Wednesday 9 May 2012

Pok the Bard tells of himself.

It is I Pok who speak
Who fell from Bok
To scream
At first
Then tell tales
Who calls Earth She
And nussles beneath the old oak tree

It should be appreciated that Bok, being my mythological, rather than biological father, is too universal to have a voice of his own. Pok is the first pustule of potent bardic juice to fall from this erstwhile Sky god. |The drop falls through nothingness causing ripples thus causing the world.

 Pok was first and has returned
And he has lived and he has learned
Theatrics
And all for you

Which is not to say that I Simon John Miller who created Pok created the multiverses any more than you did, but that Pok certainly  has as much of a claim to such an act as any other archetype and that he would like to ask "what's in a name?"

 Reaching teenager-hood I found I wished to embark upon no college or career and, knowing where I myself was at,  eventually alighted upon the seminal work of poetic grammar by arch-scholar Robert Graves that spelled out my future. This was " the White Goddess" and I only really dipped into it then, leaving with the words of one paragraph that I probably misread, echoing in my mind.

 People called Bards, it seemed, though known by other names, would come between opposing armies and bestill their belligerence with with poetry, meaning they would give them a poetic cum politic rap to chill them out and as a result they would not make war.

 Years passed. My chosen path was mostly obscure for people but this worried me not. I reffered to myself as a songwriter and went about doing just that.

 Moving swiflty through the Thatcher years now we emerge later in 1992 when I became involved with
a group of travelling minstrel types that became Spacegoats. Originally based upon a sound generated by a C# didgeredoo and carefully tuned 323 string hammered dulcimer, I counterpointed the sound with more sharp sounding staccato mandolin, looning around and performing vocal duties, roughly in that order.

 Spacegoats hoofed it up on the streets of Devon and much of England in time. We wanted to bring so called environmental awareness to peoples lives by singing about it and being involved with different camps and actions in the concurrently appearing road protest movement that started in 1992 at Twyford Down Hampshire.
 Along with others globe-wide, we brought this awareness through and you will know this largly because you are taxed for it. Sorry about that, there is a deeper level.

 The band lasted for 11 years in all and produced about as many albums. These started with 'Inamorata' and progressed through the 90s with acoustic strangitute that we called "enhurument." One danced to the music and became enhurued.

 In 1999 the band as such split though a remnant continued through a series of fortnightly 24 hour parties deep underground in London, before transmuting. By this I mean I continued the name, being well known ans synonymous with Spacegoats at the time. This late period Spacegoats was rather different, because I 'went electric' didn't I, cranking out my Gibson SG copy for an extended in yer face psychedelic rock barndance.

 Then our good friend producer and host died, Spacegoats fizzled out after a small Swiss tour and I turned 40 feeling somewhat done in.

 I let go of the aspiration to make music. This was because my body felt wear and tear and wanted a break.
If the Muse wanted me to continue and showed me direction and only if, I would follow it.

Out of this freefall in no particular direction, I saw, one night in a melancholy Paris maisonette, a guitar on the wall. I detuned it and played in a fingerpicking mode, less stressful to the muscles of the arm.

 Later from this was borne 'My Elusive Muse', which you will find on the first of a growing number of albums of me and my songs. They are very bare recordings. I sing with one or maybe two instuments, sometimes a drum. There is spoken word, which I have come to refer to Bardic measures, though actually they do not conform to the tight strictures of that ancient discipline. My measure are written for me to speak them. I compose them to roll of my tongue the way I want them to for pleasure and memory recall.

Sometime after the end of  Spacegoats people started calling me a Bard. As this is what I singularly and originally wanted to be and to redefine for the present era and into a future, I felt encouraged.














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