_blog
Do not read this. It really all is navel gazing nonsense. Not fit for human consumption. Go elsewhere.
Go live date confirmed
-
9.7.25
So I've finished and submitted 'The Death of Stephen Ellis' with a go live date of 18/7. That's not much notice for Spotify et al, but I don't really care when it goes live on there anyway! Quite a few loose ends and message posts etc to write over the new few days, but I'm looking forward to getting this thing over the line!!!
Been walking
-
4.7.25
I've been in Scotland for a few days. I intended on doing some creative work on my rest day, but it's such a different headspace when I'm up there and frankly I'm too exhausted when I'm resting to do anything at all. Ideas were flowing as I walked the hills though. All story related. But I've thought of a twist to The Event which could be interesting.
Now I'm back, and I have access to my studio area again (cos Luca and Charlotte have moved out), I'm fixed on getting both this website and 'The Death of Stephen Ellis' over the finishing line!!!
Forgot to say
-
4.7.25
'Maybe' didn't get through to the second stage of the song competition. The first stage had 3750 entries, and only 50 go through to the second stage, so it's a bit of a lottery tbh. And see previous negative comments re unsuitability etc etc etc. Nice to get that 92/100 score, but...
We are a live!
-
15.6.25
Just submitted Lie with Me to https://lullabymachine.com/home . And the submission process asked for a URL to relevant website and bearing in mind that the site is now so very nearly done it's prompted me to just turn the damned thing live. So that's it. We is now live.
A funny turn
-
15.6.25
It turns out, that after my toys-out-of-the-pram moment with my seemingly disparaged song contest submission, 'Maybe' got 92/100 on it's second assessment... Really not sure what to say about that...
back from holiday
-
8.6.25
Back from holiday. Feeling tired and got a day to myself before going back to work. I took my notebooks with me, but didnt really touch them. Thought a lot about creative endeavours, but just was too busy relaxing to be actively creative.
Looking at the waves
-
3.6.25
Been looking at the waves, endlessly pounding the shore. And thinking about how irrespective of all our differences, everyone can take pleasure in watching waves crash on the shore. Everyone. Even the most inauthentic and self-serving.
And throughout all of humanities turmoil - at the most macro and the micro - the waves continue to crash. They always have and they always will.
The Event?
-
1.6.25
So the first post-Stephen-Ellis project was intended to be picking up The Event again. (I need to back-log entries to WIP...!) But I think this needs a rethink. The concept is a too obvious post-apocalyptic fare. Too easy to trip into cliche. But I do like the principal of doing character studies. So maybe I can just use the Event itself as more of a backdrop. And the real themes can be memory, normality, expectation, boredom, desperation, longing, etc.
Nearly done
-
1.6.25
The site really is nearly done. And so is The Death of Stephen Ellis - I seem to be more relaxed recording this song than I have with previous Stephen Ellis songs, it feels a bit more effortless somehow. Holidays in Madeira and Scotland will mean it'll be July before I get this thing over the line though.
Too true
-
25.5.25
"Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide."
Donald Woods Winnicott
Tired and distracted
-
23.5.25
So the good news is that I'm properly into writing and recording The Death of Stephen Ellis now. Which in addition to this site being very nearly done, means I'm close to 'launching'. However, I'm also tired and distracted by work related woes. So things are taking longer and being less focussed than I'd like. Just need to keep eating off bits and pieces when I get the time/energy.
Just that
-
17.5.25
"There's not much poetry today though, is there?" Daniel Rushkoff
The nail
-
13.5.25
Wow. So probably the last act of belligerent optimism I partook in was submitting a couple of songs (The Whisky Jar and Maybe), to a songwriting competition. Got the initial feedback yesterday - tepid, would be a positive interpretation of the reviewers comments. The most telling was "I admire your courage. Being an artist is not easy" and also "I advise you to keep writing and recording each week". Fuck me... and also, fuck off.
I've checked out some of the previous winners and they're so different to what I am.
It's just another example of why it's just not worth trying to gain external validation.
More doubts...
-
6.5.25
A couple more doubts - a) that I should have used a more open, general platform for html, css and js to build and host the site. And b) that I should have used are.na or something for the WIP/Forming Trees section rather than building my own.
Overall, the Past Works section is dominating Falling Trees, which is totally counter to my original intention.
But anyway. These are just pointless doubts.
Finally....
-
4.5.25
Finally lyrcic ideas are starting to flow for Stephen Ellis' last song. I'm away from my laptop for a few days and only have a notebook to capture anything - so there's plenty of space and time for words and imagery to intertwine. Things are taking shape in my head - just hope that it stands up when I get back to a piano where I can try some of this stuff out.
Be more artist
-
2.5.25
I should start thinking of myself as being an artist. It sounds cringey. But a) who gives a fuck, cos who am I telling anyway? And b) what else am I?
Experiment or what?
-
1.5.25
It seems pretty clear from doing all my song details writeups that getting back to some more experimental, in the box stuff is what I want/intend to do. Falling Trees will be really suitable for that.
I just hope that it will also be suitable for whatever creative craving comes after that?
I guess the point is that I can easily evolve or revolve the site to whatever that craving might be?
How far to go
-
28.4.25
I've written up details for a decent proportion of the songs now. They're a bit scrappy and inconsistent. But fine.
Really not sure at times why I've captured these notes. Certainly not with the view that anyone will read them.
And if the audience is me, maybe what I need is more of an overall analysis - to figure out what makes my creative clock tick. But I don't want to spend more time on writing stuff, which probably just doesn't need writing....
Maybe AI can help with that actually
...?
Oh my actual god
-
27.4.25
Noe decidedly close to finishing this thing!!! Lots of content still to write, but I think the structure and functionality is all in place (as much as it needs to be anyway).
Closer and closer...
-
25.4.25
I think I'm getting close to having this thing ready. Mainly content to do really. No big issues to crack or anything.
Churning, churning, churning
-
23.4.25
Feels like most of the technical problems with the site are now done, bur I have a lot of content to write - need to churning through 50+ write-ups of songs....
Forming Falling, Fallen
-
21.4.25
Got an idea for how any ongoing creative activity could be tracked around the principal of a Forming Tree - the Seed of an idea, Roots of inspiration, Trunk of a central theme or concept, the Branches of creative work, and the Leaves in terms of scraps of creative output and finally the Fruit in terms of songs etc.
The site could then have Fallen/Falling Trees and Forming Trees.
I like it. Not sure how to present all that on screen and within the structure of a site though.
The Event
-
21.4.25
Think I'm going to resurrect The Event, an idea I was playing around with a few years back. It was going to be 4 songs based around a central theme or story, but it could easily take on broader visual and written elements so could be a good jumping off point for me to combine sounds, pictures and words into one thing.
Multimodal
-
18.4.25
And I really do need to force myself to intertwine photography and writing too - and I think I can twist video, AI and coding in there as well...
Whilst forming
-
18.4.25
The Fallen Trees can all feel like a database of work, but the Falling Trees can very much be evolving, organic and scrappy. Maybe they'll start with seeds of ideas which I can post online too, and it doesn't matter if they just grow and branch out over extensive periods of time.
No Covers
-
17.4.25
Struck me that cover images won't really be relevant for new stuff!? There can multiple images, videos, multiple versions of audio, lyrics, stories, videos, whatever!
Falling vs Fallen
-
17.4.25
Been spending most of my time getting the site "right" for all the historic 'back catalogue' stuff, which is fine. But I've realised that I really don't want the new stuff to be presented in the same way. The new stuff should be more organic works in progress, more open ended - Falling Trees, not Fallen Trees.
Something holistic, hopefully
-
16.4.25
I guess fundamentally, I'm hoping that this exercise of placing disparate creative outputs into the same place will enable me to make them play nicely, intertwine and combine more. That should be possible, right? Particularly if I own the means of presentation. And if that presentation mechanism can also be part of the creative act? Do think that will require me to get beyond the stiff edges of Webflow though.
Do the task
-
14.4.25
Feeling very tired today. And if there's one thing I've learnt is that when you're tired, you just need to get a simple, predefined task done. Don't try and do anything which requires too much thought or decision making. Just shut up, try not to think about it, and do the task!
Back to guitar?
-
13.4.25
Looking through these old songs is making me pine to play live again, a bit. I also feel like doing a few guitar based songs, or at least focusing on using guitar to write.
Guitar is also much easier and fun to use in an open mic context. So, maybe that's something to think about.
Fun and games
-
11.4.25
Been working on the rather functional songs list page. Interesting but tricky. Nearly ditched it for a different approach last night, but thought of solutions to my concerns as I was falling asleep. Either way, I'm keen to move to the less functional, more exploratory fun way of accessing the songs, got some ideas for gamifying playlist production, but god knows when I'll get the time to put those ideas into practice.
Gardening
-
10.4.25
Been reading a bit about Digital Gardens. I'd love for this to become that - a random loosely jointed exploration of stuffs. Webflow possibly not the best place to do that. Really do need to not get ahead of myself though.
Close down, don't isolate
-
9.4.25
Started getting rid of various apps from my own which I won't need any more - Facebook, Spotify for Artists etc. And instead getting websites for creative which I can check in on periodically.
I'm also realising that I need to get Debbie and Luca, Ellis etc to start looking at what I'm doing and giving a bit of feedback, cos I'm going in circles with things unnecessarily.
No trudging
-
7.4.25
I'm being discreetly plagued by doubt at the moment. I've been adding a few details etc about each track and it feels more like a task, a trudge, rather than an interactive iterative exercise. I need to find a way to make it more of a lively engaging process for myself, rather than it just being a case of starting at the top and working down to the bottom - cos there's no value in that. Need to remember that I'm not doing any of this so other people can read this, but instead to encourage myself to reflect in order to aid creation.
Overwhelming
-
6.4.25
Started doing the descriptions and reflections on each song. Feels worthwhile, but a lot of effort. Also feels a bit indulgent. But I'm going to stick at it, because this whole thing only really works if it is the whole thing!
Promotion?
-
5.4.25
Hmmmm, so I got a standard circular email this morning from BBC Introducing this morning. It was prompting me (Stephen Ellis), to submit a latest song to them - undoubtedly for them to just reject again. But it has made me wonder whether I should submit FallingTrees when it's done. Partly cos Maybe will be ready and I think it's genuinely good, but partly just cos it will be satisfying to send that link to FallingTrees, rather than Spotify. I'll probably do it. It is kind of promotion though... And it will kind of raise that sense of hope and expectation.... :/
No time for subtlety
-
4.4.25
I've spent some time with a few AI image generators to create a cover for Stephen Ellis' final song. I've got a general theme - he gets hit by a falling tree and as he dies he thinks back on all his like and streams on social media.... I think it'll work nicely, but actual lyrics aren't forming at all. I thought generating an image might help with the inspiration. It hasn't.... I always struggle somewhat I think with wanting to be overly explicit and direct with my subject matter, like here I'll end up wanting to reference Spotify and stream counts directly. This ends up cheapening the lyrics I think, but its too hard to resist being so direct. Subtlety will likely be out the window with this track anyway, so prob just best go with it!
I want to have this thing launched by/during June - so need to get on with it!!
Hopeful
-
2.4.25
I've been using AI to help wirh the solution and script generation for the music player for the site. Going to try and implement it tonight, hoping it works out the box or I could be in a world of pain and self expectation resetting for the next few weeks.
New obsession
-
1.4.25
I'm now officially obsessed with creating this website... Which wasn't the idea. This was not supposed to be the focus of my creative efforts,... But the obsession feels unavoidable so I'm going with it. There's definately a strong creative element to this build, even if it's also quite technical and administrative. One thing is for sure, my desire to be writing songs is not present at the mo...
Product catalogue (2)
-
31.3.25
The more I get into it, the more I'm liking the idea of having a catalogue of work which I can live and breathe with. Partly in terms of ideas I have re creating private forms which can prompt me to reflect on a specific song from the catalogue, and then record those reflections against the song.
But also because I look at some of the stuff I did with seb_7 and the fact that I used to just grab photos from my work which just kind of worked as illustrations of the song, without thinking of them as fixed covers. (Really pisses me off that Spotify / the distributors won't let you update a song cover once it's uploaded)
Death of Stephen Ellis
-
30.3.25
Ideas emerging of doing a send off song for Stephen Ellis, basically about him dying. Prob quite minimal (and hopefully quick). I can end it with a "promotion" of this site. I do need to make sure I don't get too dragged in to the idea of promoting this though, cos that is not the idea - remember!!!
Product catalogue
-
27.3.25
I've wanted to get a catalogue together for all my music for quite some time, this will kind of make that necessary. It's going to be quite a slog to get it all togeher but hopefully worth it.
An idea emerging...
-
26.3.25
Got an itch of an idea - ditch social media, ditch streaming platforms. Isolate and insulate. Create an echo chamber, embrace the creative abyss. Create a space in the forest for all the falling trees, irrespective of whether anyone is listening.
