The Red Telephone Boxes' Graveyard EP

BBC National Radio

The Underground Resistance will be the first release from Quidgybopper's LP Ghosts of the Seven Subways, coming soon on AJ Stone Records, with words and a melody by yours bluephorically (and it's me singing).

Quidgybopper's 'Ghosts of the Seven Subways'

Initially conceived as a brief picnic in the lay-by prior to whichever substantial thing awaited us, our plan to release a single quickly expanded somewhat in scope.


"Blue-John is the kind of northern visionary who fantasises about being a wall of death rider
and offers you teacake when you call." - John Kennedy of XFM, Dazed & Confused Magazine

Cats with Lasers / The Rebirth of Reynardine

Originally released in aid of the Runswick Bay Rescue Boat.
Arranged and performed by Blue-John Benjamin;
Produced by Quidgybopper;
Artwork by Elaine Edmunds.
Thank you to The Society of Authors, Literary Representative of the Estate of John Masefield, for allowing us to reference Sea Fever.
Mechanical licenses for Song to the Siren by Tim Buckley and Larry Beckett, and River Man by Nick Drake, obtained via Limelight.

A digital-only single release

.. From Tom Robinson's BBC 6 Music show, Mon 14th March '11.
The man's a legend.

http://www.tomrobinson.com/

National Wolf

Lyrics and Vocals by Blue-John Benjamin

Taken from the Quidgybopper LP Ghosts of the Seven Subways.

Ghosts of the Seven Subways will be available to buy from 31/10/2015.

http://quidgybopper.bandcamp.com/
http://www.quidgybopper.co.uk
http://www.bluejohnbenjamin.com

Photograph by Sian Sull

The Underground Resistance (with Blue-John Benjamin)

5th July 2014

The Tom Robinson Show:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072lbw

The Underground Resistance

Close to the river, you will find us:
a flickering of susurrant leaves.
Phantasmal and vespertilian,
we are the underground resistance.

Your search for meaning brought you to us.
Will you slip your fingers into mine?
I am a wraith: you are a shimmer.
We are the underground resistance.

Dance, dance, dance, know that you are noticed.
Come, come, come, I understand your pain.
Dance, dance, dance, you have always known us.
Come, come, come, take my hand, take my hand.

I felt your restlessness unfolding;
I feel you drowsily iridesce.
Rhythms coalesce to quicken the breath.
Floating beneath the surface of sleep,
Floating beneath the surface of sleep.

You are a shudder in the half-light—
the exquisite arching of a back.
Ghosting unseen across the black earth,
we are the underground resistance.

Beautiful to me are your footprints:
complicatedness written in sand.
Sea to river and river to sea,
we are the underground resistance.

Dance, dance, dance, know that you are noticed.
Come, come, come, I understand your pain.
Dance, dance, dance, you have always known us.
Come, come, come, take my hand, take my hand.

Floating beneath the surface of sleep,
Floating beneath the surface of sleep.

The Underground Resistance on BBC 6 Music

.. From Tom Robinson's 6 Music show, Sun 5th June '11.

http://tomrobinson.com

Radio - live transmission

An interpretation of Jeff Buckley's Dream Brother, produced by Quidgybopper, with powerful vocals by Blue-John Benjamin.

http://www.quidgybopper.co.uk
http://www.bluejohnbenjamin.com

Photograph by Sian Sull

Blue-John Vs. Quidgybopper - Jeff Buckley's Dream Brother [FREE DOWNLOAD]

https://nickpipitone.bandcamp.com/album/the-intercontinental

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7y6

http://bluejohnbenjamin.com/

Song to the Siren / Worst Case Scenario - BBC Radio

When We Were Gone, once sung by Sam Larner, was recorded early one misty morning in Old St Stephen's, o'erlooking Robin Hood's Bay, by sound engineers Tim Crusher and Mark Goodall, and produced by Quidgybopper.

This track begins with a story from the recently-retired salmon fisherman Bob Marsden of Whitby who is now 84. His father was lost out at sea in the war, and, from the age of twelve, Bob provided for his mother and five sisters. It ends with the bell-ringers of St Mary’s, recorded inside the church so that the sound of the ropes, and the shouted instructions, can be heard. Whitby is where I live – the place I love and always come back to – and I have done my best to capture its character.

Artwork by Elaine Edmunds.

Please visit http://bluejohnbenjamin.com/ for further details.

Side B: When We Were Gone

Side A: Song to the Siren

http://www.xfm.co.uk/radio/xposure/

Song to the Siren: a digital-only single in aid of the Runswick Bay Rescue Boat.


X-posed – Siren on John Kennedy's XFM show

The Burden

[a reworking of mysterious words contained within a memorandum book dating from the early 1500s, and belonging to an apprentice grocer in London]

The burden of sin; the burden of grief; the burden of truth; the burden of the Grail;
the burden of fruit; the burden of being with child; the burden of a song.

He bore him up, he bore him down,
To the heronry, through the orchard’s decaying brown.
Still held in the undulating leaves, caught on the wind, her refrain:
“The falcon hath born my love away.”

In that orchard, there was a hall
Hung with royal purple and black velvet pall.
Still held in the undulating leaves, caught on the wind, her refrain:
“The falcon hath born my love away.”

And, in that hall, there was a bed
Draped with gold, blushed with gash-red.
Still held in the undulating leaves, caught on the wind, her refrain:
“The falcon hath born my love away.”

Pursued by the seven demons dispossessed,
She carried her burden from east to west.

And, in that bed, there lieth a knight.
A dark pool endlessly throws back the light.
Still held in the undulating leaves, caught on the wind, her refrain:
“The falcon hath born my love away.”

By that bedside, there kneeleth the lady unseen.
Weeping night and day, she washeth the wounds clean.
Still held in the undulating leaves, caught on the wind, her refrain:
“The falcon hath born my love away.”

And, by that bedside, there standeth a stone.
The inscription ‘Corpus Christi’ cuts to the bone.
Still held in the undulating leaves, caught on the wind, her refrain:
“The falcon hath born my twin away.”

Pursued by the seven demons dispossessed,
She carried her burden from east to west.

Blue-John Vs. Quidgybopper - The Burden [FREE DOWNLOAD]

.. From The Red Telephone Boxes' Graveyard EP 
by Blue-John Benjamin And His Amateur Humans.

Christmas in the Market Square

(A Simple) Tree House

Wake Up, England

~~~o [_(-_-)_] o~~~ May Day 2017

What word encapsulates Mythical Creatures?

Whitby-esque.

It’s a love-letter to Whitby.

Mythical Creatures Unshackled

~~~o [_(- _ -)_] o~~~ The words are Emily's. The guitar is tuned to DABCAB.

Blue-John's introduction to Mythical Creatures, a Whitby-esque LP released on May Day 2017, can be listened to at https://bluejohnbenjamin.bandcamp.com/track/mythical-creatures-unshackled

Mythical Creatures

Emily Brontë

Blue-John's Mythical Creatures, a Whitby-esque LP released on May Day 2017, can be listened to at https://bluejohnbenjamin.bandcamp.com/album/mythical-creatures

Eggshell Blue: a cheery song about mental illness

The vicar wets his whistle
with liquor from a hipflask.
He’s fraying at the edges;
his mask begins to slip.
Wendy said she saw the Devil
in a damp patch on the wall.
She cleans on Tuesday mornings—
knew his faith was wearing thin.

Down the local rec, her nephew
picks the clubhouse lock.
He’d no ingredients for Food Tech,
so now he’s doing glue.
Later, using misdirection,
and ramping up the pathos,
Wendy says she sees an angel
in graffiti on the wall—
a wounded angel.

Paint the room eggshell blue!
A soothing, gently cleansing colour scheme;
a liberal coat of eggshell blue.
Let the light in—imprison the
winter night’s whispering of vampires.

She’s got a lifetime’s worth of songs and
books and films and
photographs of those departed;
all of them amount to what?
Secrets of the universe are bound up in
Nothing—difficult to un-imagine;
is Nothing what they think it isn’t?

Fictitious, fretful child,
your mother’s only flaw
was to love you for all time;
she could never let you go.
She began to see the answers
to long-forgotten questions—
patterns in black mould
expanding on the wall.

Not being a man’s man,
the vicar does the best he can—
goes with Wendy’s nephew
to the local boxing club.
Wendy is a hit
on the psychiatric wing.
She sees the good in everyone,
and gets us all to sing.
And gets us all to sing…

Paint the room eggshell blue!
A soothing, gently cleansing colour scheme;
a liberal coat of eggshell blue.
Let the light in—imprison the
winter night’s whispering of vampires.

I’m quite fond of Christmas coffee—
cinnamon muffins, too,
though I’d settle for a cup of brick-red tea, and
a sharing of secrets with you.
Eastertime eggshell blue,
Eastertime eggshell blue,
Eastertime eggshell blue.

Eggshell Blue on BBCTees with Bob and Raphael Doyle, April 2017

Eltje: https://eltje.bandcamp.com/
Bob on BBC Tees: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7y6
Nick on BBC Newcastle: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00xf10n

Eltje on BBC Tees and BBC Newcastle, 13 May 2017

https://bluejohnbenjamin.bandcamp.com/album/mythical-creatures

Deadtown [by Rich Whitworth and Blue-John]

Deadtown, you won’t drag my brother down.
Blank spaces; bleached-white faces.
He will never make his home here.
You almost bled him dry here.

Deadtown, a knife-like frost cuts him to the bone,
and you try to swing him round,
but he’s a cat on his ninth life.
You won’t make him take his own life.

Survival tips born of restless sleeping:
hide in long grasses; keep perfectly still;
thwart Lucifer himself by force of will.

Deadtown, that girl’s got him spellbound;
she’s a spark of inspiration.
They’re walking back to her place;
he’s sunken-eyed and punch-drunk.

Deadtown, he’s dressed up to the nines,
and he’s talking up a storm,
when her gentle, doorstep goodbye
makes him switch to flying monk mode,
makes him switch to flying monk mode.

Afternoon tea by the sea: across the
Moors, then down Blue Bank, to Whitby. But I
think it only fair to make you aware
that, along with Beckett’s sticky cakes,
and Gutsy Ginger’s incense,
mythical creatures are to be found there,
steeped in song.

Deadtown, he no longer feels the chill.
He slips free of sea-stone shackles,
wraps his coat around a vagabond,
and whispers kindly to the vixen.

Deadtown, graffiti hackers razed you to the ground;
you bored them half to death.
Marauding gulls and feral children came;
they live inside your scorched remains,
they live inside your scorched remains.

Hide in long grasses; keep perfectly still;
thwart Lucifer himself by force of will.

BLUE-JOHN BENJAMIN AND HIS AMATEUR HUMANS - Deadtown

The Rebirth of Reynardine, about a misunderstood outlaw in the vein of Robin Hood, reawakens and re-envisions the mysterious werefox found in English song. In my tale, the heroine is his only equal.

http://www.sounditoutrecords.co.uk/vinyl-c139/local-artists-north-east-uk-c399/blue-john-benjamin-cats-with-lasers-the-rebirth-of-reynardine-p1281

The Rebirth of Reynardine

https://bluejohnbenjamin.bandcamp.com/

Thom's campervan guitar . . .
Blue-John's seaglass, singing and plastic sax . . .
Quidgybopper's smoke and reverb . . .

Nothing

Are science and religion not rooted
in the same question: How can Something come
from Nothing? And here is a possible
answer: There is no such thing as Nothing.

“It’s all too easy to imagine an
empty box,” you say. “Isn’t that Nothing?”
No, Nothing can neither be pictured nor
unpictured; emptiness is not Nothing.

There is never Nothing -- never was nor
will be -- for Always, there is Something or
there are some things, such as the building blocks
of earthly life, which came from what was once

an Everything, with no shape, no size, no
space to occupy. One Everything that
split, folded in on itself, and blossomed
light, this moment, and, amazing to me,

you,
there in your raincoat, thinking me a fool,
your eyelashes heavy with summer’s-end --
the moist air between us hazed by woodsmoke,
my friend.

Nothing can neither be felt nor unfelt,
but emptiness is another matter,
held, as it is, inside things left unsaid.
Everything leaves no room for expression --

no space, no time, no illumination.
To make way for comets, dust, a heartbeat,
a deep red sky, and the freedom to be
gripped by love, Everything must break apart.

“Don’t we all go back to Nothing?” you ask.
No, what we were will be transformed into
Something different -- a new beginning
of sorts. Facing death is not a problem,

as long as it’s my own; the thought of yours
delivers a leaden chill to the bone.
Your words shiver, dusk enfolds your body,
and I say absolutely Nothing to

you,
there in your raincoat, thinking me a fool,
your eyelashes heavy with summer’s-end --
the moist air between us hazed by woodsmoke,
my friend.

Nothing

Tom Robinson: BBC broadcaster, and the man who wrote War Baby.

http://www.tomrobinson.com/

BBC 6 Music

.. From The Red Telephone Boxes' Graveyard EP
by Blue-John Benjamin And His Amateur Humans.

Wolf in a Woollen Coat

Influenced by Serge Gainsbourg, Morrissey, and the steampunks who visit Whitby, Cats with Lasers tells the story of mutant extraterrestrials which invade Earth, and the only man ready to stand up to them - a new kind of hero. At the juncture between wild imaginings and half-madness, parts were written for Diane Youdale or ‘Jet’ from Gladiators, and the real-life maker of ingenious musical gadgetry, Thomas Truax.

http://www.sounditoutrecords.co.uk/vinyl-c139/local-artists-north-east-uk-c399/blue-john-benjamin-cats-with-lasers-the-rebirth-of-reynardine-p1281

Cats with Lasers

Intergalactic Vault of Obscure Phraseology

Bluephoria (blōō~ fôr'ē-ə)
-noun

1. A genre of music supposedly invented by a ghostlike English songsmith;

2. A painstakingly crafted, sonic love letter characterised by buckled chords, bittersweet lyrics, warm woodiness, and a generous dusting of deliberate overambition;

3. That which is released on Derelict Roller Disco Records, a purely fictitious label;

4. A transient state of melancholic well-being induced by listening to the work of an ancient poet, and his Amateur Humans – an assemblage of loyal collaborators who, through thick and invariably thin, keep him company around the campfire.

Blue-John Benjamin

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks