We never did find anyone (or anything) to replace Chris, so Betika as a live band is on official hiatus until he comes back. That's assuming of course that he does come back- hopefully the Australian authorities are keeping tabs on him and he'll be summarily ejected when his visa runs out…..In the meanwhile I've been keeping myself busy doing all sorts- I've been finding a sort of despondency creeping in whenever I give myself time to stop and ponder the state of the world recently, like those dark, fuzzy edges that sleep-deprivation gives your peripheral vision, so keeping occupied has been paramount. I seconded myself to the mighty Seemonster for a spell, masquerading as their drummer (previous occupants of this coveted role have included Matt "Tex la homa" Shaw and Pete from The Clams). We recorded half-a-dozen or so songs for their next release, giving me ample opportunity to vent any frustrations that may have beset me, and when these recordings are issued I'm sure I'll go back for another bash when they promote them. I've had my composer / arranger hat on over the past couple of weeks. The True Swamp Neglect boys have asked Carolyn, an as-yet-unmet French Horn player called Chris and myself to contribute some brass sounds to what will probably be their forthcoming single "Slow Fighting". I've been playing the cornet for some twenty years now, on and off (mostly off, it must be said), and have achieved the "clueless, but loud and fast" standard, as anyone who has heard my work on the Sancho Panza 7" can attest, but as it was on the basis of this recording that the Swamp asked me to play on theirs I'm hoping that they won't be too disappointed with something similar. I've also written a few short instrumental pieces for Steve's new wRong record "Children's TV themes from a parallel dimension", and even found the time to knock out ten or so new Betika songs to add to our now quite considerable back(cata)log. Steve shot some video of us rehearsing the new songs, which I might post on the site if it's any good. That's what I imagine bands like Blur and Radiohead do in an attempt to keep the wolf of between-the-albums-listener-apathy from the door. Or I could just attempt a brief description and spare us both the up-and-downloading, couldn't I? Okay; largely slow songs, arranged for classical guitar, church-hall harmonium, flute and voice, a more up-tempo song that currently needs work to make it sound less like we're ripping off Love but is a sure-fire international smash nonetheless, and a sort of hasidic/country song. Some with religio-political overtones, others just the same old boy/girl nonsense. You know the score. I've also been indulging in some electronic whimsy that may or may not ever see the light of day, and Chris, Steve and Carolyn all claim to have new tunes also. Carolyn's been doing happy hardcore for money, but I haven't heard it yet.
