapture, part of my life raced past me and memories and emotions swirled around my mind like a murmuration of starlings.

It doesn't get any better than that! 

No, really, it doesn’t.

A mother and child reunion - The little one is a CD release from Japan which has been out a while and the bigger one is the Italian release due to go on sale in Jan 20015

One place it will be available is CD Universe here

It's Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, NaNaNa)

I know I cannot compete with Chart Christmas pap, as I working outside the music business elite and do not have promotion and pluggers behind me but it is pleasing to see that my humble little video for It's Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, NaNaNa) has now had 1050 plays so far on YouTube and we are only just into December. That is a faster watch rate than any Newtown Neurotics videos on YouTube.
It has also produced interest for work for Scorpio productions who shot it, which is great too.

Very pleasing!

Hey, make that number bigger by watching it now...

If you find the tune is an earworm, you might just want to buy it too at The Drewett Store

Local Commercial Radio, in tune with nothing.

It is phenomenal! 

My new releases, 'kuJenga Society' and it's single 'It's Christmas Time! (Oh, yeah, NaNaNa') are available globally, the CD versions are stocked by Amazon and the MP3's are available through every major download vendor, they can can be streamed via Spotify and soon through YouTube Music Key. It's Christmas Time! (Oh, yeah, NaNaNa) is being played across the world via internet radio, and the hits are beginning to rack up on it's humble little   YouTube video (see below).

And yet there is virtually no chance of a single play on our local commercial radio station. That is because the thing that is local about it, are the targeted ads, traffic reports and the people they get ringing in for some facile quiz, or to give an opinion on some subject of the day, by the DJ of the moment. Not the music.

The lure to this honey pot, is a playlist reflecting the strangle hold the music industry has on your ears, that is, a series of current pop hits, played over and over again which reflect, not the nation's taste, but the success of a particular plugger from a particular major record label (of which I believe there are something like only 4 around now) National radio is dire, then local radio follows it, as it is a business model that is determining this and not the chance to offer something that is connected to the community it serves (or should be serving).

It sounds like common sense (forgive me for using myself as an example here, this is not a revelation to me as I have been here before, more on this later, but I think it is my experience that adds best to my point).

Yes, It sounds like perfect common sense to all of us, that a really catchy single, recently released by a local musician would be supported and played by his local radio station and, as it is a Christmas single, would be playlisted along with all their other Christmas fare broadcasted to the local community.

But that is the last thing that will ever happen. Because there is no opportunity to reflect the our community through it's music. It's not playlisted nationally, therefore it is not a part of the business model, therefore it does not exist! It will add no income to shareholders and the station is there to tap an existing market not try to influence it with local content. It is trying to provide just enough local connection,to lure a local audience to sell the national playlist and then to capitalise and monetise it.

That leaves me, and other local bands and musicians out in the cold. This cultural isolation is compounded by local commercial radio refusing to carry any information about what is on at the Square, a local music venue, that practically defines our musical and cultural community here in Harlow. For thirty or more years, it has been influencing generations of the town's young people, to be involved, through the venue, to be creative and to be inspired. That experience, encourages them to grow as adults and to be community minded. And this legacy has continued to the present day via the hard work of a small group of people, who saved the venue from the dereliction that the building next to it, the YWCA, has been allowed to suffer, and by doing that, to keep music local and live year on year. It has been a real struggle for them, and local commercial radio has played little part, support or encouragement.

It is no wonder then, that people are turning to streaming services to personalise their music consumption, to what they want to hear, and not what the 
music industry want them to hear. You see someone play live or get recommended a band or musician through social media, and then you go and stream their album, who needs DJ's? (that's a real shame because DJ's can be great if they are allowed the freedom to turn you on to something they think is great).

I have been here before, in the Eighties, the Newtown Neurotics released a song called 'Never Thought', it was a bright, catchy (commercial even), thoughtful song (I have provided a link to it below, take a listen and see what you think). It was a perfectly radio friendly tune unlike most of the Neurotics usual material (Kick Out The Tories being an obvious example) but I could not get it played on local commercial radio, not at all, not once.

And after all these years nothing has changed, sadly. Yet is is infuriating to know that 'It's Christmas Time! (Oh, yeah, NaNaNa)' has a story within it that the listeners to commercial radio would identify with and enjoy, especially because of the nature of this fast approaching holiday period.

If only they could get to hear it.

Fighting to be heard,  is something we all struggle with at times and we all know what it feels like to be ignored.




                 Here is the song that failed to get any airplay from commercial radio in the                              Eighties

And here is the song It's Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, NaNaNa) that will suffer the same fate in 2014

                            

“For safety reasons can I ask you what is inside the parcel” Post mortem

Don’t get me going about the post office!  Have you noticed that since privatisation we are subjected to de-privatisation, a word I just made up which here means that you lose your privacy because everyone in the queue knows what you are sending through the post, because they make you declare it? 

I take in some packets each containing a CD,

“For safety reasons can I ask you what is inside the parcel”

“A CD”

“and that one?”

“A CD”

If this is meant to improve safety, then surely the humble postal clerk would need to know everything in the world? For example…

“For safety reasons can I ask you what is inside the parcel”

“A five port switch”

“Hmmm, network or HDMI?”

No, no, the reality is…

“For safety reasons can I ask you what is inside the parcel”

“A five port switch”

“Sorry?”

“A five port switch”

“Does it have batteries in it?”

“No”,

“Corrosive liquid?”

“No”

“Poison”,

“Explosives?”

“No”,

“A small person?”

“No”

“Ok, first or second class?”

But worse, is hearing other people declare what is in their parcels.

“For safety reasons can I ask you what is inside the parcel”

“Sexy underwear” or

“Incontinent pads” or

“Syringes” or

“Marijuana” or

“A small person” or 

I don’t know what people might say but once upon a time that was between you and the recipient. 

Anyway, at least they have put a stop to people posting themselves to nice places.

So then the woman says, oh, you haven’t left much room for the stamp!

“Well”, I replied, “I had no idea you were going to try to put on a stamp designed specifically for postal workers with visual disabilities”
.
A great whopping huge square of a stamp that was easily a quarter of the size of my CD mailer. She had plenty of ordinary stamps but didn’t try to use any of them.
It’s not even that these mega stamps have an interesting design on them like most stamps. They took the most boring British stamp there was, the one with our bored monarch on it and then blew it up until you can wrap your parcel in the stamp alone!

Incidentally, I got a DVD recently in a card for my 60th and it contained the highlights of the year I was born. It seemed that 1954 was filled mostly with the Queen and various hangers on visiting places and pointing.
I was much relieved that I didn’t miss much being so young that year.
I would have hated to be lying in a cot watching a mobile spin round whilst the Beatles were changing the world for example. That would have been unbearable.


Really pleased with the reviews that have been placed on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk for my new kuJenga Society album. I include them here to show you that it’s not all been hard work and grind for me with this release. Sometimes there are moments of pure pleasure.

Great Solo Album from the Newtown Neurotics front man.
By Kyle Giarratano on November 15, 2014

Format: MP3 Music Verified Purchase

As a huge fan of The Newtown Neurotics I've been very excited for the release of Steve Drewett's KuJenga Society.

While musically it shares few similarities with The Newtown Neurotics sound, its spirit and message are very much rooted in the righteous indignation of punk music.

If you enjoy acoustic music, protest music, or the works of Billy Bragg then give Steve Drewett's KuJenga Society a shot, you won't be let down.

Sharp intelligent songwriting, hard melody and majestic guitar playing make this a truly brilliant LP; you wont be disappointed
By timothy james voss on 17 Nov 2014
Format: Audio CD Verified Purchase
Ku Jenga Society by Steve Drewett.

Ku Jenga Society by Steve Drewett.

After perhaps too many years of cover Steve Drewett broke back out into the open firstly with a renewed Newtown Neurotics, proving the longevity of their songs combined with energy of their live shows is still very very relevant today and now with his first solo LP Ku Jenga Society.

Ku Jenga Society hits all of the buttons that are lacking in so much music today. Steve Drewett crafts his songs with true passion and care, carefully picking words and phrases that set the mood or hit nail with bloody savagery when its needed. Stripped down to largely vocals and acoustic guitar Steve’s energy and emotion creeps through into the songs as the guitar holds both rhythm and melody.

The song ‘Jenga Society’ kicks the LP off, A lone guitar weaving both delicacy and power as lyrically it deals with society that is built upon nothing but tills ringing ‘I shop therefore I am’ which like a Jenga tower will eventually fall.

‘Inch Away’, ‘Mindless Violence’ and ‘If Only’ are former Newtown Neurotics songs reworked acoustically, whether you’re new to them or you loved them as Neurotics songs you will understand their timeless quality here. Mindless Violence holds its anthemic status with stripped down clarity.

The ‘Killing Of You’ is story of death in a relationship leaving the survivor living with a crippling guilt; it pulls the pace back with a beautifully picked guitar that shows SD’s skills off to their full.

‘Sweet Jesus’ is driven by a simple pacey strummed guitar that has echoes of Woody Guthrie. The chorus a simple refrain asking ‘sweet Jesus are you listening to me’, as the litany of wrongs committed by the government is told through the ballad of a striking miner who sees his friends break the picket lines and his community ripped part by the after effects.

The other songs on the LP examine relationships, racking through their fragility and how strength comes from experience, bitter, loving and otherwise, ‘if this is love where are the violins?’ asks Steve on You Break My Heart.
Steve Drewett’s songwriting references sex, love, money, being a father observing the everyday strains and joys of family life, and makes sense of these observations in the narrative of the song.

Drewett’s turn of phrase in ‘Around Love’ is sometimes bitter, ’broken hearts like broken glass can cut you to the bone’ sometimes full of optimism, ‘your young and your beautiful wide eyed and naïve’ but the unfolding of the brilliantly catchy melody subtly backed with a band not so much leads as carries you on the shoulders through the song.

Its Christmas Time, the LP’s closing song, sports a ridiculously catchy earworm of a chorus which, if there is any justice will hit the Christmas number one spot and piss all over the X-Factor-Britains-not-got-Talent singles.

With wry observations, wit, intelligence and damn fine melody driven songs Steve Drewett delivers an LP that fills the holes that are missing in so much of todays music.

If you like The Neurotics, Tooth and Nail era Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie or just good music that has something to say then buy this CD, give 2 fingers to the re hash of Band-Aid and say Its Christmas Time! (Oh Yeah, NaNaNa).

PS this a 4.5 star LP. (5 stars is reserved for revolver, bollocks, setting sons, repurcussions and his and hers).

The Winds of Change

It’s so nice to not be in such a frantic state, I was intensely focused on the album for five solid months and now, although I still have work to do, it is not so much and not so stress filled. I feel like I have turned a corner and things are slowly coming back to normal. In that five months I wrote a lot of the songs, recorded them, got them mastered, designed the single sleeve, designed the album sleeve with a bit of help from Lyn Nimtz in Brazil, sorted out digital and physical distribution, designed and created a new website steve-drewett.com, created a record company, come up with the Cruel Binary name and then designed a logo for it. Then there was sending our review copies, arranging publicity, and Social Media. This blog too of-course and dealing with real life completes this busy picture.

During those five months, I have had more things go wrong in the creation of one album than I have never known; I have had a death in the family and organising a 60th birthday party all to deal with, all to stay on top of.

It was all too much.

The ‘new’ release date for kuJenga Society is 24th Nov by which time I hope only to be dealing with posting out orders and tweeking steve-drewett.com and revamping the Newtown Neurotics website.

The Winds of Change (Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks)

This was written about how the radicalism of the sixties had dissipated into the middle age spread of jadedness and pessimism of the left, leaving the field wide open for the right.
Of-course political movements must renew themselves from the ground up, with younger people getting involved to challenge the status quo but the disillusionment of older former activists is not a very edifying sight and not setting an example to inspire the next generation. 
I am saying in this song, carry on the fight, you may have to do it differently, as the world is always changing, but carry on and get active again, if not nationally then locally, but encourage and inspire others with youth and vigour on their side to take up the cause and continue.

Keep the Faith!

Pop industry carrion and meat for the grinder

My single “It’s Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, NaNaNa) is an attempt to offer a new song about Christmas that people will enjoy, and hopefully identify with, but I must say that the majority of what is supposed to be Christmas records is always just damn depressing.

This year is no exception, the ‘TV buy in’ releases of Children in Need or the Band Aid 30th anniversary is not what I consider as Christmas records, these are charity projects that latch on to Christmas to maximise profits for their respective campaigns. As worthy as they may be, the music is just tired no matter how much they dress it up.
The worst thing though, is the age of the songs, they were big in the day but now here comes the ‘pop industry carrion’ pecking and tearing at the leftover meat of a feast long ago consumed, whilst still insisting on all the trimmings. God only knows but do you know it’s Christmas time at all?  Yeah, will they let us forget it? 
My song is about redemption, it’s about turning your life around, it is good for any time of year but it makes just that little bit more sense within the season it describes.

Chance of a new Christmas song getting some attention?

Don’t hold your breath! I am facing Goliath without a single stone in reach.





You Must Be Mad (From ‘Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks’)

This song is about young people, experiencing subsistence level wages or worse, as in long term or under unemployment, find joining the armed forces to earn money and to travel and see the world, an exciting and promising thing to do. The catch is, your life is the deposit in this bank of human resources and like all deposits, it can quite easily be lost.

The worst thing of all is how the human race cannot help getting involved in major acts of barbarity and that there is always a large pool of impoverished people that will willingly be meat for the military grinder.

‘You Must Be Mad’ is as fitting for the beginning of the First World War, the Second World and then on to Afganistan, Iraq etc etc etc. but these lyrics referred to the utterly pointless and costly Falkland War.

Things are worse now, more so than at any other time, western forces have become an extension of global business, no longer around to protect the nation, but around to protect the profits of the mega corporations and the military industrial machine.
Worse of all, young men and women lose their lives on orders to rob other people of their resources.

People often say how relevant the Neurotics lyrics are all these years later.

It’ll be a cold day in hell when these ones aren’t

The effect of unemployment on our lives

Things have come down a peg or two on the stress level today, most of the work needed to get the ‘kujenga Society’ album out is now behind me and two things occupy me the most at this moment. One is getting review copies out and the other is the feedback from people on the album. After the months of work, it’s only now that I begin to find out how it is going to be received.

I am aware that people who love the punk material I wrote and still love playing, have been aching for a new Neurotics album for years and now they get something at long last from Steve Drewett, it is acoustic/acoustically driven and is a long cry from ‘Kick Out The Tories’. On that basis, I have to build into the expectation that some people will loath it. So far the response has been fantastic, but it is early days and I am expecting a backlash of sorts.

I think that “It’s Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, (NaNaNa)” will be seen as a betrayal by many of my fans but that is a silly reaction.
As a songwriter, I feel I need to stretch myself, to do something different, just like I did with the Indestructible Beat. I made an album with this outfit which never really came out and I am so proud of it, even though I have barely sold a copy (it was available briefly as a download, but I intent to release it again at some point).

The Indestructible Beat was, to me, a creative and critical success and yet it failed in success and sales, which has a lot to me pulling the plug on it after three years because of the amount of work it took to keep a big band running.
Maybe some people think that writing for acoustic guitar will stop me from writing more raucous stuff with the Neurotics, that is not so, it may actually be my first step back into the world of writing new material, which may in turn lead me back to writing for the Neurotics again, who knows?

Anyway, other news is that I hope to have the CD’s available to buy via Amazon by next week, we shall see.

Angela (Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks)

Struggling to make a living over the years through cycles of recession and austerity of one sort or another, made me acutely aware of all my friends who were unemployed and how that impacted on the way they led their lives.

Angela was an attempt to touch on the difficulties that unemployment brought to peoples relationships when one of the couple is employed and the other not. Love is not always enough to win through; sometimes cold hard economics can wreck what could have been a perfect relationship if only the hand of global economics had not strangled their lives.

All these years on, the theme is touched on again in my new single “it’s Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, NaNaNa)

“Times are hard and so cruel, they changed the father that you once knew, when I was at home, happiness left the room and now you, don’t want me around, no you don’t want me around. But it’s Christmas time.”

It's Christmas Time! Well not quite but it won't be long! Yikes!

Well, I spent all day yesterday, from 8am to 8pm exclusively sitting at my PC putting the finishing touches to my new website, which on top of everything else I have done in a week. Strange experience selling myself but I am now long in the tooth, and as a previously (and still very much) shy person, I have put that aside to be shameless for once in my life, please allow me that indulgence and forgive.

The new website can be found at steve-drewett.com (if you have visited this address before you will need to refresh the page to see the new site) and pulls all the strings together of my creativity over the years. The website as it stands now is the first draft, and I intend to develop it in the future adding more content and more music available to buy of both the Neurotics and Indestructible Beat.

On the site you are able to buy downloads of the Jenga Society album which contains the new single of mine ‘It’s Christmas Time! (Oh, yeah, NaNaNa)’ too, and if the single is the only thing you like or want, then that can be downloaded separately.

Also on the site is the YouTube video to go with It’s Christmas Time! (Oh, yeah, NaNaNa)’

This single is an attempt to talk about the stress that austerity has on relationships and how, if you ignore the religious and commercialisation of Christmas, it still an important time to take stock of your life and forgive and make up. The song has to do this and still be uplifting and catchy. Not an easy job but take a look at it below and see if you think I have achieved it or not.

Keep The Faith and get up and fight

At long last, I finally have my consignment of both my Christmas single “It’s Christmas Time! (Oh yeah, NaNaNa)” and my album kuJenga Society, only six days late.
Now I have to open shop and start selling them, not to mention sending out review copies and trying to get some publicity generally.
There will be a YouTube video going up very soon too.
After the relaxing time of the launch/sixtieth birthday bash I am now working flat out again, as today I must finish my website and remember to eat at some point. My PC is wearing out and my hard drives are busting at the seams.

Keep The Faith

This song was a designed to lift the listener and refresh their will to carry on the fight. It is saying it is always better to fight together than to fight alone and music has always played an important part in stirring the imagination and reinforcing the convictions that, through weariness, sometimes we can lose track of. 

It can be a bleak world but the future is there to be seized, and it should be done so for the good of all. If we do not shape our future someone will do it for us. 
The song was originally written with the fight against Apartheid as the backdrop and the collapse of that ideology was a definite win for us all. Remember that!

Today, there are other challenges, particularly as democracy is in threat and could end up as just a word used as a fig leaf by capital and corporations as they control our lives.
Check out this George Monbiot article (link here) to see how close we are to losing everything, it is truly unbelievable and proves that some of our nightmares unfold during the day.
Get up and fight, and before you do, listen to ‘Keep The Faith’ for a bit of encouragement.

Now there’s a plan.

An Inch away from kuJenga Society

2 days 14 hours 0 mins is how late the delivery of my Jenga Society album is.

Still waiting, do they actually exist?

I continue to work on the new website so there is still plenty to do in the meantime (great word that, very appropriate for me at the moment, meantime hmmm, apart from Saturday night of course!).
Just dying to get the website launched, upload the video to YouTube and get the thing on sale.

Inch Away

This song is very current now because although the Neurotics originally did it on the ‘Is Your Bathroom Breeding Bolsheviks’ album, I have recorded an acoustic version which can be found on the long lost' kuJenga Society' solo album that I am supposed to have possession of at this moment.

The new album has a couple of Neurotic songs on there, because they adapted well to an acoustic arrangement and I felt that they didn't get a fair shout on the original album.
The song is quite grim though as it deals with domestic violence but I believe that the melody has a quality that lifts it away from despair, because the woman and children whose lives we are following are on the cusp of changing their lives for the better. 

Follow this link to Inch Away played live for the first time acoustically

My big party!

I had a fantastic 60th party/Jenga Society launch, on Saturday night, it was perfect, I couldn't have wished anything more from it and it was good for me to be able to relax. I don’t think I have relaxed for three months solid and my trials and tribulations went on right up to the sound check for the gig. Earlier, I was on the phone, enraged and despairing as I was told that the CD’s of my new album, that were meant to be delivered on Thursday still hadn't arrived and were presumably lost somewhere in Poland.

They weren't going to make it, I was not going to have them for the launch night of the album. The CD manufacturers scrabbled around to soften the blow by duplicating 90 labelled copies in clear plastic pouches, which helped on the night but are hardly the same thing.
So some people are now enjoying the album even though I have not received the real things yet.

I was so wound up and angry, that I thought it had permanently ruined my mood for the evening, Luckily, that wasn't the case and I had an absolute ball.

Especially because Paul Howard and Sod’s frontman Kevin Jones, did a fantastic version of Mindless Violence. I was very proud to hear Kevin, from the very band that inspired me to form the Neurotics, singing one of the songs we first started out with.
After that Howard and Clack did the most awe inspiring version of ‘No Respect’, I will repeat what I wrote on Facebook because I cannot sum it up better re-writing it.

 Then Paul did a version of No Respect and it was so beautiful that it made me cry, I could not believe that I had written that song, he made it something else, and i have no words to adequately describe what it did to me. To hear myself reflected back from a great artist like Paul was like being given the most priceless birthday present ever, a glittering jewel of a moment. Thanks Paul and thanks for great performances from Murray Attila, ‘Sumishta and Keith’ aka 13 Frightened Girls and everyone else who shared last night with me, I love you all.

So… while I wait for long awaited delivery of my album, ho hum, I now have to get on with designing a new website for me and the release, so that I can get it ready to go live once I have the physical discs.

On we go!

Today is the day! The release of kuJenga Society my first solo album!

8 hours and 5mins

Today is the day I have been planning for, every day for three solid months. It was meant to be the release date of my new album and single but just to add to all the ups and downs I have had with this venture, I didn’t get the CD’s yesterday as I was supposed to, because they were stuck in Poland.
The update on this is that they are meant to be in Dagenham this morning and the guy from the CD manufacturing firm is going to collect them and get them to me by 2pm this afternoon. Hmmm, we shall see.
Anyway looking forward to a big party tonight, gotta go and prepare.

Later…

Someone's hanging on my telephone, call the Bored Policemen!

1 day 6 hours 57 mins to go…

Bit pissed off today, as I lost my phone on my birthday. It got pulled out of my pocket when it snagged on the sleeve of my coat, and hit the ground just as I pulled open the door of a taxi, the sound of it hitting the concrete was covered up by the sound of the taxi door opening. Someone later found it and the phone now resides with them in Sawbridgeworth, findmyphone tells me. Hmmmmph.

Update on my Jenga Society CD consignment… apparently, it’s stuck somewhere in Poland? Typical, they come over here, without my CD’s and go back again.

Talking of which, after I lost my phone and got into the taxi, a few minutes later the driver was cut up by a Mercedes, and he then turned to me and said “It’s probably a bunch of Romanians who have made a fortune but are still on benefits and claim they’re poverty stricken.  
In my head…”Aaaaahhhhhh, get me out of this seething mass of ignorance, it’s my birthday, I don’t want to hear your irrational poison”. I didn’t know what to say, how you argue with that without getting extremely angry, I don’t want to be angry, this is my birthday, I am not getting angry today!

So is this where it ends, after all my hard work? I don’t have a new album to launch on November 1st?

Bored Policemen.

This was also an early attempt at fusing rock with reggae and was inspired by the amount of time I spent walking back and forth across the town at night, mostly at weekends, coming back from parties in the early hours, smashed out of my head. Or occasionally,coming back from a gig. I was young and out late and therefore ‘up to no good’. It happened so many times, they’d asked a load of stupid questions (I once had to name the use for every key I had on my key ring.) and I would answer politely as my mum advised me, and then they’d let me go. In the end it was obvious that they had nothing to do and to relieve their boredom they would pull people aside not because they had any suspicion of wrong doing but we were fair game being out late.

So Bored Policemen it was then, not so much a Police and Thieves but a Police and suburban kids, not a big thing, but to us it was. If you were young and black and lived in a big city you were talking SUS and that was another ball game altogether. 

Where does all the Thyme go?

1 Day 13 hour 31 mins 

Well, my sixtieth turned out to be a damp squib of a day, as I expected. It was a Wednesday, it was grey, it was raining, the bowling alley I wanted to go to was shut, there were no shows on in nearby theatres, there were no films on of any merit too see and there was nothing that I had a burning desire to do or see. On top of all that I lost my phone too. That is why I am celebrating my birthday properly on Sat 1st Nov instead, Wednesday was always a non-starter.
What was good though, was all the greetings I got via Facebook and my birthday cards, they were some of a few bright spots in my grey day, thank you.
I was hoping by now to be surprised by the early delivery of my freshly minted kuJenga Society CD, but no, not so far. See, this does show that underneath it all, I am an optimist. 

The Mind Of Valerie.

In this song, I attempted to depict the stresses and strains that striking has on a family and I wanted to highlight the importance of the support from the wives (in this case in the Miners’ Strike) that was essential for the men to stay out.
The essential thing here is solidarity, it is a powerful thing and there will be many times that this concept may be needed to protect what you believe in in life. It is this solidarity which is the target of the right as they recognise that, it is the tool of working people to protect themselves. Solidarity is often found in the public sector and it is no-wonder then that we are seeing the dismantling of the Local Government and the NHS by the Tories, so that those services can be handed over to the ‘individualism’ of the non-unionised private sector. They then help their friends and the boards of companies they eventually join, to make maximum profits without paying a decent wage. GOLD RUSH BABY!

Striking is a grim and desperate thing to do, but the awful industrial relations in this country means that working people need more than ever to protect themselves and I think it is an essential and noble thing to do, to stand by your fellow worker and fight for what is right, even though you may be losing much needed money in the process.
It is this nobility and struggle that I tried to capture in ‘The Mind Of Valerie’


Take a listen, 30 mins and 30 seconds in.

These are birthday times!

2 days 20 hours 38 mins to go...

I am 60 today, I can’t believe I am here, I am very grateful to be, I have a lot to be grateful for. I am taking time out from planning the kuJenga Society release today, to go and do something, I don’t know what but I have to make a decision very quickly before the day grows old.

I am having a big do on Saturday so today has been left to be somewhat random.

Fighting Times.

Staring Thatcherism in the face is an ugly thing to behold; to confront Thatcherism took a strong stomach and a lot of energy. But if you took enough time to examine her political philosophy, the future became clear and it was terrifying. One of the biggest things was the loosening of the regulations regarding media ownership. 30 years ago, Margaret Thatcher's government allowed Mr Murdoch's company to take over The Times and Sunday Times without referring it to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC), even though he already owned the Sun and the News of the World. 
We then became a nation unable to see it’s self as a collection of communities but with the prism of Murdoch’s world view, we came to see ourselves as a collection of self-interested, self-centred individuals.
If you see yourself shed in that light long enough, you will begin to believe it.
Language is what we use to make the world, but who hold the reins to delivery of language and ideas through the media, how did they get it, who’s purpose does it really satisfy and are they accountable?

'Fighting Times 'was a rallying cry which described what we would lose if we did not stand up and be counted. Not enough people did stand up to be counted and so we came to loose so much that had been fought for over the years.
But it is never too late to fight back!

The quote below from ‘Fighting Times’ was written about the apartheid regime but is still relevant, I think, as a truism for what we are experiencing today. 

“cos, it’s greed that creates the scum that rules a land, and imprisons it’s people as slaves” 

Excuse me sir, this is a courtesy call, If you could replace any of your windows in your home, which ones would you choose. Eh, Windows 8, I can't get on with it!

3 days 21 hours and 0 min

I feel much better today. There is no doubt that I have been over-doing it, but I had a health check yesterday and the results were A1 on everything, which was a great relief as I felt exhausted and flat at the time of it taking place.
I have had a good night’s sleep and feel somewhat revived ,although I do think I have a bit of a chest infection. Never mind, I still have so much to do.
The good news is, I have implemented the download service for both the single and the album but it appears to take a fair while for the songs to show online so I do not know if anything will be available to be bought on Nov 1st. We shall see.
Once they are available, I will need to put the connection into my website so that you can easily click through to make a purchase. Once that is in place, it will be the first time that I will be able to sell my music without someone else taking a cut.

Sects

This is a song about the religion industry. It has always been a bizarre concept to me that spiritualism could be packaged up and sold; it’s like fighting for peace.
However the way that religion is often sold, not only undermines the message but is damn ugly.

I will not buy goods or services of any kind from cold callers knocking on my door. The idea of getting you to purchase or agree to something on your doorstep is a pressure tactic and it preys on the old and vulnerable. 

When I answer the door to someone who asks me if I have seen the light, I am incensed. Can you imagine what it would be like if every company or organisation that had something to sell, came knocking on your door? You would never get any peace. I just say, “Did I ask you to engage me on this?” “No, I know where your church is, if I want enlightenment I will come to you!” Door stop selling is so old fashion and so not the way to do things these days but it still happens. 

Much as I love the Beatles and George Harrisons part in their music, his involvement in the Rada Krishna Temple, although culturally interesting, meant for a while we were stopped in the street, given the hard sell by these colourful salesmen of Eastern philosophy.  

Of-course what they used to do was a complete con. They would have some albums with them which were recorded by a bunch of no-bodies and then in the sleeve design, they would put a bunch of rock star names making it look they were playing on the album, George Harrison, Carlos Santana etc. These were people who were in some way interested in eastern religion and were listed to imply they were playing on the record.

Their tactic was to hand a copy of this album over to you, saying that it was free and had these big rock stars on it, but they didn't let go of it. Once you held it in your hand, you had committed to accepting a free album and the next thought that goes though your head was, oh well, it’s free, I’ll accept it, I've got nothing to lose. But they haven’t let go of it! 

Before they do, they then say, could you make a donation. Now you've committed to taking the album but are concerned about what sort of donation would be acceptable for it. They soon help you with that and then you walk away having bought an album of unmitigated rubbish. This happens in the street, a cold calling away from the home. 

Fortunately, I can tell you I never succumbed to this con, but I have often come across this album in the collections of my friends.

I rib them rotten over it!  

Footnote: In cities we have played with big Red light districts like Amsterdam and Hamburg, I have been known to announce this song thus... Ladies and Gentlemen, the Neurotics are now about to perform Sects live on stage. That always broke the ice.