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Changes to re-issue of "Creatively Anti-Perfect" album

9/23/2015

 
Hello all you good people…

Apologies I have had to make a couple of changes to the re-issue of the Creatively Anti-Perfect album (re-issue 2015 [2000]):

1. It will be available to buy as from the 1st of December 2015

2. There will only be 100 copies made, once they are sold, that’s it!

Here is a brief description below, must go now got work to do!

The Creatively Anti-Perfect demo album was recorded in 1999 and originally released in 2000.
The album of 12 tracks was recorded on cassette at home, and is influenced by Ray Davies and Billy Childish (not to mention Dolly Parton and 1990's self-help books!). 
More details on tracks here!

The idea behind the album was to record an album where spirit, content and writing songs on the spur of the moment were more important than perfectionism or technological excellence.

The original pressing of 200 CDs were sold out at gigs. Although this is a very modest album, I think it has a certain energetic enthusiasm promoting a little "joie de vivre"!


It will be sold ONLY as an entire album on CD rather and not available as individual tracks or in digital form.

You can pre-order on the store page

More details will emerge here closer to the release date!


Love and Peace and Long Live Corbyn!



100 copies only

9/22/2015

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Hello Good People who are reading this....

On further reflection I have decided to only re-issue 100 copies of the demo album Creatively-Anti Perfect.
100 seems a better number, in general, a nice round number, especially in terms of my current level of disposable cash!
Anyway that was it, life is in a state of crisis.
Love and Peace and long live Corbyn!




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Going back to my guitar and songwriting

7/27/2015

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It's been a long time since I've been songwriting, or performing my own music. My life is like most people's very complex in the recession, and has taken some odd twists and turns recently. I am now working on getting myself back out there playing, every day I am writing new material. I was inspired by a book on creative writing which encourages the writer to take their work seriously and to write every day and commit to finishing work.
I am getting older, need to get new photos done I think although I don't look as good now, but hey, it's the music that counts not the face that sings it.
I have not been writing my own stuff for a while and so at first my songwriting efforts were "clunky". I worked on a couple of half-written songs and just from playing them over and over, it's amazing how I just add bits, improve bits, shape it all without really consciously deciding to. After working on some "clunky" songs which seemed a bit stilted, I decided to just use a couple of  "classic chords" D and C and write a verse around them. I played these over and over with a few guitar clichés added, but then something in me just took over, and I wrote a second section. I have only written the acoustic guitar parts, but I am so happy with it, I hear it singing in my head all the time and that's a good sign. Even if I am the only person who will ever hear it or like it, it won't matter a bit because it brings me so much joy to just play it, and it makes me so happy to know that I can still write modest bits of music and sing.
I am making these new songs, unapologetically melodic. It hasn't been cool in any way for a very long time for musicians to be melodic or to use many chords, or have lyrics that are soppy, but I am doing all three.
I rediscovered the music of Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam recently and am so happy to see he is touring again and on form. Some of my listeners tend to like my electronic experimental music. But when life is insecure in so many ways and money problems are pouring down, the world seems in chaos, I find reassuring melodies and reassuring "solid" chord sequences on an acoustic guitar with reassuring lyrics, make me happy. They take me back "home" to the new folk songwriters of the early 1970s.
I am also influenced by the novel Jane Eyre and the songs I have been writing are all based on this character and story, but the songs end up being about something else that is still going on today. The themes in Jane Eyre are the themes of girls growing up in society and finding their place, within and without religious and educational institutions, within/without the family, as well as within a range of love relationships. I get older but life is still a struggle to find my place in all these areas, I've never managed to fit in to anything I haven't created or adapted.
I went twice to an open mic in the past week or so to perform the songs, the first time, the place was closed although I met some wonderfully interesting and intense people there, the second time they put me on so late I had to go home and give up my spot. I didn't mind, no amount of rehearsing is ever enough when it comes to open mic spots. I like to perform in poetry venues as the audience tend to appreciate the music more and also it encourages me to write better lyrics.
So that was my ramble. I wish this summer could last forever so I can continue working on my music every day.
Love and Peace to all you good people.x
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Article in S.I.I.Y.E., Hawkwind and life in general

2/24/2014

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Hello Good People who might read this....

These days friends, non-friends, and a few undesirables keep asking me when they can see me. I keep putting people off due to illness (pleurisy recently as well as the usual CFS), my heavy studies and other commitments which has elicited some strange reactions ( such as an email I received where someone had copied and pasted all the reasons for my not being able to see them from my previous emails to them)  but that's OK...I don't seem to have many moments to myself these days but since I DO have a moment this evening I thought I'd write this.

1. Just to mention that the review written by Brian Banks has been published on/in "Stick it in Your Ear" and you can get to it from HERE! or from here
Not much more to say about that apart from another big Thank You.


2. Also my life has been a bit full on with my PhD studies and dealing with money and housing and health problems ( and more on top of that). I have concluded that as a result of the recession many organisations have resorted to more and more crazy and corrupt tactics designed to drive me and everyone crazy while maintaining the appearance of being very helpful and good for us. I am beginning to think that no institution or organisation functions at all in London and as soon as you approach one organisation to help you with problems caused by another organisation, then they start to behave in corrupt and crazy way as well, so then you go to another institution/organisation/process to deal with them and then they also start to deal with you in corrupt and crazy ways that border on the absurd. Sooner or later you find yourself dealing with around ten organisations via phone, texts,emails and letter if you are lucky, who all have, in theory, a good customer service record, they say they are there to assist you, they " talk the talk".... but they let you down, blame you, they blantantly lie to keep themselves in employment, or to cover up the fact that someone has run off with your money, or was down the pub drowning their sorrows instead of dealing with your issue or has just exploded in a random fit of spontaneous combustion combined with the stress of keeping up appearances.  That is my life! I am not naming names. Through chaos I build my character stronger and more determined and if I start to feel sorry for myself I start to think of those who have been flooded since before Christmas or deal with some other calamity in the world. Is mother nature reclaiming the earth away from us?

3. A brief break from dysfunctional institutions occurred when I went to see Hawkwind
play live on Saturday at the Shepherd's BushEmpire. Strange story. I was originally going to see the "old Hawkwind"  band a.k.a. Space Ritual who were due to play at the Ruislip social club on Friday the 21st. But then it said the gig was cancelled, I was disappointed and wanted to find tickets for another gig for my son's birthday . Then I realised that Hawkwind were playing not far from me at the Shepherd's Bush Empire the following day, a benefit gig for various animal charities. Hawkwind were due to re-enact their original "Space Ritual" tour set which you can hear on their album of the same name.On the Tropic of Ruislip website it said that the band "Space Ritual" were not playing due to illness and someone in the band awaiting an operation. I am not sure what was going on, and why Hawkwind were due to play the Space Ritual set the next day. I guess possible rivalry between the two bands and more crazy games were going on.
The Motorhead tour was due to be in London around that time and I hoped that maybe Lemmy, and the old Hawkwind crew from the band "Space Ritual" would somehow join the new "Hawkwind" on stage ( are you following this? if not just go and listen to this and it will cut through all the nonsense and give you the original music). Anyway Lemmy is ill, Dave Brock and Nik Turner don't get on, so we had the "new Hawkwind" only.
But it was a great show, great causes , great lightshow, great music, but quite polished, not sure if that is quite in the spirit of the original Hawkwind ethic. They may have been playing the same tracks as on the live album but the rawness, the feel of psychedelic experimentation, the spirit of limitless musical anarchy was missing. However it was still brilliant and it had moments when the musicians lost themselves in generating a kind of overpowering joint musical energy that would be envy of any live band. Anyone who likes Mumford and Sons would not understand this and that is a good thing...
It was a great night and the die hard Hawkwind fans are a joy to be around as always.

4. I am using my Facebook profile to say how much I hate Facebook, a couple of friends have "liked" my anti-facebook comments but that just makes me hate Facebook more. In a total act of hypocrisy  when I publish this blog entry I will be following the option to also publish it on Facebook and Twitter, however I will be doing this in a slightly less corporate American superficial saccarine way than the usual Facebook entry, who writes anything on Facebook and Twitter this long?

Love and Peace to you all (except Facebook)

Veronique





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The Rocktologist and how independent musicians are still getting ripped off...

11/6/2013

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Picture
Hello good people who come and read my occasional blogging

I am very pleased to tell you that I made the front cover of the Rocktologist (www.therocktologist.com) this month. Brian R. Banks reviewed my last album and the magazine enjoyed the article so much that they made "The Psychacoustic Tapes" their featured CD of the month.
I am very flattered.
At gigs I usually get quite a powerful response. My performances are like Marmite, people either love them or hate them, at least I don't leave an insipid impression. My music must taste of something.
I don't really know if anyone knows who I am online or away from gigs. Perhaps that is my fault as I feel nauseous at the thought of trying to sell myself, or trying to persuade other people my music might be "good".
What is "good" music anyway? It's entirely subjective, unless advertising has bombarded people's consciousness to the point that they feel that something must be good because everyone else says it is.
I must not knock publicity as I think it is dead cool to be on the front of the Rocktologist. At heart I am a rocker! I love blues and psychedelic rock music and when I listen to it I feel like I am back home. Getting back to my point...I cannot gauge accurately how many people know who I am online, partly because I have not yet sold even ONE physical CD online. So last night I looked at my CD Baby account, CD Baby distribute my music online.  I found a mysterious amount
in my account $1.17.
What could this be???
Total Digital Distribution: $1.17.

Well that doesn't sound like much. But when I look into the details I find companies such as Spotify , Muve Music, Rhapsody, iTunes!, Deezer, Xbox ( Xbox??? I thought that was for playing games) and Myspace have all been selling or streaming my music online and deriving income from it.
The most I got from a song was from Apple iTunes!, I got $0.637, but that's an isolated case for most of the sales or streaming I get something in the region of $0.001
.That's a tenth of a US cent.  In contrast to the Apple iTunes!, the three items listed under iTunes Match - Americas earned me
a massive $0.01
or 1 cent for three songs that were streamed. I say they paid me this amount, but in fact I have not been payed. My $1.17 stays with CD Baby until the amount gets up to $10, then I will be paid. If I get paid on average $0.001 per download I'd have to be pretty famous to earn my $10.

(*Correction on 8/11/13: I got in a slight muddle when looking at loads of numbers late last night. For example Spotify  have sometimes given me $0.0014 per stream and at other times as much as $0.00840 which is better, but I cannot see a logical pattern.)
I thought as an independent musician I could not get ripped off. I did so much work to write songs, perform them, record them, re-arrange them, master them, then paid to have them re-mastered, to get the artwork done, to obtain special codes for each track and get everything registered with different organisations, to have the tracks made into physical CDs and occasionally deal with problems and obstacles, basically playing all the roles of a record company and artist.
Who is making money out of my music? Not me!
The artist loses again, I thought that only happened when you were signed to a big record company with ridiculously unfair contracts.
But I have to say this...that behind my slight bitterness and astonishment at getting paid so little, or not at all at present - I am so pleased to find out that so many people have been actually listening to my music and like it enough to download it to a plethora of personal electronic devices.
Thanks folks, and thanks again to the Rocktologist and to Brian R. Banks for giving me a boost.

Love and Peace

Veronique

Making Sonic Marmite





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Review of the Psychacoustic Tapes on The Rocktologist

10/30/2013

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Hello all you good people out there
( especially to anyone who relishes references to obscure creative music with psychedelic undertones)

I just wanted to let you know of a review written by Brian. R. Banks of my last album in

"The Rocktologist" rock magazine which can be accessed by clicking this link:
http://www.therocktologist.com/veronique-acoustique---the-psychacoustic-tapes.html

I have always loved rock music but never thought anything I wrote or recorded would ever be reviewed in a rock magazine. I am pleased at this...I managed to leap across the rock gender divide quite by accident, and doing music that was at times far too soppy and acoustic to be considered rock.
Brian R. Banks who wrote the review of my album was once upon a time Hawkwind's tour manager and was a participant in the 1980s subversive rock band, Mourneblade 
(see http://youtu.be/yxdzyLisVrU for a live performance of theirs).
Brian contacted me via the contact page on this site to ask me about my modest contribution to a Kevin Coyne tribute album called "Whispers in the Offing" (2007). The review was written for  the "Stick it in Your Ear" ezine , a music magazine for grown-ups.

http://www.siiye.co.uk/E15/PAGE_169.html
Brian Banks has also told me that another review of "The Psychacoustic Tapes" will also appear in the "Stick it in your Ear" ezine soon. This is very flattering
particularly when this ezine is filled about articles of legendary artists and their albums see: www.siiye.co.uk
( I am definitely not worthy!).

Lastly I decided to knock £2 off my CD version of "The Psychacoustic Tapes" on this site. It's nearly winter and people need to pay their gas bills and it would be nice for me to be able to pay mine too.
I am presently doing a lot of learning, more learning than I have ever done in my life. Currently struggling to rapidly learn two languages, plus a very complex type of singing from Asia involving the most difficult throat acrobatics I have ever attempted, and learning to play a kacapi zither. Everyone loves the sound of the kacapi even though I am just a beginner, plus I am reading lots of books on music. I am trying to find time at the end of the day to still do my own music and when I have the energy to lurch into some kind of creative foray.
I'm going now, I always talk or write too much!

Love and Peace to you all
Veronique



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Gig at Tottenham Chances tomorrow 24th

10/23/2013

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Last minute invitation to London gig

Hello all you strange wonderful, diverse and occasionally perverse people out there who have somehow come to read this.

I am advertising a little gig I am doing tomorrow at Tottenham Chances , along with some other songwriters, poets and performers. Tottenham Chances is probably my favourite venue in London at moment. It is a down to earth anarchic place where anything and everything is possible. I have seen things there ( such as a drummer playing and singing in a giant rotating hamster wheel, and a resident tardis, which I have seen at no other London venue). The audience are a good mix of local intellectuals, alternative not so young anymore punks, hippies and anarchists, drunks, extremely creative people, idealists who still believe they can change the world and people who come in from the street and wonder what on earth is going on.
Anyway it is a variable venue where anything is possible. I'll be doing a short acoustic gig for maybe 20 minutes, come and say hello! (or buy an album at a reduced price)

Date:Thursday 24th of October

Time: 8-11pm
Cost: FREE!!!!
Nearest Tube Seven Sisters
Address: 399 High Rd  London N17 6QN


I would have advertised this earlier but I have been ill and did not know if I would be well enough to perform.
Love and Peace

Véronique

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Change of venue for tomorrow's gig

6/5/2013

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Due to circumstances beyond my control the set I doing tomorrow has changed venue to 92 Stoke Newington High Street.

http://goo.gl/maps/8I1Lw

If you are in any doubt, just go to the Question Mark Bar and someone will be there to re direct you.

I will be one stage to do a set sometime between 8- 11pm.

Just to remind you that this event is free and there will be a stream of varied performers 8pm- 3 am.

Thank you and sorry to change venue!

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Flexi-time!

6/2/2013

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Hello Good people who read my news
I just wanted to say if you are coming to my gig tomorrow at the Olive 18 Stoke Newington High Street that Dave Russell and the Worm poet ( who used to be a regular at my club) are also performing , I should be on stage around 10 pm but the entire event starts sometime between 8.30pm and 9pm.
There is a time change to my gig on Thursday 6th of June at 129 Stoke Newington High Street, I guess this is my Stoke Newington High Street tour! The event now starts around 8pm not 9pm and I am due to do a 30 minute set at around 8.30pm, so if you arrive at nine you could miss me, however there seems to be some general fluidity in the running order so I would advise getting there at 8pm, some people will still be performing until 3 a.m. but I will be on my way home before the last tubes and trains.


Before I go here's a link to a little clip of me improvising some text from Women's Weekly magazine over the "Desperate Housewives" track ,at the Ski Laden gig, in Leipzig recently.
Veronique@ Psycho and Plastic gig, Ski Laden, Leipzig 2013
Love and Peace
Veronique


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Rocking it at Tottenham Chances

5/23/2013

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Hello Good people!
I just came back from my Survivor's Poetry gig hosted by the most wonderful Razz the performance poet at Tottenham Chances and had such a great time. I love playing in Tottenham and I love the Tottenham Chances venue, I got there with such bad stage nerves but after spending a little while there, the atmosphere and the people just made me feel totally at ease like you could go on stage and do anything, as long as it wasn't boring and you were being yourself.
In the other room there were three punk bands and we could hear them fairly loudly in the background, they looked stupendous, hard core punks, one band was from Germany and I think possibly Wasted Youth were playing. Anyway in the main bar we were having our poetry and eclectic music, including a couple of South American bands and a great band called Iron Meat who reminded me of the early jazz stuff from Gong ( although Iron Meat are not psychedelic at all) and Stonehenge festival bands of the 80s.
Anyway my stage nerves disappeared from the general mayhem ( we also had a dog bouncing about the place including on the stage) and the wonderful crazy people in the audience.
But we could hear loud punk screaming in the background a lot of the time. I had prepared one of my quiet and sensitive music sets, but the atmosphere was different with the  imminent full moon and this general feeling that anything was possible, and perhaps the spirit of the recently departed Xochitl Tuck was in me, she always encouraged everyone at Survivor's to just go for it, so I decided when I went on stage to not do my quiet sensitive stuff but to do my loud songs with definite rock and punk influences, I just rocked it on the guitar and in my singing and just obliterated the punk screaming in the background by being louder.
Oh My God ( sorry that is a trite thing to say but anyway....) OMG!!! I had such a great time and it was so easy I just let the adrenaline in my system pour out through my hands and throat and rocked it.
Afterwards Madeleine another Survivor's singer-songwriter , who always says lovely things to me , commented "Don't take this the wrong way but... you play the guitar like a man, but you sing like a woman". No I didn't mind I was trying to play the guitar like Jimmy Page after all, I wasn't trying to sing like anyone else although I guess Maggie Bell from Stone The Crows has been a big influence on me.
Anyway I am now really looking forwards to my next two gigs  ( June 3rd and June 6th See concerts or my previous post)where I will do a mix of acoustic guitar songs and semi-improvised electronic material  where the other acts will all be fantabulous  and innovative both in Stoke Newington. Let me know if you want to be on my emailing list, your emails will not be passed onto other people or companies.
wishing you all love and peace and music in a crazy world
Let's help eachother out during this recession and club together not against one another.
Véronique
x
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