TO WHERE I AM NOW

In Edward G. Robinson’s final film Soylent Green (1973), a dystopian thriller set in 2022, that also starred Charlton Heston, there’s a memorable scene when Sol Roth, Robinson’s character, seeks assisted suicide as he can no longer bear life living with the fall of civilization. In that process he is placed in a theatre with a large screen and shown scenes of beautiful flowers and forests, flowing rivers and wild animals from an Earth that has long been lost. Why is it called Soylent Green? I’m not telling, you have to see the film. But the scene is a reminder of what was, what matters and how bad things can become. Augurs of the future, warnings and signs are evident everywhere, can this period in our lives make us stop for just one moment and do everything we can to save our amazing world? It really is a Sci-Fi movie out there.

In Causeway Head today (one of the main shopping and walking streets here in Penzance) nearly all of the shops were closed but I did notice the sign (pic) in the fish & chip shop window. I felt some kind of affinity with the plaice. All jokes aside I noticed that people you pass on the street take a suspicious sideways glance at you, wondering if you are infected. It’s really unnerving, but I suppose understandable when we hear about the worst of what’s happening all over the world. It’s hard not to make every day about this terrible situation, but I’m going to try and keep it to a minimum. You hear about it all day, every day anyway.

Today Dare and I were in the studio working some more on Space Summit. Jed has sent us the track, Ed has played the drums and I played Rick bass and 12 string acoustic. We will continue tomorrow and see what Jed has done with the electric guitars, what needs adding, what needs changing, what needs keeping. We certainly have more time than we thought we had to do this and we are making great progress and hope over the coming weeks to be fairly advanced with the project. I talk about it often because we are doing it often but you have no idea what it sounds like. Well I can’t help you with that yet, all I can say is Jed and I co-wrote the songs, my initial idea which Jed turns into a proper song demo. Jed sings and writes great words and after we’ve got the demo performance as good as it can be, Jed sends it from Minneapolis to Ed in Bristol to play drums then it is sent here to Dare in Penzance where Dare does the technical magic, I play guitar and bass on it and we produce it and enhance it where it’s needed and then Dare mixes it with Jed and I adding our thoughts to the final version. You may or may not have heard of this term, but this is making an album ‘remotely’. It shows what you can do. Jed was my first ever sessioneer and this is the fruit of our collaboration. I/we can’t wait to share the results with you in the future.

I also had a session today with Stephen in Washington and a quickie sesh with Tony in Sydney as we try and nail some direction in the drums on the demos for his project. Somewhere in all this we had dinner (Linda McCartney’s vege sausages) and I thought about my poor old Mum who used to freak out every time I went to visit the parents in Aberystwyth (they retired there from Merseyside). I stopped eating meat around 1984, I always felt like my body was struggling with it (digestion), when I stopped it wasn’t long before I really started to feel better, healthier, less like I was made of lead. My Mum was born in 1927 (my Dad in 1921). They came from a different era, vegetarianism was considered an affliction. Whenever I told her I was coming to visit she would say “What are you going to eat?”. I may have told you this before but we always ended up with a nut roast. My point is that Linda hadn’t gone global yet and initially the nut roast was just about the only thing available for me to eat at a small town Welsh supermarket. Anybody that knows me, knows I am a fussy eater (and hate tomatoes). I was so happy when I met Olivia to discover that she does, too. How things have changed for vegetarians, no longer freaks and into my 36th year of no meat and for many many years (I’ve lost count) no fish, no eggs (they always make my stomach queazy) and no milk. BUT I will put honey in herbal tea, I will put some butter on bread if I have to and I will eat cheese (not melted, yuck), but for only one reason, if I didn’t eat cheese, especially on the road – I would starve to death!

Music today continued to come from Germany, but this time back in the seventies, that great era for German inspiration. The Ash Ra Tempel project belonged to Manuel Göttsching with a floating line up that on the first album and on 1973’s Join In included Klaus Schultze on drums (ex Tangerine Dream) and eventual prolific Electronic artist in his own right. In 1972 Ash Ra Tempel released the second album Schwingungen (Vibrations in German) and Starring Rosi in 1973. He also released an album in 1972 called Seven Up with Timothy Leary. Manuel Göttsching has made many more albums since. It’s a world of guitar noodlings, soundscapes, Space Rock, hippie ramblings, ambient records and sequencers mixed with guitars. He has influenced a whole world of fan bands such as Acid Mothers Temple from Japan. It has been music to the ears of Krautrock fans over the ages.

Next I went to Amon Düül ll with one of my favourite albums, Vive La Trance, followed by the one with the classic album cover, the double album, Yeti. What a world they lived in, outside and inside their music. They were a collective of dedicated artists that lived and breathed their music in their lifestyles. It’s a band I never saw live but wish I had. Always exploring, a cross between absolute musical competence and chance, taking adventures where their skills never inhibited their imaginations. Love, love, love. Outside the quiet creeps on and on and on but here the beautiful noise continues forever and ever.

 

Even Though You Are My Friend

In the distance there’s a hill
There’s a house upon the hill
On this side it’s dark
On the other side it’s green
I bite my nails, I touch my face
How long before I reach that place

The sky is pressing down
And it tears me from my sleep
I fall onto the ground
And the gorse rips at my skin
I scratch my eyes and open wide
How long before the other side

Even though you are my friend
This is the end, this is the end
Even though you cannot see
It’s up to you, it’s not up to me

The dizzy spell has gone
The tablet dissolved
The ache has left its mark
A not forgotten scar
I try the door, again it’s locked
And time stands still, on the broken clock

In the hallway where I stand
I see pictures on the wall
They’re all places that I’ve been
And I’ve loved
The back door and the front door are exactly the same
The floors they are the ceiling and the walls the window pane

Even though you are my friend
This is the end, this is the end
Even though you cannot see
It’s up to you, it’s not up to me

(Willson-Piper)
Spirit Level (1992)