I have written one or two songs the subject matter of which could be desribed as a tad dark.

What the Orderly Saw is about a hospital orderly interrupting some criminals and being shot dead

Nightfall is about the hunger for human flesh that we all feel. Go on, admit it, you want to taste long pork.

Self Made Man is about replacing your body parts with mechanical alternatives in a bid to escape whatever it was that happened to your wife.

Ironbark is 20 minutes long. On average, that’s one person dead every four minutes. “5 men know where the bodies are buried, here in Ironbark”.

Ghosts in my Dreams is about your guilt over the bodies you’ve left behind.

In Some of the Creatures Have Broken the Locks on the Door to Lab 558 everyone dies. Everyone.

Sending out CDs.

Can you get one? No. These are only going to people who open every email from my mailing list. Ha!

I’ve been enjoying the new Iron Maiden album.

In particular I like how it sounds like a band playing together in a studio. There are little things, like the occasional fret buzz, or hi hat count ins between sections that another producer might cut out in the name of ‘perfection’.

I don’t think they’re playing to a click track – the tempos aren’t metronome perfect. In fact I’m just listening to ‘The Red and the Black’ and the tempo has sped up or slowed down a little three or four times since starting typing.

Rock bands should record like this.The only reason I can think for not doing so is if you’re Fear Factory and playing songs about evil robots. Then you can sound like a machine, cos it makes sense. Everyone else? Turn the bloody metronome off!

Of course, not having an actual band I am forced to use click tracks. Needs must. I try and leave little mistakes in and have changes in tempo where I can. When recording ‘Some of the Creatures….’ I recorded guide tracks that were deliberately loose and a bit rough around the edges timing wise – musical rather than robotic – and recorded the real parts with that as a guide.

Perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Doing some planning for creative projects over the next 12 months.

Titles have been redacted, but I have on my plate four albums of new music, two writing projects, and re-releases of my previous steampunk albums with bonus tracks n stuff. . smile emoticon (It’s me putting stuff on my plate. I needn’t do any of this. Is this excessive? It might be).

Here’s the text of my latest newsletter, with the fanpage password redacted. You need to sign up for that.

Hello you!

It’s just under two months since Fit The Fourth was released. Good things have happened since including:

1. Prog Mag Review

I’m a ‘batty steampunk wizard’ apparently. I quite like that. More info here.

2. Launch gig!

I played an acoustic launch gig. It was great fun, none of the audience threw anything, and the support set from fellow Bad Elephant Jon Hunt was great.

Over on the fan page I’ve put up a zip file with recordings of most of my set from that night. You can download and hear far, far too many songs about Seven Bells John. Including a one man version of Seven Bells Redeemed. Not quite sure how I pulled that off.

I’ve also put up lyrics from recent releases as some people who bought CDs at gigs might never have seen the digital only lyrics sheets.

The password for the fanpage is [REDACTED]. Here’s the link.

3. Competition?

Oooh, shall we have a competition? If you want a free CD (don’t tell David from Bad Elephant Music!) reply to this email with an explanation of what the new password is about. No using google, that’s cheating! I’ll pull a winner out of my hat. Deadline is Weds 5th August.

Thanks for listening you mad, lovely people. See below for gigs and other stuff.

Tom

www.tomslatter.co.uk

Gigs! 
August 8th – House Concert
August 22nd  -The 5th Surrey Steampunk Convivial Link
Elsewhere – There should be gigs in other parts of the country later in year. Stay tuned!

So yesterday I launched my album Fit the Fourth by putting some people into a little Chapel in Bethnal Green and singing songs at them.

There’s a list of things that have gone wrong with acoustic gigs that I was keen to avoid: dodgy sound, no seating, a dodgy or random set of acts, a lack of coherence to the night, silly ticket prices.

None of these things went wrong yesterday. The sound was good, the venue was different and had seats in it, it makes total sense to have Jon Hunt and myself on the same bill, there was no money involved (apart from the sound guy’s well-earned fee and the CDs people purchased). It was a proper little show and it worked.

I’m very glad it did because it’s the first time I’ve organised a gig.

That’s not entirely true, I’ve organised many a school concert. Trying to organise forty or fifty teenagers in various different acts and sort out sound, lighting and stage management with too few staff is considerably more stressful than this was.

It is the first time I’ve organised a gig of my own music, to launch an album that’s out on an actual label (well, Bad Elephant Music​). It’s the first time I’ve been top of a bill and certainly the most people ever to turn up to see me play who didn’t have to because they were my friends and family.

It’s the first time I’ve played 45 minutes of music where almost every single song was about the same character. It was the first time I’ve attempted to play a one-man version of one of my 20 minute songs that was never intended to be performed in that fashion (I think it worked!).

It was, in short, a bloody good night and I am very happy with it.

There will be recordings in a few days. You have been warned.

PS. I love that the picture above makes it look more like a lecture that happened to include a guitar.

Fit the Fourth is, according to Prog Rock Magazine, ‘a bit like Oliver Twist reimagined by a batty steampunk wizard’.

I’m quite happy with that quote. Here’s a link to the whole review. You need to sign up to read it, but that’s free. I’m well chuffed to be reviewed in such an esteemed publication.

(Just inspired and influenced. I haven’t stolen anything in a way that would stand up in court!)

1. Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin (The big sweeping melody from the end)

2. Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini (The big sweeping melody from the middle)

3. Red by King Crimson

4. Epiphany from Sweeney Todd (What? I like this musical!)

5. Tarkus by ELP

6. Random bits from Phantom of the Opera (Yeah, I like that musical too. Stop judging me! I bet you enjoyed some 80s synth pop or BackStreet boys or something.)

7. Can-Utility and the Coastliners by Genesis

8. Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater (Is this more embarrassing than the musicals? DT are a bit of a Marmite band aren’t they?)

1. The entire outside world is infected

2. Murderer, murderer, you’re going to hell where you belong
3. I wet my gills and slip away
4. You can find you gods in alleyways, or in the river mud.
5. Have the mermaid’s come? Do they sing to us, with their sweet and rotting, fishy lullabies?
6. Three shots fired and one shot struck, a pistol to the head
7. Where the devilfish roll in the boiling waves
8. I believe the man in the burned ragged clothing who choked out the story before he died
9. The spores of the creatures that broke through the locks…

(I think we’re nearly mixed. Artwork, maybe a video to do. Release around February perhaps. Whoop)

Oh no! I can’t do today’s online gig. I’m dealing with plumbing.

… That is not a euphemism. Actual plumbing. I’ll reschedule!