Things I Have Made

Today I’m going to show you some of the stuff I’ve made over the years. There’s music, pictures, jewels… And probably something else too, that I’ve forgotten.
I hope you like what you see – it’s all for sale, so if you’re interested in anything, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line via sam@twenty-six-seven.com.
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Music

Over the last 25 years or so I’ve written loads of songs, and I sometimes get really into recording them too. I really like the recording and producing process, it’s where I’m at my most inventive with music. In real life I’m an OK guitarist, and I can do a limited amount of stuff with mediocre results on a piano, a drum kit, or a bass guitar, but the magical thing is that I can make myself sound much better at all these things when I’m in the studio – I like chopping things up and stretching them and making something new.

I learnt to do a lot of this at university, where I studied music production and songwriting and stuff. Those were some fun days, and I ended up with a pretty good degree which… Well, it’s nice to have it, but I don’t really use it much these days. In all honesty I’m more interested in my counselling stuff now, but that doesn’t stop my music from existing anymore. If you want proof, here are some pictures of various bits of my album art, and a bit of info about the records I’ve made:

In the little slideshow above are the front covers of four of my albums – I think I’ve recorded seven in total, but I’ve only released four of them. They’re all available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon (the bastards), and all the other Deezers and Google Play Stores that you might prefer to use, so please, feel free to have a listen. I’ll tell you some more about the four albums now. Ready? Cool.

‘Wasting Time‘ is my earliest album – I recorded it with my brother Tom around 2006-ish. We had a right old laugh making it, and it’s full of strange experimental fun songs, but nowadays I wish I’d spent some extra time (or money) mastering it because it sounds a bit flimsy compared to my other music… There are some nice moments on it though, especially the second half of the final track. I have a few copies of it on CD in a box, which are for sale. If you want one, they’re like… I dunno, £3 or something. I’m not very good at the sales thing. Make me an offer if you want to. I’ll probably accept it.

‘Anything Again‘, the album with the tiger on the front, is an album of Pop Songs that I wrote around 2011-ish, when I was a student. I really love this album, I think it has some great songs on it, and I recorded it all at home using the most basic equipment (one microphone, a £189 Zoom hard-disk recorder, and a laptop that overheated a lot because I was using a hacked copy of Cubase on it). There are some really nice dreamy bits on ‘Anything Again‘, and I reckon the last song – ‘The Same Old Song‘ – might be one of the best pieces of pop that I’ll ever write.
Actually, there’s a video for that lovely piece of poppy pop here, which you can watch immediately, for free.
I never released this album on CD so it’s digital all the way, baby. Look it up, have a listen, you might like it… Or you might hate it, but if that happens, just stop listening to it, it doesn’t matter.

In 2015 I released ‘Soft Out Of Seventeen‘ – an instrumental album that’s exactly 60 minutes long, with no gaps between the tunes, and which finishes where it starts, so you can play it on repeat forever and ever. Essentially it’s one long track, so if you download it it costs the same as a single, but on CD it’s split into individual songs.
It’s named after a moment I spent with my friend Ryan, who I lived with in Canterbury at the time of recording – he climbed over our garden wall onto the riverbank once, to retrieve a car battery from the water (yes, people throw car batteries into rivers here), and I asked him to rate the riverbank out of seventeen. He said, “Soft,” and so the name for my album was born.
I listened to Soft Out Of Seventeen last week and I think it’s fucking wicked. Maybe you will too. If you listen to it on Spotify, I will receive a fraction of a penny in about 25 years time. If you’re interested in a copy on CD, give me a shout (and a fiver) and I’ll frisbee one directly into your ear.

In early 2017 I released my most recent album, ‘This Time A Bird‘. I think this is probably the best music I’ll ever make. Like ‘Soft Out Of Seventeen‘, it’s an hour of uninterrupted music, but this time with singing… Yeah, I know right, pretty exciting. It got some really good reviews when it came out, including one in Prog Magazine, and I think I’ve sold 4 copies of it now. I gave a lot of copies away, but I still have a couple of CDs left in my special box, so if you want one, you’d better get in touch before they go stale. Does anyone listen to CDs anymore? I know I do, but… I dunno. I’m still getting used to having a smartphone. Weird innit. Anyway, ‘This Time A Bird’ is really good, even if I do say so myself, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. There’s a song on it called ‘Motherfuckers‘ which has Donald Trump on it chanting, ‘BUILD THAT WALL!’ while I do a Supertramp-esque guitar solo. Actually, you can listen to that song here for free.

I’m a terrible salesperson; I record music, I release it, I never tell anyone about it, and then I sit on a box of CDs while telling people where they can listen to my songs for free. Brilliant. Oh well, life’s weird isn’t it.
I might make some more music one day, but I haven’t felt the urge for a few years. I think my creativity’s been directed towards learning to be a counsellor and a few other bits and bobs instead, such as….

Art

At the end of 2017, while my narcissistic ex stalked me and I tried (successfully, it would seem) to avoid thoughts of suicide, I discovered that I could paint. I was immobilised at the time by a horrible depression and a hellish dental pain, and I wasn’t enjoying living by myself in my little flat in Ramsgate, so one day, out of desperation more than anything else, I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to buy some paint, a couple of brushes, and a canvas,’ and I gave it a whirl. A couple of days later I’d finished my first painting: a self portrait. I had long hair then.

I quite like this painting – I used acrylics, and didn’t really know what I was doing with them, but I kept dabbing away at it and then suddenly it sort of looked finished, so I hung it on my wall and went to bed. But then, as I nodded off, my wall whispered to me, saying it wanted some more paintings, and so I did a few more. I’ve done about 15 now. Here are the goodest ones:

As you may have noticed, I discovered that I really like painting pictures of nude women. There’s something about the curves that is just wonderous to paint. However, I also like painting mushrooms and fish, so it’s not all about tits. I wonder if I’d enjoy painting a nude man. I guess the answer is ‘maybe’. I might try it one day and see how it goes. But which man would I paint? Maybe you can write to me with a suggestion.
I’m a bit gutted that the photos of my paintings don’t look as good as the actual paintings, but hey, I can’t do much about that. If you want to look at the photos again and imagine that they look better than they do, then be my guest.

All my paintings are on canvas, measuring 14X11 inches, except for the Fly Agaric mushroom painting, which is a bit smaller. I reckon it’s 10X8 inches, but I can’t be bothered to measure it. They’re for sale, but I don’t know how much to charge for them, so if you like one and you want it, feel free to make me an offer. I’m also happy to do commissions – I work from photos, so if you have a photo you’d like to see in paint, hit me up.

Also, if you want any of my artwork printed on a mug, a shower curtain, a t-shirt, a phone case, or pretty much any other household item, all you have to do is click here and choose something (and pay for it). The products are really good quality, and I get a decent-ish amount of money from each sale, which of course translates into opportunities for me to eat hot meals and to live indoors for a while longer.

I haven’t done any painting for a while, although I did create some new ones in 2020 during the first lockdown. I really enjoy it when I’m into it, but again, my counselling training has kind of taken over as my main focus. I like to think that one day I’ll be working with clients for some of my time, and between therapeutic hours I’ll be painting, writing books, and playing music. To be honest, that lifestyle doesn’t feel like it’s a million miles away right now. Maybe in a year or two I’ll be nicely settled into that creative and curative groove.

So that’s my painty stuff. If you want to, you can follow my art page on Instagram by clicking here. Whenever I finish a new painting, I photograph it and stick it on there, so if you follow me you’ll never miss a new one. For now though, let’s move on to another creative thingy what I went and done during lockdown.

Jewellery Making

Near where I live, there’s a beach. It’s a very nice beach, but it’s also no ordinary beach. In the Victorian times (and quite a lot more recently too) it was a landfill site. I don’t know why it was a landfill site – there are many more appropriate things to do with waste than dumping it into the fucking sea – but I can’t do anything about that. Anyway, the cool thing about this beach is that lots and lots of glass was dumped there over the years, and nowadays you can just go there and collect tons of bits of sea-worn glass, in all different colours and shapes.
I went to this beach a lot during the lockdowns of 2020, and I ended up with bags and bags of these little coloured pieces of glass, and once I was back at home I used the free time that Covid granted me to learn how to use epoxy resin – a pourable liquid solution that sets into a hard transparent type of plastic. Thus was born a new industry: making glass mushrooms and setting them in little pendants. I made about 25 of these, thinking that I would sell them, but then I forgot to tell anyone about them, and I started writing a book instead. So now I have loads of pendants for sale, which look like this:

I think they’re quite sweet. Most of them are pretty small, measuring about the size of a 10p piece, but a few are bigger – about 6cm across – and they all hang on little waxed cotton cords, with stainless steel clasps attached. Oh, and they each live in a little velvet drawstring bag, like proper jewellery.

Again, these jewels are for sale – the little ones cost £5 and the biggies are £10. If you’re interested in making a purchase, drop me an email and I’ll tell you what I’ve got. I’ll probably do you a deal if you buy more than one.

I might make some more one day, but then again I might not, so there you go. To tell the truth, anyone’s guess is as good as mine as to whether I’ll write another song, paint another naked lady, or make another pendant in the future. I seem to be more interested in writing novels now.

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So there you go. That’s a bunch of the stuff I’ve made during my life. It’s nice being creative; I always feel more satisfied when I’m making something than when I’m consuming something, although I do listen to a lot of music and lately I’ve watched a lot of comedy, so I guess it cuts both ways. I’ll tell you what though, I haven’t owned a TV for 13 years now, and I don’t miss it one bit. When I first lived alone, I found that having a television made me waste a lot of time; I’d sit and stare into space and wonder if there was something better on a different channel. It was quite frustrating. Then one day I bought a new guitar and to make space for it I put my TV out with the bins, and I haven’t looked back since.

I’m not sure what to write now, so I think I’ll say thank you for looking at and reading about the Things I Have Made, and I’ll wish you a very lovely day. Oh, and let’s not forget to be nice to each other. That’s really important. Life can be really hard sometimes, and it makes a massive difference when people are nice to each other. That’s our job really, whether we’re watching telly or recording a new album – it’s all about being nice in the end isn’t it? Is it? I think so. So let’s all go and do that. And thank you, again, for reading my bloggings.

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If you’re reading this bit, thank you for making it all the way to the end. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my words as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.
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