Contents

 Links to Other Sites Information About The Site 

 

• The site is designed and created with all original works by Mount Bermo Timbo (T. E. Davies), as a solo arts project. This overreaching ancient does it all himself, without so much as a modest nurse to mop his aged brow. Timbo is a grass roots artist and shambles out of the undergrowth without grant assistance or establishment patronage. (Amateur doesn’t mean “crap”, ideally it means “served up for love not money” like a good meal to a penniless beggar.. Sometimes voluntary service is a life sentence). The site is funded entirely by the artist’s minimum UK state Pension Credit. Gear for the project is usually haggled for on auction sites, or donated by friends or family.

• I've been writing poetry since the age of eleven, have been a serious musician for over forty years, and have been immersed in art photography for thirty years or so. The Mount Bermo Timbo site is the culmination of a lifetime's work. This is the way I choose to present what I do to the world for free, before I die. I still feel like a beginner, and am still learning how to do all this, so please forgive me for the experiments that fail, and for the stuff you don't like!
• The site is strictly non-commercial, and all work may be legally distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons non-commercial licence (quoted elsewhere).

• Hope you have fun with at least some of the works on the site! Cariad Timbo

WEB SITE & GALLERY RELAUNCH WINTER 2009-10  

• Unlike many in recession torn (formerly) Great Britain, hard right wing hemorrhoid on the backside of Europe, Mount Bermo Timbo seems to be hanging on in there with the site finances. (All funded from my minimum state pension!) Play money has appeared to be an increasingly surreal commodity, as the bankrupted banks  continue to survive on a mixture of bullshit, wishful thinking and debt. The Mount Bermo Timbo site account still appears to be intact, although it's invested in Banco Bubble. Assuming the global economy survives meltdown for another year, I should be in reasonable shape to fund 2010's projects, barring fire, famine, earthquake, demonic act of God, global roasting, reversal of the magnetic polarity of the poles, meteor strike and the  unforeseen disease or death that old age is heir to. Always look on the brighter side...

• The gallery and web site are normally maintained and expanded in the winter months.  I work on my field recording project on songs, poems and instrumentals up Bermo mountain from Spring to Autumn.
• (Note again that the site is primarily designated for use in Mozilla Firefox. The pages are validated but not comprehensively tested for other browsers.)

• After problems with security and theft of equipment up the mountain, and then a washed out summer of monsoon rain, I've had to rethink and reorganise the field recording project.  I've found another Bermo mountain site for the outdoor recording studio, very beautiful, even more remote and secure from predators.  I've purchased a high quality mini-tipi which offers better protection from the elements than my previous ebay forty pound canvas tent. This enables me to extend my recording season from early Spring to late Autumn if necessary,  and I can work comfortably in quite cold conditions now with a tent heater.
• Unfortunately the curse of Mount Bermo Timbo struck again in 2009, and after a lot of hard work setting  up my phenomenal new field recording site, I was rushed into hospital for a minor operation to remove a benign tumour from my left thigh. I had just got the first track finished (the title track A Bandage on My Need), and was deeply frustrated at having to abandon the next track, when I was to take my first faltering steps on my newly acquired piano accordion. (My loss is humanity's relief!). By the time I had struggled free of crutches, stitches and had given the operation wound a month or so to heal, the weather had broken, and it was time to give up recording up the mountain until next Spring. In the words of Lawrence Sterne (Tristram Shandy):

New Instrumental Developments 

•  Newly acquired in the 2009 recording season are a metal strung  short scale Gold Tone Travel Banjo to provide variety to the gut strung sound of the other one. These two banjos should complement one another, and also work well with the Banjo Cittern and Banjo Mandoline on my projected Banjo and  Poetry album. 
• There is also a newly acquired piano accordion (thanks Mick, an amazing gift!). 
• Chris Knowles the Bermo harpist, has adjusted the tuning mechanism of my Balinese Djenbe, which can now be tuned up to the pitch of a giant darabuka for finger drumming.  I've used my new baroque chalumeau as a snake charmer style wind instrument on A Bandage on My Need.
• The beautiful blond woman who runs the local laundrette has given me a Chinese Moon Lute, which she picked up for a quid at a car  boot sale.  It's now tuneable,  as I've set it up with violin tuners,  and  I'm looking forward to  finding a suitable track for it on the forthcoming  album of banjo instrumentals. Thanks to Marianne at Bermo Laundrette!
• My other instruments are listed here: Instruments of Tortoise (instrumentation) 

(A rolled up summary)

• [Latest News:  The poetry page has now been checked over for errors and  appears to be  in good nick.]

•  I’ve been writing verse for over half a century. I started writing songs about forty years ago. At first I thought that songs were songs and poems were poems. Poems took years to finish, drafting and revising endlessly. Songs were like off duty poems, when you let your hair down writing fast and freely. These days I can’t really tell the difference. A song is just another poem with music, and a poem is a song without music. They both take about the same time to draft. Am I losing it or finding it?

 

• I don’t write much autobiographical stuff. Usually I write in character or adopt a persona. Foundry Labour Work Song on Sad Old Ram of the Mountains is the only song I can think of, which is a factual diary of the actual events I experienced, as a student doing labouring work. (Forty years later I can still smell and taste the fear of the lethal molten metal, red, spiteful and unpredictable. A mould really did explode when I poured hot metal into it. My cap and hair were set on fire, a spark of molten metal went up my nose, and it set fire to my filthy handkerchief in my sooty trousers). It was originally conceived as an A Capella work song, but I record it as a heavy metal art of noise job on the album, grinding out a history of dangerous industrial pollution.

Timbo’s Overarching Vision in the Arts

(my visionary bifocals)

• I realise I haven’t yet told you what I think I’m playing at with the site. (This assumes that I actually know!). Well, I’m not giving you my alibi in any case; I’ll let my work argue its own merits without inevitable conviction. Thanks be to  your worships, one and all!

(Facts You’ve Never Wanted to Know about Mount Bermo Timbo Web Site) 

  

Notes on Downloads:

• [The downloads are not really intended for dial-up users. (Sufficiently small files would be too poor in quality!). The links to the large individual print pages are faster than the links to the mini galleries. If the image pages are slow to load on your computer, you can  always click onto a text page and move on. Or try rising up from that computer and get a life! Drink that cup of tea you have always wanted, and the picture will be there when you return, hopefully not just in your dreams!]

• When you click on a song title on the lyrics page of an album, you are directed to a download page. If you click on the song title link, you then get to an Ogg Vorbis track for play back or download. I strongly recommend saving the downloaded track on your hard disk. The quality is a lot better than streaming. 

• If your version of Mozilla Firefox offers you a streaming video player, right click the player. Click Save Video As and save the download file named with the title of the song to the folder of your choice. You can play back with the Zinf player which can be downloaded from the recording label home page, or from the LINKS page.

[This site is designed with open source software primarily for  use on Mozilla Firefox browser; download the browser safely from Mozilla Home!
The text has been validated with the Firefox HTML validator for improved general browser compatibility.]                  

Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK:

England & Wales

Mount Bermo Timbo (T. E. Davies) 2008-9