Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Welcome back to Lager Time
Had a bit of an unintended hiatus these last two weeks. As per the last few editions, I’ve been travelling a fair bit, most of the summer.
I was up in Kilmarnock for my sister’s wedding, had a lovely time, thought I’d be protected from the heatwave, alas, no, it was scorchio up there too. Came back for a day, then was off to the Isle of Wight on a residential trip to an activity centre with one of the groups I work with. They had a great time, which was the main thing, so did I but I was knackered though but that 3G Swing was sick! Then of course this last time week I was at Shambala festival.
I was there for 4 days and performed on the Sunday as part of the Natural Born Storytellers showcase. I was given a 20 minute slot and put together a new story about my relationship with music, via my Grandpa, my dad and me and how it we link through a hip hop record that sampled my Grandpa; long story, another time maybe
Not only was this the first festival performance I’d done in four years, it was the first time I’d prepared something fresh and performed it just for that stage. I used to do things like this a lot a few years back, but as time has gone on, the gigs have subsided, COVID hit and I’ve got older; I’m less inclined to take risks; in short, I’d lost a lot of confidence.
But I thought it was worth doing, if anything, just to see if I can still do it. Needless to say, moments before going on stage I was bent-over double, wanting to run off but I told myself what I always used to tell myself when I was feeing the hardcore-nerves, moments before my turn on the open mike or in the slam comps; I’ve worked pretty hard on this, so might as well go through with it, I know that feeling of chickening out and I think I’d rather fail than feel that.
And it went pretty well, mate. I was really pleased. Pleased enough to want to go back and do it all again, not long after coming off stage. It went by in a flash. I felt I like I rushed into a bit and fumbled a few things but the audience were really warm and the vibes were good. Being on stage again felt good, and I’m glad I did it. Large up Michael and the NBS team for putting me on again, Hannah Deasey for great hosting (and performing) the crowd, the women who gave me a fake $100 note which I thought was real, and all the other performers, who made it a fun afternoon.
I’ve done a few of the NBS gigs in the past and for me it’s aways been a bit of a departure away form the poetry / spoken word stuff that I’ve done a lot of. I don’t tend to use the rhymes and rhythms and try and keep it as naturistic as possible and I enjoy it a lot, I feel a lot freer doing that. I love writing the poems and the poetic-type-stories but I struggle to see where I fit in that world anymore. One of the reasons why I embarked on doing this.
As it stands, I’ve written a few new songs, a bunch of poems and a few of these story-type anecdotes that I want to work into some sort of new set; which is where these live-streams come in. Still not got round to sorting one as yet but I think I’m going to do the first one through my Paul Cree Facebook page, any tips would be greatly received, though. I’ll be doing it through my iphone, got a couple of half-decent lights and a device which allows me to plug my loopstation and mic directly into the blower, so the sound should be reasonable. My hunch is that each little piece should be short and sweet; I doubt the longer-stuff will work in this form but we’ll see.
So after this you’ll get the final track from The 90 Sick E.P called Creatine. When I was performing a lot, five or six years ago, I suppose this was like a signature piece. I would always get the crowd to chant the refrain that appears through-out of ‘yea, yea, sick, yea’ and occasionally the odd person still says it to me. It was always fun doing it, until I got bored of doing it. It was based on my time at Crawley College and always imagined myself in the canteen there when I was performing it. Someone said to me that it was an example of ‘toxic masculinity’ which amused me a bit. I don’t think it is but what I tried to do with it, was to highlight all that bollox of bravado and insecurity that many young men seemed to have, as well as the total lack of self-awareness and judgmental grandstanding. Make your own mind up.
The whole 90 Sick EP was produced by Elian Gray. One of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He’s a talented musician, rapper, producer and sound designer from London. He’s worked both solo and with his live band Gentle Mystics and hip hop crew Def DFires. He also worked with me when I did the A Tale From The Bedsit show for one of the runs. Just thought I’d give him a shout; he produced the whole EP, which took weeks and wanted nothing for it. So if you can, go check his stuff, he; s great. The whole EP is available to stream or purchase on Bandcamp, Apple and Amazon, or my website, paulcree.co.uk The Creatine story also featured in my first book, The Suburban, still got a few copies kicking about on my website
So that’s it for now, should be back to the regularly scheduled program. Hope you’ve all had a banging summer and of course, have a banging weekend.
Peas and taters
Paul
Creatine
The air in the college canteen is thick with testosterone, like a pea soup mixed with a tub-load of creatine powder. My best mate Richard, Mo, Gareth and me are all sat around a table, on which sit seven empty Coke cans and a whole load of sweetie wrappers, the contents of which are not digesting in my stomach; they’re lodged in between the train tracks and rubber-band contraptions that make my mouth look like an aerial shot of a twenty-five-car pile-up on the M1.
We’re all students here, studying GNVQs, yet none of us knows what it stands for, and there’s not a great deal of studying going on, ’cause there’s a pool table and a Time Crisis arcade machine in the canteen and an alleyway round the back of the college where we smoke weed, getting hot rock burns in our hoodies, identified by the colour of the stripes on our Reebok Classics, regularly comparing notes on who got kicked in, who got fingered and who got what robbed when they were silly enough to put on a house party when their parents went away for the weekend, inviting what were the popular kids back in year 11 at school, until the choice between college and sixth form redefined the social hierarchies, and now here we all are, unlikely to ever pursue careers in IT or leisure and tourism, but we’re all doing the course.
Wearing a grubby white Nike hat, Mo is talking about 2Pac. Now, I love music, I like hip-hop, but I don’t have MTV, so I don’t know that many of 2Pac’s tunes, and I know for a fact that my best mate Richard knows fuck-all. And I know that he knows that I know. He has seven CDs in his collection and most of those are Now compilations, he buys them with the WH Smith vouchers he gets every Christmas from his nan, and the only CD in that malnourished collection of his that even comes close to 2Pac is a single of ‘Boom! Shake the Room’ by Will Smith. Despite that, every time Mo mentions a particular 2Pac track, Gareth, Richard and me all chime in in unison with the well-rehearsed chorus of:
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah.’
We don’t ask questions here, we just agree. Gareth takes a last-ditch swig on his Coke and swirls it round his mouth, letting out a large burp that I can smell, and it smells of McDonald’s cheeseburgers. He then reaches down into his World Dance record bag, pulling out the latest copy of Max Power magazine, skimming a few pages until he lands on the featured article on a souped-up maroon Vauxhall Cavalier with possibly the biggest exhaust I’ve ever seen.
‘It’s full bore,’ Gareth says.
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say.
And Mo does that finger snap, which I know for a fact that Richard can’t do, but I know he’s been practising in his bedroom and I notice his right hand twitch on the table as if he wants to, but he can’t, and I wanna laugh. Gareth then goes on to tell us about his older brother’s Ford Escort XR3i, which has a two-litre engine, lowered suspension and a dump valve.
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say.
I don’t even know what a dump valve is. Now Mo’s telling us about his cousin’s Clio, with a Kenwood subwoofer in the back, just like the name on the back of Gareth’s black bomber jacket.
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say.
Hold on, wait a minute, Richard’s now talking?! He’s saying he’s rewired the stereo in his car?!
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say.
No he hasn’t! All he’s done is change the default radio setting from Radio 2, ’cause it’s not his car! It’s his mum’s Nissan Micra! And now he’s saying he’s playing this sick new tape from this sick new Garage Nation tape pack he bought, EZ and MC Dapper.
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say.
It’s not a tape pack! He taped it off Kiss 100, because I told him to!
‘It’s got bare dubplates,’ he says.
Bare dubplates?! Since when did Richard talk like that?! He doesn’t even know what a dubplate is!
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say.
No, no, no yeah! He’s not worthy of the yeah, yeah, sick, yeah. He’s talking bollocks! But oh no, he doesn’t stop, he carries on, his mouth opens and words come out.
‘Oi, boys,’ he says.
‘Heard this sick new tune on the radio this week… it’s by Travis.’
‘… … … …’
‘… … … …’
‘… … … …’
Like a sound system limiter kicking in the conversation peaks, then with an ear-splitting frequency it suddenly cuts out! And we’re left with no sound. And that silent moment quickly becomes a fast-moving dark cloud about to shroud us all in shadow and we begin to twitch, ready to whip out Nokia pay-as-you-go phones to distract ourselves[PSC1] [HE2] (from ourselves).
‘What?’ says Gareth.
Travis?! I’m thinking, Shit, Rich, what have you just gone and done? I can’t look at him, but I notice Gareth has this angry stare. My mouth is open, revealing the managed Weapon X spectacle that is my teeth. Mo shimmies in his seat, puts his chin to his chest, then Richard speaks again.
‘Yeah, you know, Travis, that tune, on the radio, it’s sick, yeah? Yeah…?’
Richard pauses, then stares at the empty Coke cans. Mo pulls out his phone, but Gareth doesn’t let it go.
‘Travis? What, like, the indie band, with guitars and that? Don’t those pussies back in sixth form listen to that?’
Now, I quite like some guitar bands, but I tend to keep that quiet unless I’m talking to my dad. Though I don’t have MTV, I do know one or two of Travis’s tunes, my little sister likes them, she’s probably gonna go to sixth form, so I decide to throw Richard a rope. Well, more like a shoelace.
‘What track is it, Rich?’
‘I dunno. I think it’s called, like, “Twist” or something.’
And I notice his eyes open up, a little bit, as if he’s sensed a small slice of hope, but then out of nowhere Mo suddenly looks up from playing Snake on his phone and lets out an involuntary
‘Turn?’
‘Yeah, “Turn”, that’s it, that’s the one!’ says Richard, sitting up a little straighter now.
Surprisingly, Mo is right; there is a track called ‘Turn’ by Travis. I know that track, I quite like that track, it’s alright.
‘Yeah, I’ve heard that that track, Rich… quite like that track, it’s alright.’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard it too, it’s alright,’ says Mo.
And then all the attention turns to Gareth, who takes a brief moment before he speaks.
‘Hold tight, does it go turn turn tu-ur-ur urn-urn-ur?’
‘Yeah!’ says Richard.
‘Yeah, yeah… I’ve heard that track… it’s alright… it’s pretty sick actually, yeah, yeah, that track’s sick.’
‘Yeah, yeah, it is sick,’ says Mo.
‘Yeah! Really sick!’ Richard replies.
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say.
And for a brief and beautiful moment, all the bravado that exists between us becomes like bubbles being blown by five-year-olds at a summer garden party, and it feels like my dad’s big hand rubbing my hair when I first fell off my bike and I realised everything was gonna be alright… until another dark cloud threatens to rain on the children’s party in the garden, and the conversation is then very carefully manoeuvred to DJ Hype and Kenny Ken, and who our favourite jungle MCs are. And before I know it, we’re back to talking about cars again, and I’m back to agreeing on things I know nothing about, and could be well be complete bullshit, and probably are bullshit, and speaking of bullshit, Richard’s bullshitting again! He reckons he’s getting seventeen-inch alloy wheels fitted, to his mum’s Nissan Micra, which, he fails to mention to the rest of the boys, has a big National Trust sticker in the back window.
‘Yeah, yeah, sick, yeah,’ we all say, including me.
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