Karim Fanous’ blog

...on form it takes. Experience. Where does it end? What does the shape of it become, if not just neural impulse, synapses firing. Where is the border between reality, image and experience, the point at which one becomes the other, the other becomes many and the one is negated? And when memory fades, when the substance is weakened, to nothing, what then of reality? Objective becomes subjective, subjective becomes immaterial, immaterial becomes subconscious, subconscious becomes forgotten. Where does it end? Where does it continue? When does it begin? 

faced with disaster, destroyed tools, falling apart, technology breakdown, studio meltdown, lost work, lost songs, confusion, and then there was the virus.... out of control, out of action for days, fever, fatigue, deterioration, exhaustion.... and then there was paris... lovely, charming paris.... and my friend's piano, and corsican singing at 4am, and whiskey, and wine and eating, and walking, and cheese, and even afrobeat. Freedom, familiarity, closeness, abandon, no barriers, no cold face. I could have napped under that piano for days.

... no really, I do ;)

Well I'm going to tell...

Christmas break was luscious, richly luxurious in body and mind. Thailand was a ray of light. Heat, sun, culture, beach, good food and reading books for two weeks (The Magus by John Fowles blew my mind). Coming back to England was a shock - warm and t-shirted off the flight...immigration...customs... baggage...step out into the car park and SMACK, freezing, shivering cold...Bosh, welcome back to Blighty :)

New Years eve was jet lag, cheese, champagne and bed ashamedly and willingly early.

The year has been a flyer so far. I decided to pledge myself to the old school again and got out all my old cd's and a piece of hi fi equipment called a cd player. It is inspiring, listening to whole albums all the way through. Inspiring, that is, when they're good.

It's already Februaury. In January I played, by luck and planning, a run of great gigs and  have started the year by adapting to my new songs in a live setting, it feels right.

Yesterday and the day before I played in the snow. White blankets and snowballs. London turned itself off for a day. It felt like a day off school or something guiltily fulfilling.

Drama Queen and Superbug is coming to Itunes soon, I did that last week.

So feast on The Queen and The Bug, indulge glutinously in a slice of pop/rock/funk and then get ready for Mad Masters and it's band of introspective, moody companions.

I have been writing again, not with a guitar, with a pen and ink. Ink on paper. It brings a sense of meditation and fulfillment.

The Time Traveller's Wife was also a great adventure. Right now I'm ploughing slowly through The Name Of The Rose... I can only manage about two pages every five or ten minutes without having to re-read and digest the words and sentences, images and history.

Yesterday I was mixing, editing Mad Masters and other stuff. Sonic arrangement, recording. After five months of fighting and complaining and wrong orders and delivery I received the soundproofing for my studio/bedroom (I'm not sure what it is really, but it's definitely a room). I put that up on the weekend and it all fell off. I had used velcro fixing. So i'm going to stick it up permanently now. It's made a welcome and long overdue difference already.

This weekend the Six Nations starts, the Six Nations goes perfectly with a point of Guiness, so I'm looking forward to this weekend.

How are you? How do you feel? What does 2009 mean for you? How are we doing?

When I came home after the gig on Friday this is what I found in my left pocket (the one assigned to looking after any money raised for charity):

Thirty two English Pounds, 0.20 Euros, a plectrum and some other stuff...

----

A massive thank you goes to all of you who contributed via coming to the gig and also donating into the charity pint glass.

This 32 pounds and 12 pence that we raised (and maybe the 20 cent euro piece if they'll accept it) will now go to the mighty worthy cause that is the Classic FM Music Makers Charity via my friend Armin's Charity fund raising trek across the Sahara.

http://www.classicfm.co.uk/article.asp?id=235033

http://www.justgiving.com/sahara2009

Peace,
K

It's been a massive week, massive weekend and a long year.

I'm knackered, nick nacked, completely paddy whacked. It's been a busy year and I've not really had enough downtime, I feel drained and a bit ruffled and am looking forward to getting on a plane today and disconnecting for a couple of weeks, reading books on the beach, dreaming and listening to music. I'm taking my guitar but am not really thinking about writing... I need to reconnect with myself before I can move on, that's how I feel.

This week was cool and busy, although I was really dissapointed to cut the studio sessions short it was the right call. It cleared my head and I have had so much to do getting Drama Queen and Superbug ready for digital release and sorting out the new store at indiestore. So I spent time doing all that out and sorting out all the other things to do at the end of the year which always somehow add up to seem like a huge un-scalable mountain which you have no time climb don't they!

Mad Masters is shaping up really well. Eliza came over for a chill and she put some vocals down on it and another track I'm demoing at the mo. Might well end up on the final cuts. Also I saw Jayson at the studio the other day and heard some of the new tracks which are shaping up for his album release next year - they sounded great and I'm looking forward to hearing the rest! Me and my compadré Chocolate Soufflé have been working on a string arrangement for him, woul be cool if that ended up on the album. I've also been looking at remixes and various other things but more on that next year.

The weekend was great, Max Zastiera, my drummer and the doctore of tempo came up from Brighton to munch some dins and drink some booze and the next morning we caught up for brekkie with my mate Sam who was also coming to stay from Yorkshire. I was completely exhausted but it was nice to feel the start of the slow unwind and great to see them. The boys went off and I spent the afternoon working on some beats/loops and mixing some other stuff for a friend, also kept an eye on the rugby (what a great weekend it was, with the Munster match being so close until the last few minutes and Quins beating Stade at the final whistle with a drop goal after a 29 phase play!) Passed out late arvo and attempted to watch Mothman Prophecies terrified and with my eyes closed for most of it. Caught up with my mate Sam again and then hopped a few parties, was a good eve. Then yesterday caught up with some friends and munched obscene amounts of pancakes at My Old Dutch Kings Road and had a good chill.

Time to go now, gotta reach the peak of the admin mountain before I get on that plane! Realised I haven't written anything about the new release! But this is a personal blog though isn't it... Maybe I'll write another quick one for that in a min... Actually, forget that - you know what, my new singles Drama Queen and Superbug are out today!!!!! ;) You can check the spiel and find out more at : indiestore.com/castlefanous , myspace.com/karimfanoust and karimfanous.com

I was really looking forward to getting back into the studio yesterday, and it started off well...

I've got five tracks ready for an EP release next year and am happy with the group. It's pretty dark stuff but nice to vent that right now.

One is the blues track (Mad Masters) that I've been pedalling for a while and I've been looking forward to playing blues harp on a track of mine for a while (have a look here to see me breaking in the harps). Me and my mate Chocolate Soufflé put together a really quirky but good arrangement over my live track which I recorded at Steve's a few months ago. I'm playing guitar and beating the guitar with a pedal switch (you can hear the switch if you look out for it) and we sat down to embellish it with some 'atmosphere'... We were going to go all filmic and got some lush strings down and then this noise just came out of nowhere while we were setting some sound proofing up in Soufflé's studio. His keyboard started playing this really low bass note grumble, and voodoistic enough it was just the right note. So we sat that under the track. Then we wanted to go all Aussie Aboriginie with an authentic percussion instrument he had lying around but instead a trusty 808 sound intercepted us and we want all electro beat with the track.

I chucked it over to steve for some slide guitar playing. I went to his place last night to hear what he had done and it sounded wild, he's put down three tracks of Cooder style chicago evil slide and I'll comp them together .... I also layed down some 'chicago blues harp' with the help of his old school blues mic (turn it up to 11!) and his Rock Of Lonon all in one amp/cab. Was a good sound and a good vibe.

Then sat down to record a couple of new tracks. The vibe lost me and it didn't go that well. I've decided I want to do completely live takes whenever possible from now on, singing and playing at the same time. Steve got a great sound and his new studio complex with it's tracking rooms is shaping up really well. He got really good sound and separation between my voice and guitar. But my mojo deserted me. My right hand was too clunky (it's an intricate picking song) and the rhythm (that is such an awkward word to spell) was off. I've been playing and gigging too much and think I'm a bit worn out, also it feels like these songs are too new, I need to play them in a bit more - the structure is fine I just need to let them sink into me. These things seem ok outside the studio but when you go in and are recording at such high resolution the little things show up and become big things very quickly. Have another session booked tonight but I think I'm just gonna go pick up my gear. I've done enough recording to know when things aren't right and things don't feel right. No rush as I've got my new double A to put out this month and this EP can be wrapped up early next year....

Shame because I was looking forward to it.

Oh, and I'm pleased (or not pleased depending how you look at it) to see that steve is his usual charming self. 'I love being me' he said. 'You're right Steve' I said, 'I know', he said. 'Meeeaow is that a cat wailing or someone trying to play the harmonica?' He said. 'Not you and your bloody mojo again' He said.

..... but it will be soon I promise.

We were nailed by the South Africa on the weekend. Biggest defeat at Twickenham in history. That cuts deep, deeper than an away loss because it is our home ground, the hallowed ground.  South Africa were magnificent. I bumped into Bakkies Botha (their second row) on the street the other day and he was MASSIVE. A huge beast. To see him sprint across the field like a back to make a try saving tackle on Delon Armitage was impressive, inpsiring and reflective of the South African team. Total committment and athleticism. Ouch.

76-0 . That was the score when we lost away to Australia just after Clive Woodward took over and before he made us world champions. I hope this is the same situation, but something feels different. Back then we had Dallaglio, Johnson, Back, Hill, Leonard. I hope individuals grow into the same stature. How has it got so bad? People say we haven't been nurturing talent. This seems weird after the trumpeting of our academies and club development schemes. Whatever the problem is, it is deep and needs fixing. I stick behind Johnno, we have to get behind him and the team and support them while they grow.

I'm going to Twickers this Saturday to watch the All Blacks game. It will be bittersweet. My first trip to see the mighty Blacks play at the hallowed ground. Probably to see us get pummelled.

On another note there is so much going on at the moment, I'm struggling to take it all in and make sense of it. Struggling to fit the pieces together and figure out what is going to happen. Waking up to see pictures of Bombay in tatters and blood on the streets is difficult. Then to turn pages and read about how your government's ruling party is in huge amounts of debt, as a company, as an organisation. Recession is here, deflation, whatever you want to call it, and we are borrowing and spending more to heal it? It makes sense to economists, but to a layman it sounds wrotten, perpetual. Just like that Woolworths has gone under, MFI is going under, the world economy is contracting, China's economy is growing nevertheless but can't keep up with the growing workforce. All these economical structures and organisations based on such a weak platform. It feels like the world is about to descend into fully blown bollocks anarchy.

I'm listening to Pendulum's myspace at 9:30am... it's doing my head in.

Moments... music. Intertwined. Forever trying to gain control. Control being a futile proposition. Moments are independent and on a different plane, we can never catch them, but we can experience them. I'm always trying to stay in control, of my life, of my music, of my creativity, of the path to my goals. I'm starting to understand I never will be able to. 

I need sleep.....

Last night I finally felt tired and it was wonderful.