Music - part 1

My music	James's home page
Band line-ups
Recordings	Grutness index page
Recent and future work

My music

During the late 1980s and early 1990s I was in various bands: the Kaftans, the Moomins, Preemptive Sheep, and the Beaker People. Finally, in the mid 1990s I summoned up the courage to go solo.

Lyrics are very important to my music. I'm not convinced that separating the music and words is a good idea, but I have put some of my lyrics on this site. I have also occasionally been coerced into my other, more disreputable area of songwriting, the filk or parody song. I don't intend to talk about that here, but I have put some of my filk lyrics on this site as well.

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Band line-ups

The Moomins:
1st line-up - James (guitar/vocals); Derek (bass/vocals); Evan McCarthy (guitar); John Matravers (drums).
2nd line-up - James (guitar/vocals); Derek (bass/vocals); Evan (guitar); John (drums); Renee Pearson (saxophone/flute).

Photo shows (back) James, Renee, John; (front) Evan, Derek.

The Beaker People:
Officially James, Sam Campbell, Colin Edwards (instrument roles varied).
In practice, however, The Beaker People was James Dignan solo, but too shy to say so. "Colin Edwards" is a pseudonym I have used occasionally on the radio, and "Sam Campbell" is a toy labrador (who may or may not grace the cover of a planned future album).

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Recordings

The Kaftans:

The Moomins:

Tracks: Mines of wisdom *; Had to say #; Parallel universe *; Secret room *; Turtle song #; Sting in the scorpion's tail *; Two wires touching *; Mervyn (the 3/4 song) #; Everything you dream *; Won't be long #; Watching the island *; A sense of doubt #, Dream rain *; Caminine jin +.

Writers: * James Dignan; # Derek Bell; + Evan McCarthy. 50-second mp3 extracts from two of the tracks can be heard by clicking on the titles above. (warning - sound quality is not too good!). All of my lyrics from this cassette can be found here.

See also note about "Fish Gloss" under solo works, below.

Preemptive Sheep (and their precursors, The Mysterons):

Basically a parody band. Several demos were played on local college radio, but nothing was released. Notable among these was the garage thrash Thunderbirds are go!, which still exists in demo form.
 

The Beaker People:

A companion series of cassettes to Glass Flesh called Fish Gloss contains original works by the artists involved in the Glass Flesh project. This series contains the Moomins track Mines of wisdom and Sting in the scorpion's tail, and my solo tracks Cold July rain and Time after time after time.

The nice folks involved with the Glass Flesh project interviewed me a few years back. That interview can be seen here.
 
 
 

Solo, as James Dignan:

Tracks: Down; Each an explorer!; Patch (How many times?); Omens on the run; Celia II; Bear town; Cold July rain; St. Leonards; Time after time after time; Taking time; 4J (If I only could); Outram no. 1; Outram (reproach).

All tracks written by James Dignan. 50-second mp3 extracts from three of the tracks can be heard by clicking on the titles above. All of my lyrics from this cassette can be found here.

Track: Into my hands released on cassette tribute to Australian band The Church, A Loveletter to Sydney (Seance Tapes, 1998).

Copies of Partial Rapture Theory (and maybe even Songs for Swinging Yuppies, if I can find some!) can be ordered from me.Email me for more info!

Recent and future work

All of these songs are written by James Dignan except * Alice Peattie, # Dignan/Peattie, and + Moorcock/Trivers/Bloom

If I manage to get my head around recording via computer, I hope to produce an album of ambient music at some point in the future, too.

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