Happiness Writes White...?

 I recently had a conversation with someone about the link between depression and creativity.

In the midst of discussing the 'unknown realm' that is Recovery, we talked also about the all too familiar fear of the other side of the fence - shielded for so long behind the veil of dense fog that is depression and mental illness what will become of us, and especially our ability to create, if we dare to try and participate in our own well being through care and consideration for ourselves?
It can, and does, often seeming an even more daunting ground upon which to tread and the phrase "better the Devil you know" was probably coined for fear of such icebergs...

The idea that 'Happiness Writes White' has long been a myth perpetuated by a false notion that in order to draw forth one's greatest creative achievement we must somehow fester in a pool of sadness, grief, self-loathing, darkness and despair - the breeding ground of depression and mental ill-health being a perfect pond in which to fish for such inspiration.

It is a lie. And a dangerous one at that.

It is true that, over the years, I have had some wonderful ideas for songs and writings whilst in the depths of my own, at times seemingly never ending, 'despair'. But what is also true is that I was rarely able to bring any of them to fruition or coax from them any semblance of shape or form whilst I continued to be overwhelmed by the Black Dog (or whatever it is that you want to call it).
Alas, I have no memories of myself leaping around like Mozart, creating my masterpiece in the throws of my sorrow - whilst my mind was in the grip of such distorted ideas about myself and the world the act of getting out of bed and washing myself usually took precedence on any given day and not always successfully.

There is, sadly, a perverse romanticism to mental illness, particularly from the outside or amongst those who have never had personal or close-hand experience of it and this romanticism spreads like wild fire throughout the artistic community. The tortured artist radiates passion and proliferation, barely can he get his pen to the paper before a well of ideas flows forth with gusto. An idea is no idea at all unless it has been wrenched from your side - look how he lies in a heap, spent from his outpourings, his body barely able to go on after all he has given...

The reality of incapacitation at this level of depression is paralysis to the point of inertia - nothing is flowing forth, (least of all your life's work) except a deeply entrenched, irrational fear coupled with self-doubt, paranoia and misery.

It makes me almost angry, not to mention extremely sad, to know that this myth is passed down and around the generations, giving creedence to the idea that there are colonies of troubled 'geniuses' the world over pumping out their greatest works because of the malaise infecting their life.
If we are able to give birth to any shred of a promising idea during these deeply unhappy and troubled periods then it is in spite of our affliction and not because of it.

Isn't it a profound mistake to think that if we were to be truly successful and throw aside our confinement - and, make no mistake, depression is a prison as real as any which will confine us as long as we allow it and continue to feed it - that it would somehow result in our 'muse' being struck dumb? Isn't this simply another cruel side effect of the mental debilitation we are already in the grip of?

Being paralysed by thoughts in our own minds that convince us that we are unworthy, unwanted, untalented and uncared for is exactly how we subliminally allow depression to control us in the first place - it is unlikely that depression would simply relinquish it's hold over us without first resorting to trying every trick in the book before it would ever resign itself to the fact that we have wriggled free.
"Why would you head for the portal on the horizon?" says Clever Black Dog, "when to do so would leave your trunk of ideas behind...?"

Keep perpetuating, if you must, the distorted reality that our creative well will run dry if we dare to drag it, through our own love, care and respect for ourselves, in to the light.

But creativity is nothing without a life to go with it.

Getting Back On The Horse...

Life's been getting in the way and I see it's been a while since my last post...tut tut...

My brother recently got married and Willis' everywhere descended to stare and point in unison with affection.

I had also forgotten that my brother, who has been a fully paid up rockabilly since the age of 17, is the best rock and roll dancer this side of West London.
At a wedding, I don't want to watch people dancing to Lady Gaga, I want to watch people jive. In pairs. To Chuck Berry...

My brother turned his life from shit into sugar.

My brother does not know he is one of my heroes...

The Most Beautiful Shop In The World...?

Back at last from Jamboree Distributions Travels around Great Britain, I was at last drawn to the village of Holt in Norfolk to possibly the most delightful retail establishment the UK has to offer.
The one known simply as 'Old Town' has real people, making real clothes, above a real shop in the real county of Norfolk. Now that's something you don't see very often.
Especially not in the real(ly) depressing likes of Primark, et all at any rate - 10 bags of clothes for a fiver makes 10 bags of badly washed landfill come next summer...

Did I mention they were beautiful clothes to boot...?

http://old-town.co.uk/index2.htm

Cat...hat...mat...sat...

Hmmm...

Having been forced to listen to Magic FM for the last 48 hours (which, in it's infancy was really rather good - lots of Tony Bennett, Patsy Cline and the like - not the slick power pop MOR fest we know it as today) I have also been forced to consider whether people have simply given up making an effort when it comes to writing lyrics?
So many wet, flacid noodlings - I'm not talking grammatical lack of effort, more a sort of 'cod' emotional outpouring that leaves the insides gnawing at themselves.
"If you’re not for me then why does this distance maim my life?"
"I want to stand with you on a mountain, I want to bathe with you in the sea"
"You're gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul"

Hells bells.

Nevertheless, it also occured to me that where the outpouring is not, er, 'cod' in nature then the most banal lyrics can be transformed into something, well, broaching, sort of...well, you know what I mean...
"To give a love, you've gotta live a love, to live a love, you gotta be part of"
"How did I meet you ? I don't know. A messenger sent me in a tropical storm"
"Love soft as an easy chair, love fresh as the morning air"

Of course, there are others that I'm just genuinely fond of regardless of how 'rough around the edges' they may or may not be...
"Got a fist of pure emotion, got a head of shattered dreams"
" I like small speakers, I like tall speakers"
" Hey there, you with the sad face, come up to my place and live it up"

And yet if Neil Young could sing his way through the phone book and it would still make me weep - why not others...? Surely, there's your 'X-Factor'...

In the midst of musing over all this, I confess to becoming rather roused by Cher's 'Just Like Jesse James'. Beyonce's got nothing on her...

Looking A Gift Horse In The (Proverbial) Jamboree Bag...

People have been asking how they can get their mitts on the 'Willis Jamboree Bag No.1' - it's distribution takes one of two forms.

Either;

Distribution Agent (ie: Me, dragging stock of said 'WJB No.1's' into carefully selected establishments targeted as potentially sympathetic locations for such cottage industry ventures such as this): Hello! Could you tell me who's responsible for the bookshop/cafe/store/tattoo parlour...?
Them: Who's responsible?
Me: Sorry, who's in charge of it?
Them: Who's in charge of it?
Me: Yes, who decides what goes in it?
Them: (Frowning) Who decides what goes in it? (Thankfully even he begins to tire of this 'Call and Response' exercise before one of us drops dead) Hmm, well I guess that would be (insert random, mumbled name here) - you could email them. Why? What is it regarding? (Heartily frowning now).
Me: (Realising I'm being met with what I like to refer to as a 'Head Of Security Response' I begin to explain) I'm a musician and I have collaborated with an art director friend of mine (http://www.antar.cc/) on a piece of design to give away. It's a Jamboree Bag.
Them: (Silence)
Me: It's not for sale. It's free. It's to give away.
Them: (Still silent, though the eyes betray a mind clearly thinking on it's feet now)
Me: Can I leave some here for your customers?
Them: Not really, I mean, we don't usually do that sort of thing, take that sort of thing (subtext: give a toss about that sort of thing).
Me: Really? Oh.
Them: No. The manager/owner wouldn't like it. I mean, we like to try and support artists but...
Me: Can I just show you some? See? They're really rather lovely and, as I said, it's a free piece of design for people to take home and keep.
Them: Yes, exactly - firstly there's nowhere for them to go...
Me: What about over there on that shelf?
Them: ...no, and secondly we couldn't have you just leaving free 'stuff' here.
Me: Really? Why not?
Them: Because then everyone would assume that they could help themselves to other things in the shop without paying for it.
Me: (Silence)
Them: (Silent. And victorious)
Me: Ok. Thank you. Goodbye.

Or;

Me: Hello! I'm a musician and I have collaborated with an art director friend of mine on a piece of design to give away. It's not for sale. It's free. It's to give away. Can I leave some here for your customers?
Them: Oh, thank you, they're lovely that's so kind, thanks for bringing them in, would you like a cup of tea...?!

If your establishment would like to stock a few of the 'Willis Jamboree Bags No.1' then drop me a line (outside London especially). In the meantime, it's available now at (amongst others):
http://labourandwait.co.uk/
http://idler.co.uk/academy/
http://www.donlonbooks.co.uk/
http://www.kristinarecords.com/
http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/
http://www.clerkenwellmusic.co.uk/
http://www.roughtrade.com/site/about.lasso
http://www.dukeofuke.co.uk/
http://www.folkclothing.com/women/lambs-conduit-women
http://www.clerkenwell-tales.co.uk/wordpress/
http://www.thefamilybusinesstattoo.com/
http://toolslondon.wordpress.com/
http://www.artwords.co.uk/aboutus/
http://www.cubecompany.com/
http://www.whitesofwhitecross.com/ 

Today I Went To Tottenham...

Further upset this morning by a news report where a teenage boy from Salford comments on the previous night's rioting, ("Why would I stop?! How many people are really being arrested anyway? I'm just gonna keep on doing it while I can keep getting stuff that costs loads of money!"), I don broom and gloves and go in search of a clean up operation posted online for nearby Mare Street in Hackney.
Sick of feeling a prisoner behind closed doors within the horror that has become London After Dark and hoping to contribute some way towards neutralising the bitter taste in my mouth surrounding recent events, I arrive at the rendevous only to find it already cleaned up the previous day. Ah ha...

I continue on to central Tottenham to see if I can get involved there. The chaos of the last few nights has long since quietened down, though the creepy silence is as palpable as the broken glass that covers every pavement. The air is thick with a burning smell and I expect to come across a smouldering building but instead there are just unexplained scorch marks in the middle of the road where once homemade burning blockades must have stood.
I walk past an older man talking to his friend, he looks incredulous - "They even smashed up the barbers. The barbers! Why would you do that?!" I walked past the tiny store thinking even I couldn't remember the last time an independent barber was responsible for the Global Economic Crisis.

Eventually, after many road closures and diversions, I come across the skeleton of a burnt-out old building being bulldozed to the ground.
Various TV crews grab passers by for their thoughts and comments, the backdrop of devastation being too good an opportunity to pass up. One guy, clearly in his element, waxed lyrical for a good 10 minutes before I left him to his monologue, his speech seemingly knowing no bounds and the captive interviewer making no attempt to interrupt him. According to his wisdom, the Tottenham riots have been "a gathering of The Dispossessed", a direct response to the urban decay and neglect in the area. "Violence is being met with violence" he said, "and that doesn't work". Fair point I thought about violence versus violence not generally working, but when people are frightened to go outside of their homes you begin to run out of options.
"When you put a tiger in a cage this is what happens!" he went on, losing me now, before finally acknowledging "some people, I accept, are taking advantage of the situation".
No sir, MOST of those involved in these riots are taking advantage of the situation. This is not an uprising of 'The Dispossessed'. This is not even in support of the grieving family of Mark Duggan who was shot last week and who are now in mourning for their husband, father and son, now no longer alive.
This is about men and women, boys and girls, walking round in stolen pairs of £100 trainers because of greed and insecurity - what we own and who we emulate has long been more important than who we actually are or what we do or say.
There is a difference.

Realising it's impossible to contemplate the loss of that building in a dignified silence and being unable to get anywhere near other buildings to contribute to any kind of clear-up, I tuck my broom under my arm and ask some policeman where the cordons end so I can continue the road home. A group of middle aged men and bored teenagers, hoods up and ready, simply hang around staring at the police,  enjoying the opportunity to lean on railings until maybe, just maybe, they get another chance to throw a brick or anything else when the sun goes down. God knows there's nothing else to steal...

The air throughout the area hangs with such a sense of pointlessness that it made me want to cry - only a beautiful granny asking me if I've come to help her out at home with my broom makes me feel better.

Stepping off the train back home, I overhear a man heading down to the exit, laughing heartily in to his mobile phone.
"You shoulda seen the state of my trainers, mate!", then he repeats, a tad more quietly as presumably even he realised bravado at that level was a bad idea, "Yeah, yeah you shoulda seen them! All of Waltham Cross was rinsed, all the windows, shops, everything! My trainers were in a right state!'.
I looked down at his feet - the shoes he spoke of having long been discarded, and in their place a brand new gleaming white pair... 

'Hoist With One's Own Petard' (def: being the victim of one's own schemes)...

I have lifted my head up long enough to put digit to keyboard after being under self-imposed house arrest compiling both 'The Night Time E.P' release, the accompanying video for 'This Is The Night' and the Willis Jamboree bag No.1.

Can it really be August...?

I had the exceptional good fortune to meet one of my musical heroes Matt Johnson a couple of years ago through a mutual friend - he subsequently asked if I would be interested in covering a The The track which, I confess, I was initially reticent to do (or shit scared, one of the two...). I think Matt's songs are amongst those rarities that you can really only imagine being done with any success by the artist themselves, such is their unique, inimitable style.
This also applies, for the most part to Leonard Cohen.
And Barbra Streisand, though I've clearly hoisted myself on my own petard there...
So, eventually I summoned up the courage to say 'Yes' and the outcome, 'This Is The Night' from the classic album 'Dusk', is the first track on 'The Night Time E.P.' which you can now buy via the 'Sound' page above.

The video director Rod Main and myself stood under a bridge in South London til the early hours of the morning (well, Rod stood, snuggly wrapped up in a parka, whilst I sort of lept about) in the name of art. Unbeknownst to us, our location was round the corner from a hostel who's inhabitants were most interested in the nutter prancing around in the street to the strains of her own voice. It would appear that a live Willis performance, plus a can or two of White Lightning to take the edge off, is a perfect way to round off one's evening.
We also appeared to be next to a roller disco. And a BT emergency engineering depot. Not to mention one of the prime car parking locations Lambeth has to offer. "I can't understand it" said Rod, "there was absolutely no-one around when I came here the other day'. Oh, really...

Ploughing your friends with alcohol and carbohydrates is the easiest way to persuade them to sit upon your carpet and construct all the components for the Willis Jamboree Bag No.1, which has been left in various public locations up and down the country. It arose out of a collaboration between myself and the ideas boffin that is Cally at Antar and our love for things made out of paper that you pick up on your travels. The artwork came from a 40 year old children's book and the various ingredients came from our overactive imaginations.  

...where you see this sign. And they're free!