Tuesday 24 December 2013

Christmas Poem for Cathy (2013)













Put your head against mine
On Christmas morning
Just before the Alarm goes off
And your cats start marching
Up and down in your kitchen
And remember what it was like,

Of the way Snow used to come down
Outside where you used to live
Leaving that taxi taking us to my parents
Going up and down that hill
Like it was trying to tackle
A ski slope rather than a ride out,

In particular when I knocked off
All of the labels skidding down the road
Leaving us guessing all the way down
Whose present was who’s
Much to the amusement
Of both my father and brother,

And on the way back
When the taxi driver
Couldn’t get his taxi going again
And I had to help him
Push it back up the hill
In a attempt to get kickstart it

Totally defying gravity

A lot like what your cats do
Every morning.



(For Cathy. Blog to follow next few days but have a great Christmas all!)

Wednesday 11 December 2013

live @ joshua wilson brain tumour charity night 7 december 2013

Dear all;

Last Saturday my band 'a means to an end' played a set at the  joshua wilson brain tumour charity night @ the duck club, bury and had a great time.

here are some selected videos from the night..

true colours - behind blue eyes
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvdI_HqBXng)

trevor edge
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvrSaGBHoK8)

trevor edge - 2
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EulzhZsN8dY)

tony kinsella
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ySVSToIjU)

pete slater
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEo3QaKEvA)

pete slater and john 'blackneck' matthews
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ0iJ1ed0Co&list=UUSnVliEClzutG1pg9S1Bgwg)

john 'blackneck' matthews
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt3OuVPzIA0)

john 'blackneck' matthews 2
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXh2-DODf7Y)

john 'blackneck' matthews 3
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFECMaWNCzM)

jeffarama! it ain't gonna happen
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3LT4ZREk-0)

gordon zola
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WedCMC1eNdU)

gordon zola - 2
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWLcFwOx4wY)

a means to an end - ghost of liverpool empire
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v06Plq7Z8iw)

a means to an end - ever wondered?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v06Plq7Z8iw)

Thursday 21 November 2013

John Dawson (a tribute)


I have just found out John Dawson before, a regular member of the writing workshop I co run with Amanda ‘Writers of the Third Kind’  over the past two years or so sadly passed away on Monday 18 November 2013.

He was 75.

I am do not know yet what has happened here but I know he was poorly over the summer, but still managed to run the last of his charity nights in Radcliffe Hospice the other month.

He wasn’t very well that night but still managed to get up and read out a poem or two with a charm and smile that I hope didn’t desert him right up until the end that was constant throughout his poetry.

The piece below which is from a booklet of his published last year ‘thirty rhyming poems’ is one of my favourites of his and while not one of his funnier pieces sums up the way I shall miss him.

Rest in Peace, John.

You will be missed. 

Missed

A pair of slippers, an empty chair
The room now cold and bare
His coat still hangs behind the door
A stack of old newspapers on the floor
A cup of cold tea, beside his bed
A dip in the pillow where he lay his head
We had some good times grand dad and me
It doesn’t seem long, since I sat on his knee
Always laughing, and full of fun
But alas his race is run
I still can’t believe he’s no longer there
Just a pair of slippers and a empty chair.



Thursday 14 November 2013

The End of Summer - delay














Sadly my next book ‘the end of summer’ has hit a delay folks.

It won’t be out now until 2014 I think now.

This isn’t because I have hit a writers block or anything like that. The book itself is pretty well wrote aside from one final piece I have in my thoughts need a final re-drafting but it kinda made sense with Christmas approaching to leave it until Christmas itself when I can then finally look at it what to do next with it.

In the meantime, while The End of Summer takes a well deserved break other projects are bubbling along nicely.

As always including hopefully a split book with another writer and a play with two other writers.

Next week or two, I will hope to share something from the book previously unpublished.


Hope you are having a nice Winter guys.


Monday 21 October 2013

Latest News and Views 21/10/2013

1)   The End of Summer…. Second draft of the book is now complete. I have now passed copies over to selected parties for comments before I decide whether to do a third draft or start submitting. Either way, I can’t see this being ready until the start of next year now.

2)   I have now started co writing a poetry book with a young poet called Amy. Work is in the early stages, but there’s currently around 10 or so poems complete and Amy is in the middle of three more pieces. All of the 10 or so pieces are still works in progress, I feel to a degree but Amy has done really well with the material so far and for such a young writer is doing really well.

3)   Work I think is going to start on a piece with P.R. Mcdowell called Twisted Promise II, which will follow on from the original piece.

4)   Probably for 2015, me and a Oldham based (currently) poet called Nick Armbister  have started work on a book of more war based poetry, in my case picking out stories which are perhaps less well known focusing on what war does to people’s lives. I believe Nick has wrote three pieces for this book, while I have just done my second. When I get chance, I will sit down and start research for a third

5)   As blogged early, work is now underway for the annual DIH and friends @ Christmas 2013 album. I have wrote my lyrics for the DIH piece, which may well end up doing a duet with July Skies, but watch this space.

6)   I headlined Write Out Bolton last night and did a good set I felt of mostly stuff from ‘The End of Summer’. However, with the landscape changing in Manchester on the Poetry open mike scene, this will likely be the last one I do for some time now for the rest of this year certainly and maybe beyond until my book is done, and then I may pop out to a few and see the wind blows with things.

7)   A Means to an End played Salford Music Festival at the end of September, which was probably our best gig to date. We are down for a night called Beatification in Mid November (more details to follow) and a charity do in December.

8)  I have been playing round with my midi keyboard a lot at Jeff’s last night and it sounded smashing, so this defo will start getting used more and more in live sets and once we get Jeff’s laptop recording proper, we are going to start recording some EP’s and maybe more.

Sunday 6 October 2013

DIH and friends @ Christmas 2013 Submissions wanted.













As some as you know my underground band / noise supergroup DIH (or Distorted in Hindsight to give its full name) have produced some quite noisy and brutal spoken word based albums over the years.
In 2002, for a one off joke as a side project for Christmas, I decided with the help of a few friends decided to do in album in the space of half an hour (as was the original plan) where we would crippled, murder and take the piss out of as many songs as we could.
By the time we got to 2003, as is the nature of the beast with this kind of things, things snowballed and it had become officially a DIH project (with Keith and Clara onboard of course) where between the three of us with an ever increasing cast play around with the myth of the Christmas which will often be funny and sad sometimes within the same breath.
To date, the music within these albums have contained anything from singer / songwriter stuff, Brian eno tributes, full on noise, Christmas carols, mashups with the aim to see how many tracks we can bootleg into oen tracks, Aphex twin type crunchers, spoken word and anything else we can throw into the kitchen sink
The music contained within this series of albums are varied and can vary from acoustic singer songwriter stuff to music that could appeal to fans of Aphex Twin, fans of the spoken word all designed to make people think and challenge them as much as we can.
Although DIH as a band is quiet nowadays, the Christmas project is still ongoing and is now accepting submissions for it’s now 12th year of submissions and would like people  to submit whatever they feel like submitting on mp3 etc for inclusion on a to be uploaded Christmas albums viva HICC.
More can be read here (http://www.digitalvomit.com/dih-and-friends) or more details can be reached through me (Andy N) on aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk
Closing date will be around 7th December 2013 although I may extend it.

Saturday 17 August 2013

Peterloo (New Poem)













In the end
It meant absolutely nothing
Once the killing
And the butchery started.

The collective voice of 80,000 people
Who had marched
For hours and hours
Meant absolutely nothing
When they were cut down
Like cattle by the score.

Everybody had arrived in a
Disciplined and organised contingent
Like a troop of soldiers
From the hills
And the outskirts
But ran like scared children
When the sabres flashed
In the daylight,

And the bodies lined the fields
While others
Were kicked down cellars casually
And pregnant women
Had their skulls ripped open.

Everybody had arrived
To peacefully protest
Proclaiming Henry Hunt’s words
Armed with no weapon
But a self approving conscience.

It meant nothing of course

And the stench
Still stinks across time
And echoing footsteps
Across Manchester Peace Gardens
Near where scores
Were cut down without mercy,

Without a care
Like daytime ghosts
Lost on a carnivorous landscape,

Before disappearing into the sunset
And cruelty
Which has only changed shade
In the years since

But never it’s texture.
Never it’s texture.
Remembering Shelley’s words
Ye are many – they are few.
Ye are many – they are few.
Ye are many – they are few
But never it’s texture.
Something we could all with remembering.


(In memory of those who lost their lives at Peterloo)
 
RemoveEdit

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Poetry Writing Ebook opportunity

 


Writing to me always have a incorrect myth about it where it portraited as a solitary existence where a writer will spend a lot of his time sat alone scribbling and often re-scribbling in a little, tiny room until hopefully something good comes from it.

As a writer myself, although I have done this on occasion, usually a lot of my writing comes from the noise around me when I am usually rushing from Point A to Point B who are often indirectly working on a piece with me often without even knowing it.

My first book ‘Return to Kemptown’ was of course wrote in this method, as will be my second full length book ‘The End of Summer’ which’ll be done in either 2014 or 2015 (It’s getting there I can reveal but not quite) but working on the A Means to an End book with Jeff Dawson (Jeffarama!) was a experience which I can recommend to anybody trying to find pieces that work together and in more than a few occasions within the book physically ghost writing each others pieces.

There will be a second A Means to an End book in due course perhaps next year with the third member of A Means to an End Petrova on board but starting in possible prep for that, me and Jeff started writing a few sequences together fairly recently on pieces where we would be bouncing segments off each, understanding each other skills and experiences until something completely different came from it.

Out of the blue after we had completed our third sequence, a young writer called P.R. McDowell approached me about co-writing a piece which eventually became a epic poem called ‘Twisted Promise’ which will appear in his upcoming book which will he be self publishing  later on this year, where night after night for a good month and a half, we were bouncing stanzas off each other constantly and then when we had finished re-editing it, it became apparent that there was something to be said for these jointly wrote poems, or duets as I like to call them and perhaps should be collected in a little e-book.

Henceforth this blog.

Although this will be a long term project and currently has a sequence with Jeff called ‘The Death of Summer’ for it as with P.R.’s poem, (and several other poems in the pipevine), there is lots of space available for anybody else who is interested in having a jam.

My writing can of course be read on here blog is of course but some of my other poems can be found at



Why not have a peek and let me know what you think and we can play it from there.


Andy N (aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk) 

Poetry completed with so far (as of 13/07/2013)

Jeff Dawson (aka Jeffarama!)
Le Vampire
Robert Goodier
Amy Houston
P.R. Mcdowell 

Sunday 30 June 2013

Moving On (Stretford)















Moving on from the end of our friendship,
It is sometimes easy to look over the bridge
And look how far we have come
Before the coin sinks into the water.

Moving on from the end of our friendship,
You can count the ripples in the moonlight
Which once used to cause such a splash
Now disappear totally without a trace.

Moving on from the end of our friendship,
You can see the sunset sinking rapidly
When once we’ould painted everybody dry
Now spiral into endless decay,

Making you glad you moved away.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

New videos of Poetry Performance between May 2013 - June 2013

Dear all;

Here are a selection of videos with the occasional song of acts I have seen in performance throughout May and June 2013. 

Cheers

Andy N 

Guitar and Verse May 2013


Petrova Fairhurst – Regret


Petrova Fairhurst –The Legend of the Willow Wight 


Petrova Fairhust – The Changling 


Petrova Fairhurst with Andrew Blott – Forsooth! 


The nearly dead poets – unwelcome in the welcome 


Lauren Coulson – leaving home


Arthur Chappell – bite


Deslexic – I await the day


Gordon Zola – autumn leaves 


Joe – the ballad of joyce carney aged 38 


Blue Zen – Sea Clearly


Blue Zen – drifting


Blue Zen – broken glass


Andy N – Final Poem


Andy N – Edge of the world with Billy Mackenzie 



Bury Hospice Charity Gig May 2013, Radcliffe.


Jeffarama! 2013 unlucky for some 


Jeffarama! Appointment with fear


Jeffarama! Brief Encounters


Jeffarama! Ever Wondered


Jeffarama! Ghosts of Rivington Moor


Jeffarama! It just ain’t gonna happen



Jeffarama! There has to be hope!


Manda Lee – Life moves on


Manda Lee – split personality


Martin Bailey – various


Rob Goodier – a actors life


Rob Goodier – pin number to the world


Joe Kozarzewski – I believe in fariries


Joe Kozarzewski – Rochdale


Andy N – Longford theatre


Andy N – Yesterday


Andy N – Open Door Closed


Andy N – Conversation on the train


Andy N – Ghosts of Manchester Victoria


Andy N – Hope



Live Wordology, Manchester, May 2013 

Anna Percy (Complete Set)


Jeffarama! (Complete Set)


Andy N – Fathers


Andy N – kissing my every absence


Andy N – The day Nicolae Ceausescu Died 


Andy N – the ghost of Liverpool Empire


Andy N - The End of Summer




Live Guitar and Verse, June 2013


Alvin Sawdust



Arthur Chappell


Baz Schofield


Deslexic


Jeffarama! – we shouldn’t meet at funerals


Lee Moore

 

Meshach R Brencher


Mike Wilson




P.R. McDowell



Andy N – The day Nicolae Ceausescu Died 



Paul Davies aka Ukepunk  



Rob Goodier

Road to Nowhere


Get it On


A Means to an End - Up on the Roof






Wednesday 5 June 2013

Latest News and Views - 05/06/2013





















Hope this note finds you all enjoying the sunshine where-ever you are.

After some time of rain and the usual rubbish in the British summertime,
The last few days have been a pleasant surprise.

News anyhow now in short doses as always:

1)      First of all I attended Write Out Loud, Stockport last month which was fairly
Quiet but gave me chance to debut the day N C died, a new poem originally
Drafted during Napwrimo but finished for this and which got me a standing orvation.

2)      Not long after that, me and Manda did our last Writers of the third kind for this season on 22/05/2013 (Will re-start probably in August but watch this space). Had our biggest turn out so far for it (12 people) which was hard work to control but which was very, very pleasing and from which it looked like everybody had a great time in it. I’ve had interest from other people about the re-start, so it looks like the third season will prove just as fun.

3)      The following Thursday on 30/05/2013 as a favour for John Dawson, one of the members of the workshop, me, Manda, Rob Goodier, Joe and Martin Bailey all took up 10 minute slots at a charity reading in Radcliffe for Bury Hospice which raised just over £100 I believe. I did Longford Theatre, Yesterday, Open Door Closed, Conversation on the train and as a conclusion Hope. It was a nice night turn out of around 23 or 24, week and as the video footage proves which I am still editing I was on fire!

4)      This Monday just hone on 03/06/2013, I did another set at Poetic logic at 3MT Theatre in Manchester near Afflecks. Sadly this was quite a poor turn out, but I enjoyed myself and did a 10 minute set including the live debuts of several new poems ‘Fathers’, ‘Kissing your every scent’, a formal live debut of the day NK died and one old favourite ‘the ghost of Liverpool empire.

5)      This Thursday coming 06/06/2013 is Guitar and Verse for June where as a headline poet we will have a young lad called Barrie Schofield who is a major tip as a writer we think and a band Jeff has worked with before called Unipunk. I think on the night as a Means to an End we will be testing out a majorily revised piece called ‘Up on the Roof’ which was one of our first pieces back in 2011, and only played live once before I believe and I’ll slip in another poem too (not revealing what).

6)      After that, A Means to an End will be playing maybe 20 minutes or so at the Cadence Café as part of the Cadence Festival in Tyldesley on Saturday 15th June, and headlining Open Mind on Monday 24th June. Jeff is also doing a guitar and verse special sadly without me on Thursday 28th June. I think also there is going to be another charity do happening for John Dawson at the end of July, and the band are in action again as part of the Inspire Festival in August and hopefully Ramsbottom Festival / Salford Music Festival in September and have other things in October and November also.

7)      Had a email from Amanda Silbernagel also which was pleasing and I think our little project there will be back up to speed in the Summer now her studies have calmed down and in a ideal world would like to get a EP done before the end of Summer.

8)      I have been working on a long narrative poem with the writer P.R. Mcdowell too for his upcoming debt solo book due out in October time I believe which is taking time also but looking good.

9)      My own book ‘the end of summer’ is going slow I can be honest in admitting but I do have several new poems on the way for it, and I think it’ll be done by Spring of next year, and if all goes to plan – there’ll  be another A Means to an End book before the end of 2014 (I’ve wrote about four pieces for it and have a couple of sequences wrote for it also with Jeff and will be working on some stuff with Petrova for the book too)


More soon folks. Hope you are all good!

a

(Picture is me at Stamford on Sunday last week enjoying the sunshine!)

Sunday 12 May 2013

Jamie McIntyre Art Exhibition May 2013

Dear all;

I went down to Jamie McIntyre, a young artist from Manchester, Uk for his debut exhibition on Friday 10th May 2013 at Bar 2022NQ which can be found at the Basement, 20, Dale Street, Manchester, M1 1EZ.

I was approached by Tracey, Jaime's mum recently to write a poem about one of the pictures as was Tracy's partner, Jeff and my partner in A means to an End and great fun it was.

Here are a few pictures from the exhibition with my poems (and Jeff's).

Try and pop over if you can as the exhibiton only runs until 16th May 2013.












Thursday 9 May 2013

latest news and views 9th May 2013


Dear all;

 

Sorry for the quietness but as always my life has been busy over the past month or two mostly sorting out my engagement do with Cathy.

 

However, have found time to squeeze in the following:

 

1)      My project with Amanda Silbernagel has been a little quiet as I know Amanda has been busy. However we are working on a remix which I hope to share next few weeks.

 

2)      Aside from a un-announced appearance at my engagement do, a means to an end have been quiet apart from doing 30 minutes at a night called words v music at the beginning of April. Next gig for me which will be another full set will happen at Open Mind at the end of June (More details to follow)

 

3)      Throughout April, as part of Napwimo (National Poetry writing month) I did a poem a day on this blog (http://30poemsin30days2013.blogspot.co.uk/) and printed them in a low key book (http://www.lulu.com/shop/andy-n/30-poems-in-30-days-2013/paperback/product-20998224.html) . Over this month I am hoping to get some time to sit down and start revising some of these.

 

4)      Guitar and Verse in May was a little quiet maybe, but it didn’t hide the quality of the acts on the open mike and also the excellent headline sets by my buddy in A Means to an End, Petrova Fairhust and a excellent new band Blue Zen. I did two poems on the night ‘Edge of the world with Billy McKenzie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvQ-ONu0gTo) and Final Poem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg9yvabhYxU). I am next performing at Write out Loud, Stockport next week and then at the end of the month (last Thursday) a charity reading for a gent called John Dawson as a fundraiser for Parkinson’s disease.

 

5)      Hopefully too, I will find time to return to my novel ‘the past’ among all this too.

 

Tuesday 7 May 2013

videos from guitar and verse, manchester, april and may 2013

Here is video footage from the last two guitar and verse events in April and May 2013 featuring footage of most of the acts:


Guitar and Verse, Manchester, May 2013

(Andy N, Edge of the world with Billy Mackenzie)

(Andy N – Final Poem)

(Blue Zen – Drifting)

(Blue Zen – Broken Glass)

(Blue Zen – Sea Clearly)

(Joe the Ranter – the ballad of Joyce Carney aged 38)

(Gordon Zola – autumn leaves)

(Deslexic – I await the day)

(Arthur Chappell – bite)

(Lauren Coulson – leaving home)

(Lauren Coulson – festival)

(The nearly dead poets – unwelcome in the welcome inn)

(Petrova Fairhurst / Andrew Blott – Forsooth!)

(Petrova Fairhurst – the changling)

(Petrova Fairhurst – the legend of willow wight)

(Petrova Fairhurst – regret)


Guitar and Verse, Manchester April 2013


(A Means to an end – forgotten her0)

(Andy N – forgotten voices of the holocaust)

(Lauren Coulson – untitled)

(Lauren Coulson – from Manchester with love)

(Antonioni – flying over Liverpool)

(Gordon Zola – labour’s in the shite)

(Baz – a boy named Kim)

(Arthur Chappell – sheer naked terror)

(Joe the ranter – I’m proud to be vegan)

(Joe the ranter – Rochdale)

(Tom George – dance with my shadow)

(Tom George – untitled)

(the nearly dead poets and Tom George – Once I’ve been a woman)

(Nick armbister – Joan Jett)

(Nick armbister – only you)

(Nick armbister – epica)




Monday 15 April 2013

Hillsborough (tribute poem for the diaster in 1989)

 


Suspended in the
Silent, stubborn wind.

Rubber was split bent double
Across the pitch
Like an un-answered prayer.

Ghostly, dismantled
Across a sky of open wounds
Substituting noise for silence
Over lepping lane
With fear watching over
The scoreboards.

Memories dismantled across stands
And dissolved into a absence
Half rubbed out
With justice rattling
In the silence.

Justice.

(A short tribute to the terrible events which happened at Hillsborough)