1997 – album as Column 3-57
This was a difficult album for me then and now. I never felt that I was able to achieve what I wanted with this. I was trying to give the music a level of sophistication I wasn’t, and possibly never will, be able to achieve. That said I think the music probably does convey some of the feel of a machine struggling to become fully human. Or maybe going mad in the process.
The track Oil Like Blood was musically influenced by a Mick Karn (RIP) record I had bought called Tracks. His bass playing, especially on that record, was so unusual and special.
This album then lead me to writing a book with the same name. The book never saw the light of day and currently sits on a pair of floppy discs that I can’t read. I started the idea as a graphic novel with a friend but as usual my enthusiasm outpaced theirs and I was left with the project. In the story a fellow called Gabriel feels trapped within himself and the futuristic society he lives in (think Logan’s Run). He is beset by “hurting machines” that make him run away to the bad part of town, The Tubes, where he meets a band of musicians (conveniently called Column 3-57) and through interacting with them he starts to realize he might be normal after all.
Tag: …and then the machine became aware…
The Machine Or The Egg song title asks the question; which comes first the mechanical part of us, the body, or the awareness (or life) that creates the transport that it needs to complete its mission? Of course in a way typical of me I overlay a lyric that is of a person who wants to give up his humanity to be only a machine.
Piece on Collonades Column 3-57 Sampler