Reaction to “Vision On”

Theo and myself are in the middle of updating my main site (www.timburness.com) at the moment and I’m putting up links to a selection of the album reviews we’ve had over the last few months. I think it would be fair to say that the consensus is that “Vision On” is a good but maybe not exceptionally good album. Unfortunately in this day and age of massive competition in an over-saturated market, this is not really good enough! But I can only do my best and as always, a few people at least have genuinely “got” the whole thing of what I’m on about. THANK YOU again to those of you have listened or promoted my music in any way whatsoever, it really is appreciated on a deep level.

As usual there are a number of reviewers who don’t like my vocals. I’ve noticed that this seems to be a relatively common view among many “progressive rock” reviewers, whereas listeners from a broader or poppier background tend not to have a problem with my singing. In fact many people (particularly in connection with the last few albums) have told me they really like my singing. My voice will never be particularly powerful and I guess this will always put some people off my music. Should I take some of the reviewers advice and get in another singer in future? Easier said than done. We shall see. I’m likely to take a different musical direction next time round anyway, vocals may not even feature.

Many people familar with my music in the long-term say that “Vision On” is the best whole album I’ve made and I tend to agree with this. However, I know I can do a lot better. Time and money tend to be big limitations and given how my life has gone since soon after releasing the album, I’m just glad I managed to get something out there while I still had the chance.

Not many people are buying it. As probably everyone reading this knows, not that many people are buying CDs by anyone these days. So there are now several free tracks available from my site, with an option to buy. Ideally I would love to be making some money back from my music, but the most important thing to me has always been BEING HEARD.

Some astrology

I am putting in a lot of hours as a psychiatric nursing assistant at the moment to try and get a bit more on top of things financially. Last week I had a nice break from this when I did my first full astrology reading this year. After 20 years I still really enjoy doing these, the feedback is always extremely positive, and since 2001 I have been charging a reasonable amount based on a total of about 5 hours work for each consultation and its preparation.

More generally, I have been pondering the recent movement of Pluto into the sign of Capricorn where it stays for the next 13 years or something like that. Pluto is the planet of death and re-birth, eliminating old structures to make way for the new. Capricorn is the sign of responsibility, organization, the material structures of society, wisdom, older people, authority, limitations, restrictions, depression, hard reality but also excellence in achievement. Although this one planetary position alone doesn’t tell the whole astrological story, there seems a rather obvious connection with the current global economic crisis that appears to be just beginning. A complete political and economic transformation is surely what this planet needs, however painful? Just a thought.

Thank God for my friends

It’s still an unsettled and difficult time in my life, but just recently I have been spending quite a bit of time with various friends that has really helped me feel more human. These people really do save my life and make up for me having very little real family support. Two of them have also helped me out a bit with the deposit for moving into my bedsit. I wish I could spend some real world time with some of my internet friends in other countries too. Astrological note: Jupiter is currently moving through my 11th House, the classic “lucky for friends” transit.

Saturday I bumped into Chris who’s played hammer dulcimer on my last two albums and had a good little chat with him. Then I met up with Monty in a Brighton bar for a lengthy chinwag about all sorts of things. Later in the afternoon, my mate Simon came down from London and we had beer, ate Chinese food and saw a film (”Vantage Point”) together. A week or so back I met up with my dear friend Cheryl who is heavily pregnant and it was great to see her so happy.

Seeing a brilliant show by Fish and his band last week also cheered me up. Brilliant.

There is a bit of a void left by finishing the album and the knowledge that I’m not likely to be able to do any more music seriously for a while. I need to get a focus on some new creative goals and keep moving forward in some way.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Unfortunately all the noise disturbance business, together with the practicalities of moving out of Lin’s flat, has pretty much dominated my life over the last few weeks. We saw our MP Tim Loughton who has written to Sanctuary Housing and the Police on our behalf, and this seems to have made a difference. A retired couple across the road have been upset by the Housing Association’s patronizing “standard” reply to their last complaint. Following more noise, heard first-hand by the Police this time, Sanctuary Housing are now apparently talking seriously about soundproofing their flat. About time, we’ve only been complaining for nearly 8 months. Its not over yet though, there was a threat to break our legs from the tenant’s charming sister this week, and these ill-mannered clowns at the Sanctuary office down the road have a habit of breaking promises. Hopefully now our MP and the Police are involved, they will take action. We will continue following through in every way possible.

Some more nice album reviews have been going up on the net, with one notable exception from a Dutch reviewer who disliked “Vision On” so much, I really wonder why he bothered writing the review! Generally most writers have constructive comments to make, even if its not their bag.

This week I am planning to see ex-Marillion singer Fish and his band play in Brighton. I’ve been listening to his new album a lot, very good, his solo career has possibly been a bit patchy but “13th Star” ROCKS!

Noise disturbance from Sanctuary Housing

I am moving out of Lin’s flat early next month. This is mainly if not entirely due to the continued noise disturbance (see earlier blog) from Sanctuary Housing young tenants directly below us since July of last year, combined with the often offensive and disrespectful attitude of local Sanctuary Housing’s Project Manager Peter Jackson. Defending your tenants is one thing, victimizing innocent members of the public who own their own homes is another.

Mister Peter Jackson is apparently also in charge of several other blocks of Sanctuary Housing accommodation across Sussex, and appears to be legally allowed to do more or less what he wants in the name of “defending his tenants”. He appears to have no conscience, or else he is just a bit dim or inexperienced, it is difficult to know. In his last letter to us he continues to claim he has been professional throughout his dealings with us. This includes falsely accusing us of unreasonable behaviour, reducing me to tears by talking me down and refusing to listen to me over the phone, ignoring our written complaints, letters blatantly mis-representing our carefully documented complaints, and so on and so forth.

Unless one has personally experienced sustained noise disturbance from neighbours, it is difficult to appreciate how terrible the experience can be. We have sent countless letters and had countless phone calls and meetings with the police, Seabrook Court Management Limited, the Environmental Health, and had no reply from Sanctuary Housing head office. To cut a very very long story short, they all say “There is nothing we can do”. We visited Lin’s solicitor but legal action is way too expensive for us. About the only option left to us is writing to our MP, but we are exhausted with the whole thing. The shouting, screaming and swearing for many months has been a nightmare, not to mention being threatened and abused by the tenant’s boyfriend on our own doorstep. Recently the situation has got better but still blows up badly every few weeks.

Lin and I were very happy together here after we had recovered from the previous noisy tenant. The current situation has put a terrible strain on our relationship, in fact it has pretty much destroyed it. We remain very close friends. Lin is not in a position to sell the flat so she will have to struggle on alone. For me its time to move on.

Words fail me. As is often the case in my life, I’ve found astrology very helpful in making sense of what’s been going on (e.g. heavy Saturn and Pluto transits for Lin and myself), when it would otherwise be difficult to make any sense of it at all. But when shit happens, it is still shit.

Single sex psychiatric wards

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working for my agency at a fairly large NHS psychiatric hospital in Sussex. I first started going there occasionally back in 2001. Its okay, there have been improvements to the service recently (as I mentioned in a previous blog) but of course it will always be a “challenging” experience for patients and staff. I won’t go into my general criticisms of the treatment and labelling of people with mental health problems here.

One of the recent changes at the hospital has been a splitting of two previously mixed sex wards into male and female wards. Presumably this was a result of problems with sexual behaviour, probably backed up by “statistical evidence” from “official experts” that single sex wards was the way forward. Or perhaps the media coverage and public outrage of the shock horror scandal of mixed wards still existing in general hospitals, when the government had promised to stop them years ago.

A SINGLE SEX FEMALE PSYCHIATRIC WARD IS A DISASTER! Whereas previously there were two manageable wards, there is now one quiet and almost pleasant (as pleasant as it can be in a psychiatric hospital) male ward, and one unsafe and almost impossible to manage ward full of screaming, bitching, hysterical women. It is no joke and dangerous for all concerned.

A night shift

Here I am on a grey and cold miserable day in England. But one tries to keep positive yesireeee! Actually maybe I’ll just give up and be pissed off for once hahaha.

As there have been a few problems with new staff getting me work at my nursing agency, I took a night shift at Southlands Hospital for the first time in ages on Tuesday night. As night shifts go, it was quite busy, but quite enjoyable. I was on an orthopaedic ward, the patients are only there for a few days while they have their hip/shoulder replacements (or whatever) and then they go home as soon as possible. Compared to some places I work they mostly need a lot of monitoring, particularly after their operations. This involves hourly taking of blood pressures and temperatures which can get a bit tedious after a while, although the patients don’t seem to complain.

It can be a slightly creepy experience wandering around a large hospital in the early hours of the morning. At least I remembered to bring some half-decent food with me this time, it keeps you feeling half-human when you haven’t had any sleep. A couple of new admissions knocked on the door at 7.00 a.m. which kept us busy at the end of the shift. But just as we thought everything was done and the two staff nurses had started to handover to the morning day staff, we discovered a woman sitting in a mixture of her own faeces and fluid leaking from a wound. Clearing that lot up early in the morning certainly woke me up!

The main problem for me with night shifts is how they muck up your sleep patterns, unless you are doing them regularly. Otherwise I would probably do more as they pay better and are usually quite relaxed compared to day shifts.

One or two album reviews have surfaced on the net this week, and there’s been some very nice feedback indeed from several people who’ve bought a copy. That really does make it all worthwhile.

Some radio play and a review

The promo copies are still going out all over the world. Rob Leighton played “Here Comes The Great Collapse” on Radio Caroline which was a nice surprise, not the most obvious of tracks for radio play I would have thought?

The uncompromising and excellent magazine Organ had this to say: “TIM BURNESS – Vision On (Expanding Consciousness) – Another solo album from one time Burnessence leader Tim Burness, and a return to the melodic (polite) side of prog that originally brought Tim and his band to the attention the early 80’s UK prog followers (Burnessence were a regular part of that healthy scene alongside bands like IQ, Pendragon, Twelfth Night and such). Melodic prog, Porcupine Tree flavours, Pink Floyd textures, ambient hints of Gong - there goes the mighty Om riff again (as recently heard performed live by Cardiacs). An album that has a stand out moment or two, on the whole things are a little polite and pedestrian for our tastes – worth it for the early Marillion/Twelfth Night moments though and you followers of Pendragon, recent Marillion, Porcupine Tree and such will find this worth investigating.”

Season’s greetings

Christmas was a pretty normal day here, other than the excellent Dr. Who special and the well over-the-top double episode of Eastenders (English soap) on the box. A phone call to my stepmother and father up north was the only family involvement, which is fine by me… I did eat some nice organic sugar-free Christmas pudding, that was quite Christmassy of me! Lin’s health has not been too good again recently but she went into work on both bank holidays regardless.

I’ve spent most of the last few days packing up promo copies, mailing people, gradually updating the main website with Theo’s help, just generally pushing the new album out there a bit. There’s even been a few sales already which is nice. I’ll gradually find out what people really think of it over the next couple of months.

Noise disturbance

Generally I think it makes sense to mainly share the more positive aspects of one’s life on a blog such as this, but I shall make an exception here, as this topic is big in my life these days. We have been having major problems with “noisy neighbours” on and off for two years now and as anyone who has experienced this knows, it is no joke. The situation flared up again a couple of weeks ago.

The flat immediately below us is owned by a Housing Association, Sanctuary Housing. They house their young tenants there as a kind of first step into the community, having previously lived in children’s homes and similar accommodation. When the tenants are quiet and well behaved there is no problem. When the tenants are not so well behaved…

With noisy tenant number one (late 2005 to Spring 2006) there were several months of very, very loud music into the early hours of the morning. This was so obviously unacceptable for all other neighbours including ourselves, that she was eventually evicted after many written complaints to both Sanctuary Housing and the Environmental Health department of the local council. This seemed to go on forever at the time. Noisy tenant number two moved in at the end of July 2007, and this situation has been more complicated and in some ways more distressing. This is because other neighbours have not been disturbed nearly as much as ourselves by the screaming, swearing and loud domestic arguments.

Six months later, after many meetings with the police, phone calls and letters to Sanctuary Housing, denials by the tenant and her unsavoury boyfriend, not to mention me having been threatened on our doorstep for asking to keep the noise down at 4.00 in the morning… well you get the picture! Oh dear. After our last complaints it has again calmed down but we have been told these people could be living there for a year or more. Oh dear.

Otherwise the first copies of my album arrive in a couple of days time. Fantastic stuff! I am really looking forward to finally getting it out there. Initial feedback from the two tracks on MySpace has been extremely positive. Today I have been checking I’ve got the right forms filled in with the PRS (Performing Rights Society), so that in the very unlikely instance that I get any major radio play, I will get some money out of it.