I have loads of lyrics to memorize! And they are all really poems, such as this one from the "Raw Powder" album…

Gift

Should I hang myself?
In an innocent tree
An idle gift to an unsuspecting passer by
Or should I stay a while
And ache with the mysterious flow
As suns reflect in constellation trees
As beating horses graze abundantly
With velvet shining skins
Or should I sleep in skies abstracted
With salient summer heat
And give thanks to the ancient walls
Built with sour sweat
Should I stay a while longer?
To repent this ungrateful slumber
To realise the infinite perfection
Of God's divine joke
Should I laugh, instead of cry?
The lesser of everything
And the winner of the world
Blinded by the Sun's reflected light
Constellation cells, connecting in my brain
Far better to stay forever
And kiss my own ungrateful ignorance.

How am I going to remember all this stuff?!
I'll tell you what, we both got that really bad flu thing a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I know that Oscar Wilde once said something like "The definition of a bore is someone who when asked how their health is, they tell you" I've got that completely miss quoted, haven't I? But you get my gist. Anyway, I'm going to bore you with my health talk………Well, we were in a right state, I'm not kidding! I sneezed so much that my lungs hurt. Ooh, and it doesn't half take it out of you. I slept so much. All we could do was watch old black and white films and drink whisky. I believe that if you feel poorly, you should eat and drink whatever you desire. I think that it is the body's way of telling you what it needs to recover. So I had whisky and tons of chocolate. You know, those huge family size bars of Cadbury's cheap and nasty chocolate. 99 pence and it bloody tastes like it. I had to eat whole ones in one go. But Val, you ask…have you put weight on? Well to be honest only a little bit! I'm beginning to lose a bit now because I'm watching what I eat. Trying to eat sensible stuff. And no chocolate!!! For today anyway. This month's news is sounding a bit like my mother!!! Oh God! I'm turning into mi mam!
We were talking the other day, Gail and myself about television programmes that we hated as kids…
I really hated that fucking "Animal Magic" with Johnny Morris, was that his name? The way he pretended that the zoo animals could actually talk? "Ooooohhh……is it time for my dinner now, mister zoo keeper?" Fuck off you tosser……. I also hated, and this is where I retch slightly, "Songs of Praise" Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Die you old bastards! "Grandstand". My dad used to watch that all of Saturday afternoon……..it really is a miracle that I never committed suicide. "Bonanza" or any Western film. God, how I loathed Westerns as a kid. Such awful television. Hmmmm, maybe that's why I took up the pencil with such gusto.
Right back to art…………I've been working on six glass panels with permanent glass paint for a door. Each panel is a separate work and is to be arranged like this.

The finished work will be photographed when it is in place and I will show it at a later date. This "Therapy Painting" called "The Blue Lovers" was the inspiration for one of the panels as you can see.

I've also been doing a lot of my automatic drawings such as this "Ghost Fingers" one and the one underneath, which I did in collaboration with Gail, called "Asparagus Bomb". Yes every little thing that I do has a title.

Right, music…………this past month saw the release of Testing Vaults album "The Laughing Torso" C.D. (FM10) This is Dani/ Alvo's debut full length C.D. album available through www.finalmuzik.com "Obscure, isolationist (post) industrial soundscapes: in Testing Vault's music, love is hidden by painful moods and by a breathless atmosphere of pure fear. File under: early Coil, Virgin Prunes' "A New Form of Beauty", Rozz Williams' experimental music projects, Italian cult industrial? Ritual band Rosemary's Baby. "The Laughing Torso" features moody trumpet extravaganza by DBPIT and vocals by artist Val Denham. Digipak limited edition of 500 copies only. Eu 12,90"

Yeah, so I sound a bit like Bill Burroughs on it! I did my vocals over the telephone to Dani in Italy.

The album called "Somewhere between Desire and Despair" Live in Biel, Switzerland 2007, by Val Denham and Black Sun Productions is available as a download only on the Black Sun Productions website http://www.anarcocks.com/ or through their MySpace. This is a really fantastic album with 6 extra studio tracks. Does anyone want to release this album as a proper C.D.? Contact me through MySpace if you do.
Out very soon on Somnimage is the legendary Death and Beauty Foundation album. Recorded in 1982, this never before heard album has been re mastered and enhanced from the original master tapes. At this point in time the Death and Beauty Foundation were Andrew McKenzie of the Hafler Trio and myself. I can tell you that this could be the weirdest most peculiar album ever released! It makes the Residents sound like Take That………..what was I on!!! Oh yeah…….cheap Tennants Super lager as I recall………
I'm still buggering about with the Val Denham solo album called "Titania" as I keep adding and subtracting to the songs. This monster is tuning into Val Denham's "Smile"! All I can say, is that it is the best thing that I have ever done.
A new film called "Crack Willow" has my "Rain Cloud" song from the Somnimage compilation album called "Radio Interference from Unknown Orgasm" as the one song on the end credits of the film. Coming out very soon.

I know that I've already put this review of Val Denham and Oli Novadnieks album "Raw Powder" on my MySpace but for those of you who haven't read it, I think it is pretty darned good!
"A catastrophic, divinely channelled music avalanche, Val Denham and Oli Novadnieks have splattered a sprawling, jolting "rock and roll" album with no pop aspirations, which still manages a pop sound. The duo strut with meaty guitar riffs, slicing atomic solos, psychedelic space melancholy, hyper futuristic jazz ballads, street hustle talk and blazing poetic language. Raw Powder is one of the best rock and roll albums you've never heard.
An enduring renaissance spirit, Val Denham has been a shaker and fellow visionary in the U.K. since the late 1970s. He's probably most recognizable for doing striking cover art for Marc Almond and Throbbing Gristle. Val and Oli have been making music since the 1980s frequently opening up for bands like Psychic TV and Einsturzende Neubauten. Val Denham is responsible for most of the instrumentation including vocals, sampling and abstract guitar. Oli Novadnieks provides most of the fierce rhythm and laser surgery guitar soloing. The duo makes a racket more intense then any rock band.
The album sounds like a maniacal dash through a post punk kaleidoscope shattered then reassembled without genre codifications. Occasionally, the duo resembles early Royal Trux's lo-fi haze or Chrome's sci-fi dystopia, yet overall the duo are their own beast. The production often goes into the red while the searing and/or stuttering guitars are up front in the mix. Though overdubs abound, the album has a natural live feel. With messy, venomous pride, Raw Powder (what Iggy missed out on to call Raw Power) sprawls to 24 song bursts. Every song is not essential, though what is astounding is the duo's unrestrained creativity even if it wanders dangerously close to black holes.
"My Hangover" sounds exactly what one would not want to hear with a massive splitting hangover. Overdriven guitars slash and slam with stuttering riffing. The lyrics tackle real life annoyances with painful humour with lines like "Turn the TV off /its starting to make sense."
Ugly, claustrophobic and beautiful, "Judas Fish" seethes with ricocheting endless razor sharp guitars and a galloping drum machine rhythm struts till catapulting to space. Like many other swift surprises constantly expanding the album's essence, the song ends on a ghostly, beatific organ coda. "At Least I'm Alive" comes across like tiny sounding spy movie music via splattered post punk recorded in a junk shop. Muted guitar riff shambles forward with metal bucket percussion. Vocals are tinged with an amphetamine urgency which contrasts with the sledgehammer guitar freak out interludes.
Truly silly and almost embarrassing, "Welcome to The Asylum" blows a pungent whiff of '80s cheese. The awful drum production features that decade's hollow mechanical percussive production. Vocals are wrapped in corny flang/chorus effects. Unfortunately, this could be a stand in for an Alice Cooper '80s out take.
Emotional, "Do You Know Who I Am" is transcendent pop music one will never hear on the radio. Strange off kilter ethnic percussion contrasts with the major guitar and vocal progression. Lyrically the song is a simple plea against selfishness. Lines like "do you know who I am/ do you care how I feel right now/ or are you so wrapped up in yourself/ you've forgotten who I am?" sound like plea and accusation simultaneously. Denham is aware that even simple emotions are complex.
So many good songs exist on the fiery, punchy album that they all cannot be talked about, though at least a few more deserve mentions. Shimmering with glass-like, jazz guitar chords, "All Change" takes post-surrealist lyrical detours describing city transportation. Bizarre and gleefully uncomfortable, "The Real World" comes across as a complete deeply personal rewrite of Pere Ubu's "Real World." Raw Powder also contains a hidden track which is complete overdrive mayhem. Upping the album's idiosyncrasies, one has to rewind the CD backwards from the first song to get to the hidden song, at least on regular stereos.
Raw Powder should stand essential for any rock fool for it shows how such a worn and tattered music genre co-opted boundless times for exploitive mainstream principles can be reinvigorated. The album rolls mean and truly deviant flooded with charisma. One should hope Val and Oli do another album!
9/10 (Writer: Matthew D. Proctor spends his days and nights living out the realities of CIA truth serum experiments. He resides in Stone Mountain, Georgia warding off despondent confederate soldiers while tragically playing a six string banjo.)

Ooh! See………… "An enduring renaissance spirit"!!! Gosh, I think that I'm going to blush……..So anyhoo, my sick little monkey's, until next time unless I see you in hamsterdam, it's tara for now from Valhalla, Stalker the silent killer puffy cat sometimes called George Alagya for the simple reason that we like to say the name and the wonder girl of fluffy pink cuddly bunny hopping softness called the wonder Gail xxxxxxxxxx