Whither Lol?

A quick check shows that the mysterious Lawrence Mason (oh those Brits, with their amusing nicknames) is around. He and his partner from The Maisonettes have even tossed a few orphans onto GOOTUBE.

Sad to say, after nearly TWO fucking years, "Into the blue" has barely managed Shauna numbers. About 100 views. NO comments. The other? 50 in the past 4 months.

Do we expect anything better? Of course not. Whether it's Julian Lennon or Curved Air or the two guys from The Maisonettes, older prog rockers who actually still write or perform, generally are greeted with critical responses such as "disappointing" and "not as good as the old stuff." Even Macca (to use a nickname almost as LOL as Lol) gets that.

I have no idea what the lyrics are for either song. It seems like Tibenham is singing them. He's the one on FARCEBOOK, usually posting about things he finds to be "crap." This includes the evening of fireworks that he didn't appreciate on New Year's Eve. His posts tend to be curmudgeon grumbles we curmudgeonly grumblers can relate to, or odd posts of old songs he suddenly decides to remember, like "At Seventeen" from Janis Ian. He gets two or three comments for this type of thing.

He doesn't much promote his own stuff on Farcebook, like "Until You Don't Wanna Play," a solo track which actually includes subtitles. I guess he wrote the lyrics himself, and figured they were important enough to write down. This tune, by the way, is a kind of country croon, which shows his diversity in coming up with stuff nobody wants to hear. I mean, nearly a YEAR and this one's got only 80 hits? Here's a guy who was once in a band that did have a Top 10 hit, and there aren't any fans to even check out his new stuff??

Maybe it would help if he mentioned them on Farcebook a bit more?

Another of his GOOTUBE videos seems to be an ode to Ted Chippington, an obscure (to ME, anyway) stand-up. His instrumental "Ted's Theme" is what, the theme for this guy to use if he ever gets his own radio or TV show? Another sad item, this. "Surge of the Sea" is an instrumental done on his beloved Yamaha DX7, to no avail. 67 views at the moment. A melancholy bit of indifferent background music, it shows that there is no shortage of rambling music that ends up going nowhere, with not enough nature documentaries to buy it all.

The guy has 700 Farcebook friends, and nobody's looking at this new stuff?

His best VIEWS total is about 640 views, on an item called "Perfect Girlfriend."

It's from...would you believe it...THE NEW MAISONETTES!

He posted it THREE fucking years ago, and only got ONE comment, which was some helpful sod saying that it should be a Number One hit. Should be. But...we know what happened. NOTHING.

It didn't help that while the actual video is credited to THE NEW MAISONETTES, the GooTube posting doesn't mention this. It only lists HIS name and he posted it on HIS account. THAT's a good way to NOT get attention!

And why "THE NEW MAISONETTES," when these are the original Maisonettes?? Is it that another bunch of Maisonettes have come along? Or is the problem that THIS reincarnation doesn't have the original drummer, or the two pointy-titted dancers?

The fucking thing might've gotten more attention IF he posted it simply as a new one from "THE MAISONETTES."

The video itself is a low budget affair. Recalling a certain mischief-maker who assembled gymnast FAILS to a Martin Briley track, this one compiles models on runways who trip and fall as they stroll along.

The song has the same laconic vibe of the old Maisonettes, but WHO noticed? Three years old. Is this thing available for purchase anywhere?

Mark actually reposted about this on Farcebook last week, and got 12 likes, including the comment "Gorgeous" and "Perfect pop" but...so what. Maybe one day he'll see a comment: "Hey, put together 11 more and I'll put out a CD," from the owner of Cherry Red or Salvo or whoever.

Or maybe he's not THAT into networking, and just posts this stuff, and new items to amuse himself. That way he can shrug and say, "I'm not TRYING to have another hit. I just do this because I feel like it. It's a hobby now. I'm independent. I do what I want. I don't care how many likes I get."

The pix of Mark show a gray haired guy with a variety of squints. Lord knows what Lawrence Mason is looking like these days. Obviously "THE NEW MAISONETTES" are actually OLD Maisonettes. So they don't appear in the video. Two 60-somethings playing instruments or doing the lip sync wouldn't help sell the song, would it? Maybe they should ask Shauna Cuntwell and Saskia Basket-Case to join, and they could mince back and forth with no tits at all?

The guy posted about how he dislikes the name "Miami" and how he likes the old "Tumbleweed Connnection" album. Uh, yeah...

"It's a sad sad situation, and it's getting more and more absurd."