Collider: Paraguay Zero

And so our journey through Collider ends where the Great Men story began: our first ever track.



CW - I’m not interested in football, so when the World Cup approached in 2006 and I realised I’d lose my friends, housemates and living room for the summer, I took action for the positive and decided that when football left me under siege in my room I would have the duration of the match to write, record and mix a track. This project, which has also spanned the 2008 Rugby World Cup and 2010 Football World Cup, is called “Widdleman VS The World Cup”. The very first one I did was “England 1 Paraguay 0”, which a couple of years later became the first song Regan and I would learn to play together.

R-Man - 1st thing ever.  Debuted in my living room to 3 people who I think were honestly expecting us to be pointless noise.  We sure showed them...

CW - For other Widdleman Vs The World Cup victories, check out our Live in London EP, or Shazam session videos, for a couple of tracks that came out of the 2010 World Cup: Spectators at an Execution (England 0 0 Algeria) and Messerschmitt (bits of Uruguay 2 3 Netherlands and Germany 0 1 Spain).

Spectators at an Execution: Year One

On June 18th 2010, my friends went to the pub to watch England play Algeria in the World Cup. I retreated to my feedback den and, in my ongoing Widdleman VS The World Cup tradition, over the course of the match I wrote, recorded and mixed this track:

England 0 0 Algeria by chris-walls

Some geeky points to note are the dual drum machines (one of them hand triggered - the out of time one!) and the feedback duet that I finished just moments before the neighbours knocked on the door...

Shortly thereafter, R-Man and I learned the song and incorporated it into the Great Men set. We dropped the initial World Cup name in favour of something a little more us (with some conceptual continuity of course - there's a present for the first person to spot it). You can hear our version on the Live in London EP and here's a video of us playing it in the Shazam live lounge on October 22nd 2010:



At some point, I'm not sure when, I started noodling about on an acoustic guitar and over time this solo acoustic version came together:

Spectators at an Acousticution by chris-walls

Since I'm not that great on acoustic, I tried playing a solo (with drum machine) version on electric as well:

Spectators at an Electricution by chris-walls

There's probably more mileage in this yet. If anyone out there fancies trying their own version we'd love to hear it and add it to the catalogue!

Widdleman VS The World Cup

Here's 2 things you may or may not know about me:

1) I'm not interested in football.
2) I am a superhero. (You guys will keep my identity secret right?)

Every once in a while, the world of sports conspires against me and takes all my friends away for a month. Instead of wandering the streets lonely and confused, in the 2006 World Cup I decided to use the time taken up by each game (or "match" as they say) to write and record a new song. I've reuploaded my efforts from that World Cup, as well as one from the rugby one in 2008 onto my Myspace page (yep, I'm only decades behind the rest of the world). Have a listen. Great Men fans will recognise Paraguay Zero in my original recording.

This summer I intend to do the same thing, so I've just been sorting out my "World Cup Studio". It's tricky to say what will happen until it happens but look out for some gnarly riffs, slap bass, and maybe even some stadium trumpet. (Yeah I play trumpet through a distortion pedal and a 6 foot high guitar stack, deal with it). I'll be sure and keep y'all updated with my progress.

PS - If anyone out there shares my sentiment and would like to offer themselves up as a special guest star, give me a holler!

COME ON FOOTBALL, KICK A GOAL INTO THE NET!

Heifer cow is better than none

Business first: this Thursday, May 20th, Great Men are making our second appearance in Nottingham this year, headlining at the Golden Fleece with another duo called The Cupid Stunt, organised by the wonderful Will of I'm Not From London. You should totally come down for the following 3 reasons:

1) Music
2) Beer
3) It's free, and that includes as many high fives as you can eat

GUITAR GIMP PARAGRAPH 1: Although having previously suggested I might play my Black Lodge Telecaster on Thursday, I busted out my red Les Paul at practice and enjoyed it a lot, so who knows what could happen? And who cares? If you care, please write me a letter, or "electronic-mail" as the kidz say these days.

Yesterday I watched football on the television. Mr Kim made me do it, he promised beer and a dog. He wasn't lying. I'd still rather watch the Marx brothers, which I duly did. I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

GUITAR GIMP PARAGRAPH 2: I took receipt of 2 guitars from eBay this week. One is shrouded in security as R-Man and I turn it into the "Great Men Bennecaster" for Mental Benn. The other is a white Les Paul with black binding and I'll share it with y'all as soon as I've cleaned it up and put in some new chrome pickups.

R-Man is in Paris at the moment so in lieu of rock and roll I occupied myself in the only way I know how: driving to Manchester and back. I was kept company by the following albums all of which I recommend:

Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers
Slint - Spiderland
XTC - Drums and Wires
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible

Oh by the way if you like films and/or Brian Blessed (you've got 2 eyes and a soul haven't you?) then you should have a look at the award winning short Mr Bojagi, written by an old friend of mine. Here it is!