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Here the brute harpies make their nests

by Julian Gaskell & his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

supported by
Tony Gale
Tony Gale thumbnail
Tony Gale I used to see these guys regularly when I was living in Cornwall. They put on one of the best live shows I've ever seen, and no two shows are alike. Favorite track: No housing benefit, smokers or pets.
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1.
Barbed wire and sleaze is all that I've known Where the rosebuds and romance used to roam Free as the covers allowed us to be A ring made of coal and a bed made of ash Is all that survived where the hearts used to crash When life's simpler pleasures have bitten the dust Need a zimmer frame to lean on... mills and boon, mills and boon read one today, I'll read another one quite soon I'll be content to sit alone here in a room with a bottle of lambrini and some mills and boon Mills and boon, mills and boon It's hardly started but the end is coming soon I'd give it some more thought but I just ain't got the room For hearing the things that I don't want to hear ripe with this nonsense it beckons to me Down moonlit paths where subscription is free Am I going to do something that we'll all regret Strangers at weddings without invitations Offending the neighbours, friends and relations When life's simpler pleasures have bitten the dust Need a zimmer frame to lean on... mills and boon, mills and boon... Mrs Mills, Mrs Mills One tinkle on your ivories could cure all of life's ills I'll be content to be alone here with my fill Of babysham and records by the late great Mrs Mills Mrs Mills, Mrs Mills They've all forgotten but I love you still They never got it, so I've got no time For hearing these things that I don't want to hear
2.
I've heard enough about going to town, there's nothing for us there Just a queue of pissed stuffed animals who've not seen facial hair before I'd love to point and stare some more but I can't pretend to care So spare me this going into town I'm getting too long in the tooth while I'm waiting for this pint And my thoughts will all be sewage by the end of the night Though it might save me from the details without turning out the lights Spare me this queuing for a pint Cos I used all tomorrow's good luck today What was I gonna do with it anyway? Put it in a bottle, piss it all away We used all tomorrow's good luck today I'm not having remixes and balkan beats But I'd send them all to remedies just to keep them off the streets Though they might keep the DJ in new mirrors and satin sheets Spare me the remixes and beats Cos I used all tomorrow's good luck today... I've had enough of hearing about things and stuff So many many fine words but the actions not enough Are we living in a time that has to look so rough Spare me the things and stuff Since I used all tomorrow's good luck today...
3.
Put the music in a coffin, bury it at midnight I'll save a plot beside it just for you When your complaining days are over and you're lying down beside the racket Feigned your death to get a mention in the packet But your work round here is done I'll be pushing up the weeds Cos everywhere I go there's nothing And everything we know means nothing Where there's too much silence to be broken Pushing up the weeds Cos every seed we sow gets nothing And nothing ever grows from nothing But it'll take this place down, stone by stone When the whole town is quiet and the billboards are all clean And curfews been placed on everyone and everything You can sit over there safe in the knowledge the struggle's over no scratches on your bumper, your chicken tonight charm boiling over pushing up the weeds... From the tallest ship I surveyed your ivory towers Loaded up with gifts of out of date ales and flyers A tribute act was playing but I heard a different sound Of a root in a crack in a hole in the ground pushing up the weeds...
4.
Castro pubs 03:11
I never trust a man who says he don't like Elvis It's down to ignorance or he can't say what he means But why the coca cola, why the bacardi And the california white and the exxon anti-freeze Now I don't want to get judgemental But it might be said that it Sounded like a revolution was happening down the watering hole, but it Turned out it was just another Prole display of capital Though it sounded just identical What did you expect? I'd bring my donkeys in to chew on the carrots Graze my mules on the dance floor, drive the stick through the swill But the door policy don't extend to my livestock This place will make us peasants though it came by our free will I don't want to... There's no head on the block, no US blockade Just a different dry white wine in the same lemonade For all the che guevara prints and the exposed bricks When we put them on a plate they serve a menu of our dicks I don't want to...
5.
The modern day festival, spectacular but lame It started with the best intentions, now I wonder why I came For the modern day music? I don't much care for it Though it wound up on my hard drive, I'd never pay for this The modern day festival, so the sunday papers say Will be coated in tarmac but pack your wellies anyway For to be seen in a floral print is the order of the day We may be standing in the queue but, hey man, we've lost our way How did we let it get like this? Where did it go wrong Always slightly worse than before That's what progress means The modern day festival, the organisers try But health and safety took the joy and now we don't know why We ever came here, for the touts and the tourbus And the piles of shit all in the country to be cleared up for us The modern day festival – I blame the mobile phone For turning anonymity to communication zone Just a modern day weekend, a night on the piss No observer's book or usborne guide prepared me for this How did we let it get like this?... The moral of this story, the moral of this fable Is that one should always pitch one's tent far from this as one is able To afford, for this home in the country may be alright for some But with the ID photos and debit charges, it seems we've all been done The modern day festival, is a long way you see From a banjo in the backyard and a squeezebox on the knee But if that's the way it's going to stay and how it's got to be Farewell ye modern festivals, and come back here when you're free How did we let it get like this?...
6.
Kolomeyke 02:35
7.
The old cow died, sail around The old cow died, sail around ladies Did you get her any water? Yes maam Did you get her any soda? Yes maam Did you call for the doctor? Yes maam Did the doctor come? Yes maam The old cow died, sail around The old cow died, sail around ladies Were the seagulls flying high? Yes maam Were the seagulls swooping low? Yes maam Did you call the methodists round? Yes maam Did you make them tea and cakes? The old cow died, sail around The old cow died, sail around ladies
8.
9.
The country I live in is called the UK Nice enough to live in if you got a place to stay But until the day I know where I'm gonna be keeping This same old dull programme just keeps on repeating The landlords must have too much money cos it's offered up to them but all the can say is No housing benefit, smokers no pets No children no sharing no DSS If you want to rent it you better forget it No housing benefit smokers or pets, no. In the place that I live it's a crying shame they turned the whole thing over to one great board game If you can raise a deposit you can ride the boom And sulk through the bust though you've still got a room But their bedsit's too small for the cash to fit in cos when it's offered up to them, all they can think is No housing benefit, smokers no pets... ..Put yourself on a plate but they'll turn you away I ain't big or clever, just trying to put in song The way we got it in this country, we got it all wrong And while it's given away before the works even done There's still some of us with two homes, some of us with none Maybe we're too good for their poxy holes And they're just saving the guilt from burying their souls by saying No housing benefit, smokers no pets...
10.
A ja taká dzivočka cingilingi bom rada vijem pirečka, cingilingi bom rada vijem, rada dám, cingilingi bom bom bom aj za kalap zakladám,cingilingi bom A ja taká jak i mac, cingilingi bom čarné oči mušim mac, cingilingi bom čarné oči mac mala, cingilingi bom bom bom ja še na ňu podala , cingilingi bom A ty cigán šumne hraj, cingilingi bom na dzivčata nežmurkaj, cingilingi bom na dzivčata , na šumné, cingilingi bom bom bom naj nechodza po humne, cingilingi bom
11.
Gankino horo 03:39
12.
What with the distance and the tv A stay at home protest I thought was best for me Though this apathy's a vote for all the things I don't agree with For extinction at some point between the cockroaches and bees TSG, SPG, CCTV Theres never any witness where there ought to be Don't want any trouble, don't want to start But theres a mute dark canyon between the voice and the heart It was like I wasn't there Like he wasn't there Like no one was there Don't need a high vis vest, steel toe or hard hat To know that grown men don't just drop down dead in the street like that Spare me the worry and unpleasantness Keep your sins to yourself theres no need to confess Get to the punchline without waiting for it Swimming for the cockles without wading in through shit TSG, SPG, CCTV How many acronyms will it take to set us free? Don't want any trouble, don't want to start But theres a mute dark canyon between my voice and my heart It was like I wasn't there... Hit by a car, trod underfoot, picking up the roadkill, put in the boot half a million reasons to get an umbrella so when they look at me they see the other feller TSG, SPG, CCTV But somebody turned a blind eye to the one that could see Don't want any trouble, don't want to start But theres a mute dark canyon between my voice and my heart It was like I wasn't there...
13.
The weather's all gone funny, water's on the rise They said that this would happen but we didn't realise That the flowers would wilt and die Before our very eyes And the words we quoted only seem to over-emphasis That the world's gone down the toilet We flushed it round the bend The era that we thought we knew is coming to an end But before the last bell toll upon us Listen up my friends We have but little time before us and so much to mend so.. Weep in your beer with me my friends Weep in your beer with me The world is full of things that I'd rather forget Got my eyes set on the glory but I ain't seen it yet So weep in your beer, weep in your beer Weep in your beer with me Laugh and be content with the court summonses and rent And wee in your beer with me But if I had my time back over, it wouldn't be like that, it'd be like this I'd be looking down over happy days all overcome with bliss And I'd dance a merry tango through the situations there Instead of terminating everything that made us what we dare to be and Flushed it down the toilet, send it round the bend The misery I've caused for you is never going to end But before the last boat leaves Listen up my friends We have but little time before us and so much to mend so Weep in your beer with me my friends...
14.
Trying to get a lie in in a basement cave in bedlam what is the racket going on upstairs? I could spare some silence from the landlord's piano-playing daughter hasn't learned that much this week, but who cares? Oh but I wish they'd use some of my hard-earned dough To buy that little brat a casio But when they fall beneath the hammer of the people's piano These things won't matter any more There's a deposit on this cup and the rent is going up And what is that scuffling going on next door Next door's an overstatement, more a cupboard than a bedsit Where our tight fisted masters store the heirlooms and the shit But I tell you the one thing I know is true That archive of rubbish is worth more than me and you But when they fall beneath the hammer of the people's piano Their values won't matter any more And all the years we spend making do and mending To get another tune out of this thing I wore out my shoes between the office and the boozer But this piano will play for evermore There's a sofa on my bed and a tune inside my head How can a poor man sleep through times like these? Count the ticking of the meter, though I've turned off every heater Watch the cash flow through every hole in every wall But though they always seem to have their share Long after they're gone the tune will still be there And when they fall beneath the hammer of the people's piano These things won't matter any more all the years we spend making do and mending.... Found a fiver on the floor to keep it going for some more But the iron frames all wonky from the damp To invest it in the future would be wise but I'm too used to seeing All I have in someone else's hands So lets have three cheers for bailing out the banks and to the landlords and the harpies give our thanks Maybe when they fall beneath the hammer of the people's piano These things won't matter any more all the years we spend making do and mending...

about

Some reviews:

fRoots Nov/Dec 2009
What's there not to like about this great little quintet? Scurrying out of Falmouth in Cornwall, their bustling, belting, lopsided accordeon-led sound branches somewhere off the same musical family tree that gave us top Belgian faves Jaune Toujours and the long-lost La Cucina, with the rural literary flair of Blyth Power, XTC and Dancing Did chucked in the mix. Bits of hyper-Balkanisation bloody their noses on some crunchy Roma-jazz, and waves of sppedy punkfolk ska crash in the mix on cheesy surf organ and the ghost of Cap'n Beefheart. And a whole exhausting (in a good way) lot more. Exhilarating playing, fab lyrics, energy to spare: if I was running The Modern Day Festival - deservedly excoriated in the song of the same name - I'd be straight on the phone to book these guys for next year. If they're this exciting on record then the live experience is going to be truly extraordinary. Go get, from www.raggedtrouseredphilanthropists.co.uk

24-7 Magazine October 2009
They don’t do demos, JULIAN GASKELL & HIS RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS. They do fully realised works of prole art that eschews the idea of clambering up the music industry ladder only to land on a snake and end up in a heap of disappointment. True to form, ‘Here The Brute Harpies Make Their Nests’ finds Gaskell and Co stepping up a gear and self-releasing an album that oozes confidence, irreverence, independence and brilliance; cementing their reputation as Tom Waits and Gogol Bordello’s defiantly Cornish bastard offspring. Taking us into a tumbledown world of squeezeboxes, fiddles, percussive waywardness and intellectual drinking, these 14 songs will make you swell with underclass pride even if you’re a bourgeois bum, with a lyric booklet that is worth the admission fee alone. Magnificent.

Julian Gaskell once more, assembles his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (also featuring long time associate Kester Jones). Recorded down in Falmouth and St Keverne and then mastered in the New Forest, Julian is firmly at the helm on this album, which seems driven by the sound of drunken sailors, irate country folk and some occasional outright punk rock. Lyrically, this constitutes an imposing and enjoyable collection of words. ‘I never trust a man who says he don’t like Elvis..’ he firmly declares on “Gastro Pubs”.

Musically, there’s the continued measure of protest song and European gypsy bohemia stirred in with Hispanic and Latino influences, captured within the urgent soul of the political new wave movement as espoused by the Clash (check out the up tempo punk / folk / ska attack of “Pushing Up The Weeds” and “Kolomeyke”, both of which almost make a Specials re-union pointless). Moments appear like the extended drum and percussion solo on “Bottle of Luck”, which must be a definite riot live.

Manchester Music
There are also journeys into realms of relative strangeness – “The Old Cow Died” is a traditional piece that was a fairly robust and basic chant to begin with, but with a heavy clatter it all ends up with a fizz of feedback and what could quite possibly be actual fighting, before “Dustbins Amongst Men” delivers an instrumental interlude, constructed from rumbles and in general, the sound of the earth turning. If one thing can help demonstrate what Julian Gaskell is up to (and has previously done in the past), it’s the track “No Housing Benefit Smokers Or Pets” – a brash, word heavy social text, accompanied by the energetic clatter of an electric guitar's hurried rattles and twangs. A Bulgarian traditional tune “Gankino Horo”, is excitedly hacked and brushed up into a fragmented wig-out, in what can only can be described as some kind of gypsy punk prog rock melee, but it’s not before long that there’s a return to their best topic via “Weep In Your Beer”. The album concludes with “The People’s Piano”, the breakneck sound of the band barrelling down a hill, pausing for a drink on the way down, before providing one last energetic cartwheel down the final furlong. Great stuff indeed. MMMM ½

credits

released August 1, 2009

Julian Gaskell - vocals, accordion, guitar, balalaika, violin, washboard
Rory Pugh - drums and percussion
Dan Pye - guitar and vocals
Thomas Sharpe - upright bass, vocals and banjo
Kester Jones - guitar, piano, mandolin and hammond organ


Words and music by Julian Gaskell except 6,7,10,11 trad/arr Julian Gaskell and 8 music by Gaskell/Pugh/Pye/Sharpe ©2009

Recordings produced, engineered and mixed by Julian Gaskell at the Cottage, Falmouth and the Manacles, St Keverne, May-June 2009
Analogue mastering performed by Julian in the New Forest.

With special guests

Pete Dangerfield – Tuba on 'Weep in your beer'

Paul 'Mole' Walker - Saw on 'Weep in your beer'

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Julian Gaskell UK

Described by angry locals as the bastard son of Waits, Strummer, Reinhardt and Rachmaninov, Julian Gaskell’s music over the last 20 years has followed a wayward path of withering agricultural-folk, klezmer accordion, overly-lyrical punk, gypsy-jazz guitar, tangos, waltzes, rhumbas and skiffled-up boogie-woogie piano. ... more

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