The purpose of the jottings page is to show news and publish my ramblings, we will try and place  the latest news at top of page, so here goes..... 2nd June 2008                                                   Here is an extract from a recent interview I was asked to do..............    Graham Fell, welcome to this edition of Dayspring’s e-mag! As always, we’ll start with a few quick questions:   Where were you born? Leeds, where else? What’s the last band/artist you were listening to? Mattias ia Eklundh playing his “the road less travelled” album What’s your favourite guitar (you don’t have to own it but you may!)? I love my Variax 600 (that I fitted a Roland Guitar synth hex pick-up to) In three words, describe Leeds. Evolving, Industrious and Friendly What gets you most excited about God? The enormity of what he is, what he does and what he’s done. The way his thinking and values are often exactly the opposite of our human inclinations.  Tell us a bit about yourself: Married with 2 grown up daughters, been in telecoms and datacomms for most of my working life. Been a part of Dayspring Church since the beginning. Can’t get away from youth or childrens voluntary work. I am Loyal. Friendly most of the time. Can’t stand losing at any game, particularly football (dad used to tell me that I needed to learn how to be a good loser…. But I never did, always too interested in winning!) – long suffering LUFC supporter (Yes, I’m one that even goes when they are in div 3) –Used to be the chief test pilot at the local radio controlled model plane club - Ace table tennis player! – humble…… I enjoy a beer, good food, wine and Spain. You are a keen guitarist and musician, tell us how you got into this? Taught myself Guitar at 11. Wrote my first song at 13 (it was rubbish!). Been in a number bands, felt the buzz, got bored, can’t stand “covers”, prefer originality but the philistines don’t recognise class….. Went into semi-recluse musical life and taught myself how to operate a Project Studio, released 2 x CD albums – both failed miserably, but I enjoyed putting them together. Best gig was when a band I was in called “Sack the Sax” played ARMLEY Jail in Leeds… ask me about it! I now concentrate on creating a wide variety of songs and tunes ranging from numerous Rock genres, Jazz , Country, Fusion, Experimental and even Rap and Dance. I may make a comeback with Praise and Worship, but if I do it won’t be like the traditional way! – dare me!!!!!! You record a lot of music, what have you been recording recently and how can we listen to it? Go to www.bernamica.com (my own designed website that I created whilst recovering from pneumonia) on the home page there is a Music Streamer. On the music page you can download for FREE a lot of my music (mp3 format). Or go to www.myspace.com/bernamicagray and again you can hear my music. If you really want to help, go to www.mychristianbands.com join as a fan and give Bernamica Gray some rave reviews!!! I am on a secular music forum called www.guitarcollective.org.uk/forum and each month a musical task is announced, I am so sad that I have contributed every month with a full recording for 17 months on the trot, so far! Why does music mean so much to you? Like all teenagers it started as an “identity”, then I got into the “maths” of it, soon it was an outlet for my rage and angst, then it became soothing and restful. I just love listening and making music – music is the soundtrack to life. Frank Zappa, that lover of Christians (not) said “music is the best” and he was nearly right. I still get goosebumps when listening to a new album by an artist who I rate and believe it or not my own music on occasion gives me the chills as well! I love the technical aspect of music and at the same time love the simplicity.   Most bizarre thing I’ve seen was when a chap was taking his 4 foot long Monitor Lizard for a walk You were one of the founders of Kidz Klub tell us just one story from your experience that sums up how important KK is as a project. Oh man! I have loadsa stories about KK! I think the best way I can sum it up is to tell you that way back in 1981 I was married at Corpus Christi catholic church on the edge of Halton Moor. As I was posing with my bride for the piccys, I was staring above the heads of the onlookers at the Halton Moor estate, which was notorious and even appeared in the 80’s on BBC panorama. I remember looking at that estate, referred to by the locals as “The Zoo” (work it out!) and was thinking to myself “what a Godforsaken place that is!”. Then 10 years ago we started JAZZ (a pre-cursor to KK) in Osmondthorpe and Halton Moor and for the past 8 years we have done KK and I have visited on average 100 kids every week on the Halton Moor estate. I KNOW now that God has NOT FORSAKEN that place nor the people! I love that estate and the people probably more than where I actually live! I remember the lack of interest in us when we started and the apathy, but now we are an accepted part of the scene and have become “street furniture” on the estate. Just lately I have met a number of young men and young ladies whilst doing my Kids Klub “round” and they all remind me that they used to come to KK when they were kids and they speak very fondly of their time there, some of those ladies are now pushing prams and it won’t be long before I meet one at the bus stop and they introduce their little 4 year old to us…. Most bizarre thing I’ve seen in the last 8 years was when a chap was taking his 4 foot long Monitor Lizard for a walk on Ullswater Crescent…. You are a regular on the forum of the Network Leeds website, tell us why you got into this and how you’ve benefited from it. For years I have sat in the congregation listening and hanging onto every word that the preacher said…. Except often I didn’t agree and wanted to discuss, but Church is still built on Constantine principles, so we generally don’t get to discuss (though Dayspring caters for this more than most I’ve seen!), so I ventured onto the NL forum and started to make new friends there and felt that difficult subjects could get a proper airing and a proper discussion could be had. Subjects like Abortion and homo-sexuality are discussed and we end up teasing out the grey areas. Whereas in some churches the congregation is just expected to tow the party line…. Which is a shame as the 2nd half of my life has shown that Jesus embraced the grey areas and often gave a grey answer to the church leaders’ “give me a black or white, yes or no answer” type questions…. Most life-changing book You also like to read a lot (and we benefit loads from your reviews on this website!) tell us the most life-changing book you have read in the last year and how it has changed you. The Bible, and especially the sermon on the mount. If you read nothing else, read that! – Jesus just stood the world on its’ head with that preach! And don’t skim the bits that you think are not relevant nowadays, coz they are! CREDO by Melvyn Bragg was the BOOK (historic novel actually) that got me into reading as it was set at the time of the first synod in whitby in 664 and described how Christianity actually arrived here in the north of England. That book answered my early questions and then I just went onto a journey searching out why church became the structure that it is and how wrong we have been…. Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (he of NOOMA fame) is the easiest read and my recommendation to anyone who wants to read about current christianity and it is a short book! 1st June 2008                                                      Things are always changing!            I am contemplating making another CD !   - I have been enjoying publishing my mp3's and giving them away for free and that will continue, but I am now being led towards a new project with a new style and a new perspective, which is great because I love the eclectic and variety that we can enjoy through music. Stay tuned for that!                                                                                      As I get older I am seeing more and more broken people. More and more people disillusioned. Sign of the times I'm afraid. (mental note: "don't get illusioned , if you don't want to be disillusioned")                 I've also come across people who won't agree with me about this, but have actually created their own brand of christianity that is actually based upon handed down sayings and myths rather than actual biblical passages, yet they are fervent in their brand. My oh my has Constantine got a lot to answer to!               Peace to all ........ boy, do we NEED peace!       Graham          1st May 2008       I have just been appointed the "TASKMASTER" for this months Guitarist Collective Forum - and I have given them (& me) the task of creating something "country", which just might provide the stimulus to get me going again! as I have stalled a bit this past week or so. Watch this space then for a new recording, in fact this will probably be the first "country recording" by Bernamica Gray!                                                                                    I always make a point of voting in the General Election, but today are the Council elections, which I refer to as the pointless elections as where I live the same old same old always happens and I see no change! - You know I really do believe that politics are important and I am interested in it, however I can really understand why there is much apathy about it as there are no stand out people anymore that have a genuine and unique viewpoint or tremendous idea.                                   I also try and keep fotball out of my website, but my team, you know, the ones who are always punished harder than the rest (-15 pts this season after having 10 pts taken off us last season!) just got told that their appeal has been turned down and once again we see injustice in action...............                      However........ just to keep a bit of perspective, I watched a long documentary last night on the Madalene McCann story and I really "feel" for those parents, there REALLY is no justice in this world, they can never escape that nightmare.  Also, my Brazillian friends are just amazing people, they have "nothing" (in materialistic and wealth terms) yet really enjoy life and are really "going for it" here in England, I love them!                            Ok, just had an idea for my country tune, so I'm off to have a plinky plonk     .....         21st April 2008         Well "Grimshaw" the tune has really grown on me these past few days! I wasn't too sure at first, but yep I like it! - this really helps when the only person involved was of course just me!               After the "holidays" means I am now back doing my bit at KK and we had a decent 1st one last saturday.         I'm a bit tired of this website................ so i've been looking into trying to re-design it and thanks to my internet buddy from California (Norelpref - that is the name put onto US solidiers dog tags whilst serving in vietnam, IF they had no religious preference) who has pointed me towards the free software world of WORDPRESS. So.... watch this space!                                                       Had a few let downs lately and surprisingly they came from people who I really thought I could count on............ but..... then we enter the murky world of "perspective". You see "perspective" as a word has followed me around these past 10 years and I'm starting to glimpse its' real meaning!         I really don't think these people had any real intention in doing me harm, well, that's what I choose to believe of them, but they certainly didn't bother taking their time to understand the effect upon me!  but, that seems to be "life" these days!  people tend to be consumed by their own little worlds..... a bit like writing a blog with a yellow background and kidding yourself that thousands of people are hanging on every word....... ha ha !!!!!!      13th April 2008       I have just read an incredible book which was NOT written by a christian author. In fact the author is from my home city of Leeds and he is called Bernard Hare. this book got nominated for I think it was the Booker prize. Anyway it is a true story about some kids who lived in a shed and were surrounded by deep depravity, we are talking prostitution, hardcore drugs, sexual abuse and underage sex as well as glue sniffing and child battering...the story is brilliant and you have to read it as it is funny and dark at the same time. Brilliantly written and I hope I meet up with the author some day! It also got my attention due to the Kids Klub voluntary work I do here in the inner city of Leeds - the book is called "urban grimshaw and the shed crew". So, after having a short break in Spain where I read this book, I decided to write my April guitarist collective task as a theme tune to a film of this book, not that there are plans to film it and not that my tunes would be considered, but anyway, download it from my music section! Peace, Graham 6th March 2008        More learning.               You know this "turn the other cheek" lark........? well, this is one of those Jesus sayings that most of us just skim over. I mean, it's just not practical is it? Especially in the violent society that we live in, right?       well....       no, wrong!       I was buying some tea bags the other evening about 6pm and having picked the 2 boxes up decided not to go right around the ailse and actually go to the front of the shop and find the end of the queue there. It was busy, apparantly lottery ticket buying night??? (having never ever bought one, how was I to know? )  Anyway, as I wondered towards the front of the shop where the queue and tills are, a young chap, taller than me but I didn't notice anything else about him, brushed past me quite quickly and he was carrying a very large crate/box of lager, as he went past and subsequently out of the door, it dawned on me that he was a thief, somehow thief sounds worse than shoplifter, but he was both. What I didn't know was that another chap had done the same thing fractionally before I saw this chap do it. Unfortunately by the time all of us in the queue had realised what had happened it was too late as the lads had dissappeared into the dark - not such a violent story but a sign of the "blatant" times we now live in.              I've also been learning about GRACE, something that we read but somehow always seem to not quite grasp....... So, someone has done me a big injustice, normally I would get very agitated and perhaps seek revenge or at least try to point out to the purpatrator the error of their ways and the injustice of it all..... but......... I seem to be hearing the word G R A C E and I know I need to give this person boatloads of it, I will try.                                                             So the offering of the other cheek business..... hmmmmmmm well up till now I have read that to mean be a pacifist, or be meek, or in 21st century terminology, be a wimp, except that just recently I have caught the odd glimpse of what "turning the other cheek" actually means! and it seems to be linked to GRACE & it is quite hard to do, in fact far from being a wimp, offering the other cheek and showing grace is a mighty powerful thing to do!, again i will try!                                                                               Sorry for going all religious on you, but for all the good works we might do (and some of us go far beyond the call of duty) actually, to God, they don't mean a jot, nada, zilch, nowt......... you see, all that God is interested in, is our heart and to see if it is good, so if we do great and good things but have an attitude or something that we are good at hiding or use our tongues unwisely, or gossip.... then in God's eyes, those good works count for nothing........   which is why showing grace even when we have been wronged and even offering the other cheek is one of Jesus's teachings, once again he taught something that stands the world on its' head! after all, who would turn the other cheek?     Learn. Graham                  25th February 2008      It's not often that I bother to mention other artists on here (no reason why or why not, actually!) but thought I'd quickly post my thoughts on LARRY NORMAN who has died, I think yesterday.             Larry, for those of you who don't know, was the father of "christian rock" and coined the title "why should the devil have all the good music?" on one of his songs. Larry also had the best titled Album I ever heard, he called it "I'm only visiting this planet" which kind of summed him up!         Larry wore his hair long and blonde and he was one of the few rock stars who "really" had "presence", I remember seeing him at a concert just after he went through a divorce (divorce was taboo in those days especially amongst certain christian types...) and Larry didn't hide his feelings as he prowled and scowled his way through those concerts.     I also drove for hours to the souith of England to watch him at one of the "Greenbelt" concerts only to find out that he wasn't showing.... his mate Randy Stonehill filled in and er Cliff... but it wasn't the same for me, however as an aside, this was completely made up by the fact that at that concert I saw U2 and that was when Bono had a Mohican hairstyle and they wern't famous!  In fact, they played in the late afternoon, when everybody was a bit fedup as personally i had thought the entire day was a waste of time and just wasn't in the mood to watch more dross.... then U2 came on and I remember saying to my brand new wife, "oh no! punks! I arn't watching punk rock" - remember I was well into progressive rock in those days and punk rock was crap as far as I was concerned... except, U2 started with Gloria or was it Fire? but anyway 2 songs into their set and I just couldn't stand still, they were BRILLIANT! - still are !     But anyway, let me just say "thankyou and goodnight" to the GREAT LARRY NORMAN, who I loved.    Rock on.                Graham                     28th January 2008   I thought it was time to post an entry that follows up on my recent musical thoughts! The first thing I ought to mention then, is that the collaborations that I have mentioned before seem to be coming to a crescendo! Joe and Chris are both meeting with me this week in a firm attempt to see what we can produce between us. Joe is a long time praise/worship type leader and won awards in his past and is looking for something "new" to turn his attention to and to re-vitalise his musical career. Chris who has trained as a professional producer and has a completely different taste in music, that being the electronica type pop music, is also looking to see what we can do new together and of course i guess I am the old rocker. The thing is though, we all are quite eclectic in our real tastes in music, it's just that up until now we have allowed our first love of music to overshadow what we have actually produced. So, the plan is to meet, jam and see if we like what results from it, but one thing that we have all agreed upon (and we have concluded this as individuals) is that the area to move into is that of the "groove".... it just seems to be where things are at the moment and it excites all 3 of us, so stay tuned and we'll see what transpires!                                         Maybe allied to the above, and maybe not! is my 2nd piece of personal music news! I have written 3 or 4 songs just recently that can only be described as "praise and worship" songs..... now, I forget exactly when it was that my wife and I laid down our praise and worship days, but we are talking probably a couple of decades! Quite honestly I haven't missed doing the P&W and while I'm being honest I also have to say that P&W just doesn't seem to have moved on.... and whilst I'm being contentious, P&W to my ears seems, well, boring.... don't get me wrong, I sing along with everyone else, but for me it just doesn't do it anymore....... until now! So I have put these songs together and am still contemplating what to do with them. They may form part of the Joe and Chris thing, though I doubt it, they may just lay to one side for a while or alternatively i might just get motivated enough to record them properly and put together either a P&W album or EP. If I decide to do these songs live, then depending on the reaction I get, I can then decide if its worth "bothering" the christian record companies.... hmmmmmm, we'll have to see about that!  One thing is sure though and that is, these 3 or 4 songs are a complete departure to the style of music you have heard thus far from Bernamica Gray, so if I do decide to go ahead with this the album or EP will probably "go out" under my real name! so that anyone who expects an electric guitar laden shredfest will have to wait for the next "Bernamica Gray" release - though again, most of my BG stuff is now being offered for free on the music page as mp3's.               Right, I'd better dust off the old acoustic.................. Graham 16th January 2008   I have just posted another song onto my MUSIC page and it is entitled "Empire Captures" - it's a kind of "Rock Opera" style song.... I am getting a bit lazy regarding typing out lyrics, but this song should be quite easy to work out what I am singing about. Just in case you are feeling lazy too and want some notes, well here they come;-                        Empires, from those in the age of Jesus through to our 21st century corporate empires, capture imagination, yes they do! They tell you how to live and what to aspire to. But, of late I keep getting "glimpses".... er, glimpses of that strange thing called Kingdom on earth.... rather odd I know, but I am getting them! So the song sets the scene regarding empire and what they do and then mentions these "kingdom glimpses" and then..... we hear the story of someone who SUBVERTED the Empire of his time (Roman and the trad Jewish church) and he did it with none violence!                                       Musically, it doesn't have a guitar solo - most strange for me!   In fact, the last 2 songs I've posted only have a 20 secondish solo between them!! (perhaps I'm trying to make up for all those electric guitar instrumentals I do???)  but there are quite a lot of riffs going on!                              So, enjoy the song and work out your own way of subverting the empire that you are currently ensnared in............ you will be, we all are!!! bwah ha ha ha ha!               Peace - Graham 8th January 2008           Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!!!!       I have already completed the Guitarist Collective task for January, please enjoy it in the Music section, it is called "Circle Around". I utilised my new Pocket POD by Line 6, so if you like the guitar sound, very phaserish, then that is what I used.                               Just watched a moving documentary on TV about some teenagers in Baghdad and they filmed their lives and showed how human they are (well, what did we really expect?) and how they struggle to do the easiest of things. A good documentary that brought humanity back to life in a world that has gone nuts!                                   Back to music - I never thought i'd say this and particularly now that I am regularly delivering the sort of music that I have wanted to do for ages, but..... I am getting the urge/thought/nudge to do some Praise and Worship type music, something I haven't done for decades...... no idea what has prompted it, but, by using my loop station, I can see me doing "live" solo stuff! - but also there are noises being made in my direction for collaberations, which I have mentioned before and these seem to coincide with a new kind of P&W music, what I mean is to do more "groove" based stuff and leave loads of space for improvisation, anyway, we'll see what happens.      Peace, Graham     30th November 2007    Religion !!!!!!!!!!!!!              So the Sudanese court has found the teacher from Liverpool Guilty.   But they have let her off the 20 lashes and the year in prison and given her 15 days to contemplate her guilt in prison and will then deport her. Meantime outside the Court, the fundamentalists are waving swords and chanting for her death! All because she agreed with the children to call the teddy bear Mohammed. Apparently she was grassed up by her own work colleagues…. Over in Saudi Arabia a muslim woman got herself gang raped by muslim men and then found herself in court facing a time in prison and on the receiving end of 200 lashes. Her crime being that she should not have been in the company alone with a man who was not her husband. ..........                           All this in the aftermath of the most powerful man in the world bombing the crap out of Iraq, based on mis-information and he used the term “crusade” to stir his people up.                         Our own Tony Blair revealed this week that he tried to keep quiet about his Catholic faith whilst in power, as he was aware that he would lose credibility in this secular nation in which we live now (though it wasn’t always secular and the laws etc are all based on what Christian leaders thought was decent and charitable behavior).                              An old friend of mine who does not share my faith and is a confirmed atheist has 2 sayings that he trots out every time the above stuff comes to prominence and they are;- “life is hard, and then, you die – that’s it, nothing else” and “all wars are caused by religion, get rid of religion and we get rid of the wars”                                                           I can’t change his mind on the first saying, that is just how he sees it and I can’t prove he is wrong and he can’t prove he is right, so we live in harmony, me agreeing not to force my views on him and vice versa…. Except it isn’t vice-versa, because our conversation must never be about religion – he makes the rules you see…. Just like in our society now, secularism rules…… With my friends 2nd saying, he is completely wrong and he can’t see it because he has no experience of faith. I did not say religion…..              I actually despise religion. So did my hero, Jesus.                  Religion is merely the tool that men (and they ARE mainly men) use to justify their disagreements.                                          The Crusades were nothing to do with REAL Christianity! Those who are REAL Christians understand this perfectly. Religious and secular people don’t see it.                       I know very little about Islam, but I know enough to see that these sword waving nutters are just that, they don’t even understand their own faith, probably don’t know how to read properly their own holy book. In the same way president Bush knows little of the bible, he memorises certain passages, but actually he knows nothing about how to understand the context of these passages and is plainly clueless about exegesis and hermeneutics.                   Secularism is also a religion, but Secularists don’t see it that way.          Jesus did not come to start a revolution, nor did he have plans and projects to stop wars or to reduce famines or any other man made catastrophe…. Because he knew that man had made the world an unjust place……… yes you read that right, MAN has made the world unjust. So why did he come to live amongst us apart from all the usual reasons that are trotted out by my fellow Christians? Well, he taught us how to live properly, he showed us that despite the injustice and persecution if you love others as you love yourself, then you really see the person in front of you and you can listen to their rantings and yet not feel the need to hate them back but to actually love them back. A topsy turvy statement?? No! it’s just that we live in an upside down world and so this type of thinking just seems topsy turvy! The teachings of Jesus were the best and still are, it’s just that people need to understand, but first they need to want to understand and that is the real problem.                                                                                                                         Finally, the teachers…. The priests, vicars, ministers, pastors, gurus, leaders, fuehrers, Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Arch-Bishops, Imams and other Holy Joes….. you know what, you guys need to take responsibility, you need to fall down on your knees and get to know the MAN! Get to know this God that you might have different names for…. Then when you get just a glimpse of what he is really about, you will take off your ego-centric clothes, stop your rituals and ceremonies and start to LOVE your enemies….but, you won’t …….. will you? It’s because all religions are built on a hierarchical structure & feed ego’s and so the “people” get lazy and don’t learn for themselves and so as has happened in Christianity, the world dismisses it, as it has viewed it from the wrong perspective, a perspective that the Church has concocted – good ole Constantine! –(not!). And now as Islam is in its’ own death throws, (yes it really is, but not in the way you probably think!) it makes the same mistakes as Christianity did and forgets what it really is about!           Love your enemies! Peace be with you! Graham             14th November 2007 I am so angry!                 I have just been told a story about someone I know, a family actually. Let me start by saying that I am not very politically motivated but recognise that the world can't function without politics. Politicians have a very hard job. I am not a woolley liberal and I am not a tree hugging lefty. I recognise the need for entrepreneurship and I know how the world of economics function, but I am not a thatcherite either. That out of the way, let me tell you the story, because quite honestly the newspapers are not interested in this type of story.................. A family here in Leeds (remember, I know them) are asylum seekers. They are as genuine as it gets. The family comprises a Mother and her 2 sons, (1 in infant school and the other at primary school. They have gone through the "process" and to be honest they have been messed about, due to having to move house several times. They are on the brink of being fully accepted as their case is genuine. So the other night, well, early morning actually, 4 burly men (Government) broke into the house and took all 3 of them to a cell in Leeds. No phone calls were allowed, no messages could be left. The children were frightened out of their tiny minds. Then they were transported to London, that is 200 miles away. Then they were told after a week that they were being deported. Then, at the 11th hour someone told them that they had made a mistake and they had arrested the wrong people! So 1 week later they are back in Leeds. This is scandalous! The 4 burly men were no doubt doing their job in a professional manner, for professional - read, "not allowing themselves to get personally involved" and that my friends is the problem! - we NEED to get personally involved, that is the only way we will understand people, especially frightened people who are running away from horrors that we can never dream of. So, next time you read the Daily Lie newspaper and start to get all hot under the collar about how these people are ruining our country (and indeed some of them are, but there again there are many of us natural Brits who lie, cheat, steal and murder!), just remember this ONE story. I bet there are thousands like it! PEACE OUT! Graham 9th November 2007 Someone was asking about how "Emeror's New Clothes" was recorded.....    so;-  This took 58 minutes exactly to record………..The tune was pretty much worked out by the time I got around to setting up the recording gear. I had played around with various chord progressions and wondered what it would be like, if I could try and fit some of them into the same tune. The trick seemed to be to try and remember what the next “figure” would be whilst coming to the end of the one I was playing…I was going for the Keneally/Vai vibe…..So I hit “record” playing to no click track, yes, you read that right! (which accounts for the slight variations in tempo…) & played my £100 made in China Stagg Strat using the bridge pickup via a Boss GT3 on some distorted setting…. I managed to play it in 1 take, for 1 minute and 42 seconds but then stumbled after the longish fastish run, on the following chord. This is why you can hear a slight overdub at that point. I also changed to the bridge pickup part way through, no idea why!So now I had 2 minutes and 45 seconds of tune, on 2 tracks of the multitrack recorder playing in a linear fashion with 1 slight overlap.I giggled and had a mug of tea.. Now the hard for me bit… Drums…. Curse them! I have a cheap drum beat box called a Zoom RT123, so I found a rock groove on it and then discovered my poor tempo guitar playing….. More tea…… I eventually played on 1 track the drum groove just where it fitted, this left massive gaps in the tune, so then I played the zoom by hand, just bashing the drum buttons until I thought I was ready for a take! I then recorded the haphazard drums, playing just where the groove had left gaps. I was well happy with the result! So I hooked up the guitar synth and selected a Rock Bass sound and recorded in 1 take the bass….. at first I wasn’t sure, but after a listen back I decided that was ok. So the tune was finished…. Except I can’t help fiddle about with stuff, so I had set up a 3rd guitar track, selected a delayed effect on the GT3 and started to fool about, unfortunately nothing really worked so I didn’t bother recording, then by accident as I was listening back I started to just strum the strings but at same time just slid my left hand fingers over the strings, up and down the fretboard, I liked the ambient effect and so recorded it but made sure that 2 thirds through the tune, I stopped doing it – in the name of contrast! Voila, 58 minutes after starting, my Emperor’s New Clothes track finished! I transferred it to the PC and then Compressed it (went mad with the compressor actually) and then posted it on my website!            “Genius” or “Sucks” ???????????? (probably somewhere well in between! – but I have learned something and that is that all the MAGIC that I hear by my heroes, isn’t really Magic is it!!!!!!!! But I love them all the same!) Perhaps that’s an idea for next months task? “RECORD a tune in less than 1 hour….” 6th or maybe it's the 7th now (not looked at the clock) of November 2007 Posted my November Guitarist Collective Task entry and I have called it "Emperor's New Clothes" and you can listen to it via the MUSIC section... but you knew that!. Anywayz, what's that all about? well, it goes back to May of this year when I met up with a good guitarist friend and we were talking guitars and guitarists... as u do...and I mentioned that I often listen to radio Keneally which features the music and extraordinary guitar and piano playing of one Mike Keneally (virtuoso!), my friend fell on the floor laughing!!!!! he said he'd been to see MK and hated it! he believed that MK was just laughing at us all as his music was nonesense!!!!! This thought/conversation stayed with me for quite a while....                                    So when Bill Jehle of Guitarist Collective forum fame, posted the TASK for november, I thought this was the ideal opportunity to construct/compose my own ENC type tune... shades of Vai and Keneally in there as well as Satriani, but as usual with me, it is ALL original! - I know I am not in their league, but I am well pleased with the result. A friend of mine laughed and said it was "well mental !!!!! ", which I take as a compliment!                    So.... is it "a great composition" or does it just (as the task asked) .....  "SUCK"     ????? (Still in 1 Peace), Graham 2nd November 2007 The November task for the guitarist collective has just arrived.... maybe this month I might fail to complete???       we'll see what emerges! but it does seem a rather negative task! and here am I trying to operate in the positive.... albeit years after wallowing in the negative!!                                Just completed the 3rd of the 4 CD talks by Richard Rohr, really enjoying them and I know that I am now a fully paid up 2nd half lifer! - who on occasion dips back into 1st half life ways and thinking....      Also, my Buy section is now the ? section.......... oo er......wots dat all'bout? 20th September 2007        I have a STREAMING AUDIO PLAYER on the HOME PAGE now! - This streaming audio player came with my membership of www.mychristianbands.com and quite a while back now I managed to get it to work on my www.myspace.com/bernamicagray website. However, for some inexplicable reason (as seems to be the case quite often with the web and computers in general!) it wouldn't work when i tried to put it onto this website. However, BIG  THANX to Andy Windsor, who managed to get this to work for me today!                           Because it is STREAMING, you need to select the track you want and click the Play button and then be patient! - It does load quite quickly actually and works a treat and the bonus to me is that when you "play" a track, I "think" it counts as a play back on the mychristian bands website. But the big advantage is that when I upload a song onto the Christian bands website, this automatically adds the song in the streamer for viewers of the myspace or this website.                              Whilst I am in the mood for "jotting" or is it really blogging?!? I can also add that the Glimpe part 1 song managed number 1 on the mychristianbands website and the new "complikashunzz" is also getting a fair amount of plays and I saw it today in the charts at number 3, although the website history is showing its' best position as 299!!! - no idea how that works!                       School hols are well and truly over now, so that means we are back at Kidz Klub Leeds and we got off to a great start last week. Just got in actually from doing my "round" tonight and again I felt happy to be back in the thick of it!                The 1st of the Richrd Rohr talks went well and I'm busy now organising the 2nd (there will be 4 of them) - this is really strange for me as these talks are about dealing with and embracing the 2nd half of life! - amazing actually as I still feel like a teenager! - remind me of that statement after I have finished a week at work and followed it by KKL on saturday, i tell you, I just lie in front of the telly on a saturday afternoon and doze...... especially when the weather has turned colder!                             This was gonna be a short entry about the streamer....as I'm still here, i might as well add that we are receiving some visitors from BRAZIL (hence the background colour choice), this weekend and I have arranged for my Ronaldinho authentic Brazillian shirt to be washed and ironed so that I can give them a proper greeting when they arrive at the airport!                          This is becoming bloggy.... er, oh yeah, next year might see me colaborate with a few people, including Chris Freeman (yeah!) and Joe King (yowzer!), Chris is more electronic music influenced (erasure and william orbit type), and I can't wait to play over some of his grooves! - remembering to leave "space" that is!!!! (reminder to Graham - remember to leave some space!). Joe came around a few weeks back and we jammed and he was knocked out with what we could do between us and my Boss RC50 Loop Station !!! - it was really satisfying to see Joe's musical interest getting re-kindled, he got well excited. If the gig comes off, The Paul Poulton Project might also make an appearance (yeah!).    I'm also watching very closly a young man called Miller,who masquerades as Ghelid Rains and I'm sure we will do the odd song together soon (I hope so) and I'd like to see what he can do with the new Akai MPC500. Talking of gear.... the new Pocket POD, it really is a bargain.... can I resist??????           Peace, Graham    9th September 2007 A long while ago now, I set up this website and dreamed of releasing music regularly and explaining stuff as and when! it seems now that these dreams have slowly turned into reality without me really knowing it! I love digital technology, the recording, the music equipment and of course the internet oh & b4 I forget my darling daughters bought me an iPod and I love that too! - in fact, the iPod and mp3's seem to have just come alive for me. Anyway, the point of this months jotting is simply to say that i was really thrilled with my latest guitarist collective offering and called it "complikashunzzz" simply because it seems a complicated type of music in these dull musical times... oo er contentious! but that is how I feel at the moment as nothing seems to excite me like the music from the 70's and 80's and early 90's.... But there was also another reason for using a word-extended word based on "complication" & it was simply that as i have entered the 2nd half of life and have been listening to 4 x 1 hour long talks by Richard Rohr, that it has dawned on me that during my first half life I would race to a conclusion, more or less like the world and especially business and the media do now, you know, "so mr politician on the issue of x is your answer yes or no????" & in early life I was frustrated at long winded answers, assuming that they just wanted to avoid giving away their true position. However now I can see that avoiding giving away their true position might well be a tactic, but also there are for some subjects no real clear cut yes or no's in fact there are more grey areas now than I ever thought possible! So......... I am well aware that in the so called bible belt area of America and within the churches that are now labelled "republican right", there is an almost obsessive interest in Homosexuality and Abortion. In my 1st half life days, I would have accepted what these preachers preached and bowed to their superior knowledge of the bible and agreed to their views that these 2 practices are abominations...... there's an however coming.......... however, these days i see things differently and could go on about the different grey areas, but that would take up too much space, let me just say simply though that whilst i might be against the practice of abortion and am very deffinitely against it for lazy birth control, the grey areas kick in when your daughter comes home after being raped and says she just wants a quick abortion right now, well, I'd drive her straight to the clinic. By the way, please don't use the "your turning into a lilly livered liberal" coz I most definitely aren't!. So, this 2nd half life stuff is starting to kick in with me and i have been questioning and learning a lot over these past 10 years and you know what, after i've read countless books, been on dozens of forums and talked and listened for hours in fact days! I have now concluded that i know even less than I thought i knew and life is very complicated - et voila - I present "Complikashunzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" 21st August 2007 Another free mp3 posted yesterday! - this one is an instrumental and is called "Glimpse part 1" It will be followed up by er... part 2, which will have vocals and will be a            slower paced almost acoustic song, that is written, but not yet recorded. I think posting free mp3's is the way to go for now and maybe later on I'll assemble a new CD            Album.                                               Graham        5th August 2007   I've been threatening this for a while! Go to my "BUY" section and read the new text at the top! - NJoy!   --- oh yeah, and then have a listen to the new song "Job - an unseen world" it's contained in the middle section of the MUSIC page.  Graham 30th July 2007     Well,  few things have happened on the "music" front at Studio Bernamica... I have    been really getting into the Guitar Synth and have also obtained a new pedal unit that is making me smile every time I use it. I've also discovered some "production" tools and you can hear the 1st use of this (compression) by comparing the 2 "Tapas" tunes in my July GC ask.  I think I'm feeling "productive" again.....watch this space!      Peace, Graham 28th June 2007         Hey! I decided after looking at the remaining stock of CD's that I have left to let     these go at £5 each including post and packing & in fact if my next Album is done in CD format I think this will be the price!  I am also still contemplating releasing stuff just as mp3's and I have discovered that I have loads of disc space to do that. I had hoped that by now I would have enough tracks recorded to release another album, but things never go to plan.... watch this space!                            Oh one important thing, if you send me an ORDER do it by letter as I am presently swamped with SPAM and people offering me ........ stuff......... Graham 22nd June  2007  OK               Right, next CD, Album, EP, collection of mp3’s, or whatever I eventually produce, the one thing I can guarantee are, er… songs! Although technically some might end up just being best described as “tunes” as I am not always convinced that a “tune” needs to be converted into a “song” and by “song”, in the world of Bernamica, that means having some “words”, sometimes known as “lyrics”.                 So, more of the same eh???      Well not really!            Let me let you into a secret, but not really a big deal secret…. You see, up till now I’ve been playing a kinda “catch up” – most of the songs (and tunes) I have released until now have been “written” in the past…. Well I guess everything is written in the past, but no wait! Let me explain further. I had (yes, that’s “had” and no longer have) a myriad of songs, tunes, lyrics and ideas and could have continued going nuts trying to decipher my scribbles and turning them into what has appeared thus far on CD. There was actually a couple of songs that are on my previous 2 CD’s that are now well over 15 years old! So what’s with the “catch up”? – Because of the sheer volume of stuff I have created and never, until the dawn of digital recording arrived, recorded it, I have been recording stuff that was no longer “current” in the sense of what I play when in creative mode nowadays. So now, I have been thinking. If I continue with the present strategy, stuff That I am creating today in the summer of 2007 will probably get recorded and released in 2057, which will be when I turn 100 years old (slight exaggeration). Hence I am always playing catch up with the actual recording work. Hmmmm.                    So a decision has now been reached, until I change my mind that is…                   I am going to abandon my written but not yet recorded music….(lots!)             Let me pause here for a while, do I mean that?....                    Yep, I think I do.       I am going to put it down to “learning” and hope that I have learnt a lot, which I know I have, by writing all this music, and then by clearing the decks and not imposing self imposed and self absorbing pressures on myself, this will FREE me up to say to myself, RIGHT, let’s plug everything in and press record and just see what develops, rather than try and work stuff out on paper in my own shorthand that I often can’t read later… and then attempt to record….I have the strangest feeling and an excitement that this different approach might just throw something “new” up. I hope so!                                 One of the problems with having a large collection of CD’s and other song carrying media and having a brain full of other peoples styles and stuff, is that I end up mimic playing. So, without sounding too arty, too self absorbed, I am gonna try and find my real sound, whatever that is!                   Stay tooooned! If I am still in this mode by the next Jotting, I’ll try and give an update with what I have recently recorded.                  By the way, this has nothing to do with the stuff I will continue to record for the guitarist Collective Tasks, because, I see that aspect of my recording as primarily fun and also it gives me a different outlet that I enjoy just for itself.                     I know what will happen though….. Instead of capturing my music on paper with the intention of recording later, I’ll end up with tons of recorded stuff that can’t possibly be released on CD, due to the cost of getting them professionally printed up etc… so, this is why I am thinking about releasing stuff just as mp3’s. Yet I still have a warm feeling everytime I “handle” a CD…….                                       OK, some domestic stuff to deal with, and then I’ll just dive on in there! Graham 8th June 2007      Kids Work……           I have been wondering whether to post this or not as strictly it is nothing to do with my music!                                                One of my passions is Childrens charity work and the organisation that I do this through is Kidz Klub Leeds. We have a website at www.kidzklubleeds.org.uk but it is vastly out of date and doesn’t really represent what we do, the refurbishing of the website is yet another job on a massive list of tasks for our organisation! What prompted this then is that I was “interviewed” recently for inclusion into our Newsletter and after doing it I wondered if I could re-produce it here. Let me say here and now that the song writing part of me (on my CD’s) often reflects what I observe via this kids work, but although the first CD had a picture of me wearing a Kidz Klub T-shirt, the CD was not a kiddies praise type album, far from it!So, before re-producing the interview and in view of the fact that the Kidz Klub Leeds website is presently not that informative, let me first explain the background;- 1                     My wife (Bernadette) and I travelled to New York City and met a man called Bill Wilson who has for well over 20 years run something called Metro-Ministries. We have been there twice (when I say New York, I am not really talking about Manhattan…. We were deep in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Spanish Harlem! – we were inspired and learned a lot). 2                     In parallel to this we also visited a Church called Frontline in Liverpool who had been doing a UK version of what Metro-Ministries were doing – again we were inspired and helped a lot and we have a continuing relationship with them. 3                     Kidz Klub Leeds was born in 2000, although we had been running the same model under a different name since 1997. 4                     Kidz Klub Leeds is run by many Churches working together! – we were the first to do this successfully and now we get visitors from all over not just the UK but we actually get visitors from all over the world! – nice to see churches actually “working together!”…… 5                     We visit 1500 kids each week in their homes and streets and generally get to know them and sometimes their families. We also give them an activity sheet and remind them to come on Saturday. We hire 6 double Decker Buses each Saturday and get on average 350 kids attending each week. Some weeks like Christmas and Easter we get double that! – you have to remember that these are completely UN-Churched kids and a high percentage of the kids we get are actually expelled or excluded from school…. 6                     The Saturday morning event is best described as a TV Magazine programme! – it has to be fast moving and attention grabbing as these kids have very short attention spans, so we do games, team games, pantomime, we sing up tempo songs and there are prizes and giveaways oh yeah and there is always water and gunge involved!!! We then have a short 15-20 minute section which we call Silent Seats and this is where we “teach” the kids and we do this through video and acting! We call these Object Lessons. 7                     We have also started up a satellite version which operates in a further out district of Leeds and over 100 kids attend that each Tuesday. 8                     We generally have 2 Kidz Klub events going on at the same time and they are split by age. The ages of our kids are from 4 years old through to Year 6. 9                     Space Groups are for kids that have been through Kidz Klub and are now too old. OK, so now you have the background, here comes the interview;- Questions for Graham 1.       What is your name and where do you come from?             Graham Fell and I was born and bred here in Leeds.          2.       How long have you been a member of the Kidz Klub team?              Since it was first thought about when we wrote and drew the “vision” on the back of an old roll of wallpaper. That was in 1997 and we started Kidz Klub in 2000.                  3.       Where do you visit?            I visit on the Halton Moor estate, which frightened the living daylights out of me when I first set foot on the estate! However, after about 12 months I felt that we had been accepted and now we are just “street furniture”! I can honestly say that I enjoy walking around that area better than the area where I live! – it’s a place full of characters and there’s always something going on. I even saw a four foot long Monitor Lizard being taken for a walk last summer!                           4.       Please give us an insight into family life in that area?                            Well it is obviously a run down area, lots of unemployment and crime/drugs and is typical of what the media would describe as a sink estate. But, despite that, the people just get on with life. Of course most of the families I meet are not the neat and tidy nuclear family that we are supposed to aspire to and generally there are broken relationships and half brothers and sisters living in the same house etc. “Family” is just as important to them as it is to so called normal middle class families and often the families I meet are full families with uncles and aunties and cousins living in the next street, so there is a strong sense of family and community.      There are also some families who seem to have just been plonked there, they have no roots in the area and so they struggle more to be accepted. Finally, there are too many families where the children do not have a dad – some never knew their dad and some just don’t see their dad anymore.                      5.       Do you have any stories to demonstrate what God is doing with the kids that you visit?                                 I have too many stories!     Most of them should and will be kept in the private domain. What I will say though is that I have noticed a difference in the spirit over the area. This is an area that is targeted by people who tie tape into boundaries – it’s a curse thing.       Many of us have prayer walked the area over the years. Most people would not see the difference, however as someone who goes there every week, I can tell that there is a difference. Things like being invited into houses to pray, usually over an illness, sometimes after a bereavement. Some of those lovely people do believe, they do understand our faith and they want to be part of it, but there are too many distractions for them to cope with and too many temptations….. The children will openly talk about God and only yesterday I met some youths, whilst on my “round”, who have never even been to Kidz Klub, but recognise who we are and what we believe, and they entered into a conversation with me about whether God exists or not! – I saw questioning and some openness in them, as well as the usual ridicule! – I don’t have those kind of conversations on middle class estates….      Another thing that I see is that the children that come to Kidz Klub are eager to know what the next stage is. That could mean “when can we go to Space Groups”?  (there just aren’t enough Space Groups about to meet the demand) and for some, they even manage to get to Church!. When the kids speak about “the next stage” I know that for some it’s just a throw away comment, but I also believe that for many of them God has touched their little lives and has placed something in their hearts that urges them to have fellowship!               6.       What is your prayer for your visiting area?                   Hmmm…. I think most of us Christians pray too generally! “please turn this estate Lord, into your Kingdom” and  “send your angels down now to convert all the people now Lord!” and I have been as guilty as anyone in being desperate and impatient with the praying for this little part of England. Your question is a good one! I think my prayer now is for PEACE. Most of  the Children have very noisy lives, they have more turmoil than they should have. There is much aggrevation and violence. “Love” is talked about, but only in either sexual or close family situations, there is a need for an understanding of real Love, of God’s love, but to get to that stage they all, children and parents, need PEACE. God’s Peace.                   7.       What has kept you going through the years?                   God.              I am competitive by nature. Some would say too competitive! – so consequently I try to do things in my own strength and I have lots of stamina and I am incredibly stubborn…… BUT, this work is of the LONG HAUL variety and we underlined that way back in 1997.      There have been times recently when I have said to myself  “Graham lad, you’ve done yer bit, you deserve a rest, go and leave this to someone else” – maybe that day will come soon!.          All I know is that to get to this stage it wasn’t through my own strength! Let me illustrate this;-       For the first few years I stayed incredibly positive and amazingly enthusiastic, even when we faced calamities and there have been many of those! - eventually I started to notice that I got Asthma on Saturday mornings, even being physically sick every Saturday morning. I also noticed that I was worrying and feeling nervous each Thursday (visiting day) through to Saturday. You could put this down to attack, but I think actually it was simply a symptom of trying to do things entirely through my own strength. You could say I reached burnout, it certainly felt like it! It would have been easy to pack it in and to justify it by blaming ill health or simply saying that I’d done my bit.       But, like Rocky said… “I’m still here!” and that is firmly down to God. Giving it to God is a long and painful lesson, but it is the ONLY way to do this kind of work.                   8.       What role do you play on a Saturday morning?               I play a very LOUD Electric Guitar in the praise party! I do “headers” (head tennis) with the boys (sometimes the odd girl!) during the warm-up.       I am the Bus Captain of Bus 5. Often I get to be part of the pantomime act – I seem to have a penchant for being a baddy!!         In the early days I did a lot of Object Lessons during silent seats – I don’t do them now as the old memory is fast fading……(I can’t learn the lines anymore!) I am also seeing a role developing on the discipline side – for the boys.            9.       What has been your favourite pantomime character/costume?            There have been many! If you pushed me I think my crescendo was Doctor Dastardly! – Like I said earlier, I am a good baddy!!               10.   What would you say to someone thinking of joining the team?                 I wouldn’t want to put anyone off and right now even if you can only commit for 12 months that would help us a great deal.      However I would say that this is a work that rewards you more than you give and you will give out a lot! – especially in the long term.          I was fortunate to see both my daughters work at Kidz Klub as well as some of their friends from our Church and they all confirm that this work expanded their perspective of what Christianity is really about and the same can be said from me and also for me it takes me deeper with my relationship with Jesus.                Finally, can I say that this work is for ANYONE! – we need older people like me particularly as these children need adult role models, they need to feel Parental Love.                     Very finally, don’t hang about waiting for a sign…….. the NEED is the CALL! and here in Leeds we have more than enough people in NEED. Do it!         3rd June 2007 Age….. hmmmm I don’t know if the prospect of becoming 50 has suddenly got to me, but things are changing….                I seem “out of step”, suddenly. In my younger days things were very black and white. Stark. Crisp. I knew where I stood and why.                     Nowadays, there is much complication going on in my head, things are now distinctly grey. I don’t mean grey as in boring. I don’t mean grey as in dull days. I don’t even mean grey as in not colourful. I mean, grey as in grey areas, different shades, different ways of answering questions, different answers, none direct answers, as in different perspectives.                    So, am I getting old? Am I losing it? Whatever “it” is!                                                         I am mindful that there are a lot of old fools out there……… There are also some wise old fools as well…. Second half of life is definitely different to first half of life. I’ve been learning about this via some friends, old ones that is!          First half of life is about Achievement, ego, accomplishing things, proving yourself – this is true of any culture – just think about it. I’m still learning about 2nd half of life – but already I feel the philosophy of “I don’t have to prove myself anymore” – there’s more to this, but that’ll do for now!                So, polititians, they are usually or at least they “were”, people who had experience, people who could see other perspectives, dare I say they were elected because they were wise? All cultures look to 2nd half lifers to guide them….                  Don’t worry, I’m not entering the political arena and no, a political career is of no interest to me. Politics does interest me though and I think no matter who we are, we should give politics some thought…..                                 Jesus. Haven’t mentioned him for a while. He seemed quite rude sometimes. Before you shout heresy and blasphemy at me, think about it, go read his story and what he said and how he acted and read it properly, in context, learn about him. Believe me he was human. That was the whole point! No, I am not about to shoot down the whole da vinci code route, that’s just nonsense, escapism, people making lots of cash, crap actually!                         Jesus. He would answer questions with questions. That, according to my English teacher, was rude. But there was a reason for Jesus’s reaction to these questions……… You see, people wanted a straight answer. Black and white. Yes or no. Stark. Crisp. They were probably 1st half lifers or if they were 2nd half lifers they were still operating as 1st half lifers. Jesus knew. He gave perspective. He answered in grey. Different shades of grey and with tones and hues that were not always seen.                  Check him out. Graham Wednesday 30th May 2007 So……. Why do I open sentences with “so” ? when in normal conversation I don’t! maybe it’s an insight into what floats about within the electrical signals that I laughingly call my brain!                                 Well, I met the keyboard/electronic muso and it went very well! We haven’t seen one another for quite a long time and it didn’t seem to matter. I came away completely blown away by the apple computer and pro-logic software he is using for his recordings and was amazed at all the plug-ins that are now available. He was at one time very much into the hardware side of things and it came as a surprise to see him equally enthused about the software.               I have to say that the real icing on the cake was the fact that his chosen platform was an Apple computer (actually Pro-Logic won’t run on anything else at the time of writing). The beauty of the Apple is that well, it doesn’t crash and do unexpected things! And it’s easier to drive, oh yeah and you don’t get silly “the program is not responding, shall I send an error report to Microsoft” messages…..                                                                              The Pro-Logic software is also a breath of fresh air and seems quite simple to operate and yet has all the horsepower even the most complicated recorderist could use.