You can hear some older
RealAudio of the sounds of FML by clicking this symbol.Updates to the FML Audio service are listed on the 'What's New' page.
Funsville Memetic Laboratories
at oodletuz.fsnet.co.uk
Current Audio Activity
The FML back catalogue is now on this separate page.
Live The Blimp activity is now on this separate page.
The FML MySpace page contains some FML tunes (or "choonz" if you prefer).
You can hear some older
RealAudio of the sounds of FML by clicking this symbol.
Updates to the FML Audio service are listed on
the 'What's
New' page.
17/01/2009: Today I recorded an instrumental (with foreign language TV added) which will become the title track of "Spelled How It Sounds", except the track is spelled "Spelt How It Sounds", just to add confusion. This (delving into the machinations for a moment) moves "Motorcade Escapade" (actually a live The Blimp proto-tune from mid-2007) back onto "Self-Harm for Beginners" where I thought it really ought to go in the first place. The latter is now up to 32 minutes, with the "Spelled" at 56. Many would say 56' is quite long enough for an album. Maybe they are right. Maybe not.
30/12/2008: Without my even particularly mentioning it, a further three Francis Ford Hovno albums have been taking shape. Tracks are slowly organising themselves between albums. However, the first of these, "Bounce & Stretch & Tear & Shatter", is now finalised enough to call it a proper release. The second will be entitled "Spelled How It Sounds", and has about 50 minutes of deffoes; the third, "Self-Harm for Beginners", is one of those that started taking shape by itself and thus delaying the earlier ones (as did "Natolko", sort of).
16/07/2008: Bit of a delay; been doing live The Blimp stuff, but "Francis Ford Hovno and the Trophy Brides" now exists in pressed form. Contains exactly as many Borneo Shruken Heads as you would expect from an item of this quality.
05/01/2008: "Natolko Ta Nenávidím" released in full fake-Deutsche-Gramophon glory.
28/09/2007: My goodness, how time flies and I don't update this page. I've been working on solo stuff as well as band stuff through the summer, with the result that not only is "Cursed To Live Forever" released, but the album after it, "Natolko Ta Nenávidím" by the look of it (sorry this HTML editor doesn't do haceks very well), are nearing completion, and there's a further 47 minutes of hotový (great-looking word but just means "ready") material for the 29th album, which to avoid further "The Blimp" confusion will be issued under the moniker of Francis Ford Hovno and the Trophy Brides. Indeed "Natolko" doesn't mention "The Blimp" in very big letters; it's disguised as a Deutsche-Gramophon-style classical recording. Oh the hell with it, why don't I just show you...
11/03/2007: The live version of The Blimp have just finished an 11-day stint mixing down enough tracks for a real, proper album to be released. 13 of the tracks completed, running time 56 minutes odd. It's like work only more fun. Intensive!
28/12/2006: "Escape From Zero" released! Again just over an hour. I've been a busy little hmyz over the past six months, what with all the The Blimp gigs and The Blimp band doing some proper studio recording on a generously speculative budget. We put down the beds for 18 tracks in two days and then we've spent ages doing all the vocals and whatnot. Rough mixes have emerged; finer ones will follow. More than an hour's worth of material for the seventh The Blimp (me) album has also been recorded. The title of that album will be "Cursed to Live Forever" by the look of it. This will contain the "core 8" songs from summer 2006 (Confidant, Little Mirror, Look At Your Little Face, No Purpose, Waste of Time, Bonsai Mountain, The Francis Ford Hovno Memorial Sulk, Dig Your Own Well).
25/06/2006: "However However However" released! Just over an hour does it weigh in at in fact. I've also, thanks at least in part to the installation of some new recording equipment (i.e. the cassette multitrack packed in) already built up a spare 55 minutes for the next album, which will almost certainly be titled "Escape From Zero".
19/04/2006: The 25th album, for which the title "However However However" looks pretty final, could in theory be done now as I've got an hour's worth for it even if I don't include anything from "Past Futures". Instead though, I'll probably go over-length and then start splitting it into 25th and 26th, which is pretty well what happened with "A Warning From History" too. What a rate of production...
02/04/2006: Another 6-track EP has occurred, entitled "Past Futures". Five of the six tracks are based on a jam session which occurred somewhere past Middlewood on the spring equinox, which also included a mini The Blimp set (with stand-in drumming by Tyler Smith, as our regular drummer had other commitments that night), featuring the first live performance of "Rifleman". Anyway, the five aforementioned tracks are based on tunes newly jammed thereat, with some of the lyrics thought thereup on, with all nice middle eights added and stuff brought together with a completely new composition entitled "Past Future". Other guest musicians included Darren Wheels (host), Johnny Wheels, Maz, Pat, and anyone else I've forgotten (I'll ask Ken when I see him. This entry was written on 19/04.)
12/02/2006: The fourth The Blimp studio album, "A Warning From History", is now complete and about as available as it will ever be. Pretty well exactly an hour, with 16 tracks on it, including the sort-of-epic "Rifleman" (see below). Out of the live stuff, it includes "What's Your Motivation" and "Further Action [inc. Mystic Sulkstress]", but nearly all of it is newer, having been written since last August 30th. The next album's coming along nicely too, with about 4/5 of an hour done. I've now decided it won't feature "Implement Plan Z", which instead should be buried in soft peat in a lead-lined coffin for 30 years and still not looked in the general direction of. Heyski-hoski, as they say in Russia! No they don't.
02/01/2006: According to Windows Media Player the total length of tracks recorded for the 25th album so far is exactly 34 minutes. Another period of prolific-ness has occurred, in other words. This is more typical of me, as it's my Xmas holiday. Anyhoo (or anyhugh... or anyhuff...) provisional album titles include:
All of these are probably rubbish though. Meanwhile I've got 59' wortj (aagh - WORTH - I've got to stop typing these Js) of stuff for "A Warning From History" so it's now just a case of neatening up the intro and inter-track babble, maybe inserting some links, and doing the cover art. This 59' includes the 7½' bulk of "Rifleman" which is probably the longest track I've ever put out on an album. No, hang on, "Step Ahead" was longer if you add both parts together, and so was "Erebus". However however and jedenfalls however... here, because I love you and I am a fool, is a scan of the initial centre artwork for "A Warning From History", which will be used, it will.
03/10/2005: Another 5-track EP has arrived. This is called "Implement Plan Z". Its title track is the least stable thing I have written for a while. I wish to comment no more except to say that all 5 tracks will appear either on the next The Blimp album, "A Warning From History", or on the one after that which I haven't got a title for yet. Except "Guts for Garters" which appeared on "Für Ihre Sicherheit" already.
26/09/2005: Note track two of the set list of the live gig, "What's Your Motivation". The practice CD ("u.n.titled") contained a rough version of this, with me doing the basic chords and improvising the words on top. Today I have done a full recording of this song. I mention this because it's the 10th track with a Sep. 2005 date on it. The next album is, in consequence, more than half done. Feeling a bit less mental, I think, though the usual method can always step in, or indeed out, and wreck it This is turning into a blog. Shut up. OK.
25/09/2005: "Für Ihre Sicherheit" released! 19 tracks (though this is really a cheat as two of them are out-takes of one of the others), coming in just shy of one hour's duration. Thrill to the sound of me going to the bottle-bank, recorded about a year ago! And fifteen proper tunes of course.
12/09/2005: I am not mean but I am precise. To this end, the woeful lack of tracks on "50cc, No Silencer" has been rectified by adding a five-and-a-half minute two-parter. Erk, I'm not sure what's happening right now. Or at the very least, I'm not telling you. I have become prolific this month. Going a bit mental to be honest. A bit manic, you know.
11/09/2005: A sudden burst of enthusiasm has led me to squirt out an EP. Four tracks included: one from the forthcoming third The Blimp album / 23rd FML album, "Für Ihre Sicherheit", and two from the album after that, which I've decided will be called "A Warning From History". The title of this EP is "50cc, No Silencer". (See below.)
09/09/2005: Live The Blimp gig! I know I said that this is now on a separate page, but I thought I'd keep the stub of this entry here as it's the first one.
[The more eagle-eyed of you will spot that there is over a year between the above entry and those below. There is absolutely no reason for this.]
30/08/2004: "Six Hours of Colourbars and Tone" released! Or will be once I get the artwork together for the middle pages and print off a couple of covers + labels anyway. The master disc is done though.
14/07/2004: The second The Blimp album, being the 22nd album in total, with title as promised "Six Hours of Colourbars and Tone" has broken the hour mark, with all 19 tracks basically done including extra silliness insertion where necessary. Extra shining-up of "Hats Off To..." now completed as well. Owing to my inkjet printer going all cacky, special arrangements will have to be made on the printing-of-the-insert front.
23/05/2004: A side project to shine up the tracks for CFE's 7th album, "Hats Off To..." is underway, the final aim of this being to create a CD version of that album. Meanwhile the musical content of "Six Hours of Colourbars and Tone" has reached 45 minutes' duration, which if I stick to the usual one-hour format (despite the title) makes it three-quarters done.
27/03/2004: Finally got round to scanning in the remaining covers and filling in the ones that aren't part of the "proper" sequence of releases (i.e. 01, 02, 03, 06, 09, 25). That only leaves the ones with non-integer serial numbers... Check out what you get when you scan a CD - below! Also, the FML Multi-Track Mixer has been reborn in rudimentary form, after losing it in that PC crash a while back. Now with a bit of a different interface including a groovy zooming schedule display! I've spent ages working on zoom-bar, zoom-control and envelope-graph windows too. Meanwhile, work has being ongoing at a slightly faster pace than usual for the second The Blimp album, which barring a national catastrophe will be entitled "Six Hours of Colourbars and Tone".
26/12/2003: The Blimp album released - the title has now become "Schools Traffic Service" due to, oh, you know, one thing and another.
29/09/2003: I've now got about an hour's worth of new stuff that could all go on the The Blimp album, provisionally titled either "Jesus Wants You For A Vauxhall Nova", "Hope This Helps", or some other title, though I'll probably go for the overfill-and-select method, so don't hold your breath.
08/08/2003: The CFE Project is complete (aside from doing the last 4 CD covers until I can perform the necessary digital extraction to go and buy a new print cartridge). What is the CFE Project? Don't you mean "What was the CFE Project"? It involved taking all the old Chart Fiddle Exposé and related sessions that I had on cassette, including a load of never-quite-finished stuff, and putting it onto CD. Thirty-five 74' CDs to be exact, and nearly all over 70' full. I was so busy doing it that I forgot to mention it here, hence this entry and the next one only being added on 29/09/2003.
22/06/2003: The CFE Project begins. (See next entry up.)
05/11/2002: Well, it's been a busy October here at FML what with restoring a load of stuff after a PC crash. Thankfully I had backups; stupidly they weren't as recent as they could be. On the plus side, I've finally got around to completing "FML 20/20" (on CD only at the moment - see below). If you're wondering what happened to serial no. 25, this is "FML 5/5", really a test pressing of some earlier mixes of five tracks that appear on 20/20. "Reforming Kudos" packagaing had also been completed but was lost, so I've got to do it again. I've also yet to re-create the Multi-Track Mixer which was also lost, but happily it's basically the same as Album Recorder with a different interface, and I've still got that.
27/03/2002: "Reforming Kudos" CD completed - I went back to the 4-track post-production mixes for this, and I've also inserted the missing bar of Piffol Four Times. Digital editing rocks! The FML Album Recorder, which I forgot to mention last time but which basically is an aid to overlapping and mixing tracks, has now been supplemented with the FML Multi-Track Mixer, with which I have begun remastering 2-track recordings from "The Patron Saint of Popcorn" and "Jimi Hendrix Eyes", originally recorded with 2 stereo tape decks and a Y-adaptor. Layer upon layer of tape hiss prevented! Marvellous.
23/02/2002: "Growth Industry" and "Corner Cut" CD masters completed; work continues on re-organising cover art & lyric sheets.
28/01/2002: FML on CD at last! Thanks to a technology upgrade here at FML we are now able to bring you the pin-sharp crystal-clear etc etc and with full-on labels on the CD too! At present the last 2 albums are available on CD and work is in progress on the previous one, "Growth Industry". The table below has been amended to match (and now includes the latest album). There's a fair bit of work in re-jigging the concertina lyric sheets into CD booklets, mind.
27/08/2001: The FML Home-Grown Synth is now in full use and will feature on some tracks in the next album, provisionally entitled "FML 20/20" as it's #20. Work on the album continues in a haphazard kind of way
12/03/2001: "Chart Fiddle Exposé: Live Brickwalls 1988" is now available, and a corker it is an'all!
16/01/2001: The "live" album is nearing completion (fretting fingers now OK). It also includes several genuinely new compositions. Delays have been met with on all fronts owing to an accident over the holiday period i.e. I slipped on ice and broke my sodding leg. Ouch! However, a new piece of FML technology, the FML Crowd Generator, has offset this delay by greatly speeding up the recording of the fake authentic crowd reactions to the various musical masterpieces rendered by the fake live line-up.
04/11/2000: Work on a parallel-universe live album of the early Chart Fiddle Exposé line-up is in progress. This will feature new recordings of as-yet unreleased material from before I started doing the albums proper, plus earlier versions of what I'm tackily going to call old favourites. Unfortunately my fretting fingers have gone a bit lame again. Never mind.
11/06/2000: "Don't Ask" released! Slight tweak to cover art, but details as per below other than that. Hence the first Mr. Shifter album "Growth Industry" now appears under "Non-Latest Stuff" (see below). And there's still around 20 mins left over to make a start on the next album with ... (No details of artist name or title as of yet...)
27/05/2000: Time test tape for "Don't Ask" completed, plus version of cover art. The final version of the album will be ready soon if the Bank Holiday Weekend is used wisely. The album will contain 15 tracks including the traditional between-first-two interlude. 3 pieces of TCM have found their way in, of which the interlude is one.
16/04/2000: Work on the 18th album (Mr. Shifter's second), provisionally titled "Don't Ask", continues apace. There is now an hour's worth of new material and more, but in light of the recent predeliction for test-card music (no, really) extra time will be required on the "what order to put stuff in / which stuff to use" element of the process. Owing to local sound regulations (and not because I've moved from a detached house to a terrace or anything mundane like that), we have now brought on-line the wonderful piece of techno-wizardry that is the FML Drum Composer to provide many of the drum tracks.
21/12/1999: The 9th general-release album, "Chart Fiddle Exposé....Continued" has just been given a new lease of life thanks to super-whizzy digital remastering technology (all right, not digital ... and "super-whizzy" just means that the 8-track machine uses up casettes twice as quick) - see below for more back-catalogue stuff.
Oct. 1999: In their current guise as Mr. Shifter, our music technicians have extracted another cassette-based lifeform from their huge vat of bubbling magnetic oxide. Entitled "Growth Industry", this is the seventeenth in this series of ill-advised experiments (although the first under the "Mr. Shifter" name), and once again it runs to a full hour. The usual batch of influences - Zappa, Cardiacs, the Fall etc - make their presences felt, though the distinctive marque of FML music-mutation technology overlays all. This album also marks a double gear-change for us here at FML: the first scanned-artwork cover AND the first full use of the 8-track facility throughout the production.