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We need interviewees for November tour video blog.
To help mark the 20th anniversary re-release of A Weapon Called The Word the Levellers are filming a documentary when they tour the UK in November. The band have enlisted the help of ex -Chumbawamba vocalist turned film-maker Dunstan Bruce. Dunstan will be on tour with the Levellers and will video blog several short clips each day on tour which will then be uploaded to Youtube. The clips will also appear on http://www.aweaponcalledtheword.com and will be posted daily on Facebook. The word blogmentary works well as the best description!
The Levellers have been performing their songs with social and political commentary for over two decades now. During their career the Levellers have been instrumental in organising opposition to the Criminal Justice Bill and have played countless benefit shows from Anti Nazi rallies to, most recently, performing at the Love Hope Strength foundation show at Rhuddlan Castle in aid of cancer support.
One of the aims of recording the blogumentary is to give a mouthpiece to the people and organisations in the towns they visit on this tour. Dunstan and band members will interview/record interesting articulate, passionate people about the subjects and causes that they are fighting for. This can be anything from local grass roots activism to international politics.
To make this project work we have to set up most of the interviews in advance with an organised time and place, most probably in or near the venue where the band are playing. The time for recording will most likely be early afternoon before the band’s sound-check. Please remember that the interviews will need to be short and concise to work in the video blog format.
If you are interested in taking part and getting your message or cause across to a wider audience please email tourblog@aweaponcalledtheword.com In the subject title please put your name and town that you are from. In the body of the email write a short piece about what you want to talk about and give us your mobile phone number. We will contact the most relevant submissions to confirm the interviews by early November.
There are now two clips available to see shot by Dunstan at a recent show in Greenwich, London at http://www.aweaponcalledtheword.com
The website also has the November tour dates and pre-order links for the digitally re-mastered “A Weapon Called The Word” 2010 CD & DVD.
Extra album notes from bassist Jeremy Cunningham - April 2010.
1. World Freakshow
Alan had this title kicking around for ages. I loved it and was constantly badgering him to write the song but he never got round to it. So I nicked the title and wrote some words to go with it. At that time the Berlin Wall was coming down, Pol Pot was chased out of Cambodia and it was becoming “cool” to be environmentally aware when previously all green issues were mercilessly ridiculed. The world was becoming smaller thanks to computer technology but in late 1989, when we wrote the song, all of these things appeared to merge into one confusing and apocalyptic vision. Changing times...”Freakshow” wrote itself!
2. Carry Me
Mark came into rehearsals one day with the song pretty much done. A friend of Jon’s called Matthew played harmonica originally before Alan joined the group. The song is about the different paths that friends can end up on and the bonds between those people. “Carry Me” took ages to record as Charlie and myself couldn’t get the finer points of the songs “swing” time. As we were attempting to record the whole album live there was plenty of tension around the “take 52” mark!
3. Outside/Inside
We wrote this in a little village hall in Dorset. I wrote most of the words, with Alan contributing some of the lines too. We used to watch floods of commuters and be grateful it wasn’t us! So we came up with this urban love song about a couple caught up in the rat race and looking for a way out.
4. Together All The Way
This was the last song we wrote for “Weapon” and again Mark arrived with most of the elements already completed. We gave the tune an ambitious arrangement and like “Carry Me” nerves were getting raw as the takes rolled on and on. Alan was freaking out about a mandolin solo, although he had written it, and eventually walked out of the studio for a week to chill out. The band carried on recording and when Alan finally came back we got the song almost at once.
5. Barrel Of The Gun
I wrote the lyrics for this song after seeing three alleged IRA members being shot to death on Gibraltar while apparently trying to plant a car bomb. The suspects were shot in the back as they ran away. I wasn’t the only person watching this on UK TV – the incident sparked a major inquiry at the time (1988). So our song tells that story, with a subtext that violence is never the answer to anything. This version is acoustic with producer, Phil Tennant, playing guitar and Mark singing. The usual full band version is in the BBC session “bonus” tracks.
6. Three Friends
Mark had written this one before we started the band. The song is way ahead of its time in terms of global awareness and climate change, the song charters the decline and industrial destruction of our planet. The Three Friends of the title are the Earth, Sun and Moon – the latter two watching as the former is being poisoned by its own inhabitants. The backwards speech at the start of the track is Jon quoting “Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom, and writers in its defense! The times are auspicious. Your labours have not been in vain. Tremble all ye oppressors of the world! Take warning all ye supporters of slavish governments and slavish hierarchies. You cannot hold the world in darkness. Struggle no longer against increasing light and liberality. Restore to mankind their rights; and consent to the correction of abuses, before they and you are destroyed together” which was taken from the English Dissenting preacher Richard Price.
7. I Have No Answers
This was written at the same time as “Outside/Inside” in a little village hall just outside of Chard in Dorset. We were lodging with old friends – punks and travellers, listening to The Subhumans a lot. “I Have No Answers” was an attempt to sum up the Levellers ideology in 3 minutes! The misery of Thatcher’s Britain and the general apathy of too many broken people. It’s a rallying call for the DIY ethic.
8. No Change
The clue is in the title! It’s almost a folk answer to the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Mark arranged the final version taking the best bits of a couple of his previous songs. As usual Jon wrote the tune. I was listening in the control room as he and Mark recorded this version straight to tape. Sent shivers up my spine. A proper moment!
9. Blind Faith
This track went through more incarnations than any other on the abum. Mark had parts of it written just before we set off on a gruelling club and uni tour in autumn ’89. Alan & Jon jammed out the main tune in dressing rooms all around the country. The final arrangement was only reached in the days immediately before we went to record the album. It is one of the very few songs that the band arranged whilst on tour.
10. The Ballad Of Robbie Jones
Alan wrote this track before he was in the group. It is a melancholy song about a friend of his who went off to fight Argentina over the Falkland Isles in 1982. It was always an acoustic song and was actually recorded after one of our many late night visits to the local boozer. The band and studio crew all joined in ‘playing’ whatever they had to hand.
11. England My Home
This was one of the first songs that we wrote together as a band. It was always the opening track for our early live shows too. As soon as I heard Jon play his fiddle part I knew that this track was going to be special. It’s an example of breaking musical rules; the verses are louder than the choruses and instead of building to the climax it fades out toward the end. It’s all about a love of the country but a hatred of nationalism, green fields and tower blocks.
12. What You Know
This is the first song that Mark and I ever wrote together – angry lyrics examining modern neurosis and the feeling of alienation in your own back yard set to an almost traditional folk backing. The fiddle and mandolin tune in the middle is an old Blue Mountain reel called “June Apple”, or rather Jon’s take on it. He had also learned to play tin whistle and Mark the banjo for the final play-out. “What You Know” was usually our live closer and the hardest of all to record without the usual chaos of audience participation. But, eventually, after much arguing with the producer it came together quite quickly.
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