Call Me Ishmael

1993

1993 was a fairly prolific year for VOTR. Sometime in the first few months we had recorded a series of cover versions and from late Spring through the Summer we embarked on a triple release of around 50 songs: one with new versions of songs we had previously recorded in the 1980s, one which featured a slightly different style and a double cassette of a more traditional acoustic sound, which we are re-issuing now as Reign and Call me Ishmael.

We had thought about Call me Ishmael as the title for what eventually became Poke-Weed, Worm-Fence but had decided to go with the more consistently ‘Whitman-esque’ name. Melville eventually had his day though with a set of songs, which, lyrically, with the exception of Hammerpond, are firmly on the ‘Nay says’ side of that particular literary argument.

Songs such as White Hotel, Collar Me and Modigliani, with hindsight, illustrate a progression from my usual five-chord strummers and are more interesting for that; if only my vocals had displayed similar improvement…!

Richard Knowles August 2014

Space left free for Rob’s insightful comments. Well comments anyway.

Robert Boole February 2015

Reissue Track Listing

Unattainable
Deep Deep Water
The Day My Life Began
Tania’s Mouth
White Hotel
Love At The Rave
Collar Me
Hammerpond
Modigiliani
Key Largo

All the songs were written and
performed by Richard & Rob

The cover photograph, ‘St. Cloud’ by Eugène Atget is courtesy of the Getty Trust Open Content Program.