Dr. Brydon's Retreat

Don Your Suits

Sail Yachts

Earn Big Money

That Sweet Fruit

Will Rot

Inside Your Body

Doctor Doctor, I have what is popularly diagnosed as ‘man-flu’.

My long-suffering manager has begged me to register with a doctor. I have
wilfully avoided his counsel like the plague and yet, inevitably, it is the
plague that has now found me. I have paraded my influenza with a theatrical
melodrama that has inspired sympathy in my acquaintances and mild contempt
in my close friends.

Do not attempt to seek me out in my local tavern. You will find me wallowing
at home with only a radiator and a blocked nose for company. My signature
aperitif has been replaced with a cocktail of Berocca, paracetamol,
self-pity and regurgitated snot.

At least I can take comfort that I am not alone. Much of London seems to
have succumbed to this pandemic, which has stripped the capital’s nocturnal
hotspots of its mini-skirts, pukers and broken glassware. Weekend television
ratings must have skyrocketed. Pharmacists were probably celebrating record
profits as the city’s sick erotically smeared Vicks’ VapoRub all over their
breasts and chests. It has been a time of national crisis.

Ok, so maybe I’m overstating it a smidgen and magnifying the collective
sense of empathy. Such is my solipsism.

The point is, apparently I should not approach my ailment like a child
playing the central, terminally-ill, protagonist in a game of Doctors and
Nurses. Although my symptoms are unlikely to raise a concerned eyebrow in
the most compassionate medical ward, they do exhibit one crippling personal
defect: my voice. Or lack of voice, as any casual observer would note. It is
divine providence that Kites do not have a performance for another 12 days.

In future, I need to take better care of my greatest bodily tool. Alas, this
isn’t a pantomime featuring a prostrate Matthew Phillips. It’s the
difference between playing a live show and utterly humiliating myself.

No, I am not a polyrhythmic. So what?

If, like me, you don’t pretend to be an instrumentalist, you might be able to imagine the quandary I find myself in as a songwriter. You might also like to suggest that I select another profession.

Would you trust a surgeon whose medical training consisted of watching box-sets of ER and Scrubs?

Would you pay a lawyer who had perused a few John Grisham novels instead of attending law school?

Probably not.

And yet, I have somehow deluded myself into believing that the most rudimentary understanding of musical theory is sufficient to pursue one’s chart-topping ambitions.

I find this handicap particularly tedious when I compose melodies on the piano. I say ‘melodies’ because these childish jingles would be viewed with scorn by real masters of the ivories.

Although I sometimes fancy myself as a guitarist, I have never been taught piano. While the rest of my schoolyard chums were being rapped on the knuckles for failing to complete a recital of ‘Three Blind Mice’, I was strumming the power chords of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

Thus, to find myself suddenly facing a piano wearing the sort of expression that a monkey would when encountering an iPod is quite a challenge. Attempting to perform and record 4 minutes of seamless piano - albeit piano of troll-like simplicity - is a frustrating and interminable exercise.

Ultimately, let me conclude this self-deprecating entry by stating that I believe an intuition for melody to be the single-greatest faculty that a songsmith can posses. In any case, I was under impression that session musicians could be hired to overcome any instrumental difficulties that might be impeding the completion of a masterpiece.

In time, I may employ one of these virtuosos but, by then, I’ll be able to afford piano lessons.

Captain Biggles

I have a frightfully big bone to pick with Google.

Imagine that you are strolling absentmindedly along your local high-street one day when you suddenly recognise an old acquaintance walking in the opposite direction. As you wave congenially to them you would expect to obtain some form of acknowledgement. It might be a fleeting glance. It might be a handshake. It might be that you spend the next four hours making small talk in the nearest Weatherspoon with someone you hardly know. Whatever the outcome, it is deemed the greatest slight to ‘blank’ such an advance altogether. To be left impotently gesticulating in a public place is the ugliest humiliation. In polite society, if quarrelling is like traditional military engagement, a ‘blank’ is the social equivalent of unleashing mustard gas. It is a dirty, underhand and gruesome tactic.

This is how I feel about Google. Oh, had you forgotten that I was discussing our omnipotent webmaster?

Google knows exactly who I am. I visit her several times a day and ask her various ontological questions. It is a sad truth that I see Google with more frequency than I see my own mother. Why then, when I type the words ‘KITES MYSPACE’ into her window of wisdom, does she callously refuse to recognise me?

Google! You left me standing limply in the street screaming your name as you walked casually by! If I knew what ‘Bing’ was I would be using it!

To make matters worse, she happily lists every other band with a similar name. Evidently, Google has her favourites. She is as fickle as the most weak-minded primary school teacher. I will not be party to such petty politics. Ever since Google signed a deal with Verizon she has undermined the very principle of digital democracy. Why should I change a band name for the sole purpose of improving my SEO ratings? No, it is Google who should change. Let us revolt against this cruel tyrant!

If I saw Google in the street nowadays, I wouldn’t simply blank her, I would go over and spit in her face!

Oh dear, I think I need a cloth to clean my computer monitor.

"So let's not drift here like the Raft of Medusa. 

We'll make our way to the rocky shores of South Georgia.

In an open boat.

We pitch our hopes."

Pretentious? Moi?

There is so much about my elevated prose that merits public ridicule. Perhaps you think I should hang my head in shame? These entries are not the typed ramblings of a literary wizard but of a garrulous parrot. I am aware that I frequently use words carelessly and, dare I say it, incorrectly. Please pocket your red pens and arrest your rolling eyeballs. They are not wanted here!

"It’s so easy to laugh,
It’s so easy to hate.
It takes guts to be gentle and kind."

I make no apologies. Without such brash declarations the world would be so much less colourful. Put plainly, my jejune words are symptomatic of my character.

Maybe you think I should try to emulate Hemingway? He knew how to write. He knew how to keep things simple. Really. Simple.
But It would hardly be convincing. It would hardly reflect Matthew Phillips.

Blogs serve as a gateway into an artist’s internal monologue. They are not carefully edited or scrutinised.
In short, they are not lyrics.

The present outburst took minutes to compose.
In contrast, I can toss and turn and sweat over a period of many weeks until I feel content with a single word in any given Kites track.

Now I must leave you. I have a dictionary I am desperately attempting to swallow!

Kites Tour – Part 3

Exchanging Glances Over Glasses

So this was our nadir. We clambered into our vehicle on Wednesday morning without the usual Flintstones-like aplomb. As I configured our Sat-Nav for Manchester, I was demoralised, fatigued and disillusioned. Privately, I was dreading our journey through the barren moors of Northern England and yet, somehow, the experience was to provide roboration for our troubles. I soon learnt that this was not a land of dark Satanic Mills, as William Blake may have described it, but one where hope springs eternal. As we twisted and meandered our way through the salubrious countryside, I could feel Kites’ lifeblood return.

We were greeted in the car park of Blueprint Studios by Frederick and his assistant Christopher. These two amiable characters instantly put our combustible nerves at rest. My previous experiences of recording houses had been limited to snotty adolescents slouching before faders and dials like they were attempting to fathom Pythagoras’ Theorem.

Blueprint Studios was to be an altogether different affair.

We were ushered into separate rooms and left to set up our equipment with the sort of care usually reserved for Airfix model aeroplanes. The glamour of Blueprint seemed like a world distantly removed from the flat cider, temperamental equipment, and howling feedback that we had grown accustomed to. I could not have imagined how easily Kites would assimilate this new territory. Georgie and Taio refined their parts in under three takes whilst Richard aided Frederick in pin-pointing snares and crashes which were a nano-second out of time. Some might call such punctiliousness ludicrous but I was charmed by his thirst for perfection.

We left the studios flushed with excitement and clutching our first professionally engineered demo. It hasn’t been released yet and therefore I must urge patience!

Manchester embraced us in its bosom as we frolicked through its streets in a whirlwind of interviews, inebriation and youthful folly. It all culminated in a fantastic show at the Night & Day Cafe where we were fortunate enough to meet the lovely Andrew Grimshaw of Get Your Ears Out.

There was only one journey and one more show in Brixton before our maiden tour would reach its natural denouement.

We were tired.

We were dirty.

We were enriched, enhanced and empowered by our experiences.

We were ready to face a nebulous future with confidence and optimism.

A huge ‘thank you’ to our manager – Matt Errington – who made this all possible.

Next stop: Indigo2...