RECIPES FOR
MODERN LIFE
A RECIPE FOR MODERN LIFE
Can you make it down to breakfast?
It was only just a thought.
My affair within this kitchen
is going to be short.
I'm staring at the ceiling
playing movies in my head
and trying to decide if something
hasn't yet been said.
Action kills the theory
that is wasted by the word.
It seems the louder that we shout,
the more likely to be heard.
So when she says "I love you,
do you really love me too?"
It's a trap for younger players,
don't say yes unless you do.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
VEGETARIAN (A 60 second love song)
I don't make concessions easily, I know what's mine.
I like to spend my money on
books and film and bottles of wine.
Our love may not be like
some script from Hollywood.
Indeed, I may not love you
like I know I should.
But I'd go vegetarian for you.
I'd go vegetarian, if you wanted me too.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
A PAIR OF NEW SHOES
There's a man in the race,
a man with such a serious face
and he's scared, he thinks he might lose,
if he don't buy a pair of new shoes.
Well now me, I don't compete,
not at least, when I have cold feet.
Second hand; it just means used.
I go and buy a pair of new shoes.
One shoe it grows thin.
The other half simply goes from within.
When I need some good news,
I go and buy a pair of new shoes
so when the cold wind blows,
so as though my toes are exposed
and I'm feeling less amused.
I go an buy a pair of new shoes.
There's an ad on TV.
It's my jing, they're playing it for me.
I can't decide and I can't choose,
the colour of my pair of new shoes.
Some would have me settle down.
Some would say; "Stop fooling around!"
But second hand, it just means used.
I go and buy a pair of new shoes.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
LOVER'S LANE
In this dark and dirty room,
I feel some inspiration getting through.
The lines are here, the books been read,
I sleep on it with Mozart in my head.
I'm in no doubt, so deep I spin,
I think of how I need to touch your skin.
And what would happen, if I stayed?
Could I wait for judgement day?
You have to run to understand,
in Lover's Lane they
don't make those demands.
Like a secret that's been passed around,
a lonely bed, this is my favourite town.
And while it's true I aim to please,
you open doors I can't close on my knees.
We can't go back until we've tried,
lips to lips we dance to stop this lie.
In this dark and dirty room,
I feel some inspiration getting through.
Here together face to face,
walk through me as you leave this lonely place.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
FEMME FATALE
She paints up her pretty face
and only talks between the takes.
They try to shoot a simple scene,
with images of Jimmy Dean.
Femme fatale.
Jobs and cars and family,
fade slowly from her memory.
Someone younger and fresher faced,
just stepped in and took her place.
Femme fatale.
Style is measured by her cash.
She's parking cars and pumping gas.
Ride her big blue limousine,
she's selling love for amphetamine.
Femme fatale.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
PRODIGAL SON
No choices are easy. Decisions are made
on chancing an instinct or playing it safe.
The view from the window of our earlier years,
celebrates with the past but remembers the tears.
Chameleon. Infidel. Bohemian. Wishing well.
The price we pay for fashion, a designer name to drop.
It’s not so much in what we choose as where we choose to shop.
An ego skates on thin ice, never what it seems,
we’re only as important as we are in our dreams.
Dionysus. Oedipal. Narcissus. Kiss & tell.
It’s halcyon days I spend as the prodigal son.
I follow in footsteps with laces undone.
A shot at redemption, no ready relief,
a train in vain is still my beggars belief.
Arthurian. Balthazar. Fenian. Coup d’etat.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
HIGHS & LOWS
Well what life is all about, is trying to ride a wave
and her light is like a pilot, that shines beyond the grave.
We can't get where we're going until we know where we've been
and by keeping our minds open we are part of everything...
that is high and low.
It's true she kept me going when thoughts of suicide
might have proved another option, 'cause bottle up inside
was anger at my youth and nothing but despair,
but we have to keep on rolling till we feel we're getting near...
the highs...and away from the lows.
A Pall Mall and a sherry were the luxuries in life
that kept a lady going once she'd ceased to be a wife.
And Lucy once, she told me, the last time we would meet,
to be sure that when I landed, I landed on my feet...
near the highs...and right away from the lows.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
DREAMS
Zoot suits in the jazz bars, New York’s many friends.
Sculpture, lights & accidents, time to set new trends.
‘Freak Street’ art & pizza, winter round the blades.
Selfish priests in cold sweat faith claimed it could be saved.
We need new dreams tonight. We need new dreams.
A heroine she’s fallen, telephones & jam.
The full moon & the lion lie down with the lamb.
We need new dreams tonight. We need new dreams.
In concrete & in wire, the truth, the big city.
Renaissance & the 60’s come together over me.
We need new dreams tonight. We need new dreams.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1992
Carlton McRae
STORMING HEAVEN
Intellect & intuition, money changes hands.
A cinderella science will alter all the plans.
In every class the weird kid has an empty open book,
which all amounts to fiction and the price we pay to look…and we look!
these are not Victorian days that the prophet steals,
lullabies in every line complete her wheeler deals.
In every class the weird kid has an empty open book,
which all amounts to fiction and the price we pay to look…and we look!
Action, lights, intensity, money, glamour, glitz,
police, tequila, cinemas, movie-makers, hits.
‘Turn on, tune in, drop out’, the generations change,
yet, Huxley, Blake & Leary tell us; ‘Take that trip again!’…and again.
In every class the weird kid has an empty open book,
which all amounts to fiction and the price we pay to look…and we look!
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1993
Carlton McRae
RUBBER SOUL
The more I know, the less I feel.
I've fashioned it that way.
As naked as reality
when all is stripped away.
Time will ease you pain, they say,
the longer that you feed.
And all the things you left me,
are all the things I need.
Have faith in me by showing me your hand.
And you know, I'll help you if I can.
Time just keeps on rolling by,
consistency in change.
By capturing the colour,
it will always be in frame.
The more I know, the less I feel,
I've fashioned it that way.
As naked as reality
when all is stripped away.
See are keen, but never stand a chance.
Together they will wander while we dance.
Now I see the wolves are at your door.
He's standing in the coat that I once wore.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1993
Carlton McRae
ARNOLD GROVE
He wakes every morning, there's coffee on the stove.
Wife still in her dressing gown stops to say hello.
Breakfast on the table, the kids are off to school.
He's driving to the office to play somebody's fool.
Saving up his money to take her to a show
and to pay the mortgage...#14 Arnold Grove.
He reads the Sundays papers, she brings him toast in bed.
She wants so much to join him, but there's children to be fed.
He feels oppressive torture, he's longing to break free.
Playing the family struggle is just not his cup of tea.
The future is uncertain and he doesn't want to know.
He's left a young solo mum divorcee...in Arnold Grove.
Life upon the DPB, there's tonic in her gin.
it's time to watch the soapies and to bring the washing in.
Life for her is not living, but grinding to the bone,
when the wrong decisions left her stranded...in Arnold Grove.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1993
Carlton McRae
CHARRED
Working for a living, has never seemed the same.
Profit seeking pleasure, new rules for the game.
I knew that I would make it, I had nowhere else to go.
It's hard to keep things secret when this towns a show.
The sun was beating down so hard,
I thought that I would fry.
You left as quickly as you came,
we never said goodbye.
I gave my soul away before, with cash to back the words,
a wallet full of trouble, more than it was worth.
But sweating in the furnace of this afternoon of fire,
the thing I took for granted was the thing I most desired.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1993
Carlton McRae
BURLINGTON STREET
She passed this way one charming morning, many years ago.
History is set in text and written in the stone.
Said a man tailored to the lady in the lace,
"Mine eyes they are not worthy, to look upon your face".
There is a lady sweet and kind,
was ne'er a face so pleased my mind.
I did but see her passing by,
will I love her till I die?
Good cloth says, "now beggar man,
the gutter will you lay"
"What's a title?" he replied.
"But a wage away!"
There is a lady sweet and kind,
was ne'er a face so pleased my mind.
I did but see her passing by,
will I love her till I die?
She passed this way one charming morning,
maybe I was there?
Was her taste the gin of love
in sweet September air?
There is a lady sweet and kind,
was ne'er a face so pleased my mind.
I did but see her passing by,
will I love her till I die?
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1994
Philip Hartshorn-Carlton McRae
DIG THE NEW BREED
Dig the new breed,
graduating this year.
Financial, means a safer career.
Welfare, just means owned by the state.
Indigestion, was it something I ate?
Possession 9/10th's of the law,
are you happy?
Drink me, uncorked to your lips.
Digest me, I'm all fingers and tips.
Authentic, quite the antique.
I'm 'one of',
give me something unique.
Possession 9/10th's of the law,
are you happy?
No, I need more...more...
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1996
Carlton McRae
DR. MARIGOLD
Listen to the colour of your dreams.
With eyes closed, living is easy.
Thoughts meander like a restless wind,
tuned to a natural C.
Innocence is measured out in years,
standing in the English rain.
I'm picking flowers for a friend,
some are gone and some remain.
The world is waiting just for you,
I said you'd call, ring my friend.
Ignorance and haste may mourn the dead.
Play the game 'existence' to the end.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS,1995
Carlton McRae
MR. POTTER'S GARDEN
Mr. Potter's garden is such a homely place to be.
Spending hours on the grass and drifting into sleep.
Spending summer Sunday's chasing shadows in your sun.
Dancing on to autumn when those colours start to run
and now, the weeds have taken over
and the gardener gone away.
A ticket from the cradle to the grave.
You can jeopardise your future, if you struggle with your pat.
or gamble on a winner, hoping that it won't run last.
You can do your penance pushing pens across a page.
Working forty hours just to earn an average wage until
the weeds have taken over
and the gardener gone away.
A ticket from the cradle to the grave.
(c) RACING MIND RECORDS, 1995
Carlton McRae
Dizrhythmia were formed in July of 1992, at the house in Arthurs Point, Queenstown where I was residing. That is were I first met Philip Giles Hartshorn.
Phil attended a party/gathering we had there on July 4th and he and I discovered the old bend for original music and virtually instantly decided to form a band.
Within weeks we were writing songs and within a month or so, we were playing at the local markets on the Queenstown Village Green on Saturday mornings.
Phil and I entertain market goers in Queenstown one spring Saturday morning circa; September, 1992.
It had been a hard first few months in Queenstown for me. I didn't ski and found most forms of work on offer a pain in the arse. Hospitality, retail etc.
The people I met were totally awesome individuals and as I was a relative newbie in all respects, I was enjoying the change of living in the mountains, something I'd never done before.
I had been desperate to try and find a way into the local music scene and meeting Phil was great - he is a fine gentleman - and also a blessed relief.
It had been a couple of years since the demise of The Pagans and in that time I'd not had much involvement in music, bar a wonderful association the preceding year in Golden Bay, with a great band called The State of It.
Phil and I - by now called Dizrhythmia - grew with the local Saturday morning markets and pretty soon had a largely all original repertoire.
We chose the name Dizrhythmia from a pile of nominated Kiwi LP titles, conscious that we were keen to be regarded as a New Zealand band, that is offering an NZ sound, similar to some of the acts on Christchurch's Flying Nun label.
Phil was a fan of Bailter Space and the indie sound of R.E.M. Ironically, while the Pagans were playing around Wellington, Phil had been in a band called The Jonahs, who also played around the capital city. We knew of each other but had never met.
Pretty soon we were pumping out original compositions, either alone or as a new song writing partnership.
As soon as we had a new song, we'd introduce into our markets set and pretty soon it was 80+% original.
The earliest Dizrhythmia songs were; VEGETARIAN, FEMME FATALE (my words, Phil's composition), A RECIPE FOR MODERN LIFE, PRODIGAL SON, Well You Know (Phil) and It's In the Mind (Phil).
Hallenstein Street, Queenstown, circa; October, 1992
I had a bunch of songs I'd written in Arthur's Point that never became Dizrhythmia songs; Highs & Lows, Lover's Lane, Action Replay and then when I bought a house and moved into Queenstown proper; A Pair of New Shoes, Status Quo Metamorphosis, Storming Heaven.
New Year's Eve, 1992. Simon Dibble, David Dean, PA, myself, AK...and Howard's Rambler.
Hallenstein Street, Queenstown, circa; December, 1992
Phil and I decided to advertise around the traps for a singer and a violinist. Briefly we had both. The singer especially, Jane, was a tremendous addition, but neither hung around very long.
We had made another decision to keep our music mainly acoustic and we decided to record some and see if we could add some orchestration to accentuate it.
We had made a few trips to Dunedin to play at the Octagon markets and at a couple of cafe's. Eventually we were put in touch with a guy called Brendan Hoffman who had a recording studio called Volt, right in the middle of town.
In early 1993, we travelled to Dunedin to record seven songs with Brendan; A Recipe For Modern Life, Well You Know, Prodigal Son, It's In the Mind, Femme Fatale and two newer songs; #3 (at this stage untitled) and DREAMS (my words, a Phil composition).
Craig Monk from the Dunedin Sinfonia came in and added violin tracks to Femme Fatale and #3, which elevated both to a new level, one which we had been anticipating and were thrilled with.
We'd also scored a couple of gigs back in Queenstown at Abbey Road and The Pig n' Whistle pub.
Colin McLellan arrived from Wellington to make a video for #3, which we considered the most favourable song to release as a single. We made tentative plans to call our album Recipes For Modern Life and issued cassette tapes with the seven tracks as recorded.
First photo shoot at the swollen lake in Sunshine Bay, Queenstown.
First photo shoot in Queenstown, circa; 1992. Outside St. Peters Church in Church Street. Then it was off to Sunshine Bay to take photo's of the jetty with Lake Wakatipu in flood.
Phil met his future wife (Nikki) and I mine (Annette) only a week apart at the end of 1992, which would eventually lead to my spending three months in Auckland and then most of 1993 living in Dunedin.
Phil came to Dunedin for the odd gig and I travelled back to Queenstown to do the same throughout that year.
Annette and I married on New Years Eve in Winton, Southland, followed by Phil and Nikki on January 9th, 1994, at the Botanical Gardens in Wellington.
Soon thereafter, Phil and Nikki decided to move to Wellington.
Dizrhythmia played at my wedding, of which footage filmed by Colin McLellan was used for a video for a new song, BURLINGTON STREET. The song had started out as Storming Heaven, before Phil changed the chord structure to jazz chords, writing new lyrics copied from a wall in the actual Burlington Street in Dunedin, which I slightly rearranged to fit the slightly rearranged composition.
Two stills taken by Colin in Queenstown Mall for the video to #3, circa; December 1993. Phil and I regularly busked in the Mall throughout 1992 and were in fact paid by the Manager of Wilkinson's Pharmacy to do so outside his shop, whilst verbally encouraging passers-by to enter the premise for all their pharmaceutical needs.
Two video's by Dizrhythmia. Burlington Street, filmed by Colin on New Years Eve, 1993 and edited by myself. A collage of songs from Recipes For Modern Life; A/ #3 (filmed by Colin in Queenstown, Winton and Wellington). B/ Prodigal Son (filmed in Island Bay, Wellington and aboard a train to the Kapiti Coast, featuring my old mate, Greg Pugh, from The Accelerants). C/ Song For Nikki (shots from Phil and Nikki's wedding). D/ Dreams (with footage from my wedding to Annette) and E/ Rubber Soul, Well You Know and It's in the Mind (filmed at producer, Chris Ward's apartment in Constable Street, Newtown, Wellington, circa; December 1995).
Toward the end of 1994, Phil and I recorded a further four tracks with Andrew Downes at Mediate Studios in Wellington. A new Phil song, Get in the Car. Song for Nikki, Burlington Street and a song I had written in Dunedin in 1993, entitled RUBBER SOUL.
With 11 tracks in total now, Phil and I talked in earnest about the release proper of Recipes For Modern Life. Phil made contact with Chris Ward, a foley sound editor at Weta Digital, who produced all 11 tracks on his home computer (a relatively new concept in 1995) and our long awaited CD was finally released early in 1996.
Before the recordings were finished we had Grant Hannis put trumpet pieces on Burlington Street and the title track A Recipe For Modern Life, Jo Joass violin on Rubber Soul and Song For Nikki, Emily Bacon cello on Rubber Soul, Nigel Collins cello on Song For Nikki and Well You Know and Matt Newdick, bass on #3.
During the last week of December 1995, I spent a few evenings at Chris' apartment in Newtown, adding sound effects and last minute vocal changes or extra instrumentation, to ensure the completion of the recordings
Chris was given an open license on Dreams and together we stitched in slamming doors, crows crowing and I added all the lines at the end of the song (over what Phil called his 'dream sequence'), which came directly from a poster on Chris Wall; 'imagine yourself magic', 'invite someone dangerous for tea', 'plant impossible gardens' and 'you are innocent'.
In August of 1996, after spending a month in India, I moved to Wellington temporarily to join Phil and really make a fist of trying to get Dizrhythmia up and running.
Phil secured gigs at the Village Inn in Raumati (he was by now living in Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast) and we were the subject of a Saturn TV mini-doco about our recent new recording session at Coast Access Radio, also in Waikanae.
We had recorded ten new songs (produced by Dave Wilkins) for a new CD to be called Certainly Seeing Sunrise.
Unfortunately, a computer glitch accidentally erased the results of the entire two day session, which were lost forever more and the songs never re-recorded (as Dizrhythmia, some were recorded by Phil and I independently).
Things weren't moving quickly enough for either of us and the lost recordings was enough for me, I returned to Queenstown.
Certainly Seeing Sunrise was to comprise Phil's songs; Gardener, Find it Hard, Nonsense Song. And my own; Dig the New Breed, Mr. Potters Garden, Dr. Marigold, My Friend Came To Me (an old Walrus number) and a disused Pagan song written by myself and Simon, Tombstoned in Bolton Street Cemetery.
Mary Todd's teapot, the originally intended CD imprint for Recipes For Modern Life.
Original Recipes For Modern Life inner sleeve, by Queenstown graphic designer, photographer and artist, Mitch Watchorn.
YouTube clip for Get in the Car, plus Coast Access Radio/Saturn TV rockumentary, circa; 1996.
In 1997, Annette and I moved to Golden Bay, where I took a hiatus from music and song/poem writing to become a dad.
Our first child, Verity was born in Nelson in June, 1998 and a year later (with twin boys on the way), we headed south to live in Christchurch.
There I worked for a local regional television station (CHTV) and spent a year under the servitude of domesticity and wearing a suit.
In July of 2000, twin sons Dorian and Rupert having arrived in March, I returned to Wellington with family, still trying to put roots down and secure some sort of normality for the wife and underlings.
Things didn't quite pan out as had been expected and I ended up becoming a house dad, while Annette returned to teaching as our main form of income.
At the time, four and five year old kids were being shoved into institutions for care - before and after kindy/school times - and we didn't want that for our children.
So I stayed at home and brought them up during the day shift, working principally in cover bands and in the film industry to help supplement our income.
One advantage was being able to rekindle some sort of musical life and over the next five years I'd work a bit with Phil, periodically, and also Simon Dibble (Pagans) and Greg Pugh (Accelerants) from former years.
In fact, it was with Simon and Greg that music began humming again, with a busking outfit we eventually got together called Drip Dry Jones.
By this stage, Phil and Nikki (and their son George) were living on a farm-let on the outskirts of Levin. We'd often go and stay for a night or two and Phil and I would spent time recording in his large shed, down the end of his property.
He had been recording his own 'Shed Collection', which were largely his songs from Certainly Seeing Sunrise and the results were favourable, including chirping birds that lived up in the rafters and the odd dog bark.
We experimented with a couple of new songs we had at the time, but there was nothing largely tangible that came from them.
We played (as Dizrhythmia) at the annual Organic River Festival at Kimberley Reserve, over Wellington anniversary weekend in 2002.
One song of mine, that I later made a demo for in my own studio back home in Eastbourne, that came from all the quality time spent at Phil and Nikki's in their peaceful, rural environment, was House in the Country.
Phil had a song called Amazing Guy, which we also recorded one winters afternoon in Eastbourne in 2004, but as we only ever saw each other very infrequently from this point on, Dizrhythmia sort of ended with a whimper, not a bang. But I'm sure we'll do something together in the future.
Phil and son, George, at their home in Waikanae, circa; 1996
The original cover photograph used for the audio cassette release of Recipes For Modern Life, 1994, the guy known affectionately as 'the shaving dude'.
I did get Phil to put some lead guitar on a song I was working on called Everyday Was Sunday, but that wouldn't appear until I had morphed into the Psychedelic Lemons.
At the Organic River Festival, Kimberley, with Verity, circa; January 2002
