Paul Lester is a vocalist,poet/lyricist/composer and is occasionally armed with a perverse guitar.His numerous collaborators have included John Carr,Dave Panton,John Adams and The Loopster.
Sounds Like
Lester and the Festers was reggae and rock oriented.By contrast,Lester and the Brew was experimental and jazz-influenced.The ongoing work with The Loopster combines poetry and song with electronic synthesizer.The solo music is usually Lester with acoustic guitar.
Paul Lester worked closely with John Carr in Lester and the Festers(1979-81),in which group UB40s drummer Jimmy Brown made guest recording appearances.
Lester and the Brew (1980-81),involved Lester with Dave Panton and John Adams,and the vinyl ep A Bad Day At The City was produced,part of which featured on The John Peel Show.
The collaboration of Lester and the Loopster(2002- )has resullted in a track broadcast on one of the last shows under The John Peel Show banner.
Beginning with A Funny Brand of Freedom(Arts Lab Press,1975),Paul Lester has published some thirty booklets of poetry as well as two paperback collections,By The Scruff Of The Neck (1996)and Going For Broke(2004),much of which has been set to music. The latest pamphlet is Songs For The Sodden(September 2009), which contains some lyrics for a forthcoming CD.
A 23-track CD The Legend Of Lester(Protean,2004)comprises work done with musicians spanning a quarter of a century,including the complete and unexpurgated recordings of Lester and the Brew, as well as a couple of Lester's solo tracks with guitar. Now uploaded onto the photos section of this site you can see the cover and contents of the album as well as several sample covers from the booklets of Paul Lester's poems.
The soundtrack to the video (embedded above), "Be Kind To Worms' Week", first appeared on the Bad Day At The City record, was played by Peel, and was re-released on The Legend Of Lester album in 2004. The poem was originally published in Lester's booklet Song and Wrongs (1980)and was re-published in his collection By The Scruff Of The Neck and is also to be found on his site on www.poemhunter.com.For further details enquire with Protean Pubs.No worms were harmed in the commission of this film,which was made in July 2008.All the extras were pensioned off to a compost heap to live out apparently contented retirement after their all too brief movie careers.
Protean is presently parked at www.the-lollipop.co.uk,( then navigate from index),but in case of difficulties simply google Protean Publications.
Of the tracks appearing on this site,"Headline Horror Ever After" is an oldie,dating from 1980,and the guitarist is John Adams,one half of the Brew - oops,too late if you missed that on Myspace, replaced by "Things To Do, or The Reification Blues" by Lester and the Brew(Lester,Panton and Adams), recorded at Frank Skarth's,Erdington,1980.There is also a fragment from a 5.35minute track "The Ballad of the Stewed Chewed Human",from 1979, by Lester and the Festers.Both "Life Support Machine" and "Down at the Greasy Spoon Cafe" were produced rather more recently with Loopster backing.All tracks are to be found on the Legend of Lester CD.
Lester's latest CD is the 16-track My Career As A Dead Man - for more information on this see the website: www.myspace.mycareerasadeadman,where sample tracks are to be located.
Hello, ive been asked to being in MTV series.I am gone start a new mtv series!! But need a girl to be my Girlfriend on the show. Because this show goes about a couple!! Anyone interested being in MTV ?
hey there, thanks alot for becoming our friend, did you get a chance to pop past and listen to our tunes? if so what you think?. Keep in contact, we feel alot of people have friends for the numbers but we want to know you! Hope your ok? Peace.. Lc - Praxis IV x
Thanks for adding Sinister Research Facility. We make interesting things and we want to tell the world about them. Stop by and check out our redesigned page and new artwork. We also have our steam/breaks musical project at www. myspace. com/goodsoldiersvejk and our wonderfully puerile, extremely dubious animations at
P.S I listened to Radio 4's adaptation of Svejk. Sam kelly? I couldn't stop thinking of " 'Allo 'Allo " the whole time. (And not in a good way!) Didn't really dig the Northern-English take on it. Reckon they should have tried to retain the Czech vibe. Still... any version of Svejk is better than no Svejk so thanks for the heads up.
Hi Paul, Have a good Christmas I saw your friend Emil (minus screaming woman) recently in a real ale pub in town He promised to check out my websites but not sure he"s done so How"s your cd selling Mike re Banned from Nowhere
Thought you might dig this. Wait for the right frame of mind, then give it a try but be patient. It takes a while to load even on broadband!
Forever Trespass” is a digital poem exploring the question, "Does the poem own the poet or the poet own poem?" The sound art for this piece was constructed from the 2D (2 directional) poem, "Forever Trespass". The "normal" voice is me reading the poem vertically (down the columns) and the "harmonized" voice is me reading the same poem horizontally (across the rows). The video was made by animating my photographs and digital art and integrating it with the original sound art. I am hoping you would like it. Let me know what you think. ~md
No problem - good to be back in fashion with you. Have a great Friday and you'll be hearing more from me very soon when one gets his laptop back from the clutches of pere Kennedy xx
Hey Paul - just a quick catch up whilst i'm doing my Christmas rounds - aplogies for the loss in contact my organisation and tune-making boxes have been broken this year and I am attempting to make 2008 the one to remember. Hope yr well my man xxx
