My Subversion - Now Up to 13 Tracks and Available on IA

So far I've added 13 tracks and uploaded an Internet Archive version. Listen to it at http://www.archive.org/details/MySubversions or play all the tracks here:

My Subversions album - 11 tracks so far.

I'm building a new album up track by track. I'm calling this one "My Subversions". At the moment I'm posting the tracks to last.fm as I finish each of them. At the time of writing there are 11 tracks. You can listen and/or download them now. More will follow.

Tracklist

		Track
1		A Distorting Mirror free download
2		Ipecacuana free download
3		The Long, Arduous Trek Through the Mad Hatters Tea Party free download
4		The Superman free download
5		While My Guitar Gently Soils Itself free download
6		You're Not Coming In with THOSE Antiquated Implants! free download
7		Flange Sprocket free download
8		Vincent Starts on His Ear free download
9		Feet Down free download
10		My Version of Rear Window free download
11		Evil Twin with Bad Homburg free download

P.J. Harvey's "Let England Shake"

I've liked every song I've ever heard from P.J.Harvey but there's still one little annoying thing about her voice which continues to irritate me at the back of my mind even as I enjoy the songs. Why does she put an American sound onto her voice? I mean, there was a time, back in the beginnings of British rock, when singers thought they needed to sound American to be rock and roll. Then the Beatles, Rolling Stones and all the others broke through that perceived barrier. So why does a great singer these days still choose to put on an American vocal tone? I come from a Canadian father and an Irish mother but I grew up English so I'm interested in the importance people attribute to different kinds of voice. When I was in primary school the teachers made me stop imitating my dad's way of speaking because they thought it was "Americanism". In those days some British people couldn't tell the difference between Canadian and American. I'd love to hear P.J. Harvey sing with her own voice. But, that said, she does make a great sound in any case. I'm following her recent videos as they appear on her youtube page "Let England Shake". Here are two of the videos posted there so far:

I recently stumbled across the YouTube version of "The Hitler Rap" by Mel Brooks. This brings back memories. I bought the single when it came out on vinyl in 1983. It was my first rap record (well, kinda, sorta...). One of the greatest, most surreal comedy performances ever. I learned all the words and performed them over and over until I knew them by heart. The great thing is the combination of perfect musical, video and choreographical expertise with such a ludicrous theme. Heil Mel !!!

Incidentally, I was 30 in 1983 and Mel Brooks was 57, last year I was 57 and I'm glad to say Mel Brooks is still with us.

The Meaning of the Bok

By way of explanation, about references I make to "The Bok" in some of my poetry and songs.

"Bok" has had a special meaning to me ever since me and Jim Baggins (the late James Kimmis of Southend-On-Sea, Essex and latterly, Dorset) in 1972 devised a philosophical system cum timewasting exercise cum daydream cum exciting new fashion trend under the name of Boksterism. We started from the idea that "Bok" means luck in Romany. But, actually, the word "bok" has a lot of meanings. Bok means:

"Goat" in Afrikaans, Frisian and Dutch (but also has a slang meaning of "keen" or "willing" in South African slang.)

"Wife" in Khowar (Pakistan)

"Shit" in Azerbaijani or Turkish

"Hi" or "Hello" in Croatian and Serbian

"Side", "Flank" or "Hip" in Czech, Bohemian, Slovak, Slovenian and Polish

"Playpen" in Indonesian and Malay

"Tower" in Lithuanian

"Book" or "Beech" in Norwegian and Swedish

"River" in Choctaw (North America)

"Full" in Mbula (Papua New Guinea)

"Luck" in Romani

My favourite is that "Bok" is "Hip" in Bohemia!

Boksters (we decided in 1972) are tea drinking, Victorian/Edwardian style, slightly hippyish, science fiction geeks with an interest in show business, vaudeville, cabaret etc. Boksters drink excessive amounts of tea and like surrealism, Lewis Carroll, timewarps, 1950s beatniks and the Marx Brothers. It was a deliberately tongue-in-cheek faux fashion which we invented for ourselves so we wouldn't be following someone else's fashions. It was a joke in order to avoid being a joke. How, all these years later, Steampunks would invent virtually the same idea is a mystery. Jim died in 2007. He is sadly missed. Boksters were a small group of people, mostly English but there was a Swedish contingent (Marie-Louise and Gazelle).

Remember our proud, tea drinking, motto: KUSHTI BOK!!!