Move on Up

The Everton game is on the TV, the sound is turned down, the Villa won with a last minute fluke and I’ve just got in, like Roger and Val – I’m such a fan of Roger and Val I might even have to watch it in Chris’s absence [she’s gone to the US of A]. I’m here on my own some, there’s curry on the stove and wine in the glass. Life is good. I’m feeling positive; I’m feeling like a king, in spite of myself.

I spent the last couple of days recording in Boneheads studio of light in the heart of suburban Cheshire on a diet of cakes [courtesy of engineer Dave the sugar fixer] and Samosas [courtesy of Bonehead the maker shaker] and posh sandwiches from the sweet ladies of Hale in their brown harvester style aprons [which I pick up on the way- the sandwiches not the ladies]. We are moving on with the record; bass parts, sitar parts, organs, recorders and xylophones, we are throwing the kitchen sink out with the bathwater and bringing it all back home. We feel like Dylan never felt and like Lou Reed did but all too briefly, and we have a guitar that doubles as a sitar, Will Sergeant style [we are both huge fans of the Bunnyman twang]. It’s exciting, I’m stupidly happy when I’m recording.

We’ve agreed on 10 songs although none are fixed in stone, nor mixed, nor ready to share, but when they are no doubt we will. We don’t have a band name; we are just starting to think about it. We hope to be gigging by the autumn, so lots to work on, it’s exciting. Meanwhile, Roger and Val are mumbling away and I’m not paying them the attention they deserve, I need to rewind and re engage. I seem to have drifted away somewhat…time to attempt a half drunken vocal me thinks. I’ll post further details on the songs as we go. VP

Sick Blog

I’m sat up in bed, semi comatose; the TV is on, something about Australia, moving, dreams of starting again and such. I’ve no idea who watches this other than people in hospital with no choice, people who work in Australian tourism or people like me with a debilitating chest infection who cant find the buttons to switch it off and cant be arsed getting out of bed to do it manually. I just took two paracetamol and a wee dram of Morays medicinal scotch. My dodgy health has put the kybosh on my recording this week. Bonehead and Dave the Cakes have carried on, edits and guitars, bass and Stylophone parts. I got a new Stylophone for Christmas; thank you Marc we are utilising all available gimmicks. I last used one on the track ‘Mr Low’ from Ironing the Soul – several lifetimes past – as I’m old enough to remember Rolf Harris demonstrating one on his Saturday night show in the 70s. Now there’s a thing.

Mike Joyce the Smiths legend came over to the studio yesterday and Bonehead wooed him with our songs to date – he will be playing drums on the album alongside Che from Capercaillie.

Bone called me yesterday advising on which tracks he especially liked – funny how it’s never the ones you expect. All in all good news though, we’ll be cracking on forthwith.

The TV has moved on to property and prices, homes under the hammer,squeezing in a second toilet downstairs, estate agents, plumbers and prices. Do people actually enjoy this kind of stuff? We all need to fix up our houses but making a TV programme come on…use your own imagination. Or perhaps it seems worse than it is playing to the soundtrack of my relentlessly hacking cough – no seriously; I refute all man flu allegations.

Everything changes and yet stays the same – I wrote a song called ‘Slow Television’, which surfaced on the 2006 compilation Whatever Happened to Vinny Peculiar…it cover the banality of TV as anaesthetic, so essentially I’m repeating myself, aren’t we all?

Here are the lyrics and links to those songs – the albums are also available from the site shop.

Now I’m shivering and about to put the heating on...

Slow Television
What’s on tv just a load of old rubbish
Still I can’t really see without my glasses
We loved Dr Who but its time to grow up now
Got so much to do with so little know how
Watching a slow television
Talk shows are trite and the pop presenters are wacky
Weather girls all look the same and the sports announcer is tacky
We loved Forest Rangers but we no longer get them
I have a taste for nostalgia and its running away with me again
Watching a slow television
And there’s no intermission

You can spend all your life channel hopping
From one station to the next
With your concentration span fading
Is this as good as it gets?

Watching a slow television
And there’s no intermission

What’s on TV just a load of old rubbish
Still I can’t really see without my glasses…



Mr Low
Can I get my ball back Mr Low
I lost it in your garden many years ago
Still hanging onto stuff can’t seem to let it
Can I get my ball back?
Do I want to get my teeth into this life?
Do I want a job a mortgage and a wife
You used to tell me everything would be all right

The house is on fire and the children have gone to back the place they come from
I buried my head in a time capsule with a poem from junior school
Can I get my ball back Mr Low
It’s in the cabbage patch if you did but know
Sorry for the trouble the lengths you had to go
I need to get my ball back
There’s no time like the past to reinvent the wheel
To change the way you are distort the way you feel
I’ve done for so long I’ve no idea what’s real
I need to get my ball back
The Davenports man brings beer to your home
And Rolfs on TV with a Stylophone

vinny peculiar blogs: Bonehead Continued

vinny peculiar blogs: Bonehead Continued

Bonehead Continued

We’ve recommenced recording after an extended Christmas break, Bonehead and I layering parts, building ideas, agreeing on songs. Dave the Cakes from Moolah is Engineering and it’s all going rather well. I’m at home today as I’m stricken with a horror hacking cough that’s keeping my girl up at night and not doing me any favors, especially where singing is involved. We have started drums with Che [he of such impeccable feel] and the older guitars have had a new set up, so we'll be hard at it the next few weeks - we were talking about filming stuff too so I'll add that to here and the usual places.

In the daily grind of coveting guitars I can ill afford I have fallen victim to a wonky neck ebay statacaster hoax - will I ever learn...most probably not, but I'm hoping to have at least learned a lesson for now. Forward the buff my friends, forward the buff.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Seasons greetings to all - I hope its warmer where you are than it is here, brrrrr!

Special thanks to everyone who came along and supported VP on the recent Oct/Nov tour, your engagement and encouragement is most welcome. Amy and I filmed a few of the shows, clips have been posted on youtube, some of them look pretty good. I have a couple of gigs coming up soon which really looking forward to at Colley Cantina in Norfolk Virginia USA on 28th December, there's a nice little interview re this show and other snippets in VEER MAGAZINE . I also play The Continental, South Meadow Lane, PRESTON Lancashire PR1 8JP on 19th January - I will be airing new songs at these shows.
I'm putting together songs for he next album, tentative recording plans are coming together for March 2011 - I'm just finishing off arrangements the lyrics. All the songs were recorded into the Iphone voice recorder in various places, the street, the shed, the garage, the garden, whenever the mood took me. I hope this sense of spontaneity can be replicated in the studio. I really excited to be in the writing zone again, it's far more comfortable than the promotion zone, ha.

The current album 'Other People Like Me' has received some good reviews, some of the best I've ever received, which is pleasing - it's available from the site store and via all the usual digital media including iTunes, Amazon et al. If you buy one via the shop I'll include a second album for free, just email me the preferred 2nd album. There has been some decent UK airplay, Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music should be singled out for his enthusiasm and support for the track 'A Vision' which he has championed relentlessly on his show. The WORD MAGAZINE CD Cover-mount track 'Artrockers' also boosted the albums profile and I received a lot feedback from WORD readers, so thanks if you were one of those connecting via WORD - all good.


The recording project with Bonehead is ongoing [several people have enquired], we'd had a little break but are due to recommence in January and I'll update everyone when we have something to put out. I guess we're looking at next summer but I will confirm as soon as I know.

best wishes and thanks as ever for the support

Vinny Peculiar

At Home He Feels Like a Tourist

For the record...

I never did make the Tom Robinson interview, we are rescheduling for December - I broke down early doors some 10 miles from home and the breakdown people returned me to my local garage who replaced a faulty fuel filter [the one they'd changed the previous day, oouch] - our arrival in London was subsequently delayed so we had to go straight to the venue expending altogether unnecessary energy

pleading with the parking police [I wont bore you with the details but needless to say these things do not endear me to ye olde capital, no way]. The LONDON GARAGE gig felt a bit slow to get going but we eventually engaged and delivered. The evening will be fondly remembered for meeting up post show with my old Mood Elevator friend David Ditchfield - we'd not seen each other in twenty five years, it was a pleasure to reconnect and I'm sure the story won't end there.

Brighton Komedia followed London, the gig was superb, the venue exceptional, great sound and lights - shame there was nowhere to park, and I mean nowhere. The centre of Brighton should just go ahead and ban all cars and be done with it. That way we wouldn't delude ourselves that access to any kind of load in would be remotely possible. I ended up in the NCP car park, not a good move.

The OXFORD show the next day was also a very nice show - possibly one of the best gigs we've done, naturally we didn't film that one although we have done several others and I've posted a few clips onto you tube. here's a more recent clip from the Newcastle Show with opening poem At The Hairdressers [that seems to have sneaked its way back into the set when I wasn't paying attention] and 'Judy Wood' from the current album. I'm thinking of compiling a book of poems to amuse myself we'll see. VP x

Here there and everywhere

Reality check number nine:-

The London Garage show in Islington on 17th November is another early affair. Amy and I will be onstage from 7.30pm - the tour gigs to date have been mostly inspired - (there was a brief moment of despair when we opened to two people in Bournemouth but it soon passed as the show went on (as it must) and the venue started to fill up. 'Man About the House' from the Fall and Rise album has sneaked into the set following an impromptu run through at sound check- we also have new songs to try out as we go on including 'Sentimental Music' which never quite made the cut on the last album. I'm aiming to start work proper on the new album after this tour, I just need to tweak and revise and arrange the parts to suit. I expect Amy will figure in some way in the new recordings - we're just trying to work out schedules commitments and such.

On Thursday afternoon on the 17th N

ovember I'm at BBC Portland Place in the heart of the London Village doing a little interview with Tom Robinson for his BBC Introducing program - Tom has been wo

nderfully supportive of the new album 'OTHER PEOPLE LIKE ME' and indeed of albums past - I'm really looking forward to catching up with him. He's played 'A Vision' from the new album a few times on his show - and it features in the current podcast.

I love London but I hate having to negotiate it's logistics, parking, congestion zones, psycho drivers, biker loons, the TUBE and the price of beer - I could never live there, it's like one big obstacle course too many. The odd visit I can handle...but even now I'm getting in a sweat around the plans for Thursday, the zone, the parking, the load in and the likes. We were hit for a couple of congestion zone fines last time we played London with the band - perhaps my anxiety stems from then...

From London we play Brighton KOMEDIA on Fri 18th November and return to the midlands to play Leicester O2 Academy on Saturday 19th November - all the shows are early - so if you're coming bare that in mind.

VP