Daydream Revolution 3 - August 2007

Sometimes you have to completely fuck something up before it works. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Daydream Revolution - only another two discs of some of the finest and strangest and brightest independent music, mined from the virtual airwaves and served up shining, completely free. This compilation was a beautiful accident - started with some leftover songs from DG2 that for reasons unbeknown even to my good self, I decided I was going to attempt to hide in a part-maze, part music-compilation. The remains of the failed Daydream Maze project you can still access from this page, although for now it is still incomplete. In typical daydreamer style, I'll think about getting round to finishing it later rather than sooner. Thing is, that it quickly became apparent that the songs that were landing on my desktop were simply too fucking great for me to be playing around with like a 21st century Don Quixote, and I quickly resolved to put out a simple single disc compilation. And that might have just happened if I didn't have a couple of songs too many for the 80 mins.

So it came to pass that I got back on my imaginary horse and started mining like I have never mined before. And thank fuck I did. It's amazing what you can find when you really start looking. Once again there is a gang of die-hard Daydream Generation veterans, kind enough (or nuts enough) to give away a song for free. Household names in the Daydream Generation circles like The Shivas, The People, Uberfuzz, Rollercoaster, The Real Burnouts, Fig Mints, Jon Of The Atom, Sgt Dunbar, Dylan Gough, The PlaygrounD, The Sinister Turns, The Hoa Hoa's, Broken Mono... ah you'll forgive me if I don't keep going. But we've arranged some brand new sounds for your listening pleasure as well - bands and artists like Warchalking, My Electric Love Affair, The Abberlines, Allan Douglas, Tramp Attack, J C Kennedy, The Virgo 9, Isokon Flats, The Invisible Mouth, Mata Mata, Elfwoodprattali, and Holy Roller. Collected together under one ramshackle technicolour roof that somehow holds together. And maybe it's taken this long for me to realise, but it actually feels like we're involved in something maybe a lot bigger than it actually appears to be. It smells a lot like a revolution.

Hence the title. I don't know - maybe I'm wrong about the whole revolution thing, but there's something very honest and untainted about free music and free art. It feels like the future you know? Ah, I'm rambling again so that usually means that it's time for me to say some thankyous. Shit, I must be burned out in the brain, I almost wrote "some thankyous". So thankyou to everyone who did their bit, mucked in, said nice stuff, got me their songs on time and trusted in the honesty of what we're trying to do. Loads of cheers to Tara who gives this project some semblance of professionalism and organizes a whole load of the chaos I seem hell-bent on creating. Cheers to Ash as well who even when he's not there, is really there if you know what I mean. Massive thanks to The Cozy Home who made this idea thinkable in the first place - head over there and show those guys some much deserved love: www.cozyhomerecords.com

Cheers too to all the bands & individuals whose songs shine on these discs, and the individuals behind the scenes that keep things ticking over, and moving onwards. Names off the top of my head: Albina (#1 Daydream Scout Extraordinary), Jon (the sooner you come to terms with your inherited language the better), the kaliedoscopic people of Toronto (officially most happening place on planet earth), Dylan (provided the soundtrack to my whole life in 4 mins - how genius is that?), Jared (genius), Helter & Paul (vanguard of the new wave of UK pysch-pop-rock&roll), Butchy (who will someday go down as the forefather of the South Coast psychedelic revolution), Mike, Max, PB (true visionary - frightens me what he'll do next), Richie, Jeremiah Lennon (my window cleaner thinks you are the "lost Beatle" and I'm inclined to agree), Mark, Edd, Bobby (the Rocky Balboa of Independent music), Theresa, Jonny, Luke (last but one this time, which is an improvement from DG2, so things are looking up), Tim (superstar), Ricky (glad you're back), W ($60 of Wheelies CDs will be heading your way... at a monetary value of 0.25c per album that's... well, a shitload of albums anyway), Susan (you can show me the USA someday if I can tear myself away from the pc), Chris, Allan (come invade the UK with your magic melodies), me old mucker Moppy - suddenly it makes sense all those cello lessons you had as a kid when I was off sniffing aerosols, Stephen (thanks for inspiring me to set up smallyfinancialadvisortopsychrocknrollstars.com - I'll film the Nuthouse gig if you're still up for it), JC - its because of you that half these bands are on here so you're due 21 pints, J, Mike C, Steve (funniest bio I ever read), Becky, Taylor & Keith, Marc, Dom, Bren, Jay, and anyone else I have forgotten. What can I say? It's late. I'm quixotic.

Dream on daydreamers

Don Smally De La Mancha

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Volume One - March 2007

I have a lot of ideas. Some of them are pretty good. But most of them are totally shit (eg. "smoker's helmet"). And then there's this one. I was out smoking in the back garden when it bit me. There was a lot of stuff going on in my head that day, stuff that burls around, collides and disintegrates in strange showers of spectral sparks before you can actually work out what the fuck you're thinking about. I think it probably started with the words "the daydream generation" and just followed like domino ralley from there. Sounded like one of those Indie compilations I used to buy when I was a kid. And it all tied into so many other thoughts. The possibility of a Cozy Home compilation, all the great undiscovered music I kept stumbling over. I didn't even stop to consider if it would work, or even how much work it would entail. I just thought, "Fuck it. Let's do it". Stubbed the cigarette out on the wet grass, went inside and sent a load of invitations out to various bands I'd stumbled across in the last six months. I think I woke up around 4am that night in a blind panic thinking "Holy shit Smally, what have you done?"

And now here it is. 4 weeks later. 40 bands that were either beautiful or generous or gung-ho enough to say "yeah". Truth is that I never imagined how great this would be. I mean, there's something for almost everyone - kids singing their guts up in their bedrooms, bands on the verge of becoming household names, demos dug up from the bottom of cardboard boxes, magical melodies, fluffed notes, rolling drums, screaming and laughter and a whole lot of dreamlike fuzz. Something new and free for you to put into your ears. Something really honest and messy and truly worthwhile. Songs you just know are going to be stuck in your head for years to come. I got much more than the compilation album I'd originally dreamed up... I got two 80 minute CD's worth of music, packed with so much low-fi brilliance from all across the globe, some friendships that will hopefully last a lot longer than those ideas of mine, and a little psychedelic notebook that reads like Hunter S. Thompson on a very bad day.

Now that it's done, all I can say is that I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Go and burn a few copies if you can, give them to your friends, to your folks, to passing strangers. Spread the love and let it grow.

Finally thanks to everyone who has helped out. The Cozy Home cavalry - you know who you all are (I think) - for pulling through and then some and for letting me put their name to this project (come on the little guy revolution!), Scott for the cover picture out of nowhere when I was stuck in a hole, Ritchie design guru and smoke/ideas buddy, Ash for guinea pigging it & the moral support when it was all going pear-shaped, Edd & Becky, Helter, Marc & Beth, Cara (RIP Modern Arts), Tom, Russ, Dylan (hopefully I'll never have to call on you to back me in that fight), Anders, Peter, Hannes, Nils, Mike, Chris, Thorsten, Jay, Nick, Zoli, all of the incredible Hoa Hoa's, "Rinse, Lather, Repeat" fanzine, Acid Cowboy, Marshmallow, Tor, Ricky, Jared, Josh, S, of course Moppy (golden as ever), and anyone else I've missed (blame the scrawls in that notebook). Lastly thanks to Linz and D who let me spend hours at the pc wading through MySpace messages. I love you both to bits and I'm thinking about doing Volume Two in the summer. I know I said it was a one-off (even though the title was a bit of a give-away), but you've got to admit it's a pretty worthwhile cause if ever there was one. We might not have a kettle, but we've got 160 minutes of great music that will last us a lifetime.

So until the next one.

Peace and love and everything else you expect from me to you.

SmallyOM.

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Volume Two - July 2007