WEDNESDAY
Slept quite well after watching the end of the Nordic sci-fi horror movie that is Troll Hunter and there were bill goats in it.
More driving with a William S burrows documentary for company and tomato soup from a vending machine.
“Hang a left” Mike says to breach who is driving. We have finally arrived at a gig.

THURSDAY
Gig in Bordeaux was great all be it a few ghosts in the machine sending a few things odd here and there.
It’s always the case though it seems, when you arrive late at a nice hotel and have to leave first thing in the morning that you get the nicest hotel you’ve ever had. My bed was wider than my height on all four sides, sofa, massive bath etc… Good to get some short comfortable sleep, which I usually miss when, I’m away.
Punctuation was strong though the next morning and we ate breakfast with the business tie men all around us. Got back in the condensation vehicle and headed off to Paris. The sat nav says turn left in 300 miles, time to crook my neck in an uncomfortable visit to the land of nod I think, will type soon yeah.
I woke up and wiped the wet window next to me clear, the January sun at last shone through the speeding motorway trees and lounged upon my face for a few lazy minutes.. Serotonin levels are low at the moment. Grey is such a tired colour.
On the grey note I decided to watch the Oliver Stone biog movie that is W. A film about that cretin George W Bush, I like Josh Brolin ever since his days in the 80’s mega skateboard film “Thrashin” but he didn’t look neither younger or older in the past and present times of silly old W. Interesting film I thought and the congress of lizards that they all were and are is quite creepy in some scenes. Oh and old lizard face Condoleezza Rice’s voice was way over the top, might as well have given her a fork tongue and be done with it. Mice anyone ?

FRIDAY
The paris show was just awesome. A great crowd and a great atmosphere inside yet another boat. I like boats but don’t mind if I never play on one again, I always feel I’m gonna clock my head on a low rafter or steel beam and the soft swaying that occurs when waves hit the boat makes me feel drunk when sober. Also for some strange reason there were mosquitoes everywhere , in January!! I was paranoid of swallowing one whilst bellowing out some words live on stage, luckily this didn’t happen. It was good to see friends and musical acquaintances after the show and I steered clear of any booze instead settling for lemonade or limonad’ or what ever..
I zonked out after a midnight sat nav tracked greasy Maccas hunt and slept well.
On our way to Liege now and I’ve been reading Jon Ronsons The Psycopath Test. Am I or aren’t I?

SATURDAY
The show in liege was bright and warm. A wide stage and a bigger venue of which we were happy to see nice and busy. The new material has been going down really great and feedback has all been highly positive. Beers, whiskey and champagne went down a treat, obviously not all together in a weird booze filled fucked up cocktail though. We left the venue late and found a quick Turkish slab snack shop and scoffed, we then found the hotel. My room was like a shallet ice box with those kind of rubber-ish curtains u get in caravans. I ran a bath to warm up and then dozed for 4 hours before having to set off for the homeward bound trip back to the village. A massive thanks to everyone involved with these shows and a high salut to all our fans, be back soon !! I finished The Psychopath Test, I’m not one by the way but we all have tendencies for sure. Stay sane people.
I am Dave Pen

January, such a strange month when people think they can change there lives because the date of the new year subconsciously says you should. When advertisements now tell you to watch your weight, get fit and get healthy when only a few weeks ago they were telling us the complete opposite, get fat, eat, drink and spend what you know you don’t really have.
For me this year I will try as every year I do, to follow my instincts, be true to myself and make the most of what I have, when I have it.
So far this month I have visited Belgium and will again next week with France in the hot pot as-well, have helped in the orchestral recording sessions for Archives new album, which sounds really awesome, drank lots of homemade juice drinks, ran miles, lifted weights, read two books and produced material for a new musical project with a female solo artist I am working on. It’s early stages but the songs are sounding dark and moody. Everything else I’ve done has been in my mind and nobody is aloud in at the moment.

Here is the surrender video I made last year and have now made public for the whole interweb to mood over.

ON a music note about other bands I like the new Maccabees album “Given to the wild” Even if someone did say it sounded like the soundtrack to the Lion King..
I’m hanging up now as have to go down the mirrored sweat box and pump some aluminium.
I am Dave Pen

Forget the X Factor here’s my Random Factor.
I couldn’t quite remember where the studio was as I left home so I had to make a quick call to Darius, he jogged my memory bank and put me on track. I had a great conversation with a friend on the train about his journey to the outer reaches of Norway and the land of the midnight sun for an art exhibition he is doing which made my start to the day very pleasant. Once at the main station a Chinese boy with a massive head stood directly in front of the map so I had to wait for him to find out where he was and was going. No problem with no manners,, as good old Louie Armstrong sang “We have all the time in the world”.
Busy underground transport with humans all rammed in together like Smartie sweets in a tube. All the while advertisements zoom pass at high underground speed.
I’ve done all my Christmas shopping but sub consciously gift ideas are logged in and I have no choice in the matter.
I guess I should talk about what I’ve been singing about and what’s going on in the studio so here are some random words from some random songs. Grow, Ocean, Evil, Soul, You, I, Mind, Quick, Slow, And, A, Conflict.
My room here at the studio is very warm, so warm and cosy in fact that it kind of reminds me of a posh old peoples home. Maybe that’s because of the heating or something but luckily I don’t have an emergency red chord to pull in case of an emergency during the night, saying that though I did make 3 currys for everybody last night and a few gas explosions caused some serious emergency evacuations within close at least a 3 mile radius.
More random things happening in the studio Not really related to the recording of this new album are, Random explicit ideas for Artwork, watching far to many stupid videos on Youtube, always Coffee, Pims chocolate orange biscuits are better than Jaffa Cakes, what’s for Lunch and what’s for Dinner?
In all seriousness though the new songs for this album are sounding really strong and I’m very much looking forward to hearing its completion. It’s definitely taken on a more psychedelic feel since we worked on the demo’s and that should make the Cheshire cat grin from ear to ear whilst eating snowcakes from a wheel barrow being towed by a rolls Royce down St Johns Wood high-street.
And on that note I bid you a fond farewell with festive cheers and a Garlic bread breath.
Stay close as the ocean rises
I am Dave Pen x

THIRD LINE DOWN

DP & RF

A GIG

HE IS MANGLEBIRD

JOIN HANDS

RETURN TO THE DEAD FACTORY

WAITING

BOAT GIG

FIREWORKS

G.L.B

HELLO

MR E

S.F.C

THE BEATLE

WHITE LIGHT

ME & D

FRENCH COAST

GRID

ORGAN

SOILENT GREEN

EVE TEAM

THE KILLING MOON

I AM DAVE PEN

Photo taken Christian Geisselmann

I tried to escape it but failed when I touched my mouth at some point in the last 48 hours. Man, woman germs everywhere.

The crazy Northerner is on his way to the studio to laugh loud and bring cheer to the walls of a quiet curry house. Hope a hot Indian can help bazooka this cold away.

The snot drops have almost dried so now I just feel bunged.. We managed to neck some ale then bashed the window to the con club. The gun slinging owner releasing we weren’t stray booze dogs on the scrounge for grog, let us in to sit and chat into the late hours. Under the cosmic bar tenders strange musical guidance of Gong blasting out over the out dated hi-fi speakers hanging from the tobacco stained ceiling, we chatted then made our way back to the vicarage. I sneezed and fell into bed.

The Studio needs more ram in the brain.. It keeps glitching and causing delays. Maybe the machine has a viral cold too? This bunged up main frame needs a shot of first defence to clear the micro chips. Apart from the small nagging problems the tunes sound really great and Jim is making it sound sonically awesome..

In between important issues such as the mix, the pool competition is hotting up and is currently two matches to one. Chalk up then!!

After a few days of patiently mixing, cabin fever struck, so we ventured onto the streets of Stockport. Upon Arrival at one of Romley’s fine drinking holes we discovered a barrel sized woman slumped over with her face in a pizza.. Once inside we were informed by the Son Druid’s companions that she was now knickers-round-ankles flushing her self esteem and dignity away for the roaming zombies to have a drunken laugh at.. Oh the shame. The second drinking hole was mainly full of men with cropped haircuts and lager arms and what could be better than a karaoke machine to add to the entertainment. The hyenas were scratching their claws on the grog stained dance floor, growling at the mere few females and trying to impress them with silly dance moves.. After the Michael Jackson Medley enough was enough and we left. After Mangles frantic phone call search to find another drinking hole, nothing came up trumps, so we made our way back to Eve to learn bad songs on the piano with the Son Druid. I eventually fell into bed, am awake now and must drink water.

It’s the last morning so I take one last stroll down to Bredbury Square, a bag of Sausage rolls, some bran, some coffee and a round of eggs to say cheerio.

Ten Songs – thought about, written, recorded, overdubbed and now mixed.

Cheers to everyone who has made this album with us.

Now onto the next phase, that’ll be interesting.

The pool competition ended 5-1. Who do you think won?

I am Dave Pen

Today is Friday and today sees the release of Where Do We Go From Here. Robin Foster’s second studio album. Haven written in previous blogs about my musical escapades with The Kendal Born French Speaking Brittany Harbour Living guitarist It is with pleasure to see this album available to the public.. The track listing is below:

Happy/Sad

A Collapsing light – Feat Dave Pen

Concrete Skies – Feat Dave Pen

Pick your god or Devil – Feat Ndidi O

Forgiveness – Feat Dave Pen

This is not an Exit

Wait for her – Feat Dave Pen

Left Turn

Deadwood

Black Mountain – Feat Dave Pen

Sad/Happy

For anyone that hears this album I hope you enjoy it and live shows are planned including a show at Le Transmusicales on December 2nd. Below are a few links to buy the album and its also available on itunes

http://musique.fnac.com/a3695989/Robin-Foster-Where-do-we-go-from-here-CD-album

http://www.amazon.fr/Where-Do-We-Go-Here/dp/B005QCJ8QY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1321530257&sr=1-1

Many thanks I’m off to make a fresh pot and carry on mixing the BirdPen album.

Enjoy the weekend

I am Dave Pen

Remembrance files from my brain include ( in my own coded format of course ) !!

Curing a small part of swimming in the sea, Terrible films that end with the line “Can I have another Chocolate Milkshake?”, Break Downs both mechanically and physically, Killing my amp, Meeting Mark E Everett From Eels, Almost dying from Absynth, Drunk DJ sets with the Seagull, BirdPen supporting at the Zenith, Headlining Rock En Seine and Solidays, That power cut at Solidays, YETI !!, one day swimming in the med then 36 hours later walking around Auschwitz in the snow in -1, more shit films, birthdays away, Iggy Pop, luke warm and grim food, That hippy Festival in Germany with Hawkwind, Orchestras, Guy Garvey from Elbow dedicating the song “Dear Friends” to us, Smileys Blogs, Remote control Falcon, bad sound, good sound, That Danger Visit moment, Archive in the Southern Daily Echo, So many ridiculous photographs, The face full of hope, The Stooges Sax player telling me Mcdonalds drug stories, Laughing, Lots of Laughing, Lots of singing and the best Greek salads on the planet.

Till next time with further fields in our sights…

That’ll do for now…

Enjoy the vid Folks, more BirdPen news real soon.

Cheers

I am Dave Pen

I will be playing live with Robin at Trans Musicales Festival on December 2nd 2011..Check the add below..Cheers x