Songs and Sonics

There are a few requirements I have for conducting a Songs and Sonics interview with someone. Beyond enjoying the artist’s music, an ideal interview subject should have most of the following:

An album to sell.

A real web site. (A MySpace page doesn’t count.)

A bio.

A history of interviews.

I recently stumbled upon The Sonic Executive Sessions, who had… none of the above. But after about ten seconds of listening to their music, my unwritten rules quickly evaporated. I had to talk with these guys!

Despite the jokey appearance of their MySpace page (complete with Anchorman references and monkey pictures), upon hearing what they do, it’s clear that the Executives are a musical force to be reckoned with. This is seriously accomplished pop, in a Steely Dan sort of way, with a strong Beach Boys undercurrent. Jellyfish fanatics, Ben Folds aficionados, and admirers of the artists parodied in the Yacht Rock video series take note: The Sonic Executive Sessions could very well be your new favorite band.

Christian Phillips (guitar, keys, vocals, and principal songwriter), Ryan Aston (drums, percussion, and occasional backing vocals), and Tim Hamill (recording engineer, guitar, and whatever’s left) are the studio assassins with the playing, singing, writing, and recording chops that even the most staunchly low-fi indie musicians secretly wish they had.

The Executives don’t play live. They don’t even have an album. Instead, they cut their tracks when there’s down time at Sonic One (Tim’s impressive recording facility in South Wales), and post the results on their MySpace page. In an alternate universe where the lowest common denominator doesn’t rule the mainstream, these songs would instead probably be at the top of the charts.

Christian was my contact for this interview, and he says that any plans to release an honest-to-goodness Sonic Executive Sessions album are up in the air. If an album does happen, I have only two modest requests to ask of the band: one, please get someone to build you a real web site with a good bio, and two, let me be the first in line to purchase your CD.

Christian: I got into session work purely by accident. Ryan and I were in a band (The Millionaires, and we were very Beach Boys-like) that got a lot of label interest. But instead of getting a deal, we ended up as a backing band for Sony. After that happened, the work just didn’t stop. But the writing stopped for a few years.

No. I play by ear (my dad was the original bass player in The Ivys, who became the mighty Badfinger). I wish I could read and had more knowledge of music theory — it would come in very handy for some things.

I’m just lucky that I’m able to hear and explode chord progressions in my head. But I’d much rather be able to write them out. I’ll record all the parts and give the separate lines to singers to learn. Some of them will write out their own parts.

Lots of children’s television. That’s fun to write for. Most of my work is writing music for TV: signature tunes, incidental music, that kind of thing.

My main instrument is guitar, and then vocals I guess. Anything else is a bit hit and miss, but I’ll try and play it if you need it — unless its violin, trumpet, or bagpipes!

Any time I’ve had the chance to work in Abbey Road. Studio 2 is a magical place. It still looks like the Beatles are there and have just popped out for a break. You won’t believe what it’s like to actually play the Mrs. Mills piano.

That’s becoming more frequent these days. Of course, it works the other way around too, where people who may have been inaccessible before are just on the end of these wires. For example, Tim recorded an album a few months back and the band had Dio to sing a few lines for them. They did it in their home studio and sent it over. Exactly like the Alessi Brothers did for us.

Yeah, how cool is that? I love the sound they make, and to have that happen on a song you’ve written… Amazing.

Best: Making a living out of what you do. Worst: Some of the awful stuff you have to work on for some of the rudest, most arrogant people you could ever meet.

About seven, I think. Not many. It tends to be like, “Tim’s got a few days free — better go write a song!”

I was listening to Born to Run. Somebody gave it to me and said, “You have to listen to this — it’s Phil Spector times ten.” Not being a fan of “The Boss,” I stuck it on reluctantly — and really liked it.

There are some lyrics in the first song, Thunder Road, that got me thinking how you can write about a person or place, and it gets frozen in that moment. Whenever we go and listen to that song at five or fifteen or fifty, the song never changes… but we do. Pet Sounds, for example, I was born listening to that. It has so many reference points in my life like when I was fifteen and used to run home from school every dinner break so I could listen to that and Spilt Milk and then run back. So that’s what made me want to write that song.

I wanted to write a song where the chorus was as for away from the verse key as I could get and then get back. And make it sound easy. I don’t know if I got the last bit. Brian Wilson did this all the time.

So that was the idea — to write a Smile-type tune with some nice modulations which turned into a Steely Dan 70’s slice of Yacht Rock. How did that happen? I guess I got carried away with the chords!

For the recording, we got Nigel Hopkins in to play Fender Rhodes and Pablo in on bass. I like everything to be real on our songs and there was no way I was playing those parts live!

He has no second name.

No. Ryan went in first with Pablo. Nigel came in later to replace my keyboard with the real thing. You have to appreciate that I’m spoiled when it comes to these guys. They really are amazing musicians, and I’m so lucky that they live a phone call away.

Eventually, Probyn Gregory from Brian Wilson’s band will be playing the brass on it. Can’t wait to get it finished, but he’s kind of busy at the minute.

Nope, it’s all me triple tracked. Takes about one to two hours to do, but Tim’s a patient and fantastic engineer.

Ah. You really have done your homework. That’s a bit more involved. That’s more than me. You’ve got to have four of you to recreate that sound! It takes AGES.

OK, here’s the secret. Take a four part harmony. Start on the lowest notes you can sing. All (at least three) of you sing the first part in unison. Triple track it. Sing the next part and the next and the next and the next until you can’t sing any higher. You’ll have about sixty parts or so. Play them back and its Queen. Dramatic vibrato on some parts help with the sound, but not too much because the harmony will become a bit unstable.

Oh, and try to do it with an English accent — something us Welsh guys struggle with!

The Gabe Dixon Band… and LOADS of John Williams soundtracks. I’m scoring a film at the moment — it’s a Christmas TV movie. The budget for the music is small, so it’s just me at the Mac trying to make it sound like the London Symphony Orchestra in Abbey Road.

Perhaps the Eagles/Steely Dan episode when Michael McDonald gets a rock chucked at him. They’re all VERY FUNNY. Please don’t make me choose, Jeff!

No, but I bet they are out there.

Well, maybe. I guess Toto and their ilk were and/or used a lot of studio players. So if there is a thread, it would be there on tunes like Cold Front, where I had to get guys in who can play like that.

But it was Roger Manning from Jellyfish who dubbed us ‘Yacht Rock.’ I was a bit offended at first because I didn’t know what it was. But when we went to find out what it was, everyone I loved was there, so it stuck. I’m glad we have a bit of the Yacht in us.

The sun (we don’t get it much here)

Anything that makes we want to try harder (Rufus Wainwright does this a lot)

Anything that makes me think there’s no point — may as well give it all up now (Brian Wilson does this a lot)

A good biography by someone who’s old enough to write one (David Niven’s The Moon’s A Balloon is a good start)

The fact that there is music out there that I’ll never get to hear that’s probably amazing (so I have to find it and hear it)

Standing on the Empire State

A new chord

Singing harmony (There’s something very special about singing with people)

An old cliché, but you can learn something new every day

Writing a list about the ten things that inspire you (A cop out… Sorry, but I ran out of ideas!)

The Sonic Executive Sessions MySpace page | Christian Phillips’ MySpace page (contains a couple extra songs) | Ryan Aston’s MySpace page | Tim Hamill’s MySpace page (contains a couple more Sonic Executive songs) | Sonic One recording studio

What does Todd Rundgren’s A True Wizard, A True Star, Prince’s Lovesexy, and Paul Steel’s April & I have in common?

Glorious studio bombast. Song suites. Total record production mastery. All three albums are the sound of an artist at the top of his studio game.

Except Paul Steel’s album isn’t a pinnacle.

It’s a debut.

And it was recorded as a mostly one-man-band effort when he was eighteen years old.

His followup album, Moon Rock, is, for the moment, doing the unfortunate record company shuffle. But April & I — praised by such musical heavyweights as Sean O’Hagan, Van Dyke Parks, and Wondermints — is available now, and it recently found a home on iTunes.

In the following interview, this virtuoso of hyperactive overdubbed pop assures us that — despite having written lyrics to the contrary — he’s not on crack. It’s always good to clear that up.

Paul: It’s my bedroom, so a bed and a wardrobe! Got a desktop PC and monitors hooked up to a rack of preamps and FX. A MIDI keyboard and drum pads for programming. A percussion box full of bells, shakers, scrapers, whistles, and other useless nonsense. A Wagner U47 mic. I like to collect instruments, so I have a cupboard containing my banjo, ukulele, electric sitar, Quattro de Puerto Rico, mandolin, baby accordion, lap steel, and melodica. I keep my favourite guitar and bass with the monsters under the bed.

A few years ago, when I had started recording the tracks for April & I, I was invited to a party at the other end of town. So I took my laptop and microphone along and recorded a gang vocal for a song called Honkin’ (On My Crackpipe). I recorded loads and loads of shouting, inhaling, and some crack-addicted Aberdonian slang.

After the party, at about 3am, a bunch of us headed up the road. One person was dressed as Spiderman and another had a guitar. We found an old alcoholic lady in the street who joined us and penned the Little Tiny Bill song with us. If you type in “Little Tiny Bill” in YouTube you might be able to find it somewhere. So the backing vocalists in Honkin’ (On My Crackpipe) ended up being the Little Tiny Bill Symphonic Choir.

I was always knocked out by the coda to God Only Knows by Brian Wilson. I wanted to do something similar with interwoven counter melodies and stuff.

It’s a lot less specific. I can write about anything I want, and still put a lot of myself and my personality into it.

One day I would definitely like to. I think I want to live a bit more and find a way of translating my thoughts and emotions into standard music notation.

Yes, my mother. Everyone asks, “Do you take crack then?” I say yes, but of course I don’t. I don’t know anyone who does either. It’s part of the story where “I” get corrupted. I am a little bit concerned that kids might listen to it and grow up to be addicts.

Ha ha, I am a fool to myself. I’ll leave the crack for my hardcore techno phase.

I can’t say without relistening to it, but it’s “like the time when my dad caught my trying on old womens clothing”… Don’t ask!

Yes. Yes. I’m obsessed with a Japanese electro-pop artist, Cornelius. April & I’s production pales in comparison to the crazy shit he gets up to! He uses guitars and drum samples in a really insane and creative way that I’m certain could be applied to pop music in a tasteful way. It sounds like it takes a lot of work and attention to detail, though!

I would definitely like to explore more extreme production ideas and techniques, but I’m also keen to master more traditional styles. It’s all educational!

I do get a lot of ideas and write a lot of songs, but I find it difficult to identify which ones are good and which ones are terrible. I’ve been on complete bummers for months just because of a lack of confidence. When I get any writer’s block, I turn into a bit of a workaholic and try to compensate by writing or recording lots of music. But I think it’s a lot more sensible to take break or try writing with other people. Try something different.

Melody: To me, there is no song without a strong, engaging melody. Which is ironic considering most chart-topping tunes are void of any melodic interest!

Arrangement

Harmonic structure

Rhythm

Lyrics

Audio engineering

Solos: Solos can be really good and really lift a song if used cleverly, but they’re not important at all. I particularly hate improvised blues guitar solos and saxophone solos.

Lots of sunshine pop bands like The Association, The Free Design, and Millennium. A friend of mine turned me onto Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard. A True Star and I can’t get enough of it… It’s insane.

Weirdly enough, no. I was on the phone to a producer friend of mine, Charlie Francis, telling him what I was working on and that it was a continuous piece of music. He mentioned that album, and I bought it a few days after I finished April. I wish I had heard it beforehand cause Todd Rundgren used lots of different interesting ways of linking up the tracks that I would’ve liked to employ in my stuff. I’ve only really gotten into it recently. International Feel is one of my favourite tracks ever!

There isn’t a week that goes by that I forget to listen to The Beach Boys or The Super Furry Animals. My friend Ralph told me to “only study greatness,” so I don’t listen to the radio or watch any music television or anything. Most new music is written to be talked about, not listened to.

I’ve just got out of the record deal that has been holding Moon Rock back for the last nine months, so we’re going to be making plans for the release of it soon. We’re getting a animated film made for April & I using ten different animators and filmmakers. It’s looking amazing so far.

I’m hoping it will get into film festivals. The guys making the film are doing things that I think will really blow peoples minds, and they’re all so different. We’re thinking about doing a re-release of April & I with a DVD and maybe a live performance… Maybe.

I’m playing bass for a Brighton band called Stars and Sons. I’ve just finished a song called Ocean that I wrote with Beach Boys collaborator Stephen Kalinich. It’s on my MySpace right now. I’m also doing a project with Nick Littlemore, out of Australian electro band Pnau. Of course, I’m still writing and recording and making plans for myself!

Brighton beach

Pet Sounds

Comedy

California

Rhapsody In Blue

Sunshine

Fruit

Outer space

1960s

Super Furry Animals live

Paul Steel’s web site | Paul Steel’s MySpace page

His career as a professional recording artist spans over 20 years, his Wikipedia entry calls him one of the “elder statesmen of indiepop,” and he’s worked with laundry list of distinguished artists, including The Clientele, The High Llamas, and former XTC guitarist Dave Gregory.

Louis Philippe (real name Philippe Auclair) is a unique figure on the pop music landscape. He has the ear of a seasoned orchestral arranger, yet is musically self-taught. (Anyone with an interest in arranging should check out his excellent blog post on writing for strings.) He crafts sophisticated tunes which pay their respects to the shrine of Pet Sounds, but his music is gentler than anything on that album. And, as you’ll discover in the following interview, he doesn’t employ the methods that a typical pop songwriter might use when capturing ideas.

Elegant is the word that most often comes to mind when listening to Louis Philippe’s latest album, An Unknown Spring. The songs are highly literate, delicately arranged, and supplemented with real orchestral instruments. Make no mistake — this is indeed pop music. It’s just smarter and a little quieter than what typically falls under the pop umbrella. There’s no screaming guitars, no trace of the modern loudness wars. Instead, An Unknown Spring boasts an intriguing mix of confessional songwriting, Brill Building-like pop craftsmanship, and cinematic but intimate orchestral arrangements. And then there’s Louis’s angelic vocals soaring over top of it all.

Not only does Louis make great music, but he gives great interviews too.

Louis: I’d become quite disillusioned, to put it mildly, with what I was hearing around me; most of it seemed very reactionary to my ears, beat-and groove-driven, with hardly any attention paid to melody and harmony in any sense of these words. I wanted to see if I could get closer to my ambition of writing pop lieder, in which repetition would be a device used with far greater economy that is the norm (including in my own work). By the way, this was not a choice as such; it’s the music I was hearing in my mind and that coming out when I walked in the street or sat at the piano. It’s something I’ve been atrracted to ever since Danny Manners and I worked on our album of Poulenc mélodies. When the songs started to take shape, I noticed that my writing had evolved towards more evolutive lines, more fluid harmonies. It was more a matter of going with a natural, ‘organic’ flow than a decision as such.

The analytical process took place afterwards, if you see what I mean, when I had to build the record in Ken Brake’s studio. Another thing: the form of the songs, and the curve of the album were also influenced by a personal necessity: sing a body of songs which would have a common emotional colour, and a very tender one at that. There is hardly any place for tenderness in pop these days, whereas it is ever-present in the music I love. Nostalgia too.

I guess this is more of a constant in what I’ve done over the years than a “new” inclination. I couldn’t say if it is a theme as such… Maybe it’s an echo of Ray Davies’s obsession with weather in albums like Face to Face and Something Else (and Village Green, of course!). Do you think it has to do with living in a country where we experience four seasons in a day? And a clue — every time “spring” is used (and it is quite a few times), it is in all its meanings. What you said about the weather could also be said about water.

Do you mind if I bat this one out of the park? It would be a bit like answering a question like, “How often do you have sex?” But there isn’t a line in this song that doesn’t come from very, very deep within me. “You’re a clock without a hand, a broken shell turning to sand” — when love has gone, death asserts itself.

This is a very flattering thing to say — so much so I’m not sure what to add to it. One thing I remember about writing this song is that I first “heard” the first verse in its entirety, lead line, chords and lyrics all together, something that is (alas) very rare… Don’t forget that the one dream I’ll never fulfill is to be a Brill Building songwriter, banging on the piano from 9 to 5 with the divine Carole King for a neighbour, and looking forward to present a demo to Jackie DeShannon (at which point I made my excuses and left).

Spot on as far as colours are concerned.

I most certainly don’t. I find understanding what Olivier Messiaen said about the purpleness of certain tonalities an impossible task.

That is different. Yes, the combination of the two CR78s is actually meant to reflect the “snowishness” of the snow, the precision of the crystal structures, with its peaks and radiating spikes. As to the adequation of sound and instruments to lyrics, absolutely — very much the arranger’s prerogative. Are we sounding a bit pseud-ish here? Who cares? I’m trying to think of another example… You’d have the french horn on Wild-Eyed and Disheveled, a very sylvian instrument, which seemed appropriate when thinking of the America that Scottish crofters discovered when they landed in Nova Scotia; and the “surf” organ in the same track, a sonic hello to God, i.e. Brian Wilson.

The sparseness is out of fidelity to one of my guiding principles as an arranger: economy. The arranger’s work should consist of taking out as much as needs to be done; ideas can be like weeds, and proliferate to the point when they negate each other’s beauty. I was listening to Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges a couple of nights ago — and I defy you to find one note that is not “needed” in this luxurious score. As Poulenc said, “I’m not Ravel, unfortunately”; but what was good for him (and how) has got to be good for a minor craftsman like me.

The other thing is: I hear my songs in orchestrated form, not as lead line/chords compounds. It’s a great asset — until you realise to need to work like mad to unravel what is played in your mind’s ear. As an arranger, I do not have a philosophy as such; the work I’ve done for bands like The Clientele or, very recently, Humbert Humbert (a very good Japanese “psych-folk” duet) bears little relation to the way I work on my own material. With other artists, my role is to enhance colours (sometimes find some when there are very few), to enrich the harmonic patterns, draw out the most arresting lines, embellish, whilst remaining in the background; a matter of technique as much as anything. With myself, as songs do ‘come out’ in already-arranged form, it’s a question of finding means to execute what’s been found. In any case, one priority doesn’t change: less is definitely more.

All background vocals on that particular song were recorded part-by-part with three singers singing in straight octaves or unison: Alasdair and Mel of The Clientele, plus me. Each of the four parts was triple-tracked, using a very transparent reverb. There was no use of Auto-Tune or any other gizmo… It’s just the way our three voices combine! We only used a “special effect” on two songs of the album: we put the background vocals to Fallen Snow through an old AC30, whacking the tremolo by hand as we were laying the tracks; and Ken processed the background vocals to An Unknown Spring (the song) through a reverse-reverb plug-in. Other than that, the sound of these harmonies was the result of coaching Al and Mel through their parts, and not just pitch-wise. I’m very pleased with the ghostly chromatic line you can hear, and not hear at the same time, in the bridge. It’s done entirely by multi-tracking my voice, but singing “as a trombone” (can’t put it any other way — a vocal technique I also use in Toi le coeur de la rose) — great fun to do.

Is it 16? You’re probably right. I feel like this after every single record! It’s horrible.

Paddy McAloon had a trick to get over this sense of vertigo you cannot fail to feel when you finish an album. “I’ll never write another line as good as this,” etc. He always kept 3 of the most striking songs he’d written in a kind of musical savings account, if you will! Like a greedy child who puts away the best bits of his meal to have a special mouthful to look forward to (Yes, used to do it). That way, Paddy knew that, should he stumble and have to face a bad case of writer’s block, he’d have something to lean on, a springboard for new songs.

I felt awful after An Unknown Spring, totally dried out, an old jellyfish stranded on a not particularly clean beach… My remedy against this type of hangover hasn’t changed: keep to the discipline of writing, every day, carry on, even if you come out with rubbish; at one point, it’ll click.

Further than that… Arnold Schoenberg used to tell this story about a caterpillar who was asked by an ant: “How do you manage to move all these legs at the same time?” The caterpillar stopped and thought: “Yes, how do I do it?” And it thought for so long, and got so confused, that it never moved again.

It can be. Every song I write is an attempt to bring a particularly intense experience out of the memory, and give it a shape in the timelessness of music. It is already a very narcissistic process, you see.

I’ll probably sit at the piano for a couple of hours every day, mostly in the evening. Playing through bits and bobs I’ve already “found,” refining the harmonies, and, crucially for me, the scansion (almost a lost art form these days). I’ll stand up and walk about, trying to listen to the mind’s ear, and find what I’m doing wrong in transcribing what I’m hearing. I’ll do a lot of work in the street too, walking, shopping, whatever. This may explain why the beat my songs have slowed down in recent years; I’m a more sedate walker than I used to be.

I hardly throw anything away, inasmuch I’ll keep a score of everything (I’ve never used dictaphones or portable recorders, and don’t own any form of recording equipment — pen and paper always), and rummage through the lot from time to time. It might just be that a 4-bar sequence, which was originally the first draft of a verse, and led to nothing, might provide me with just the bridge I was looking for.

Did you know Roy Orbison combined three different songs to create Only the Lonely? And may I just add that I still haven’t got over what his death has robbed us of? This man was more than a genius, he was an angel.

The most important one is: do what you do out of a personal sense of necessity. Then here a few others: never underestimate your audience. Be daring. Don’t be afraid to be naked in front of your listeners, lay yourself bare, until it hurts. Have the spontaneity of a lover, the meticulosity of a craftsman. People like Sean O’Hagan and Bertrand Burgalat are brothers to me, if you need names. But the resistance movement is growing all the time. Think of Testbild!, the Swedish band, The Lionheart Brothers, King Creosote, Brian Campeau…

One confession: I hate ROCK. (love rock ‘n roll, though — the Burnette Trio, Buddy Holly, John Fogerty). I despise every single “value” which is attached to “rock,” in the Bruce Springsteen sense. We’ve just lost four readers.

Good.

The drive of that track is phenomenal. Just phenomenal. That bass line, good grief… It’s just perfection. Born out of precious stone like Venus emerging fully-formed from the ocean. It has a certainty about it that is akin to the certainty of loving and being loved by someone. A statement that is irrefutable, undeniable, which makes you feel drunk.

I first heard that song in 1974, in my father’s car. We were going through a forest in the Auvergne. I still remember the light of the sun exploding on the leaves.

Yes, and there are many. Duke Ellington’s Perfume Suite. All of Ravel. Sibelius’s symphonies… then the Easybeats! Bobby Fuller (Never To Be Forgotten, wow)… Rock Bottom. I am haunted! But The Zombies‘ Odessey & Oracle has, in many ways, had a more direct impact of my way of working than Pet Sounds or any other album. Odyssey is almost something I could conceive myself “equalling,” if you see what I mean (I should be so lucky…), whereas Pet Sounds is a miracle that can’t and won’t be replicated.

I’ve just realised I haven’t mentioned Burt Bacharach. Probably because his presence feels so natural that I don’t even realise it. Sonically, and harmonically speaking, no one, not even Brian Wilson, had had and has as much of an influence on me than Burt has.

Christ — a book, which I need to finish by August. A track for a Joe Raposo tribute album (to be recorded), another for an album dedicated to the memory of Keith Girdler, the Blueboy singer who passed away so tragically a few months ago. Work on Stuart Moxham’s new album (the demos are pure gold); a gig at a festival in Bremen on July the 2nd; another one, hopefully, at the Rip It Up festival in Sweden later on in the summer; knocking into shape the 15-20 songs that will comprise my new solo album; kick-start my own label (Wonder Records) for good with a compilation; help Cathal Coughlan do a new CD; have some rest, some time in the future. A long way away.

Still a secret; in fact, I’m still hesitating between 3 or 4. And it’ll be an instrumental!

THAT is still a secret! Publication date is February 2009.

The best bar none is the unbelievable flexibility, and cheapness of modern digital recording technology. An Unknown Spring hardly cost more to make than my first proper studio album for él/Cherry Red in 1986…and that one (Appointment with Venus) was one of the cheapest ever recorded. Then, the community web sites, MySpace in particular, thanks to which it is now possible to initiate collaborations with almost anyone you care for, and have brought about a tightening of the emotional bond between artist and fan.

The worst… Where to start? The collapse of independent distribution networks, which was a catastrophe in England in particular; the disappearance of “mid-market” recording studios, and of the fabulous craftsmen and engineers who worked in this environment when I started out. There are very few “ears” left in the business today, believe me. The total utter bullshit that is mainstream “independent” music today, with its reactionary music, its vapid acts, its fucked-up obsession with “the new” which almost always turns out to be very old. The unavoidable death of the album format because of the MP3 downloads dictatorship; the cowardly attitude of 99.9% of the music media, or of what’s left of them. I need a drink.

It’s not every day that someone asks you about synesthesia. You certainly won’t read about it in Mojo. So thank you too, Jeff, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Love, and memories of love.

Memory, precisely.

The generosity of Francis Poulenc.

Pet Sounds, forever.

Odessey and Oracle, for as long as Pet Sounds.

Horace Silver’s piano playing.

Robert Wyatt’s voice.

The sea.

My hatred of violence, in any form.

The poems of Philip Larkin.

Love, again.

Louis Philippe’s web site | Louis Philippe’s MySpace page | Order “An Unknown Spring”