TV theme tune
Been asked to come up with an idea for a theme song for a new tv show. This is how the process works: People making tv show ask several composers to come up with idea. Those composers spend a lot of time coming up with ideas based on what they’ve been told the show is about, then record a good demo of it in the hope it might get chosen. Usually it just gets dismissed for not being what the producers were looking for in the first place, and then no-one will ever hear it again.
If you have watched today’s video podcasts you’ll see it took me a while. Shared a couple of bad moments with the operating manual. But that’s what you get if you stay up late trying to understand something a little too technical…
Recorded one which I’m quite happy with. It wont be what they are looking for, obviously, but at least by posting it here I feel better about spending the last 48 hours working on it.
If you have watched today’s video podcasts you’ll see it took me a while. Shared a couple of bad moments with the operating manual. But that’s what you get if you stay up late trying to understand something a little too technical…
Recorded one which I’m quite happy with. It wont be what they are looking for, obviously, but at least by posting it here I feel better about spending the last 48 hours working on it.
Passport photos
For the last 10 years I knew my passport was going to run out next month. But I still haven’t sorted out a new one. I finally put on a nice shirt and made it out to a photo booth today. I don’t have a good history of looking great in passport photos, ever since I got my first one when I was 15, for a family holiday in Majorca. The pictures that dropped out of the booth in the Chesterfield branch of Woolworths were possibly the most horrific ever taken, not helped by the bright yellow sweater I was wearing at the time. It’s difficult to see where my complexion stopped and the wool began. Passport photo machines have changed. You now get to approve the shot before it’s printed. No stool to turn around, no choice of orange or grey curtains as background. No loitering nervously outside the booth for five minutes like while it prints the pictures and then holding them out to dry for another 5 minutes. The new ones aren’t too bad I suppose. It’s more the terrifying prospect that this is how you must look to customs officials when you go abroad for the next 10 years.
A song in my head
New verse and chorus for a song going round my head - Ground Beneath Your Feet. Trying to get it finished…
Mysterious girl on tube
Went into town on the tube this morning. Sat opposite a beautiful young girl wearing too much make-up, like some caricature prostitute. Her massive gorgeous eyes beamed out from beneath very thick green shadow, and her cheeks were blushed obscenely pink. You usually get a pretty good idea of most people on the tube [first impressions are often correct] but I couldn’t work her out. Nothing else in her manner suggested she was a prostitute, although I liked the idea that she was some kind of courtesan and I started imagining some other life with her, in some dodgy flat in Paris. By the time she got off I went with the notion that she was a drama student. She probably just worked on a make-up counter in a department store and was trying out free samples.
If you let yourself, you could fall for someone on every tube train. Even if it were only for moments. How often could the human body fall in love? You’d be exhausted. But think of the songs you’d get out of it…
If you let yourself, you could fall for someone on every tube train. Even if it were only for moments. How often could the human body fall in love? You’d be exhausted. But think of the songs you’d get out of it…
My old friend Jimmy
Dinner with my old friend Jimmy who I played guitar with for years in pubs and bars in London, as Don & Ray. We never decided who was who, although I always felt I was more of a Ray than a Don. We had 2 acoustic guitars with pick-ups stuck on with double-sided tape, which always fell off in the middle of songs. We’d set up a small PA in various pubs [anyone from the Walmer Castle, Ledbury Road, Notting Hill, from the 80s to the 90s?] We’d play 30 songs, some of our own, some covers, while attempting to get off with the South African bar girls who we assumed must have really fancied us… Jim was always the better looking, so I always presumed they would go for him first. We used a kettle lead to power the amp, and balanced speakers precariously high up on bar stools placed on tables because we couldn’t afford stands, and hoped that nobody knocked them over… Sometime we forgot the kettle lead. The South African bar girls weren’t that impressed.
30 second songs
Just read about how Brian Eno was commissioned to come up with the music for Microsoft when Windows is opened up… it had to be 2.75 seconds long and he became obsessed with coming up with ideas at that exact length. Not quite the same thing [and without the cheque obviously,] but I am loving trying to come up with 30 second songs. ‘A Little of Who You Fancy’ was the first.
“Say that we say it could never happen, secretly wishing it would.
Boundaries merge, touches a nerve, and we pleasantly misunderstood
that a little of who you fancy does you good.”
“Say that we say it could never happen, secretly wishing it would.
Boundaries merge, touches a nerve, and we pleasantly misunderstood
that a little of who you fancy does you good.”
Plugging my competition tomorrow night
I’ve got a clapperboard, which I’m using on my video podcasts. Although I have just realised it’s nothing but an affectation, as I’m filming my blog onto a camera which also records sound, therefore making the ‘clap’ totally un-necessary. Style over content. Not often I can be accused of that. Usually the content’s ok, and the style completely missing. Anyway, got the first heat of my Lenny Smallman ’search for a singer-songwriter competition’ tomorrow night (see page link on the left). Pop down, it would be great to see you there.
My second video podcast (sorry, please ignore editing error - must learn which buttons not to press…!)
My second blog entry
Been listening to my old Prefab Sprout records, which still break my heart. Paddy McAloon’s genius songs. The sound of being 18 and in love with the world & various people in it. I listen to it again now as if no time has passed. Still haunted by all those faces… The soundtrack to my early adult life. The one that’s always been available in the shops, that is. The other one - the self-written soundtrack - umpteen boxes of old 4 track cassettes and the odd piece of vinyl tucked down the side; hours of home recordings dedicated to whoever I was in love with at the time, are piled up in a cupboard, here with me. There might be a handful of people along the way who might say they were playing one of my songs in the background at certain important moments in their lives. But not many of them. And certainly not enough to pay the bills.
The world according to Lenny Smallman
Hi… I’m Lenny. This is my blogging site where you can watch my video podcasts or read about life, the universe and how it never quite goes the way you want it to. You can also listen to some of my songs if you like. [Well, it worked for the Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen…]
Why do this, when there’s already so much stuff out there that doesn’t seem to mean very much? Our days are filled with useless, inane bits of information, and we’re all struggling to get by whilst making sense of it all. I recently got into a conversation with a mate - we were talking about what you need to get through all the daily shite, all those crutches we use to get through the hard times; coffee, texting, daytime tv, religion, drugs, celeb magazines, meaningless sex, alcohol, fast food… the list goes on. And I realised for me it pretty much always comes down to the same thing - songs… Wherever I’m at, no matter how bad it gets, there’s always a song that can take you out of the mundane, where you feel totally understood and it all suddenly makes sense for a couple of minutes at least. We’ve all got our favourites and they’ll all be different [I’m not going to bore you with mine], which is pretty amazing when you think about it. All those emotions packed into 3 or 4 minutes of a unique combination of notes, sounds and words.
Because, the thing is - what it comes down to basically… none of it does make any sense, does it..?
When you get to be a grown-up you’re suddenly expected to know all the answers because grown-ups know everything. But we don’t really know anything at all do we, other than what the songwriters have taught us; ‘The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind’ [Dylan]; ‘Life is what happens when you’re planning other things’ [Lennon]; ‘You can’t always git what you want’ [Jagger]…
I’m going to keep this updated every day, so keep checking it out - and add comments of your own if you like. When our work is done, we’ll package it all up - and sell it onto our kids saying “You want to know what it’s all about? Read that, all the answers are in there… Some of your planes will come down…”
So please come back and visit again soon.
This one’s for all you dreamers out there…
Why do this, when there’s already so much stuff out there that doesn’t seem to mean very much? Our days are filled with useless, inane bits of information, and we’re all struggling to get by whilst making sense of it all. I recently got into a conversation with a mate - we were talking about what you need to get through all the daily shite, all those crutches we use to get through the hard times; coffee, texting, daytime tv, religion, drugs, celeb magazines, meaningless sex, alcohol, fast food… the list goes on. And I realised for me it pretty much always comes down to the same thing - songs… Wherever I’m at, no matter how bad it gets, there’s always a song that can take you out of the mundane, where you feel totally understood and it all suddenly makes sense for a couple of minutes at least. We’ve all got our favourites and they’ll all be different [I’m not going to bore you with mine], which is pretty amazing when you think about it. All those emotions packed into 3 or 4 minutes of a unique combination of notes, sounds and words.
Because, the thing is - what it comes down to basically… none of it does make any sense, does it..?
When you get to be a grown-up you’re suddenly expected to know all the answers because grown-ups know everything. But we don’t really know anything at all do we, other than what the songwriters have taught us; ‘The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind’ [Dylan]; ‘Life is what happens when you’re planning other things’ [Lennon]; ‘You can’t always git what you want’ [Jagger]…
I’m going to keep this updated every day, so keep checking it out - and add comments of your own if you like. When our work is done, we’ll package it all up - and sell it onto our kids saying “You want to know what it’s all about? Read that, all the answers are in there… Some of your planes will come down…”
So please come back and visit again soon.
This one’s for all you dreamers out there…
My first video podcast (transcribed)
Life begins. Went to a friend’s 40th birthday. He said he’s going to Glastonbury this year to celebrate. Has to take the time off work, which doesn’t seem very rock & roll. I’m quite jealous actually, envying the experience he will have. Although, again, it doesn’t seem right unless you are single and free to get off with someone in a tent. He’s not, but he probably will. The reality will be 4 days of pissing rain, tornados & mudslides, warm beer 5 quid a can, wellington boots 80 quid a pair, then home with guilt and a small infection. Must be getting old…
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