The SOS Tapes 1981: music by Alan Ewing & Friends

THE SOS TAPES 1981

music by Alan Ewing & Friends

The Masonic, Liverpool

Logging this blog as a nod to 1981-82. Together with friends Simon Blackwell and Paul Wright, The SOS Tapes were recorded. So-called because they were recorded at Square-One Studios in Liverpool. Three of the tracks have survived the annals of time. They are able to be heard using the click to play button under their titles. In 1982 the three of us were joined by Nigel Blackwell for a gig at The Masonic in Liverpool. The guys would go on to form Half Man Half Biscuit. I made an appearance on Channel 4 at towards the end of 1982.

Intellectual Mayhem

by Alan Ewing & Friends

Click To Play

Living & Dying

by Alan Ewing & Friends

Click To Play

Can't You See?

by Alan Ewing & Friends
Click To Play

copyright dewysumoz2019

Art Confusion 1987-89: music by Alan Ewing & Rob Johnson

ART CONFUSION 1987-89

music by Alan Ewing & Rob Johnson

In the late 1980s, I teamed up with my life-long friend Rob Johnson to form Art Confusion. We'd met at The Little Theatre in Birkenhead. We experimented with different musical forms although our mainstay was electro-pop. After initial recording, we went out and gigged extensively around The Wirral and Liverpool. The local press and local radio highlighted our work. The gig scene of the time meant that we could not break out to the next level of Manchester, London, Birmingham etc as the next rung of the gig ladder was in bottleneck at the time.

Using click to play, under the song titles, here is an EP's worth of some of the recordings that we did over that period of time.

Destination Venus EP 

https://soundcloud.com/artconfusion/sets/destination-venus-ep

copyright dewysumoz2019

The Choice by Edith Eger, a perspective by Alan Ewing

THE CHOICE BY EDITH EGER

A perspective by Alan Ewing

"The Choice by Edith Eger is an autobiographical work which dove-tails into a psychological strategy for living life in a fulfilling manner, when haunted by the past. The past in Eher's case being Auschwitz, losing her mother and father there, then being forced to dance for the infamous Dr Mengele, and being subjected to treatment as part of a people treated like cattle. The horrors that she was witness to would be capable of damaging even the strongest mind and constitution of any human being.

In looking from personal perspective of the book, then her mother's words ring through. "Just remember that no-one can take away what you have put in your mind."  This on the awful journey to Auschwitz. In this motherly advice is planted a seed which grows and grows into Edith's life and fortifies her with deep strength. It would carry her through pneumonia, typhoid fever, pleurisy and a broken back. All of this on top of the hell on earth that she was in. From all of this came her great work as a therapist.

The thrust of the work is in facing up to whatever the horrors of the past may be and thus releasing oneself within the present. It is never a case of denying the past, rather of accepting it and learning to come to terms with it as life existentially belongs to the here and now. "I help people realise that the biggest prison is their mind" is how Dr Eger puts it. If we put up stumbling blocks to facing our past then we will never be free in the present. This is the epicentre of calm existence. 

Edith Eger's work is heavily influenced by fellow Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl', whose seminal work being "Man's Search For Meaning." Carl Rogers and his theories of self-actualisation always play a major role, as she was a student of his also. In this work though, it is Dr Eger's own therapeutic techniques that come through. Her empathy with her patients as she journeys into their unhappiness and the root causes of it. The book is a tremendous testament to the power of positive psychology.

Alan Ewing