TO WHERE I AM NOW

Today I was so grateful for nature and the beauty of the world. From the park and its abundance of creatures to the wind driving the sea into the bay, every wave crowned with a white foam tuft racing to the beach. The sky was cloudless, a spotless blue dome over the bay, a multicoloured patchwork of seaweed greens and exotic blues. The waves slapped against the promenade wall below, seagulls hung effortlessly in the air, too mesmerized with their pleasure to make any noise at all. The wind was strong and cold and soon drove us back to the warmer alleyways that led up to the park. In the park a lively circus of birds, insects and mammals, alive in the spring. A man feeding the squirrels monkey nuts. One came and took one out of his hand and carefully de-shelled it to reach the nut inside. This brave squirrel with only half a tail kept returning for more and more nuts every couple of minutes, chasing off the competitors. The man threw nuts in the other squirrels’ direction up and down the pathway so they too could enjoy the feast. A lone pigeon stood behind him wondering when he’d get his chance. A female blackbird looked on from a branch, alert. All kinds of insects buzzed around the blossoming trees, striped in fur, yellow and black wonders, challenging aerodynamics, trailing their legs behind them as they burst into the air from inside a flower. Clouds of gnats appear dotted around the footpaths, no explanation for how they keep that floating circle continuously revolving in the air.

One wonders what the humans will do when they return, bringing Mumbai and Los Angeles back to its high levels of murderous pollution. Choking the trees, stunting the growth of all living things whilst poisoning the atmosphere. Blackening the lungs, irritating the throat and the eyes, blocking the pores of the skin, threatening the future of the Earth. Or, stepping back, seeing what can happen with some restraint, unfortunately in this case motivated by fear.

I wonder what Greta Thunberg’s next appearance might bring as she sees the results of the lockdown healing so quickly. Realizing what could be done to help the environment with some will and some effort from the major polluters.

I spoke to Nicklas in Stockholm today, he’s playing Mellotron on a Space Summit track and we were going over what we thought it needed. We were talking about the different approach that Sweden is having to the virus. It’s not as if life is the same, gigs are cancelled, people are working from home, the Swedes are being asked to take personal responsibility. Quite different from France where you need to fill in a form explaining where you’re going and why if you venture out. Olivia found out today that this year’s Night Of The Prog festival that she hosts has been cancelled, because Germany has cancelled all events till August 31st. Still, there’s some easing of lockdown restrictions in Germany as well as in Denmark. These next few weeks are going to reveal so much about where we are. For Olivia and I, after this, we still have to deal with the reality of Brexit. A married couple that live together, work together, perform together, have been together for nearly 4 years, but have no rights to live in each other’s country due to our status as self-employed travelling musicians. Society doesn’t know what to do with the stateless, the wanderers, those that choose a different path.

Guitars, guitars, guitars, today I played my Les Paul, my Fender Stratocaster, my Fender Jazzmaster and my Rickenbacker 340/6, layering up guitars on a Space Summit track. Using different guitars for different parts of the song that demand a different texture, blending guitars together to create new sounds. Switching amps, trying out the 15 watt Orange combo and trying out different VOX AC30s, comparing sounds and seeing which amp works best with which guitar on which part. Putting a capo on the electric guitar, tuning strings to different notes, trying different rhythms on the same part, combining the different rhythms for a unique effect. It’s great making records, but Dare and I work so hard to come up with the right sounds, the right formula for the songs, the right mic placement on the acoustic, the right effects pedal, there are so many variables, it’s trial and error until you just know when it’s right.

Music today began on YouTube when I was talking to Nicklas about last night’s choice of The Human Beast. He mentioned Elias Hulk, a five-piece from Bournemouth (where Robert Fripp was born). They made one album, Unchained (1970). A real mixture of stray notes and happening moments all mixed together in this one forgotten offering.

Then the vinyl came out, I played the debut album by Jonesy, released on Dawn Records in 1972. Better known than Elias Hulk, but still lingering on the forgotten page, off the radar of most listeners and completely on the radar of inquisitive Proggers. Mellotron features as well as intricacies that some of us love to hear in music, in-between The Clash and Blondie parties that we might also attend.

I always need some Robin Trower, ex Procol Harum, he’s a warm and wonderful bluesy, Hendrixy guitar player but with his own sound and feel. Incredibly his second album Bridge Of Sighs didn’t chart in the UK (neither did his first album, Twice Removed From Yesterday from 1973). Bridge Of Sighs reached No.7 in the USA. I saw him live in 1975, I guess it was the For Earth Below tour (that album did chart in the UK reaching No.26, No.5 in the USA). If this was pre Punk, what was keeping Robin Trower’s first two albums out of the charts in 1973 and 1974 – Glam (fair enough) and Middle Of The Road (literally).

I’m not sure if many people remember Ultimate Spinach? They are a little before my time, as they are a sixties Psychedelic Pop group that released three albums, their first in 1968. They were Boston’s equivalent to the sound of San Francisco (the Bosstown sound) along with contemporaries Orpheus and Beacon Street Union. Lots of cool instrumentals and jumpy Beat group rhythms with vocals and clavinets. Spooky spoken vocal introductions, you haven’t lived till you’ve heard (Ballad Of) The Hip Death Goddess.

Does anybody out there remember the band The United States Of America? Their debut album (1968) is a Psychedelic avant-garde trip around the brain of Joseph Byrd and Dorothy Moskowitz and band, using electronic sounds in a Rock format. An absolute essential to anyone’s record collection, just ask Portishead.

As we started off talking about a choppy sea today and we are on the notorious Cornwall coast, it seemed appropriate to make Wreck from Hanging Out In Heaven (2000) Song Of The Day:

 

Wreck (A Sea Shanty)

There’s a twisted piece of jagged metal
A broken shoe and a rusting kettle
A bed of sand in which to lie
A clear blue sea in which to die
And as the breath slips from your lung
There’s no more words on your swollen tongue
And fishes pick your melting flesh
Living on your recent death

Dawn has promised you your dreams
And mentioned not your unheard screams
Set your course in your sky blue boat
You couldn’t guess you wouldn’t float
Who could sink such pretty craft
You jeered and rolled and shrugged and laughed
How vicious can a colored reef
Bear its sharp and yellow teeth

Too beautiful a day to die
Too memorable to be forgotten
A sea of tears to wave goodbye
A silent wreck to haunt the bottom

The ripples whimper on the surface
Jellyfish, transparent purses
Their sting the strength of hoarded gold
The gifts they’d buy remain unsold
So what’s the worth of the dead’s desires
When waterlogged are life’s cold fires
With seaweed hair and barnacle bones
In the powerless court on a seashell throne

Back on land your loved ones wait
For news that saunters in too late
Their salty tears mix with the sea
As they wait for all eternity
And later all that is recovered
A defiant ring that graced your lover
But to the sea now he is wed
In a ceremony of the dead

Too beautiful a day to die
Too memorable to be forgotten
A sea of tears to wave goodbye
A silent wreck to haunt the bottom

(Willson-Piper)
Hanging Out In Heaven (2000)