Blue House EP by Darren Hayman

Card gatefold sleeve. Numbered and limtied to 500.

I like collections of five or six songs, seven even. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have a proper name for them; Mini LPs? Maxi EPs?

I write when I travel, when I’m disengaged. I write when I’m on holiday. I wrote three of these songs in a blue house on the Suffolk coast. There was a piano in the blue house and I bought my baritone ukulele. I tasted every beer from the local brewery and rated them in a table in my notebook.

Leaves and Stars is about the cycle of wedding, christening, divorce, wedding. At the age of 42, too many of my friends are on the third stage. Nothing stays the same. It’s a song about acquiescence and letting go, accepting change and letting it wash over you.

Words change too, or at least their popularity does. Remember when words like ‘blackleg’, ‘scab’, ‘picket line’ and ‘strike’ were more common? They were barbed, sharp, violent words. They were necessary. Blackleg is a song about collaborating with the enemy.

 When the School Sold Its Fields is about trying to remember when it first went wrong, or at least when I first noticed things going awry. When I was ten or eleven I remember my school selling its playing fields for a housing estate. Soon all the schools sold part of their fields. Many schools now have housing estates where the kids used to play. The song also concerns a memory I have of me being dressed up by my parents as a ‘China man’ for the PTA International Dinner. Mrs Morgan, our head teacher, had passed away. They held a silence and it was the first time my mind had confronted death. I cried.

Kurhaus Blues was written on an earlier holiday in Semmering, Austria. In fact I have a whole album of instrumentals on the subject of Semmering. We walked around a ruined Kurhaus, lost amongst the mountains and trees. I imagined it when it was new. I do this a lot; imagine old things new.

Loose Change was written by my friend Valentine Leys. She sang one of mine, so I sang one of hers’. Valentine’s is better.

 Blue House was made especially for Indie Label Market 29 November 2013. It will also be available directly from www.hefnet.com and a few select record shops.

Darren Hayman, December 2013

Buy the Blue House EP CD Direct from Darren

Blue House comes in a neat card gatefold slip case. Numbered and limited to 500.


Or buy downloads from Bandcamp here.

Old Man Don’t Waste Your Time – 7 Inch

Released on May 7th by WIAIWYA records.

On OLD MAN Darren Hayman serves up the best bits of Prince, Dr Feelgood, the Laughing Clowns and Hefner in a pint of POP that’ll be lodged in your noggin til a week next Thursday… once it’s there, it ain’t budging, so you might as well strap on your air guitar and pour yourself a chaser of TUNE… in fact, just take the shade off that standard lamp and sing your way through the third spin, adding your own grunts and moans as appropriate (and they are ALL appropriate)… by the fourth round, as you collapse onto the sofa of SONG to soak up the sax solo (I know, I KNOW!), OLD MAN will be tattooed on your temporal lobe, permanent, forever… and ever… amen…

It’s REALLY good

OLD MAN was recorded in a day in Sidcup Working Man’s club; Ian Button arrived at 9:00 to set up, Darren and the Long Parliament arrived at 10:00 to get recording, the cameras started rolling, the bar opened, the magic happened, and by 5:00 we had a video, a photoshoot, and two HITS for wiaiwya-7777777…

wiaiwya-7777777 is a series of seven 7″ singles released during 2013, one on each day of the week, and always on the 7th of the month, in the 7 colours of the rainbow, with exclusive tunes from 7 of the most exciting indie, electronic, folk and alternative bands around… oh, they come in editions of 777 too…

there’s lots more information here – http://wiaiwya-7777777.blogspot.co.uk/

Buy Old Man Don’t Waste Your Time on 7-inch



Or buy the downloads from Bandcamp

I Taught You How To Dance – Vinyl EP

I Taught You How To Dance

Originally released 21st November 2011 on Fortuna Pop.

 

‘I Taught You How To Dance’ is the sole single from The Ship’s Piano. Sweet, gentle, and with just a hint of sexual tension, it offers an ideal sampler of the warmth and complexity of Darren’s solo piano album. ‘I Taught You How To Dance’ is available on 10-inch 4-track single only, and also features three covers of other songs with ‘Dance’ in the title: ‘Dance Away’ by Roxy Music, ‘I Don’t Want To Dance’ by Eddy Grant and ‘Come Dancing’ by the Kinks.

Buy I Taught You How To Dance on 10-inch vinyl


Buy the downloads from Bandcamp for £2.99 here

 

Losing My Glue EP

Losing My Glue

Originally released March 2011 on Belka.

The EP ‘Losing My Glue’ takes its title track from Darren’s acclaimed album Pram Town, and also features the songs ‘Ruth’, ‘Small Town Sleeping’, and ‘Amateur Dramatics’. ‘Ruth’ and ‘Small Town Sleeping’ were recorded in a special recording session and co-written with Secondary Modern drummer David Sheppard of Ellis Island Sound. Losing My Glue can be purchased from Darren’s Bandcamp – click through on the playlist below.

Download Darren’s artwork for Losing My Glue as a PDF

 Download for £1.50

Calling Out Your Name Again – 7″ EP

Calling Out Your Name Again

Originally released 11th October 2010

‘Calling Out Your Name Again’ is the second single from Essex Arms, featuring Emmy The Great and available both on 7-inch and as a digital download. Darren and Emmy sing about illicit love in abandoned cars, accompanied by buzzing strings and frenetic percussion. The song is backed by three other tracks from the album sessions; ‘Essex Arms’, ‘Beach Head’ and ‘Until We Got Bored’.

All of the songs on this release can also be found on The Green and the Grey


 

Songs for Harmonium and Drum Machine

Songs for Harmonium and Drum Machine

Originally released December 2008 on p572 Records.   p572 records, run by Samuel Murdock, is a Canadian label based in Quebec. When Samuel suggested Darren make a conceptual EP to be released on vinyl, Darren wrote four songs about some of the actors forming the 1980s brat pack: Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy.
 
 

Buy the downlaods for £1.50 at Bandcamp.

 
 

Table For One – The Dessert Menu – mini-album

Table For One - The Dessert Menu

Originally released 12th March 2007 on Track & Field.

A mini-album of 6 tracks from the Table for One sessions, five of them unreleased; but they’re not outtakes. They’re better than outtakes.

Buy Table For One: The Dessert Menu CD


Buy Table for One: The Dessert Menu downloads from bandcamp for £2.49

The Stereo Morphonium

Originally released 22nd August, 2005.

Darren describes the Stereo Morphonium, a spin-off band formed with his friend Joel Neumatic, as ‘weird freak-out synth rock with no vocals’. They played ‘two fairly hilarious shows’, and their EP, consisting of the tracks ‘The Stereo Morphonium’, ‘Pigeon Box’, ‘Gemini 6’, ‘Plight of the Manhattanite’, and ‘Ozmodiar’, remains available to buy.

Buy The Stereo Morphonium on CD