All That Numbs You #1, 2013
Welcome to Bamtree!
To find the quaint village of Bamtree take the M27 to the Kennelworthy exit. Kennelworthy’s a small village built around a main road. After a mile take the narrow lane between the chemical factory and the dump. Drive slowly or you’ll miss the turning, although perhaps not the cloying aroma of slurry. At the end of the lane, where all around you is barren fields and abandoned farm machinery you will find a sludgy indistinct track bordered by stubble and broken brick. Follow it to the top of Starvation Hill, which is often crowned by a miasma of lazy insects. If your windscreen wipers can cope, on the other side of the hill you will be able to see an ancient road, built on the bones of our ancestors and surfaced with unwanted Robbie Williams CDs. Turn left and keep driving and you can avoid the whole sorry mess. Turn right and you’re on Main Street. It no longer connects to any other highway, sealing off the Bamtree community from a grateful world. You’ve arrived. Good luck!
– The Official Tourist Guide to Bamtree (1986)
All That Numbs You #2, 2013
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All That Numbs You is the final track on Thomas Feiner and Anywhen’s 2008 album (actually a reissue with tweaks), The Opiates Revised. It’s an extraordinary piece of work and as far as I know their only release. It’s dark and loping (possibly injured) and yearning and mournful. And I haven’t stopped playing it since it was released. Unfortunately, it’s quite difficult to get hold of – it was something of a lost classic before it was spruced up and now it’s a lost classic once more. Anyway, don’t take my word for it, listen to the track here. You might also want to listen to Dinah and the Beautiful Blue.
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The Future Is Papier Mâché 
I love #2
Thanks very much, Kathryn. Glad you like it – I pass this building every day.
breathtaking photography in the Bamtree entry…beautiful!
Thank you very much!
That first one is really striking
Thank you, James.
I love all of them. If I posted #2, nobody would say a word within my earshot. Privately, they’d sigh. “On you”, it looks profound… Chuckle… Chuckle… I do like it. I’m taken with the first one and the last one though. And the blurb from the tourist brochure. Thanks for the intro to Thomas Feiner. This is altogether, a really interesting post. My kind of stuff here.
🙂 Thanks very much, George – glad I got away with #2. Glad you like the post – if you like the tracks here, TF is well worth investigating.
Chuckle, chuckle… Yes. I do like the tracks very much. Thanks!
These images are a perfect accompaniment for the song. Love that song. Thomas Feiner is a completely new artist for me. Thanks for the suggestion. Overall sounds to me bit like Peter Murphy meets Nick Drake. Also love the Siren Songs. Great post.
Thanks very much, Terry. He’s one of those artists where I wonder why he isn’t huge (but then people probably said the same about Nick Drake when he was alive). I hadn’t thought about Peter Murphy – know some of his solo work, (but mainly as a member of Bauhaus) and the voice is definitely similar, especially on Dust (which I’m now going to play 🙂 ).
The usual magic images from you but extra special today because I clicked on the 2 Thomas Feiner and Anywhen links… and oh, wow… I think I’ll spend the rest of the morning clicking on the others 🙂
Thanks very much, EllaDee. Yes, TF’s great, but be careful his songs are very difficult to shake off. 🙂
Interesting. What are those heads?
Thanks, Shimon. They are artificial shrunken heads in the window of a shop that specialises in all things macabre – it’s on Charing Cross Road in Central London. The road used to be famous for its bookshops, but there are only a few left now.
Sorry to hear that they’ve moved from books to shrunken heads.
I’ve seen those heads! Love the bus shot, and I’m still laughing at the tourist info
Yes, it’s a funny shop that one. Really macabre stuff, and the bloke that works in there looking suitably gloomy.
Wow Richard, some heavy footsteps in these suburban rains. Absolutely superb post, battered soul or otherwise!
Thanks so much, Patti! I really like “battered soul” – that’s a great phrase! Like something you buy in a psychological/ spiritual fish and chip shop.
What a post, Richard. Sometimes, this time,
you really blow my socks off.
Thanks so much, Ashley. That’s so nice to hear. Wow!
Well it’s true, Richard, I assure you. You are in my list of top five bloggers. 🙂
Oh, wow! Thanks very much, Ashley! That’s very nice to hear. You are also in mine. Thanks! 🙂
All great shots. Is that snow in the second shot? Love the weird heads in the third shot, a little creepy.
Thanks very much, Stevie. The second shot is of a puddle – the snow effect is tarmac.
Cool. Looks great
Love that last image! Great series!
Thanks very much, Jennifer! The heads reside in a funny little shop that specialises in the macabre.
Shadflies and shrunken heads are a definite knock-out! Love this quirky kind of thing…
Thanks very much. It’s an odd little shop.
Great mix of images again! I love the images in the reflection – one of your great styles – and the building reflection is a nice touch too! And, of course, one of your great portraits! 😀 Why Bamtree, though?
Thanks so much, Richard! 🙂 Ah, Bamtree, Bamtree… it was called something entirely different for a long time and then Jr kept saying the word over and over – he’s very good at inventing words. And I thought it sounded like an English place name so I pinched it. 🙂
Haha… Nice! 😀
Really like these Richard..particularly no.2 – don’t know if my thinking was influenced by the title but it feels to me like some kind of defeated broken-ness.. heavy, but light and vulnerable as snowflakes somehow..in the dark, trying to find form..
That’s such a great way of putting it – thanks, Cath! Yes, it does have that feel – I like to think of it disappearing into static.
Oh yes static, I can see that too..I think I warbled a little there, sorry, I get overexcited 🙂
Not at all – thought it was a great comment 🙂
What a fantastic post. An art experience – music, images, words. Amazing.
Thanks so much, Karen. What a lovely compliment!
Bamtree–brilliant! 😀 These photographs all go extremely well together.
🙂 Thanks very much.
Oh, wow! Great set. I’m drawn in to every image and word. I especially like #2.
Thanks very much! I’m really glad you like it. #2 is my fave here too – it’s a modern apartment building with a retail unit on the ground floor – I’ve walked past it every day since it was built. It’s so familiar that I barely register it, so it was nice to “rescue” its image.
Very intriguing sequence. 🙂