The music is inspired by the various bird calls on the clifftops at Bempton, where my opera was to be set. In particular, I was fascinated by the fact that facing inland on the cliff, one would hear (to human ears, at least) the delicate and melodious of the birds of the field, while, by contrast, facing seaward, one would be confronted by the raucous and dissonant cries of the kittiwake, puffin and gulls.
Composition Part 2: So, Why No Book Then?
“Everyone has at least one good book in them.”
So, why haven't I written one, then? Well, I've started lots. Novels, academic books, books about soundtracks, books about Doctor Who... The list goes on.
The big question is, why haven't I finished a book?
Well, I'll get to that. But, first, a bit of a preamble.
The book I would currently like to write is a book about music composition.
"Why", I hear you ask, "Would anyone want to write a book about music composition? There are already thousands of books on music composition out there!"
But, are there?
Think about the music composition books you've read over the years. Are they really texts on music composition, or are they actually just manuals on harmony, notation and musical forms?
Now, back to writing books. When I was "determined" to be an author, I read an awful lot of creative writing books. These books weren't about grammar and spelling, but were concerned with evoking emotions in your reader, taking your reader on a journey, analepses (flash-backs), prolepses (flash-forwards), etc. Fundamentally, teaching the use of language as a tool, rather than teaching the rule of language.
This was the difference.
When I was still a composition lecturer in university, I would often tell my students that I had learnt more about composition from creative writing books than from books on so-called music composition.
If I may be allowed to paraphrase one of those lessons:
"The way to not write the great American novel is to try and write the great American novel."
Wow! What a lesson. Don't try to write anything good. In fact, deliberately write something that isn't good! Try it, and find out just how liberating that is, and watch the creativity flow.
At the time, I put this into practice and began writing a tawdry vampire novel, abandoning the pretentious philosophical novel I was attempting to write* at the time. Ok, I didn't finish that novel, either, but I got the furthest into writing a novel than I ever had before. Really far into it.
However, it was as soon as I applied this lesson to my music composition that things really began to take off for me.
Before applying this lesson, I found composition incredibly difficult**, but as soon as I gave myself permission to compose something that wasn't a masterpiece of the 21st century, or, in fact, permission to write something that wasn't even good, my productivity shot through the roof. And, you know what? The music I wrote wasn't half bad, and, I'm certain, it's no worse than it would have been had I tried to write a masterpiece of the 21st century. And, the great advantage of this process is that those pieces actually got finished, and I'm not still staring at a blank piece of manuscript paper with Opus 1 written at the top.
So, what's the point of this wandering stream of consciousness?
Well, the point is, if I try to write the great, missing composition book, it's really not going to get done, is it?
However, if I jot down in this blog my meandering anecdotes of things I learnt - who knows? - eventually, there might be something in the jumble that could be edited into a useful text.
Let's see.
“Everyone has at least one good book in them.”
* For "attempting to write" please subsitute, "avoiding writing".
** It still is difficult, but nowhere near as cripplingly difficult as it was before.
U Got the Look
Adventures of a Temu Jack Black
So, I’ve got, what my acting coach called, a “look”. That can be quite handy in acting, if your’renot good looking enough to be cast in Hollyoaks, and has given me the opportunity to play a homeless person, a roadie, a sleazy billiard hall shark, a satanist and a disgracefully ageing rock star. You know, nothing that’s really going to stretch my acting chops too far.
Oh, do click the above. It’s worth it.
To a certain degree, I’ve leant into this “look”, particularly in my other life as a “serious” composer.
It’s no secret that the “classical music’ world (I’m emphasising ‘world” because this is a systemic issue, rather than any individual’s prejudices) is not particularly welcoming to the working class. Sure, Mark-Anthony Turnage (who’s music I very much admire) and Nigel Kennedy flirt with the imagery of the working class. Turnage, in fact, for a long time seemed to have a voyeuristic fascination with working class culture, as evidenced in Greek and his appropriation of football chants. But, in general, it’s a world of well-educated middle class dudes. I took the decision that, rather than try and pass myself off as one of them, I would just lean harder into what I am.
This approach was rather a fun one. It always amused me to stand up and take a bow after a performance dressed like Joey Belladonna circa 1987, rather than wearing a snappy suit or a corduroy jacked with leather elbow patches (I did actually have one of these. Essential academic attire).
That’s me, all dressed up for a performance of Bempton Cliffs for string quartet. Sadly, these days I look more like an off season Jack Black than a member of Anthrax.
I.. am Steve
This is the official recording of that particular string quartet, performed by Voxare.
If you’d like to hear the actual recording of the concert, you can do that here.
Anyway, I digress.
One particularly fun time, I was taken to a swanky hotel for a champagne dinner by two of my very supportive champions in order to sweet talk the director of an extremely famous orchestra into giving me an orchestral commission for radio broadcast. Of course, I rocked up looking like I was going to hit the stage with Bad Pollyanna or Dear Superstar ( I think I may have even been wearing Anikó’s peacock feather earrings) and did me some mingling.
Anyhoo, it all went very well in terms of shmoozing and the important director and I got on very well. So well, in fact, that, when all the champagne was gone and the function over, I convinced him to crash another function taking place in the same hotel and drink more champagne. This all went terribly well and the important director seemed to be having a blast being so naughty under the influence of this decadent rocker.
Sadly, all good things come to an end and I waiter rumbled us as not belonging to the party and demanded the return of the champagne. The important director handed his back, like a naughty schoolboy, and I chugged mine before handing the waiter the glass with a friendly smile. We then made a sharp exit, giggling like Jennings and Darbishire.
Dear reader, I did not get the commission.
Anyway, one downside of the “look” is you do tend to get pigeon-holed in ways that aren’t always helpful. For example, in my work as a performer, producer and recording engineer, folk often assume I’m the metal guy. Don’t get me wrong, I love rock and metal, but I also love contemporary classical music, jazz, folk, blues, experimental music, electronica, rap etc. etc. In fact, I should take you on a tour of my record collection one day and you’ll see that rock and metal doesn’t take up any more wall space than any other genre.
What may surprise some people is that I had a long hiatus from listening to rock.After buying Tool’s Undertow in 1993 (even then, I was mostly listening to prog rock and jazz. Tool seemed proggy enough for me to justify the purchase), I consciously listen another rock album until I dug my vinyl out of my parents loft when I returned to the UK at the end of 2004. I probably didn’t buy another metal album until around 2010, when I discovered Mastodon while stocking up the CD library at Leeds Metropolitan University (Now Leeds Beckett University) in around 2010. That album was Mastodon’s Blood Mountain and I was hooked.
Having said all that, I’m really good at producing, recording, mixing and mastering metal.
So, after that nuanced diatribe as to why I shouldn’t be pigeon-holed as metal, I’m going to bang on a bit about metal again!
I produced this for UK Thrash legends Toranga UK.
Doghouse (Français)
Doghouse est un nouveau groupe de blues-rock puissant basé en France, mêlant le cran de ZZ Top, la fougue de Rory Gallagher,l'âme de Stevie Ray Vaughan à la finesse de Jeff Beck.
Mené par le guitariste et chanteur britannique Steve Kilpatrick, la chanteuse et claviériste américaine Anikó Tóth, le groupe offre des performances énergiques ancrées dans les traditions classiques du blues rock avec une touche de modernité.
Steve and Anikó
Voici quelques morceaux pour vous donner une idée de ce que nous faisons.
Originaire du Royaume-Uni, Steve Kilpatrick est un guitariste de blues-rock reconnu pour son jeu dynamique et sa fusion unique de blues, de rock et de jazz. Protégé du légendaire guitariste Gary Boyle (Soft Machine, Isotope), Steve a perfectionné son art sous la direction de Boyle et s'est forgé une réputation de guitariste polyvalent, tant en groupe qu'en soliste. Ses précédents albums incluent des concerts et des enregistrements avec Thelma Houston, Dear Superstar, Cairns, Tesni Jones (The Voice), Even Vast et Bad Pollyanna.
Steve
Anikó Tóth est une chanteuse et multi-instrumentiste américaine dont la voix soul et le jeu expressif au clavier apportent profondeur et intensité émotionnelle au son de Doghouse. Issue du folk, du jazz et du blues, son style vocal allie puissance brute et maîtrise nuancée. Interprète chevronnée, forte d'une expérience en concert et en studio, la présence scénique et le talent musical d'Anikó contribuent à l'alchimie dynamique du groupe.
Aniko s'est produite avec l'Orchestre philharmonique de Liverpool, le Hallé Orchestra et le Reflektor de Jan Kopinski, et a apporté son style vocal distinctif à des collaborations avec Meredith Monk, Thelma Houston et Roger McGough (The Scaffold).
Désormais installée en France, elle apporte une touche transatlantique au blues-rock brut de Doghouse.
Anikó
Greg Aubert est l'auteur-compositeur et chanteur principal de Santa Claws et a collaboré avec de nombreuses légendes du blues lors de son séjour à Chicago. Il a également travaillé avec le légendaire Greg Gordon (Greta Von Fleet, Rival Suns, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nick Cave).
Greg
Jannick Reichert est multi-instrumentiste, producteur et compositeur, il est également cofondateur de The Green Man et de Bumble Scream. Il a travaillé avec Martin Barre, Pat O’May et Breizh-a-rock.
Jannick
Né en Bretagne, Stéphane Kerihuel est un véritable alchimiste sonore qui fusionne rock, jazz et musique classique d'Inde du Nord. Outre ses propres projets, Enki, Makkabé, SK Loar Trio et The Green Man, il a été guitariste pour Republik et Noceur, groupe de Frank Darcel.
Stéphane
En ce moment, nous travaillons en étroite collaboration avec notre manager pour organiser prochainement des concerts près de chez vous.
Doghouse (English)
Doghouse is a powerhouse new blues-rock band based in France, blending the grit of ZZ Top, the fire of Rory Gallagher, and the soul of Stevie Ray Vaughan with the finesse of Jeff Beck. Fronted by British guitarist/vocalist Steve Kilpatrick and American vocalist/keyboardist Anikó Tóth, the band delivers high-energy performances rooted in classic blues rock traditions with a modern edge.
Ready to Rock
Here’re a few tunes to give you an idea of what we’re about.
Hailing from the UK, Steve Kilpatrick is a blues-rock guitarist known for his dynamic playing style and distinctive fusion of blues, rock, and jazz. A protégé of legendary guitarist Gary Boyle (Soft Machine, Isotope), Steve honed his craft under Boyle’s guidance and built a reputation as a versatile group player and soloist. His past credits include performances and recordings with Thelma Houston, Dear Superstar, Cairns, Breizh A Rock, Tesni Jones (The Voice), Even Vast, and Bad Pollyanna.
Anikó Tóth is an American vocalist and multi-instrumentalist whose soulful voice and expressive keyboard work bring depth and emotional fire to Doghouse’s sound. With roots in folk, jazz, and blues, her vocal style blends raw power with nuanced control. A seasoned performer with a background in both live music and studio work, Anikó’s stage presence and musicianship add a vital layer to the band’s dynamic chemistry.
She has performed with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and Jan Kopinski’s Reflektor and brought her distinctive vocal style to collaborations with Meredith Monk, Thelma Houston and Roger McGough (The Scaffold).
Now based in France, she brings a transatlantic edge to Doghouse’s gritty blues-rock foundation.
Joining us in Doghouse are Greg Aubert, the lead songwriter and vocalist for Santa Claws, who has collaborated with a whole host of blues legends, during his stay in Chicago. He has also worked with the legendary Greg Gordon (Greta Von Fleet, Rival Suns, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nick Cave).
Jannick Reichert is a Multi-instrumentalaist, producer and composer and co-founder of The Green Man and Bumble scream. He has worked with Martin Barre, Pat O’May and Breizh a rock.
Brittany’s own Stéphane Kerihuel joins me on joint lead guitar duties. Stephane is a true sonic alchemist and fuses rock, jazz and North Indian classical music. As well as performing his own projects Enki, Makkabé, SK Loar trio, and The Green Man, he has been guitarist with Frank Darcel’s Republik and Noceur.
Right now, we’re working closely with our manager to organise some gigs near you soon.
Composition Part 1: Everyone's Got One Good Book in Them
“Everyone has at least one good book in them, lad.”
That was something I would hear my grandad say quite often.
My grandad, known throughout his life as either Jock, Jack or John, was a voracious reader and autodidact who had a tremendous influence on me throughout my whole life (you can read a little more about our relationship here). I was devastated after his death, and even now, more than ten years after his passing, I still think about him every day.
I’m often amazed by how Grandad’s influence and values still shape my life. Sure, some of his words of wisdom have dated less well than others, but, somehow, I find myself repeating them.
“Never trust a man who hasn’t polished his shoes.”
Ok, now that one, on the surface, seems a little old fashioned and doesn’t seem to reflect the modern trend for training shoes and sportswear. However, what he meant by that phrase was that any idiot could buy a nice suit (assuming they could afford it) and pop it on whenever they needed to impress, but polishing one’s shoes takes time, attention to detail and pride in the little things. When I think of it like that, suddenly it becomes relevant again. Don’t place your trust in people who don’t pay attention to the details and who don’t take pride in what they are doing.
I’m not quite so sure I’ve worked out, “Never trust a man with a tiny knot in his tie”, just yet.
“Everyone has at least one good book in them.”
Grandad said this all the time and, I think, part of his belief in this idea was rooted in his passion for reading and writing and the idea that one day he would write his own book.
Grandad was a very funny man, and he an amazing ability to infuse anything he wrote with that humour. Whenever he and Nan would go on holiday, often to his motherland of Scotland, he would send me postcards. The backs of these postcards would be crammed with his spidery writing, telling tall tales of Nan hitting Nessie with her handbag, or fairy folk getting up to all sorts of mischief.
As a young man in his 20s, just after World War II, Grandad spent four years in a TB sanitarium in Scotland, after having contracted the disease in the Royal Navy escorting convoys across the Atlantic. My dad tells me that, during that time, Grandad would write him long letters with stick figures illustrating his shaggy dog stories in the margins.
After Grandad retired, Nan used to tell us about him scurrying off to his back office, where he spent hours secretively locked away. Whenever asked about what he was doing in there, he would respond with the familiar shrug of the shoulders and characteristic, “Och!”
We all knew he was writing a book up there.
A few years before he passed away, Grandad had a serious heart attack and was never quite the same. He was just as lovely as he’d always been, and, in fact, had become more openly affectionate, but he had lost a little of the childlike vibrancy that he had had before.
One day, rather than ask him what he had been doing in the office all those years, I asked him straight out,
“How’re the memoirs going, Grandad?”
“I burnt them.”
I couldn’t believe it. He had burned his memoirs. All those stories, all those memories, burned.
“Grandad, Why?”
“It was just a pipe dream, lad.”
Just a pipe dream. I found this devastatingly sad. At some point, this wonderful man that I admired had decided that it was just a crazy dream for someone like him to write a book.
“Everyone has at least one good book in them.”
Maybe, one day, this will be the first page in mine.
In the Doghouse
At some point, I’m going to get you all up to date with what’s been going on with the studio build in France, but, for now, I’ll just say that we are up and running and having a blast.
Now we have a little more time than during the construction, we can focus a little on our own music projects. One of these is our blues rock band Doghouse.
Ready to Rock!
Doghouse is a powerhouse new blues-rock band based in France, blending the grit of ZZ Top, the fire of Rory Gallagher, and the soul of Stevie Ray Vaughan with the finesse of Jeff Beck. Fronted by British guitarist/vocalist Steve Kilpatrick and American vocalist/keyboardist Anikó Tóth, the band delivers high-energy performances rooted in classic blues rock traditions with a modern edge.
Here’re a few tunes to give you an idea of what we’re about.
Joining us in Doghouse are Greg Aubert, the lead songwriter and vocalist for Santa Claws, who has collaborated with a whole host of blues legends, during his stay in Chicago. He has also worked with the legendary Greg Gordon (Greta Von Fleet, Rival Suns, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nick Cave).
Jannick Reichert is a Multi-instrumentalaist, producer and composer and co-founder of The Green Man and Bumble scream. He has worked with Martin Barre, Pat O’May and Breizh a rock.
Brittany’s own Stéphane Kerihuel joins me on joint lead guitar duties. Stephane is a true sonic alchemist and fuses rock, jazz and North Indian classical music. As well as performing his own projects Enki, Makkabé, SK Loar trio, and The Green Man, he has been guitarist with Frank Darcel’s Republik and Noceur.
Right now, we’re working closely with our manager to organise some gigs near you soon.
12-Note Lizzie, the Horror Queen: Elisabeth Lutyens’ British Horror Legacy
If you have seen Amicus’ Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), The Skull (1965) and The Psychopath (1966), Hammer’s Paranoiac (1963) or Pennea’s Theatre of Death (1967), you can’t help but have noticed the wonderful, yet disturbing music.
It was composed by Elisabeth Lutyens (1906-1983), an avant garde pioneer who was, until recently, unfairly forgotten, despite scoring a number of cult classics. She also created soundtracks for great - and not-so-great - British science fiction, like The Earth Dies Screaming, Spaceflight IC-1 and the oddball Charles Hawtrey alien abduction vehicle The Terrornauts.
How to Build a Professional Recording Studio Part 2
How to build a professional recording studio - Part 1
I moved to Central Brittany in France in November 2020, getting my feet under the table just before the end of the Brexit transition period. From then until April 2021, my wife and I were in the process of buying a beautiful stone cottage that we had found while appearing on the TV show A Place in the Sun. Besides it being a beautiful cottage, it also had a huge, stone coach house - The Devil’s Coach House this newsletter is named after - that we planned to turn into a recording studio.
As John Lennon (allegedly) said, “Life is what happens while you’re planning something else”. Well, our plan of moving to France, quickly completing our property purchase and having a fully functional recording studio by May 2021 did not quite turn out how we expected.
What Are The Best Plugins For Mixing And Mastering?
A Little David Bowie Trick from Tony Visconti Via John Carpenter
This little vocal reverb trick is one that I don’t use all the time, but is fantastic for vocal performances that start off very quiet and intimate, but build into some kind of dynamic climax.
The technique I’m about to share with you is the one I used for the extremely dynamic vocal performance by Anikó Tóth on the song ‘Cast’ that I wrote in collaboration with Mike Sizemore. The song had appeared in print form in John Carpenter’s Tales for a Halloween Night.
Pork and Doom Soup
Back in September, I worked with Christophe Chavanon at Kerwax Studio in Brittany on the new Withchthroat Serpent album, Trove of Oddities at the Devil’s Driveway. Withchthroat Serpent are an excellent Doom Metal/Stoner Metal group from France, and they chose Kerwax for their latest project because they wanted to record live to 24-track tape, which is exactly in what Christophe and Kerwax specialise.
Pull the Trigger
Identity, Jazz and Journalism in the Digital Age with Audrey Hall
In this episode, Anikó and Steve talk with radio presenter and journalist Audrey Hall about the importance of truth, social commentary, and Jazz as the music of the Black community and of protest. She talks about the common trauma of the Black experience, from Miles Davis being arrested for trying to enter the front door of a club where he was due to play to George Floyd and police brutality. She talks about British identity and broadcasting. And, of course, the music, itself.
Cathartic Creation, Caching and Cassettes with Christian Payne
In this episode, Anikó and Steve chat with Christian Payne (a.k.a. Documentally) about the role music and audio plays in his life and work, audio caching, ferric archeology, his adventures as a stowaway, playing harmonica on the John Peel Show and not going to hell for telling fibs in Italy. Christian is a photographer, writer, trainer, speaker, multimedia documenter and general polymath.
Death and the Dark and Delicious with vocalist Olivia Hyde
In this episode, the supremely talented Olivia Hyde talks us through her creative process and explains how the dark nature of her songs is really part of her positive approach to life and death forged by the loss of her father and how that drove her to become a artist, singer and rock front person. Olivia Hyde is the lead singer and 50% of the songwriting team of alternative rock band Bad Pollyanna. She is also a solo singer songwriter, educator, mentor and coach.
Character Creation and Conscious Co-Construction with Lyric Soprano Nadine Benjamin
In this episode, Anikó and Steve chat with Nadine Benjamin about about her latest collaborative theatre project called BEAM and her coaching and mentoring practice. British lyric soprano Nadine Benjamin is a charismatic and versatile artist who is in increasing demand on both the operatic stage and the concert platform. She is also developing great renown as an exponent of song, in particular Verdi, Strauss and contemporary American song.