Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Latest Lager Time episode is up
This one is called On Discrimination Old vs New, it’s taken from a quote from Book 9 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Look then at what is happening now. Only the intelligent creatures have forgotten the urge to be unified with each other: only here will you have no confluence BOOK 9 - 9.3
As ever, you can find it on SUBSTACK, also, Youtube, as below, Spotify, APPLE etc
Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening
Earlier this week, I recorded a Not Quite Live Edition of Lager Time. It’s essentially me running through a set poems, stories and some music on the loop-station. Had a few live gigs coming up, so this was good preperation for me
FULL SET LIST
1 - Trap It
2- Times of Respect
3- Whoever Said It Was Easy
4- Fair & Square
5- Chair Wars
6- Not quite A Cheetah
7- Premium Speed Ghost Train
8- Slow and Steady
9 - No Milk For The Foxes
10 - Now, What Do You Want To Say?
11 - Watts & Pommerlers
Sometime last year (not long out of lockdown, if I remember rightly) my good pal, The Prince of Penge himself, Peter Hayhoe messaged me up, asking if I wanted to do some videos for his channel.
We spent a few hours filming a couple of videos round the New Cross area, then went for a pint. The video below, was a little extra thing Pete asked me to do, right at the end, for his Patreon subscribers. All I had in my head was the first verse to one of my tracks, called Watts and Pommelrers. Named after Alan Watts (who I sampled on the original track) and a nice little boozer I like to occasionally frequent up in Tower Bridge.
I messed up the lyrics a bit but I guess you’re never going to know that!
One two
Greetings. Bonjour. What’s happening?
Thought I’d pen a little update for the site about some goings-on – adding it to the consistently-inconsistent blogs and general updates that already exist on here.
So what have I been doing with myself?
Since late October last year, I’ve been regularly writing and recording a podcast / blog using Substack which I call Lager Time (some of which you can see below) I’ve been doing it every week (give or take the odd week off) and tend to share a piece of writing that I’m working and sometimes music, as well as having a general update on what I’ve been doing.
The reason it’s called Lager Time, is because it’s where I like to let off a bit of steam; which for me, I often associate with drinking lager. When I lived in Morden for a few years, with my mate, Dean. I’d often put on a Children’s TV voice and pronounce ‘it’s lager time’ to my mate Dean, whenever I went down to Ganley’s; the big Irish pub in the high street. I used to love going there, sinking a few jars with my brother Nat and chewing the fat.
I’m still figuring out what I’m doing work-wise, post pandemic and where, if at all, I fit in to everything. Even before the pandemic, I had this duel feeling of being a bit lost in the two worlds which I tend to operate; subsidized theatre and spoken word and figured I should try and carve out my own path. Figuring out what and how, is what I’ve been doing since and Lager Time is one aspect of that.
I’m enjoying doing it and gradually getting better at the production aspect of it. I’ve still not quite figured out the best shape of it but I’m excited, as it presents other opportunities. It’s a little platform that I’m slowly building and I’ve got a few ideas for it going forward. Like live-streams, live-events and guests.
You can subscribe directly on Substack, and have an email sent to you every week or you can subscribe to the audio, and have it on both APPLE podcasts and SPOTIFY.
Last week I recorded a live-set, which included a bunch of new poems, stories, a couple of songs and a bit of chat. I’m aiming to do a few more of this over the next couple of months as well as doing a video live-stream.
The big vision, is to be as fully self-sufficient as I can be. Ie – I can produce as much of my own content as I want. Audio, video, graphics, books , music and these are all things I’ve slowly been learning how to do. Earning some dough would be nice too
TOAST IN THE MACHINE
Speaking of music, I’m on the verge of releasing a new self-produced EP called Toast In The Machine. It’s five tracks (two of which I’ve already out put: Whichever Way It’s Blowing and Now, What Do You Wonna Say?) but I’ve remixed those and hopefully made them sound better.
I’ve been dabbling with music production for about fifteen years but never taken it that seriously. This is the first time I’ve attempted to mix and master my own music and mate, it’s hard! Though I’m treating everything with this project as a learning curve and I have zero expectations, I’m thinking maybe I should give it over to a proper producer / engineer as at the moment, it’s not quite sounding but I hope to have it all finished by next month.
RISE
Someone who is a proper producer, is my good pal Conrad Murray. This week he put out this track, RISE (OUTSIDE) which was one of the first track we wrote for High Rise eState of Mind but never ended up using. Have a blast and you can hear me singing on the chorus with Lakeisha Lynch Stevens aka Kiki.
MAKE YOUR OWN BED AND HOPE FOR THE BEST
I spent probably the first six months of this year re-writing this show, it’s now ready to go into production (I think) but I now have to go through the rigmarole of getting Arts Council funding to make that happen, so watch this space… have a look at some of the stuff I’ve done in the past with it…
WORKSHOPS
Aside from all that, I’ve been leading projects in theatre, music and spoken word with Dream Arts, City Academy, Wildcard Theatre, National Literacy Trust with future projects coming with Green Shoes and Mountview. I’ve also helped a couple of mates out with writing wedding speeches, If anyone is interested in any of the above, don’t hesitate to get in touch
So that’s it for now
Thanks, as ever, for the support
Paul
This piece was originally publsihed on my Substack audio / blog - Lager Time, where you can hear it as audio. You can also subsribe there and have as an email and podcast
A young man of nineteen is rummaging
through his wallet, looking for his gym
pass. In amongst the receipts, chewing
gum wrappers and train tickets, he
finds a date-expired, unused rubber;
curry flavour. He’d bought it from a
vending machine on his sixteenth
Birthday. He holds it, he can feel it’s gone
dry and crusty. He’s still wearing too much
Lynx and the hair-gel is still slooping off
his head in wet-weather, V-Plates are
still very much intact, along with his
optimism. Never give up he thinks
Originally published on my Substack blog: Lager Time, where you can hear it as audio, if you like, give us a subscribe, it all helps
This peice was written in Dallas, over Christmas 2021, whilst in isolation with COVID
Plans for the indecisive
Plans for the unconfident
Plans for the ill-prepared
Plans for the avoiders of conflict
Plans for the effeminate
Plans for the masculine
Plans for the identity clingers
Plans for the identity seekers
Plans for the identity shredders
Plans for the bored
Plans for the un-motivated
Plans for the negative, cynical and depressed
Plans for the self-aware bad-habbiters
Plans for the spouse disappointers
Plans for the family embarrasses
Plans for the compliment shirkers
Plans for the compliment seekers
Plans for the distant whisperers of hope
Plans for long-term excitement
Plans for vitality and wealth
Plans for God, divinity
Plans for organisation
Plans to get well soon
Plans to unclip the seatbelt and press the ejector button
Plans to convert passive to electric
Maybe that’s a good place to start
Greetings, seasons greetings. Life’s been a bit hectic these last few weeks, hence no post. This might sound like I’m contradicting myself but I’m currently out in America, on my honeymoon. It was hectic in the run up to getting here and we’ve been travelling around; New-York, Boston and now Dallas. So far so good, until I got COVD. I’m currently self-isolating, don’t feel too bright but it’s warm and I’m fortunate enough to be staying at my wife’s sister’s house, I’m being looked-after, this could all be a lot worse.
Anyway, it’s my first chance to pick up the lappy and pen something, so here it is. A little piece I scribbled on the train home, a few weeks back, after a little gig in Norwood. December. So this is also being recorded on my phone, on a new piece of kit I got to help me live-stream but so far it’s not worked, so I’m back to the trust voice-notes
If you’re reading / listening to this, I hope wherever you are, you’re housed, warm and fed. Large up for the support, happy Christmas, Paul Cree.
Where’d December come from?
Snuck-up like a last-orders bell – slap
red letter dropping on the doormat
No choice but to deal with it now
Was busy living then blinked and
It got dark
Yawned and it got cold
Chin tucked into jacket ill equipped
For worst weather
Was gonna go for a run as well but
It’s raining outside until April
And even then…
So now what?
Footballs off
Make the most of it, mate
Little lights like rain illuminated under
Car headlights, highlights are thin
On the ground this time of year
Like the snow that settles for seconds
Then forms all forlorn and wet disappointment
seeking holes in soles and soaking socks
I swear yesterday it was hot or
At least mild and
Still light at seven and
Christmas was one of them things you
say you’re not even thinking about until
It comes round which is
Well, now
I’m a stickler for nuance, especially in the times we’re in now. Sometimes, it can be a pain in the arse - someone can state something and I find it hard to let it go without piping up, sometimes I wish I wouldn’t, sometimes I do shut-up then wish I did pipe-up, I can’t win and it probably makes me a pain-in-the-arse to be around. It’s worth mentioning, though, all of the above, I only tend to do offline, online that’s a fight I’m too afraid of, which was part of the reason I started this blog.
Some trite examples of popular opinions, in the past few years, that were often on my radar, where I at least try to present a more nuanced point, would be The amazing feat of Leicester winning the Premier League and The amazing success of Stormzy as an independent artist to Jeremy Corbyn is a Marxist and Nigel Farage is a fascist. All these four things are nowhere near as clear or as simple as they’re made out be, some more serious than others, of course but I’m not settling for any of those four statements, as absolute truths, which they’re often presented as.
Brexit was a big one for me, as I’m sure it was for many. A binary question on a highly complex issue - I can see pros and cons on both sides. The toxicity of the mainstream campaigns and debates seemed to detract from what I thought was the original question. It just became another battlefield in the so called culture-war and it all got a West-Side-Story.
Maybe that’s what the problem is, we’re too quick to get partisan and jump in the what we think are the best equipped camps, no one wants to be in no-mans land; expect perhaps for nobs like me who want to take time to figure things out, when there probably is no time. Trouble is, for someone like me, I can only act on what I know and whilst I do read a lot, especially about politics and social issues, I don’t always understand it and when it comes to arguing it, I often struggle to get my points across; yet that insatiable desire for a bit more nuance never goes and I can get obsessive seeking out alterative views.
At times It feels like a dangerous obsession, or at the very least a nagging one that often riles me up and I don’t quite know what I get out of it. Perhaps I’m just an aspiring smart-arse, who’s not yet earned the ‘smart’ part of that phrase.
At some dull-yet-turbulent moment in twenty-twenty, I wrote this little poem, tyring to make sense of what I’m doing. Suffice to say, on the long road to Damascus, I probably got side-tracked at a service station stressing about what flavour of crips I wanted with my over-priced motorway meal deal, when I should’ve opted for the Pan-Pipe Moods CD compilation from the bargain-bin.
At some point I got lost deep diving for truth
whatever that is
been learning to breathe ever since
can barely swim, let-alone dive
no tanned-man in Thailand
just read what I could
asked a few questions from the few people I
knew and the few books I had
made maps on the internet marked with x’s
got my Nike’s dirty down rabbit holes
realised some rabbis weren’t as wise I thought
just a lot of rabbit talk
I remember getting that irritating twitch back
at school, from playground spats to classroom analysis
often thinking there’s more to this than what’s being presented
just never quite knew what it was
some other texture and taste I weren’t getting from that
bland food I was instructed to swallow
got older and felt the same about the news and everyday
views I’d hear out and about
felt stupid when I aired mine
unformed and messy, like a piece of homework
produced on the bus, I’d produce my two p and
instantly feel out my depth, like I took a bath, shut my
eyes and woke up fighting a storm in the North Atlantic
convincing myself I was better off with the inflatables and the
flumes, at least they were a laugh, that and I
wouldn’t get cast out the clan for
breaking ranks
give it a day or two and the feeling resumed
just didn’t know what to do
so I took to diving, with no licence
just a bunch of erratic thoughts and a thirst for something more
I’ve unearthed a few things that muddied the water
each time I come up for air, I find the land more divided
spliced-up and taking sides
status seekers and self-publicists
political mules nudged into reactions
nudged into action
all armed with their half-truths,
cherry-picked data grenades, firing at will
desperate to catch a dart from the opposing side so they
can spin it out the stratosphere
sealing off all access routes to alternative views
dogmatic with diminishing returns
seen the distance between them turn from stream to river
with the banks threatening to burst
I’m back at school again, choking on the tripe I’m being
co-erced to swallow, thinking there’s a lot more to it, a
lot more, I’ve tasted it and I’m
barley getting started but I’m no
Olllie Twist, please sir… just
forget it
originally featured on my Substack PAGE - LAGER TIME - including audio
If you know me, or you know the name of this blog, at least, you’ll know I very much enjoy drinking lager. These days, I don’t get to do it nearly as much as I’d like but I do enjoy a pint, or five. Those that know me well, know that I’m no fan of craft beer. It’s an odd thing to say, as craft-beer is a very broad-church and that rational part of me knows it’s an irrational thing to have a gripe about. BUT, I can genuinely say, I’ve never drunk one I liked the taste of but it’s not the content inside the glass or the tiny can with the whimsical illustration on it, that gets my back up a bit. It’s the perception, in my tiny paranoid mind, that I’m being told this is better, I should be drinking this. Well, what some it, just is’nt
Certain arguments I get; small local brewery versus cooperate bemouth full of chemicals and in many cases, I can understand people’s reasons to opt for the stinky hops, but it’s not always that simple is it. I remember waking up one morning after a night on that Camden Hells and my head felt like I’d been drinking Special Brew in a park, all day. I don’t think it’s all that squeaky clean. Then when stories broke of Craft-Beer-big-bollox, Brew-Dog mis-treating their staff, it made me think of that pious man that runs Canada who keeps getting caught doing black-face. What if, SOME of this craft beer stuff, is actually bollox
In a similar way, all this can be applied to food - see vegan /organic / sour dough etc and of course, to my other favourite thing, football. I’m a Millwall fan and like most Milllwall fans, I know that being in the to- ten of the second-tier in English football, is a decent achievement and if we’re there, it means that we’re probably punching above our weight.
These days, with Man City’s brand of football being the zeitgeist, playing the ‘right way’ means having multiple players that are comfortable on the ball and can move and switch positions. Trouble is, the players that can do that, tend to cost a lot of money. Millwall, not having the financial resources of other teams, have had to rely a bit more on being stifling-boring and defensive or failing that, the trusted four-four-two, blood and guts method. Which is often considered archaic. But what if it works
I’ve sat through and endured many teams attempting to play the ‘right way’ and sometimes, they get no-where. What if, SOME of the proponents of the ‘right way’ are just, a bit shit - see poem below
THE EMPOPERS NEW FOOTBALL KIT
They say they play proper football
how the game should be played
passing the ball, from back to front
and back again, all one touch
like a slowed down pin-ball machine
gracefully pinging about the pitch
yet they never get out their own half
they don’t ever score, nor do they
ever win, but the crowd applaud and
the pundits praise, because they play
proper football, how the game
should be played
A few thoughts on signalling, with a poem at the end, called Weak Walking Shoes, originally uploaded on my Substack page, Lager Time, where you can listen to it as an audio piece
One of the many reasons I enjoy writing, to borrow a cliché, is that it allows me to hold up a mirror to my own behaviour and by extension, others too, hopefully. When I think about this, there is one image that often flashes up in my mind, over and over again, reminding me of that particular reason.
It’s probably a compound of many memories, spent working in Waitrose as a teenager (and any other customer service type job I had, there was a few!) and witnessing some customer going ape-shit, at me, or some other hapless part-timer on the checkouts, over the condition of something relatively minor, like a tin of soup and inevitably demanding something in return for the pain of it; the attention of the senior management, a reduction in price etc. I call it the mirror moment.
Back then, I always used to think, that if you could pause-time in that moment, unfreeze that customer, like a drama improv-exercise and hand that angry customer, one of those little rectangular mirrors we used to use in school, l to measure light-angles or whatever, they could look at themselves in that moment, take a moment and hopefully think ‘yea, maybe I’m being a bit of prick here.’
There are many more of these memories, people having overly-loud telephone barneys in pub lic, hyper-devout church attendees, out-singing everyone else and of course, the over-whelming vast array of behaviour-questioning memories that scrutinise my own actions, hence the poem in this post but for some reason, it’s always that Waitrose one I return too; I don’t know why but I don’t suppose it matters all that much, it does the required job and encourages me to question to my own motivations.
I guess where all this is leading too, is that in each of these examples, my amateur psychological guess, is that each person is signalling something, which may not exactly correlate with what they’re presenting, almost like they’re misleading us, the public, the audience, the viewers etc and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like it, it’s dis-honest. Maybe honesty is in itself, a signalling thing but I still don’t like it.
In an age of social-media, this goes on a lot and yep, I’ve most certainly done it myself. I can’t turn on the telly, without some huge mutli-national corporate entity encouraging me to take up whatever moral-crusade they’re promoting, or more simply, some poet who just so happened to pen a poem on the day of some huge tragedy and immediately stuck it up on line and encouraged everyone to share it. I don’t like it.
Mirror moment, why are we doing this? And if we really knew why we were doing this, would we still be doing this? Mirror moment, why am I doing this? See below
Back then I didn’t know many people into people into
outdoor pursuits, certainly not outside Ikon-Diva
Crawley’s premier late-night go-to in 01
gone 2am with a curb-side-view, scuffles on the
pavement, arguments in the kebab que
couple of times I put on a pair of clumpy walking
shoes, zipped up the ugly- fleece and attempted to
scale the moral high ground, preaching to my mates
below that fighting was an immature thing to do
Now I’m at an age, where, keep it down, yea but
I might actually enjoying walking and I might-possibly-
have considered purchasing a pair of ugly-arse walking
shoes, because they’re water-proof and comfy and …
listen, that kid my mates mate slapped that time, probably deserved it
mouthed off unprovoked, squared up, probably shirtless
and when push came to shove, I was probably deserting
knowing deep down, I lacked the right gear for that sort of pursuit
wrong sort of shoes
so I ascended hilly peaks and preached my views
convinced I was on higher ground like a
champagne-socialist one windfall
away from a super yacht cruise
Another video from the day I spent, few months back with the Muddy Feet Poetry team - this one called NOT QUITE A CHEETAH
I wrote it last year during the first lockdown and funnily enough, not long after that my missus went and got a dog, imagine that
So a couple of weeks ago, my good mate Pete Hayhoe, called me over to New Cross to do a bit of filming for his Muddy Feet Poetry channel. We filmed two and this is the first one
I was chuffed to get the call again, Pete is a bit of legend on the London spoken word circuit, genuine top bloke. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a few videos filmed with Muddy Feet and I’m delighted to see how Pete and his team have consistently built it up over these last few years into a recognised poetry platform
So this piece was originally part of a track I wrote about ten years ago but never did anything with - last year, I dug it out and re-wrote it and with the help of Joshua Idehen, beat it into shape. the material seemed relevant to all the stuff I’ve been putting together for the new show Make Your Own Bed and Hope for the Best. I’ve been in this position described in the piece a few times over the years, skint, demoralised, questioning everything and too knickered to do anything about it, large up anyone going through it, keep going, that’s all you can do and eventually the light comes.
WINDOW DRESSING
Yesterday, Friday 5th February, 2021, was a busy day at Cree HQ. I released a self-produced new single with a B-side, with artwork that I made myself and stuck the thing up on Bandcamp. I released the first video in a little series I’m doing which includes material from the new show. I lit, filmed, edited, and uploaded it myself. Sounds, alright, yea?
REALITY
The songs aren’t mixed very well (you can hear my breathing too much on the first track.) Apart from putting links up on my social media platforms, I’ve done zero PR for it (I don’t really know where to start with that.) The artwork, I made myself on GIMP- it’s very, very simple. There’s a fault line that I don’t know how to get rid of on the main image. With the video, I’ve got way too much light on my face and the sound isn’t great, nor is the delivery in the performance. Basically, it’s all pretty shoddy. Whilst there are certainly a few improvements that I know I can make, it largely shows the extent of my limited skillset, when it comes to putting out my own content.
Exhibit A: My wife said ‘I don’t get it?’ - well, good art gets people talking.
Now, apart from writing the words used in both the music and video, I probably wouldn’t have bothered doing any of the above, not so long ago, due to knowing that I’m not very good at doing those things; also known as, being shit.
There’s been many examples, over the extent of my 37.6 years on this planet, where I’ve given up far too easily. The reasons for this vary but the one that most frequently caused me to stop doing whatever was it was I was trying to do, was being shit at whatever that thing was. It’s shit being shit. I’m sure we all know that.
SIDENOTE
I need to stress here (out of insecurity? Ego? Pride? I don’t know?) that it’s not the case for everything. The fact that I’m sitting here, writing this blog post, follows a trajectory (which I’ve talked about, a lot) from MCing and rapping, in my late teens, to all this other writing stuff now. I was shit at MCing, for a long time and have the tapes to prove it (confidence also plays part in this but I’m not using that as a full excuse, I was shit, mate) but I stuck with it and low and behold, here I am - with a website and a few shows and other cool things under my belt. Well done me for not giving up.
SHIT EXAMPLES
I’ve been shit at a lot of things. I essentially wrote a show about being shit at school (amongst other things), which turned into this new show (which I’m currently writing) which is about (amongst other things) being shit at the jobs I was doing.
Some of the things I wasn’t able to give up, like school for instance, to the extent that I had to be there, by law but most of my efforts, in the last few years of it were reduced to doing the absolute bare minimum, which is probably worse than giving up. With most of the jobs, I needed to earn a living and didn’t want to be sacked, so I still turned up but again, minimal effort in a lot of cases (though, not all.)
There were somethings, I at least for a period, tried hard with, like Maths and French but just couldn’t my head around them, so I gave up. Cleaning was another, I was normally knackered after a shift, hoovering, scrubbing and wiping but I was still shit at it.
However, so many other things, from that Basketball team I trained with for a brief period, to applying for numerous jobs and opportunities, where I just think, I’m shit at this, so what’s the point in continuing? and resign myself to misery and give up.
This attitude has definitely flowed into my work as a creative person. First and foremost, I see myself as a lyrics man, I deal with words and I perform those words. However, there’s many things I’ve attempted, within the world of being an artist, like funding applications and making your own artwork, producing my own music, that I’ve been shit at and just given up, or not even bothered to attempt it, once I’d established I was shit at it.
So where’s that got me? Not that far, that’s for sure. Most of the things that I have done, which went well, which required skills like: funding, artwork, producing, mixing, engineering, filming, editing - were done by people who knew what they were doing, making me a very fortunate young man; because they probably wouldn’t have happened if it was just me in charge
Of the things that I’m proud of, most of them involved me getting off my arse and making something happen, whilst transcending or ignoring that negative-mindset, that whatever it was, it was going to be shit.
POSITIVE SHIT
I wrote a blog a while back, about the Just A Name mixtape, that I made in 2007. That project came out of a frustration, that I wasn’t able to record and put out my own music, all I had was an ever increasing pile of lyrics, with no music to rap them over. So with the help of my brother Will and my mate, Mit, I learnt just enough on Logic, saved up a bit of dough, bought some basic kit and done the damn thing myself (apart from the mixdown, hold tight Keeper.) Even going to open mics to read my poems, I’d say I was shit at that but I kept it up and got reasonably competent at it.
Whilst I’m pleased with the things that I have achieved, there’s been a whole load of stuff that I haven’t, far too much, in fact, because I made an excuse for myself and gave up. It’s bollox.
Circa 2007, some early Cree. A perm marker was used and then scanned, by a printer/scanner that did’nt realy print or scan.
YOU CAN DO IT, ALL YOU NEED IS…
I’m not trying to sound like one of those self-help guru’s here but that attitude has held me back and I feel stupid for doing so. I think it also masks, on my part, a laziness, risk aversion and a fear of what other people will think. The times where I haven’t been lazy or risk-averse, have led to good things, mostly. So more of that, yea.
In an ideal word, I’d have proper people doing the artwork, the PR, the filming, the funding and I’d just concentrate on my bit, writing and performing but I don’t, none of that is financially viable right now. What I do have, is some good people willing to help me, access to WIFI, a bit of equipment and an account with Udemy and You Tube, so I’m able to at least get some of these little projects finished, to whatever standard and get them out there. The best bit is, I’m slowly improving at the things I mentioned at the start (I can now do a lot more than this time last year) and I get those little dopamine hits, whenever I learn how to do something new, which is a good feeling, even if what I’ve just done is a bit shit; like the artwork on my new track.
So long as I accept the starting point of being shit, at writing funding applications, mixing music, filming, editing, making artwork but acknowledge that I’ll probably improve, if I keep doing it, then I’m onto a winner, mate.
So what I think all this means is, that the real shit thing here in all of this, is doing nothing at all and giving up. It’s shit, being shit but even shitter if you don’t do shit, when you want to get shit done. ‘Eff that, I’ve already wasted to much time, I’ve got work to do.
Peas and taters
Paul
Yo
High Rise eState of mind is back! And it almost wasn’t!
We’ve had this show lined-up for ages, to make the journey up to Manchester, to the amazing HOME. I’m yet to ever perform in Manny, let alone at one of the best venues in the whole city. HOME is massive for us and whey they announced another flipping lockdown, we were gutted. HOWEVER, Home have pulled out all the stops and they are going to live-stream it, so yous’ can watch it from anywhere!
THIS WEDNESDAY AND THIRSDAY, GET YOUR TICKETS HERE it’s only gonne be online for two nights.
Alright, it’s not the same as having an audience in front of you, but for us, we’ll still be on their massive stage, doing a show, that we’re very proud of.
So this week we’ve been back in rehearsals at Camden People’s Theatre (large up them!) getting ready, I’d forgotten how much there is to do in the show, so it’ll be a challenge but I was chuffed to be back in the room, with the team again, Conrad Murray, Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens and David Bonik Junior aka Gambit Ace
18th and 19th Nov
@HOME Manchester
So, for this year’s National Poetry Day, Thursday 1st October, I got to step out the gaff and walk down the road, to Woolwich Library, where I spent the day roaming around various sites in Woolwich, wiritng and recording some short poems.
I visted the Nike Statue, The Foot-tunnel (which goes underneath the Thames) The Old Dry-Dock and Woolwhich Arsenal and then Bereseford Sqaure.
You can view all of the peices on the Greenwich Libraries Facebook Page
Later on in the afternooon I did a live Q & A with Miriam Storey from Greewich Libraries and then to finish it all off, myself and old Rubix spar, Belinda Zhawi, did a live streamed performance from inside the librray.
It was a quality day, loved it, mate
All pictures courtsey of Greenwich Libraries
So, I did a gig, live, last night, as part of WORDS FLOW FESTIVAL @ Upper Norwood Library. An actual gig, mate. Finally, after all this COVID-caper, knocked the game flat-out, a live gig!
It was a lot of fun to step-up and do it again and it was also live-streamed, so you can watch it below. The setup was sick, the library really went all-out to get the whole show looking and sounding good.
My performance was a bit wonky in places, it’s all new material (and equipment) I’m slowly building a whole new set, with music so bought out the new loop-station and cracked on with it, like old, pre-COVID times but with new words and gear.
Have a butchers and donate to the library, if you can, they’re doing great things in that corner of South London.
But yes, it was great to perform again, more gigs, please, performing is what I do.
Speaking of which, catch me and Conrad Murray this Friday, as Beats & Elements take over the Camden People’s Theatre Instagram account, with a show called EYEBALLZ, DREAMS AND STREAMZ - a whole show of poets, singers, rappers and beatboxers, it’s gonna be large, mate
New Poems uploaded on BBC and Soundcloud
Read MoreI was recently commisioned by the National Literacy Trust, to put togethor 5 workshops video’s on writing poems. I try my best to take you through wriitng a Narrative, List and Ode poem. Then picking one, editing it then presenitng it.
I’m only just getting to grips with filming my own video’s and this was only the second attempt at doing a filmed workshop. It was good fun and I learned a lot, I still very much miss running workshops, with a bunch of real people all in a real room but you know how it is….
Here’s the weblink - https://literacytrust.org.uk/family-zone/zone-in/poetry-paul-cree/
Back in Janaury, I bopped down to these studio’s over in docklands somewhere, to link up with my mate Peter Hayhoe and his Muddy Feet Poetry team and film both of these video’s there. As ever, I had a good laugh and was glad to get these one’s done and shot. They both feature in the Suburban book, in the final third, as they were written whilst I lived in Morden, probably about three or four years ago. Both pieces are based on a cominbation of experiancing the same things, a few times, football and crows respectivly. Trap It has become a staple opener for me, in my sets, over the last few years and I latterly introduced Crows back last year, sometime. They’re both fairly short and amusing (to some, at least) so work well as openers. I’m slowly putting a new set togethor, so these will all be put to bed for a while, until I get bored again, so I was chuffed to get them filmed and out there at last. Give Muddy Feet a follow, they put out new spoken word video’s every week.