A Farewell to Things

Following the release of 'Lab Rat and Lobster' (Maggy Simpson) and my next solo venture 'Vermin' I will be going into semi-retirement as I need to disconnect for an indefinite period. If you need to find me you will know how to. In the meantime, here are some images associated with the recorded works over the years, along with an extensive discography.

Nightfall Over Eden (solo)
Scream In Blue (1995)
Insomnia (1995)

Scream In Blue (with Justin Bell)
The Glasshouse Effect (1996)
Subterranean (1996)
Driven Out of Innocence (1997)

Scream In Blue (with Justin Bell, Rick Abbott & Fabio Finnochiaro)
Urban Tourists (1999)

Mr. Do (with Wayne Bussutil & Steve Barr)
That's Why Flamingos are Pink (2000)
Cubed (2000)

Cellardoor (solo)
Do What You Have to Do (2003)
Frames per Second (2004)
At The Third Stroke (2004)
The Random Event Factory Demos (2009)
Set Fire to the Snow (2011)

Sector 7G (with John Waldron)
Sector 7G (2012)

Solo
Man-At-Arms (2011)
Silence as Criticism (2011)
Unauthorised Soundtrack (2012)
Mountain Goat Misadventures in the Wicklow Wilderness (2012)
Mission (2012)
Vermin (2013)

Maggy Simpson (with Bat Kinane & Davy Ryan)
Lab Rat and Lobster (2013)

My First Memories Volume 4 - Alice In Chains

Dirt.

Videos for 'Would?' and 'Them Bones' had been on my radar for about a year, and I thought that I would like this band once I got around to it. I guess these were 'hits' of some sort. In honesty, I was slower than most to catch onto 'Grunge'. Maybe I was that little bit older, maybe I was too wrapped up in the world of PROG, but ultimately I still liked harder edged music a lot and there was some good noise emanating from a select group of bands that were lumped into that bracket. Whether Alice In Chains were Grunge or not, they were based in the Pacific Northwest. In those days that seemed to be enough to qualify.

It wasn't until the summer of 1993 that I picked up a copy of 'Dirt' on cassette for a mere £3...from a market stall in Derby Market Hall. If I remember rightly it was actually from a bookseller, too. This is when I first heard Alice In Chains at full tilt. The thing that struck me most was the hurt and the pain and the apparent honesty about drugs. The naive part of me was a little shocked that it was acceptable to even talk about these things so openly. Much in the same way that hearing Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against The Machine) denounce unjust governments so brazenly had shocked me out of innocence. Certainly, Layne Staley's soaring pain was a thing of beauty when set against such powerful music, and there were Classic and Progressive Rock elements that were hard to deny. This was definitely something I could get behind.

While Dirt is often considered the band's benchmark release, I don't know if it's my favourite these days (I'd probably opt for 'Jar of Flies'), but I do know that it hit me very hard back then and sent me in search of more sounds from Seattle. Twenty years on there appears to be some kind of a renaissance, though I feel it is probably middle-aged nostalgia at work. Either way, I still have great love for the Alice In Chains catalogue and I'm interested in hearing what they come up with next.