12 - 5 - 2011 The Day Of The Foos.

The quintessential rock band of my generation, the Foo Fighters, landed in Adelaide on December 5th for a one off show at the Adelaide Oval as part of their Wasting Light World Tour. This was an event that I have waited months for - well, to be honest, it's been a three year wait. I have mentioned to a couple of people already that, for me, the show was nigh on a religious experience last night and one that I won't soon forget. My love for the Foo Fighters is no secret and I have talked about the influence that Dave Grohl, in particular, had on me during a difficult period in my life a few years ago

Dave, Chris, Nate, Pat and Taylor were in superb form and delivered a two hour main set that went non stop - repeat NON STOP! Their stamina was just incredible. The show itself was balls to the wall rock, in contrast to their 2008 tour, where their show incorporated a smaller acoustic set. This isn't to say that last night's show was any lesser without that contrast - far from it. 


Highlights for me was their performance of "These Days" which Dave hinted that footage from their Australian tour would be used in an upcoming music video for that song. "Stacked Actors" was another standout - one of my favorite Foo's tracks and "The Pretender" was delivered with enough voltage to light up a small country. They also blew everyone away with Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" which was really poignant as I just watched a doco on that band on TV earlier this week. There were also moments of comedy during the show including a kind of guitar high noon standoff between Dave and Chris that brought the house down. They were engaging, interactive and enthusiastic to the Adelaide crowd. Hands down, The Foo Fighters are the consummate rock band and are the gold standard that all who call themselves rock musicians should aspire to.


I'm pleased to present a little video compilation of my concert experience. Excuse the audio on the video footage as it pops a little but you'll get the idea.


DFA.

Near Infinite Possibility - There Need Be No Other Title.

My exploration of superb indepedent music has continued unabated over the past few months and I was excited to discover yet another singer/song writer to add to my 'There Need Be No Other Title' series. 

Sarah Fimm is an American song-smith and lyricist who has been around the scene since 2001 producing an increasingly varied and impressive body of work. Her music has found wide appeal despite skirting the edges of the mainstream in terms of exposure, but in this day and age of quality indie artists, this is most certainly a plus factor. I'll admit to having arrived at Sarah Fimm's work quite last in the piece, through her free EP release 'Near Infinite Possibility', which she has shared generously through the Frostwire network. This EP is essentially a shortened version of her latest studio release of the same name and I must say it has quickly risen to the top of my preferred playlist.

Sarah Fimm has been described as a dark, chaotic mixture of rock and pop with alternative influences. These characteristics are clearly on display in the 5 track EP. Her sound is colored with a smoky melodic rock fused with a euro-electronic foundation. It has been said of Sarahs previous work that it tends towards a sharply electronic focus with her voice lending the only human element to her music. If that is the case, then 'Near Infinite Possibility' marks a somewhat stark departure from what has come before.

Across the 5 tracks of this EP, gutsy guitar riffs are paired seamlessy with polished vocal harmonies on tracks like 'Soul Let Swim' and 'Yellow' while vocally, Fimm presents an ability to range from the hard edges of her heavier rock compositions to her uplifting and quite delicate acoustic numbers such as 'Sing'. I was initially reminded of Evanescence's Amy Lee when listening to the opening track of 'Near Infinite Possibility' but, whereas Lee seems limited to the overtly dark and brooding trademark of the Evanescence brand, Fimm displays much more versatility in her vocal style. There shades of Suzi deMarchi as well - an attractive malevolence that is best exemplified on the track 'Invisible Satellites'. Fimm moves her voice really nicely within the harmonies of her backing vocalists and she can carry it deftly on her own. It is a strong and feminine voice.

As a lyricist, Fimm has penned songs on the EP that suggest a dark introspection, depression and isolation but there are hints of hope there too, of love and standing tall. Fimm has stepped outside of her comfort zone here in order to showcase her ability to perform, stylistically quite different compositions. She succeeds amply.

Sarah's music has been featured in some eclectic corners of the media landscape. She has paired with the likes of Iggy Pop, Peter Murphy (of Bauhaus) and in 2008 she supported Canadian outfit Delirium.Songs from both her 2001 debut album Cocooned and her 2002 follow up A Perfect Dream have appeared extensively in MTV's Real World and Road Rules series, Miramax Productions' Comic Book: The Movie (directed by Mark Hamill), the feature documentary A Space for Peace and the Lifetime television series 1-800-Missing.

One of the most interesting projects Sarah has helmed is the Karma Phala Project. Released in October 2010, Karma Phala (or "fruits of action), is a combined music and art project that showcases Sarah's talents in depth. The project comprises 31 music tracks and 4 albums of artworks and photographs composed and compiled by Sarah herself. She is distributing freely to those who request it. It is an important body of work that typifies the ingenuity and  passion of artists who are not restrained by commercial shackles and it really is something quite beautiful.

The end result of my discovery of Sarah Fimm is that I have already sought out more of her work. She is an artist of particular beauty and integrity and she represents the kind of quality that is so lacking in the vacuous wasteland of mainstream music today. I totally encourage you to spend some time getting to know her for yourself.

DFA.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Hambledown Dream

by Dean Mayes

Giveaway ends November 17, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The Regenesis Cluster - A Short Story

As still as a mill pond. A surface, mirror smooth, reflecting light and darkness in equal measure so perfectly that it was impossible to tell where the horizon was. It was perfection, this stillness...


It was deathly quiet on the body of water. If there was any sound to be heard at all, it was - perhaps - a distant, disembodied roar of the Earth as it rotated on it's axis, the kind of sound that one can only hear when there is absolute silence. There was not a breath of wind to disrupt the surface of the ocean, thus the moonless, star lit night reflected perfectly off it, creating an illusion of infinite space. Every now and then, streaks of light streamed across the sky - meteors hitting the upper atmosphere - creating an impromptu light show of incredible intensity and brevity.


Nearby was a coast line. Rocky cliffs curved around in a wide bay that flanked the body of water, creating a sanctuary from the open sea. Towering sequoia stood upon the bluff overlooking the sea, as though in wait for the arrival of dawn. The chill night air was close to freezing, influenced in part by the air currents coming off the dense, forested, snow capped mountains inland. Atop the coastal cliffs, a ribbon of bitumen hugged the land mass, in places precariously close to the edge of the granite cliffs. It wound down in an arc identical to the coast to open out parallel to a strip beach front that was steep and surfaced with crushed shells and pebbles rather than sand.

It was perfect in it's solitude. In the depths of the night the sea, it seemed, slept.


The sea held onto it's secrets.


Below the surface, the inky blackness enveloped everything. Here, again, was a world in suspended animation - where nothingness dictated everything. There was no movement, no sound, no current, no light. It was suffocating in more ways than one.


And then from the nothingness - a flash of silver in the gloom, a submerged equivalent of a meteor streaking across the sky above. A lone bottle nosed dolphin coalesced out of the gloom, undulating languidly as it explored this region of water close to the shore. It's sleek body captured a mysterious light source that seemed to come from no-where and reflected off it's silvery gray flank. It was a mature specimen, an adult male, with a smattering of territorial spots adorning it's dorsum. To the trained eye, one could surmise that this dolphin had returned it's own waters. Indeed, the mammal had spent long months in the open sea, had traveled thousands of miles after having become lost from his pod. He was desperately lonely, pining for his own kind. So it was with a great sense of relief that he had found his way back to this stretch of coast where he had been born. He could sense his number somewhere close by.


The dolphin slowed to a stop and floated a few feet below the surface for several minutes as though in a state of suspended animation. The mammal was thoroughly exhausted and he allowed himself a few moments of pause now that he knew he was close to home. The turbulent water the dolphin had stirred up behind him and around him as he braked dissipated until the stillness returned. He drifted upward as though curious about the surface and what lay there. In the background of the brilliant star field above, the dolphin's black form stood prominent - like a shadow of Pisces.


Mere millimeters from from the meniscus, the dolphin gave an almost imperceptible flick of it's fins, holding fast before he could break the surface of the water. He wasn't yet in need of air. He began to descend once more.


In the stillness of the water he drifted down...down...so slowly and so slightly that his aerodynamics did not disturb the water around him. The dolphin closed it's eyes, relaxing into the cradle of the sea, tempted to keep falling into the blackness, so tired was he.


From somewhere far below a single bubble rose, closing in like a tiny missile on the mammal. A perfectly formed, spherical pocket of air unmolested by current or debris, ascended through the darkness, it's jewel like surface similarly capturing that mysterious light source from...somewhere..., in the same manner as the dolphin's body had.


The dolphins perfectly attuned biological sonar, that was designed to pick up on the most insignificant contact failed to detect the miniscule current disturbance from the bubble as it rose upward, ever upward towards it.


The bubble made contact with the underside of the dolphin, spreading out as it impacted silently, it's form compressed as flat as a pancake until it split in two like the nucleus of a cell. In that instant, the dolphin's eyes snapped open. As the two separate parts of the bubble rippled up both of it's flanks, the dolphin was startled by the disembodied sound of a guttural scream - a human scream - a scream of anguish that seemed to emanate from inside the air bubble itself.


As one half of the original air bubble broke free from of the hydrostatic grip of the dolphin's body, it passed before the dolphin's eye. His pupil focused on the undulating pocket of air.


Time slowed to a crawl...


A face, a human face - a man's face, his features contorted into a mask of horror screamed into the darkness around him from inside the bubble.


The dolphin flinched, panicked at what he had just witnessed. The moment was so fleeting, the moving image disappeared from his field of view so quickly, the mammal was disoriented...which only fed into his now heightened state of anxiety.


He flicked his body upward, breaking free of the darkened depths and surfaced, a large gout of water issuing forth from his blow hole. The dolphin hovered there for several minutes, the adrenaline coursing through him still, until he felt calm return. The silence of the night above soothed him.


As the dolphin drifted, his now attuned sonar suddenly alerted him to a new contact rising from below - two contacts this time.


Curiosity replaced his previously startled anxiety and the mammal hooked himself over and dove beneath the surface, honing in on the two new bogeys...




Download the entire article from the "Articles & Short Stories" Section of the Site.

DFA.

The Final Say Talks The Hambledown Dream Musical Journey

On Sunday September 12th 2010, Lauren Decesare and Caitlin Humphries welcomed me into the Radio Adelaide studios to discuss my novel "The Hambledown Dream" on their Sunday night talk show "The Final Say" and gave me the opportunity to take listeners on a musical journey through the book. We show cased some tracks that inspired the novel and some that featured in the novel. The tracks range from Jose Feliciano's rendition of the Doors classic "Light My Fire" to the Dixie Chicks "Landslide" to Zero 7's "Home". It was a totally lovely, intimate discussion with a couple of great girls who made me feel at ease. Suffice to say, we had an awesome time. 

I'm pleased to be able to add this wonderful interview to my media section as well as invite you to download the show right here.

DOWNLOAD MP3.

DFA.

The Musical Journey Of The Hambledown Dream.

The Hambledown Dream is a story populated by journeys - the journeys of individual characters both in the real world and, in the case of one character at least, the place beyond the mortal world.

These journeys are, for the most part, easily defined and solidly constructed. However there is one particular journey that, I guess, underpins the entire experience of The Hambledown Dream and that is it's musical journey.

Music serves the story in a couple of ways. Firstly, there is the music of the guitar - a tool that is a central skill to the characters of Denny Banister and Andy DeVries. Classical guitar is what binds these two men together as a spiritual whole and facilitates their salvation from their respective dilemmas. Secondly - there is a more general musical presence that is less well defined. I wrote much of The Hambledown Dream whilst listening to music. The sound system was invariably on and I definitely gravitated towards music that fired my imagination. But more than that, there was music that inevitably filtered into the story as a way of complimenting the emotion of a particular moment, a particular character. Indeed, in earlier drafts of the manuscript, I actually incorporated the lyrics from certain songs into a number of scenes with a view to obtaining permission to reproduce them from their respective copyright holders. Might I say, what a head%@?! that turned out to be. In the end I dropped the lyrics, however I retained the spirit of some of the songs within the story because their influence was undeniable.

I explored the idea of an "unofficial" soundtrack to The Hambledown Dream several dozen posts back as a way of indulging my musical passion and giving an aural accompaniment to the story. But I never really went beyond throwing a few tracks together and saying 'here you go'. However since the novel's release I have had so many people say to me that they are so intrigued by the music I describe in "The Hambledown Dream" and they then ask where they can get the music.

As part of our effort to bring "The Hambledown Dream" to the notice of book sellers everywhere we put together a media kit which details both the book, myself and my publisher - Michelle Halket of ireadiwrite Publishing. In the kit we have promoted the musical experience of The Hambledown Dream as a playlist so that readers might like to explore the music further. Personally, I would love to be able to offer up an official soundtrack (I have actually put together a CD for my own listening pleasure) but I recognize that the cost involved in realizing this would be extreme. In the absence of this, I have posted the playlist in the Books section and what I will attempt to do here is offer a track by track discussion of the music that inspired "The Hambledown Dream". I will warn readers up front that this article does contain spoilers so I would recommend you actually read the book before reading this.

"Walking On A Dream" by Australian duo Empire of the Sun was a surprise hit in 2008 and the band's sweep of the 2009 ARIA awards was a natural progression for this outfit whose self titled concept album has sold truckloads both here and overseas.

The opening lines of this song struck me when I first began writing the novel - "Walking On A Dream/How Can I Explain/Talking To Myself/Will I See Again?" - so much so that these lyrics I have quoted at the beginning of the novel. To me they signify, very much, the question Denny is faced with at the beginning of the novel when he is close to his inevitable death. In fact they are at the core of what will become Denny's journey throughout "The Hambledown Dream" and I get a little spun out every time I hear this song at just how appropriate it is to Denny. The song itself has a kind of early 80's "Electric Dreams"/"Neverending Story" kind of feel to it but it is extremely polished - a beautiful piece of radio music that is what I've heard described as "musical crack". It is just so bloody ear pleasing.

"Cursed Diamond" by The Black Crowes can be considered to be the introductory refrain for the troubled and destructive Andy DeVries when we first meet him (awake anyway) on the Chicago 'L' train. "Cursed Diamond", from the Black Crowes 1994 album "Amorica", is a gritty and angsty rhythm and blues ballad replete with impassioned lyrics from Chris Robinson and grungy electric guitar riffs from his brother Rich. It's one of my favorite tracks from a band my brother introduced me to some years ago. Now I'm completely hooked on their music. This song in particular accompanies the dark cloud of Andy's existence in the beginning. "I lose myself/I forget myself/Sometimes I fault myself/I might fight myself" - these lyrics that open the song portray an angst driven, conflicted tome characterizing someone whose true nature, though not immediately evident to us, is something far different to the tortured soul we are introduced to.

"Deciso" is the first of three instrumental pieces that feature the extraordinary talent of Australian virtuoso Slava Grigoryan - without a doubt my most favorite classical guitarist. When I began researching classical guitar for the purposes of constructing the musical scenes in the story, I began with Slava Grigoryan...and found that I didn't have to progress much further. His back catalogue represents a vast coverage of the most influential compositions for the guitar and I was able to delve deeper into the origins of the instrument and explore some of it's greatest exponents.

"Deciso" was a particularly useful composition because it served story at a couple of critical junctures. The first movement of Astor Piazolla's famed 'Tango Suite', "Deciso" is designed for a duet. This became particularly important when Andy early visions of this other life become more vivid and he sees himself playing the piece with a stranger who is perhaps less so than he initially seems. It ignites a spark within Andy too - a respect for a talent he has long neglected. It serves as a marker for change. The piece also appears in a scene at the Public House where Andy works when he is challenged to an impromptu pairing with his guitar teacher, Sorrel Veldtman. For a teacher who has long struggled to reach her flawed but brilliant student, "Deciso" is the piece that opens a musical dialogue and simultaneously breaks down a barrier between them.

I have always regarded Jose Felliciano's interpretation of The Doors "Light My Fire" to be the better of the two. And in keeping with the spirit of the guitar, I found it subtly influenced the direction of Sorrel Veldtman's character in the story. First of all, I hint in the introduction to Veldtman at the Conservatory in Chicago, that it is rumored that she once recorded with Felliciano himself. Later in the story, during her surprise pairing with Andy at the Public House, Veldtman launches into an impassioned version of this very track, which captivates the capacity crowd in the bar - including Andy himself, who is playing along with her. 

Listening to Felliciano's "Light My Fire" it is clear that he has given a timeless quality to the track, in stark contrast to The Doors original which, I have to say is my least preferred song in their catalogue. There's something urbane and magical about it. A song that you could quite easily hear somewhere on the rainy streets of Chicago in the evening.

"The Sounds Of Rain Part 3" is the second of the Grigoryan performed pieces that I have included into the soundtrack. Composed by an English friend of Grigoryan, William Lovelady, "Rain" is the piece I chose for Andy as the one he plays when he performs for the very first time at the Public House - surprising everyone there who had previously written him off a lazy, doper with a destructive attitude. I first discovered this piece when Slava Grigoryan performed it live on a show called "The Panel" which was a weekly evening topical chat show. 

His impassioned performance of "Rain" struck me completely dumb and I could totally imagine the vivid imagery the piece evoked through his playing - the simple imagery of falling rain. It was this piece which also helped me to refine one of the central themes in the story. That is the difference between technical brilliance and emotional investment in guitar playing. Andy is portrayed as being technically brilliant however his performances lack an emotional core which prevents him from achieving perfection. This is driven in part, by the lack of emotion we see in him in the beginning and it is this part of his journey - that quest to find an emotional core - which draws us to Andy DeVries.

The Hunters & Collectors classic "Throw Your Arms Around Me" has long been a favorite of mine and many Australian live music lovers - a soulful ballad which has been performed by many artists the world over. I included this track because it is one that I could imagine Andy playing during a raucous live music session in the Public House. The version that appears on the soundtrack however is performed live by Eddie Vedder and it personifies a kind of raw passion that fits with Andy's 'emotional awakening'.

"Come Alive" by the Foo Fighters is an example of a track whose lyrics I actually wanted to include in a critical scene in the story but it quickly became evident that it would cost me a fortune to get the appropriate rights to do so. There is a critical turning point in the story for two of the central characters for whom 'coming alive' bears a particular significance. "Come Alive" - a gorgeously loud, teeth gnashing rock ballad - beautifully illustrates the idea of an individual looking upon their own wretched existence and realizing that unless they take drastic steps to change, they will end up destroying themselves. "Come Alive" also speaks to me of the idea of coming back to life. That is to say - the death of Denny at the beginning does not mean that is the end of his journey. For whatever reason, it has been determined that it is not Denny's time yet and that he has still more to do in this mortal world. His love for Sonya too, will not keep him from her and it is through this troubled vessel that is Andy DeVries that Denny can hope to find his way back to her.

The scene - in which Andy is sitting alone after his disastrous experience at the Warehouse - retains the original spirit of the lyrics, without explicitly mentioning them. Although I do indulge in having Andy play the opening refrain from the song and if you check out the Hambledown release trailer you'll hear what I'm getting at.

Originally, when I wrote the scenes introducing Sonya Llewellyn and Hambledown I had the radio on in the kitchen at home and the Dixie Chicks "Landslide" was playing. Ever since then I have never thought about that introductory scene of Sonya's morning walk along the Hambledown beach and her stopping by the General Store without that song in mind. I even incorporated that song into the scene where Sonya stops by the Store to pick up her coffee and chat with Lionel and Ruth Broadbent. It is playing on a radio in the Store but I dropped it for the sake of moving the plot forward.

"Landslide" talks about about being afraid of changes and being unable to live life alone, which kind of speaks to the portrait of Sonya we are introduced to in the aftermath of Denny's death. She is living in a sort of fugue state where she has drawn the blanket of Hambledown around her shoulders to protect her from the outside world, from the change that has been thrust upon her and from living life without the love of her life.

"But Beautiful" by Australian jazz legend Vince Jones is, in my opinion, quite simply the most beautiful love song ever written and it holds a special significance for me - though not what you might expect. When I was a kid I required surgery to remove a fairly nasty spinal cord tumor that had been discovered at the base of my spine. The night before the operation, unable to sleep, I sat by the window looking out across the city of Melbourne, watching the passenger jets coming in to land at the airport and that song was playing on my Walkman. An incongruous thing for a fifteen year old to be doing I guess but I didn't know what else to do at that point.

Australian Jazz legend, Vince Jones.

I included a description of a jazz quartet playing in the background at an unnamed Williamstown restaurant later in the story and though I didn't expressly reference this piece, "But Beautiful" was firmly in my mind the whole time.

In portraying Sonya, I saw her as someone who is most comfortable in her own company, particularly after putting in long hours at her law practice which is still in a state of partial renovation - even after she opens it. In order to facilitate Sonya's own dream sequences in the novel I constructed a scene where she is relaxing on the sofa in the evening, after a long day. She has a glass of wine in hand and she is listening to quite music filtering from the stereo, thinking about Denny.

Dido's haunting track "Here With Me", from her debut album 'No Angel' has a kind of ethereal quality to it, a dreaminess. And it speaks of the pining for a lost love which fits perfectly with where Sonya is in her journey - her struggle with grief.

The third and final of the Grigoryan pieces I have included on the soundtrack, Joaquin Rodrigo's "Concerto de Anrujuez No. 2" forms the basis for the emotion charged climax of The Hambledown Dream.

Having progressed through to the final round of competition at the International Festival of the Guitar in Melbourne, Australia Andy has submitted this composition as the one he will play although, at this point in the story, he doubts that he will be able to pull it off in the aftermath of his disastrous revelation to Sonya on the Williamstown beach.

Ironically, however, it is his turmoil at this moment that enables him to connect to the emotional core that he has sought for so long and the subsequent performance transcends anything he has previously delivered to an audience.

Said to be written for his gravely ill wife in the aftermath of miscarrying their first child, Rodrigo's "Concerto" is regarded as one of those classical pieces that has found a niche in popular culture and it has been used widely in modern cinema. I did worry that it might be too popular for the final concert scene but I decided that, since it had the capacity to move me to tears, I couldn't not include it.

It has quite a long run at something like 11 minutes, but it has so much in terms of stylistic variation that it really does show case the whole beauty of the instrument.

I put the finishing touches to the final manuscript of The Hambledown Dream during our Christmas Holidays in December 2009. My serioso and our two were vacationing on Kangaroo Island with a friend of ours and during the day I would spend a few hours upstairs on the balcony of our holiday house with the laptop, a glass of wine and my daughter Lucy while the my serioso, her friend and my son went off to the beach in the heat of the day. Lucy and I would put the stereo on and chill out while she sat on my lap and happily babbled away while I finished off the final scenes of the book. Andy is on the roof of the Hambledown beach house, repairing some broken tiles and he looks out across the azure sea before him, the town of Hambledown away to the south. He smiles feeling a strong sense of home.

And it was during these last edits of the manuscript that Zero 7's "Home" played over the stereo. The coincidence could not have been more sublime. It's another of those haunting tracks, ethereal in nature and it stays with you long after it has ended. In effect, "Home" became the 'theme song' for "The Hambledown Dream" and I often indulge myself in the thought that this would be the perfect track for the closing credits of a movie version. I can't help myself.

But it's nice to dream...

So there you go - an interpretation of The Hambledown Dream as a musical journey. It would be an awesome addition to the book itself, having an official soundtrack but in lieu of that I hope this offers you an insight into journey I was on during the writing of the book.

DFA.

Songs That Inspired The "Dream" - Come Alive - Foo Fighters.

The beginnings of what I like to call Andy's "awakening" were written with this fantastic song by the Foo Fighters in mind. I featured a short description of the song in "The Hambledown Dream" that was designed to serve as a musical accompaniment to the internal battle that Andy was waging with himself.


DFA.

Songs That Inspired the "Dream"

During the Christmas break, I spent a week on Kangaroo Island at the bottom of South Australia. And during that time, I was able to put the finishing touches on the manuscript and ensure that it was ready for submission to iReadiWrite Publishing. I spent a few quiet days at the house we were staying at on my own while the girls and my son were out at the beach and I would relish having open slather over the stereo system.

Invariably I had an unconscious play list of songs I like to listen to whilst writing and editing. They helped to put me in that frame of mind that would get the best out of me. One song - well one band actually - assisted me more than any other to get into the headspace. British group Zero 7 have long been a favorite of mine. I discovered them a few years ago when I saw that fantastic Zack Braff directed indie "Garden State". Since then, they've had me hooked and not the least because a fellow South Australian, Sia Furler, appears regularly in their line up.

As I was retooling the final scenes of "The Hambledown Dream" the song "Home" happened to time itself on the random play on my smartphone. The effect was instant. Home became the song in which I said goodbye to the characters and situations I had created in my story. And it's influence lingered long after.

Imagine it then as say the closing theme to "The Hambledown Dream" and enjoy this video.

DFA.

Music That Inspired The "Dream"

Indulgence time:

"The Hambledown Dream" is a story that has has a rich musical influence flowing through it. Music is particularly important in a number of key scenes within "The Dream" where the central character plays his guitar to a crowd - not necessarily used to his style of playing. But music is also important in laying down a "feel" to the story. Like a painter who gradually builds a piece of art up through layering, I used music during the writing process to help me tap into a particular emotional texture. It allowed me to imbue certain scenes with a soul that I think carries really nicely. In the initial drafts of the manuscript I even included the lyrics to certain songs that I thought would complement scenes but I quickly learned that the copyright considerations surrounding the use of certain lyrics was a mine field that I just didn't end up wanting to traverse so I gave up on their inclusion. Which, in the final analysis is probably a good thing because it keeps the story my own - the borrowing of lyrics can actually work against you because it takes away a little of your writings authenticity.

However, tapping into the emotional heart of certain songs in order to translate what a character might be thinking and feeling at a particular moment is a different proposition entirely. By interpreting a song and marrying that with the character's state of mind and what you get is something that remains true to your own writing style but it allows you to add a little texturing and layering to a scene. You have allowed a piece of music to add to that tableaux in a subtle way.

Can you see what I am getting at?

I wrote "The Hambledown Dream" across a period of about 8 months during 2009. I wrote it during rainy afternoons when it was cold out and I was sitting at the dining room table watching the rain fall against the window panes - the sound of quiet jazz playing in the background, a glass of wine nearby. I wrote it on a warm day on the patio of my house with classical guitar music on the radio, a cold beer sitting beside me and my dog laying beside my chair. I wrote it in the early hours of the morning - I mean like at 3 or 4 AM when I had a quiet moment at work and could steal a moment to pen some lines on my smartphone. Often I would have some quiet music as an accompaniment, maybe Zero 7 or Dido, or even Vince Jones - one of my favorite artists. A cup of good old caterer's blend sugared to the nines completes this particular occasion. Music helped me create, it helped me to see things clearer, it helped me to tap into an emotional heart in my story.

So here is what can be loosely regarded as the unofficial soundtrack to "The Hambledown Dream" - Music that inspired the story. I'll refer to it as unofficial so as not to piss off anyone in the recording industry who may deem it worthy to slap me with some sort of infringement notice.

1. Walking On A Dream - Empire of the Sun.
2. Cursed Diamond - The Black Crowes.
3. Deciso - Astor Piazolla (as performed by Slava & Leonard Grigoryan).
4. The Sounds Of Rain Part 3 - Slava Grigoryan.
5. Throw Your Arms Around Me (Acoustic Version) - Hunter's and Collector's.
6. Landslide - The Dixie Chicks.
7. Come Alive - Foo Fighters.
8. Here With Me - Dido.
9. But Beautiful - Vince Jones.
10. Sonata Prima - Fernando Sor (as performed by Slava Grigoryan).
11. Concierto de Aranjuez 2 - Joaquin Rodrigo (as performed by Slava & Leonard Grigoryan).
12. Home - Zero 7.

They are a fairly eclectic and personal collection of songs that reflect the overall 'feel' of "The Hambledown Dream". Most of the pieces - particularly the classical ones - are depicted in the story and described in detail, because both Andy and Denny play them, while others serve as the background to particular scenes and are mentioned in such a way as to paint a picture. Most of these songs can be found readily across the breadth of the internet. I encourage you to seek them out - by legitimate means - and have a listen to them. They will give you an impression of the mood and the texture that I was trying to achieve whilst writing "The Hambledown Dream".

DFA.