Why I'm not convinced by the mixed race Spider-Man...

Today I read in the news that Peter Parker has been killed off and the man behind the Spider-Man mask is now going to be Miles Morales, a mixed race American teenager. I had noticed when I was in a comic shop, with my good buddy Phil Hoile, a week or so ago that there was a special 'death of Spider-Man' comic selling like hot cakes from the counter.

I decided to resist the urge to buy it, as I figured that comic book history is littered with aborted 'death of' stories and I wasn't prepared to succumb to the gimmick. Even the one major hero death that stood from my era of comic book collecting, the death of Robin aka. Jason Todd, has now been rescinded to make for a new story arc.

I had no idea at the time that the storyline was actually a vehicle to change the identity of the man behind the mask, I'd bought the first 30 or so issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, interested in the re-boot and keen to see Mark Bagley taking pencils duties again, but hadn't been following for awhile. Avid readers may have predicted all this from storyline build up.

Now, why do I object to this turn of events, you might ask, especially considering I'm no longer actively reading the storylines?

Well I've a number of points...

1) If they really wanted to do a mixed-race character justice they would create a character from scratch, make him really cool and put all their marketing power into launching him as a major marvel universe event, they wouldn't just slot him into another heroes costume. I'm pretty sure the new black Batman will struggle to gain traction too (launched last month apparently), not because he's black but because he's Batman.

2) You first have to suspend your disbelief that a man bitten by a radioactive spider can develop superhuman abilities and a disproportionate sense of civic responsibility, but you're expecting to do that because your reading a Spiderman comic - next you have to believe that when this superhuman dies another, completely unrelated, superhuman turns up with the same powers and carries on where the old guy left off. How did he get those self same powers? I suppose though this point is a plot contention for a plot I've not read in full, so I could let it slide.

3) It's a gimmick and it's been done before! Remember when Superman died and got replaced by a black guy? No? Well for those of you who've never heard of Steel you can have a quick look through his wikipedia entry: Steel (John Henry Irons). Lets see the timeline of this particular Man of Steel:-

1993 - John Henry Iron's first appearance, a black guy in a steel armour suit with a big hammer. He fills the void left behind after Superman is killed by Doomsday. There are four other 'Supermen' in the story arc, but Iron's, or 'Steel' as he becomes known for ease of differentiation is the one who Lois Lane thinks may have had the soul of the real Superman 'walk-in' to him.

1994 - Within a year Kal-El is resurrected and Steel gets his own solo comic book series, he's no longer considered the actual Superman, but still a hero in his own right.

1997 - A feature film comes out starring Shaquille O'Neal as Steel. It is a commerical and critical flop, not even recouping 2 of the $16 million budget.

1998 - Steel's comic book series is cancelled - the gimmick has worn off. He still appears from time to time as a supporting character/plot device.


Within four years black Superman/Steel was dead in the water.

(4) It's not even the mainstream universe. Ultimate Spider-Man takes place in a different timeline to the rest of the Marvel Universe, so in normal continuity, in the films and the cartoon series on TV Spider-Man is still a white guy, so nothing has really changed. Total cop-out.

I sincerely believe if comic book creators want to give black characters a chance they need to be original. It's not going to work by just giving an old character a different secret identity, or creating a spin-off or sidekick. You can see why they do it, they think the fame of the original character will provide their new version with the boost they need to gain attention. Unfortunately this borrowed sort of fame never seems to last, the children of stars are certain to get exposure because of their famous parents, but unless they're, (a) as talented, (b) more talented or (c)talented in a totally different way from their elders; that borrowed fame will quickly turn to crushing criticism.

Look up any major player superhero and you'll notice (a) they're white and (b) there's been a black version attempted at some point. Another embarassing feature is if you look through this wiki list of black superheroes List of Black Superheroes just look how many of them are called 'black' something. Marvel is actually one of the better companies for characters who aren't caucasian, having introduced some strong characters early on, 'Black Panther' and 'Black Goliath' both turned up in 1966. Goliath doesn't need the 'black' in front of his name any more thankfully.

Still I think the list of latino or asian superheroes will most likely be a lot shorter than the black list, and I'm sure mixed race characters are extremely rare, so it's good Marvel wants to do something about it. For a long time they've probably been the leaders in having a diverse cast of characters in their universe, but this seems like a hackneyed plotline done to death.

Marvel is definitely capable of launching sucessful heroes who aren't average white guys, and it should look at it's own success stories when plotting it's next move... characters like Storm (X-Men), Bishop (X-Men), Skin (Generation-X) and Blade are all original characters whose powers and origin stories aren't built around them being a black replacement/substitute/sidekick for another hero - although it's worth noting Blade is the only one of these whose been succesful enough to tick all the boxes of a major character - own title, television show, cartoon, movie, computer game and action figure.

If they want Miles Morales to last they'll give him his own powers and his own costume to wear and then work on the rest. Make him archetypal, make him appeal to teens as they try and discover themselves. Don't make him just another spin-off.

Progress...

Well, we've had 3 gigs now in 3 months since changing our name to Fragile Creatures... or rather adopting the name Fragile Creatures for the band; I didn't stop being Adam Kidd. Our latest show, last Friday (29th July) at the Green Door Store, was really great!! My friends Foxes! had asked us to open up for their first show in Brighton since November last year. I was at a birthday meal with Adam, Alan and Matt from Foxes! when they told me about the show. They'd said they had a gig coming up at the Green Door and they needed one more band to complete the line-up:- I umm'd and ahh'd about it, as we're concentrating on recording at the moment, particularly as we're still between drummers. The next thing I heard about it I was invited to the gig through facebook and we were already on the bill!!

We were totally blown away by how many people came to see us, especially as we were on at 8pm... and everyone seemed to enjoy the show, particularily the newer songs we played in the second half of the set. When I got home there were several e-mail requests through our reverbnation page to upload some songs for people to listen to. I'm going to have to resist the strong temptation to share at the moment, as what we're cooking up in the studio is too good to go out as 'work in progress'!

We played new song 'The Chemicals' for the first time as a band (I actually performed it with Billy, whose playing cahon for us, at an open mic night the evening before as a warm-up!) and it fit in really well. I've written a number of reggae influenced numbers before, but this one seems different, it's got a pretty unique feel... if I slwo the main riff down a little it could form a basis for a Buena Vista Social Club style lating groove. Aaron and I stumbled over each other explaining what the song was about, he said, 'it's about drugs ladies and gentlemen' and I countered with, 'caffeine'! When I wrote the first lyrics for the chorus, 'the chemicals/ they rot your brain and they drive you wild/ they're everywhere I seem to turn/ I want them all,' I was actually thinking about more than just Class A party drugs. I was thinking about all the tiny little addictions to things like nicotine, sugary drinks, people who have to pop endless painkillers; and how these little chemical interactions drive our lives.

The verses though do tell a story, loosely based on something that did happen to me, about drugs and parties and memory:- although really I feel I'm saying that love is the drug, or rather drugs are a love substitute, taking one to lower your inhibitions to make it easier to find a lover or taking abother to forget a lover you've lost. It's a familiar story.

Anyhoo, don't want to twaddle on endlessly, I shall finish with the setlist as I love a good list:

1. Empty Head
2. This Strange Dance (short arrangement)
3. Just A Fool
4. Fragile Creatures
5. The Chemicals
6. End Of The World (For Two)
7. Stowaways
8. Into The Night

After this show Tom was pretty sure it was the newest material that was strongest, and thinks we should try and get She Makes Me Nervous ready for the next live show (not that we have one booked). For my part I think it's high time we settled the drummer issue, before we do any more live shows - if that takes us out of action for a couple of months, well so-be-it. I'd also like to play on electric guitar on some of the songs. Acoustic has it's limitations - especially my guitar with it's crappy pick-up!

Onwards and upwards! X

Authors voice...

I finished one book today and began reading another one straight away. I am lucky to have had a large pile of interesting books to work through after winning a number of books in a competition earlier this year. It was at a sort of Christmas-like get together for members of my girlfriends' comedy troupe the Maydays, hosted by John Cremer. John likes to give away all the books he's read in a year with a name-that-tune game, this time with Bob Dylan songs covered in a reggae style! The first person to shout out the correct title got to choose from a selection of books:- and there were quite a few I had my eye on, luckily my Bob Dylan knowledge and my reggae deciphering skills enabled me to get about 8 (I think).

I've just finished reading Moondust by Andrew Smith, a book about the moon landers that I thoroughly enjoyed, and have started reading Mud, Blood and Poppycock, a book about the First World War by Gordon Corrigan.

Going from one to the other, and this is early days I might add (I'm only part way through the introduction where Corrigan outlays his intentions for the rest of the book); I am immediately struck by a slight distaste for Corrigan. He wants his book to be a revisionist text, redressing the bias towards pacifism in historical accounts of the Great War.

At least twice already he has taken umbrage with people stating that the war was 'unecessary and tragic' and yet has no problem discussing fondly people who enjoyed their wars, despite playing witness to the deaths of friends and gross humnan tragedy on an epic scale, and I'm only on page 21!

I can see where Corrigan is coming from, no soldier wants to risk their life in a brutal conflict and come home to find they are not venerated by the people back home they thought they were protecting. They don't want to think of their wars as tragic, as a waste of life, it can be belittling in the extreme to be told the focus of your life, whatever that may be, has been ultimately pointless.

He makes some good points already, and reasons and argues them well, but I'm afraid he may miss the point in all this bad press the old wars have gotten. It's surely a good thing that the global conflcits of the 20th Century are deeply unfashionable and unthinkable in todays climate. We don't mind sending a few troops to tag along to America's latest evangelist drive to inflict it's own corrupt version of capitalist democracy on a far off alien land, perhaps to keep men like Corrigan feeling useful; but overall we'd like to pretend that we're all anti-war and pro-diplomacy and that our governments will do anything in their power to avoid large-scale and long-term conflict. This is the result of decades of bad mouthing those wars.

Perhaps Corrigan is right that the commanding officers of British forces in the First World War have gotten a raw deal in the history books... his description of what the average person thinks of WWI is accurate and his debunking very interesting so far, so I will no doubt read the whole book, and maybe by the end I'll have forgiven him for his soldierly attitudes and conservative values.

The thing that really struck me though, immediately within a few sentences, is that compared to Andrew Smith, whose been a cosy companion for the last month with Moondust, I just am not going to like Corrigan. It's fascinating how easily I am swayed to like or dislike an author, or the voice he chooses to use. Andrew Smith's enthusiasm for the moonmen was infectious and the book turned into a real page turner for me, even though I was never really that bothered before. I even felt compelled to watch Apollo 13 after finishing, even though I ignored it the first time round, thinking it would be boring. Smith's novel is a personal journey - what did the moon landings mean to him and what did they mean to the moonwalkers themselves and what did it mean to Smith that they meant what they meant to the moonwalkers? (I could be shot for that terrible sentence construction).

I don't think it's just a case of having an interest in the subject and therefore liking the authors voice, I tried to read one of Richard Dawkins books once and, despite agreeing with almost everything he said, I hated the way he said it. You could feel the hubris dripping from each sentence. He's not just an aetheist, but an evangelical one. He is contemptuous of anyone whose beliefs differ from his own, it would appear, and therefore he's almost unscientific! Science is about theories: proposing one and supporting it with evidence whilst being able to adapt if the evidence proves your assumptions were incorrect. It seems unfair to outright dismiss peoples feelings of spirituality... one thing a number of moon-voyagers had in common was discovering a sort of spirituality in space in spite of their scientific backgrounds. On the return journey, staring at the distant earth as it grows larger in the portholes, several of the moonmen speak of an awakening spiritual sense, of a connection to the universe they'd not felt before.

Some went on to define this as god, and worship that deity as they saw appropriate. I got a glimmer that it could be that 'god' is a human desire to put an unarguable answer to an unknowable question... and clearly up there in space you'd be pretty overwhelmed by the vastness of the unknown - I'd imagine the guys that orbitted the moon (waiting to collect the guys on the surface after their exploration) mast have had the most accute experience of this as they passed round the dark side.

I suppose the point I'm fumbling into here is that our awareness of the unknowable questions is the crux of the unique mental capacity that seperates us, as far as we know, from the other animals here on planet earth. God then, would have been invented as an early method of preventing our awareness of these ultimate questions from over-powering us and shutting us down. The universe is vast and unknowable, but we can blame that all on 'god' and get on with our lives... as our lives have become more advanced 'god' concepts have generally become abused, because they require a fixed position, an ideolgical standpoint. You can't shift your ethics to fit the current situation if your ethics are based on a fixed idea of god, attached to a time and a place and some holy books. This lack of adaptability is what's made religion become increasingly irrelevant to modern societies which might be why I have difficulties liking Dawkins and Corrigan too.

I sense from them a similar fixed position, like the opposing forces digging in to their trenches in the Great War. Dawkins wants to raise up Darwinian evolution and selfish genetics and I imagine him having trouble shifting position if fundamentals of his science were disproven. Corrigan, although I'm probably being unfair basing so much on a handful of pages, seems unable to regret the past, he wants to glorify the sacrifice of brave warriors, but can't see that when we venerate the heroes of one generation we feel the call for new heroes in our own and that actually the future world would be a far better place if there were no soldiers left anywhere.

Andrew Smith, by contrast, is hard to put down because his book is infused with the desire to learn more about a fascinating subject and in so doing bring it to a wider audience, rather than a desire to correct us all in our wrong thinking about a subject the author knows far better than us.

Another book I read very recently, that I've been trying to think of a way to slip in to this discourse is Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi. Hers was a voice I enjoyed thoroughly, and hers a story I valued learning. I think, with Iran being the subject of a lot of hostile news reporting and American fears that developing nuclear power stations and early attempts at a space programme (I believe they recently put their first sattelite in space) will inevitably lead to nuclear weapons; this book should be widely read here to give some historical context to the situation there. (I'd like to say more about it, but feel like this blog is already over-long)

I've always been deeply suspicious of America (who landed men on the moon with NASA and dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end Japan's involvement in WWII) when they talk of a foreign policy desire to prevent other nations from acquiring nuclear power or the capability of launching objects into space. It seems wrong that they can have something, continue to use it and then decide it is unsafe for the world for other places to obtain it - it's extremely arrogant. If we all shared our technologies and promoted their peaceful applications we'd end up saving a lot of the world's resources from being wasted as they are pumped into armed conflict.

One of Smith's salient points about the Apollo programme, in discussing the cost and whether or not it was worth it, was that although the price tag of $25.4 billion is shocking, and unforgivable when compared to US shortfalls in healthcare, housing and education throughout the period; the Vietnam war cost America equivalent to $662 billion over the same 10 years.

If I ever have kids they'll certainly be playing with toy spacemen and not toy soldiers.

Slow Wednesday Reflections...

Well it is incredibly slow today, which is going to give me the opportunity to write a few words while I watch repairmen fixing the door to the little housing office where I work part-time. A while back the office was converted to have better disabled access, but whoever did the planning hadn't realised that an arm installed to open the front door at the push of a button would be defeated by the latch of the existing lock. After a few weeks of sticky ineffective opening a bright spark in the estate services team jammed a screw into the latch allowing the disabled door open button to work again, although it would occasionally stick when the screw worked its way loose.

Yesterday one of our housing officers spotted this screw, and unaware of the mismatched door aparatus removed the screw. Within a few hours the problems this had caused for people trying to get into the building added up and a repair team were called for, the guys who have arrived this morning and fixed the problem while I was writing these two paragraphs. They've removed the latch from the door, which means that the door will open at the push of a button, but it also means it will fly open from a gush of strong wind and I will get very cold hands!! It seems the days are numnbered for this little office anyway, with plans to merge us into some sort of 'hub' building in the deeper darker depths of whitehawk, so I won't be suffering cold hands for many months.

Hopefully by then my burgeoning music career will have reached a point where I can leave the council. I think it's a good organisation (currently the only green led council in the UK I believe) and a worthy thing to be a part of, but I have deliberately stuck myself in a particularily menial role, so I can concentrate most of my efforts on said music career. Last night I had a pretty positive meeting about our future recording plans and it sounds like we're setting up a label to release an EP... during our chat the possible name of Hub Records sprung up - so interestingly I could be seeing myself avoiding the councils hub by starting one of my own!

On Saturday we played our second ever live show as Fragile Creatures as part of an open air street party called People's Day. We were the last act on the mainstage at 5pm, so it felt a little bit like headlining our first festival! There was a large and very supportive crowd of people watching us which grew as we played and included the oldest and youngest members of the audience dancing. The really encouraging thing about this all was that, apart from a couple of our girlfriends, this was a crowd who had never heard of us and never heard our songs before - they loved it and we even got asked to play an encore. Afterwards I was approached by an agent from an international booking agency... I think it's a bit premature to expect anything to come of that, but I would jump at the chance to play concerts in New York, London or Dubai (the cities listed on the front of his business card)... although with some slight reservations about the latter, I've heard some interesting stories, enough to give me pause for thought.

Here's the setlist:

1. Fragile Creatures
2. This Strange Dance  [we cut this one down from it's usual 6 minutes to more like 4]
3. End Of The World (For Two)
4. Stowaways
5. Just A Fool
6. Empty Head

encore: Into The Night

...and here is a video from the show of us performing End Of The World (For Two) that a good friend of mine posted on youtube. I remember saying to him afterwards something like, "did you see how many camera phones were pointed at us? We'll probably end up all over youtube tomorrow." and he, with a knowing smile said, "Yes. You will."

Here it is:

Jogging, performing, recording, reinstalling...

It's been a busy couple of weeks, I suppose, looking back now things I did a week ago seem like they could be a month ago, which is quite refreshing as time normally seems to be speeding up to me these days. The band has been busy in persuit of results and I've had my head buried in various life admin tasks.

A week ago on Saturday we played our first show as Fragile Creatures at the Unitarian Church, Brighton. We played there a couple of times as Adam Kidd Band and vowed not to return after some really shambolic nights. The lovely church acoustics are excellent for voices but throw in a rock drum kit and you'll hear nothing else, it also seemed like a tough place to convince people to go to, people seem happy to watch a street gig when they set up on the steps, but venturing inside is another matter, particularly with no bar to speak of.

When we were offered this latest show there seemed to be a number of factors that would improve that outlook. For starters we would be playing acoustically, so it was more likely people would be able to hear the music as we intended; the show was part of Brighton Fringe festival, which lent publicity an air of professionalism and we were supporting a Serbian folk singer - Lady Jalena... which sounded like the sort of thing that would pull in the festival crowd.

When we arrived it seemed that things were not going to run according to plan, by this time they had already abandoned the idea of charging £5 and had made the night a fundraiser for amnesty international, which wasn't a problem - we weren't expecting to get paid anyway. Then we found out that Lady Jalena was still stuck in Serbia and another act from the bill, Martyna, had called in sick. Furthermore the PA system was limited to a couple of speakers and a four channel desk... so no monitors and not even enough mics and stands for our four vocals! To top it all of it looked like we would be going onstage during the Champions League Final.

We were determined to put on a good show regardless of any difficulties, particularly as we'd recruited a cahon player (Billy Protheroe) for the gig and rehearsed with him every day for a week! A couple more acts had been found to start off the night and Kate, a great sounding group with a harp, had been bumped up from first on to headliners (we weren't quite sure why, but we weren't complaining - happy with the penultimate slot we'd been booked to do). When our turn to take the stage came the room was practically empty and we were convinced we'd be playing to our girlfriends and Tom's sister! I sarcastically took the mic and said something like, 'yeah, we're onstage now you can all come out from where you're hiding'... and people actually did! By halfway through our first number the room was looking comfortably filled and we played a great set - with a couple of brand new numbers. Into The Night ended up being a weak point, with my acoustic guitar suddenly jumping up in volume and the groove being somewhat elusice. That aside the night went really well. Here's the setlist:

1. Stowaways - first ever performance
2. Fragile Creatures
3. Just A Fool
4. Slow Down
5. A Message
6. Into The Night
7. This Strange Dance
8. End Of The World (For Two) - first ever performance
9. Empty Head

The previous Sunday we'd had a brand new demo of End Of The World (For Two) played on the BBC South Introducing show by Simon Price. I ran into Simon in a bar a few days earlier and he told me he was taking over the show again from regular host Phil Jackson. I vowed to get him a new song recorded in time for it (to help promote the Unitarian Church gig)... and then promptly fell ill for three or four days. So then on the Friday and Saturday I managed to get the guys from the band over seperately to put down their parts in my home studio. We were all really pleased and a little surprised with the results so less than 24 hours after my final mix the song was going out live on a bbc broadcast!

Then on bank holiday Monday we went in for a day at Brighton's Metway Studio to record Stowaways with Toby May on drums and Matt Twaites engineering. Again we were both surprised and very pleased with how good the results were... there's even talk of Stowaways as a potential single. Still it might not be this recording, and I'd rather not jinx it by saying any more on the subject!

In other news my computer died recently, I turned her off at the mains and then she could no longer find windows. I think this was an issue with Sata drivers (having my OS on a Sata Drive) and windows XP... but I cannot claim to be any sort of expert and had to resort to calling in the big guns (Dad!) to help me sort it out. This has meant a clean install and thankfully my DVD drive has started working again! I think I learnt a valuable lesson tough - I am a lot more productive at home when I can't get online as easily! With my PC down I spent a lot more time working on my laptop, recording demos and grabbing time to spend on my Kiyomori project. I'm glad it's working again now, after the busyness of the last coupld of weeks I've felt in need of a wee break and a return to streamed entertainments... last night I caught up on my southpark!!

Finally jogging... a couple of months ago I ran the Brighton Marathon. If you'd told me at age 18 I was going to run 26 miles in 3 hours 47 minutes I would probably have laughed at you! I did it though in the last few days I've found the lure of remaining fit too hard to resist. I don't have any intention (at the moment) of competing in an event again, but my girlfriends flatmate has signed herself up for the London marathon in April next year. When she did the Brighton marathon in its inaugural year several of her toenails fell off!

I seemed to fare a lot better with my first bash at a marathon so I've offered to train her a little, so the long slog isn't as much of a shock to her system. Now, I only trained for three intensive months and loosely for three months, to build up my general fitness. We are way ahead of schedule, but I've suggested we run 6 miles once a week until we're within three months of the even when we'll go into a stricter regime.

On Thursday last week I went out in the midday sun and attempted a run to Rottingdean and back, to prove I could still do it myself to myself before I started trying to give instruction to someone else! I made it but had to stop twice - the gps tracker on my phone told me I'd started out running at 8 miles per hour and kept that up for 2.5 miles. Considering my average marathon pace was about 6.5 mph I was really killing it (and my chances of completing the 6 miles) so I slowed down and managed the rest of the run at a more reasonable pace. Then on Sunday morning I did again, but this time as a supposed trainer! It went much better yesterday, with a nice even pace throughout and only taking a short break to walk up the steep hill from the undercliff walk to the clifftops by the marina.

I think I'm going to enjoy the 6 mile a week fitness drive a lot more than the intense scheduling of trying to build up your distance to marathon length. Still, 6 months of 6 weekly milers and we should be able to hit the longer distances without too much worry.

Time to sign off methinks, another long blog that's probably vaguely tedious. Nonetheless I do see myself as more of a diarist than a reporter... so this is all you're getting out of me!!!

X

I Saw Something Die

This morning I was wakling to work and enjoying the suinshine on my face when I heard an almightly thud up ahead, which I, at first, thought was the sound of a bus colliding witha blossom filled low lying branch - for as soon as the thud sounded the sky was filled with white blobs that I, at first, assumed were blossom. It swiftly dawned on me that it was a bit late for blossom and as I drew closer I realised the blobs were downy feathers. Closer still I spotted the body of a wood pigeon, trying desperately to suck in its last breath. The bus had collided with the bird in flight and now it was just roadkill, everyone watching looked mortified. Poor thing. I felt the event had a sort of melancholic beauty to it and decided to write a haiku, as it seemed appropriate form for to express such a feeling.

Sad blossoms floating.
Feathers in the morning sun.
Twitching. Bus queue frowns.

Progress with the Unfinished|Unreleased project...

When I talked about finishing off the unfinished Kiyomori album last week I wasn't sure if I'd actually ever do it!! A number of factors ought to have conspired against me - I shouldn't have found the time, I might not have had the resources - I ought to have started it, gotten bored and then not finished!! Instead things are looking pretty good. I'm already most of the way there, I'd say, although with each day I seem to find a half finished song tucked away on an old hardrive or something and I start wondering if it ought to be included or not and as my tracklist reaches the higher teens I start wondering if it is more of a double album!!

Part of me wants to call it quits now and leave off songs like Rendition, Not In My Name, Deliverance and Invisible Hands... as we never played them live, Sean never settled on bass lines that I can try to replicate and I never finished the lyrics. Part of me wants to finish those and include a couple of weird songs I found last night 'unittled E min thing' and 'Control' - which was about the fourth time we tried to write a song called Control at Sean's behest!!

So anyway, those decisions are yet to be made so I shall present another list (love lists) of all the potential songs and the state they are in. '*'s next to tracks that are finished.

*1. Banging - finished contemporary demo

2. Deliverance - no verse lyrics, no bass-line... good drum and guitar take with working structure.

*3. Dance Like A Robot - finished contemporary demo

4. Not In My Name - no verse lyrics, no bass line... reasonable guitar and drum take.

*5. Fighting Fire With Fire - thought I'd lost this one but found another copy of the original session, bass was all on keyboards and a little thin so I recorded a bassline, mixed it and now it's finished.

*6. Unsung|Unstrung - Now finished, with synths, bass and additional vocals.

*7. Puppet On A String - finished contemporary demo

8. Gekokujo - Almost finished - need to try and mix it so the new vocal hides the old better (mix has vocal so can't get rid of original ad-lib

9. Invisible Hands - have recorded new bass and guitar. Need to write lyrics, record vocals and find Easy Rider samples.

10. What Goes Around - Good version available with adlib vocals - need to record the written lyrics over this and mix it so the new vox replace the old.

*11. Bird In A Cage (Part 2) - finished with new bass-line, synth, extra vocals

*12. The World They Built For Us - finished contemporary demo

13. More To Lose - needs bass/synth/extra guitar (possibly)

14. Tick Tock - nearly finished, added midi drums to original demo and bass/guitar/synth now thinking it could do with strings!!!

*15. Virtually - I remember Kiyomori played a versions of Virtually a few times, but forgot we'd recorded this version, which was only missing a bass line, so I finished it off.

16. Control - kind of weird little rough thing... repeats same thing for about 2 mins might be nice as a bonus or interlude

17. Untitled Emin - this jam had a lot of potential... nice bass line/sound from Sean. Not sure if I can make something useable out of what I've found and the opening adlib lyric - "something in her eyes said no" Is creepy in the extreme... so I'm thinking about ditching this one!!