'Echo beach. Far away in time...'
Memories, What's the best thing to do with them? Learn from them I'd say. Go forward with them, Not let them hurt you. Cripple you. Define you. Life's not easy. Did you expect it to be. Look at the world. Some of the most powerful people in the world right now strike me as some of the unhappiest, the most conflicted and most troubled people I can think of. Why take it out on the rest of us. You bastards !!!
There's no easy cure to the problems of life. I wish there were..Never trust people who think they have the answers.Just live. Get on with it. Try to enjoy it. There's plenty to enjoy. Perhaps you're not looking in the right places. 'Make a cup of tea. Put a record on.'
A few months ago I went to a school reunion meal. In Teddington where I grew up. I met some fantastic people. Some of whom I hadn't seen for over forty years. I've got to know a couple of them better since. We exchange texts about our lives. Exchange ideas. A good way of using the past. I'm planning more reunions of different kinds as I approach sixty later this year, It feels like a good way to occupy myself.
On the way to the reunion I explored the streets where I'd been a teenager. Teddington is still lovely. A garden suburb. Serene and still. Bushy Park.Teddington Lock. I went to have a look at the house where I lived. A building which has so many fundamental memories for me. Happy and sad. Some traumatic actually. It's not difficult for me to go there now. It's great.
I went to the library. Libraries are important places. Libraries gave and give us power. It hadn't changed. As one of the people who I met up with again that evening said 'It still smells the same.' I'm not sure I can verify that. I think years of smoking have dulled my sense of smell. But I know what she meant. Just going in there again was a Proustian moment. Going back somewhere is always full of Proustian moments. That's what I like about going back. It helps reconnect me with who I am.
I crossed the road from the library and went to look for the independent book shop. Near to the church. And the cornershop that was always open on Sundays. Where I went sometimes to get provisions for myself and my parents. There weren't many shops open on Sundays. There are more now. Is that an improvement. I'm not sure. Not because I'm particularly religious I hasten to add. But do things need to be open all the time? This isn't America. It's not as if going with that approach has done them much good anyway.
The independent book shop wasn't there anymore of course. Waterstone's has swept all before it in the last couple of decades. There's a very nice Waterstone's in Teddington High Street now. Armchairs to sit in and read books. But where the independent bookshop used to be, where I bought Birdsong and Fatherland, In that space there's an Independent Record Shop now. Roan Records. In the same building. Of course. Vinyl is making its great comeback. Vinyl is best..I'm determined on that. Make your case for MP3s if you wish. I won't be convinced. Vinyl's the thing. It was one of the reasons I started writing this blog.Why I still write it twelve years on.
I went inside Roan Records and had a chat with the young guy behind the counter. He came to work at the shop from further out in the suburbs. Virginia Waters. Something like that. I always have a slight dread of some of those satelite town names I confess. Godalming. Guildford. Surbiton. A chill of horror goes down my spine. Or up it. Whichever you prefer. Up and down if you like !!! I have a slight fear of the provincial. Still. I like to live in cities though I've gone off London, I'm glad I grew up in Richmond and Teddington though. Close enough to the action. Even though I didn't always take full advantage of it when I was young.
I looked for a record to buy, I like to buy records as an investment in memory. To think about what I was doing and what I was going through when I bought them. Experiences pour from the grooves when I listen to them again.In Roan Records that late summer afternoon, not very long ago, I found the ideal record.
Sometimes records just jump out of the racks at you while you're browsing and an acquisition is inevitable. You feel like you have no choice. Any committed record buyer will understand what I'm talking about. No act of purchase means as much to me. Some buy property. Some clothes. Some food. I am first and foremost a buyer of records. Someone who haunts record shops. With other sad blokes!
The album I bought was Metro Music the first album from Canadian One Hit Wonders Martha & The Muffins. Fairly cheap I'm sure. Less than a tenner. That's another factor in memorable record purchases. You feel like you're committing a crime. Jean Genet and Patti Smith would understand. And approve.
It made sense for me to buy this record in Teddington. It reminded me of a girl I'd met, who lived there not far from me when I was at College in Twickenham when I was 17. I went on a trip to the former Soviet Union in September 1983. She did too. We sat in a large ballroom in a Trade Union hotel in Moscow with others. Drinking more vodka and orange than was strictly good for us. While a bad band played bad sets which inevitably climaxed with bad versions of The Birdie Song. There's no such thing as a good version of The Birdie Song. I knew at the time that she was interested in me but nothing really happened. You don't get a clear breakdown of details here I'm afraid. No incriminating details. That's between me and her. Far away in time.
She liked this record and was quite right to. It's a great album best known for its Top Ten single. Echo Beach. 'My job is very boring. I'm an office clerk.' Pronounced 'Clurk... ; Many of us have boring jobs but live exciting inner lives. Echo Beach is a song about escape from mundanity. A song about memory. A wonderful riff and emotion.
But there's plenty more about Metro Music to recommend it. Not least its cover. It's a picture of an old style city map. Remember those? Before your smartphone got attached to your wrist. We managed OK. We were completely fine. Trust me.
Metro Music is a record about youth and vitality and trying not to lose either. It's of its age. New Wave and the end of the Seventies and the beginning of the Eighties. An age of paranoia and suspicion. But also great music, The Cold War.
We have a new war brewing it seems. A new age of paranoia and suspicion. But it won't be like the old wars..In some ways it feels like it's started already. Turn on the news if you don't believe me. There are wars already . Everywhere. Anger. Confusion. Building up to one great inferno. But it's a new inferno. It looks like this will be a strange one. Blow hot and cold. Now those guys seem to have decided they're on the same side and plan to go to war together against the rest of us. Like I said. Bastards . Make no mistake. Criminals.
That's not strictly a new. approach. War is always a crime against humanity. Look at Hitler and Stalin V Warsaw in 1945? Look at virtually any war. I would list them. But this is primarily intended as a post about Martha & The Muffins. Not war. I come in peace.
If you do want to know more though there are plenty of places to look. Plenty of witnesses to ask. Ask Berthold Brecht. Ask bloody Bono if you have to. How long. How long will we sing this song ?. Try again Bono. Try to sing in tune this time ! Bono's not a criminal. Let's be fair. Just a criminally bad singer. Anyhow. I diagnose Metro Music as the first part of the cure for all this. Put it on. Dance around your living room. 'Enjoy Yourself. It's later than you think'. Oh no! That was someone else.
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