The Narcissist and the Inbetween

The Narcissist and the Inbetween

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 I began 2014 with an exceptional journey. As the dark nights dominate my side of the world, so ends this year. I present my new solo album. This record features  various instruments, including: bass, mandolin, banjo, guitars, piano, keyboards, tablas, my vocals and purring cats who have sat listening intently and ran away during the recording of it. Here are 7 featured tracks and lyrics.

Release date 23/11/2014

featured tracks

1. The Narcissist and the Between

2. Blood

3. Exceptional Believers

4. Eye Of Horus

5. aurora borealis

6. Bear Tooth From Winnipeg 

7. Rhinos

8. Exit of the Crush

9. Mindful Terraforming

10. I lost The Dark at Dawn

Life has launched, I’ve meditated, I’ve travelled on many levels, I’ve cried, I’ve laughed so much I’ve shaken my soul.

I took the cover photo while standing in a stormy sea at Rest Bay, Porthcawl, Wales, November 2014. Writing this album exorcised a few more bedded in Demons. Therapy for the lost.

This album is a document and journey of changing times, through the dark and light. Recovery, investment in to channelling vibrations. I wanted to capture warts and all recording and performance. A lot of the tracks were one takes of improvisation on my instruments. These Lyrics written during the recording process. The reason behind title ‘The Narcissist and the Inbetween’ can be found in my E-book ‘ Claudsville Blogs and Biog of a Bog Woppit ‘ Also released this year.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00M5IR94K

Listen here

The Narcissist and the Inbetween

https://soundcloud.com/claudsville/sets/bog-woppit-2014

LYRICS

 The Narcissist and the Between

Vegetarians eating meat

I am I am in-between a nomad and a queen

And the creatures in the hurricanes

Flavours of unsavoury notes

I am the one they called the scapegoat

I was the anchor in the flood

At Martha’s Vineyard

Beneath the stars

At Martha’s Vineyard

Massacres in cars

Hierarchy is ego anarchy

I am I am, I walk away you see

You tried to slaughter me

I tried to save creative

I educated natives

I’m torn in the fold

When there’s three I think the resolution

The killing spree

That I’m user friendly

Currently there’s no menopause clause

To shake the hand of the wave surfer laws

Spotlight shines on foolish stages

Cover versions create cages

You lost the day you retaliated

In Martha’s Vineyard.. blood lies in between

(Mortuary car)

I want to feel elated

I want to repel hatred

And lie amongst the waves

© Claudine West 2014

Blood

There was blood, blood everywhere

Down by the heat

Rushing floods and fever heads

Far away at sea

In the minds of higher thinkers

You’re becoming me

And the moon sauntered

Right I reach out too

And the roots are haunted

And I reach out too

Discover unknown presence

There lies release

With a shock this mantle steadies more

The answer spurs release

I cried that day and cried again

Strength the river creek

And I knew this point would come someday

But I stared in disbelief

And the moon sauntered

Right I reach out too

The roots are haunted

And I reach out too

There was love, love everywhere

Down underneath

Crushing hearts the weavers read

Right beside the tree

With the storm comes a rainbow

I am lost at sea

There was blood, blood everywhere

I am lost at sea

© Claudine West 2014

Exceptional Believers

They don their coats and crowns and Marys

Exceptional believers

Cutting off their throats and tears

Fictional deceivers

They walk the path of the lost and the lucid

Moving to the room

I thought my whole life over

Then I packed it in a box

And sent it underground

The call of the churches

And the rules

I walked further

Found better runes

There’s no intermittent wrestling with the weavers

Webs and death and spurn the divas

I reach up with fire in my hand

And peace overland

Mighty makers of money and spoons

Mind alteration, with pennies and looms

They wont rule my nation with promise and fools

A mind awakened.

Open doors

And breathe

As I approached the crossroads

I held the sunshine in my hands

And a pocket full of delusions

Contained the answers they didn’t want me to know

I took my chances with the ghosts

© Claudine West 2014

Eye of Horus

Mindful in some locked out state

Trapped within these walls in a metamorphosis debate

These winters waves crash and bury my feet

In denial of the suffering of storms at sea

Riptide swallows my hunger

Polarity takes me under

The wind cries hollow where did these feelings go?

8 inside below.

I resist the existence of a lifting and rescue

I lost sight of the surroundings and broke the curfew

When I cracked I turned away, departed into weeks of rage

Eye of Horus where did you hide?

I wandered through the portal Chinese garden waterfalls.

The low sun, fearsome sky

Dream in a romance with a tear in my mind.

The ladder made of spine rose to the cloud

The red sphere floated right before my 3^rd eye

Rosie gave be laughter, such laugher

The laughter in mine.

All mine.

© Claudine West 2014

 aurora borealis

Capo 2 B-A piano C#, B

Fortune on the road, feather kill

You are alone

Enlightened souls, weathered sin

You aren’t alone

Guitar

Em, A2, D2, A2

Piano F# B, F#, E, B

aurora borealis

sky in the north take me home

Moons of Galileo, heretic

Holy rolls, advocate

Provocation with belief

Beautiful underneath

aurora borealis

sky in the north take me home

Runes made of stone, heather thrills

overload, lavender

On my road, I’m not alone

Eastern sky rising

aurora borealis

sky in the north take me home

© Claudine West 2014

Bear Claw from Winnipeg

Am, G- B

So I had this conversation

After many divinations

Giraffe taught me hippy laugher

Some wise words from hereafter

Buzzing in my ears cleared fears that had reared again

I overtook this meltdown lane refrain

My suicide has long gone now

D, C,

Who,

I followed nature’s pasture

Looking for angina rapture

Banana cake and chocolate chips and ginger beer on an ancient trip

That spider that jumped from the trees

My bare flesh and a morbid scream

Showed me survival while on my knees

A message from the powers that be

To get on making symphonies

Normality freaks me every day

Is not me man and I’m going to say

Leads me to the path of tombs

And rips me from another womb

Two types of stoned lead to a junction

Pure water cleanses many functions

I walked this mountains darkened path

Then jumped into another mothers grasp.

Rhinos

Shine a light upon my mountain

But I’m still filling up on dread

World hovers on my shoulders

The past, the present the future then I’m dead

Release, release Rhinos

Unreachable devastation

The Meditation said

To look outside my inner anger

See what Buddha said

I’m making up preservation

I’m talking to the wise

The mechanics of coping

Are practiced many times

When I’m a lone with the demons

I set in motion lots of dealing

On my darkest days

My instruments of adjustment

Stop mental state delays

© Claudine West 2014

I Lost The Dark at Dawn (live)
Rooms on the road
Opportune I am the devil’s own
Shallow graves hide many bones
Jokers and countrymen
The power lines are overheard
The frantic noises of words lost
Heard as worlds combust

Never ending silence
I walk on coals of fire
These worms that dig up new eras
Ferryman pays the price now blind
Boot prints melted tarmac
Metal twists with rippled pools
I lost the dark at dawn

The wooden sculpture man makes many plays
Oversights and reverse delays
A document is stained over time
I hold onto the bricks and the pines
No chorus as I ride into night
No chorus as I ride into night
An effort that digs deeper into the light
These rooms on the road

~ Claudine

How musicians are created…

I’m blessed to be in this band. The Idolins  

My solo works Bog Woppit 

The big question.

Are you born a musician, or do you train and become a musician?

My name is Claudine West aka Claudine Barker-West. I’m 37 years old. I live in Nottingham. UK. I’m a multi-instrumentalist.  Oh and yes you have probably never heard of me. 

Music has been in my life since I can remember. From my first Bontempi Keyboard and 2nd hand classical guitar; my Dad bought me while on holiday in Norfolk, UK. It was only when I moved onto electric and steel strings did I realise what a nighmare classicals are to play and start on as a kid. (So what to Schools do? Make kids play ’em! Cruel )

Now I’ve not been trained in a ‘training’ sheet music kind of way.

I bought chord books for keyboards and guitar. Sat and played, practiced. Shut myself in dark rooms so I didn’t need to look at my hands to play the chords. Looking back I was a loner, socially crippled (still am to an extent), shy, a disturbed child ( luckily not due to any trauma, abuse etc) just special in my own strange way.

Music made me feel good, it released my pent up creativity. It drew me to it, tempted, excited, satisfied. Music just came out of me and my fingers without me having to sit there and work out each note.  By this point every Birthday and Christmas present was music related. My first tape 4 track recorder.  I was privileged.

School involved verbal bullying, name calling due to my deformed face. (Surgery at 19 corrected it, not my self hatred..Thanks Bullies. I’m so glad im not you. I pity you. no one likes to be called a monster amongst other things!)  and near 6 feet tall skinny frame (I was probably too tall and intimidating to get punched) maybe I screamed misfit.

I retreated, was encouraged and supported into music and art indulgence.  I had an amazing Music teacher (Simon Davie) at secondary School (Frank Wheldon, Nottingham class of 1991/2 ish) Spent most of my lunch breaks and spare time in the music block. Jamming. Playing on the piano, or playing on the Grand Piano in their Concert Hall. Some little turd, with a grudge burnt the school down years later. (and most likely my lovely Grand Piano) Its been rebuilt as a sports college now.

At 16 (thanks to my sister complaining) I got a job in a local supermarket (18 years of customer hell and vileness, back stabbing, gossip, hangovers, but lots of laughs and messing about) I currently work for the NHS. (inspired by true hatred of retail and damage done, my Dad being awarded an MBE (God bless you Princess Anne) for his services to the NHS. (I’M SO PROUD) the final straw being told I deserved to be raped as I was a lesbian!! Adorable customer scumbag!

I’m proud to be doing my day job bit helping poorly folk. Reiki is my life calling along with art and music. Indulgence is bliss.

So basically from my first job (yes kids I worked for my things, put up with some abominations, stinky fuckers, rude bastards and worked every shift pattern known to Mankind) bought more instruments. Worked nights for a year and at around 19, I bought my first Pearl Export Drumkit; and a Zildjian Cymbal every payday. 

My basic chord and note learning moved into capo and key change experiments. ‘Capoing’ a guitar. Recording that track. Then working out a new fret capo and different chord structures to make things sound sweet in stereo.(I still do this today)

From around 13 years old. I’d written songs, composed music, learnt the art of multi tracking (Live performance, warts and all… not computer generated  cheating) Warbled with a very crap gob (surgery enabled me to sing and pronounce words better)

After finishing my A levels. Knowing full well my face operation was imminent. I chose not to further my education. I embraced live mic nights, bands, (Word For Word, Dominion, Subject To Status.. and ones I cant remember right now) gigs, music, booze, fags, grass. Indulgence. I loved my Bongos!

Live Mic Night at The Lion, Basford. Nottingham. during the 1990s

Inspired by Jim Morrison’s whisky intake. I had a pretty good go. Ooh I loved my Bourbon and Wild Turkey. Fortunately I never woke up craving alcohol. I rarely drink now mainly because my money is better spent and my body just needs to mend. I do tend to get occasionally battered on the red wine, (big fan of a good Shiraz Cabernet nowadays) at a band rehearsals and spend the next day puking my guts up feeling like death. Swearing on my grave its green tea forever. Ange (my wifey) once farted in bed after one of these night. That set me off on a big boff. She blamed the booze. I blamed the stench. I may write a blog on farting. It’s something that makes me cry laughing.

I began a 10 year exodus into my world ‘Claudsville’

I bought a Fender Bass guitar, Mandolins, more acoustics, A Fender Stratocaster. Eventually I bought a Taylor Acoustic. Elixir custom light strings. Bar that fact that you really cant have too many instruments. I’m content.

I learnt to finger pick. I practiced strumming 😉 being a percussionist helps with rhythm. Being a drummer is a great cure for PMT. There is a big misconception that playing the drums is about kicking the shit out of them. Maybe for some drummers.. Its about creating rhythm, patterns. Jamming, linking, connecting, locking in with your bass player (my Yang to my Ying is the very Talented Dave Pacey) 

I played Glen Miller Jazz at School. Moved into Blues Jamming in pubs and Rock Bands.

I love the Folk music, acoustic stuff on the guitar. I enjoy experimenting with effects and layers on my electric guitar parts I compose. I’m not anal enough to go into great technical detail. I’ll leave that one to others.

You can watch some videos if you so wish on my Claudsville Youtube Channel

 

I dated a sound engineer. (Pete, lovely bloke) me, trying to at least be bisexual. Ultimately you can’t change who you are and what floats your boat. Women do it for me. I’m happily handfasted to my soulmate Ange. After spending a little while sampling a few unhinged (to be polite) birds. Not a good combination with me being me.

I met Grimm (Graham Skelton-Ruth) an amazing guitarist. You can hear some of his Lead Guitar Genius on my Bog Woppit Recordings.

Had M.S. taught me sarcasm to the extreme. Inspired me. Listened to my drunken rants and exorcism of demons. He died when I was 27. (overdosed) that destroyed me.

Claud & Grimm

I luckily managed to travel to America and spend time touring with my family. Some were living there at the time. Texas. Got to Jam on drums in a bar in San Antonio. Being rewarded by a shot of Wild Turkey courtesy of the bar tender.(THAT MADE MY DAY!) I talked at lots of stuff out.  HEALING PROCESS.

I’d played regularly at the Lion Pub in Basford before Grimms Death. We used to go on a Thursday live mic night. I’d get drunk to try to control my morbid stage fright. Play 3 solo songs (not covers, I performed my own. There are plenty of people riding the cover version appreciation wave for applause and a career. Not me.  I like to  create, not copy) If you are going to cover a song. At least do something different with it.

I met Karen Smalley-Turner at such a night. We recorded a few sessions at Grimms Home Studio. ( I basically lived there and slept in there at weekends and every Holiday)

We then lost tough for a while. She had a baby. Robyn. Then as fate has it. I met her again while working in a shop. Broke the sad news that Grimm had died. (not the best way to tell someone over a checkout) I’m known for my Oral splurts of the wrong thing at the wrong time. We later got together and played a gig. The rest my friends is history. 12 years later. Our official Website is here The Idolins  are going from strength to strength. We have expanded. Played live at the 2012 London Olympics. Love each other dearly and are back recording 2013 after a wonderful 2012.

The Idolins. ‘Sound Of The Rain’ 2010 Album

Greenwich Park 2012 Olympics. Photo Rob Smalley. Scene Photography

Karen & Claudine Live 2011
The Idolins

Live @ The Royal Concert Hall 2012, Nottingham Photo Rob Smalley. Scene Photography

The Idolins ‘You Said’ Album 2011

Rehearsals

The Notts Factor Final 2012.

Subway Circus Live at Nottinghamshire Pride 2012

I’ve also been driven back to playing the Drums again. The new Rock Band. Subway Circus. Has been born. More to follow 2013.

<<Subway Circus Live at Nottinghamshire Pride 2012.
My Dad told Karen and I about my Great Grandparents. The Drews. They played instruments. Maybe music is inherited?

All I know is I love it. I can only describe it as an energy of sound. I’m a vessel for it to travel. I dont consciously think about what i’m playing. It just happens. Flukes. Maybe my mind already rehearsed it? Maybe I’m a puppet for Angels?

The Stage fright gets easier as I age.

People have asked for lessons, like I’ll show them an easy non effort way. My answer is always the same.

“Learn your f**King self!! ;-)”

I’m blessed. I’m rehearsed.