Consumers of the World, Unite, live, with loop pedal, and purple hair.

OK so it's not quite as shocking as MIA's new video, but it does feature a minority hair colour. Got to be worth a few Youtube views, surely.

Here is the first video footage in support of the new album. There are more on the way, but for now, check out a live rendering of 'Consumers of the World, Unite!'

'Consumers' will be the first single from the album. You may be familiar with Karl Marx's famous quote: "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains."

Here we are in the 21st century and the workers are away in another country, where the labour laws allow greater profitability and there are no unions. So today it seems that consumers are the sector in society with the power. We can bring about change through our buying habits: "Consumers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chainstores!"

The winding road to album release: Latest news

I was supposed to be filming and doing a photo shoot this weekend. In the end the photo shoot got postponed, which worked out well since I was totally exhausted and it was chucking it down with rain all day.

The filming went pretty smoothly though:



Beautiful weather, beautiful room, did a nice live version of 'Consumers of the World, Unite!' complete with loop pedal, plus an interview for the EPK (electronic press kit).

I will of course be posting these when they are edited. Thanks to Josh Klaassen for the filming and post production, and Lauren for pulling this all together.

Since Saturday was cancelled I ended up spending much of the day uploading the album to Tunecore. That's who I'm using to distribute the album digitally. They need the tracks in very specific formats - bit rates, sample rate, and all that malarky, which took a bit of getting my head around. And the files are pretty big and take a while to squeeze up through the pipes and into cyberspace. So that was a few hours, and I still haven't finished!

I've also been working on layout of the album cover after receiving a totally excellent illustration from a friend in Athens (check out his other work at www.slightlyfox.com).

I have decided I will offer the album in both digital and CD formats, since feedback from various quarters strongly suggests that people who still buy music often buy it on CD.

For me personally, this is a bit of a compromise, since the environmental impact of CDs is bigger than digital only. Still, the packaging will all be from recycled sources, containing no plastic, and the inks used will be organic and non-toxic. So I have found ways to limit the impact at least, while at the same time giving the album a decent chance to get out there in the world and be listened to.

I am actually quite excited to be getting another CD out. It DOES feel different to be creating something physical with music on it, rather than just a bunch of ones and noughts floating around on the world wide web.

www.padmaland.com

Initiate headless chicken mode

Even though the album isn't due out until mid-July, everything has to be rolling now so that I can get promo packs out to reviewers and radio in time, and start generating a bit of anticipation for when the album actually is available to buy.

It's quite a job, releasing your own album. I mean, being a musician is plenty of work in itself - maybe get a blister on your little finger, maybe get a blister on your thumb - but when you add all the other stuff it really mounts up.

It's really mounting up at the moment. I've got an illustrator friend working on the album design, shooting videos next week (which means we've been having meetings to work out what to do and how to do it), photo shoot in the next couple of weeks (so I've just been out buying clothes and I'm gonna need a haircut I guess), researching physical and digital distribution options, building a website for the album, writing promo babble and press releases - I can see why record companies were invented.

Oh yes, and I've got a Canadian and a UK tour to organise too.

At the same time, I'm developing a new live set, to include my shiny new loop pedal, and probably a harmonica mic, so I've been playing about with that quite a bit.

I've also got an MA dissertation to get in for the end of May - with LOTS still to write!

And living in community means meetings and spending time with people - a community isn't a building, it's something people do. Friday night was spent eating nachos and houmous and talking about how we can reduce waste. The goal is to get it to zero and I LOVE being around people who want to try to achieve this. We are going to be constructing a dedicated recycling room soon. Someone raised the idea of making it out of recycled bottles and stuff, a la Earthship. So that'll be cool!

Anyway, time to initiate headless chicken mode.

www.padmaland.com

Opinion poll dancing (to music)

Have you ever bought a download? Do you prefer to buy CDs? Would you be prepared to buy a book with a download in it and try downloading for the first time?

Given that election fever is in the air (in the UK at least) and opinion polls are going to be coming out left, right and centre (hopefully more left than anything but I'm not holding my breath), I thought I would have my own.

I am hoping to release the album WITHOUT the option of buying it in CD format, because CDs are toxic and not recyclable, and 100,000lbs of them end up in landfill EVERY MONTH.

Instead I will produce a book of images, lyrics, illustrations and essays, with a download code for the album in it.

I have had mixed views on the feasibility this idea from friends in the industry. And I need to at least break even on this release and preferably make a little pocket money for what has been over a year of hard work so far.

So please share your thoughts, opinions and music-buying history. All wordage received with gratitude!

The Buddha said everything changes. I say fine, let's change everything.

I am now the proud owner of a full-body arctic camouflage suit.

I have decided to go with my gut. My gut is having visions. Last night's vision was me dressed as a soldier, standing in a forest for the photo shoot for my new album 'In Defence of the Wild'. Today I went shopping for an outfit.

As some of you will know, my first album came out on a UK-based indie label and had a few thousand pounds thrown at it. This second album will be supported by a couple of labels (one in the UK and one in Canada) but it will basically be self-funded. The upside of this is I can do what I like, promotion-wise.

So today I found myself standing in a shop in downtown Vancouver trying on army gear, while several young ladies from Mexico gave me fashion tips.

I am, in fact, a pacifist. A love soldier (the ladies in the shop found this amusing - I said it in order to justify my wearing multi-coloured sneakers with my arctic camouflage suit - a fashion no no, apparently).

But just because I don't believe in violence, doesn't mean I don't believe in conflict.

The current political and economic system is doing massive violence to this planet. For the benefit of all humans, particularly the children and the poor of the world, as well as the other species with whom we share the planet, we must say no.

We must get into active conflict with people who care only for their personal and immediate gain and we must force another way, non-violently, but effectively. I do not like to use force at all, but time is running out, and they will not listen to reason.

I am not talking about hatred for those in power. We must act out of love and compassion for all beings, including power-hungry, wealth-obsessed lunatics (sorry, that last bit just slipped out).

We must recognise the power we have as citizens and as consumers.

We can all make a contribution. My way is to sing, dress up as a soldier, and stand in a forest having my photo taken. And blog. And gig. And generally be in dialogue with as many people as possible on these important issues. And to come up with other solutions for living. And to live those solutions.

Right now, for example, I live in a cohousing community that recycles over 90% of its waste, uses greywater for the toilets, makes decisions by consensus, and is a multi-generational, multi-family 'village within a city' that is totally cool and I think is a good model for city living. Not only that, it's fun! (And it works - it's been going for over 10 years and there are plenty of others like it).

My cunning plan is to live in such a way that the current economic system is undermined (reduce, reuse, recycle, and practice mutual generosity with your friends).

By making active choices about the way we live, we can make a government that does not care enough about this planet and its people quake in its communal boots, as it is made irrelevant by an electorate who increasingly take charge of their own lives, and joint-govern their own communities by participating in making the decisions that affect their lives.

Democracy is not just putting an X in a box once every few years. The Buddha said everything changes. I say fine, let's change everything.

www.padmaland.com

The music that they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life

I'm starting to look at booking a UK tour for later in the year. Where should I play? Who should I approach?

I care about music so much that most of it drives me insane. Most of what I hear on the radio makes me want to smash things up. So it is perhaps unsurprising that my music does not sit comfortably in the standard live music scene.

A room filled with beer-drinkers, chatting to each other about bugger all and checking out the opposite sex. While the musicians stand on stage and try to make an impression. They either play loud enough so that they can't hear what their friend is saying and are forced to jiggle in time to the drums, or look sexy enough or strange enough that at least half the audience look at the stage for a while.

What's the music like? What are the lyrics about? This is of secondary importance.

But sometimes you play a gig and the audience gets it. They are silent. They are concentrated and connected. There is what you might call a vibe. It's an amazing experience.

That is why I do what I do. At so many gigs I feel like one of those nutters standing about in Picadilly Circus, shouting my head off about Jesus, to people who don't even register that I'm there. But sometimes it's not like that. And right now I'm trying to figure out how to get more of those rare experiences on this tour.


My music is not entertainment (though it is hopefully entertaining). It is about communion, connection and change. It's about what we are doing to this beautiful Earth and why we should do it all differently. It's about my experiences of trying to walk a different path.

So I've decided I want to play outside of the standard circuit on this tour. If the mountain with not come to Mohammed, etc.

I need to be playing for people whose heart is open, who are not satisfied with the current state of the world and are aware that they are not satisfied. People who care about the planet and want to hear that they are not alone in this. People who don't want to yap yap yap about what was on TV last night, or what they just bought from Brent Cross (or whatever your local shopping centre is called).

If you are involved with a group or community that might fit this bill, please give me or my manager a shout (contact details are on my site at www.padmaland.com).

And just so you can get a sense of where I'm coming from, here is a snippet from the new album:

Totally Independent

This is a blog about my blog. My blog just got featured on the front page of The Independent website! Cool or what? Check it out:

Zen mastering and Woody Guthrie

Since I'm pretty sure I am done with working on the album (hurray!), I have uploaded one song for you to listen to.

Please buy it and help me fund the release!!!! You can pay a dollar (the cost of about three mouthfuls of coffee), or more if you want to generate some good karma, or want to email a copy to a bunch of your friends without feeling guilty.

It's my version of This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie (I wrote new lyrics for it). It's the most stripped back, straight-up folk song of all the songs on the album. Got that down-home country feel, yee haw!

This week I have been getting my head around The Campaign. I met with Lauren (my manager-type person) to talk through all the various things we need to put in place over the coming weeks and months: photo and video shoots, lists of places to contact, press releases, electronic press kit, update website, work out what to release when (and how), where to tour (and how and when) ... the list goes on and on. It will be loads of work but I'm really excited to have the freedom to do it exactly as I want.

I also had a final crack at mastering the album.

When we made the first album I had no real idea what mastering was. I couldn't see why you would need mastering on top of mixing. I mean surely once it's been mixed, it's ready to go, right? Wrong.

Mastering basically means taking a bunch of songs and turning them into an album. You take the final stereo mixes of each track and make sure all the volumes are right - both within the song and from one song to the next - as well as being comparable to other music in the same genre. You make sure the frequencies are balanced (not too bassy, not too top endy), and the loud bits are not too loud, and the quiet bits are not too quiet, while at the same time maintaining the dynamics of the song. And then there's the overall 'texture' or 'flavour' of the tracks - smooth or rough, warm or cold, bright or thumpy. There are a bunch of techniques and pieces of kit for making all that happen, and it is harder than it sounds! I have spent quite a few hours on it now (much longer than a mastering engineer would have spent, though with significantly less efficiency) and have done at least four versions, learning as I go.

With the first album, a mastering guru did the work. He has a beautiful studio designed specifically for mastering and has done work for everyone from Nick Drake to George Harrison to Depeche Mode. But now I am DIYing it and so I have had to learn fast (fortunately learning fast is something I have become quite good at - a bi-product of refusing to stay in one place or specialise in one thing).

And other news - I found out this week is that you need to allow two months from submission of your music before it shows up in digital retailers (itunes, etc.). I thought it would be, like, five minutes or something. So that was a handy find! Better get designing an album cover!

Tomorrow I am heading into downtown Vancouver for a seminar on digital music marketing set up by the nice folks at Music BC. Timely or what???

Until next week...

Padma

Doing a bit of DIY

Yes friends, my second album will be a truly independent release. Just Music, the record company who released my first album, have decided that they don’t feel they can market it.

To be honest, I agree with them. They are a chill and downtempo label, and my music has been moving increasingly away from chill. In fact, my aim with this album is to incite people to do the exact opposite of chill. I am hoping to inspire people to action.

The album is not just an album, and it’s not just about me. It’s a call to action – all about climate change, sustainability, the need for political and economic change, and our need to reconnect our spirit with nature. We are living in the biggest crisis, and the most exciting age, that humanity has ever experienced. I’ve been banging on about this in my blogs and at gigs for ages. Now, finally, it will be reflected fully in my recorded music.

Last time I had press, radio and online promotions people helping me out. I had people with their fingers in important and tasty pies all over the place. I had people who liked having meetings in Soho, having meetings in Soho on my behalf. I had people who knew their way around the music business making their way around the music business for me.

This time things will be a little different. I’m a tad daunted, but mostly just excited about doing this on my own. Well, I won’t be entirely on my own – my manager Lauren at Backstage Vancouver will be helping out.

I’ll also be relying on you guys to – PLEASE! – help me get the message out there. Word of mouth (and word of mouse) is going to figure quite strongly in the promotion if it’s going to make any kind of splash at all. Which is great, since that’s the most authentic way of going about things anyway.

The latest, and probably final, title for the album is In Defence of the Wild. I have decided not to pursue another deal for this release, at least for now, to leave me free to do some fairly unconventional things without having to argue with anyone about it. I shall tell you more about those things another time. But the key thing is I’m hoping to make it as zero waste as possible. The medium is the message.

I’ll be posting some music from the new album very soon, and will be documenting my solo journey much more regularly from now on. I figured it might be interesting for people who are looking to release their own stuff to see how I do it, and how I do. I learnt a fair few tricks from doing it with a label the first time around, so let’s see how this goes!

PADMALAND

For a while now I've been a bit frustrated at being so dispersed across the internet. It doesn't feel very neat. So I just took a couple of days to pull everything together into a fully integrated, firing-on-all-cylinders, Rolls-Royce-of-the-internet type web experience that is PadmaLand!

From now on my blogs will be posted there. There's also a section for video, Twitter updates, links to articles I've written, gig schedule, music, ah man it is a work of art.

So please head on over to PadmaLand for the latest news, ramblings, cogitations, videos, 140 character Twitter haiku ... you name it, it's there.

See you at PadmaLand soon! (It's like Disneyland but without the attitude police and the expensive cuddly toys).

Padma

BRAIN DUMP

Greetings all

Sorry I'm being a terrible blogger at the moment. Got so much on with life and recording demos and writing the book that there isn't much time left for other things.

So, quick brain dump for you:

1. I've been thinking about the future of the internet. I think right now the internet is really big but, like life in general, it is going to get smaller. When Myspace, Youtube and a million webzines etc have to pay royalties for the content they stream, eventually they will become subscription based. We will choose a package of sites that we subscribe to, kind of like people do with cable TV now.

2. I've been thinking about peak oil. That and eco-villages. That and the fact that Padma does not play well with other children. I have always been weird about groups. Neurotic individualistic singer-songwriter. But community is the way forward. Gonna have to learn how to be more well adjusted.

I interviewed two of the world's leading speakers on co-housing the other week. It was fascinating. I got back to my apartment and found out that my video camera had run out of space for the first time ever, so the interview was lost! Hrmmpph. One of the guys was called Charles Durrett. His electricity bill for last year was minus 83 dollars. (Solar panels). The other guy was the Jan Gudmand-Hoyer, the founder of the cohousing movement.

Cohousing is great. Community is a difficult thing to pull off but cohousing has a high likelihood of success designed in. You need enough privacy to be happy, you need a lack of ideology (just people living next door to each other) and then plenty of spaces and opportunities for hanging out together. The place where I am living recycles 95% of its garbage. Only two small bins for more than 35 people! I will write something proper on cohousing when I have a moment. It's a great solution to city living - and will be increasingly so in the years to follow.

Here's a bit of info on cohousing from Kathryn McCamant (from McCamant & Durrett architects):



3. The music is going well. I have two different things going on at the moment. One is the businessy, organisationy side - talking to producers, managers, press, and so on, trying to work out the next phase of Padma's Campaign for World Domination.

The other side is creating. Making music is so great. I sometimes wonder why I bother with the Campaign for World Domination. I could just be a little guy in my place making music for myself and having a lovely time. But that seems kind of selfish to me. One of the key things about music is it can bring us together and remind us of something magical and beyond the mundane. To connect with others on such a basis is for me the only way I can really connect.

Today I have been recording a demo of 'If Friends Were Neighbours Too'. It will hopefully be on the next album. It starts with 'Wouldn't it be nice if food just grew on trees'. I wrote that line when I was driving up a mountain track on the way to the yurt with a friend and we stopped at a wild cherry tree and picked piles and piles of cherries for all of us. They would've cost LOADS of money to buy in a supermarket, and they were organic and delicious. And at that point I thought 'how preposterous to pay for food'. And then I got that line in my head and the song just came together really quickly.

And now I'm in a cohousing community where my friends are my neighbours too!

ARE YOU ON FACEBOOK?

At last I have sorted a musician page on facebook. A place where we can all hang out and comment on each other's statuses (or is that stati?) while being benignly observed by the CIA and other organisations with our best interests at heart.

Please join us!

MY BRAHMA VIHARA (ABODE OF THE GODS)

First video from Vancouver

WOODY GUTHRIE, A HUMMING BIRD, AND OTHER STUFF

Things have been quite busy of late.

Went to a seminar on placing your music in TV, film and computer games. A couple of music producers came up from LA to talk about their work. So I am taking advantage of being on the West coast.

I’ve always had an interest in the business side of the music business. I think I’ll probably even set up a label one day, when there's a good reason to do so (like I've got to sign this band!!!) and I've got the time. But the whole publishing/placement thing has been pretty much a mystery to me. Esoteric knowledge, like tantric ritual. I have in fact read about it a whole bunch of times, but it’s like physics, I just can’t remember it. So to sit and listen to these guys and to be able to ask a question or two was excellent.

I’ve also been outside of Vancouver for the first time. Out into the wilds. Saw a bear! Amazingly there were a couple of tourists who had stopped the car and were standing extremely close to it taking photographs. Bear attacks usually happen to tourists, apparently. In one famous incident, a German tourist put jam on her kid’s face so that the bear would lick it off while they took a photo. You can probably guess the outcome.

The reason I was out of the city was that I was visiting an eco village. It was great to see people who had actually got something going. They were due to move into their places within a few weeks. They grow their own food on one-acre patches, the houses are ultra efficient, using thermal mass and solar gain (rather than heating and air conditioning) to keep a constant temperature, and they plan soon to buy a wind turbine to generate the electricity. I love meeting people who are out there and doing it. It takes creativity, skill, patience and above all commitment to get something like this to the moving-in stage, so you can guarantee that you are going to meet inspirational people. I may well be playing a gig there on the solstice.

While I was there a humming bird flew up to me and hovered about a foot away from my chest for a moment, before realising that my brightly coloured cardigan was not going to produce nectar, and shooting off. It was amazing, hovering there right at my heart chakra, like a fairy from a Disney cartoon.

When I was living in the yurt I decided that I’d like to write a book to go with the next album. Most of the songs that will be on the album were written during that time so hopefully it will provide an extra bit of context. I met up with the record company when I was in London and they were cool with the idea, so this week I started to write it. I’m going to attempt to chug it out quite quickly., Kerouac-style brain dump. I think it was Ernest Hemingway who said ‘All first drafts are shit’ so my plan is to just get the first draft out and then lovingly sculpt and tidy it once it’s on the page.

Got invited to play the Bodhi Garden festival (an excellent little Buddhist festival in Brighton) but alas I shan’t be in the country. I might try to do something there as part of my UK tour though, later in the year. They are a good bunch.

The week has also seen me in a bit of internal strife about how to approach the sound of the album. I love this period before things have really started, but it’s a painful time. It’s like being a teenager – a time filled with potential but also insecurity. Which way to jump? Who to be?

I think making art must inevitably be this way, assuming you really care about it and aren’t just trying to create something that will get played on the radio. This is especially true when you are producing as well as writing and playing the music. I miss Holy McGrail!

At the moment, the whole thing is sitting there in my heart, beautiful and melancholy, before it has been polluted and compromised by bringing it out into the world. It feels like a great responsibility to be the one whose job it is to turn it into an album.

I read something beautiful and melancholy today which expressed perfectly what I hope to achieve. I was listening to Nina Violet’s album, which I love. I supported her in Brighton when she was doing her UK tour and was knocked out. Anyway, I was listening to the album, and decided to have a nose on the internet. After a quick search on google, I found an article about her. And she was talking about how Woody Guthrie’s music spoke out the suffering of the people, and somehow made it alright:

"Think back to what Woody Guthrie did in the Depression," she says. "He alleviated the suffering of people by singing their suffering aloud. When everybody was thinking these down thoughts and then a charismatic man showed up and sung the thoughts back to them, it made their suffering real and it made it okay. Music has always been an expression from people to God, or to each other or to themselves about the things that they suffer and the joys that they feel."

Amen.

HOW TO ASSIGN M-AUDIO KEYS TO LOGIC TRANSPORT

This is a tekky post for people (like me) in the exciting position of just having bought a new midi controller keyboard.

If you want to assign the transport keys (play, stop, record, etc) in Logic to the ones on your new toy, you may have a bit of trouble.

I have just been scouting the internet for help. There's not much out there so I thought I would post this. It seems that you:

Go to LogicPro/Preferences/Key Commands/Global Commands

Then click on a parameter (e.g. 'Play'), click on 'Learn new assignment' and then press the button on your new toy.

Hope that helps!

Padma

SITTING ON A GOLDMINE

“Basically we’re making a vessel, we call it, that deals with shelter, of course, energy, food, water and air. Almost like on Walden Pond – those were the things Thoreau said people needed. Well, we need them, but we need them without nuclear power plants, we need them without power lines, and we need them without destroying the earth’s aquifiers. We need to provide them in each unit that we build. And that’s the idea we’re dealing with here. And so we’re providing food, shelter, power and sewage treatment, all in one unit.”

Mike Reynolds, the architect who designed the Earthship, quoted in Chris Turner’s exellent ‘The Geography of Hope’.

Yesterday I was out trekking on Bowen Island, which is a small island off the coast of Vancouver. Amazingly beautiful and chilled. Lovely.

The sun was shining, the breeze light, birds singing, huge trees providing shade.

The bountifulness of the environment surrounding me reminded me of something Mike Reynolds (quoted above) said about when he first started making earthships. He was talking about harnessing wind power, solar power, collecting rain falling on the roof, and using thermal mass in the walls to keep the house cool in summer and warm in winter so you don’t need heating or air conditioning.

He said that he realised that, with all this freely available power all around, we are sitting on a goldmine. All we need to do is harness it.

It’s funny how people think of oil and natural gas as being really precious, but ignore the wind and the sun. Building huge coal plants and nuclear plants while ignoring what is right in front of our noses – everything we need is available in our immediate environment. A house needs no power lines going in, no sewage pipes going out. It can regulate its own temperature, provide its own electricity and collect its own water.

Incredible that we are still using that old, dirty, expensive stuff that is owned by a few companies holding the entire world to ransom. People fight wars over it! Astounding!

Anyway, my life in the city is going fine. I am happy. The older I get and the more I move on, the clearer it is to me that one's experience is largely mind-made. Wherever you are, your mind projects itself onto the world and that is fundamentally what you experience. Still, if I was in a war zone, I would move...

Went to a zen group last week which was fun. Lots of meditation and a drink of tea. (Jasmine tea, not proper tea. I like jasmine tea but when someone tells me there’s going to be tea after the sit I’m expecting tea, you know? Anyway, moving on...)

A very cool independent record store (there are so few of them left) has agreed to stock my album. So if you’re in Canada and you want a copy, buy one from me! But if you’d rather get one from a record shop, go to Recat Records.

Got a nice email, as I do from time to time, from someone who had read one of my articles and is living off grid. It’s great to hear other people’s stories. One guy sent me an email explaining how to make felt (for yurt lining) out of local sheeps wool. Actually the area where I live in Spain is mostly goats, and I have vegan leanings (though not the strength of will for 100% compliance), so I shall stick with using blankets, but nice to hear anyway. Another guy got in touch who was living in one of those funky yellow American school buses. There are many interesting people in the world, tucked away among the trees, up mountains, and in the remote places of the world.

I am very behind on emails but do enjoy hearing from people and do get back eventually, so feel free to drop me a line and share your story.

The other interesting news is I have decided to include a book with the next album. It will be about my time on the mountain, where most of the songs were written. Working title for the album is ‘Wild’, though I do tend to change my mind on these things. I originally thought of ‘Wild ‘Un; Or, Life in the Yurt’ might be good, but I have a tendency to turn everything into a joke and ruin the vibe, so, probably will just leave that as a private chuckle between us.

Hasta luego

Padma

PS The pics were ones I took yesterday of and on Bowen Island. Nice huh.

IS A DOG A BAD PERSON?

The other day, someone asked me my opinion on the MPs-expenses scandal which is currently providing journalists with something to write about in the UK.

Parliamentary politics is of limited interest to me these days (I did a degree in politics) but the question still got me thinking.

Basically, I have spent a lot of time being angry, disappointed, frustrated and outraged by the cruelty, greed and stupidity of a significant proportion of the human race. MPs often included.

All the injustice in the world can quite easily make one’s blood boil. Many people in the activist world see this kind of response as a good thing. Something to be encouraged. If more people got angry, then change would surely be demanded, and change would come. We get the government we deserve.

This may be true, but I’m fed up with feeling like that. And what’s more, I think that action born of such emotions is quite likely to end up causing as much damage as the damage I would be trying to combat. Men (and occasionally women) with visions of how the world should be are often dangerous. There’s a part of me that wants to be that man, but another part of me keeps it in check:

Look around
You’ll find the ground is not so far from where you are
Don’t be too wise.
(Nick Drake)

Plus, in reality I wouldn’t be combatting very much of it at all, even if I committed my entire life to the cause. So there’ll always be plenty for me to get wound up about.

Over the years I have come up with (or read) a number of thoughts on this issue.

The most controversial view, which I begrudgingly hold at the moment, despite my distrust of hierarchical models, is that of the existence of an evolutionary scale with regard to consciousness.

That is, that there is a hierarchy of consciousness and people are at different levels in that hierarchy. You can’t blame a dog for chasing cats or shitting on the street. That’s just where dogs are at. It doesn’t make a dog a bad person.

People’s ways of going about things are based on where they’re at. George Bush wants to own everything and blow people up. That’s his thing. He’s freaked out about the fragility of his own wellbeing and this is his response. I might try to stop him doing it but to be angry at him for not being like me is to miss the point.

Some MPs become MPs because they want a better world and they want to help to make that better world. And some MPs are fuckheads who I wouldn’t trust with a bag of chips, let alone the country. What can you do? (Note: these two groups are not mutually exclusive. I could draw a Venn diagram about it but hopefully you already get the picture).

In the end I always conclude that the only rational action is to develop one’s character and to invite other people to develop theirs. We can wipe out a Bush, a Hussein, a Thatcher, but there is always another one waiting to take their place. They’re like the cockroaches from Freak Brothers comics ("Don't worry! There's plenty more where they came from!")

Like old Bill Hicks (and a number of other mystics and existentialist writers) said, ‘It’s just a ride’. And his whole act was based on moral outrage!

To live in the flow of imperfection, humiliation and injustice is the only way. That’s where we’re at. You don’t have to add to it, but you can’t wipe it out either. You do what you can and find peace in the moment, because the moment is all there is.

And anyway, who really knows what’s going on with this universe? Why are we here? Maybe all this greed, cruelty and injustice is helping to keep it all in balance – preventing oblivion?

Probably not, but it’s worth considering.

BALCONY TV

Here's one of the things I did while I was in London:

FREE MUSIC!

Dear All

A little while before I went off to the yurt there was a period when I was left utterly alone in my studio. After about 48 hours I emerged, exhausted, hungry and squinting into the daylight. The good news is I had given birth to a beautiful bouncing baby song. It was a fairly painless delivery and required no drugs. But it's not like my other kids.

It's called 'The Bloke Downstairs' and is utterly different from anything else I've been coming out with. The lyrics are pretty political and it contains no guitars whatsoever! I know!

I've been scratching my head as to what to do with it and figured the best thing might be just to give it away.

It's available exclusively to people on my mailing list. You can join my list, listen and download it right now from www.reverbnation.com/padma.

Happy bopping.

Padma