Blue is a versatile word. Dependent on its comtexy. This is an extraordinary song. About Joni's upheaval from the end of her relationship with James Taylor. Sometimes you need to resist the temptation to listen to the whole album and just listen to the same song again and feel its weight and wonder..
This was the first Clash album I bought. I got it soon after it came out. I liked it. I liked The Clash and I still do. I never bought into the rhetoric or inderstood why they didn't want to go on Top Of The Pops. but liked the tunes. I still like the tunes and the lyrics. It felt like something was coming to an end.
I have a friend who they took on the road when he was 15. It formed him I imagine. I have anither friend who swears by them but wrote this to me recently. 'It doesn't matter what people in their 50s and 60s think fifty years after the fact. They were important in their time but now it's just background music' I've turned the record over and I'm listening to Know Your Rights. It still seems to speak to me. .
'They line their pockets with our souls.......'
It's difficult not to blink sometimes . Sometimes I'd say it's best to try not to. It's Friday morning. At the end of May. It's my sister's birthday. I imagine she'll be rising and will take her Bulgarian rescue dog for a walk at some point today. Across woods and sunlit meadows of bluebells, primroses. and the like My brother is rising in Galicia with his wife. Making their way up steep slopes. Ir's hot as blazes he tells us. We're all walking up steep slopes aren't we? It's the only way we know
My mother will stir and go down to prepare my father some breakfast. .Fix a tray with corn flakes, raspberries, yoghurt, toast and a cup of tea. Just how dad likes it..Run her bath, dress and descend to the living room to do her sudoku and crosswords. Classic FM. Everywhere people are rising. Heading into their day, The world turns. The weekend is coming
I run my bath and dress, I look in the t shirt drawer and find a Jane Birkin t shirt Alison gave me for a birthday many years ago. Jane Birkin isn't with us any more but the t shirt still is snd I put it on. It will do me for today, It's appropriate.
I've got Alena Diane's new album Who's Keeping Time playing on my television. On my television You see what I mean about not blinking, It's called Who's Keeping Time? Who Knows Where the Time Goes ! Ir's a lovely record. With a sleeve adorned with images of Alela surrounded by a gathering of geese clustered around a dining table on a prairie. Little Table on the Prairie,.
I teach my first class. Dennis, Julianne, Beheshata. Clinical Professionals heading into their own days but making a window for English. We talk about implants and why the body rejects them. Stones in our internal organs and what we can do tabout them. Broken bones and our experience of them comes up. One to Ones with our line managers and how best to approach them. How to best demand appreciation and ensure commensurate recompensation for our labour. Not being taken for granted. What we have looking forward to at the weekend.
In Beheshta's case this means a drive to Rotterdam to a wedding tomorrow. A stay in a hotel and then a quick look around Antwerp. A drive back to the Ruhr Gebeit and a baby shower with friends on Sunday. Fitting in a bit of life before work starts again on Monday morning. All the while the stones keep stirring in our inner organs. The blood keeps flowing between our arteries.
I have some downtime between classes so I send off powerpoints for my classes and fix myself more tea. Boil an egg, I fancy a change from Alela so I put Soft Machine's Third on my turntable and the stylus clicks into gear and my flat fills with light and cool burbling, meandering Hippy Jazz sound.
I've been entranced with this magical record for a few weeks. I saw a vinyl copy at one of the record store around the corner from me where the price of the vinyl copy of this in their racks had dropped from £39 to £29 so I saw my chance, made my move and bought a copy. It already sounds like a good investment for my sixties.. A long term investment in sound and space.
Onto Class Two. Olli and Stefan. Insurance professionals. Tuning in from Dussledorf and Nuremberg. We always laugh. There's time for football, family and fun. .Chat about cheese..I have a quiz on cheese prepared. We debate who would win the World Cup of Cheese Why does Emmentale have holes. Olli and Stefan read an article to find out. Spoiler. It's the flecks in the hay folks.
The conversation meanders back to 1970. A podcast I'm engrossed in about a World Cup related Conspiracy from when I was five and In Zimbabwe and my sister was just a baby Gordon Banks drank a beer in a bar in Mexico a few days before a World Cup Quarter Final against West Germany. And was struck down with tummy trouble and missed the match which England lost,. The podcast posits that it was all a CIA related plot. There's no end to the mystery and wonder in life. Why bother doomscrolling about the here and now. Being right wing . Being scared or angry. Blaming someone else..
Onward frim Srefan and Olli to Pierre. A Broker Manager from the same organisation with a great Wes Anderson look.. Charming and kind. Just turned 50. He tells me about his weekend in Holland with his mum, brother and their kids. We talk about erm football again. Where will Cologne's finest prospect Mala go un the summer. Brentford possibly.
Should my team Newcastle make their move. They've just lost Anthony Gordon to Barcelona not Bayern. Much to Olli and now Pierre's amusement. Then we talk about how he can find the word he needs when he needs it in business contexts when talking to Poles or Indians about contract and brokerage stuff. We develop a strategy which I follow up after the lesson. This doesn't feel like work.
Soft Machine have taken the place of Alela as my ongoing soundtrack as my Friday turns its attention to the afternoon. I'm in a trance for Part Four of my Friday online oddyssey. The ideal state for Marina. My Friday afternoon Extemadura Angel. In Amsterdam working for a bank but always Extemadura essentially. There's never, ever a dull moment wuth Marina.
She's charm and intelligence personified. We're training her up to be CEO within the year. She confides at a certain point this afternoon that she doesn't actually want to be CEO but she certainly gets my vote if she ever needs it. We have the dreaded Internet is down panic midway through. That hasn't happened to me for a while. We reconnect. There are fifteen minutes left before the weekend lands.
So we get to the heart of the matter. That's what Graham Green would do. You can get to this point after four pints on a Friday night with a mate if you choose but in my experience it's far better at four on a Friday afternoon with a canny operator like Marina who knows what she's talking about. .Does Love exist? Does the Soul?
From Marina's perspective the idea of a Soul is ludicrous. It's something we want to believe in but it's actually a huge red herring. Wishful thinking. .Like Lloyd Cole though, Marina believes in love. There's been persuasive scientific research she says. She's persuaded. It's nice to hear. A good time to wish each other a happy weekend. Next week we'll discuss Atomic Habits further and delve into the Third Conditional. Anyway I need to go to Rosie's and find out who I've got in The World Cup Sweepstakes. These things are important.. Fellowship. Banter. A fiver.
I make my way up the slope from my flat. Turn into Stowell Street. Newcastle's Chinatown. Millie is perched in his place at the end of the bar. Where he belongs.. I've got Belgium. He's got Mexico. No chance for either of us. Neither Belgium nor Mexico have ever reached the World Cup Final never mind won the bloody thing and paraded round the pitch kissing the golden trophy and blowing kisses to the crowd. That's for France, Brazil, Germany, Spain and Argentina.
Millie and I. Like Belgium and Mexico are content to be supporting players. In the chorus. Halfway down the final credits. I ask Millie if he's got a tab and his eyebrows head for the ceiling. 'You'll be the death of me.' 'not too soon I hope Millie.' I thank him and head for the exit, Get back to the flat. Put Soft Machine on again while I smoke my tab. Call Mum at half five as I always do.
She tells me of her cleaning lady Linda's latest travelling drama. Coming home from Majorca the flight was delayed. A passenger was taken off the flight.. Charged with murder in Majorca. Where is Morse when you need him? Perhaps Nigel Farage who Linda feels is the bees knees is the answer. I doubt it personally. That guys a spiv. Private Walker.
I say goodbye to mum. She's going to a birthday party tomorrow. Makes a change from funerals. I go upstairs collapse on the bed. Wake up at nine and make a cup of tea. Alison has had a good day. She's having a barbecue. There are parakeets flying over her lawn. She likes the Bowie book I've sent her. I go to bed.
Now it's Saturday morning. I'm listening to Who's Keeping Time again. I commend it to you. Time to head into the new day. Somewhere the geese are flying somewhere.
Icelandic freewheeling hippy psychedelia from 1972. It's only natural that records like this exist.. But it's a magical experience being directed to them.
I can't think of a record that brings me so immediately and powerfully back to the teenage unwashed state which I experienced with such a thrill as X Ray Spex' Germfree Adolescent. I'm back in Richmond High Street. Stepping iff the 71 making my way home passed Woolworth's hormones running amok. The record's just a blast and an ummatchable document. The rush of it all. It's brimming with the lunacy and riotous noise of puberty.. And the ideas on the album are as startling and vital as they ever were.
Shocking ! And not in the Hitchcock as in the classic dig your nails diwn your boyfriend's palm sense. But in the this is really, really piss poor car crash respect. The Cure meets Bauhaus meets the worst of The Scream OSTs. Go back to Drama School lads. Do not pass go. Ever again !!!
I liked Little Barrie's albim from last year Electric War. I like Gravity Freeze from now. It's full of funky bass runs. Drummers getting wicked. Crossing the tracks. We got to get back !
Some artists like a fine wine improve with time. Like the finest wine. Only Ones are such a band for me. They're deceptive. 'In the darkness and in the light' Fluidity savagery and tenderness. In equal measure. Sadness and somehow against the odds, survival. The tough streets of Catford and from there the tough streets of London. And off. To explore the world,
I only encountered them at university. Obviously that song. The one they're most remembered for but only one in a casket of priceless jewels. I tracked them all down in time. You had to work a bit harder then. But the search was richly rewarded.
Even Serpents Shine is nit Marquee Moon. But only Marquee Moon is Marquee Moon, This is a crafty cousin with dirty fingernails but a wicked grin. It diesn't play by Pink's rukes but Baudelaure's. It lifts licks from the Stones when it chooses but is a far far better record than anything The Stones were putting out at this point of time. It's Poet Maudit for the late Seventies set nd those that came thereafter. Just ask Pete Doherty.
'Love is the strangest thing,,,,' Scrub love for life. I've been working since eight on a screen. Almost five hours in all. Teaching, or more accurately in my case, trying to learn from students in Dussledorf, Amsterdam and Hamburg. I learned a lot. I hope they did.
Then I nipped down to my local library to seek some supplementary information. More leads. Diversification, never a bad idea. The case is never closed regardless of what Tom Verlaine thought, The one thing I know is I'm happy behind my desk. I never really plan to do anything else. Never back at an office. Back on the chain gang.
On the way back I nipped into the record shop acriss the road. A record sleeve grabbed my attention. That's what record shops are for. Surabaya. Indonesian outfit Thee Marloes second album Di Hotel Malibu. A reminder which is always welcome that the world is impossible exotic, and mystical.
I'm back at my desk now, The album is on and it's enchanting fare. Sultry, stuff to lure you onto the dancefloor and into a Seventies dream
Sussurus Station, Mythomania, A Portland, Oregon Electronic Duo with a touch of Mariachi Mexico in the mix. . Their sixth album and first for me. Thanks Darren.. Trying to feel free and a little less alone according to this, Sailing for the distance horizon. Works for me.
This is an album you're supposed to like. Liking it marks you out as a thunker. A reader. A cineaste. I like it. It's got a winning glow of dread. .And some decent tunes !
Life is a miracle. Best not to try to ratonalise it..Swim in the river of existence. Music is the best way I know to experience the sheer joy of being alive. Realise how lucky you are and experience the moment, If you're not fully cogniscent of your good fortune look at the news. Go to your bathtub switch on the taps.
Lady Soul by Aretha Franlin is a miracle. The way Aretha and her co-vocalists syncioate and verbalise. Chatter. Gossip. Swoon. Sigh. Soar. It's beyond words. Move into the next song. Move into the new day.My book about the miracle of Lady Soul and what makes it tick can wait for another day.. I have a bath to run.
I've just had an extraordinary weekend. Every weekend seems extraordinary these days. Every day seems to be. I suspect it's just the age. Terrible things happen. Wonderful things happen. The world spins and we wonder how.
I listened to Radiohead's Moon Shaped Pool this morning on my TV. I'm lisening to OK Computer now in the evening on my laptop. In between I've been to church itself an incredible experience if light and peace to calm a congregation trying to find peace in their own worlds.
I've had a tech mini crisis which has arrived to a satisfying narrayive like a Raymond Carver short story achi eving poetic closure and now I'm sitting here typing this as OK Computer plays and the sunlught shines in refracted patterns through my blinds. They all lived happily ever after.! .
You wouldn't know it listening to Radiohead generally I think Radiohead most of all take the pulse of these last thirty years.ehey're not my favourite band but you can't help but have the upmost respect for them. They seem to understand the tenor of the times better and more consustently than any other band of these momentous and bewildering tines.
This age of anxiety. These days of miracle and wonder. The times when Andy Warhol fifteen munutes if fame comment surely became reality. 1984. Brave New World 'You watch your feet for the cracks in the pavement,' Uptight! Uptight !
I likes me a bit of melodrama. Perhps not in my life so mych. But I'm always rather prone to an emotional skirmish blaring from my record player.Tansangelic Exodus . Purple vinyl spinning. 'Don't tell my mu, Din't tell my dad. I've been driving dowm to LA wuth my baby...'
It pays its dues to Shangri La's and Jimmy Dean. The New York Dolls. Springsteen. . It takes you somewhere. You can see the cliffs. Feel the waves. All you can ask. .
Simetumes it's great when a fine goup splinters. You get more for your money. The individuals within the band start putting out albums of their own and the plot thickens. The harvest is enhanced. Our general lot is improved. Take Fairport Convention . Take Can. Take Kraftwerk. Take erm The Beatles.
Take Radiohead. It's Saturday mirning and I find myself at my desk listening to Ed O'Brien's new record Blue Morpho.. O'Bruen has made a series of videos where he talks about how the record was brought firth by crisis. It sounds like Radiohead. It sounds like those who Radiohead picked up the banner for and forged onward. Nick Drake, Krautrock, Egypt. The Heavenly Choir.It's a deft, magical record. The eye of the storm....
This is a record that charts those important years. Nineteen to Twenty Three and all its uncertainty and enotional vortexes. It's not an album that paves a new road .Lana meets Mazzy Star meets Liz Fraser. But it walks its road with a glacial stride.
The Lemon Twugs hail from Hicksville, Long Island.You couldn't make it up. Look For Your Mind their latest LP is their seventh in all. It sounds like several albums they have already put out. The twig it seems have no desire to become a branch. Meanwhile as the record spons it seems clear 1973 is reluctant to become '74.
But the 1973.The Lemon Twigs inhabit is stranger still. It harks back with endless yearning to the Golden Age of jingle jangle. 1965 to 1967 where The Beatles, the Rest of the British Invasion kicked in .The likes of The Left Banke. The Cryan' Shames
What The Lemon Twigs do on latest album Look For Your Mind , they do very very well. It's not a very different album from others they've put out, They're working on a seam. But it's also decidedly unadventurous .Firmula It never makes a break from the pack breaks out of the straightjacket of the records they clearly venerate and heads for true greatness. .
You never quite believe that the girl who's breaking their heart is actually flesh and blood or that she diesn't have a perfectly valid response to The Lemon Twigs entreaties. The 9 to 5 was ever an actually a 9 to 5. It's a conceit evidently. It's so jingle jangle tastic Still, The Lemon Twigs are heading back ti my home town and they're playing a bigger venue from last time. Why should they care about my reservations, Good for them.
