Years ago, there was a Plot. Whatever did or did not happen, the memory has been trampled down between the pages of our history books, yet another reason for us to forget the weary revolts of our weekly board meetings, number punching recoils, school running backs and forths, and aren’t we glad for it? Any excuse to forget yesterday and to fall into the ‘morrow with swollen eyes and spiked temper heads.

Back then, a gaggle of men attempted to alter the course of their future, and our history. Fearless fools with dreams of revolution? Internal government bodies seeking to manipulate and fix opinion in their favour? Either way, these men sought to persuade their reality to the path they thought it best deserved to travel along. As the celebrated star of this ‘plot’ threw himself from the gallows and broke his body into paralysis, to avoid the inevitable humiliation of punishment, I wonder did he consider the attempt a failure? His dream stamped out days before his plan shook hands with an alternative fate? Or was it actually a success?

You and I will never know. All we do know is what we’ve been told, what they conspire to tell us, and most of that will be moderated by the very men who Fawkes and Co supposedly claimed charge against.

It’s 2011 now, and that moment has long since passed. More conspiracies, more plots, illusion and not so hidden agendas. 2 weeks ago, with this man and that mission on my mind, I dug up a patch of loose soil from my own yard of bones, and breathed life into a song that still raises both a smile in me, as do thoughts of old Fawkes.

The Fire Brigade was originally available, scrappy and symbolic of my then frame of mind, on the first Beast Reality release, a collection I called Old Books, Broken Bands and Other Little Treasures.

Here it stands again, in 2011, still scrappy, still symbolic of the frames in my mind, and perhaps closer to what my dream originally intended it to be. Re-recording this song also gave me fitting excuse to blindly throw myself into another previously untapped medium – cartoon animation.

You’ll be able to download this song from iTunes and Amazon over the next day or two, as soon as the spark has caught and the flames have been kindled.  However, I’d like you to download it right now, and you can do so by following this link … BUY THE FIRE!

It would be amazing if all you guys could assist me in promoting this, anyway you can, by either sharing this song and its video with your friends, or any other means you have to hand … let’s see how far we can spread this little fire!

I wish you all a happy Fire Night … stay safe, stay sure of yourself, and always keep a curious eye to possibility of an alternative (point of view).

Forever in flames, your f(r)iend, CroOK.

PS if you fancy reading these words again, here’s a burnt offering.

Halloween was my second single, released exactly six years ago in 2005.  The equally sinister, piano-led Phantom, My Friend and You is the b-side.

No other day like today to give this sickly-sweet song an airing …

Lupen Crook – Halloween by Lupen Crook

If you would like to own a copy, we’ve dug out the last remaining copies of this release, available on CD and 7″ vinyl … follow the links below to get yours.

• BUY HALLOWEEN CD SINGLE
• BUY HALLOWEEN 7″ SINGLE

Stay spooked people.

CroOK  x

PS – tune in tomorrow for some hot-off-the-printing-presses-of-hell details of a brand new release with another seasonal flavour.

Time is a strange thing. Some times too late, other times too soon, but then some times strike with force, exacting, gone in a flash, leaving only a mark where it struck. For those subscribers to this site, this here X marks the spot – follow the trail to find a message from me to you. And for you all, here is the original painting and also the poem created by my good brother The Mrs, both bearing the title ‘Waiting For The Post-Man’.

Leroy Horns is in my opinion one the finest saxophonist in the country. He has been involved with and formed countless bands and musical projects over the years, not to mention the many collaborations in the world of drum ‘n’ bass, reggae, dub-step and all sorts else – far too many to mention or even recall.

I met this guy back in the Tap ‘n’ Tin hey-daze, and he was a crucial member of the short lived mentalism that was ‘Bonzai Reservoir’. A few years later he lent his horn blowing skills to another project, and as both writer and performer is responsible for the bad arse brass lines that found their way onto the ‘Lupen Crook and The Murderbirds’ album ‘Iscariot The Ladder’. He’s also braved a few tours with me over the years, whilst being a regular street performer, magician and general musical whirlwind down in Brighton, the place he now calls home.

Anyhow, just heard he’s released a new EP. Check it out HERE … well worth giving your time and support to this guy. A beautiful weirdo, a true legend.

x

Lupen Crook.

Early September 2010…  I was finalizing the contents of the box-set when something struck me, a strike of light provoked by a comment dAn had made via this website about what the boxsets might contain.

It suddenly dawned on me that despite the rich and hand worked contents that had been plaguing my days for the last few weeks, nearly all was art based.  The only music included was the new album and 7-inch vinyl – both of which would be available in some form or another from other sources. This would not do. Something musically exclusive would have to be included – but what?

I recalled a 15 track demo I’d given Tom, what felt like many moons ago. Selfishly, I now wanted to locate these original demos for personal reasons, the collector-come-ego-maniac within me eager to obtain copies of my own material. After all they were documents of the past, perhaps to be of interest sometime in my future – old of age, reflective and worn by memory.

A panicked and excited hunt began.

Having moved house many times, close to every 6 months for the past 10 years, there are boxes of poorly ordered pictures, paintings, notebooks, loose CDs, cassettes, floppy discs, photographs and crumpled magazine clippings all about my current home. Many more in my Father’s attic and God knows what scattered around my previous haunts come make-shift homes back in Medway.

I began the search with what I had to hand, wading through these haystacks with little hope of finding anything, though find something I did. As if luck was rewarding today’s obsession, one of the last batch of scratched unmarked CD’s that clung to an old spindle turned out to be that very same 15 track CD dAn’s comment had brought to mind. Did I actually give this CD to Tom after all?

Understandably, some of the tracks were corrupt, unlistenable stutters and skips, though enough was still intact to call this preliminarily search a success.

Rather than jumping on a train and bounding around Medway in search of more long lost CDs, I used the same means dAn had used to inspire this hunt, and fired out emails to Jay Allen, Hg, and Cale Wolf, all of whom I knew had either kept safe my material or may have acquired it through some means or another.

Before long, I had over 20 listenable tracks of unrealized material in my possession. As a fitting distraction to the making of box-sets, spurred by brief moments of surprise and nostalgia, I got to compiling Original Sins. Skeleton structures of songs and home recordings I’d long forgotten, discarded or simply damned to hell at the time, and others that by now had developed far beyond how they had started life. Of course there were some unworthy of a place in this present, but others, at least I felt, deserved to be heard by someone other than me as an old and loathsome man.

To me, a fitting breath of fresh air, a revealing naked take on the actual album, and a chance for some songs that were never even considered for the album to make a minor debut in a place where faults and flaws are more welcome than not. As the cover says, “these songs were never meant for public consumption….” but that’s why I reckon it’s important to have given them up . . . .

These first six were the only songs retrievable from the 15 track CD. It was last time I had gone to Canterbury and recorded at Delta Studios with Julian Whitfield. House Martin was briefly worked on during Chris Austin’s time with us, post Iscariot the Ladder, but the band was in the mist of internal disorder, soon to prompt our trip to New York and subsequent shift in direction, desire and line-up.

The existence of these two was unknown to me, versions that Jay Allen, unbeknown to me, had recorded from the sound desk during one of the many open mic nights I used to attend at The Barge in Gillingham. This remains the only recorded version of Bird In Tree, a pleasant discovery.

After returning from New York with fresh fire in our bellies, a week before we headed in Jim Riley’s to record a one day session that would go on to become Great Fears and Curious Predictions EP, we recorded these very rough versions during a quiet afternoon at The Barge, thanks to Jay Allen once again.

This song was first recorded just after the release of Iscariot the Ladder and was even considered for inclusion on the Matthews Magpie EP release. It was deemed unfinished and too scrappy, which I still stand by today. Lyrics that went onto appear in Beauties and Beasts made their first debut here.

The above were recorded and mixed at Cale’s house during 2009, in between recording sessions at Jim Riley’s, all except for the drum tracks which were lifted from a daytime session at Gillingham’s Sunlight Centre. As with Impossible Loss Brigade, Scare Crows and Little Treasure these are my personal experiments into the world of recording, mixing and production. The backbones of Pirate’s Wife and Scissor Kick also formed part of this same episode, though obviously the later two songs were deemed more successful, hence their inclusion on the final album. Chris Garth, of UPCDOWNC, makes an appearance on The Art of Sadness and 13:13 during the same afternoon he made his lovely contributions to Scissor Kick and Scare Crows.

As for The Crooked Man, my obsession with this poem, or should I say my reworking of it, aside from giving way to The Crooked Family concept, was originally intended to be included, in its entirety, during the crazy breakdown in Lest We Connect the Crooked Family. That never happened, but this weird spoken / shouted version remains inherent to this entire period, and so a fitting and twisted finale to this compilation.

Eventually, when it became obvious that demand for the box sets would massively outstrip supply and that time could not be spared to create further boxes, I was persuaded by Hg that we should also make Original Sins available as a “bundle” with The Pros and Cons of Eating Out – exclusively via the website.  We agreed that it should retain its status as a “bonus” CD and not be available separately.  The Pros and Cons is the culmination of the cruel and crooked path that we’ve trodden over the past few years and Original Sins, alongside the previously released EPs in 2009, forms the map that shows you how we got from there to here.

If you made it this far, well done, if not, no worries.

With love, THE croOKed MAN

The MRS and I would have probably spent today walking and talking, definitely drinking heavily, a backhanded celebration of another year alive. We would have likely considered the ridiculousnesses of this world, a place we always felt owed us so much yet had delivered so little, far from the daydreams of our infancy. From the insipid and incestous industries that our trades have a hard time succeeding in, doors appearing locked, always left to our own devilish devices, to the proudly pompous re-thinking of all the philosophies that came before us, all the while caressing each other’s careless spirits. By the middle of this day, full of pretension and fired orange by a blind kind of arrogance – the type only true poets could ever claim as their own – we’d have agreed our fates and been overwhelmed by a sense of destiny and rightness in all that had ever happened along the way. Come the evening, I have little doubt, we would have reduced to the state of dumb mumbling buffoons, and felt beautiful for it – sniggering idiots, useless, priceless – found children / lost men – pointless ideas trapped in a bizarre theatrical parallel that only hours before had caused such steep anxieties to bubble between us, but now, prompts only laughter and an occasional dry slap of wild abandonment to come shake us from our stupor. Sadly, that cannot be the case today. There is no second best to that kind of connection, that ability to waste away a day without due care or any knowingful consequence. One can only now imagine.

I wrote this song, Blood In, Blood Out, a few days ago and recorded it soon after, late at night, or perhaps early in the morning, drunk and sentimental, blue and lightly inspired. No effort was made to make a performance of it, and so you’ll notice badly fingered chords and unsure vocals throughout, very human mistakes that The MRS and I would have held in its favour, the type of torn edges that perhaps would have formed much of our celebration on this day. I have provided a short film to accompany the song. Hastily edited, similar to how it was originally shot – unplanned and of true amateur standing – it details the last weeks and final days of our residency at that curious place along The Dirty Mile, just by the River Medway, in the summer of 2009 … The Unawarehouse. This is for him, my good brother, The MRS.

Fizzer and his colleague Grace Bell present a regular show on Radio Sunlight, a local community station in Gillingham.  They approached us at the Lounge on the Farm festival over the Summer, asking if the band could come into the studio for an interview and session.  Everyone was enthusiastic, but the logistics of work commitments, London residences and the price of train tickets were against it.  Bluntly, shit got difficult.

We invited Fizzer and Grace down to the Beacon Court to do an interview there.  I also suggested that, as we had such faith in the line-up we’d put on that night, they cover the whole evening and talk to the other bands too.  This they duly did.  In fact, the other bands made a better job of it than we did… circumstances on the night meant that our interview had to be postponed.  Crooked Family being Crooked, etc etc.

Fizzer’s podcast of the night’s interviews is online here.  And what a joy it is.  Dave, we think you’re a cunt too (but we’re glad it was a “proper gig”).  Tomb & co, we await your descent into My Drug Hell with eager interest.  Chris and your fellow Singing Loins… the only decent response is: Grand Godfathers.  We urge you all to listen to this podcast… such a beautiful record of a wonky night.  And the guy at the end…

So, here’s some video footage of the other bands that night.  I did also video Crook & Co, but not for very long.  My muse Stella was calling, there was dancing to be done… Mrs Lucy Langridge encouraged me into the mosh pit and there was pogo dancing of a kind probably most unseemly for a man of my advancing years.  And then afterwards the Fight Folk began in earnest… but that’s not a story we’ll be recounting here.

The Flowing - [title unknown]

The Sans Pareil – Shack Rave

The Singing Loins – Please Take My Scissors Away

The Crooked Family sends its love and respect to The Flowing, The Sans Pareil, The Singing Loins and all who attended.  This night was one of the highlights of our year.  Our first hunt completed, we’re blooded and eager to return to the chase.  We’re already debating venues & line-ups, mixing Crooked concoctions like mad professors crazed on moonshine.  Expect further “Crooked Family Presents…” evenings to come.

Your dysloyal servant… Hg xx

PS – if you want a downloadable MP3 of the podcast to listen to offline, right-click / ctrl-click here.

In other crooked news, my elegant slut of a cat, Sweet-heart, gave birth to 5 kittens, her second litter. One kitten was a little too curious for its own good and sadly failed to make it through the night, its little mouth was as dry as a desert and body still as silence. Depsite Walt Disney Dalmation style rubbing within a towel, there was no saving the poor bugger. I put that one to rest the other morning. Here’s a quick snap of 1 out of the 4 remaining, and by night, very noisy little beasts, who once again have chosen my art corner as their hideaway. Meanwhile I’ve been spending my days writing and recording rough acoustic demos for the follow up to “The Pros and Cons . . .”, – tales of teeth and feet and the possibility of a bright blue light at the end of this tunnel – whilst also considering putting my brush to some canvases for the first time since all this album chaos kicked off. Time will tell how it all pans out. For now, love and luck to you all on this crisp winter day x Yours SINcerely, Lupen Crook.

Strange ways with our band, and Sunday just gone was no exception. 12 hours of intense hilarious hardships and absolute humiliation, all in aid of our latest expedition into the ever wondrous world of film making. On this occasion we offered our good selves up into the able hands of Mr John Bland, who played puppeteer to the cruel to be kind, and Lady Ane Angel, a woman who made quick meals out of me and the now bruised and beaten Murderbirds. Hard to say much more about what actually went on yesterday, but one thing is for certain, it was no day of rest. As for today, well that UNCUT reviewer may have been onto something, because I really do feel like a very naughty boy. More news will follow when we’ve had a chance to recover.

x

CroOK?

Been a crooked old road we’ve staggered along over this last year. Finally, today, we release our album ‘The Pros and Cons of Eating Out‘ on our label Beast Reality Records. You can get the record here, or from other independent and mainstream retailers around the cuntree, otherwise do ye ole download option and let that sharing begin. Hope you enjoy our efforts.

This weekend we lit the fuse, a whole surge of gigs will now follow and that will see us hike around the UK doing our damndest to represent all that is proper and punk rock n roll – our soundtrack to the glorious and gruesome Dysunited Kingdom that we live, love and lose in. Friday just gone we played a warm up at the Flowerpot in Kentish Town, whilst Saturday saw The Crooked Family proudly present an evening of Fight Folk at the Beacon Court in Medway!

‘Twas a splendid weekend of debauchery, where we played the new record in all its filthy glory, and amongst the broken bones, blood and smashed glass, those that came along to the Beacon Court were also treated to fucking brilliant performances by The Flowing, The Singing Loins and The Sans Pareil. Much appreciation to those bands/kindred spirits and everyone who came along and got into the spirit of the evening – you made our night!

Thanks to Phil Dillon for documenting our waywardness… click on the slideshow above to see more.

xxx Mr CroOK?