Fuck you Chico time...

Over the past few years I have accumulated a modest little collection of home recordings of songs that I have written to alleviate the overwhelming feelings of under-achievement that I have to live with daily. If I was Prince, this would be a momentous occasion and ground-breaking look into the vaults of one of the true modern greats. If I was even Chico - the one who wasn't even close to winning an X-Factor competition sometime in the past - it might still be the kind of thing that Metro might share with a controversial headline.

However, as a member of the Cornish (not so) super-group 'The Beutons', this musical spattering of home demos will be of very minor interest to a very small and exclusive group of Cornish people and some of my more polite family members and friends, and to them I offer this intriguing insight into the creative process of an extremely minor musician.

On this collection of irreverent, but cheaply and efficiently produced, music... you will find the original conception and recording of Last Dance With Mary Jane, a little known Beuton song "Zombie", a song where I proudly rhyme 'Karma' with 'Llama', and my longest titled song to date: Don't Let The Door Hit You When You Leave. There are also a couple of other songs that are not likely to be heard or recorded again, Caravan, The Circus and the Blur-esque 'You Got It' along with the title track 'Spot The Difference'.

If you like what you hear, you should download the songs here, or give the EP a little knowing nod and share on your social media. If you do this, it'll help this musician to feel significantly more empowered and inflate my ego to a level that, if I were ever to bump into Chico - perhaps on the streets of London during a visit to a national tourist attraction - I could proudly look into his eyes as an equal and not have to avoid his gaze by casting my eyes to the floor.

Of course, I'll never be able to look Prince in the eyes - in part because he's so damn short and would need a box or some very big shoes.

Avoiding death by song fatigue...

Hello, I am Trev and this is my blog. I am a music making womble who lives in Perranporth, Cornwall. I play bass guitar and sing a little bit for the vaguely popular Cornish musical combo, The Beutons.

As the other Beutons are not as fully dedicated to the musical cause as me (they prefer to call it employment!), I have slightly more time on my hands to pursue a range of musical activities in the hope of meeting the never ending stream of rent payments, bills and cosmetic enhancements which allow me to exist, and to be accepted normally in society.

It is with this in mind that my musical thoughts return to solo performing. I shall be doing lots of solo gigs across the county, using my Beutons notoriety to force my way into the small music clubs, pubs, cafes and even libraries that scatter the Cornish landscape like empty music boxes waiting for a dose of musical mirth. Please give my FB page a liking to find out when and where I'll be playing, and with whom.

I'm hoping this blog, if I can remember to keep updating it, will be a place I can write about music, making music, making money from music, making music from money and no doubt the odd bizarre tangent and rant along the way. Today's entry is supposed to be about busking in Perranporth and coming up with a strategy to avoid death by 'song fatigue'...

Song fatigue is the suffering caused by hearing the same song over and over again. It can make grown men weep and can make street sellers and shop owners reach out for their shotguns. It's the reason there are still bodyguards stationed around Whitney Houston's grave.

I busk in Perranporth, near the beach, during these trying times of Emit invasion, attempting to irk out a pint of beer here or a loaf of bread there by singing merrily into the pockets of stray or lost emits of an evening. It is a mostly enjoyable pursuit. You can see how happy I am about it in the picture (left).

My point, that I'd like to bring to the attention of Perranporth's local populace, is that I'm concerned that one of you may stab me ruthlessly about the eye sockets with a lolly stick if you have to stumble across the beach car park and down to the sands accompanied by the chirpy incessant sounds of  'King Of The Swingers' or 'Bear Necessities' flying remorselessly into their ears for the ten thousandth time this summer! 

I would very much like to see my 34th birthday this October (means I'll have beaten Jesus at living!!), and not massively irritate every last one of you so I figured it might be prudent planning to invite you all to drop me a comment or message with a song choice that you would be happy (or happier) to hear me play as we awkwardly avoid eye contact as you pass to the beach.

So yes, please consider me your local beach bound jukebox, and whilst I'm extracting the loose change from our tourist visitors, please allow me to extend a free credit to each and every one of you smiling, decent, hard working, local people. Hopefully it's a solution so that I won't annoy everyone beyond repair come September, and I might feel less like a troll on a bridge in a children's story too.

Please throw your song suggestions at me here, there and everywhere. I shall endeavor to satisfy.

It’s LAUNCH DAY!

Today’s the day, tonight’s the night and tomorrow we’ll all still have to get up and go to work as usual. It’s launch day for our EP “I Wasn’t Asked And I Don’t Want It” and we have our big launch gig tonight at B-Side, Bunters in Truro.

Far from catapulting copies of our CD directly into the Cornish skies, what our ‘launch’ actually means is you can now access our CD and music just like you would for any of them flash, spangly bands that you see on the telly.

BUY – You can download the EP, or individual tracks, from iTunes, Amazon and many other online music retailers. A reasonable chunk of the money will come directly back to us.

BUY (and actually be able to touch) – You can get your hands on one of the very limited edition 500 CDs directly from us via our bandcamp page. We won’t be making any more of these AND there is ‘deliberate’ error on the sleeve for the more eagle-eyed of you to spot which will no doubt add trillions of pounds of value to these CD’s one day in the future when mankind are but mere slaves to giant mechanically enhanced space bio-monkey warriors and rare Beuton CD’s could fetch a small fortune when you are having them coldly scanned on dross future BBC bore fest ‘Antiques Roadshow 2100AD’. Just a thought.

We’ll also have even more limited edition t-shirts for ladies and gentlemen of style and substance. These t-shirts were made ethically using only the drunkly-bellowed Glaswegian threats of our guitarist Dan whilst in Bali… definitely not at a sweatshop. All the money from bandcamp goes directly to the band with only paypal getting their customary nibble at it.

STREAM – You can stream our music – for which we will eventually receive a small royalty payment!! – on sites such as Spotify, Lastfm and my personal favourite Deezer…just search for ‘Beutons’ You should also be able to find us on those clever online search jukeboxes in the pub.

Below are a couple of picture that Paige Gibson took during our last rehearsal, on the eve of our EP launch we finally have a picture with all of us in eh Darren!

 

We managed to put a couple of brand new tracks into the set for tonight and we’re excited to be back on stage again after a rather loooong break. Don’t forget to get there early to get your hands on a FREE EP and also to see our rather dazzling array of wonderful music opening the show for us.

Charlie Carroll and Tom Gall are absolutely cracking local acts and well worth a listen, like, download, share scenario or whatever goes on these days. You can hear them here…

Charlie Carroll – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0zhuVL76sU

Tom Gall – https://soundcloud.com/tom-gall/time

See you soon.

A slice of Beuton pie. #1

Hello chumbalinas,

We’re very excited to announce that our new EP will be unsheathed and set free on March 1st. It’ll be available on a limited edition CD (available now to pre-order via our website) and as a digital download via iTunes, Amazon and streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer and Last.fm the like. One will even be able to put us on in the pub (providing they have one of them fancy internet search jukeboxes) if one so desires!

We spent a rather sleepy, but delightful and productive few days in December recording the tracks with top producer John Cornfield, who’s worked with Oasis, Muse, Supergrass, Razorlight and many other top bands. John’s really captured our live sound and we’re all dead chuffed with it (even Dan). As you can see from this photo, we had a relaxing and peaceful time in the studio.

The EP is called “I Wasn’t Asked and I Don’t Want It” and contains four-tracks what we wrote ourselves. Here is the cover artwork painstakingly drawn into her etch-a-sketch by our friend Paige Gibson…

With the recording out of the way, Daniel jetted off to Bali to source some ‘sweatshop cheap’ t-shirts and mingle with the local wildlife, leaving the rest of us to book a shed load of gigs, decipher copyright law, uncover distribution options, annoy everyone with spam and fix the van. Big dollops of sincerest thanks to all who’ve helped us create and promote this EP by playing it on their podcasts and radio stations, sharing the shit out of it on social networks and agreeing to come play gigs with us!



Dan returns to Cornwall this weekend – just in time to start intensive rehearsals for the EP Launch gig at B-Side@Bunters on Friday 1st March. As a thank you to everyone who’s supported us this past year or so we’re giving the first 50 people who turn up a free copy of the new EP on CD. If that’s not reason enough to be there early, we’ve lined up a fantastic bill of local musicians (we like having someone to watch too!) with Charlie Carroll and his killer looping talents, and then Tom Gall and his band and his amazing songs.

That’s enough for now, we’ll be back soon with news of our “Up The Wrexham” tour in April amongst other, no doubt irreverent, things.

The Beutons xx