Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Ward's Island - Demo


Ward's Island by C. Dempsey 2009

A few years back I would take my bike on the weekend and cycle to specific areas around New York most people would know little about. I'd take pictures, then write instrumental music a few days later based on my experiences. I done it purely for fun and as a creative experiment. Some songs were good, others were simply weird. This song is my favorite because I find it creepy and eerie every time I play it. Ward's Island can be this and more even in bright sunshine. For more information on Ward's Island click on the link below:


Enjoy the music and pictures.








   

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Empty Streets - Demo



Empty Streets - C. Dempsey 2011

Empty streets we wait,
Crawling up the stairs,
Bottle in my hand,
You know my name,
I can walk home,
Eyes closed and alone.

I can taste the air,
A pebbledash estate,
This is not my home,
Like when I was young,
Ocean barley gold,
Unless,
I’m wrong,
And now,
They flood and fill,
This millionaire’s row.

Rip me like a sheet,
Rake me of large stone,
Hang me out to dry,
Bury me six feet,
I know who’s in control,
unless,
I’m wrong,
And now,
They flood and fill,
This millionaire’s row,

Unless, they flood and fill,
Unless, they flood and fill,
Unless, they flood and fill,
This millionaires row.



Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Blue Sky (The End) - Demo



Blue Sky (The End) - C.Dempsey 2010


I can’t wait ‘till it’s over
All blue skies and green fields baby
I’d push it off for a cool breeze
I’ll take my chances on my own.

Here’s where it ends
Just make it quick ‘coz I can’t stand blood nor pain.

If this is a blue sky
Drink to stop thinking
Thinking it’s time to stop
If I could change you
Take you and break you and make into something you're not.

Here’s where it ends
Just make it quick ‘coz I can’t stand blood nor pain.

Here’s where it ends
Here’s where it ends
Here’s where it ends
Just make it quick 'coz I can’t stand blood nor pain.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Wherever We Are - Demo




Wherever We Are - C. Dempsey 2011

A cool cold embrace
Stars strangled high
A cobblestone road
Can drive you wild
Shaking your bones
‘Till your warm inside
The sharp taste of home
From a whiskey sigh.

Love is a high, love is a low
Blind to misfortune and wide as is long  
Sometimes a stray dog that follows you home,
From here, or wherever we are.

Break like the morning
Melt like the sun
an overhead sleeper
lights our world below
Words are a stranger
in your disco head
harbored from danger
In your granite bed.

Love is a high, love is a low
Blind to misfortune and wide as is long  
Sometimes a stray dog that follows you home,
From here, or wherever we are.

Love is a high, love is a low
Blind to misfortune and wide as is long
Sometimes a stray dog that follows you home...
Love is a high, love is a low
Blind to misfortune and wide as is long
Sometimes a stray dog that follows you home,
from here, or wherever we are




Sunday, March 4, 2012

Postcard

She arrives at the door, her father’s car ticking over on the street. Every Saturday she stood there, outside my mother's house.  Wednesdays I’d go to her mother's house, but Saturdays were mine. I was born on a Saturday, Saturday was my day. Wednesday I’d cut through Dublin like a bullet on the moped and brave the elements for the promise of momentary stability. Her mothers was always quiet. Except for the dogs. Two snapping Jack Russells and fuck me did I hate those little bastards. Running all over the place. Never once did they run up to greet me or sit on my lap or let me even pet them. They owned that fucking house. People who treat dogs like people treat people like dogs.

Saturday is my day.
       
We drive to the Off-Licence to pick up some wine. White wine. Argentinian Pinot Grigio. Unreserved, whatever that means. Every week, the same bottle from the same shelf. The center of the village looks beautiful in the evening. The light is soft and everything looks clean. The trees have stopped but the river kicks in. The banks have been closed since Friday but the butchers and the hair dressers are just winding down. Women walk out with the staff and chat on the street. Professional dissolves to informal. Eyes narrow with smiles and laughter. It’s a postcard.  

The Off-Licence is at the front of the local supermarket, Super Valu. I used to work here years ago when I was in school. Packing shelves, fruit and veg mostly. I’d arrive at half six to take the orders in on a Saturday morning. Freezing, just me and Geraldine. Crazy woman, good laugh though. We loved the absolute silence. First to explore the day and all that she says. Her picture hung from the wall near the door. Manager of Fruit & Veg. It was taken years ago, when she was gorgeous. She looked very different when I worked with her. She used to talk about how when she was sick in hospital her nails never looked so good. Most mornings she wished herself back there out loud.  

I fancied the girl in the deli. Jackie. Freckles, heavy set with blond hair. She’d laugh at everything I said and I’d laugh at everything she said, most of the time. I was always putting on a show. I really fancied her in her butcher’s fedora and blood stained apron. She looked like an angel. We were good mates. I asked her out on my last day and she said no.

I pretend to not remember the girl on the till, as I do every week. Margret or Meave or something. I pay the money and leave. She’s still there, I’m not. Nothing to talk about, nothing to say. We take my wine and walk through the car park and drive back to my mother’s house. I put my hand on her leg while she drives her father’s car and squeeze it. She hates that but I do it anyway. I am in love.   

The car clicks, ticks, shrinks and settles on the street. She opens my wine and we sit side by side on the couch watching the telly. This is when we talk. All she needs is a glass and I have the remaining bottle.  

We lay on the floor and have sex with the TV on and the sound off. The blinds are closed. I don't worry about waking my mother upstairs, we’ve been together so long. Afterwards she says.

- I hate the way you just presume we’re gonna have sex when we get together like this.

I ignore her. What can I say? I reach for the bottle of wine and finish the last of it. I close my eyes for a bit and she lays still. I am in love.

She awakes with a jolt, I never left her. We look at each other but there is nothing to say. I watch her put on impossibly small clothes. We drive to an empty car park that looks out over Dublin bay. We sit in silence in her father’s car. I grab her leg. I am in love. The city is spread out like a necklace. It’s a postcard. Still and unmoving, and so are we.


Saturday, February 18, 2012

This Other World - Demo




This Other World

Close your eyes, toss a coin, let it dance until it falls
Place the cards upon a table, let them sing it to us all
Fame and fortune’s counting raindrops when you don’t have no shoes on
Stranger days I have had just sleeping with the TV on

Here lays the ghost of what could have been
So, I’ll carve you out of this other world
I’ll carve you out of this other world

All the roads that bleed you empty under stars that always burn
Twist and turn these worn out tires making sure you can’t return
Spinning wheels past the barnstars that lead you to the end
Hoping luck can somehow find you in the words of a friend.      

Here lays the ghost of what could have been
So, I’ll carve you out of this other world
I’ll carve you out of this other world
I’ll carve you out of this other world

Monday, February 13, 2012

Lost & Found Demo




A new original song (demo) for Single White Band. It won't end up anything like this when we all work on it along with two other originals by Leslie and Andy which is a good thing. Hopefully it works, sometimes they don't. It will be interesting to see what the final version ends up like.
Lost and Found by C.Dempsey 2012

Verse 1
B G E
I need you more than a beer on a weekday.  
B G E
I want you more than a bar on the subway.
B G E
I like you better when we get along this way.
B G E
I love you more than all the words I could say.

Chorus:
A E     B
When you’re here I can feel the future.
A     E                 B
See the music float with shape and color.
A E           B
Mix around and you twist my senses.
A E      G F#m B
Gonna get back all the time that we have lost and found.

Verse 2
I need you more than neon lights in the city’s gray.
I want you more a little more than from the last day.    
I like you better when you lose the games you play.
I love you more than all the words I could say.

Chorus:
A E     B
When you’re here I can feel the future.
A     E                 B
See the music float with shape and color.
A E           B
Mix around and you twist my senses.
A E       G F#m E
Gonna get back all the time that we have lost and found.
E/A E/A E/A E/A/B
Lost and found, lost and found, lost and...

Verse 3
I need you more than a beer on a weekday.  
I want you more than a bar on the subway.
I like you better when you get down this way.
I love you more than all the words I could say.

Chorus: x3
When you’re here I can feel the future.
See the music float with shape and color.
Mix around and you twist my senses.
Gonna get back all the time that we have lost and...
When you’re here I can feel the future.
See the music float with shape and color.
Mix around and you twist my senses.
Gonna get back all the time that we’ve lost and...
When you’re here I can feel the future.
See the music float with shape and color.
Mix around and twist my senses.
Gonna get back all the time that we’ve lost and found.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Cat

I had been to the office numerous times before. So much so in fact, they buzzed me in if I simply looked up at the security camera. The office was not your typical New York Construction Management affair of beige cubicles surrounded by early nineties motivational posters. This company was cutting edge. The girl on the front desk was neither dumb nor beautiful. The few cubicles that lay behind her were waist high and large as a church door. The ceiling was further from me than the other side of the room. Giant pieces of art clung to the cold bare exposed walls, static as they were incomprehensible. An oil painting of a piece of wood, a watercolor of a carpenter’s tool box and a badly charcoaled drawing of a welder’s glove.

One always grabbed my attention every time I entered. A three foot by four foot heavily framed photograph of a ship stuck on a sand dune after the tide had long since gone out. The irony of which I’m sure seemed to be lost on the funky cube dwellers in a similar situation - that is, if the boat represented their dreams and the receding ocean represented all time and happiness. It was all lost on me, not because its meaning was beyond me but that it simply had none. I love art, I love how it’s an underused vector of feelings, I love how it takes you places and I love how it exposes people for who they really are.

The art in this office was simply, sterile shite.

I was greeted by Mr. Peterson, a tall thin man in his fifties. Minimally polite he reminded me of an old sea captain without the tales. A man who had travelled the globe and saw nothing. He spoke with a serious tone regarding the most mundane of issues.  

- Colin, good to see you. Let’s walk to the back room and go over the drawings shall we?

Wow, what gravitas, this must be important. It wasn’t. It never is, I’ve worked at this long enough.

We were to discuss a new building we were constructing together in the west village, issues with the neighbors and permit delays. Just once during a meeting I wish we could discuss something truly unique or unusual. Like how the people in the neighboring building were aliens and required a wide berth...or something, I don’t know, something exciting.

- They call themselves Aqualdaburgs, they exist partially in this dimension and feed on the skin of the living. The government has settled them at this address as it’s right above the fifth polar tri-spike into tomorrow. There will be a delivery every Tuesday between 11am and 2pm of human skin from a local hospital. Do not make eye contact with the driver. There’s an agreement in place but if any of your laborers fail to turn up for work call us immediately and cover yourself in milk. Curl up into the fetal position, close your eyes and breath through your nose until we get there.       

Unfortunately it’s more like Lego for grownups.

I explained that my boss was parking the car and would be along shortly. He reacted as if I told him my boss was out on the street taking a dump and would be up as soon as he could wipe his arse on the next passing child. He left me alone as I waited for my bosses fresh arsed arrival.

I passed the time watching the office cat make its rounds through the over sized cubicles past various employees collecting affection. I had seen it do this before and had also noticed previously that there was something, well, off about the cat. It was a clumsy little fucker. It was bright white, over weight and very old. It tripped over itself, banged it’s head on the printer, and stared off into space before totally miss-timing an easy leap from one desk to another. Graceful this cat was not but the staff loved it. Judging by the atmosphere in the place it was probably the only living creature anyone loved. This was the type of trendy workplace that a cat like this could only exist as some type of ironic non-cat.

- Yeah it’s our office cat but it doesn’t act like one. It likes to flop around like a dog but that’s cool. Whatever, we don’t judge it.

Perhaps the person buying the art also bought the cat. That made sense.

Their minimal hospitality towards me may have fuelled this animosity I had towards the cat. They loved it, regardless of its inability to be a simple agile cat.

It was loved.

I was being tolerated.

It is a cat.

I am a human being.

My boss arrived and the meeting began. As soon as Mr. Peterson sat down the cat was rubbing against his legs. Minutes later it hopped up onto the desk and was stalking the blueprints tripping over pencils and giving us each a thousand yard stare.

What the fuck is wrong with this cat?

My mind drifted from my job to the look I was receiving from this feline fuckwit. It surely knew me from all the other times I visited the office.

Why is this cat bugging me so much?

Mr. Peterson rubbed its back as it stared at me like a spoilt child. Why was it staring at me, or at something near me? No it was staring at me. Wait, maybe something behind me. It was staring near me? That's when after all these visits I suddenly realised what it was about this particular cat that unsettled me. Before my mind could tell my mouth to not say it, my ears heard it.

- Mr. Peterson, do you know that your cat is cross-eyed?


The meeting stopped. Silence. My boss glared at me. Mr. Peterson’s droning eased to a freeze. He slowly looked at the cat and then back to me. Without a hint of emotion and with that pointlessly traveled gravitas he stated matter-of-fact.

- No it is not.

And then continued with the meeting as if nothing happened. My boss threw me a few more bewildered looks. I focused as best as I could on my notebook and scribbled away with notes but my mind drifted again.

Why did I say that?

Scribble, scribble.

That cat is cross-eyed!

Scribble, scribble.

Why would he deny the fact that his cat is cross-eyed? They could get it fixed. These guys are loaded!

Before I knew it the meeting was over. We shook hands and Mr. Peterson retired to the back office while the cat meandered in that general direction, sorta, kinda. It was hard to tell where it was going half the time to be honest.

Outside my boss cornered me. He knew me too well but asked the question anyway.

- Why did you tell Mr. Peterson that his cat was cross-eyed?

All I could think was the truth.

- Because it was.

- You don’t have to say the first thing that comes into your head you know.

- I didn’t mention the art work, I mean what’s up with that crap?

- He collects that crap. He also pays our fucking bills so keep a fucking lid on it in future.

I was in the wrong, I knew it.

- He has money, he could at least get his cat fixed. That’s all I’m saying.

I meant it, the image of that cat bumping around the art strewn office filled my belly up with stones. Who gives a flying fuck about your shitty art? Fix your cat.

He shook his head in disbelief and put it behind him.

- Go back to the office and work on those items Mr. Peterson wanted done by the end of the day.

I cut through the crowds to Union Square and got the L train back to the office. My mind was blank from the meeting. That boat, that fucking boat on the sand dune. I pulled out the notebook and opened it to assess the work I had to start. To my horror was the day’s date and three pages filled with various pictures of spirals, boats and of the cat.

Fuck!

How do I fix this?