"The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur" - three days to go!

Too many of our high street stores are being boarded up! Out on Friday…

Folking.com reviews “The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur”...

A truly excellent review of the new “The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur” album from Mike Davies at folking.com! 

Many thanks Mike – greatly appreciated! 
 

***

 

BEAU – The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur (Cherry Red BEAULC1)

 

Incredibly, on The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur, his 18th album for the label (released digitally), Trevor Midgley is in as sharp a satirical form as ever, this time, again armed with his 12-string, the tabloids, cancel culture and champagne socialism amongst those under his withering gaze. Cascading chords set things in motion with ‘Shipwrecked Island’, a song that turns the age old tale of the castaway into one of isolationism, murdering the other crew survivor and taking care no snoopers passing by see any sign of his being there. A circling fingerpicked pattern is the framework for ‘Publish And Be Damned’, the phrase made famous by the Duke of Wellington in response to being told that an illicit affair with a famed prostitute was to be revealed in her forthcoming memoirs. It’s been taken up as a flag of defiance by the free press in the face of those who would bury the facts, but when Beau notes his song celebrates “the guardians of our liberty” you can be pretty sure it doesn’t. Instead it’s an attack on “the perspective camouflaged as fact” approach adopted by the tabloids as the lyrics cite such fictional (but believable) sensationalist headlines as “A Night In Someone Else’s Bra”, “Nipples And The Living Wage” and “The Duchess And Her Broken Nose” and stories of a dogging bishop and the death of an alcoholic former sports star, his photo “below an ad for Gordon’s Gin”.

 

Taking his cue from Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, the waltzing ‘The Sound Of The Poulterer’s Man’ affords the character in A Christmas Carol to whom a reborn Scrooge send a boy to buy a turkey for the Cratchits, a bigger role alongside the four ghost who had come to “indict/debase, defile and demean” as means to his redemption, though, naturally, cynicism inevitably rears its head in “those toxins that eddy and swirl in the mire/Will show up again if they can”.

 

The jaunty ‘The Barbershop Quartet’, from whence the album title springs and I suspect has Sweeny Todd as an inspiration, concerns the dirty deeds done in stealth and secrecy by the metaphorical tonsorial hitmen while those in authority maintain an air of innocence (the current Post Office debacle comes to mind) where “rhetoric and reality are really not the same” and there’ll always “be singers in a barbershop quartet”. The wryly amusing ‘Never Trust A Cat’, spun out as a canine diary entry and a feline PhD introduction, runs with the idea that while dogs are loyal companions who regard their masters as gods, for cats it’s a case that they’re the ones in charge, the moral of the tale being that “knowledge is a blessing; unless it’s getting out of hand”.

 

Not based on an actual person, ‘The Passing Of Eli Mackay (“A Scot with an accent that’s pure Somerset” and “an aura that placed him between Jesus and Santa Claus”) is a morality tale about gaslighting and exploitation as the despicable cocaine snorting rogue is killed by the woman he turned into an addict and looked to force into prostitution, the judge, whose daughter had died from drugs, declaring that in those case justice would indeed be blind. Social media gets a skewed dissing in ‘The Minnow’, a song using piscine imagery about those who use freedom of speech to defend their online “entitlement to be disturbingly vile” about all those they believe are responsible for keeping them down, the sticklebacks, the bream and, above all “those bastards, the Whales!”

 

Few will probably be aware of Noel Godfrey Chavasse, an English medical doctor, Olympic athlete, and British Army officer and one of only three people to be awarded a Victoria Cross twice during WWI, being killed at Passchendaele in 1917 and buried at Ypres. The final line describing him as “forgotten alas”, Beau now returns him to the history spotlight with the urgently strummed ‘Chavasse’, a number that puts me in mind of Country Joe McDonald’s ‘War War War’ album.

 

Another jaunty tune, ‘A Cautionary Tale’ is what it says on the label, described as about no-platforming “the intellectual equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going la, la, la”, recounted as a drunken confessional of a “cast-iron liberal” who found herself to be less so than she thought in shutting down an opposing voice. It’s then the turn of champagne socialists and armchair revolutionaries to get the sharp end of the satire stick on the bouncy jogalong ‘Revolution Rendezvous’ (“we sometimes sample this Bordeaux/When planning for the overthrow/Of fascististical regimes/And maybe going to extremes/The vintage Margaux”), a watering hole also providing the backdrop for ‘The Watchmaker’s Arms’, a song inspired by the sort of conversations to be overheard in a spit and sawdust British pub among the sort of clientele who think “what some might consider electoral fraud/Is simply a method of setting things straight/Engaging the righteous before it’s too late”, of WikiLeaks crusaders and crossing the line between freedom of speech and betrayal of trust. And so it ends, words tumbling over one another, with ‘Song Of Accountability’ (almost a musical throwback to the 30s and 40s), a comment on how, in looking to apportion blame, those truly accountable somehow remain under the radar while the more visible are caught in the headlights, or, as he puts it, the order from the top, the “sorcerers of spin”, that “assistant heads must roll”.

 

The word saboteur comes from the old French saboter, which means to kick something with an old-fashioned wooden shoe. Long may Beau give it some clog.

 

Mike Davies

 

 

The first review of “The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur”...

I feel I really have to re-post this review, which John Eliot has kindly sent me. It is I know due to be published in print media, but this is John’s take on “The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur”; for which I’m most grateful!
 

***

 

Beau

Confessions of a Saboteur

Recorded and produced by Beau

Available on download April 19th 2024

 

I bought my first LP from Beau in 1972. I’ll admit the reason why, I loved the label. It was very different, unique, a painting of a dandelion! Fortunately, I also loved the album. Between 1969 and 1972 Beau was recording for John Peel’s label Dandelion, which ceased in 1972.

 

Since then, Beau has recorded many discs and interestingly Creation from 1972 has been re-released a number of times, in the UK, Spain and Italy, creating the original album on vinyl – I should frame my copy!

 

Beau now has a new collection of songs, Confessions of a Saboteur. Beau is a songwriter and player of 12 string guitar. He is a wonderful guitarist. I know from experience that the 12 string is not the easiest instrument to play, to keep in tune and give the depth of sound. Beau succeeds here quite superbly. I was sent the cd to listen to and I was somewhat surprised by his voice. Leonard Cohen’s final music was recorded when he was early eighties. Cohen’s voice, whilst still so full of feeling, sounded frail. Beau’s voice, in all honesty here, still in it’s prime! It has a melodic feel to it. No notes are lost, the tune is held and a very original quality of sound. Download at least one song, and you’ll hear what I mean.

 

I am an editor of poetry. I have read a lot of different poetry from people of different abilities. Listening to Dylan, Cohen, their lyrics are very strong, but they are song lyrics, they would not stand as poetry in a collection of poems. The only songwriter I feel writes like a poet is Paul Simon, until I read the lyrics for Beau’s new CD. They are as poetry.

 

For lovers of folk music, quality, and originality I would say this is one for you. Whilst there are those who complain about download sites ‘ripping off’ musicians, there is the benefit of listening, and deciding before making the purchase. For me, Confessions of a Saboteur is a must.

"The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur" - all going wall...

Everything’s going wall! Out on Friday…

The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur - part of the cycle of life...

Part of the cycle of life!

Out a week tomorrow... 

A novel use for "The Roses Of Eyam"!

Of all things, my Google watch just threw this up from 2015! 

Talk about being damned by faint praise! I trust 4ADiva’s son has now matured into a balanced individual…

"The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur" - every little helps...

A truly unpresidented endorsement!

Out a week on Friday... 

Dandelion Records in Suffolk Norfolk Life magazine...

Rather good article by Lin Bensley on the old Dandelion label in the April edition of Suffolk Norfolk Life mag.

It’s available to read online – head for page 98…

"The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur" is on its way...!

It’s on its way! And now available for pre-order at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVSBZLJZ !

"Chavasse" on Australia's "Under A Paisley Sky" radio show (+ a bonus!)...

Well, many thanks to Mr Paisley in Australia for TWO plays on today's "Under
A Paisley Sky" show; "Chavasse" from the new "The Last
Confessions Of A Saboteur" and the venerable "1917 Revolution"!

Very much appreciated, Mr P!

Dandelion Radio plays "Never Trust A Cat"...

Just caught Rocker’s new April show on Dandelion Radio this morning. 

Many thanks to the big man for playing “Never Trust A Cat” from my new “The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur” set (out on Cherry Red on the 19^th April).
 
The show’s repeated throughout the month, so be sure to tune in where the timing suits your whereabouts in the world!

Beau - "Chavasse" - from "The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur"...

From my new album, “The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur”…

World War One began on my father’s seventh birthday. Noel Chavasse died on my father’s tenth birthday. 

This is the story of Captain N. G. Chavasse.

“The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur” now on pre-sale!

The Easter Bunny’s surfaced and it’s happening! 

Amazon and several other sites are now listing “The Last Confessions Of  A Saboteur” (my new album for 2024) for pre-order!

The twelve-song running order is:

Shipwreck Island

Publish And Be Damned
The Sound Of The Poulterer’s Man
The Barbershop Quartet
Never Trust A Cat
The Passing Of Eli Mackay
The Minnow
Chavasse
A Cautionary Tale
Revolution Rendezvous
The Watchmaker’s Arms
Song Of Accountability

The album will be available for download and streaming worldwide from Friday, 19^th April!

Watch this space for more …

Felt Music release Trevor Midgley's "Golden Domes"...

Some friends and associates may recall a couple of years back Felt Music (in association with Cherry Red Records) released a batch of twenty of my instrumental tunes for use in commercials, documentaries, dramas and the like. These were put out under the ‘Trevor Midgley’ name on a set titled “Travelling The Highway”.

That project has proved quite successful – one of the pieces, “Beachcomber”, has been taken up by Aspall’s Cyder in a national advertising campaign.

I’m delighted to announce that Felt Music have this very day issued a second ‘Trevor Midgley’ set, this time consisting of twelve electronic compositions again aimed at the “supportive background music” sector.

The new collection’s called “Golden Domes” and this is the cover; not exactly Beau-ish, but wholly in keeping with the sounds!

So, if we have any budding movie-makers out there…

NEW BEAU ALBUM ANNOUNCED - "The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur!...

STOP PRESS: Just when you thought your Valentine’s Day couldn’t get any better, we now have the release date and title for the brand new Beau album for 2024!
 
“The Last Confessions Of A Saboteur” will be released by Cherry Red Records on Friday 19^th April, and this is the cover!
 
Much more soon!