Here is a little live take of us all singing the Ballad Of Hawkwood

There are loads of photos knocking about which I will post as they land in my inbox.

Barbara took this one of me emerging from the gimp-like vocal booth after the last take of the sessions and was able to email it to me straight away from her hi tech new phone so I thought I would post it up now.

a bit of fun in one take with two of my guitar students – not quite sure why it goes out of sync but hey… this is not hollywood…

i think this song is going to be the first track on my next album. happy days.

oh and you can download it free from here as long as you give a copy to your mum – http://www.robingrey.com/mp3/younger.mp3

Joseph’s in the forest looking for the man that they call Peter.
I am in the bathroom looking for the marbles that I’ve lost.
The pig if flew out of the window, landing deftly in the garden.
Elly is in Hampstead desparately hunting for some moss.

I don’t like your fashion business, mr.
I don’t like those drugs that keep you looking so thin.
I don’t like your fashion business, mr.
I don’t need no cream to give me younger looking skin.

Ruth is down in southern spain, talking to my long long twin brother.
I just washed my eyelids and hung my blue coat high upon a cross.
The fish and spoon returned with plans for getting married in the autumn.
Jakob’s leaving puddles in the bathroom for the bugs to skate across.

Making sense of wedsnesday is only rivalled by making sense of tuesday.
Tuesday’s only rivalled by monday and perhaps sunday too.
A drink, a fuck, some luck and maybe we might keep the boat a floating.
Patching up the scars with some cardboard and some karma just might do.

Two of my songs, ‘These Days’ and ‘Shakes And Shudders’ are featured on the ‘welcome to modifythevan’ compilation just released by my label modifythevan. You can hear and download it from Jamendo – http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/39356.

With beautiful cover art by Caitlin Hinshelwood and featuring the music of  Blue Swerver, Madelaine Hart, Jonny Berliner and Richard Godwin, it is well worth a listen if you want to discover some great new artists.

My favourite take of the day was this cover of ‘Golden Brown’ by The Stranglers which I have uploaded for your listening pleasure here – http://www.robingrey.com/mp3/goldenbrown.mp3

I am hoping to do much more live recording work like this. Capturing a live performance with an ensemble is such a different experience to over dubbing instruments in my little studio!

Christian Lewcock – Percussion and Backing Vocals

Iain Macleod – Banjo and Backing Vocals

Barbara Bartz – Violin

Dean Firth – Electric Bass

After following some intriguing big arrows from Broadway Market in London Fields I randomly came across an awesome art exhibition back in December called ‘These Songs Were Begun One Winter’ which featured the work of a very talented lady called Caitlin Hinshelwood and some of her equally talented friends.

The exhibition was inspired by a poem of the same name by Brian Patten and has in turn inspired a song which I have just recorded also of the same name – These Songs Were Begun One Winter.mp3.

The poem can be found in Brian Patten’s Collected Love Poems (published by Harper Perennial). Here is the link to buy it from Amazon – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Collected-Love-Poems-Brian-Patten/

Caitlin will hopefully be doing some illustrations for modifythevan’s website and perhaps even some artwork for me in the future. Happy days. You can see more of her work at

http://www.caitlinhinshelwood.co.uk and http://whenthisyousee.blogspot.com/

Lyrics

This song was begun underneath the thumb
Of one who’s thickened by the cold
Listless, longer, bolder than perhaps he ought to be
Forgive quiet and then lie down here lengthways on the floor
Hoping that the blood with flow again

Easily forgot, what was lifted first felt
An anchor to the blood
Howling at the moon as the stars are falling fast
Leaves Wind Earth and Rain
We look forward to look back

These songs were begun one winter
On a window thick with frost her finger drew
A map of all possibilities

Robin Grey – I Love Leonard Cohen – modvan008

buy cd – £6.00
download free from Jamendo

1 – I Love Leonard Cohen
2 – Before The Apple Falls
3 – The Winter Blues
4 – Shakes And Shudders
5 – Chip Shop

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Dean did the final mix of my album back in January. He is an amazing musician, engineer and producer who I am very happy to be working with again.

Dean plays classical guitar on the track as well as pointing microphones and looking after EQ, mixing and other dark sound engineering arts which baffle me…

Download – Make Believe (Roses From Africa).mp3

The Arcola Theatre in Dalston have been kind enough to let me take over their foyer this coming Sunday for a little mini-launch of my new cd titled ‘I Love Leonard Cohen’.

Music will start at 6pm with a set from the wonderful Madelaine Hart (http://www.myspace.com/madelainehart) – I have just finished recording her ace debut cd and she has contributed some lovely backing vocals to ‘I Love Leonard Cohen’.

I will be on around 7pm and will be joined by Iain and Geri, wielding banjo, dulcimer, bass, percussion toys, violin and other things with strings… we will be done by 8pm so it is not too late for a school night or a cross London trip!

You can download the mp3 of ‘I Love Leonard Cohen’ here – http://www.robingrey.com/mp3/iloveleonardcohen.mp3 – please practice the outro backing vocals so we can all have a nice big sing-a-long on sunday

Sunday, November 2, 2008
6:00pm – 8.00pm – cost £5/£2 concs
The Arcola, 27 Arcola Street, Dalston, London, UK E8 2DJ

Be well

Robin