Cal Egan

Tales

  • Eric Wheelbarrow III – The Suns of Albert

    Eric Wheelbarrow the Third is the absurd tale of an entitled young man who sees the truth of things after imbibing magic mushrooms during a game of golf.

    As far as I can remember (with a memory like a polka dot shirt), the idea was to do a toytown-esque E.P, which became the extraordinary release “Gypsy Brae” (one person even commented on it). For non-Burgers, Gypsy Brae is a grassy hill, along the promenade from Silverknowes to Granton, where there was a well kent fare in north Embra every year. To go to it, felt a lot like being at the fare that Ringo works at in the Michael Apted film – Stardust. I’m not sure if Gypsy Brae fare still happens.

    My songwriting contribution to Gypsy Brae – Eric Wheelbarrow III, is a dive into 60s-inspired pop-art. It’s recorded in mono, uses treble heavy guitars, old Italian organs, free-bass, seagulls, close harmonies, and even a baroque psychedelic motif!

    The lyrics are insightful, a tad bolshie, but poetically playful too. Much of the song was written on the loo – bright acoustics, comfy seat, liberating. It came together very quickly, ah hem, apart from the introduction and instrumental. In those bits, I’m trying to de-construct and rebuild the A chord on the guitar, to loosen it up, to get free. I do this on Rays In The Garden as well, going up the fretboard in an open E and down in an expansive elementary A. There’s something magical about working out melodic patterns like this. Once you’ve unlocked the path, you’re bending and suspending time, your fingers bubbling away with their own unique energy. It’s aural voodoo. Boogie is like that – John Lee Hooker, a master. This song isn’t boogie though, it’s Kinksy, PsyPop Kink.

    A little more background.

    Ronnie, an old friend now passed, bless him, whilst merrily pissed outside The Guildford Arms, grunted,

    “Aye, Eric Wheelbarrow the Third!”.

    I can’t remember what we were talking about. I’m sure someone said Eric Wheelbarrow the Third is a character from an Irn Bru advert of yore. It’s beyond my ken, but the name stuck.

    The internet/AI/mess knows owt about it, other than spewing out idiotic machine-code answers.

    That makes it a hidden gem, pregnant with possibility.

    Ultimately, The Suns of Albert are earthy, electric folksters, out there on the cusp.

    Over to Picasso – Computers are useless, they only give you answers.

    The Old Guitarist - Pablo Picasso
    The Old Guitarist – Pablo Picasso (late 1903–early 1904)

    Fore!

    Chords: A, G, D, G, A, F, C, D, G, A, F, C, E, Esus

    Lyrics

    Eric Wheelbarrow the Third
    Emotionally green
    Socks and sweater lemon curd

    Eric Wheelbarrow the Third
    Son of the nouveau riche
    A microfiche absurd

    Daddy’s a merchant
    His seed good stock
    Down the club
    He shows off everything he’s got
    Must be professional
    A handshake firm, but
    Best be careful what you yearn – for(e)

    Eric Wheelbarrow the Third
    Mind of a schoolboy
    Pornographic connoisseur
    Eric Wheelbarrow the Third
    Hoists the legion’s eagle
    Loves the regal Old Bird

    At the 19th
    He braves the dare
    Swallows Mother Nature’s
    Mirrored silverware
    Deep in his bunker
    A holy One
    Score infinite
    As he drives – into the sun

    Instrumental

    Eric Wheelbarrow the Third
    Soaring like an albatross
    On Calvados – my word

    Eric Wheelbarrow the Third
    Happy in the out-of-bounds
    Now found beyond the herd.

    Song dedicated to Ronald Andrew Macfarlane (RIP).

    Liquid Loops by The Joshua Light Show:
    The Joshua Light Show – Liquid Loops (1969)

    Supporting music is life support:

    Buy 24-bit/44.1kHz .WAV of Eric Wheelbarrow III for £2 on Bandcamp

    Written, produced and recorded by The Suns Of Albert in a Seafield flat on a Mac Book Pro (2012), an Mbox 2 Pro A/D, and Adobe Audition CS6.

  • Randolph Cliff – The Suns of Albert

    A sorrowful contemplation on the pursuit and arc of love.

    Randolph Cliff

    Randolph Cliff is a corner block of flats overlooking the Water of Leith on the western edge of Edinburgh’s New Town. If you peer over the heightened parapet of the Dean Bridge there’s a sitting statue of a troubled-looking sailor staring up at you from one of the gardens. I took this as inspiration for the track. I read somewhere that he and another 160 people committed suicide, jumping from the bridge. That’s why they heightened it and put spikes on top, in the 1800s.

    The song mentions a few other places around Edinburgh – St Bernard’s Well on the Water of Leith, St Margaret’s Loch in Holyrood Park, and The Citadel in Leith. Landscapes I’d been in love in.

    The recording is really quite beautiful. The guitars play to one another, there’s no bass, and just a single bass drum beat, that switches to the off-beat on the choruses. Lots of space. Lace-like strings appear from the ether, as do a koto, and a sombre ukulele in the closing few bars. Occasional finger bells resonate higher frequencies at start, middle and end.

    Listen to Randolph Cliff above

    For the main vocal we patched the mic through the effects unit of an old portable studio. It transformed the feel, akin to pressing a sound-like John Lennon button. I seem to have pulled my soul out of the depths for this vocal. I was deeply in love when I wrote it, and channelling 80s Hall and Oates in parts. For once it feels authentic. Underneath, Steve talks a breathy, bassy drone which adds more intensity to the piece.

    I think we really bagged this one.

    The finger-picked chords are C⁶, Fmaj⁷, B♭, Dm⁷, G, Am.

    Lyrics

    Oh Randolph Cliff
    Perched upon the edge of town
    Prince of the abyss, below

    Oh Randolph, Randolph
    The river flows beneath the bridge
    No matter where you are it is
    Forever changing
    A mirror and a thousand million songs

    She drank from St Bernard’s Well
    A potion profound
    Hand in hand ’round St Margaret’s Loch
    He thought he was found

    Oh Randolph Cliff
    Contemplating separation
    Cutting himself adrift, again

    Randolph
    Will you ever reach the shore
    Heed the word for more than
    Just a day or two?

    In a garden ‘neath The Citadel
    Their love grew in the sun
    Midst the dark of a New Year’s Day
    The weight was a tonne

    The universe is nested
    In fingertips
    That touch the earth, the air
    The sunlight in her hair

    She drank from St Bernard’s Well
    A potion profound
    Hand in hand ’round St Margaret’s Loch
    He thought he had found her

    Supporting music is life support:

    Buy 24-bit/44.1kHz .WAV of Randolph Cliff for £2 on Bandcamp

    Written, produced and recorded by The Suns Of Albert in a Seafield flat on a Mac Book Pro (2012), an Mbox 2 Pro A/D, and Adobe Audition CS6.

  • Talkin’ Woody Guthrie Blues – The Suns of Albert

    I’d been listening to Woody Guthrie on a loop, beguiled by his troubadour cowboy lifestyle, popular songs with socialist themes, and conspicuous anti-fascist stance. Who would have thought he’d be so relevant again.

    Woody Guthrie by Lester Balog (1941)

    Talkin’ Woody Guthrie Blues is my attempt at emulating Woody’s guitar technique.

    The lyrics are vignettes, glimpses of sensitivities, situations, retrospections from early teenage wilderness and awakening, through family dysfunction, travelling revelations and tragedies to acceptance and awareness of things as they are.

    The recording was made, perhaps 12 or 13 years after writing it. I was adamant that it should be recorded live, to have an authentic folky mood about it. So, apart from the sparse backing vocals it’s just me with my old beat-up, cheap Westfield acoustic, singing and playing the song through SM58s at mouth and soundhole. It probably took four or five goes before getting adequate levels. To make the guitar sound brighter I used a plectrum, but usually finger pick it. I could play it better but that’s not really the point.

    The chords and finger-picking are C, F, C, G, C.

    Lyrics

    We jumped into the river
    Beyond the secret pool
    The crumbling bridge above us
    And the waters sparkling jewels
    I was drowning
    Whilst screaming like a mute
    But when I came up for air
    You were gone
    I can’t dispute

    I’m lying on my bed
    In the depth of Wintertime
    And all that once was shining
    Is coated in grime
    Oh lies and death
    True as the burning sun
    Less easy to forget
    When all’s been said and all is done

    An old man reads my palm
    In a shack up in the mountain
    My head’s in a rain-soaked cloud
    His wisdom like the fountain
    I don’t know who I am
    I can’t see the way I’m going
    But just now I’m sitting here
    For tomorrow, there’s no knowing

    Jimmy’s leaning out the window
    Now he’s lying on the rails
    His life will never be the same
    And mine will seem so frail
    But the little man
    Whose smile engulfs the world
    Kept my head above the water
    And in a shell, put a pearl

    There is no meaning to this song
    The journey’s what it is
    I want to get back home again
    There’s the bus I’m going to miss
    Oh beautiful eyes
    And hands to heal the pain
    Walk me through the long valley
    Show me love that never wains

    Supporting music is life support:

    Buy 24-bit/44.1kHz .WAV of Talkin’ Woody Guthrie Blues for £2 on Bandcamp

    Graphic by Colm Mac Aodhagáin.

    Written, produced and recorded by The Suns Of Albert in a Seafield flat on a Mac Book Pro (2012), an Mbox 2 Pro A/D, and Adobe Audition CS6.

  • You Sold Out – The Suns of Albert

    It was 2017 and I wanted to write a song with just two chords.

    Sitting in my cousin’s lounge in Bentley Heath, Birmingham, with her son’s beginners classical guitar in hand, I began messing around with the elementary E shape. Rolling it up to an open F# (with the thumb on the bass note) and back down to E. Anyone could learn to do it in their own way.

    We’d just returned from a day trip to the Cotswolds and I was in an Arts & Crafts head space. Certain members of my family (I’m included in this gypsy idyll) have always had a fascination with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, and so, whilst staring at a pair of ornate curtains, the first line came to me – ‘Wrap me in material, endlessly elaborate, contented by the detail, a design of the beautiful’. It all flowed from there. It didn’t take long to write.

    When the three of us came to record ‘You Sold Out‘, each brought something evocative to the session; the piano is filmic, it feels like being on a rainy moor up North (down South from here); the bass is meandering, pulsating, conversational. There’s a gorgeous yet plaintive guitar motif in the last verse.

    I like the instrumental break – a spacious, simmering broth of synth and echo, sparse piano, and jangle-ska, held together, betwixt, swaying chords and a sweet-rolling backbeat.

    It’s pretty clear what the song’s about. Listening back to it reminds me of when I was a student, working at a huge Royal Mail sorting office, where industrial relations were often strained. On a number of occasions we walked off the shop floor due to the oppressive machinations of newly-appointed managers who were ‘on the turn’, harassing workers who were once their equal. These ‘downing of tools’ moments were my first experiences of the power of organised labour. There was a tremendous comradery, even beauty about it. The heart of a movement, alive, refusing a dehumanising system. I remember working an early shift the morning after one of these walkouts, as I strolled down one of the isles of the gargantuan workspace, someone was playing El Condor Pasa over the Tannoy – ‘I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail. Yes I would, If I could, I surely would. I’d rather be a hammer than a nail. Yes I would, If I only could, I surely would.’ It was like being in a perfectly realised film scene.

    Returning to the songwriting process. As if exploring a multitude of ways that melody can be layered over two chords, the feel of You Sold Out ends up somewhere different from where it began – bolder, but ultimately unresolved.

    I wince a little about some of the vocal delivery. Like many singers I’ve read about, at this point in time, unsure of the quality of my voice. In any event, recordings like all artworks, are abandoned when you’ve taken them as far as you can at that moment in time. The embryo of a new idea or direction gestates.

    The last note of the song is the sweet tone of RoSa G. More about her later…

    You Sold Out Lyrics

    E           F#
    Wrap me in material
    Endlessly elaborate
    Contented by the detail
    A design of the beautiful
    I keep my faith with dreamers
    Make my beating heart
    The treasure chest
    Write words of just fraternity
    And roll them through the printing press

    There’s no doubt
    That you sold out
    That you sold us
    Down the river
    And climbed out
    Your status to flout

    Our master’s worked us to the grave
    They legalised iniquity
    We downed our tools en masse
    And walked away from their economy

    Otherworldly instrumental

    So we organised in secret
    Sewed banners proud, bold and bright
    Unfurled them on The Commons
    Hoisted high
    Up in the light

    But there’s no doubt
    They sold out
    They sold us
    Down the river
    They climbed out
    Their status to flout
    Yeah, yeah, yeah

    Supporting music is life support:

    Buy 24-bit/44.1kHz .WAV of You Sold Out for £2 on Bandcamp

    The video background illustration is from this:

    Walter Crane – The Triumph of Labour (1891)

    Photos were taken by Cara in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh.

    Written, produced and recorded by The Suns Of Albert in a Seafield flat on a Mac Book Pro (2012), an Mbox 2 Pro A/D, and Adobe Audition CS6. Except drum parts – recorded at Banana Row on a Tascam portable recorder.