Wales - Mushroom Central

Wales - Mushroom Central (Mixed Media on Board / Neil Buddle 1998)

Through the magic of Facebook, I have recently gotten back in touch with a much loved musical compadre from Wales, Johnny Smoke (Matty Miles)! One of my best and last memories of the U.K was a trip organised by a few of my musical friends, to a home-studio in mid-Wales, nestled in the hollow of a hill called 'Drummers Hill', high up on the side of a valley. The hill had once been part of a chain of beacons, using fire and drums to communicate messages across the Welsh hinterland.

The studio, an old barn, became our home for 4 days. Before commencing to play ourselves stupid, we set out across the verdant Welsh fields in search of Psylocibe Cubensis (Magic Mushrooms). As is the way in Mid-Wales, no sooner had we vaulted the 1st farm gate, when we realised, all around us was a carpet of 'shrooms', calling out to be picked. Our planned, harvesting, became erratic as we started 'snacking' and before long we were drifting further afield in every sense of the word.

This became a huge ramble, involving some very hairy bush-crashing, and the emergence at a lake, that was identical in every way to one which I had painted from imagination at high-school. So clear was the feeling of recognition, I could barely be dragged away from this strange geographical realisation of the psyche. We eventually made it back to the studio, 'put on a brew' and 'got in the groove'. Hours, indeed days passed in the window-less studio. Once we all woke up, after a heavy, heavy sleep and it was dark, it took us a day to realise it was a day later than we thought!

I still have a murky recording of that visit, on tape, which I have spliced and re-spliced to repair. Some of my playing that week, hinted at a style, I could only then imagine, but which has since become a singular part of my sound, a deep, dark, bubbling groove, from the dark side of the mushroom.

All these guys have continued to make music together and apart, Paul and Steve as 'Staedler and Waldorf' and 'D'Booga' and Johnny Smoke is currently playing with Pete Lawrie, who is releasing his first album. But for a brief few days, we all played together, on Drummers Hill - Thank you boyos!

The artwork was produced at Art College, and aside form my obvious desire to use the shroom as my muse, I was also attempting to combine, maps, photogrpahy, paint and relief to create a cohesive image. It is hard to construct a perspective that takes you from a macro-level (looking at the mushroom) to the curvature of the earth in space, within a couple of feet, but I still think I gave it a shot! I was actually going to throw this away at the end of my course and Matty protested. He has had it to this day and it now sits in appropriately in his 'den'. Thanks to Matty for sending me the pic and reminding me of some wonderful times and some of the work, I had almost forgotten.

Wales - Mushroom Central (Detail N.Buddle 98)