the mighty and frankly disturbed meshmass played at ZU STUDIOS in lewes, england last night (and this morning). ZU is part of the complex of abandoned warehouses and factory sites in the so-called 'phoenix quarter', which was once lewes' industrial estate. now of course there is no industry in lewes apart from retail outlets and a bit of distribution, the harveys' brewery and a builder's merchant or two. it should have been easy, of course for meshmass to play there since they live within honking distance, but despite having just passed its MOT the little van's power steering failed on the way there and the resultant vehicle was less easy to steer than an old volvo, which is to say that it was like wrestling a water bison round corners using the horns. (a thing i do frequently but only in dreams). nevertheless we got there at about half-past eight and poor richard had to lumber all the stuff in. we set up when the very friendly and positive martin had cleared us a bit of space in the chill-out room and erected a table for us, and then we sat around talking for a bit. at about 10:30 martin told us the dj hadn't turned up and asked us to play early (we were booked to play our usual 2 hours from midnight). so we did, and played for about an hour. around about midnight we started again, and this time played for the allotted period or even probably a bit more. all in all it went very well. ZU was occupied as usual - packed, indeed - by indescribable people, mostly young, dressed up in unlikely costumes and enjoying themselves. this shouldn't be allowed and probably isn't. indeed, so popular is ZU that the developers Santon who have ownership of the site are determined to evict them, raze the area to the ground and build nasty new dwellings all over it to sell to people from London and probably chinese russian arabs as well on the hong-kong property investment market. this is how creativity is supported in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. anyway, MESHMASS are delighted to have played there, it is an exciting and entirely worthwhile place run by dedicated people with a real understanding of their audience and their culture. we even have a recording of the event which extends over 3 and a quarter hours.... more if you count the soundcheck. subscribers may get to hear more of this recording......

a huge vat of meshmass has been bubbling noisesomely in the centre of the warehouse for over a fortnight. on inspection all that is left from this process is the usual acrid smell and a sticky residue which we are not too proud to label FEBRUARY (produce of more than one country, may contain traces of nuts). this will soon be (all too soon – nay, is already) winging its way to disgruntled customers all over Britain and America who will find it gumming up their i-tunes, i-pads and eyewash and causing the internet slow to a crawl, swell in the middle and get indigestion. Or possibly grunting its way to whingeing customers…. who can tell? who could possibly care? so it is time to let you into a little secret. this month’s meshmass has not only been boiled, pasteurised and simmered for several weeks to reduce and thicken, but it has then been spread out to dry in front of an industrial heater fuelled by the frustrated cries of helpless maidens and cut into leathery strips which could possibly be mistaken for biltong, but taste even more peculiar. these strips were then soaked in effluent until they expanded and dissolved again, whereupon they were returned to the vat. what could be simpler or more rewarding? apart from something simple and rewarding, perhaps. anyway, this glimpse into our production values is more than you deserve, now be off with you.

meshmass have just held their first recording session for february, what with one thing and another, and brought out several strange things to play with including a highly eccentric 12 string guitar which was once half of a double-neck prog-rock nightmare. this was apparently used by "the enid" when it was a 12-string/bass guitar monster but has since been divorced and what's more cut in half and only the top bit remains. it's still enormous however and richard says it weighs a ton. the headstock is enormous, almost as long as what remains of the body. this preposterous machine was made by shergold (not shergar, the champion racehorse famously stolen by the IRA), the same people who made hayman guitars in the 60's and 70's. syd barrett used a hayman on the 'piper at the gates of dawn' sessions. not only did we have that to confuse us but peter has bought a new blue box (a digitech jamman delay (discontinued)) which conspires to add to the general sense of bewilderment in meshmass towers at recording time. and it seems like a very long time since we did such a thing in any case, so that as usual we seem to have forgotten how we are supposed to do it. nevertheless we have generated an hour of new material to worry about and in any case we never really knew how or indeed whether we were supposed to do it and can only presume that we weren't.

Meshmass are proud and honoured to announce that we have been offered the golden opportunity to supply title and continuity music for a new reality television show to be called ‘the uneatables’. The pitch explains that the show will select ‘unattractive individuals of low economic value’ and whilst pretending they have won a competition have them assassinated by rival teams of hit squads in a variety of entertaining ways (examples were given – pushed into an array of whirling knives, boiled in a swimming pool, crushed by huge dolls) and their corpses handed over to television chefs to be carefully prepared according to innovative and mouth-watering recipes and then fed to wild animals. The resultant mangled and slobbery mess will then be judged by a panel of eminent celebrities including Paul Gascoigne, Russell Brand, Alan Shearer, Alan Sugar, Alan Aspartame, Alanis Morrisette, Morrisey, Morris Oxford, Madonna, and Silvio Berlusconi. We have refused. In other news, January has been a rather special month for us – we have worked on the asteroid a good deal, utilising echo-repeat-loop-technology™ on the saxophone – and have produced a selection of rather atypical and sometimes quite beautiful work which we now have to reduce to manageable proportions in order to fit it through the letterboxes of those percipient enough to subscribe.

hello cruel world. it is 2015 already according to my watch and we're not ready at all, we still haven't brushed our shoes, teeth or hair (for which we always use the same brush - the brush with which we are all tarred). the year has not started with great auspices since richard has been first ill and then in firm contact with the pavement beside the A27 due to not riding his bicycle when he expected to be doing so. nevertheless we are still producing inadvisable quantities of meshmass only on richard's asteroid instead of round here beneath the ghastly neighbours and we have re-introduced the venerable 'jam-man' to confuse the saxophone with. So 2015's output quotient has so far been fulfilled by using only richard's pre-prepared material, now leaking out of an i-pad and with a selmer mark 6 alto which has the neck of a previous model.... i have another selmer from 1930 with the same design of neck, a rather more elegant thing i think than the mk 6 neck. (i have various other saxophones too, if you want to buy one, they're for sale.) we have also completed the agonising editing process that leads up to the release of a monthly subscription issue, this december's collection weighs in at almost precisely an hour and will be going out to a world already 3 or 4 inches deep in meshmass any day now - possibly even tonight. a very happy new year to all our reader. we are of course charlie: satirical fundamentalists.