Cast Members

Patrick Gallagher: Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Double Bass, Keyboards, Flute, Saxophones, Bazouki, Banjo, Harmonica, Whistle, Didgeridoo, Percussion, Household Items.
Gareth Maybury: Drums
Andy Cattanach: Tuba, Bass Trombone, Trombone, Cornet
Gary Taylor: Electric Guitar on “Words”, Jangly Brushes on “Thin Red Line”
Elizabeth & Catherine Gallagher: Voices on “Words” & “Stand Still”
Alasdair Hosking: Jaw Harp on “Hippies”, Voice on “Stand Still”, Mouth Trumpet on “Atlantic Drive”

Gratitude

"Whits gang doon?" Party: This semi-remote seminar was attended by Mr. Gary Taylor, Catman, Tom P. Bennett Esq., Nigel "The Nige" Erskine, and The Mighty Malcolm Maclean, in total compliance with lockdown regulations. To the letter. Thanks guys: great synergy!
Sculptures of Skin was recorded using old cheap stuff wherever possible. My silent PC is made from bits and pieces that I put together, and runs the ultimate operating system: Microsoft Windows XP (Service Pack 2 - Service Pack 3 is still under evaluation by the IrnSole technical support team). 20 years and still going strong. So thank you Bill Gates: one day all computers will be this reliable.
Thanks to Mr Keeling for letting me borrow some saxophones because I don’t have any. Also, the second worst double bass in the world, which still has about 6 inches of chocolate wrappers and chewing gum inside it. Mr Cattanach for helping me in many ways over the years, not least in giving me his old mobo to build my Silent PC. Alasdair for not judging, just making funny noises. Great Harwood Male Voice Choir for teaching me Gwahoddiad. Al the Bird (formerly Al the Veg) for suggesting that Neil Young was a hippy. Isaiah, whoever he or she may be, for surreptitious inspiration which pops out throughout the album. Gary for listening to this stuff till his ears were bleeding. And Joan for her infinite patience and tolerance of my obsessions.

Recording

Recorded at IrnSole Studio, Accrington, and at Mosaic Studios, Accrington.
Produced by Patrick Gallagher and Gary Taylor
Senior Executive Producer Andrew Cattanach

Songs

Green Hills has a little hint of Sibelius 5. I think Schubert sneaked in somewhere. All music and lyrics are mine, except the middle section of The Hippies which is the traditional spiritual "Down By The Riverside". Also The Hippies tune is basically “Michael Row The Boat Ashore”... Which brings us to the other hymns that were butchered in the making of this album:
"Onward Christian Soldiers": Does what it says on the tin. Unfortunately. Particularly discordant when played by the United States Marine Band. Metaphors are dangerous things.
"There is a Green Hill Far Away": Victorian hymn with haunting Horsey melody that personalizes calvary with detail and rather bravely attempts empathy with God. This is sooooo dreary... Reminds me of interminable Sunday mornings sitting catatonic until released by the words “go in peace to love and serve the Lord”
"Gwahoddiad": I joined Great Harwood Male Voice Choir and within a couple of years it was gone. Literally dying out, like many male voice choirs nowadays. Or maybe they just moved and didn't tell me... Masculinity has been redefined these days, and not always in a good way. We came back to this hymn in the last few weeks, and massacred the Welsh language in the process. Sorry Wales!
Faure’s Requiem: Sung it as a child, sung it as an adult. Still listen to it sometimes. Unsurpassable.
...and many, many more!

Words and Stand Still both use part of Humpty's speech in chapter VI of Through The Looking Glass which is no longer copyright. There's glory for you. Words paraphrases Martin Niemöller's famous quote about the bystander effect. Never really a poem, nor even a particular speech, Niemöller seems to have pioneered an early "meme". Since I wrote the song his words have been abused many, many times, often by rightwing fauxpression conspirators, who reverse the meaning and pervert the intent. Humpty would have been very very proud of them.
Miss England uses two recordings of US presidential events, both in the public domain:
Funeral Services for President John F. Kennedy, Public Domain, via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
George W. Bush 911 Address to the nation, Public Domain, via American Rhetoric.com

Album Cover

Toe tag photo and hat photos by Briggsy.
Trees from a selection at Formby photographed by Al Hosking.

No Thanks

...to Niantic and to all my fellow agents in the Resistance for delaying this album for about five years. So adios Refugeman, Floakey, Max Bialystock, Pub Landlord, Stabby Bob, Dreedle, and of course, Colonel Bogey. It is a truth universally achnowledged that no matter how small you slice it, eventually you will run out of cake.

Website Programming Credits

This website uses some of the cb-slideshow code from an excellent article by Mary Lou at Codrops. This is Copyright © 2020 Codrops. Full permission notice here.
I learned how to display random images by reading this excerpt from Dori Smith and Tom Negrino's book on Javascript. Patrick Kettner's Youtube was a beautiful introduction to pasting SVG generated using AI into Dreamweaver and I used that a lot here. Moving eyes are described in a few places but the neatest description I found was Darkcode's youtube here. Finally a big shoutout to Jesús Ramirez's Photoshop Training Channel. The brilliance of humanity shines in the web resources that you can find to teach you anything nowadays. It almost gives me hope...

Website

This website uses several images from the Wikimedia Commons:

Jan Steen’s Scholar At His Desk is the background for this page.
The background for Sam Haram is Giuseppe Barberis’ woodcut of the crypt at Santa Maria della Concezione dei Capuccini
The background for Thin Red Line is Robert Gibb’s The Thin Red Line which is in The National War Museum of Scotland.
Nobody wants to depict the parable of the talents much. Perhaps it is problematic? Thankfully, Willem de Poorter had a go, thereby providing background for The Problem of Evil.
And on the Master’s telly in there is the daddy of them all, Carravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac. Only two paintings have ever stopped me in my tracks: Las Meninas in El Prado, and this in the Uffizi. But whereas Las Meninas cradles you in a long-passed bubble of time, this Carravaggio punches you in the head: it sets off noises. If someone heard a voice telling them to do what is depicted here, it was certainly not the voice of God

The Stand Still page uses graphs here (by the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster), here, here, here, here, here, here, and also this awesome thing. Also a screenshot of Microsoft Excel. Thanks for that Bill. It is possible that our whole universe is just one cell of a giant spreadsheet... And that each cell in Excel is an entire universe...
The word cloud in the Words page was created at WordClouds.co.uk.