Ordered by article count: Michael Mendones admin Chris Underwood Travis Seewald Rory Allen Nicholas Marsh Diane Morrison Jonas Andersson Dan Glass Tine Blom Keith Haworth Hannah Brassington Vicky Nagy Shun Louis Bellieni Nadine Jarvis Björn Schütrumpf Sol Nicholson Saem Lee Padraig O'Connor Mike Whelan Matt Ward Lisa Chen Kirk Coffey Jonathan Buchan Jaimes Nel Are all . . .
Member since: 02 Dec 05
Michael hates referring to himself in the third person and is studying an MA in Social Research (Sociology).
He was a performance poet (he still writes occasionally), and is a musician (recently he returned to modernist composition and experimental forms after many years of making multi-genre 'popular' music).
His research interests encompass the notion that spatiality, modernity and the 'crisis of masculinity' in the West have resulted in higher suicidality among men (approximately FOUR times as many men kill themselves as women).
Oh yes, and he's pretty much interested in anything else under the sun...
If you would like to get in touch, please feel free to contact me using the email form below:
Thanks!
Fondue Set, Water, Vocals, Gamelan, Songstone, Thundertube, Chinese Clarinet, Caixa, Bowed Berimbau, Tin Whistle, Saw, Tablas, Bongos, Djembe and Pote.
Electric handblender, jaws harp, saw, tablas, glockenspiel and radio-controlled helicopter music
Read more >>>my Djembe, my Tablas, my Bongos, my Flute and my Tibetan cymbals - and proceeded to thrash the hell out of them with a drumstick for samba drums! How inconsiderate…
Read more >>>The ‘bookend’ to a previous three movement piano piece, ‘Chasing the Sound of No one Talking’ is a completely improvised description of a relationship finally calming down.
As such, where ‘The Unfolding’ was about intensity, being out of control, chaos and beauty, ‘Chasing...’ is more considered, less disturbing, spacious.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t have its dark moments because it also details the end of chaos and the beginnings of a positive period, even an uplifting one.
Like ‘The Unfolding’, it’s in three movements: Worry, Uncertainty and Faith. The title refers to being asked for space, and the emotions I went through.
Thankfully, everything turned out ok and the third part reflects this quite well.
The link below will take you there…
Read more >>>A poem about a really good friend that took too much acid in our earlier years which triggered his latent paranoid schizophrenia.
It details how he was utterly, permanently changed.
It’s sad, but I’ve now known him far longer as a madman than when he was one of those inspirational characters whose boundless enthusiasm for life made us all think anything was possible in the future.
This was the simplest way I could attempt to describe in words (which are, and will never be adequate) what it’s like to live as a manic-depressive.
Read more >>>Another example of a long-forgotten poetic form (I think it was published because it was so obscure).
I was a veggie for four years, and often dreamt about chicken curry bubbling in a pot (even though I’m more of a lamb man), so I tried to capture and exaggerate this ‘hunger’ in an amusing way.
A description of when waking up and the day ahead can be looked forward to when it’s cold and bleak.
Read more >>>Although these poems are in the format of Renga and Tanka (like haiku but longer), they use the form but not the typical Japanese content of beauty in nature (mostly).
Read more >>>Another humorous poem that is strongly indebted to the final line of poems by Wendy Cope.
Read more >>>A poem about those long all night conversations you have with a friend that seems to encompass everything (and nothing).
Read more >>>A poem about the second most intense and terrible break-up I’ve had. It reflects how bitter and lost I felt at the time, as well as how one-sided my thinking was about it all.
I certainly learnt that if you’re asked ‘What are you thinking?’, that you should not say ‘nothing’ and completely clam up EVERY SINGLE TIME!
Read more >>>Halfway through watching ‘The English Patient’ I stopped it and wrote this as my reaction. I don’t really think this, of course.
Read more >>>A poem about when you and your friend know that your friendship is over.
Read more >>>A poem about growing up, my relationship with my father and the impact it had on my family.
Read more >>>This collection of songs and instrumentals includes songs written with my sister Michelle, and they cover a variety of topics.
More mood music of the guitar variety is also here, and the tone is more upbeat and calm than previous offerings.
Details of the songs are on the site if you click on the link to them.
The list of songs/ tracks are:
1 The Odyssey of Mischa 2 From the Sidelines 3 Jazz Skit 4 Disguised Dub 5 You cut me 6 The Sea, the sea 7 The centre remains Still 8 Ripples on a pond 9 Revelry 10 Real glockenspiel tune
11 Guitars in Distress 12 Jazz Fugue 13 In the Dark 14 21st century Dub 15 Flake Ad
Some of the (better) songs I was working on last summer with a group of young Jamaicans (Ylimaf)with an ‘old-school’ mentality to making music. Sadly, the project never came to fruition as I had only joined them to provide all the music for the backing tracks. In the end, I had to engineer the vocals, produce the tracks and was in the process of learning to master them too. All I wanted to do was play some instruments on stage! Anyway anyway, some of the songs turned out reasonably well (although they are still decidedly ‘unpolished’). However, I do love Stacy’s voice - it always made me sit up and listen during those long long studio sessions…
By clicking on the hotlink below you can listen to some of my more ‘accessible’ music. These are the songs:
1 A schizophrenic Spanish guy plays Spanish guitar while singing a Japanese hymn 2 Flames gonna burn 3 What have I done since I’ve been on Earth? 4 Hater Dog 5 Babylon get prepared
Enjoy!
Read more >>>A collection of pieces of music made between 2000 and 2005. Electronic-based, these cathartic expressions are an attempt to convey various (ok, mostly gloomy) states of mind and emotions.
By clicking on the hotlink below you will be able to download any or all of the following:
1 Chaos in my head 2 Unexplained sadness 3 More unexplained sadness 4 Serotonin-adrenalin rush 5 Philosophical accordion 6 Sometimes you just have to go on 7 Misery is Circular
8 Calm, Still 9 October Ice 10 Angry, impotent 11 Friday 2000 12 Dark dark November
There are more fulsome explanations of the individual pieces themselves on the website itself.
Read more >>>An electric guitar and multiple effects piece that attempts to describe what may go through the minds of the numerous mentally ill people I encounter daily on the Kilburn High Road.
Read more >>>The Unfolding is a three movement semi-improvised piece for piano - although played here on my crappy keyboard with added reverb.
It has slight modernist touches (i.e. the ‘dark’ passages), and attempts to describe the unfolding of a relationship in the form of a ‘musical love letter’.
The movements are: 1 The Girl in the Next Dress 2 The Garden of the Sunlight and the Moon 3 The Transgression/ Resolution and Understanding.
Read more >>>Four poems which discuss the nature of friendship, love, trust and the joys and pains of smoking.
Read more >>>
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